Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 117: Two names

Chapter 117: Two names

By the time the last candle flickered out in the corridor, I was still sitting in front of the book.

Caspian Arvell.

A name that meant nothing, and yet gnawed at me like something half-remembered from a dream. The pages of the book remained stubbornly blank to ordinary eyes—but I wasn’t just relying on my eyes anymore.

With a flick of my wrist, I activated the Grimoire of Patterns. A silvery shimmer passed through my pupils as the skill aligned my senses to detect subtle, repeatable phenomena—shifts in mana flow, embedded sequences, pattern echoes. It didn’t immediately unlock the book’s secrets, but it did confirm one thing: this was enchanted.

Deeply.

And recently.

Which meant someone had planted it.

"Books with zero text and maximum attitude," I muttered. "I swear, one day I’ll just fake my own death and open a bakery."

Still, I flipped back to the first page and focused. Slowly, the faint runes reappeared—like they were being coaxed out of hiding by my attention. Most of them were unfamiliar, but a few shapes tickled my memory. Archaic constructs. Pre-Integration rune logic. Dead languages that even the library’s Index had given up on.

Which begged the question: who the hell was Caspian Arvell, and why was he writing in a script that predates half the academy’s wards?

I copied down a few symbols and stored them in the Grimoire. The page shimmered briefly—accepting the pattern, but not unlocking anything new. Damn. Not enough repetition. Not yet.

I leaned back and stretched, letting my mind wander. The Council would take days to deliberate. My students were back in their dorms, probably debating whether I had blackmail on someone or just scared the tribunal into submission. They weren’t entirely wrong.

A quiet knock broke the stillness.

"Open," I called.

The door creaked inward and Mira stepped through. Of course it was her. She didn’t knock unless she wanted to talk about something dangerous.

She eyed the book immediately. "You found something again, didn’t you?"

"I always find something. It’s whether or not it wants to be found that’s the issue." I tapped the name on the cover. "Ever heard of Caspian Arvell?"

Mira tilted her head, dark hair brushing against the hood of her cloak. "No... Wait—actually, maybe. That name was mentioned in one of the sealed archives on the third floor."

I blinked. "You were poking around the restricted sections again?"

She gave me a flat look. "You gave us an assignment on historical inconsistencies. I call that ’initiative.’"

"Right," I said, fighting a smirk. "Future felon material. You make me proud."

She ignored that. "The document mentioned a researcher who vanished before the first great curriculum war. That name—Caspian—was scribbled in the margins of a field report about anomalous mana behavior in the Weeping Vale."

My pulse quickened.

The Weeping Vale.

An ancient riftzone filled with twisted leyline fractures and unstable elemental pockets. Most researchers deemed it a deathtrap and left it alone. The same region Gale once mentioned during the faculty brawl night—carelessly, when trying to one-up Roderick on who’d survived the worst field assignment.

The pieces weren’t quite clicking yet, but something about this wasn’t coincidence.

I waved Mira closer and flipped the book around to show her the shifting runes. "Grimoire can pick up fragments, but this language’s dead. I’m thinking it’s a cipher—or something worse. There’s a reactive enchantment in the binding too. Can’t tell if it’s protective or predatory."

Mira knelt down, eyes narrowing as the runes swirled again. "Whatever this is... it’s old. Dangerous. And intentionally hidden in our library?"

"Seems like someone wanted me to find it," I said grimly. "And I don’t believe in friendly coincidences."

She glanced at me. "Are you going to report it?"

I stared at the book for a long moment before answering.

"No. Not yet."

There was too much risk. If the Council caught wind of this, it’d be locked up faster than you could say "arcane heresy." And the fact that it was tied to the Weeping Vale—an area avoided even by senior researchers—meant it likely had connections to deeper truths. The kind that got people silenced.

"Let me guess," Mira said, rising to her feet. "You want me to help dig."

"You read my mind."

She gave me a grin that was half challenge, half mischief. "Then I hope you’ve got snacks, Professor. I don’t do conspiracies on an empty stomach."

I chuckled despite myself and stood. "Go get Wallace. He’s good at decrypting weird crap. And tell Felix we might need a distraction tomorrow."

Mira paused. "Distraction for what?"

"For getting past the warded floor of the library without tripping every damn alarm," I said. "If Caspian left more clues, they’re either buried—or someone buried him trying to keep them that way."

She turned and walked off without a word.

I looked back at the book.

The pages were no longer blank.

Just before I closed it, one faint word burned itself across the lower corner of the page—flickering in gray ink only visible through the Grimoire’s lens:

"Observer."

No context. No explanation.

But I had a feeling this was the beginning of something much, much bigger.

And I wasn’t about to let it go.

I stared at the book like it had slapped me.

Just five minutes ago, the name Caspian Arvell had been etched clearly across the first page. No title, no preamble—just a name, as if it expected me to understand its weight. And I had. Caspian Arvell rang distant bells in my memory, not from the in-game storyline but from the scrapheap of theorycraft threads that half the fanbase dismissed as lorebait.

Now?

Gone.

I flipped the page again, and again. Blank. Every page now stared back with silent defiance, as if daring me to prove what I saw.

No magical tampering. No fading ink. No clever illusion spells.

Just... absence.

My stomach twisted.

I wasn’t hallucinating—I had the Grimoire of Patterns skill precisely so I wouldn’t forget important anomalies. And sure enough, when I activated the skill to cross-reference stored sequences, it pinged back:

___

[Pattern fragment retained: ’Caspian Arvell’ — Associated with lost artifact file. Unable to anchor. Warning: Volatile reference.]

___

Volatile reference.

Right. That’s new.

The Grimoire of Patterns didn’t store full spells or pages. It worked like a mental algorithm, sifting my memory and locking down recurring data—phrases, movements, mana weaves, anything that repeated enough to be patterned. I’d used it to dissect enemy tactics, extract half-formed spell structures, and even predict Mira’s signature feints during sparring.

But this?

This wasn’t a repeatable spell or technique.

It was a name.

A pattern in identity.

And now, it refused to stay still.

I looked back at the page—and froze.

Something else had appeared.

Written in the exact place Caspian Arvell’s name had once rested, in the same black ink but colder somehow, wrong, were the words:

"The Phantom Duelist is watching."

There was no flourish to the letters. No arcane energy. But the pressure they left behind—it was like standing too close to a deep well and hearing something whisper from the bottom.

"...You’ve got to be kidding me."

I closed the book. Slowly. Quietly. Like it might detonate if I slammed it.

This wasn’t just some forgotten footnote or NPC background. This was a red-flagged anomaly. An embedded warning.

The Phantom Duelist.

The name scraped at the back of my memory, digging at an old forum post—deep in a subthread about unused character models and unfinished duel systems. He wasn’t part of the official release. He was a ghost in the code. An invisible encounter that some claimed appeared during PvP events if certain conditions were met. A few swore they’d been "watched" mid-match, their screen flickering as their opponent’s pattern shifted like a possessed marionette.

But those were just myths.

...Right?

I leaned back in the chair, fingers tapping absently against the table as I ran possibilities.

Caspian Arvell wasn’t erased—he was subsumed.

Swallowed up by something deeper. Something that didn’t want him remembered.

And the fact that the Grimoire of Patterns could only hold a fragment of him? That was the scariest part. Patterns only became volatile when they contradicted current reality. As if even remembering him was now considered a kind of error.

Which meant I’d triggered something.

Or rather—someone had noticed I was poking where I shouldn’t.

"The Phantom Duelist is watching."

That wasn’t just a warning.

That was a stake in the ground. A declaration.

I glanced toward the window. The moon cast a pale sheen over the Academy’s outer towers, the dormitory roof below shrouded in fog. Everything looked peaceful.

Too peaceful.

My mana twitched involuntarily, like something had passed over my field of awareness.

No alarm spells triggered.

No barriers fell.

But for a heartbeat—I felt it. The weight of unseen eyes. Just there. Just out of reach.

I didn’t reach for my sword.

I reached for a quill.

Because if I was really being watched, then drawing steel wouldn’t help.

But writing it all down? Locking the event into a traceable timeline?

That might just keep me sane.

___

Phantom Duelist Log – Entry #001

— Encounter: Passive observation.

— Trigger: Investigation of missing figure ’Caspian Arvell.’

— Reaction: Book scrubbed, replaced by direct message.

— Hypothesis: Phantom Duelist is not a person but an emergent mechanic or system-bound entity. Possibly tied to abandoned duel frameworks or anti-lore discovery safeguards.

— Status: Observing. No confrontation yet.

___

I placed the log into a separate ledger. One I’d hide away from even Mira and Wallace, just in case.

Then I leaned back again and stared at the bookshelf. At the space where that damn volume had sat.

I didn’t know what game I’d just stepped into.

But someone was already playing it.

And now... so was I.