Return of the Runebound Professor
Chapter 730: The old classic yoink

“Why are we waiting?” Yoru asked. “It would only take me a moment to kill the last of them. He can barely even be considered a Rank 5. His power is pathetic.”

“Because we can’t do everything for them. There are times when help is appreciated. There are times when it isn’t,” Lee said. “This guy isn’t our prey. He belongs to Todd and Isabel. They would not appreciate our interference.”

Yoru shifted. She was clearly uncomfortable with the idea, which was rather odd. She didn’t strike Lee as the type that would worry. After all, someone like Yoru didn’t ever have to worry. She could just check what the future held and be done with it.

Then again, Yoru had been doing her best to avoid using the power recently. Perhaps that made her all the more aware of the potential futures that could end up playing out. But that didn’t change anything.

Dayton wasn’t theirs to kill — and Lee wasn’t concerned about Todd or Isabel. Both of them had been preparing for this for years… and she smelled the intensity of the magic that lingered around their room.

Even if they were only Rank 3, their runes were powerful. Dayton’s were not. They had the element of surprise as well as specialized training and patterns to call on. No, this fight was never in question. Lee was more certain than even Yoru could have been had she peered into the future.

Todd and Isabel would win.

Lee sniffed the air. It was laden with the scent of blood. Most of that was coming from her. Her body was completely covered in it, which was a little problematic. She’d rather liked this pair of clothes. Unfortunately, sprinting straight through somebody tended to leave a bit of a residue behind.

At least she’d managed to get two new masks for her trouble.

Lee pinched each of them between two fingers, holding the blood-splattered metal pieces up. They were really quite smooth. Whoever made them must have been a pretty good artisan. Something told Lee that they’d been expensive.

Probably pretty tasty. I bet the metal would have a great crunch to it.

She narrowed her eyes, then forcibly moved her arms down to create more distance between the masks and her mouth. She couldn’t just go eating her prizes. That had already happened a few too many times. Shiny things like this could end up being useful. One never knew when they might need a mask, after all.

“Are there any others?” Yoru asked. “I have a meeting to make. An important one. If there are more that need to be killed, then I’d prefer to handle that rather than wait. I’d also prefer to avoid using my magic to check again. I am trying to limit my interactions with it.”

Lee sniffed at the air again. It might have been laden with the stench of blood, but something like that wasn’t going to interfere with her nose. It would take a few dozen more corpses before her senses even started getting slightly negatively impacted.

All the people who had significant traces of Dayton’s scent on them were dead. There were a few more scattered throughout Arbitage’s campus, but they had so little that he’d probably only walked by them in passing.

“We’re done,” Lee said. She paused for a moment. Then she smiled. “And so are Todd and Isabel. Dayton is dead.”

Yoru just nodded. “Good. Do you think we should deal with the bodies? People will have definitely noticed this. There are others in the building. Should we kill them as well?”

“Probably not,” Lee said. “I don’t think No— Spider would be very pleased with us if we did. I’ll deal with the corpses. Any investigation Arbitage makes isn’t going to go very far. It’s not like anyone from the actual school died. I don’t recognize anyone here — and Dayton wasn’t an Arbitage professor. They won’t even be able to figure out who got killed.”

Yoru inclined her head. “Then I will leave.”

“Yup,” Lee said cheerfully. “Have fun!”

Yoru nodded. She turned, then paused for a moment. Then she turned back to look at Lee.

“Actually, I have a question. Am I properly dressed for my meeting? I am unfamiliar with such things.”

“Dunno,” Lee said, scratching the side of her neck with a frown. Yoru’s clothes were a little blood-splattered, but any good pair of clothes tended to get blood on it one way or another. That was kind of just how things worked. “Maybe you should change into something a bit… fresher?”

Yoru looked down at herself. “Where do I find something fresher?”

“I always just raid Contessa and Karina’s closet. It’s in Noah’s room,” Lee said. “They’re always happy to give me stuff. Just go head over and ask them. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes,” Yoru said. “Thank you.”

And then she was gone, a streak of moonlight slicing through the halls and back out into the sky.

Lee nodded to herself and turned back to the task at hand. She had a few corpses to eat before anyone important showed up… and then it would probably be a good idea to check on Isabel and Todd to make sure they were fine.

She didn’t pick up the scent of their blood, but there were some kinds of wounds that even Lee couldn’t smell.

***

Noah let out a start, snapping awake mid-snore as his heart jumped in his chest. The beginnings of sweat prickled against his forehead as he snapped back into awareness. He could have sworn he’d been falling.

Whewh. Just a dream. That one was vivid. Had me going for a second.

He yawned and rubbed at his eyes — and then it struck him that his bed was considerably less comfortable than normal. For some reason, he’d elected to fall asleep sitting upright in a hard wood chair rather than Moxie’s plushy vines.

Stolen story; please report.

Whyever would I do—

“It appears,” a sharp voice said, nasally and with just enough of a malicious edge to be grating, “that Professor Vermil has fallen asleep.”

Fuyin’s elbow dug into Noah’s side. He coughed as memories snapped back into their proper places.

They were sitting within the Inquisitor’s Council Room. The room was beautiful. Everything was made from lacquered wood and engraved with flowing patterns that no doubt had imbuements hidden within them.

The councilmembers sat on a raised platform encircling them as if they were at trial, and two more Inquisitor Guards stood on either side of Noah and Fuyin to make sure they didn’t make a run for it.

They’d been escorted here to testify about Tren’s supposed betrayal and the destruction of the Inquisitor’s greatest store of knowledge. It had been quite a massive kerfuffle.

And then they’d spent the next few hours in the most mind-numbingly boring meeting that Noah had ever been forced to subject himself to. Agonizing wouldn’t have even begun to describe it. The Inquisitor’s Council must have taken notes from the Line itself. Unfortunately, even the beauty of the room was nowhere near enough to distract Noah for long.

They blathered on and on, reviewing actions and justifying this and that to the point where Noah had completely tuned them out. It wasn’t even like he needed to be here. Not once had they addressed him. The council spoke as if he wasn’t even there.

Fuyin had gotten several questions directed to her, but the majority of this entire meeting seemed to be more like a group back-patting session. They talked about how great the archives had been and how much the loved the sound of their own voices to the point where Noah had — entirely against his will, of course — been coaxed into a gentle sleep.

“Professor Vermil. You will answer our questions. Do not forget that you yourself are on trial for associating with demonkind,” another council member said, their features completely covered by long robes that every one of the attending council members wore. It was like she was cosplaying a bedsheet.

There had been eight members when the meeting had started. Now, Noah counted six. Maybe two had gotten bored. He didn’t blame them.

“Right,” Noah said through a yawn. “Questions. Sorry. I was… uh, doing a deep dive. Digging through the old memories. You know how it is. Er… what was the question again?”

“Do you have any idea as to the extent of the damage that has been done today?” another council member demanded, pounding a fist against his knee. “The archives were the greatest store of knowledge in the entirety of the Arbalest Empire. Ancient research. Imbued Runes. Information on demons that would have helped generations to come. They were invaluable, the power and knowledge within them potentially immeasurable. All of that is destroyed. And you dare sleep?”

Destroyed might not be the word I’d use. Relocated would be more accurate.

But if all this shit was really that important, don’t you think you should have had a slightly better guard for it? Seriously, you were asking for this. I see why Fuyin thinks you idiots are rotting from the core. It almost feels like you were hoping someone would ruin your day.

They definitely wanted that info gone. The fact that they’re sitting around here blabbering for hours on end instead of doing anything about it proves that. The question is why. Are the top members of the Inquisition actually on the demons’ side or something?

“As I said, I was meditating on everything I have seen,” Noah said, adjusting his lapels. “I am aware of the extent of the damage that the world has taken today — at the hand of demons, no less. But please, do not associate me with the demons you have fought. I have worked with Spider — and he is not the same manner of demon as they. He is as much their enemy as you are.”

“That remains to be determined,” the councilmember speaking to Noah said. “For the time being, Fuyin has more than made the point that you were instrumental in preventing an even greater catastrophe from occurring and our knowledge of what happened today from being lost. But the question was what that book of yours holds. It has an immense amount of magical energy within it, and none of us have been able to open it. Care to explain why?”

Oh, shit.

Noah looked down at Grim. “Er… this is my grimoire. It’s imbued so that only I can open it.”

“Then do so, Vermil,” the councilmember ordered. “That was the only remaining book within the archives. I’m sure you understand that we have our suspicions.”

Noah hesitated for a moment. He really didn’t want anyone looking too closely at Grim’s pages. But he couldn’t just sit around. Fuyin sat as stiff as a rod beside him. She was stressed, probably knowing exactly what anyone should have found if they took inside the book.

The longer I wait, the more suspicious I look.

An Inquisitor standing at Noah’s shoulder gave him a firm push. “Open the book. Now.”

“Fine.” Noah sighed and reached down to where the massive grimoire sat on the ground before him. He grabbed the cover. For an instant more, he hesitated. This was going to be bad. Really bad. But it wasn’t like he had much of a choice. Reluctantly, he flipped it open.

God damn it.

Covering the book’s pages were some incredibly well drawn — and equally crude — drawings. And the word covering was very literal. There was only enough empty space between the drawings to make it easy to tell them apart.

There were several long moments of silence as every member of the council peered down at the pages of Noah’s grimoire.

“Turn the page,” one of the councilmembers said, their voice choked.

“You really shouldn’t,” Noah said.

The guard beside him turned forward. He reached for the grimoire, then hesitated and swapped to his foot, using his boot to turn a page and reveal the next one in the grimoire. Noah nearly choked.

This one was even more detailed — and about ten times more gross. He was pretty sure that the acts depicted on the page weren’t even physically possible.

“That is vile,” someone muttered.

The guard pushed several more pages over to reveal more of the same. It really didn’t seem like there was any end to it. Even Fuyin stared at Noah like he’d sprouted a horn from his forehead.

“Close that… thing,” the lead councilmember said in disgust. “Why would you bring that filth here?”

“Er… research purposes?” Noah wearily slung the grimoire back over his shoulder. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to throttle or thank Grim. His own reputation was in tatters, but nobody was going to look too closely at the grimoire if they wanted to avoid looking as creepy as Noah now did. It was, unfortunately, the perfect cover. “You never know when it could come in handy.”

“They’re worthless,” another councilmember said. “Get both of them out of here. We need to determine our next steps. Fuyin has given us enough information to go after. It seems there was only a single breach of the Inquisition. We must ensure another one does not happen. We have no time to waste.”

Noah resisted the urge to blink.

No time to waste my ass. You just wasted god knows how long. And then they just let us go without even doing a proper investigation. Wow. They really are corrupt. They’re barely even trying to hide the fact that they basically wanted the Archives destroyed. Maybe they were already planning for this and Fuyin just accidentally sped it up for them.

The Inquisitors on either side of Noah and Fuyin grabbed them and pulled them to their feet.

“Come on,” Noah’s guard said. “And we aren’t done with you, Vermil. Spider has killed many of our members. The only reason you’re being allowed to leave right now is because we can’t afford to split our attention to him when we have bigger threats at hand.”

“You never know. Those members might have been traitors too,” Noah said. “They were with Tren, after all. Spider has probably killed more of your enemies in recent times than you have.”

“Which is why he — and you — remain alive,” the guard said as they escorted them from the room at a sharp march. “Now move. The council has much to do. This is a dark day for an Inquisition.”

It took everything Noah had to keep his expression flat.

But a pretty great one for me. I’d never even dared to hope that the Inquisitors had actual runes stored in the archives. All that information and power you guys just lost — everything collected over however long the Inquisition has been in existence…

It now belongs to me.