The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 79

ARTHUR LEYWIN’S POV:

"Hey, Art. I thought we were heading to your home; where’re we going?" Elijah turned to me after noticing we’d taken a different turn on the way back to Helstea Manor.

"There’s a place I need to stop by first. Don’t worry, it’ll be a quick detour," I answered, quickening my pace even with Sylvie on my head.

Elijah broke into a jog behind me. "Wait up!"

When we reached the destination, I couldn’t help but let out a disappointed breath, my shoulders dropping.

"I thought so," I mumbled to myself.

"Xyrus Elixirs? Did you need to buy something from here? It’s almost midnight; of course it’s closed." Elijah cupped his eyes over the front glass door, hoping to spot someone inside.

"It’s nothing. Let’s head back home," I replied. As I was about to turn away from the building, a shiny object, caught in the crevice of the aged alley leading to Xyrus Elixirs, caught my attention.

As I kneeled down to retrieve it, my eyes narrowed. It was an orb similar to the one used on Tess, except, instead of rainbow speckles inside, there were golden flakes floating within. Attached to the small marble-sized orb was a crudely written note:

Your little Princess will probably need this

"What are you staring so intently at?" Elijah leaned over my shoulder to see.

I crumpled up the piece of parchment and quickly shoved the orb inside my dimension ring.

"Let’s head back home first, Elijah. I’ll need to tell my family that I might have to miss a couple more days of school. Go back to the academy tomorrow and tell everyone that I’m okay." I patted my best friend’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile in response to his concerned expression.

"Don’t worry, I’ll tell you about everything after." With that, Elijah gave me an accepting nod back.

­__________________________________________________________

KATHYLN GLAYDER’S POV:

After finding out what had happened down at the dungeon from my brother, I was shocked. I almost wanted to blame him, to blame Professor Glory, to blame someone but I knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault.

Arthur is going to be okay, right? He’s just that type of person. No matter what situation comes up, he always returns with that lazy smile on his face that, for some reason, calms me.

"You’re being foolish, Kathyln," I berated myself as I walked down the marble street to the disciplinary committee room. My thoughts lingered on Arthur as I imagined his grateful expression after heroically saving him... had I been there.

I shook my head, trying to snap out of my delusions. "No, no. It’s not my job to look after him. Besides, he already has the student council president."

A few faint giggles from students passing nearby sent blood rushing up to my cheeks as I veered in another direction.

I’m confident that he’ll be okay! I convinced myself. I’m sure of it...

"Gah!" I heaved out before I quickly covered my mouth, surprised that I’d let out such a barbaric sound. After checking that I was alone in the alleyway between two buildings—a shortcut I had discovered to the disciplinary committee room—I exhaled a sharp breath of relief.

Maybe it was from the stress these days as a disciplinary committee officer. I had assumed things would stay quiet after the formation of the committee—almost to the point of wondering if we were even needed—but recently some unforeseen circumstances had been brought to our attention.

Claire Bladeheart, our leader, pulled each of us aside a few days ago. While explaining the cause, she implied that Arthur was an undeniable factor that led to this.

I wanted to rebut then, but I decided to hear her out. Claire had been secretly gathering information with Kai, who specialized in stealth. From what she’d explained, it seemed that there was a radical group dissatisfied with the direction the academy was heading toward recently.

This group was made up of only humans, and from the few faces that Kai was able to catch a glimpse of, they were all from rather high-up noble families.

One particular noble that had been spotted was named Charles Ravenpor. His father was on rather close terms with mine, but strictly for business. Father would always grumble in dissatisfaction after having a meeting with Mr. Ravenpor because of how ill-mannered and self-centered he was.

While I was jealous of Claire’s unwavering confidence that Arthur was still alive, she was also relieved that Arthur wasn’t here at the moment because he was supposedly one of the main reasons this radical cult-like group had started. There was a big faction from this group that thought Arthur did not belong in this academy because of his "humble" background. The fact that he was a professor on top of having the privilege of taking upper division classes fueled the already built-in hatred that some of the envious royal students had.

We weren’t allowed to confront them as of yet because of the lack of evidence, and the fact that they hadn’t really done anything bad yet, but from the looks of it, there were even some professors of this academy supporting them, making it all the more difficult to rashly make a move.

It wasn’t until a few days ago, though, that some of the radical group members started to act. Denton, one of my classmates that shared the same period in Arth—Professor Leywin’s class, was the victim. He had actually been one of the students that strongly opposed Professor Leywin teaching a class that was so important in building foundations as this. However, he’d warmed up to him—rather, he looked up to him now.

Hopping up on a storage crate to clear the fence, I looked down at the isolated building of the disciplinary committee. Looking behind, I could see the tip of the statue where Denton had just been found three days ago, battered and naked while hung upside down, for all of the passing students to see, a note covering his privates instructing him to drop out of the ’plebeian’s class’ if he didn’t want this to happen again.

"We already know who one of the members of the groups are so why not just take that rat out and interrogate him? I doubt he has the balls to last even a couple of minutes before spilling out some secrets," grunted Doradrea while leaning back in her chair. _{freewёbnoνel.com}