Chapter 171: Identity Revealed? (1)

“Wh-what is this, Senior?”

Yuria asked from beside me.

But, I actually wanted to be the one asking.

What is this?

Why would someone post a doctored photo here?

My head grew cold as if doused with ice water and at the same time, the muscles in my face stiffened.

I could tell immediately that it was a doctored photo.

The background in the picture.

It was one of the jogging courses I ran every day, but since it was a black-and-white photo, I couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

Still, I had never passed through that place while on a job.

I was certain.

Because [Memory and Understanding], one of my traits, had already sifted through all my memories, compared them with the photo, and concluded that it was ‘false.’

In the first place, I had never once taken off the skull mask during a job, nor had it ever been forcibly removed.

I put on all my gear before leaving the dormitory, and I don’t take it off until I’m back inside.

“Senior.”

I looked into Yuria’s eyes.

She still couldn’t hide her bewilderment, but it wasn’t because she suspected me.

It felt like she was bewildered by the situation itself.

“Ah. Did you call me Yuria?”

“Yes. This…….”

“I don’t know either. What is this? For a prank, it’s gone too far. This feels disgusting.”

After saying that, I tore the photo from the bulletin board and threw it into a nearby trash can.

However, I soon realized it was a futile act.

Copies of the photo were posted on every bulletin board on campus.

‘They’re really determined to screw me over. Hoo. What kind of son of a bitch is this?’

I thought things would finally get easier after overcoming the death flags and winning the war against the Beltus Cult.

No one immediately came to mind as to who could have done this.

But more important than the culprit’s identity was their intention.

Whether they simply wanted to screw me over.

Or if they did this because they really knew my true identity.

‘Well, seeing as they doctored the photo, it’s highly likely they don’t know.’

Then do they just want to screw me over? Was this done out of simple emotion?

‘Someone who holds a personal grudge against me, a cadet.’

Who could that be?

Asuka Raymond, who was jealous of me.

And Karina Zain, with whom I growled at every time we met.

These two were the faces that immediately came to mind.

‘Ah. There’s that person too.’

The head of the Psychology Department, Allen Desico.

When it came to the degree of dislike for me, no one could match this person.

‘But given his personality, he’s not the type to pull such a petty trick.’

And the same went for Asuka Raymond and Karina Zain.

It’s one thing for them to be envious and jealous of me, but to think it would go so far as to frame me as a villain and try to bury me, I couldn’t help but shake my head.

‘If it’s not these three…….’

It must be someone else who has unknowingly nurtured a grudge against me.

In any case, there was no denying that things had become quite troublesome.

‘I heard strange rumors were already circulating because I wasn’t seen during the final evaluation’s night invasion and didn’t participate in the investigation team this time. This is getting annoying…….’

Thinking that far, I raised my head at an idea that flashed through my mind.

‘No way. Was the one who spread these rumors the same person who spread the doctored photo?’

It was a plausible guess.

So I smirked inwardly.

While I was busy dealing with Shadow and the Cult and couldn’t pay attention to the Academy, they had been preparing quite a few things.

That person. They picked one hell of a time.

In any case, there was nothing I could do right now.

Just dismiss it as a groundless rumor and act as I always did.

It was obvious that reacting seriously and trying to deal with it here would only backfire and I judged that to be what the person who orchestrated this situation wanted.

So that day, I spent my time with Yuria as originally scheduled and at night, I spent it on personal training.

All without knowing that the flames of the rumor were spreading at a rapid pace due to the posted photo.

***

The rumor first started with a question someone raised.

‘Come to think of it, where is Senior Gerard?’

After the final evaluation invasion was over.

This question, thrown out among the cadets who had gathered to clean up the area, created a small ripple in the calming lake.

‘Right? I haven’t seen Senior Gerard since this evening.’

‘Maybe he’s somewhere else?’

‘I didn’t see him when they did the headcount after the situation was resolved either.’

The cadets showed considerable interest in this question.

Because, until now, Gerard had never been absent from any crisis that occurred at the Academy.

Gerard had always taken the lead in resolving incidents and by doing so, he quickly shed his image as a failure and became the center of the Academy’s attention.

But to hear that Gerard was absent at such an important moment, it wasn’t unreasonable for the cadets to find it strange.

Up to this point, it was just concern and a little curiosity, like ‘Did something happen to Senior Gerard?’

But not long after, at the joint funeral held at the Mausoleum.

Someone who saw the bandage under Gerard’s shirt brought this up.

‘Senior Gerard’s arm is injured.’

And.

‘Oh, really? That’s strange. I heard the Skull Mask that Supervising Professor Chaser missed also had an injured arm.’

The ripples in the lake grew uncontrollably.

‘Hey guys, did you hear? The Skull Mask who fought the Skeleton Lord that day. I heard he fell from the airship at first! My friend who was on the airship with him told me!’

‘But, do you know where that airship came from? The west of the Empire.’

‘Senior Gerard said he was leaving for the west of the Empire, skipping the investigation team and all. Isn’t this a bit of a coincidence?’

And now, back to the present.

The black-and-white photo of Gerard holding a skull mask in one hand perfectly punctuated the rumor that had been subtly spreading among the cadets.

For the cadets who were on the fence, the photo was perfect, undeniable evidence.

And the cadets who had scoffed at it as a groundless rumor either maintained a neutral stance or were completely swayed and came to suspect Gerard after seeing the photo.

“Wow. How could he? I was completely fooled.”

“The sense of betrayal is insane, for real.”

“I know, right. Still, he could at least make some kind of excuse, why is he staying silent?”

“Hey, are you stupid? What is there to say? Nothing, right? With irrefutable evidence posted on every bulletin board, what can he say? He’s probably just waiting for the right moment to run away.”

The rest area next to the training hall.

In that place, prepared to cool off from the heat of training, several cadets had gathered, and another kind of heat was blooming.

The topic of conversation was the theory of Gerard being the Skull Mask, which had become a hot potato as of yesterday.

“But for us, whatever, but what about Yuria? She must be having a hard time.”

“What can you do? It’s just pitiful.”

At those words, a male cadet sitting on a rock chuckled.

“What’s so pitiful? It’s foolish. Hey, didn’t all hell break loose earlier too?”

“Huh? What happened?”

“Ah, Rosa, you wouldn’t know since you’ve only been at the training hall for an hour. Earlier this morning, Grand brought up the same thing we were just talking about. But Yuria heard him.”

“Ah…….”

“I don’t need to tell you what happened after that, right?”

The female cadet called Rosa nodded.

She had thought it was strange that one of the training machines, which had been fine until yesterday, was smashed, and was about to ask about it.

But she understood the situation without having to ask.

The continuous gossip about Gerard.

Unable to bear it any longer, Yuria couldn’t bring herself to smash Grand, so she smashed an innocent training machine instead.

After that, she threw everything aside and went back to the dormitory.

The male cadet, who had briefly summarized the morning’s events, sighed deeply and shook his head.

“They’ve been sticking together for the whole first semester, so she’s completely brainwashed. But, you know, escaping is also a matter of intelligence, isn’t it, Rosa?”

He came off as a real jerk, but the female cadet didn’t voice it and just nodded her head.

“Ah. Y-yeah. You’re right.”

“Seeing her deny reality even when there’s evidence like this, I guess Yuria is pretty stupid, unlike how she looks.”

It was then.

“Pfft.”

A chuckling sound was heard from above their heads.

However, the sound was so faint that the cadets, focused on their conversation, failed to notice it.

That’s right.

They didn’t know it, but there was already another woman in this rest area besides them.

She wasn’t intentionally hiding and eavesdropping.

She had just come there first to rest.

Lying on a tree branch, she, Rachel, glanced down below before clasping her hands behind her head again.

“Sheesh, the most frightening ones are the ignoramuses who know nothing.”

A cold sneer hung on her lips, directed at them.

“Pathetic, so pathetic.”

To equate Skull Mask with Gerard.

Living her life, she was now experiencing something this absurd.

Rachel was someone who had met and experienced both of them.

Not to mention Skull Mask, she had also observed Gerard for a long time and clashed with him from the perspective of a Dark Priest.

So she also had her own sense of pride.

That she was the one at this Academy who understood both of them the best.

‘As someone like me, I can declare that the two are absolutely not the same person. They can’t be.’

She admitted that Gerard was an amazing guy.

From saving the Academy from crisis multiple times, to his skill in surviving the Cult’s focused terror attacks several times.

And his achievement of single-handedly capturing Papamus, a bishop of the Demon Council, as a mere cadet.

He had clearly shown the demeanor and ability befitting a recipient of the Honorary Merit Medal, and there was no denying that he was, in name and reality, the Academy’s best cadet and a popular star.

However.

‘Compared to Skull Mask, he’s just a brat.’

Rachel had worked on the same side as both Gerard and Skull Mask and had observed them from close proximity.

Well, they had something in common.

That they gave their comrades a sense of reassurance.

However, Skull Mask added one more thing to this.

And that was overwhelming trust.

Skull Mask had never once failed to keep the words he spoke.

It felt like some kind of truth, one could say.

Even stories that seemed impossible or absurd, he casually made them a reality and every time he did, Rachel felt a strange sort of palpitation.

It was the same this time.

When he declared war on the Cult, Rachel had wanted to stop him.

A mistake made in a fit of emotion after being enraged by Guartes’s death.

It was unlike him, but he was still human.

She thought he had made such a mistake.

But he pushed through.

This time too, he turned the seemingly impossible story he had spoken into reality.

Rachel still couldn’t forget.

The tremor and the heat she felt on the scene.

Boom! Baang!

When she thought of Skull Mask summoning a Skeleton Lord just like Laitna and crushing Bishop Laitna, her heart still pounded and her body grew hot.

Gerard, who made the cadets tremble with anxiety by going through a life-or-death struggle just to catch Papamus, who was weaker than Laitna.

On the other hand, Skull Mask, who overwhelmed Laitna from beginning to end the moment he appeared, once again imprinted absolute trust in his subordinates.

She felt sorry for Skull Mask just for being compared to him, but what?

Skull Mask’s identity is Gerard?

‘Ridiculous.’

Another scoff.

The black-and-white photo they thought was irrefutable evidence, Rachel, of course, did not believe it.

‘It must be doctored.’

Either by stitching photos together.

She had no knowledge of photography, but since the Frey Empire was advanced in magitech, she thought she might find a special camera with such a function if she looked for it.

‘But it’s starting to get on my nerves.’

Below, they were still talking about Skull Mask and Gerard.

At first, she found their actions amusing, albeit absurd, so she just listened quietly.

But somehow, the level of their delusion was getting more and more out of hand.

Especially every time they compared Skull Mask and Gerard and claimed the two were a perfect match, Rachel’s mood soured little by little.

‘These guys, I’ve been letting them talk but they’re crossing the line. There’s a limit to delusion, are these guys looking down on the Master of Shadow?’

Comparing him to a mere cadet?

Just as the fed-up Rachel cleared her throat and jumped down from the tree.

“What are you guys talking about? Let me in on it too…….”

Piercing through Rachel’s laugh as she acted out her characteristic frivolity.

A sharp voice echoed through the rest area.

“Hey. You guys.”

All eyes in the place turned there.

And there.

“Try saying what you just said again in front of me. What? That Gerard person is Skull Mask?”

There stood Karina Zain with a cold expression, her arms crossed.

“Are you all collectively insane? Do you take Gerard for a joke?”