The Academy’s Ankle Reaper – Chapter 375

“What… what is going on!!!”

As soon as the situation settled, the Principal flew over, sweating coldly.

It seems he had been monitoring the situation from afar.

“What on earth are those dragons?!”

“Professor, it’s nothing serious, so please go inside and rest~”

“Ugh… Huff… You said Wendy was behaving, so what on earth is happening here!! I feel like I’m going to die from this!!”

The Principal clutched his chest, clearly panicking as he observed the dragons lying in a pool of blood in the clearing.

With so many dragons gathered in one place, it must be racing through his mind with all sorts of thoughts.

“Really, it’s nothing serious. Let’s go inside quickly.”

“I can’t let go of this!!”

The flustered Principal was forcibly pulled away by his Master.

Giving a hint that he’d step back, encouraging him to handle things himself.

Though the Principal struggled desperately, escaping from the Master’s grip was impossible.

“Lady Gemma…!! You mustn’t be deceived by those using such sinister magic. It’s not too late; let’s go together now!”

Since he had passed out in human form, the Blue Dragon, upon regaining consciousness, shook Gemma repeatedly, desperate to prove their innocence.

Rather than pondering why they had ended up as pulp under mere mortals, they seemed to have concluded that they were the victims of some nefarious scheme.

Having never remembered being on the receiving end of a beating, losing was an incredibly foreign concept to them.

“… Atlas, I…”

“Don’t waver. Those guys aren’t just suspicious for no reason.”

Gemma was shaken by their claims of “The Lord”—but my thoughts were quite different.

These guys didn’t seem like they were sent by the Dragon Lord at all.

“You said the Lord sent you, right?”

“Yes…! We received orders to safely escort Lady Gemma!!”

The Blue Dragon declared confidently.

It was as if he was asserting what they knew as if to say, “What do you know?”

But coincidentally, during my time in the Knights’ Order, I had some interconnections.

“The Lord always gives prior notice when sending dragons on his orders. He instructs the locals not to be surprised when his messenger arrives.”

For a dragon of the Dragon Lord’s caliber, it is perfectly reasonable that they could communicate with local people through magic without needing to send a dragon to deliver a message.

Sending a dragon is merely to show off their grandeur.

To reassure and establish contact with the place in advance before sending a dragon to convey his message.

They don’t sneak in using teleportation like those guys and show up in groups of five.

Adult-form dragons are recognized as a threat just by existing, so they aren’t sent out excessively.

Instead, just one, meticulously chosen to be imposing enough to instill awe, arrives in their original form across the sky.

Those guys would never engage in something as reckless as teleporting in without notice and showing up in groups of five.

“What…? How do you know that…”

It seemed the dragon was hearing what I said for the first time.

It appeared he had never worked near the Lord.

“Is… is that so?”

Gemma also looked wide-eyed, as if hearing it for the first time.

Why doesn’t she know?

“You’re clearly not processing this. It seems you don’t realize what you’ve done. You’ve assaulted the Empire’s most vital facility without notice. That alone qualifies you to be branded as evil dragons under imperial law. Thanks to the agreement between the Empire and the Dragon Lord, all evil dragons are subject to immediate judgment under Empire law.”

Dragons tend to have a strongly independent nature.

While they do show tendencies to live together with family, most young ones become independent when they reach a certain age.

It’s rare to see bloodlines living together; it raises the question of how they manage to coexist as the same species.

While they all respect and follow the Dragon Lord, they often respect the basic principle of not causing major conflicts with humans. However, from time to time, there are plenty of dragons who ignore that and oppress other races as they see fit. Dragons that step outside of those bounds can be classified as evil dragons.

“Mortal… judging us… that’s impossible.”

“Don’t believe it? You really have led a charmed life. Let me sell five living dragons and buy land to see if I can become a duke.”

Whether realizing his own fate dawned on him or not, the dragon’s face went pale.

“Ah… no!! I truly received the Lord’s command..!!”

“You’re a real piece of work, you child abductor!”

“Child abductor??”

“Child? Are you talking about me??”

Their methods were remarkably similar to those used in child abductions.

They lower their guard by claiming to have been sent by their parents, only to take the child to an entirely unknown place.

A disgusting tactic that exploits innocence.

“Let’s go ask directly. If it turns out to be true, I’ll apologize.”

“That’s difficult. This is a highly classified mission….”

“Yeah, yeah, all kidnappers say that.”

Since he insisted he was sent by the Lord, wanting to go check with the Lord made his hands tremble.

When Gemma noticed the blatant change in attitude upon my insistence to check with the Lord, her gaze sharpened.

“These guys… deceiving me!!”

“Ugh?!”

Infuriated by realizing she had almost been tricked, Gemma instantly grabbed the Blue Dragon by the neck.

Although Gemma was considerably smaller, the Blue Dragon was easily subdued.

Manifesting her surging emotions around her, a golden current crackled as Gemma confirmed her suspicions.

“No! Please believe me!!”

Whether truly feeling it was unfair or thinking she wouldn’t make it out alive by admitting it, the Blue Dragon kept pleading, but nothing could be heard.

“Probably the reason five of you came is that you intended to haul her off if you couldn’t get her to come quietly, right?”

“Ugh, how would I… no, it’s unfair!!”

If that weren’t the case, there was no reason for five of them to come all at once.

Faced with continuing to deny it, spinning in circles, I soon began to feel weary.

“There’s no need to keep talking. Just like I said earlier, we’ll lock them all up and go interrogate them directly.”

“You’re going directly?”

“Yes. I was going to pay my respects to the Lord anyway, so it’s perfect. Let’s go and have a chat.”

No matter how much of a dragon they are, making them confess the truth isn’t that difficult, but to cross-check, we’d need the same question asked to all five.

It’s really just a hassle.

However, going to the Lord to verify would be incredibly quick, accurate, and simple.

There’s no reason to sweat it with those suffocating creatures around.

So it was decided to head over to Gemma’s nest as if climbing a little mountain.

.

.

.

[Can’t you release them already!!!]

[Ho… how dare you…]

About an hour later, the dragons who had trespassed into the Academy were all locked up in cages made for beasts.

Not just any cages, but those specially crafted to capture dragons created in the Magic Tower.

They had the powerful metal engraved on their Dragon Hearts to contain them after completely disabling them.

With five cages set up for the occasional capturing of evil dragons, it became an astonishing spectacle.

Watching the dragons confined and growling in cages, they looked more like oversized lizards.

[Last week it was a Leviathan, and this time it’s five dragons; are they planning to bankrupt us?]

“They aren’t for sale yet.”

[Just still? I’ll wait and enjoy myself.]

The holographic image of Hoenheim, as if he had come straight out of a sci-fi movie, babbled at me, not taking his eyes off the small orb like solving a puzzle.

While other magicians would use artifacts for communication magic limited to a specific location, Hoenheim casually managed to use such communication magic without any connections in the Other Space.

This time, rather than dismantling, we planned to hold on to them for a while, so I entrusted the capturing to the Magic Tower.

There were a few other places that came to mind, but most would likely handle them more roughly than necessary, and the Magic Tower seemed the most suitable.

Given its size, people from the Magic Tower came to check on the situation of the dragons in the cages in real-time.

[No matter how the barrier has disappeared, the sight of five dragons gathering like this is intriguing. I’ll want an explanation of what happened later.]

In truth, even if they didn’t say where they came from, I could guess to some extent.

With five dragons displaying a strong independent character all coming together, it had to be a collective acting in an organized manner. They impersonated the Dragon Lord’s orders, showing they did not respect the Dragon Lord either.

Since they practically attempted to kidnap Gemma, there’s no way they were a friendly faction with the Lord.

“If a group of dragons gathers, acting in an organized manner whilst being hostile to the Lord… it could be a group of evil dragons.”

[Still, it’s better to be cautious. A group of dragons that think highly of themselves coming together means that someone with charisma has emerged to rally them.]

Dragons are inherently arrogant creatures, always believing they are the best.

Among them, those called evil dragons are simply a bunch of immature beings completely unacquainted with socialization, making the idea of working together something of a dream. The fact that they had united signals that someone has undoubtedly emerged.