The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] Chapter 1190: Blind Spots

Safe to say, most rational people actually wanted the same thing as little Queen Isabelle.

The only problem was that not everyone found it agreeable to stay on the same page, insisting instead on sticking their claws where they definitely didn’t belong.

Like all over the Empire’s most influential master mechanics in what looked suspiciously like an attempt to take over the world by beguiling them all.

All right, maybe "take over the world" was a little dramatic.

Even Master Quinn had to admit that much.

Still, did the exact scale really matter when only people with questionable intentions would ever resort to such underhanded methods in the first place?

And don’t they dare give him that excuse about simply wanting a little romance in their lives when only crazed demons would deliberately set their sights on people who were barely a cough away from their deathbeds!

Master Quinn practically skidded around the corner as he sprinted faster than he had in years despite the rather unnecessary baggage he was hauling.

Truthfully, he really should’ve abandoned that dolt several hallways ago, but he ultimately didn’t. Certainly not because he was kind. Absolutely not. He simply needed living proof that he hadn’t completely lost his mind.

Thankfully, hauling Allan along turned out to be one of the better decisions he’d made all morning.

Otherwise, he probably would’ve been the one everyone assumed had finally gone senile because, only moments later, the other master mechanics gradually wandered into the arena looking perfectly normal, as though they hadn’t just been worshiping the ground beneath those two Aeruns a short while earlier.

Even D-29 seemed curious enough to project enlarged holographic feeds of each master mechanic. Yet no matter which angle the dungeon displayed, there wasn’t anything particularly strange to see. They looked exactly as they always did.

One after another, the elderly mechanics casually made their way toward their designated seats, some walking with their usual slow gait while others wobbled along exactly as they had every other day of their lives, arriving just in time for Ollie, who’d already been waiting against his will, to begin the portion of the examination dedicated to manufacturing the mecha’s internal components.

Master Quinn could only stand there in stunned silence.

"..."

"!!!"

Kyle asked the great master once again whether he was absolutely certain about what he’d seen.

Truthfully, the exasperated mechanic understood why everyone was skeptical. After all, he’d stormed in yelling that everyone had lost their minds before following it up with a frantic explanation that, when boiled down, amounted to, "They’ve been possessed!"

Then Master Quinn suddenly remembered that he hadn’t come empty-handed.

Without another word, he set Master Allan back on his feet before pulling him forward as undeniable evidence.

The unfortunate old mechanic stumbled several steps before regaining his balance, still visibly dizzy after being carried across the arena like some unremarkable sack.

Surprisingly, however, once the master mechanic of House Zorath got his bearings, he sounded nothing like someone who’d supposedly been possessed.

Instead, he immediately flew into a fit of outrage.

"What in the world are you people doing out here?" Master Allan demanded. "The examination has already started!"

He turned directly toward Master Quinn.

"You old fool! Are you trying to sabotage me?"

The master who had just been called a fool stared at him in disbelief. And had it not been for Allan looking like he’d been shaken and stirred, the angered Quinn would’ve given him a good old whacking.

"Forget the examination for a moment! What happened back in the waiting lounge?"

Master Allan looked genuinely confused.

"The waiting lounge?" he repeated. "What are you rambling about? Whatever you’re talking about couldn’t possibly be more important than the examination."

Off to one side, Luca, Xavier, and Kyle exchanged uncertain glances, unsure what to make of the situation.

Fortunately, D-29 had another way to verify Master Quinn’s claims.

The little system immediately tapped into the arena’s security and brought up every surveillance recording covering the waiting lounge that morning.

Sure enough, everything looked perfectly normal until the moment the Luxastra twins entered trailing behind their kingdom’s representative craftsmen.

And surprisingly, from that point on, the footage started becoming useless.

What immediately caught Xavier’s attention wasn’t the case of missing evidence, but the deliberate manipulation of just how much the cameras were allowed to see, if anything at all.

No wonder none of them had received an alert.

The surveillance hadn’t been disabled. It had simply been blocked by layer upon layer of human backs.

As though performing a perfectly rehearsed routine, the master mechanics themselves had unknowingly created every blind spot by repeatedly standing at precisely the right positions to obstruct the cameras’ views. Having one or two angles blocked at any given moment was perfectly normal, which was precisely why the arena had been equipped with overlapping surveillance from multiple directions.

Yet somehow, every camera that should’ve covered another’s blind spot just so happened to have someone standing in front of it as well.

Blocking one or two useful angles was normal. Blocking every useful angle at the same time, especially whenever the twins happened to pass through, was something else entirely.

__

After watching D-29 frantically cycle through holographic projections as though the little system itself couldn’t believe it’d overlooked something so important, Xavier decided to take a small gamble.

"It seems all those years are finally catching up to the twins," he remarked so casually that, had those words come from anyone but the usually stoic cadet, most people would’ve simply dismissed them.

Instead, the seemingly offhand comment immediately drew a reaction from the most unexpected person.

Master Allan stopped arguing with the other master mid-sentence, visibly flinching before turning toward the tall white-haired cadet. The latter simply stood there with his usual composed expression, his head tilted ever so slightly as though he’d merely made an idle observation instead of deliberately dangling bait.

Meanwhile, Luca had absolutely no idea what his husband was talking about.

But Kyle definitely did.

The long time adjutant, who knew exactly how frighteningly calculating his boss could be when he wanted information, smoothly picked up where Xavier left off.

"Oh," Kyle said thoughtfully. "Now that you mention it, I can see it too."

Master Allan’s ears twitched.

Beside him, Master Quinn narrowed his eyes, immediately sensing that something was off.

Luca, meanwhile, unknowingly played the role Xavier had been counting on him for.

"What is it?" he asked in genuine curiosity. "What do you see?"

Xavier looked toward the projection again before answering matter-of-factly.

"See that? That’s a wrinkle they definitely didn’t have before."

"?!"

Luca’s golden eyes widened.

He looked back at the live hologram of the arena, then at the twins, then back at Xavier again, genuinely unable to understand why the conversation had suddenly shifted toward wrinkles.

But surprisingly, Kyle nodded in agreement despite the Guide’s confusion.

"Well, it’s only natural. You realize that we could only hope to reach that gratingly old age and end up with just one obvious wrinkle, right?"

"Huh?" Luca blinked. "Old?"

"Yeah," Kyle replied with complete seriousness. "Old. Like rickety, ancestor-greeting old."

Luca immediately whipped his head toward Kyle and his own husband.

Right on cue, the wolfish Prince casually added, "True. At around three hundred years old, a single wrinkle really shouldn’t be much of a concern."

"!!!"

Very much unlike the towers next to him, the golden-eyed returnee was anything but casual after hearing that number and having his mind run through some very important scenarios.

His eyes slowly widened in disbelief before he finally locked in on something and blurted out, "How could three-hundred-year-old grandpas pursue Big Brother Killian?!"

That was all it took.

Just as Xavier and Kyle had anticipated, the more they spoke about the twins’ age, the more visibly agitated Master Allan became. Then Luca unknowingly delivered the finishing blow by calling them grandpas, causing the master mechanic of House Zorath to practically launch himself toward the group as though he intended to settle the matter with his fists.

Master Quinn, who finally felt vindicated despite thoroughly hating every second of this bizarre ordeal, immediately pointed at Allan.

"See?! Possessed, I’m telling you!" he cried. "Those already hopeless lunatics have somehow become even more feral! What are we supposed to do now?!"

Well, apparently, the answer was to knock him unconscious.

And this time, the source of the solution was rather surprising.

"..."

"..."

Xavier, Kyle, and Master Quinn all turned toward Luca in complete disbelief.

The golden-eyed cadet stood there panting, not because he was exhausted but because he looked genuinely distressed by everything happening around him.

The little chipmunk, after spending far too much time around questionable influences, had just casually knocked out a seemingly possessed master mechanic only to look up with those clear eyes while saying,

"Hasn’t this always been effective?" he asked uncertainly, but only after the deed had been done.

Watching Master Allan collapse to the floor, Xavier couldn’t help wondering whether he ought to pay closer attention to exactly what kind of things his beloved had been watching lately.

Then again, maybe he ought to look at his own reflection first.

After all, who was it that offhandedly said sometimes it was fine to shoot first before asking questions later.