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When I returned from Raum, I explained the investigation results to Den and went to sleep right after. This was because Finia and Letina were already sleeping. Den would tell Finia tomorrow, while I could tell Letina during classes, so there were no problems with that.

This wasn’t the kind of information I had to share as soon as possible, after all.

Then, come morning, I conveyed it to Letina, and she became enraged as I expected. Given her strong sense of justice, this was a natural reaction.

“Not just forbidden medicine but even monster spores, you say?! Is that how he treats a human’s life?!”
“Calm down, Letina. You shouldn’t speak like that in front of other people.”
“I know that, but I can’t hide my anger at such an inhuman deed.”
“Yeah, I can tell.”

Nevertheless, disclosing that when we don’t know who could be listening would put her own life in danger. She also understood that too, so once I warned her, she made sure not to speak any details.

“Still, I wonder where he obtained rare ingredients like that?”
“They are designated as subjugation targets so it’s not something you can normally obtain. Maybe he hired Adventurers and had them… No, that would leave big traces behind.”

Unless they were his exclusive Adventurers, they would continue on to take other works too. There was no certainty that they wouldn’t reveal anything during those times. Moreover, with no mutual trust between them, they could even start coercing Cain too.

No matter how much of a greenhorn of a noble he may be, he should’ve figured out that much.

“Ah, so he’s using the academy for that?”
“The magic academy?”
“I mean those off-campus training. Maybe they are replenishing their spoils during those times? The thing in question resides in the forest too, so bringing its spores—I mean, pollen— secretly shouldn’t prove to be too difficult.”
“But would they be able to find them so conveniently?”
“Well, I’m not… wait.”

Actually, Fungus could parasitize both animals and humans.

It had a five-day-long incubation period after parasitizing, and once that’s passed, the person would lose their consciousness and turn into a monster that attacks by instinct alone.

If we assume that he has those spores that are the source of that infection…

“Don’t tell me, is he creating and harvesting them himself?”
“Huh?”
“If he locked the host in some sturdy cage and parasitized them, after a few days…”
“What—?!”

It would be easy to take down a Fungus that’s locked in a cage and is unable to move. And you could keep on harvesting the spores from the corpse anytime without any effort.

And as long as you kept procuring new hosts, you could keep infecting them over and over. It didn’t have to be animals either. A Fungus could infect both animals and humans, after all.

“And there is a high possibility that they have already procured several hosts.”
“You mean… the Adventurers that I had dispatched, right?”
“It’s only just a guess, but I can’t forgive them if they’re using humans like pulpwood for mushrooms.”

I had no conclusive evidence. So that things would come to light, we had to pin down their headquarters soon. I was spurred by such an impulse. If the Adventurers before us were turned into prey, I wanted to quickly set them free.

“Letina. Sorry, but tell them I’m on sick leave today.”
“Alright. I will convey that to the homeroom teacher.”

She was probably feeling the same, so she quickly approved my leave.

Then I used my Stealth Gift and returned to the dorm, avoiding the human eyes. I wanted to investigate Cain’s room once more.

After tentatively returning to the dorm, I rushed to Cain’s private room. Of course, not from the front but from the backyard wall. I peeked inside the window while clinging to the wall, and once I confirmed that there was no one inside, I opened the lock and easily succeeded in sneaking in like the last time.

And this time I went around carefully investigating every part, but I still couldn’t find any suspicious evidence.

“S̲h̲i̲t̲, that guy is very careful, so he should have something hidden somewhere.”

Because he was so careful, he wouldn’t entrust the evidence to someone and let them dispose or control it. People like him were the types to keep things that could become their weaknesses near them to monitor them.

So I was thinking that the most likely candidate for that was a hidden place in his room, but…

“Does he have a place somewhere aside from here…? But if so, he would feel anxious if it was too far away. It must be somewhere here…”

My impatience to discover it got the better of me and my search became too sloppy. But this time, that was exactly the reason why I succeeded. I accidentally bumped my back on the coat hanger, which in turn hit the wall.

It gave off a dull and heavy sound. Mixed with it was the sound of collision that left echoes like that of a drum. It was slightly different compared to the usual sound a wall would give off when hit.

“What is it on the other side…?”

His room was a corner room that faced the south. In other words, beyond this wall should be the outside. And yet, it returned an echo…

“So there’s a hidden room!”

I stood near the southern wall, then measured steps to the window from there, and peeked outside. I didn’t notice it when I looked from the outside, but there was certainly a few steps worth of mismatch in the thickness of the wall.

The way it looked, it seemed that the wall on the southern side was at least two meters longer.

Of course, I did consider the existence of a hidden room even the first time I came here. But back then, I was specifically looking for any switches to a hidden room, so I seem to have overlooked the wall thickness.

“But this room had no such entrance. Wait, maybe it’s not in this room.”

There was no need for the entrance to be in this room. It could be on either of the three sides outside the dorm, but it could be found like that.

He wouldn’t have felt at ease if anyone could get to it. Then it should be somewhere else. A place other than the three sides facing the southern wall…

“Could it be at the end of the corridor?”

Cain’s room was at the southern end. In other words, it was at the corridor’s end. And the opposite of him, like everyone else, was the servant room.

In other words, the only people coming to the end of this corridor were either Cain himself or his servants.

“I’ve finally grabbed your tail, you conceited b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲.”

I spoke as the corners of my mouth rose up into a hound-like smile.