High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1280: Chapter 27 The Truth Behind the News

”Is this milk meant for humans? It tastes awful... Get me some sheep’s milk, thank you!”

After the sprites in gray uniforms served Big Black a cup of warm cow’s milk, the black cat merely licked it twice before spitting it out and demanded sheep’s milk.

”Are you human?”

Professor Yao, sitting behind his desk, finally lifted his eyelids and cast a glance at the black cat, implying, ”He’s much more polite than you; at least he wouldn’t complain about the taste of the tea in the office... Perhaps, this is the difference between the essence and the shadow?”

The black cat sneered, ignoring Old Yao’s comment, and continued to instruct the sprites to heat up sheep’s milk for it.

Unlike the overly familiar black cat, the young wizard in a green robe code-named ’Forty One’ behaved very properly, sitting upright on the side of the coffee table, hands on his knees, staring straight ahead as if in meditation, waiting for the office owner to meet them.

Old Yao continued to busy himself with the matters on his desk, seemingly having no desire to engage with these two uninvited guests anytime soon.

During the wait for the sheep’s milk to be served, the black cat glanced at the coffee table beside the sofa. Intricate spells subtly flowed within the red hardwood surface, adding layers of mystery to its heaviness.

In the red lacquered fruit bowl, several red fruits resembling plums were displayed; beside it, in a slender-necked vase, a bouquet made up of red tulips and Zhu gems were arranged; and also, a stack of thick folders, all in bright red.

”Boring segmentation.”

The black cat scorned the strong ’Jiuyou style’ evident in the office, ending its scrutiny on a copy of the First University Campus Newspaper scattered messily on the coffee table.

It noticed a small news snippet in one corner of the paper:

”... Local time, May second, the relevant departments of First University conducted a small scale Forbidden Curse experiment in a designated area, reportedly targeting no organizations or individuals. This experiment was an important measure by First University’s relevant departments to implement the school’s guiding philosophy ’Endless Seas of Learning’ and upgrade the existing Forbidden Curse safety system...”

The content was almost identical to what had been published in the Beta Town Post.

The only difference was that the Beta Town Post placed this ’news snippet’ in the corner of the front page, while the campus newspaper placed it under the News Brief section.

The focus of the reports between the post and the campus newspaper wasn’t the same for the first time.

Just like the reports about Nicholas’s bloodletting incident, the Beta Town Post took up an entire page, highlighting the immense pressure Nicholas faced while studying at Jiuyou Academy and continuously hinting that Jiuyou’s flawed educational philosophy caused the young wizard to lose his sanity; whereas the campus newspaper spent much of its space analyzing the conflict between Jiuyou Academy and Alpha Academy, attempting to frame Nicholas’s incident as a tragedy arising from the conflict between the two academies. The actual harm suffered by Nicholas was only briefly mentioned at the beginning of the article, and the accompanying pictures were of the backs of Lei Zhe and Augustus.

The black cat stared at the report about the news snippet, but its thoughts had already drifted to the purpose of their visit.

’Forty One’ and its purpose for visiting Old Yao’s office today were straightforward, they were there to demand the data concerning the explosion that had occurred the previous Saturday night in the depths of Silent Forest—yes, the ’small-scale forbidden spell experiment’ mentioned in the tofu block report.

However, the experiment was neither led by the ’relevant government department’ nor was it ’in compliance with related legal regulations’ as mentioned in the news reports. In fact, the department responsible for managing forbidden spells had received the report about the explosion more than an hour after it had ended.

The School Works Committee had intercepted the information about the explosion and did not notify the ’relevant department’ until after the site had been cleaned up.

According to regulations, any explosion accident on Buji Island that exceeded a certain scale had to be reported to the relevant department—whose primary duties involved guardianship, thus their onsite response efficiency was even lower than that of the School Works Committee or the Assistant Team.

After being notified, the relevant department simply conducted a brief inspection at the scene and realized their mistake.

But by the time they realized what had happened in Silent Forest, the place was spotlessly white, even cleaner than if Corpse-eating Insects had passed through. Nevertheless, based on the dimensional fracture severity and the residual magic power traces found at the scene, the relevant department could definitively conclude that this was not an accident of a ’Storage Explosion Rune Warehouse losing control’ but rather a small-scale, nearly critical ’pseudo-forbidden spell’ accident.

This conclusion caused a cold sweat for the relevant department.

It also made them very annoyed—since the head of the relevant department, Master Baoyangzi, and two university principals were all in Black Prison, they couldn’t immediately hold the School Works Committee or the Professor Joint Meeting accountable for this incident in a short time. Out of urgency, they had no choice but to dispatch a wizard to demand the explosion data collected by the school.

Then, they hit a soft nail.

Saturday night, the wizard sent to request the data received a response from the School Works Committee and the Professor Joint Meeting stating that as it was outside of working hours, the relevant data were secured in a ’safe’ and required the permission of both vice-principals to access.

This posed a paradox—since the vice-principals were in Black Prison, it was difficult to get their permission; and if they could get the vice-principals’ permission, theoretically, they could also receive guidance from Master Baoyangzi.

Since they controlled the most powerful spells in the Wizard World, any action by the relevant department was severely restricted, leaving them tied up in dealing with this matter.

After perceiving the evasive attitude of the School Works Committee and the Professor Joint Meeting, the ’relevant department’ internally discussed briefly before directly exposing the issue.

They arranged for the external department to publish the ’tofu block’ in the Campus Newspaper.

This is why the Beta Town Post, which first reported the Silent Forest explosion incident and was published earlier, differed in wording from that of the First University publication—the Beta Town Post could only determine that a ’small-scale special magic experiment’ had occurred due to limited information sources, whereas the Campus Newspaper, authorized by the ’relevant department,’ directly mentioned the word ’forbidden spell.’

The stance of the ’relevant department’ was clear—since they could not act out of urgency to obtain the relevant explosion data, they decided to take responsibility for the explosion themselves and, following standard procedures, requested the university to provide the relevant data and divination clues.

”This is the official notification from the ’relevant department’ requesting the School Works Committee and the Professor Joint Meeting to assist in the investigation, along with the relevant application materials.”

During a tea-drinking break in Old Yao’s busy schedule, ’Forty One’ finally had the chance to make its point, ”... The ’relevant department’ has a clear stance, hoping other school departments strictly adhere to the regulations established by the principals and strictly control the spread and use of ’forbidden spells.’”

”Uh, this matter,” Old Yao dragged out his tone, pointing at the calendar on the table and slowly answered, ”... if it’s not urgent, you might wait a few more minutes... It’s already May... The rotating chair of the May Professor Joint Meeting is Professor Emma, and later, she will come over to hand over affairs with me, and you can bring up your concerns to her then.”