GETTING straight to the point, I underestimated Eric and the Intelligence Ministry. The six cleaners immediately talked, giving up the nobles of the anti-royalist faction who tried to have us all assassinated.
And the Intelligence Ministry didn’t even torture the cleaners.
They use a non-stop series of mind-control spells like Enchant, Command, and Submission. I could just about cast the spells, but not in any useful manner since I barely had any chances to use them.
However, the Ministry had perfected the art, and the cleaners all offered confessions. The precision of your spells increased as you used them in real life, meaning the people at the Ministry used these spells regularly.
Eh, there were no laws against using mind-control spells on criminals in Ronaudia, and information gained in that method was still considered valid evidence. That’s why the cleaners’ confessions were evidence enough to capture the nobles and apply the same spells to them.
There were some very cautious people among the nobles of the anti-royalist faction, and the best of them managed to evade capture like a lizard sacrificing its tail to escape a predator. We did know who it was now, though. They just couldn’t be arrested because we lacked the evidence.
One other question still remained: Why did they choose this moment to attack?
Typically, you would assume the Academy would be extra cautious as it was our first class in a dungeon. If they wanted to ensure they successfully assassinated us, they should have avoided this timing. Their target was Eric and Zeke, the two people who could become king in the future. There was no reason to be in such a rush to assassinate them.
But they did. Which meant they had a reason that caused them to hurry, right? Maybe it was because they determined they would succeed even if our side were extra cautious during that time.
But my father and Eric got wind of their movements, allowing them to prevent the plot without any danger.
Now, this is complete conjecture on my part, but what if information had leaked about our own defenses? Not all of it. Everything other than the hidden intelligence agents and me. If that happened, they might think they could break through our defenses by preparing enough forces to overpower ours.
In short, what if they were being played from the very beginning?
If my conjecture were on target, the question would be, who was playing them? I didn’t think my father was the kind of person to use Eric and the rest of us as bait, putting us at risk. It wasn’t impossible that the Intelligence Ministry acted without him, but Darius wasn’t such an idiot that he’d miss what they were doing.
Which left Eric as the most likely culprit.
But it is just conjecture on my part in the end.
All I knew was that Eric had his own connections and information network. Darius had told Eric the necessary information about the assassination plot, but that didn’t mean he’d told him everything. He planned to have the Ministry handle the attack.
And yet, Eric fully understood the situation, and his success here strengthened his influence within the kingdom. He even had the intelligence agents who took part in the operation under his command for a time. However, my father oversaw the organization as the chief minister, so he had the final authority.
Well, even if this was a plot of Eric’s, he wasn’t the sort of idiot to drown himself in scheming. Besides, Darius had an eye on things and could handle most situations.
I think that’s enough talk about Eric for now.
On an entirely different topic, I attended all my classes at the Academy as a rule. I did work on my own thing while in class almost all the time, but I had never skipped class.
The problem was that attending class every day was the biggest hindrance now that I was taking on an extreme-difficulty dungeon on my own. I couldn’t finish the dungeon if I didn’t have a significant chunk of time.
So, I negotiated with my father to allow me to reduce the amount I needed to attend as a reward for my assistance in the attack, but with the condition that I make sure I get the credits necessary to graduate.
It wasn’t actually unusual for students to not attend class. Royals had duties to carry out even before they took the throne, and children of nobles who would become the head of the family someday had whatever business their family was involved in. That was why the Academy didn’t emphasize attendance too much. Most classes were passable so long as your test grades were good, and the Academy’s tests were a piece of cake for me.
My father would know all this, of course, and seemed to expect it when I said I wanted to attend classes less. Naturally, that meant he had his answer ready: I could attend class less often if I made regular appearances at events. Since starting the Academy, I hadn’t attended a single function because I went straight to the dungeon after classes and on weekends.
I continued gathering info on the nobles, but Darius seemed to want me to get experience within the social circles while I was in the Academy. I did understand the value of gaining experience, but, honestly, it was just a pain. It was more important to me to gain the time I needed to really have a go at the extreme dungeon.
Which was why I accepted Darius’s terms.