The man was in comfortable, deep-red pajamas, with thin white pinstripes.
Despite his ridiculous appearance, his fierce eyes swept across the surrounding camp as he attempted to pinpoint whatever he had sensed moments earlier.
While underneath the veil, Rian held his breath, as even just breathing wrong might give them away.
Unlike in Eisenbran, the man currently looking for them was a 4-Star Knight. Rian couldn’t get away with it like he used to.
Instructor Klein stepped closer in their direction, causing Rian’s blood pressure to rise. There weren’t a lot of places to hide in this wasteland, so all Rian could do was hope that the instructor passed by without noticing.
"I could’ve sworn I felt something..." the man frowned, taking another step toward them.
He finally stopped directly in front of him, where Rian could see every individual pinstripe decorating the man’s pajamas. Klein was close enough that he could’ve reached out and touched either of them without even extending his arm fully.
Under the veil, neither Rian nor Marie dared to move. Even the act of whispering or even shifting their feet wrong would be enough to give them away.
The instructor took one final glance, his blade ready to be drawn at even the slightest disturbance. And for a single second, his gaze stopped directly on Rian.
’Go away...’
Klein looked right at him, getting even closer.
’Please go away...!’
The man’s face stopped right in front of Rian, before pulling back. He let go of his sword and headed toward a nearby bush.
"Must’ve imagined it..."
Rian nearly collapsed from relief when the man finally turned around and walked away. But instead of returning to his tent, Klein stopped beside a dead bush only a few steps from the transportation mirror.
The instructor glanced both ways, before starting to unbutton his pants.
’You’ve got to be kidding me.’
Soon, the unmistakable sound of someone relieving himself against the dead bush filled the silence.
Rian stared straight ahead, desperately pretending that none of this was happening. Marie squeezed her eyes shut and remained completely motionless beside him.
Of all the dangers Rian expected to encounter inside the Graveyard, being forced to hide beside a half-asleep instructor taking a piss had never crossed his mind.
After what felt considerably longer than it actually was, Instructor Klein adjusted his pajamas and released a satisfied sigh.
He walked back across the camp without noticing the two students standing only a few steps behind him.
The flap of his tent closed, and Rian finally exhaled another breath, feeling like everything was just a fever dream.
Marie, on the other hand, was not faring so well. She had pretty much sunk into Rian, like a little kid that saw something she was never meant to see.
"Wha—wha—wha...."
"Just do your job," Rian sighed. "You’ll forget...in ten years."
The girl slowly managed to calm herself, closing her eyes once more to listen in on Orion’s conversation. And Rian finally managed to study the inner workings of the transportation mirror.
And what he saw...could only be described as the work of a genius.
Various threads of mana intertwined together to form a cohesive structure. Every input was the output of another, allowing mana to flow efficiently and the machine itself to work flawlessly.
Perhaps that was why a teleportation device like this could work all the way in the Graveyard.
Teleportation magic normally consumed an absurd amount of power. Most transportation arrays required dozens of mana crystals or refined monster cores for a single journey. Simply maintaining one was enough to mark its owner as wealthy.
But that didn’t make sense in Rian’s head whatsoever, as he saw the various conduits that connected the mirror to a dedicated storage where a large portion of the mana cores, presumably from prior hunts, had been stored.
According to the events of the novel, Orion had deduced that the portal not working when they needed to leave, was because it had run out of mana.
’That’s impossible...’
With the efficiency in the mirror’s design as well as abundant source of available mana cores in the area, it really would’ve been impossible.
But this system couldn’t exhaust its entire reserve after a single journey. Even if it remained active throughout all three days, there should’ve been more than enough power to bring every student back to Eidelgard.
There could only be one reason why they weren’t able to return to the Academy:
Someone stole all the cores.
But before he could dwell on the fact for any longer, Marie suddenly tapped his shoulder.
"We should head back before anyone else catches us..."
"Right."
Keeping Alter Shade wrapped around them, he guided Marie away from the transportation mirror and back through the camp. Neither of them spoke until they slipped through their tent flap and allowed the curtain of darkness to dissolve.
Julius was still snoring on the bunk above Rian.
Eliza remained curled beneath her blanket on the opposite top bunk, seemingly undisturbed by their return.
Marie removed her cloak and sat on the edge of her bed.
"I heard Orion’s plan."
Rian placed his sling bag on the floor. "Go on."
"They’re heading toward the northern mausoleum district tomorrow morning. Apparently, one of the nobles in his group knows about a crypt where 2-Star undead gather."
"So they’re going straight into the yellow region?"
Marie nodded. "Orion wanted to begin in the outer burial grounds, but the others convinced him that they would fall behind if they spent too much time fighting weaker monsters."
That sounded about right. He was a protagonist who always began with the safest and most reasonable plan.
"They’re leaving as soon as the gates open. If we want to avoid them, we should take the western path."
"Good. We’ll decide in the morning."
Marie tilted her head. "That’s all?"
"For now."
Rian climbed onto the bottom bunk, but he made no attempt to sleep. His attention remained fixed on the silhouette resting above Marie.
Eliza Schmidtz.
The transportation mirror hadn’t naturally run out of mana in the original novel. Someone had emptied the reservoir beneath it.
But removing those cores without damaging the mirror or triggering its warning enchantments required more than an opportunity. The culprit needed to understand how the device worked.
And well, there just so happened to be a once-in-a-century artificer on his team right now, who would know about something like this.
Rian didn’t want to doubt his own teammate.
But—
’Could it really be her?’
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