Villainous Instructor at the Academy
Chapter 164: Swampwater

Chapter 164: Swampwater

Night fell on the Dorne estate like a blanket soaked in ink. No stars. No moon. Just the dull hum of swamp insects and the occasional plop of something slipping beneath the murky water outside.

I couldn’t sleep. That in itself wasn’t unusual.

But the reason I couldn’t sleep this time wasn’t just paranoia.

It was instinct.

There was something off about this place. Not cursed, not magical—just wrong. The kind of wrong that made your skin itch and your instincts scream that something was watching from behind the trees.

And maybe it was.

Footsteps in the Hall

I rose from bed silently, tugging on my coat and blade. The manor’s corridors were dim, lit by lanterns that flickered as though disturbed by more than wind.

As I stepped into the hall, I heard voices.

Low. Hushed. Urgent.

I turned the corner and nearly bumped into Felix.

He jumped back, wide-eyed. "Professor?! What are you—?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

He glanced down the hallway. "I... I just needed to walk."

"Walk into whatever’s making your face look like it saw a ghost?" I tilted my head. "Try again."

Felix looked like he wanted to protest. Then his shoulders slumped.

"There was a meeting in the cellar earlier. Servants. Two men I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t hear everything, but they mentioned a shipment... and ’the bloodwood.’"

My brow furrowed.

Bloodwood?

In Sword of Radiance lore, that was the name of a rare parasitic tree that fed on magical creatures—and sometimes on people. Highly illegal. Highly dangerous.

And often used in ritual crafting.

"...You’re not imagining things," I said after a moment. "There’s rot under this estate. And I don’t mean the swamp."

Meanwhile, Back in the Guest Room

Mira sat cross-legged on her bed, flicking her fingers idly through the shadows. "So who’s next? Ghost? Cult? Long-lost sibling with a vengeance complex?"

Julien groaned. "Can we not tempt fate?"

Wallace was scribbling notes by candlelight. "I’m logging every suspicious noise. So far, we’ve had: dragging chains, a scream that sounded like a goat, and someone humming Twilight Hymn in reverse."

"Classic cult ambiance," Mira said cheerfully.

Garrick lay on the floor, snoring like a possessed bear.

Cassandra sat by the window. Watching. Always watching.

Outside the Manor

Felix and I circled the back of the estate, avoiding the main paths.

"Why didn’t you tell anyone this earlier?" I asked.

"Because..." he hesitated. "Because I didn’t think they’d care. The Dorne family isn’t important enough. We’re not a House that matters. We’re not worth investigating."

I stopped walking.

"Listen to me, Felix. You think importance comes from the name above your door?" I tapped his chest. "It comes from what you do. So if there’s something rotten here—and you’re the one who noticed—then that makes you very important."

Felix blinked at me.

Then he smiled. Just a little.

"...Thanks, Professor."

I grunted. "Don’t get used to it."

In the Shadows of the Swamp

Across the still water, deep beyond the reeds, something moved.

Slender. Cloaked.

And watching us.

I wasn’t fond of swamps. Too damp. Too loud. Too alive in the worst ways.

But cellars? Those were worse.

Especially ancient ones that hadn’t been renovated since "ritual sacrifice" was still a valid political tool.

Down through the Hidden Stairs, Felix showed me the way.

"Used to be used for wine," he whispered. "Now? It’s just... storage. No one goes down here anymore."

Except that someone had.

The stone steps descended in a tight spiral, each one slick with moss and age. The door at the bottom was half-rotted, but its iron handle gleamed.

Recently used.

I reached for the hilt of my sword.

"If anything jumps out," I muttered, "I’m killing it. Even if it’s just a servant with insomnia."

Felix nodded solemnly. "Fair."

What We Found in the cellar wasn’t filled with crates or casks.

It was filled with roots.

Black, gnarled, pulsing roots that snaked out of the walls like veins from a corpse. And in the center of the room was a massive wooden altar—no, trunk—half-embedded in the stone floor, its surface carved with symbols I definitely remembered from the game.

Bloodwood.

Unrefined. Still growing.

This wasn’t smuggling. This was cultivation.

A figure moved in the shadows—hooded, silent.

I didn’t hesitate.

I launched a rune from my palm—Pattern: Disruption Glyph—and it slammed into the ground beneath them, erupting in a flare of blinding blue light.

They stumbled, dropping a bundle.

Not a weapon.

A scroll.

"Professor!" Felix shouted as the figure bolted toward the far tunnel, vanishing into a narrow passage.

I cursed and ran to the bundle, grabbing the scroll.

It was sealed with wax.

Academy wax.

"...What the hell?"

Felix stared. "That’s the official academy seal."

"Yeah," I muttered. "Which means this wasn’t just a swamp cult with bad taste in roots."

This was internal.

Sanctioned.

Or... allowed.

Later That Night

The scroll was locked with a rune seal—one I couldn’t crack without triggering a flare that would alert whoever planted it.

We returned to the guest rooms.

"I’m going to have a chat with the estate lord tomorrow," I told Felix. "You go play dumb. Act like nothing’s wrong."

Felix nodded, but he was pale.

"I hate this place," he whispered.

I looked out the window at the trees and the shifting fog beyond them.

"So do I, kid."

Outside, in the Swamp

The hooded figure knelt in the dark. A second figure approached—taller, draped in crimson robes.

"They’ve found it," the runner whispered. "The Drelmont dog interferes."

The tall one didn’t speak for a while.

Then: "Let him. The seed’s already taken root."

There are few things more exhausting than playing nice with nobles.

Especially backwater nobles.

Especially backwater nobles who have the social grace of a wet shoe and the suspicion level of a cornered badger.

Lord Caldus Dorne looked like he hadn’t smiled in a decade—and the one he was wearing now looked surgically attached. His fingers drummed on the armrest of his chair like he was waiting for a tax collector to keel over.

"Professor Drelmont," he said with the kind of cordiality one reserved for people they secretly wanted to set on fire, "to what do I owe the honor?"

I gestured to the velvet couch I was not going to sit on. Too many spiderwebs. Probably magical. Probably cursed.

"Vacation," I said with a bright smile. "And possibly to prevent your entire bloodline from being consumed by a sentient root system cultivated beneath your estate."

Caldus blinked. Once.

"...I beg your pardon?"

"Don’t worry," I said cheerfully. "I’m not here to cause trouble. Just here to ask one thing."

I stepped closer, let my voice lower to that quiet, dangerous tone I used when someone was about to be throttled with civility.

"Who’s using your wine cellar for Bloodwood growth?"

The smile died.

"I don’t know what—"

"Don’t." I cut him off, still smiling. "Your son got a letter. The scroll’s sealed with an academy rune. You think I don’t recognize an external affairs seal when I see one? Someone’s using your name to smuggle. Or worse. If you’re not involved, congratulations. That makes you incompetent."

He rose halfway from his seat. "You dare—"

I raised a single hand, palm out, runes flickering faintly along my fingers.

"I dare a lot, Lord Dorne."

Silence.

Then, reluctantly, he sat.

"I’ll look into it."

"You’ll do more than that," I said flatly. "You’ll give me access to your estate records, all gate logs from the past three months, and you’ll make sure no one interferes with my students while they’re here."

I leaned in just enough that he could see the flicker of ignition energy still coiled beneath my sleeve.

"Or I’ll raze this entire manor to the foundations and tell the academy it was self-defense."

Later.

Felix was waiting by the corridor, fidgeting like a boy who’d just heard his parents scream through three walls.

"You threatened my dad, didn’t you?"

"Not threatened," I corrected. "I negotiated. Assertively."

"Did you have to say the bit about razing the house?"

I shrugged. "Did I say it, or was it a metaphor lost in the heat of the moment?"

Felix groaned. "You’re going to get us arrested."

"Kid," I said, patting his shoulder, "if they could’ve arrested me, they would’ve done it months ago. Now go get the others."

"Why?"

"Because tonight, Class C is going ghost-hunting in the swamp."

He paled. "Again?"

"Life’s a loop," I said cheerfully. "But with more trauma."

"Alright, future corpses," I said, clapping once as the class huddled near the edge of the Dorne estate swamp. "Roll call. Let’s make sure I didn’t forget anyone in a barrel again."

Julien raised a hand. "That was one time."

"One time too many, Smartass."

The moon hung low, veiled in mist. The swamp shimmered with mana-soaked fog and an unmistakable smell of rotten herbs. Bugs hummed. A frog croaked somewhere, then immediately exploded—probably cursed.

Felix shifted nervously, boots half-sunken in the muck. "Can someone remind me why we’re here?"

I gestured dramatically toward the misty water. "Felix’s ancestors may or may not have cultivated sentient root constructs under their estate. And because nobility is allergic to honesty, we’re conducting a field investigation."

"You mean we’re ghost hunting," Mira said flatly.

"Ghost-root hunting," I corrected. "Very different. One screams and tries to eat you. The other... also screams and tries to eat you."

"Great," Leo muttered. "Because nothing says ’educational trip’ like soul-devouring plants."

Garrick hefted his greatsword. "Will hitting it solve anything?"

"Emotionally? Yes," I said. "Academically? Also yes. Spiritually? I don’t know. You’re the one who keeps whispering to your blade like it’s your childhood crush."

Wallace scribbled notes into a damp notebook. "If the roots are cursed and runic, then maybe they’re responding to ambient magical trauma. That could explain the dreams Felix mentioned."

Felix blinked. "I never told you I had—"

"You mutter in your sleep," Wallace replied cheerfully. "Loudly."

Deeper into the Swamp

Naturally, things got worse.

Halfway through a patch of black lilies that hissed when touched, Cassandra stopped.

"There’s something watching us."

Everyone froze.

"Oh good," I muttered. "And here I was worried we’d get through this without psychological damage."

Runes flickered to life around my wrist as I drew a glowing pattern in the air. A thin pulse spread out like a sonar wave—and bounced.

Twice.

Three lifeforms in front of us.

Two behind.

"Oh," I said slowly. "They’re flanking."

Julien raised his blade. "Hostile?"

"Potentially. Unless you’re the diplomatic type who negotiates with things made out of human teeth."

Garrick cracked his knuckles.

A moment later, they emerged.

Skeletal things. Long, root-like tendrils dripping swampwater and mold. Half-flesh, half-vine, wearing the remnants of old Dorne estate uniforms.

"Oh," Felix whispered, paling. "I... I think those were old servants. From when I was little."

One of the things gurgled. "Feeeelix..."

"Alright," I muttered. "We’re filing this under definitely cursed."

Chaos. Screaming. Runes flying like sparks in a forge.

Mira cursed one into a tree—it immediately rotted.

Julien fought like a devil, blades flashing.

Leo ran in circles yelling, "I HATE NOBLE SECRETS!"

Wallace tried to bait one into a trap using pickled garlic and trauma. It worked.

And Felix?

Felix stood still, shaking, as the creature reached toward him—

—until I grabbed his collar, yanked him back, and hurled a severance rune directly through the root-thing’s torso.

"Stop staring at your undead gardener like you owe him money," I snapped. "Move!"

We limped out of the swamp, filthy, drained, and somehow still arguing.

"That was not in the vacation brochure," Leo grumbled.

"There was no brochure," Wallace pointed out.

Lucian wiped blood off his coat. "There is now. ’Come to the Dorne estate! Get haunted! Punch your ancestors!’"

Felix looked at me, pale but determined. "You... you knew this would happen?"

I looked back at the swamp, then at him. "No. I just suspected. But we needed to face it."

He looked down. "Why?"

"Because, Felix," I said gently, "you don’t grow by staying clean."

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