WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Mistaken for a Masked Monster

Chapter 009

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Settling the Pecking Order

Javert Droit.

Chief Investigator of Grandia Academy.

The woman sat quietly, lost in thought.

"......"

Her red hair spilled forward, left untouched. Green eyes, soft and still as unfurling leaves, stared at nothing while her mind circled back to something recent.

The subject of that reflection: a certain boy.

Viktor.

The smiling mask. The boy who hid his face behind that unsettling thing.

He hadn't looked away. She was certain of that.

During the enrollment ceremony, she had deliberately let killing intent seep into her gaze when she locked eyes with Viktor. Just to see how he'd react.

The mask had only stared back, blank and unreadable. Not a trace of fear. If anything, that wide gash of a grin looked like it was laughing at her.

Composed. Though whether "composed" even covered it...

An unpleasant weight pressed down on her chest. A slow breath slipped out without her meaning it to.

She turned her mind back to the assignment.

"Professor Javert. Starting this semester, you will be placed as the homeroom teacher for Class E."
"We're asking you to keep an eye on the student Viktor. If you find any connection to the cultists, or if you notice anything suspicious..."

Something was definitely wrong. For all the dread he'd stirred in her, there was no dark mana. Not even a trace of sorcery. That absence was exactly what troubled her.

If it wasn't dark mana, if it wasn't a curse, then what was that feeling?

She had worked as an investigator for years and had put down cultists in the hundreds. That experience had made her more than resilient to the energies of dark mana and curses.

But whatever radiated off the boy was different. Not the same strain as what she'd felt from cultists. Letting go of that suspicion didn't sit right with her either.

Plenty was suspicious, when she laid it out. Every stat graded E except theory. Yet during the practical exam, he'd performed beyond any reasonable expectation. That nameless, unsettling presence he seemed to carry everywhere. The fact that up until a month ago, he'd apparently been living in the countryside and had abruptly decided to sit the Grandia entrance exam.

A commoner from the rural provinces would have had little to no formal education. And yet that same boy had placed first in theory. With a perfect A+ at that.

Objectively speaking, not being suspicious would have required more effort. The problem was the complete absence of concrete evidence. Physical proof, nothing. Hunches, everywhere. Infuriating, for the investigator assigned to it.

She sat with a blank face, mulling it over.

For now, feel things out.

She glanced at the paper in her hand. A ranked list of Class E students, with each student's stat grades noted alongside their position. Twenty-eight names exactly, and the boy's name sat at the very top.

Better to watch him from the top than lose him at the bottom. It had been Javert herself who moved Viktor from last place to first. Put him somewhere her eyes would land more often.

Not her call alone, though. The faculty meeting had signed off on it.

"Adjusting Viktor's rank..."
"Well, I think it's fine. He did show what he was capable of in the practical."
"It's not like we're asking for him to move up a class. Just shuffling the order within the same room..."

The faculty hadn't taken much convincing. Then again, they had just finished watching the footage of Viktor's practical exam together.

Bottom rank never made sense to begin with. That teleportation he'd pulled off during the practical, no identifiable principle, no visible foundation, wouldn't have looked out of place in Class A.

A mystery. What underpinned the ability Viktor used? And how, with a body as physically weak as his, was he pulling off performances like that?

What he was hiding behind that mask. She needed to know.

By then, her feet had already carried her to the classroom door. Without pause, she pushed it open and stepped inside.

"Good morning, everyone."

Class E was waiting inside. Among them, the boy in the mask sat at his desk.

Javert greeted them with a blank face, calm and even.

"I am Javert, Chief Investigator. Starting today, I will be your homeroom professor."

Her voice was flat. Her eyes stayed fixed on Viktor. He turned just then, and their gazes met.

That same ominous mask.

It was smiling.

***

Keeping the surprise off my face was not easy.

In front of me stood a red-haired woman, greeting the class with complete composure.

"I am Javert, Chief Investigator. Starting today, I will be your homeroom professor."

What.

What was this.

First my rank somehow gets inflated out of nowhere, and now she shows up on top of that.

Homeroom teacher? Javert, Chief Investigator?

Oh, hell.

Something had gone wrong. In the original story, the homeroom teacher had been Professor Rafael.

The story had gone off-script. And there was only one reason for that. The butterfly effect, the inevitable consequence of possession. The cause was me.

Had I been too flashy during the practical?

I had been careless. It was fine in the game, so I assumed it would be fine here. A critical oversight. The rules of a game did not apply to real life.

The people of this world weren't NPCs running on scripted behavior. They thought for themselves, felt things, came to their own conclusions.

And apparently, they also got suspicious.

Fair enough. The scorecard hadn't exactly made sense on paper. My performance in the practical had come back to bite me.

"......"

"......"

For a moment, my eyes met Javert's. A strange tension settled into the silence between us.

Javert. In the original, she was a character who only appeared when you met a specific condition. That condition being: learning black magic. From that point on, you'd be under her watch. Among all the faculty, she was especially reactive when it came to cultists. If the player so much as messed around with black magic, she'd tear them limb from limb on the spot.

So. I was being suspected.

Not directly, though. No warnings had come. No threats. If they had already made up their minds about me, things wouldn't be moving this quietly.

A suspicion, not a certainty. And honestly, a predictable one. There was no way they could prove I had anything to do with dark mana.

How do you prove you're not using something? I was innocent. A student with no connection to dark mana whatsoever. The abilities I used were bugs, nothing more, with zero ties to the cultists. Nothing to be scared about.

Still a headache, though.

There's a concept called the devil's proof. Proving that a devil exists is easy enough, you just show one. Proving that it doesn't exist is impossible.

Proving a negative. I had no way to prove my own innocence, which meant as long as they didn't let go of the suspicion, I'd be stuck under surveillance indefinitely.

Beneath the impassive mask, my mind worked through it. Taking stock, weighing options.

The butterfly effect. Getting rattled by something like that was the last thing I needed. Accept the situation, look ahead without flinching.

......Wait.

A thought cut through, sudden and sharp.

Hold on a second.

A genuinely brilliant idea. I almost smacked myself on the forehead right then and there.

Wait. This was actually golden.

Javert, assigned to watch me. A way to use her to tremendous advantage had just materialized in my head. Depending on how this played out, she might end up more useful to me than the Evil God's Mask and Robe combined.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Crisis into opportunity. My grin was already stretching to the sky. Thank god for the mask.

I'll be making good use of you later, Professor.

Mouth-watering, the whole thing. Nothing to be afraid of. They wouldn't even know I'd caught on to the suspicion. They'd believe they were the ones in control of the situation.

That was how to set the board. No reason to shrink just because I was being watched. Anything unnatural would only invite more suspicion. Play it bold. Act like any ordinary student would.

Javert was someone who held herself to a strict code of rules. She wouldn't forgive anyone who violated that code, herself included. Thoroughly rigid, fitting her inspiration to the letter. In short, all I had to do was stay on the right side of that line. Not that I intended to cross it anyway. Better to keep things smooth with the homeroom teacher.

Either way, this was a game I couldn't lose.

I held Javert's gaze, open and easy. Sitting in the front row put only a few steps between us. A simple greeting, tossed out.

"I look forward to it, Professor."

"As do I. How convenient that the class's top student happens to be sitting front and center."

Javert answered as though she didn't know a thing.

She drew the class to attention and launched into a brief introduction, covering the upcoming curriculum and various aspects of academy life. I listened with bright, attentive eyes.

"The curriculum at Grandia Academy is rigorous. In one week, there is the freshmen welcome exam. Fifteen days after that, the first midterm examination period begins..."

Couldn't get used to that. A freshmen welcome party, sure. A freshmen welcome exam? That was a new one. Whoever came up with the name had a terrible sense of humor.

"That covers the announcements."

A full thirty minutes of talking, and she wrapped it up just like that. Then those green eyes landed on me.

"Then... Viktor?"

"Yes, Professor Javert."

"Before we wrap up, I'd like to hear a word from the top student. You're in a position to lead this class now, so please take a moment to introduce yourself and share your thoughts, even briefly."

Top student. At Grandia, class rankings weren't just a number. They were the hierarchy within the room. The top student effectively led the class, something like a class representative in practical terms.

"Of course."

Without hesitation I stood, walked to the front, and stepped up onto the platform. The stares hit my back the moment I turned. The unfriendly kind.

Expected. My classmates weren't exactly charmed by me. They'd all seen the stats, no doubt. The notice board in the entrance hall had listed everyone's stat grades alongside their rankings.

"That's him? The one who got all E's and still took first place?"
"Goes by Viktor, so yeah, looks like it. Just look at him, he's clearly a pushover."
"What the hell... I lost to that?"

All stats at E. Never mind being top of the class, the real question was how I'd gotten in at all. Lowest-ranked class or not, these were all people who had been called prodigies since childhood. Their pride matched their ability.

"Scores are rigged anyway. Full marks in theory and practical only?"
"Obvious. The only explanation is nepotism."
"Corruption in the admissions process. What a piece of garbage."

This was exactly why I'd been aiming for last place to begin with. Would've drawn a lot less attention.

"No muscle definition at all. Body's never trained a day in its life."
"One punch from me and he'd probably wet himself."
"Keep it down, he might hear you."
"That little creep. When do we get to stomp him."

They were talking among themselves, or pretending to. In reality, they were pitching their voices just loud enough to carry.

Snakes, the lot of them.

Not that I didn't get it. A commoner from the back of nowhere. All stats at E. Ordinarily, they wouldn't even spare me a glance. And that was supposed to be the class representative? Hard to blame them for kicking up a fuss.

The murmuring reached me in fragments. I tapped the mask lightly with my fingers. Standing in the middle of all that hostility, I kept the smile up like a shield.

Actually, why did I have to play nice here?

The thought landed.

This classroom was no different from anything else. When circumstances shift beyond what you planned for, adapting fast is its own kind of skill. That was what survival looked like.

The plan was already broken. I'd been pushed to the top. A quiet life buried at the bottom, picking only what I needed from the shadows, that wasn't happening.

The point was to look forward. Not to whine, but to think and move.

Actually, a good opportunity. If I was going to be at the top, then I'd be at the top completely. Crawling around meekly from here would just get me branded as a joke. Being looked down on would make academy life a misery. I needed to project something my classmates wouldn't dare touch.

"Good morning, everyone. I'm Viktor, and I have the pleasure of meeting you as your class representative."

If quiet was off the table, then I'd be the loudest thing in the room. Loud enough that nobody would even think to raise their voice at me.

I locked eyes with the ones who'd been whispering.

"You."

My palm covered the mask. A few taps on the status window.

Ding!

[Set Effect Active]
-Evil God's Mask x1
-Evil God's Robe x1
[Would you like to raise the output of the granted 'Intimidation' effect to maximum?]

A slow, cooling breath.

I pressed YES.

"Rather than whispering behind my back like that, why not come up here and say it to my face?"

A bright smile. The cheerfulness clashed hard with the edge underneath, and the gap between the two was wrong in a way that was hard to place.

A moment later, [Intimidation] rolled out across the entire classroom.

Thrum.

The pressure bore down on every pair of shoulders in the room. Pupils widened. Faces went pale.

"I could beat the hell out of every single one of you, you know."

"" ...... ""

Since it had come to this.

Time to lock in my place at the top of this class.

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