Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 109: Archive

Chapter 109: Archive

The next day started with rain.

Not the dramatic kind that rolled in with thunder and fury—no. This was the slow, annoying drizzle that made everything damp, sticky, and irritable. A perfect match for my mood.

"Of all the days to start with library duty," I muttered, tugging my coat tighter around me as I stepped across the slick flagstones. "And they wonder why I drink."

The Grand Archive was an ancient structure grafted into the mountain’s spine. Towering spires of black-stone and weathered copper jutted skyward, and the faint scent of old paper and dust hit the moment I pushed through the double doors. The place reeked of forgotten knowledge and burned-out scholars.

It also happened to be a maze.

Rows upon rows of floating platforms, bookshelves that moved when you weren’t looking, and staircases that didn’t follow basic geometry. A bibliophile’s dream. A sane man’s nightmare.

"Professor Drelmont?" A meek voice cut through the silence.

A nervous first-year assistant wearing oversized glasses and a uniform two sizes too big handed me a satchel of scrolls and a thin black card with a sigil embossed in silver.

"Here’s your temporary access pass. Restricted section levels one through four. Please don’t set anything on fire."

"...I’m not the one you need to worry about," I muttered, staring at the card.

I wasn’t here for leisure reading.

After what I saw in the Vault, I needed answers. The kind not found in the beginner’s alchemy texts or flashy battle manuals students liked to quote for prestige.

I needed the deep stuff.

Forgotten histories. Censored accounts. Conspiracy logs filed away under "miscellaneous arcane anomalies."

Luckily, I was the kind of bastard willing to dig.

"’A Concise Guide to Blood-Glyph Etiquette.’ Nope."

"’Transmutative Harmonics for Non-Harmonic Constructs.’ Still no."

"’On the Nature of Pattern Resonance and its Failures in Early Binding Rituals.’ ...Maybe later."

I tossed another scroll onto the ever-growing pile beside me and reached for the next.

The Archive was quiet—eerily so. The usual gentle hum of enchantments was missing, like something had disturbed the ambient wards. I didn’t like that.

Halfway through a particularly warped tome titled "The Veiled Mirrors of Eidros: Unconfirmed Sightings and Their Theoretical Implications," I heard footsteps.

Not the dainty kind you’d expect from a timid assistant or an overenthusiastic student. These were slow. Deliberate.

Like someone didn’t care if they were heard.

I didn’t look up.

"Unless you’re here to tell me the secrets of the universe or offer me coffee, come back later."

The footsteps stopped.

And then—

"You always were dramatic," came a low voice. Smooth. Familiar.

Too familiar.

I looked up.

Alexander Gale.

Still smug. Still polished. Still the kind of man who wore cologne to a battlefield.

He strolled toward my table with that same confident gait, eyes scanning the piles of forbidden texts I’d assembled.

"Looking for bedtime stories?" he asked.

"Looking for a way to make you disappear without paperwork."

He chuckled. "Tense, Lucian. Very tense. But you’re not drinking today, so I’d say progress."

"What do you want?"

"I came to talk. See how Class C’s little victory is treating you."

I leaned back, arms crossed. "Cut the fluff. You don’t make casual visits unless there’s a dagger tucked inside the greeting."

Gale’s smile thinned. "Let’s call it... a professional courtesy. There’s been noise. The administration isn’t happy that your little misfits outperformed expectations. Especially since some of them weren’t supposed to survive."

There it was.

I stood up slowly, chair legs scraping stone. "You saying there was a hit on my class?"

He raised his hands in mock defense. "Not in so many words. But you’ve stirred the pot. And pots, Lucian... boil."

"If you had a point, you missed it."

"The point," he said, stepping closer, "is that some people are starting to think you’re more dangerous than you let on. The Grimoire, the way you trained those brats, the results. And now... you’re digging here."

I said nothing.

"You’re looking into things that aren’t meant to be uncovered. The Vault, the dead gods, the Blight incidents. Someone upstairs is watching."

"Let them," I said coldly.

He smirked. "I admire your optimism."

Then, like nothing had happened, he turned and walked away.

By the time I returned to the classroom, the rain had stopped, replaced by thick fog curling over the academy grounds like fingers looking for a neck to squeeze.

Class C was already gathered.

Somewhat.

Felix was asleep against a wall, drooling slightly. Mira sat perched atop a desk, flipping through a rune-carving guide while muttering, "Useless... All of these diagrams are wrong." Garrick was doing push-ups. With a desk on his back.

Julien leaned against the doorframe. "Welcome back, Professor. Did the library finally kick you out for intimidating the scrolls?"

"Worse," I said. "I ran into Gale."

Mira snorted. "And you didn’t kill him?"

"Unfortunately, jail time would interfere with lesson planning."

I stepped to the front of the room, eyes narrowing. "Alright, degenerates. Today’s lesson is simple: you’re all dumb, and we’re going to fix that."

"Didn’t we just survive an attempted massacre?" Leo piped up from the back.

"Yes. Which only proves my point. Somehow, even with the threat of death, you managed to make survival look like an accident."

I tossed a bundle of papers onto the front desk. Assignments.

Wallace groaned. "I thought we were heroes now."

"Heroes still need to know how to decipher pattern glyphs, otherwise they become dead heroes," I said. "Today, we review Pattern Failures."

Felix raised his hand. "What’s a Pattern Failure?"

"A term you’ll become intimately familiar with if you ever try casting a glyph while thinking about lunch," I said dryly. "Or if you’re Leo, and you somehow manage to confuse a binding sigil with a fart rune."

"That was one time!" Leo shouted.

The room burst into laughter.

"Exactly," I said. "One time is all it takes to explode yourself into paste."

We spent the next hour going over theoretical rune interactions—specifically, how resonance patterns affected nearby inscriptions. It was tedious, painful work.

And vital.

But halfway through, something strange happened.

Cassandra raised her hand.

She never spoke during lectures. Never asked questions. Never showed curiosity in anything outside of battle.

"Yes, Ghost?"

"Where did Pattern Theory come from originally?" she asked.

The class went silent.

"Most textbooks skip over the origin," she continued. "They just say it was discovered by early Ardent scholars. But that doesn’t explain the similarities to the Binding Tongue used by the Outer Tribes."

I studied her face.

She wasn’t just asking to show off.

She knew something.

Or had seen something.

"That’s classified history," I said slowly. "Even I don’t have access to the full records. But your instincts aren’t wrong."

She nodded, then fell silent again.

I moved on, but my thoughts were racing.

Cassandra wasn’t just observant. She was poking into forbidden knowledge. Like me.

Another thread pulled loose.

After class, I called Julien to my office.

He stepped in, closed the door, and slumped into the chair across from me.

"Let me guess. You’re going to ask if I pissed on the Administrator’s carpet again."

"...You what?"

"Nothing."

I rubbed my temples. "No. I need your help."

Julien blinked. "I’m scared."

"I want you to start watching the other instructors. Quietly. Especially Gale."

Julien leaned forward. "You think they’re planning something?"

"I know they are. And I need a set of eyes that doesn’t answer to the staff chain."

He nodded. "I can do that. Anything specific I’m looking for?"

"Patterns," I said.

He groaned. "Ugh, I thought we were done with those."

"Not the ink kind. Behavioral. Power plays. Meetings. Who they talk to. Who they avoid. Especially around the Arcane Archives."

Julien stood. "Got it. You owe me snacks."

"Buy your own snacks."

He paused. "Fair. I still want cake, though."

That night, I returned to the Archives.

The assistant was gone.

So were the other scholars.

The lights dimmed as I stepped deeper in. Only one platform glowed.

It was waiting for me.

I stepped on.

It carried me downward—deeper than the sanctioned levels. Past floor four. Into floor five.

Restricted. Off-limits.

Unmapped.

The light there was different. Soft. Blue. Ancient.

And the first thing I saw when the platform stopped...

...was a mural.

Painted across the stone wall in faded color was a sigil I had only seen once before.

In the Vault.

Beneath it, etched in ancient ink, was a single phrase:

"The Pattern Remembers."

And something inside me—

Froze.

Because I remembered it too.