Awaiting soft rains(An extra's novel)-Chapter 100: The shameless art of bullshitting

After a grueling half day of training, one sleepless night, and a particularly awful morning, Friday had finally arrived.

I’d checked the text messages I received yesterday on my way back from the hospital.

Rowan asked mostly about my well-being, and about what happened regarding Kaito. Song mainly still asked about the skinwalkers, and if the fact that they were currently missing meant they were dealt with. Ayo had been wondering where I was; she still needed my help in meeting up with Alice.

I ended up replying what I could to ease their worries. It turned out fine for the most part, besides Song asking me to meet up.

The final message had been from Alice. It mainly explained that the backlash from the nobles regarding the skinwalkers had been dealt with. How she managed to do so? She didn’t say. But I had my guesses. Of course, none of that information had been as important, or as troubling, as the final lines of her message.

My actions were finally coming back to bite me in the ass.

That final line was why I found myself currently standing on a podium in front of the classroom, filled with a mix of pissed-off cadets, intrigued cadets, and cadets amused by the entire situation.

Simply put, I had to provide some sort of conclusion for my campaign of harassing nobles. Quite a few cadets had reported my rampant abuse of power, and while Alice assured me that she’d cover for me regardless, I still needed to at least give some sort of closure to them.

The witch that put me up to this was sitting peacefully at her desk. Although she had a straight face on, I could tell she found the situation amusing.

’She’s enjoying this...’

I took a deep breath to calm myself.

It was fine. I was fine.

I was nothing if not good at bullshitting.

Clearing my throat a bit, I began.

"As you al—"

"Speak up."

"Yeah, we can’t hear you, shorty."

Some fools interrupted me, and the rest of the class burst into chuckles. Even Rowan and Shin were trying not to laugh. Song, as I’d expected her to, was laughing very openly.

That was what I immediately wanted to say, but the look Alice gave me shut that down. In the end, I was forced to resort to more... diplomatic means.

I raised my voice.

"Yes, I am short. Thanks for noticing. Real smart of you there. I believe you can hear me now; I don’t think there are any deaf cadets in this class, are there?"

There were murmurs at that, but no loud retorts. It seemed they didn’t want to push their luck as well, with Alice sitting nearby.

I continued.

"As I’m sure you are all aware, during the past few days, I, along with a couple of disciplinary students I commanded, went around the Academy conducting impromptu searches."

"Searches? You call those searches?"

"You harassed us!"

"How does sending someone to the clinic count as searching?"

A single clap from Alice silenced the outrage; even then, there were still some cadets murmuring among themselves.

"Right, where was I? Searches. The process went rather smoothly, apart from the few times we were forced to restrain some uncooperative cadets. For this, I thank you; I also thank the cadets from other classes."

A few scoffs came from the crowd, and some undistinguishable grumbling from here and there.

I took it as a sign to press on.

"As to what exactly I’ve been searching for, I’m sure most of you already know, but I’ll say it anyway: it was a credit card. My credit card."

They burst out again.

"Is that even legal?"

"How could you use the council for your own benefit?"

"That was the reason you searched us? For a credit card? Really?"

Alice didn’t bother stopping them now; she was too busy enjoying the show to do anything. Sighing, I made a placating gesture to the crowd, barely managing to reduce the noise to a bearable level.

"Settle down, settle down. I know you’re excited, but let me finish. There’s a good ending to all of this, I promise."

That further reduced the noise to a level where I could finally hear myself again. I had most of their attention now.

"Good. After extensive searches and a thorough investigation process, we came up with nothing. So, imagine my surprise when I enter my dorm, and the very first thing I see beneath my bed is this credit card. It’d been there the entire time; isn’t that crazy?"

I pulled a black credit card out of my sleeve. It was a prop Alice had given me when I told her my plan.

If before they had lashed out, now some looked fully ready to get up from their seats, walk up to the podium, and beat the shit out of me.

"Are you mad!?"

"So it was all for nothing?"

"How clumsy do you have to be to even make that mistake?"

"No way you aren’t joking!"

But I was dead serious with them. This was the story I chose.

Of course, it wasn’t my hobby to go around rage-baiting cadets, though it was certainly an enjoyable pastime. What I really sought to do in all this was attempt to redirect their wrath to lay solely on me.

After all, during my harassment campaign, I’d relied on Rowan and Alexa, two prominent members of Racheal’s faction. Since I targeted mostly nobles, it wasn’t a surprise to anyone that most people thought I joined her faction.

This would hopefully direct most of that rage back at me while downplaying the roles anyone apart from me played in the operation.

It wasn’t an exquisite fix or anything; those who saw me as leaning towards Racheal were unlikely to change their minds. But this would at least help ease tensions a bit.

The sound of noise, arguments, insults, and even a few colorful curses kept increasing at an alarming pace. Luckily, Alice stepped in once again before any overly eager cadet actually made a move for me.

A clap was all she needed, and the noise was suppressed once again. There was no power involved in that clap; the entire class merely kept silent due to respect and fear of Alice.

She was a paragon, after all.

I figured it was about time I put an end to the bullshit now.

"Well then, thanks again. I couldn’t have found it without you. I’ll try to be more mindful of my things from now on. I can’t say for sure, though; I am a pretty short, clumsy guy, after all."