Awaiting soft rains(An extra's novel)-Chapter 93: Bullies
It was now officially day two of the search.
I’d spent yesterday evening harassing two more groups of nobles to cover my tracks. Although they weren’t as compliant as the first group, it wasn’t something a little intimidation from Rowan and Alexa couldn’t fix. After all, I only went after nobles with potentials of A-rank or lower.
It was also quite fortunate that all the suspects weren’t really important characters in the novel. It would’ve been an issue if the skinwalker infected anyone with even a potential of S-rank, let alone the higher ranks.
Regardless, I continued the search once again today.
By now, both Rowan and Alexa were used to the flow of the operation; as a result of that, I’d gotten even fewer complaints from Rowan.
’Well, he was bound to stop after being ignored enough times.’
We’d made good time, beginning our search immediately after class. As a result, I’d been able to go through another set of suspects.
Three in the same group this time.
Unfortunately, once again, there was no sign of the skinwalker being present in any of them. We still had some time before classes started again, so I decided to go harass some more nobles to cover our tracks.
It was a waste of time, but the strategy seemed to work well. There hadn’t been any suspicious movements or behavioral changes in any of the suspects thus far.
I came to a halt before an unfamiliar classroom door. Shooting Rowan a glance, I asked,
"This is Gustav’s class, right?"
Rowan gave me a weird look but still replied.
"It is, but what are you planning on—"
"You have heard from Shin, right? About Gustav’s situation."
His eyes widened in realization.
"Ohhh... You should’ve said something earlier."
Rowan’s slouched form perked up, and I found myself staring at him curiously. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎
"Aren’t you going to complain or something?"
"Would it change anything?"
"No. Probably not."
Then the boy shrugged.
"Might as well enjoy it, then."
Alexa stayed silent throughout the conversation. She’d rarely spoken throughout her time with us, besides when she was spoken to. Yet even she seemed to have a growing interest in our operations.
Her brow perked up the moment she noticed me looking at her. I shook my head.
"You just looked a bit distant."
"R-right. Sorry about that."
"It’s nothing to be sorry about."
After that, she forced her focus to be on me, though even then she couldn’t stop herself from taking glances at seemingly empty space.
’Let’s get this over with.’
I pushed the door open, stepping into a classroom nearly identical to mine. The only difference being the cadets present.
Murmurs erupted at my entrance, not a very surprising phenomenon given my actions yesterday had already begun making waves in the student circles.
Paying the crowd no mind, I looked to the back, scanning to find a particular set of faces.
’There.’
Gustav’s bullies sat at the very back of the class, a ragtag grouping of B- and A-rank potential cadets. The boy himself was seated not very far from them.
Shin got some information on them after asking around Gustav’s class.
I stepped in just in time to witness him being bullied.
One of the bullies, some black-haired brute, was pressing his foot against the back of Gustav’s chair. The rest were chatting and laughing with him.
It was so childish that I had to resist the urge to facepalm at the sight.
I led us up to them, most cadets giving us a wide berth to avoid getting caught up in any shenanigans. Even those affiliated with Varic gave way, the sight of Alexa alone being enough to deter them.
The group of three soon took notice of us. So did Gustav.
Rowan tossed him a quick wave; I awkwardly followed his lead. The boy didn’t know how to react to that, but his face brightened at the sight of us.
Whether it was from relief or embarrassment, I couldn’t tell.
I gestured Rowan forward, barely hearing the sound of him grumbling beneath his breath.
"Here we go again."
---
It wasn’t long before we had the three cadets lined up, standing and waiting to be searched. Fierce, defiant glares practically burned holes through me.
Gustav stood to the side, not knowing what to do.
"These are the guys that’ve been giving you issues, right, Gustav?"
Rowan asked the boy. He hesitated a bit before nodding.
"Yea—"
"Is that it? Why you’re doing this to us? To save this rat that can’t even defend himself? Are you kidding me?"
The brute cut Gustav off, looking at the boy with a heavy sort of disdain. Like he was looking at an ant.
"He—"
"Don’t get things twisted. As I said before, whatever you were doing to him before is none of our concern; we’ve only come in search of a stolen item."
The brute didn’t look like he believed me. Not for one second. I didn’t need him to, either.
Still looking to take his anger out on someone, the brute turned to Gustav, spewing more venom at him.
"Do you think they’ll always be here to help you? You’d think they’d teach you a thing or two about that in the slums. You hear that, orphan? When I get my fucking han—"
"Oh God, shut the fuck up."
I rubbed my head in frustration at the amount of hate spewing out of the brute’s mouth.
’I’m an orphan too, you know? The hell is wrong with that?’
I couldn’t even begin wrapping my head around what Gustav did to make them so mad; glancing at him only got me an equally confused and bruised face.
"Just keep it shut and let us search you. We’ll start deducting points otherwise. Don’t resist."
That was enough to get some quiet. But I wasn’t done with them yet.
I signaled Rowan and Alexa to start searching them, both going for the strongest-looking ones while I went for the weakest link.
I activated [Error Sense] before reaching him, but this time I wasn’t looking for a skinwalker. The moment I touched him, I found what I was looking for.
Heavy buzzing coming from his stomach.
Then, all of a sudden, I yelled.
"Hey! Hey! Stop resisting! Stop resisting!"
"I’m not—"
"Get them!"
I sucker-punched his stomach.
