The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] Chapter 1325: Enrollment Waivers

Most people probably wouldn’t readily admit it for the sake of saving face and maintaining the dignity of an institution as prestigious as the Royal Military Academy...

But the administrators would be lying to everyone and themselves if they claimed they weren’t overly concerned about Princess Kira’s well-being.

After all, if she suffered any serious harm during this exercise, they would likely have to answer to one extremely exacting Orc King. And in the absolute worst-case scenario, if she actually died...

Well...

No amount of enrollment waivers would save them from him.

Of course, they were well aware of the princess’s strength and had certainly been reminded often enough by her direct instructor that she was a woman of...

Even so, Princess Tharkira and her trusted aide remained important foreign delegates who really shouldn’t come to any unreasonable harm during what was supposed to be a relatively short stay in the Empire.

Needless to say, the spectators really didn’t need another thing to stress about, and they especially didn’t need someone suddenly saying, "Uhhh, Sir... we can’t seem to access the security cameras in the sector closest to Battalion 9’s current location."

"What?!" one of the instructors barked, his eyes widening as he immediately leaned over the technician’s shoulder.

They could still see what the cadets themselves were seeing through the roving cameras trained directly on them. But considering Princess Kira’s earlier reaction, and for the sake of their increasingly fragile hearts, the administrators had wanted to check the surrounding area in advance, just as a precaution.

So what the hell was this?!

"What do you mean you can’t access them?!" the Vice Principal snapped, slamming a hand against the control console.

"That’s just it, Sir." The technician visibly wilted beneath everyone’s glares. "Upon checking, we found a report from two weeks ago stating that the area had been affected by seismic activity. The quakes damaged the power delivery infrastructure across several sections, but since the nearest mining facility had already been decommissioned and was scheduled to be permanently sealed, there was no immediate operational need to repair it."

"Moreover..." another staff member cautiously added, "that entire section is actually well outside the scope of the intelligence provided to the cadets."

The unspoken meaning was painfully obvious. There had been absolutely no reason to waste resources repairing surveillance infrastructure in an abandoned section of the planet that wasn’t even supposed to be relevant to the exercise, especially when the cadets already had mobile drones monitoring them anyway.

Besides, who the hell would’ve expected anyone to wander all the way over there?!

The Vice Principal and several instructors could only close their eyes in collective exasperation, taking a moment to remind themselves that there was no point getting angry at something nobody could’ve reasonably anticipated. After one long breath, the Vice Principal instructed the staff to follow up on that other report they’d requested earlier, which, for some inexplicable reason, hadn’t arrived.

But just as the staff began carrying out his directive, someone suddenly blurted out, "What is Her Highness planning on doing?"

Everyone’s attention immediately snapped back toward the projection.

Onscreen, Princess Kira had raised one finger to her lips, signaling the rest of her team to remain quiet, although the gesture was arguably unnecessary when everyone else had already been as silent as humanly possible from the moment she’d abruptly stopped moving earlier.

Kira momentarily set aside the task of dealing with their confusion and concentrated on the subtle rustling coming from somewhere deeper within the tunnel, along with a strange, distinct scent drifting through the damp, mineral-heavy air.

Deciding that whatever she’d noticed was probably worth reporting, she accessed her terminal and sent a quick message to Kyle, who was currently checking another route with a separate portion of Battalion 9.

[Hey. I think we have company.]

One of the B9 cadets cautiously crept closer, his hand hovering nervously over his weapon holster. "Your Highness... What is it? Do we need to prepare for something?"

Kira turned, already intending to tell everyone to remain vigilant, only for her ears to suddenly twitch at another sound coming from much deeper in the shadows.

She froze.

There it was again.

A faint yelp reached her ears, so quiet and distant that most of the cadets around her probably wouldn’t have heard a thing. But Kira’s extremely sensitive hearing caught it clearly enough to make her brows slowly furrow.

Now, maybe she was going through something, or perhaps she was so hungry for Luca’s mouth-watering food that she’d finally started hallucinating, because since when did either the Caldris Hostiles or any of those Imperial cadets sound like screeching

__

In a perfect world, the best answer would’ve been

After all, the entire reason for taking up arms in the first place was to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves just yet.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared the same objectives, as reflected by those who simply didn’t know when to stop.

Back at the makeshift facility that never should’ve existed, an unexpected development was beginning to stir even greater unease.

"Get up! Move it!"

Jibb’s harsh, raspy voice echoed through the damp stone corridors as he shoved his way into the holding cells, herding the miserable captives out so they could begin that day’s shift.

He’d already woken up on the wrong side of a nonexistent bed, and never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined falling so far from grace that be the one stuck doing this kind of work.

Even now, he couldn’t stop thinking about the revenge he’d take once he finally got back and what he’d do to everyone responsible for putting him through this unnecessary suffering.

That impudent Veeka...

Once they returned to the Outer Rim, he’d definitely take an eye.

Maybe even an ear.

Better yet, why stop there when he could simply take of her?

She’d practically sold her soul and betrayed her own brethren. As far as Jibb was concerned, only those equally delusional would bother stopping him when he’d clearly be doing every other crew a favor by getting rid of a traitor like her.

Another alarm suddenly rang through the tunnels, dragging Jibb away from his increasingly pleasant fantasies and back to the trembling people in front of him.

Right.

He still had a long way to go.

His revenge would have to wait.

Then again, who was to say he couldn’t take a few liberties in the meantime when everyone else seemed perfectly happy to do the same?