High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1058: Chapter 120: A Smear of Feces

Since they had already distanced themselves from the troubles at the Lakeside of Bell Lake, Zheng Qing and his friends naturally reached a silent agreement not to discuss the matter any further. They parted ways in a secluded lawn behind the academy, each going their separate directions.

A night passed without incident.

The following day, at noon, Xin Fat Man took a stroll around the Lakeside of Bell Lake under the pretext of ’picking herbs’ and finally understood the cause of last night’s accident.

It turned out that the reason why the patrol team erupted in anger at the Lakeside of Bell Lake and provoked the Fishmen was that they had found a large pile of Fishman excrement dumped in front of the Book Mountain Library during their patrol. Moreover, the stone pillars at the entrance were smeared with a few bizarre symbols written crudely in feces.

Although subsequent investigations confirmed that these symbols had no magical fluctuations and no definitive meaning—seemingly just someone venting discontent—the behavior had very negative repercussions.

At that time, under the watchful eyes of the patrollers, it was clear to see wet trails extending from Bell Lake all the way to the front of Book Mountain Library, much like tracks left by Fishmen dragging their heavy steps.

Furthermore, with the recent frictions between the Fishmen and the Academy, and the conflicts between the Fishmen and the patrol team, some hot-blooded young members of the patrol team, fueled by anger, gathered by the lake shore to summon the Fishmen for a confrontation.

The Fishmen who responded were not easy to deal with either, continually speaking of ’territorial autonomy’ and demanding solid evidence from these young wizards, all while being uncooperative and laced with sarcasm. Most of the patrol team members were already temperamental fellows punished for violating school rules and regulations, so a conflict naturally erupted after a few words.

”So what happened in the end? What was the result of the conflict?” Zheng Qing, holding a Divination book in his arms, was adding new ’Divination trend lines’ to his line drawing as instructed by the book, curious about the outcome of last night’s turmoil, ”I remember many patrollers were sent flying by that water dragon of the Fishmen... Did anyone get hurt?”

Xin Fat Man, who had been busy all morning, came back and rambled on at length, was by then parched.

Upon hearing Zheng Qing’s question, he did not respond immediately but picked up a cup of green tea brewed by the Sprites and took a big gulp before he finally sighed, ”Hurt? Naturally, being struck directly by the water dragon, injuries were inevitable... But those Fishmen didn’t have it easy either. I heard one of them had their body stained with indelible colored paint by the patrol team’s magic, and another had its fins torn. It was so dark and chaotic, and nobody could clearly tell who started the fight or who hurt whom.”

”It wasn’t easy for the patrol team either. Apart from those few guys who were hit by the water dragon and broke bones, I also heard some patrol members were nauseated by the stench of those stinky Fishmen, leaving a mess on the ground that grossed out passing students!”

Zheng Qing had experienced the foul smell from the Fishmen on his first day at the school.

Watching the Fat Man animatedly describe it, Zheng Qing seemed to visualize the chaotic scene by the lake and suddenly felt his stomach churning.

”So, it’s just a muddled mess, right?” Dylan’s head retracted back from the edge of the coffin, sounding rather stuffy.

The Fat Man, gulping down his tea, shrugged and agreed with Dylan’s summary.

”Ah,” Xiao Xiao cradled Tuan Tuan in his arms, grooming its fur and sighed, ”History likes to play jokes on people. The rivalry between Alpha Academy and Jiuyou Academy escalated from an unexpectedly trivial issue.”

Zheng Qing arched his eyebrows, sensing the deeper meaning behind Xiao Xiao’s words.

”It shouldn’t have come to that,” he hesitated, ”It was just a minor private matter concerning the Fishman Tribe, how could it impact the relationship between the two academies? Even if last night’s conflict was just an internal dispute within the academy.”

”Before the Serbian substitute hunter killed the ’Beacon Demon’ in ’Super Hunting Ground,’ no one would have thought that in the next moment, the Demon King’s giant hand would tear through the sky of the hunting ground; similarly, when the Big Wizard Leibniz explained his paper ’A Brief Description of the Linear Conditions of the Universe’ at the World Wizards’ Convention in 1895, he could not have imagined that, decades later, this article would pave the way for the feast of Dimensionism and become the basis of Forbidden Curses.”

Xiao Xiao shook his head and promptly dispelled Zheng Qing’s doubts with two examples: ”In this world, everything is interconnected; just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean those hidden, dangerous connections don’t exist.”

The doctor’s words always provoked deep reflection, and the dormitory fell silent for a while.

Perhaps because the grooming was soothing, Tuan Tuan lazily stretched its paws in Xiao Xiao’s arms and cozily started to purr, its rumbling sound exceptionally clear in the quiet dorm room, drawing the Sprites to look on with perched wings.

Zheng Qing also felt the atmosphere was somewhat oppressive.

He rustled through the textbook in his hand and turned to look at Xin Fat Man, ”Speaking of which, why are you back so late? I thought being a journalist, you would gather some information quickly.”

”Because I was ’collecting medicine’!” replied Xin Fat Man, with an exasperated and drawn-out complaint: ”Heaven have mercy, the Fishmen smeared too much slime by the lake, making a large area stink... The School Works Committee won’t clean up those ’evidences’ before a thorough investigation of the incident is completed at the academy. Absolutely insane.”

”Did you really go ’collecting medicine’?” Zheng Qing turned around, curiously scrutinizing the fat man: ”I thought that was just an excuse.”

The so-called ’collecting medicine’ is akin to ’gathering herbs’. However, while herb gathering usually involves plants, medicine collecting involves picking up insect-type medicines. Lakeside of Bell Lake, as one of the most complex ecosystems within the academy, boasts many unique medicinal resources, and financially strapped students can ’collect on site’ after submitting an application to the academy for their studies.

”It couldn’t possibly be fake... This is a basic principle of our investigations,” mentioned Xin Fat Man, his round face radiating pride, looking quite amusing.

”What kind of medicine did you collect?” Xiao Xiao was quite interested in this.

Xin Fat Man rummaged in his bosom and pulled out a small bamboo-woven insect cage, shaking it in front of his roommates. Through the narrow slits of the cage, Zheng Qing could see two glossy crickets nestled together, seemingly stuck to one another.

”A natural pair of crickets! I turned over many stones to find this pair,” he boasted triumphantly, as if he had captured a Faceless Monster: ”Real wild ones, not those bugs raised together and forcibly paired up from the Pedestrian Street. Professor Li said that those forcibly paired bugs have too weak medicinal properties, reducing the efficiency of the medicine when used as a primer.”