Chapter 93: Chapter 93

Since it was no longer orientation day, Sophie was back to attending the Academy in the mornings, leaving Elise to go to her morning classes alone. She was glad for this because it left her much more time to think about how she would go about finding the Saintess. Maggie had given her a lot to work with, so it would hopefully just be some simple deductive work to find out who it was.

The Saintess was in at least one class with Elise, so she wouldn’t need to go out of her way to search. The Saintess was from Earth, and possessed the Rune of Fate, meaning that she would have an unusual amount of aether. That eliminated a lot of people, since Elise had {Aether Sense}.

Unfortunately, Elise was taking a lot of classes, and her two mandatory morning classes were massive, each with over 1000 people, so there were actually quite a few people to sift through. She was pretty sure that Maggie meant one of the smaller, more intimate classes, but Elise didn’t want to just dismiss the big classes entirely based on that assumption.

In her bigger classes, she chose to sit in the back. Part of it was that Elise never really wanted to sit up at the front in the first place, but gave in to Sophie’s enthusiasm on the first day, while another part was that it was easier to observe from the back. There didn’t seem to be any restrictions on where she was allowed to sit, so she chose to go upstairs in the opera house-like lecture hall and chose a seat in the far back corner on the second floor where she could see almost the entire class. Her bright white hair stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the relatively shadowy back of the class, but fortunately, the only other students back there with her were the quiet ones who didn’t really want to talk to anyone, so no one bothered her.

She had no trouble hearing the lecture because whatever enchantment amplified the professor’s voice spread it evenly across the entire hall, and she didn’t have any trouble seeing him either because for whatever reason, Agility improved vision, and while hers wasn’t anything special, it was plenty high enough for her to be able to see across the room clearly. That said, she was not really paying attention. The content was interesting enough, but she spent most of her time focusing on {Aether Sense}, trying to get a good idea of who the potential Saintess candidates were.

Her senses didn’t extend far enough to scan the entire room, or even half the room, but the few hundred she could reach were more than enough to keep her occupied. For the duration of the lecture. First, she did a quick scan of her surroundings, noting each person with unusually high aether levels. She was a bit surprised at how many there were, clocking almost two dozen, but given that this was the premier University on the continent, it made sense that there would be lots of scions of noble houses and wealthy merchants and other people that worked with their words, not their hands.

She could only see about a third of them, unfortunately, since the rest were ground floor, but she checked the aether of each one individually to try to find anything that felt like the Rune of Fate. After a few seconds, she realized that she didn’t actually know what she was looking for. Her own Rune was unstable, but if this other person was the Saintess of the church of Light, that would mean that she had to be human, or at least humanoid. As far as Elise knew, the church of Light was openly against anything involving Ostra, and Maggie was the odd one out in the organization. They wouldn’t have made a monster the Saintess.

In the best case scenario—for Elise, at least—the Saintess would have been born into a humanoid body that wasn’t human, so she would be struggling to adjust, and would have an unstable soul as well. Then, Elise would be able to pick out her aether just by that. That wasn’t something she could bet on though. And sadly, if there was another way to locate the Rune of Fate just by sensing aether, Elise didn’t know it.

So, instead, she just looked at quantity. Everyone she sensed nearby who was of note was around the same level, and that level was significantly below the lowest level in the aetheric illusions class. She didn’t completely cross them all off her list, but after inspecting each and finding nothing unusual, she stopped focusing on them and instead started looking for people who might have been hiding their aether, like Samantha did. Samantha was high up on her list of suspects already, of course, but with no way to do any further digging into her at the moment, Elise focused her attention on the people nearby.

For the entire rest of the class, she painstakingly went through each and every person in her sensory range, studying their aether to try and find signs that it was being stifled. She found nothing, but the extreme scrutiny earned her three full levels in {Aether Sense}, and as she went through the crowd, she began noticing minute differences. She was pretty sure she was touching upon aether signatures, which was exciting, but she was still a long way off from being able to identify people by them.

When the class ended and it was time for the next one, Elise repeated the same process, finding a seat in the back of the class and studying the people around her. Once again, she had no luck, though in the beginning of the class, she thought she might be onto something. She found someone with much more aether than anyone else, but was disappointed to find that it was only Helene. Not that Helene wasn’t a suspect, but Elise had a gut feeling that the frail noblewoman wasn’t the Saintess she was looking for. She had not looked into Helene’s background, nor had she extensively studied her, but she did have a hunch.

Despite that turning out to be a bust, next to Helene sat Samantha, and neither of them seemed to notice that Elise was there, so while the professor droned on about language, Elise studied Samantha intently, trying to make sense of her aether. With a few more levels in {Aether Sense}, she was able to pick up on a few things she hadn’t noticed before.

The first was that while Samantha’s aether felt muted, Elise could also somewhat get a sense for how much she actually had. It was very vague and imprecise, and it was probably only possible because Elise had her own subtlety skill to reference, but she got the general feeling that Samantha had close to the same amount of aether as Helene. It was hard to tell, but Elise knew from her own Skill that Samantha’s aether was all still there, simply contained to her own body instead of spreading out, and she also knew that most subtlety Skills were designed to work on ordinary people, not people with {Aether Sense}

Second, she noticed that Samantha was talking with Helene using some kind of aether-based Skill. It didn’t feel quite like {Whisper}, but it felt similar. Perhaps {Telepathy}? Elise knew that was a higher version of {Whisper} that opened a two-way connection so the other could respond, even if they didn’t possess the Skill. It would make sense, since the two were both talking to each other.

That raised the question of how they were related. It was very possible that they had simply become friends after sharing a few classes together, but given how unordinary both were, Elise hesitated to conclude that. If Samantha was the Saintess, Helene could be someone who was in on the disguise. A hidden guard, maybe? An assistant? Just a friend from the church? Whatever the case, Elise had no way of knowing, so she just observed silently for a bit longer before turning her attention back to the rest of the class.

When this class ended, once again, no one else had been suspicious enough for Elise to focus her time on, so as the students filed out of the classroom, Elise forced her way through the crowd until she reached Samantha and Helene.

“Going to grab lunch?” she asked.

“Oh, Eleanor!” said Samantha, turning around. “I saw you on the first day, but I couldn’t find you again. I thought that maybe you were sick. Where were you?”

“At the very back,” said Elise.

“Ah, I see. Yes, we are going to grab lunch. Want to come with?”

“Where’s your sister?” asked Helene.

“At the Academy,” said Elise. “Yesterday was unique since it was orientation. From now on, she’ll be at the Academy in the mornings, and here in the afternoon.”

“Ah, I see,” said Helene, nodding. “I thought she was a bit young.”

“Have you ever been to the hidden dining hall before?” asked Samantha.

Elise was about to respond out loud when she realized that Samantha’s mouth hadn’t moved. She also noticed an aetheric connection between the two of them that hadn’t been there before.

“No,” she replied mentally. “What’s that?”

“You’re in for a treat,” came Helene’s voice through a similar connection. “My brother told me about it. It’s a dining hall that most students aren’t aware of, but they’re supposed to serve better food than anywhere else in the city. It’s also much quieter than the big dining halls, and the people there… well, they’ll stay out of your way, probably. And best of all, students eat free.”

“Sounds amazing!” said Elise.

The three of them talked a bit about classes as they walked, none of them referencing the telepathic conversation they just had. The hidden dining hall was located a short walk away from the central part of the University in the middle of a copse of trees. Like the hidden lecture hall for Aetheric Illusions, it was underground, but unlike that lecture hall, this one was hidden only by mana-based illusions. It was still well hidden, but knowing that it existed, Elise was able to pick out some of the subtle signs and locate it with {Mana Sense}. She assumed that was intentional, and that the dining hall was something of a reward to skilled students.

The interior of the underground space reminded Elise of a fine dining establishment in its atmosphere, but like the other dining halls, food was served in a buffet style, with trays of food laid out on tables on one wall. Elise, Samantha, and Helene grabbed the foods that they wanted, and together found an unoccupied circular table on the side of the room to eat at. As soon as they entered the small radius of empty space around the table, Elise felt enchantments activate. She flinched for a moment before realizing they were merely privacy enchantments.

“This is a popular place for entrepreneurial students to make business deals,” explained Helene. “Or for working on group projects. The school encourages collaboration, and tries to make it as simple as possible for students to discuss their work, so this dining hall, and most of the study rooms are set up with the most advanced privacy wards that money can buy.”

“Wow,” Elise breathed as she sat down.

Enchantments were far from her specialty, but she knew the ones around their table were special, rivaling even the ones she noticed around Oberon’s castle.

“It’s nice, because it means we can talk about Aetheric Illusions here without getting in trouble,” said Samantha. “Which reminds me, because I’ve been meaning to ask: is your sister a half-dragon?”

Elise half-choked on the bite of food she was eating, thumping her chest twice to help get it down.

“Sorry, what?” she said.

“I saw your sister using {Dragon Eyes}. You never did, but you also look completely different from her, so I figured you were either adopted, only half-siblings, or one or both of you are using some pretty fancy illusions. If you’re using any illusions, they’re not aetheric, because I talked to the muscleheads after class and their description of you is the same as what I see, and I’m pretty good at detecting mana illusions, and I don’t sense any from you, so I can only assume that both of you are using your real appearance, and are therefore not direct siblings. Unless your dragon parent used two different forms during intercourse.”

Elise stared at Samantha, mouth half-open.

“She fancies herself a detective,” said Helene with a half smile. “She sleuthed me out right after registration.”

“Who I am,” said Helene. “My name isn’t Helene, by the way.”

“You’ll have to find out for yourself,” she said with a smile. “Though I assume you’ll manage that sometime this semester, if the professor is to be believed.”

“I guess,” said Elise.

Wait, could she be the Saintess?

Samantha was still the prime suspect, but as Elise thought back, her immediate dismissal of Helene was a little odd. Had she been subtly influenced by her somehow? Like a weaker version of {Don’t Look At Me, Peasants!}? And even if she wasn’t the Saintess, she was hiding her true identity, which made Elise curious.

“So, is she a half dragon?” prompted Samantha.

“Oh,” said Elise, realizing she had gotten lost in thought. “Well, you’re right about us not being related by blood. As to whether she’s a half dragon… You should bring your suspicions to her yourself.”

Elise wasn’t sure what she was and wasn’t allowed to say, and she also knew that Sophie would love if Samantha thought she was a half dragon. If she had heard what Samantha just said, she would have been riding that high for a week. She was obsessed with secret identity novels.

“I see,” said Samantha with a smug smile. “I guess I’ll have to wait to get my answer then. But I figured you weren’t. You didn’t seem like the type. But since you’re also not blood related, I wonder about your identity. You called Sophie your sister, but I’m fairly certain that’s a cover story. At least, when the articles about the Blood Syndicate and the heroics of Nicholas Gray were being released, you were never mentioned. In interviews, he spoke of his fiancee and his sister, singular.”

Elise felt a chill run down her spine, but kept eating as if she wasn’t bothered. On paper, her backstory was perfect, and since the Grays lived in a cabin in the woods, there was really no way to verify whether she did or didn’t live with them. However, evidently, both she and Oberon had overlooked the angle that Samantha had taken, and now, not even two days after school started, her cover story had been ruined.

“I was only adopted later,” said Elise evenly. “After Nick had already left to come here. I barely saw him before… Well, before our parents died.”

She adopted a melancholy expression—which wasn’t difficult, given the topic—and hoped that it would be enough to steer the conversation away from that topic.

“Ah, I see,” said Samantha. “Sorry to dredge up bad memories.”

“It’s fine,” said Elise.

“Nah, I feel really bad now,” said Samantha. “I am truly sorry. I didn’t even consider that possibility. I should have done better research before jumping to conclusions.”

“It’s fine,” said Elise waving her off. “Really. I don’t mind. Being suspicious of each other is part of the class, so it makes sense that you were thinking that way.”

Now she was starting to feel bad for making Samantha feel bad for correctly picking apart her cover story.

“I still feel bad,” said Samantha.

“Well, if you feel that bad, why don’t you apologize by telling me who you really are,” said Elise, smiling and pointing her fork at Samantha.

“Ahahaha, nope,” she replied, also smiling. “Nice try.”

“Not even going to hide that you’re hiding your identity?”

“You noticed that I was using a suppression Skill based on two brief meetings,” said Samantha. “If I’m not mistaken, you already have {Aether Sense}. I can’t fool you. Plus, I already accidentally let it slip a little to Helene, so she would have shot me down if I tried to deny it.”

“True,” said Helene, nodding as she raised a bite of salad to her mouth.

Elise looked down at her plate and noticed that she was eating like a rabbit. No wonder she looked so weak. She also noted that Samantha had already sniffed out that Elise had {Aether Sense}, which was a little annoying, but the way she said it gave Elise a small idea.

“Do you not have {Aether Sense}?” asked Elise. ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ NoveI(F)ire.net

“I didn’t even know the Skill existed until a couple weeks ago,” said Samantha.

If that’s the case, I should be able to {Inspect} her… thought Elise. Right?

“Fair enough,” Elise said with a shrug as she internally debated whether it was safe or not.

She was pretty sure that the only way to detect someone using {Inspect} on you was to have {Aether Sense}, or a similarly rare Skill to prevent {Inspect} attempts. Elise was pretty sure that Samantha was telling the truth about not having {Aether Sense}, but given that she had an aether suppression Skill despite that, it was also possible she had some kind of identity hiding Skill.

Then again, was it really that big a deal if Samantha found out that she had {Inspect}? {Aether Sense} was a much rarer Skill. Having {Inspect} was much less strange than having that. It wouldn’t really make her situation any worse, as far as she could tell. {Inspect} wasn’t any kind of taboo Skill. Just a rare one.

“So, Miss {Aether Sense}, anyone else in the class holding any big secrets?” asked Samantha.

“Maybe,” said Elise. “But why should I tell you? If you tell me who you are, I might tell you what I know.”

“Tempting,” said Samantha. “But unfortunately, I don’t get to decide who knows my identity. If you figure it out, it’s whatever, but I can’t help you.”

“Makes sense,” said Elise.

Samantha launched into a few of her own personal detective theories about others in the class, and meanwhile, Elise continued to consider whether to use {Inspect}. The possibility of being detected was what kept her from using it on anyone in the Aetheric Illusions class, but now that she knew how many secrets existed in the classroom, her having {Inspect} didn’t feel like that big of a deal. And since their explicit goals were to find out each other’s secrets, at least to some extent, no one would get overly offended if she used it, right? Plus, while it might have just been high level acting, Samantha seemed to not be able to share her identity, meaning if she was the Saintess, Elise would have to find indisputable evidence. The kind that conversational slip-ups couldn’t provide.

Well, if talking won’t get me anywhere, might as well go for it, thought Elise. Screw it. Inspect.