My Taboo Academy

"We need to talk. Wait outside."

After Ren left the room, Liliana remained alone with Regina. Only then did the Student Council President begin to regain her composure.

"Put this on."

"Thank you."

Regina accepted the jacket Liliana offered and draped it over her shoulders.

She curled up in the chair, partly from the sharp embarrassment of having shown such a vulnerable state to a junior from her own alma mater, and partly because her body still refused to calm down. The heat of what had just happened lingered stubbornly in her limbs.

Her cheeks stayed flushed. Her heartbeat refused to slow. The lingering sensation of him still inside her felt completely foreign.

"Ms. Dean, I came because of the call. Are you alright?"

"...I called you?"

"Technically I called you. The line stayed silent for a long time, so I got worried and came to check."

Thinking back, Regina realized she had barely managed to reach her phone at all.

In her jelly state she couldn’t perform anything as complicated as dialing a number. Contacting Liliana had never been her intention.

When the call came in, she had simply been rolling around as formless soul-jelly and had somehow slid the accept button.

She had been completely helpless. Without someone coming to save her, there would have been no way out.

Then a warm hand had covered her.

That warmth was something she would never forget. She had thought it would be nice to stay like that forever. The gentle touch filled the emptiness left by the loss of her limbs. Every stroke of those fingers was burned into her memory, still making her tremble when she recalled it.

"Do you know who that student is?"

"Yes. Ren Asahi, Class 2-F. His younger sisters are outstanding, but he himself has always been a D-rank student."

"He introduced himself the same way."

"I’m Ren Asahi, Class 2-F. D-rank."

Given the circumstances, the honest self-introduction felt almost funny, like they were on some bizarre blind date.

And then those hips had moved in the most shameless way... the wickedness of it...

"Ah..."

The memory rose sharply.

That overwhelming sex still left her restless.

’It was all because of me. Even the guilty look on his face was... attractive.’

It was maddening. She wanted to cover him in kisses.

She wanted to hold him tightly and tell him he didn’t need to feel guilty on her account.

Until now, other hunters had always said she seemed uninterested in men. She had believed it herself. How wrong she had been.

Her standards had simply been far too high.

Now, if a man didn’t look at least as good as Ren, she struggled to even see him as a man.

"I told him I would heal you," Liliana said quietly.

"Ms. Dean, no matter how good the outcome was, this isn’t something we can simply overlook. We have to follow procedure."

Even if the victim, Regina had ended up developing feelings for Ren,

The fact of the crime would not disappear.

The "procedure" Liliana referred to meant isolating people with dangerous abilities from society. In cases of non-cooperation, it could even mean eliminating them.

Under the Villain Punishment Act, someone in Liliana’s position could make Ren vanish from the world by tomorrow without much difficulty.

"...Ah."

"Are you planning to protect him just because he’s an academy student?"

"Why do you hate him so much?"

"That’s..."

"What exactly is his ability? Did he tell you?"

Liliana laid everything out.

The mechanism of Soul Excretion.

How Ren had expelled Regina’s soul while striking the training dummy, and the deductions he had made afterward.

"But the dummy story is probably a lie to lessen his own guilt."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because that’s what villains always do. On top of that, Ren Asahi committed this act while his punishment was already deferred for accumulating over a hundred penalty points from misconduct and sexual offenses."

Liliana had more than enough reasons to treat Ren as a criminal who deserved punishment.

In contrast to Liliana’s heated stance, Regina’s expression grew cold.

"If he only wanted to reduce his guilt, wouldn’t it have been smarter not to step forward at all?"

"..."

Regina was an SS-class hunter who knew countless defensive spells and could react instantly to most attacks. None of them had helped her this time.

"I’m ashamed to admit it, but I never even identified the attacker. No one would have guessed the culprit was Ren Asahi."

"It’s not a power that can stay hidden forever. Eventually he would have used that dangerous ability to commit a crime and ended up on the suspect list anyway."

"Saying ’he would have committed a crime later and been caught’ is too much of a stretch. The truth is, Ren stepped forward to save me when he didn’t have to."

If he had only cared about his own safety, he would never have revealed his ability to the Student Council President. It was clear he had prioritized Regina’s life above everything else.

And because of that, she wanted to protect him in return.

"Even if you try to hide it, I will bring it to light. That skill is far too dangerous to leave among academy students."

"Calm down, Liliana."

"Has your judgment become clouded just because you like him?"

"Isn’t it your judgment that’s clouded because you dislike him?"

Liliana’s mouth snapped shut.

There was no reason to look kindly on a sexual offender, especially one who had...

"I have no reason to look favorably on the criminal who violated my respected teacher. No matter what you say, I will handle this according to principle."

’Hmm.’

Persuading Liliana would not be easy.

She was not the type to yield when she believed something was evil.

’Of all people, it had to be Liliana who arrived... She’s stubborn.’

At the same time, Regina understood.

She herself might be the one whose judgment was compromised right now, even while she tried to leave room for other possibilities.

She pushed the conversation further.

"What if it truly happened against Ren’s will? Can we still treat him as nothing more than a criminal?"

"There’s almost no evidence for that."

"I have one lead worth considering. Soul Excretion isn’t a skill. It’s a power."

"A power? There’s no way a D-class student could... "

It was something clearly distinct from ordinary skills. Only a rare few among SS-class hunters ever received the favor of external gods and gained what was called "authority." Skills obtained through the blessings of transcendent beings existed, but they were carefully separated from true divine power borrowed from an outside god.

"He must have acquired it only recently. If he had been able to control a power strong enough to neutralize me since childhood, his situation would have been far worse than it is now."

"Is that your judgment as an SS-class hunter?"

"Liliana. You can see the logic in that, can’t you?"

Liliana was silent for a moment. The Ren Asahi she remembered had been a petty, despicable student who constantly committed small acts of sexual harassment.

Lately, though, he had been acting strangely different. He had even claimed to have lost his memory. She had given him some leeway to figure out what kind of scheme he was running, yet now he suddenly possessed this power?

The timing was too perfect.

Yes. It was reasonable to assume there was a connection.

"Considering the circumstances... that power does appear to be true authority."

Liliana’s voice softened slightly.

"Then it could genuinely have been an accident. If an external deity simply bestowed excessive power on a whim, perhaps some sympathy is warranted."

"..."

Divine powers granted by external gods did not always carefully evaluate whether the recipient was qualified.

There were cases rare but real, where an ordinary person’s life was completely overturned by the sudden arrival of such power.

"Master Dean."

"Yes?"

"Do you believe what happened in this room was clearly an act of ’rescue’?"

"..."

Regina nodded.

Everything changed depending on whether one saw the events in this room as rape or as rescue.

"I was the one who asked for more. There’s nothing I can do about that now."

"What if it wasn’t entirely your own will?"

There’s no way to verify that anymore... I’m already a different person than I was a second ago."

Silence stretched between them.

Liliana let out a long, heavy breath.

"In the end I couldn’t do anything. When you were in danger... all I could do was stand outside the door."

"It’s alright, Liliana. I’m truly glad you were the one who came."

"Miss Dean... "

"I’m not saying Ren is completely innocent either. He does possess a dangerous power that cannot be left unchecked."

His friends might not understand the weight of it,

But the ability to excrete souls was something that could send massive ripples through society.

Especially if it were ever used with malicious intent.

"What will you do now?"

"I need time to sort out my thoughts. Can you give me a little while?"

"...Yes."

"Don’t go after them. They saved my life. We have to acknowledge that much, at least."

Liliana nodded, looking defeated.

"It’s a complicated feeling. I can’t simply say thank you and leave it at that."

"Still, please pass along my gratitude for me. Today I don’t think I can face them and speak properly..."

"Understood."

Would they understand?

The day had been far too overwhelming. Regina desperately needed time alone.

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