Silent Academy

Soon, Benjamin left the warehouse where they had been hiding.

Before leaving, he had learned a few things about the Silent Academy from the two young mages.

When the Hori Kingdom was first founded, the Church established its position and began hunting down mages on a massive scale, forcing them to operate underground. The surviving mages banded together, sharing their spells and experience and helping one another evade the Church's pursuit. This was the earliest form of the Silent Academy.

Later, the Church's position gradually solidified, and it came to stand above the crown. It also intensified its efforts to hunt down mages. To survive, several of the strongest mages at the time joined forces to establish the Silent Academy. Their aim was to pass magic down through the generations, and they dreamed of founding a brand-new nation belonging to mages.

The Silent Academy's headquarters lay among the mountains in the western part of the kingdom. The terrain there was rugged, the region sparsely populated, and monsters were plentiful, making it difficult for the Church to send people in to search. The mages, meanwhile, used their magic to carve out a home and build a future there.

Years passed this way. The Church knew there was a mage organization within the kingdom, but it had never managed to wipe them out. In fact, the mages had even stirred up trouble several times. At the same time, threats from abroad consumed most of the Church's attention, allowing the Silent Academy to take root and continue growing.

As he learned all this, Benjamin suddenly remembered what the older mage had said: "We can't let those two get in our way!" The three of them had snuck into the Royal Capital this time, so they were probably up to something else as well. Could they be planning another disturbance?

He asked the two of them about it, and they replied:

"Teacher said it was confidential, and we couldn't tell anyone. Even if Teacher couldn't remember it himself, we still couldn't tell him!"

Benjamin thought for a moment, then said, "You forgot, didn't you?"

The two honestly nodded at first, then guiltily shook their heads.

"..."

So Benjamin left without hesitation.

Of course, before he left, he didn't forget to collect some "medical fees" from them. The two were easy to fool. Benjamin barely had to say a word before they handed over everything they had. But he didn't take it all. For practical reasons, he only took two things:

A book titled Introduction to Magic, and a stone they called a "Water Element Crystal."

The rest was either useless or of no use to Benjamin for now. Besides, these two were so stupid, and the older mage had had such a rough time looking after them, so he decided to leave the rest with them.

Benjamin was already quite satisfied with that.

People said good deeds were rewarded, and after putting up with these two idiots for so long, he deserved to get something out of it.

Since he was still in Havenlight's lower district, Benjamin didn't have time to examine the two items closely. After putting them away, he said goodbye to the pair and, following the system's directions, headed for the alley where the incident had taken place.

Come to think of it, he seemed to have been asking the system for directions all the time. It had even started complaining about being treated like a navigation system. But Benjamin had picked up plenty of experience dealing with it, and a few words were all it took to placate it.

Soon, he returned to "the starting point."

According to the time given by the system, it had been forty-five minutes since the Tidal Wave spell was cast. The alley looked as if it had just been through a storm. Several puddles dotted the ground, the road was a muddy mess, and the walls on either side were riddled with cracks, as if something had crashed into them.

The scene was already shocking enough. If Benjamin conjured a ball of water and left it alone, it would dissipate on its own in less than a minute. Yet nearly an hour had passed, and the air here was still damp enough to grow mold. That showed just how powerful the spell had been.

And yet, despite the battle that had taken place in the alley, the main road in the outer district just a few streets away was still bustling with people. No one had noticed a thing. Even after all this time, no one from the Church had come to help.

The two knights lay on the ground amid the mud and puddles, their lives uncertain.

Benjamin had no time to marvel at the chaos in the outer district or the Church's incompetence. He hurried over and checked whether they were breathing.

They were alive.

Once he'd confirmed that, Benjamin began to wonder. The Paladins were so physically tough, yet they had been battered by the Tidal Wave and still hadn't woken up. Why had he regained consciousness in just over ten minutes, completely unharmed?

Was it because of the defensive ball of water he had cast?

No way. Was he really that powerful? Or had he gotten stronger without realizing it?

Before Benjamin had time to feel happy about it, he realized what had really happened.

He took the cross hanging on his chest and held it up to examine it closely. The Holy Light it had faintly emitted before was now much dimmer, and the sight made Benjamin wince.

He hadn't been hurt by the Tidal Wave because of the water ball's protection. The cross had activated on its own.

According to the bishop, it could block three magic attacks.

In other words, even the cross's protection combined with the water ball's defense hadn't been enough to fully withstand the Tidal Wave. He had still been knocked unconscious.

Without those shields, if the wave had hit him directly, he might have lost his life.

The thought sent a shiver through Benjamin. He no longer felt so bad about having used up one of the cross's protections.

He glanced over at the place where that brat had fallen. In his opinion, there was no way a kid that young, and already injured, could have survived such a powerful spell.

But there was no one there.

Benjamin froze.

What the hell? Where was he?

Even if the water had beaten him to death, there should at least have been a body. It couldn't have washed the body away too—this wasn't fire magic. Could the kid have run off? How was that possible?

He asked the system, which gave a blunt reply: "I don't know."

...All right.

If the kid was still alive, then he'd been lucky. Benjamin couldn't be bothered to worry about him. After all, there were two other living people he had to deal with. He couldn't just leave them there and run off, could he?

After a moment's thought, Benjamin crouched beside the Paladins and began shaking their shoulders, trying to wake them.

He had settled on the following story: Benjamin had only just regained consciousness, and his first instinct had been to wake everyone else. He didn't know what had happened; he had been unconscious the whole time.

There was no other choice. If the Church found out he had gone and performed surgery on that mage, he'd be dead.

He absolutely, absolutely couldn't let the Church grow suspicious of him.

"Wake up. Are you all right? Come on, wake up!"

After five minutes of dogged effort, Benjamin's arms were getting sore before the two Paladins finally woke up, one after the other.

"I... what... those Fallen... what happened?"

"I don't know either." Benjamin kept up his performance, putting on a bewildered expression. "I just saw a huge wave coming toward me, and then... then I don't know what happened. When I woke up, the three of us were the only ones here."

His acting was convincing enough, and his story made sense, so the other person didn't suspect a thing.

The knights and Benjamin helped one another to their feet. For a while, none of them spoke. The two knights remained silent, apparently thinking over the situation. Seeing this, Benjamin could only put on a confused expression and keep his mouth shut.

Finally, after a while, the knight dressed as a woman spoke first:

"I didn't expect such powerful Fallen to be hiding in the Royal Capital. We must report this to the bishop. Sir Riser, I'll take you home first. Please don't tell anyone about this. We don't want to cause panic among the nobles of the Royal Capital."