On My First Day Undercover, the Organization Collapsed - Chapter 404

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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First Day of Infiltration, The Organization Was Destroyed — Episode 404
Masquerade Ball (1)
By the rules, anyone who eliminates someone must designate two dropouts to dance together.
Because of this, they’ll both naturally try to drop out early.
If one of them drops out first, the other will end up having to dance with the remaining dropout!
‘It’s because of love.’
When you love someone, you don’t want them stolen away by another, or so the books say.
That’s what I read in one, anyway.
In other words, they’ll both try to drop out early so they can dance with each other instead.
That’s why Ziel foresaw their elimination.
“Dancing together… just the two of them?”
“That’s right.”
“But they seemed to despise each other…”
“They’re doing that so no one catches on.”
“Ah.”
So that was it.
Yon nodded after hearing the explanation.
‘So all that fighting between them was because they like each other?!’
Others were drawing near a truth that might be genuine or might be a secret only the two of them knew!
“What do the students think about the championship prize?”
“They’re all just focused on winning, you know? There are five Praise Cards at stake, and once more people arrive, they’re planning to pool prize money for the champion too.”
“Mm. It’ll be fierce, then.”
“I’m going to participate as well.”
Masked ball or not, it would become a fierce arena where everyone tried their hardest to eliminate one another.
“Teacher Ziel.”
“Department Head Berhal Abue.”
People from the Sword School had begun streaming in to witness this spectacle.
Emeric and Zephyros, who had successfully concluded the earlier event, came as well.
“Boss, how is this place?”
“I was just about to activate the magical effect you prepared.”
“I’ll take it from here on.”
“Understood.”
Zephyros’s magical effect!
A magical tool that dispersed the pouring moonlight beautifully throughout the hall.
“Professor Emeric Kent, did the event wrap up well?”
“Ah, yes. Fortunately, the Vice Commander of the Mage Unit and the unit members under her command left without much complaint. Though they seemed to flinch whenever your name came up, Teacher Ziel.”
“Is that so.”
“Yes. They seemed worried about what might happen when they returned to the Palace.”
“Mm. It doesn’t matter. I’ll be telling them anyway.”
“Ah.”
Emeric offered silent condolences to the Vice Commander of the Mage Unit and all those under her command.
Mages were certainly elite human resources in this empire.
They were far fewer in number than knights who had reached the Expert grade, yet their impact on warfare was incomparable.
And yet the finest mages in the entire Imperial Mage Unit—those most accomplished among all mages—feared an Academy teacher who wasn’t even a mage himself.
It was likely the world would never see such a thing again.
“Still, Teacher Ziel, if you do go to the Palace, please be careful. There’s no telling what the Mage Unit might try. Those people can’t bear anyone standing above them except for His Majesty the Emperor.”
“It’s not a matter of hierarchy.”
“Sir?”
“I’m simply addressing what was wrong.”
“Ah.”
Ziel answered matter-of-factly, then turned his gaze toward the ballroom.
Students were beginning to file in.
The young women wore dresses.
The young men wore tunics.
Most likely none of them had worn such attire before coming to the Academy, and they all moved with uncertain, awkward steps.
“I can’t really tell them apart, can you?”
“I can’t recognize anyone except for Quantus…”
“The students planned this? That’s impressive.”
The professors and faculty members who had come to watch were amazed.
But Ziel alone thought differently.
‘I know who that is.’
Ziel was observing the way she walked.
He noticed habits she wasn’t even aware of.
Most decisively, he could distinguish them by scent.
Celia especially—he knew her far too well.
‘She’s wearing a lighter perfume than usual. Trying not to give herself away.’
Though everyone wore masks and identical clothing, it was remarkably easy to tell who was who.
“It’s beginning.”
Now music drifted through the hall, and the house staff the students had arranged in advance joined the masquerade, circulating with trays of light refreshments and beverages.
A vast moon hung above.
The moonlight it poured down.
And the lighting that fractured and scattered that moonlight.
“It’s far better than most noble house balls.”
“Since it’s held outdoors, there’s something rather romantic about it.”
Professor Isabella seemed lost in childhood memories, her expression dreamy, while the other professors, Elcanto among them, were tracing the threads of distant recollections.
A masquerade ball.
Whether or not it was a proper masquerade, a ball—that memory belonged to everyone.
Berhaldo was no exception.
‘It must have been forty years ago.’
After joining the Imperial Knights, he’d had no occasion to attend balls. That was why the feeling was all the more poignant.
Emeric too had received countless invitations at masquerade balls after his magical talent was revealed.
“Have you ever experienced attending a masquerade ball, Teacher Ziel?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Ah, I see. I’m—I’m sorry. I was out of line…….”
Emeric apologized again, realizing his mistake.
The Steelheart Family.
As its sole survivor, such a thing would naturally be impossible.
“I have been inside a ballroom before.”
“Ah…….”
Of course, Ziel was not unfamiliar with balls.
He’d entered the ballroom many times, disguised as a noble, to assassinate targets.
There was no place better suited for assassination than a crowded, bustling ballroom.
“It was a preferred venue in the past. It is not now.”
“I—I see.”
While Emeric stammered in embarrassment, the students’ ball had already begun.
“Got you! You’re Maris!”
“I’m not!”
“Really not?”
From the start, students were swinging wildly at shadows. The voice disguises were creating chaos.
“You’re Karen, right?”
“I look like Karen to you!?”
“Oh, I guess not?”
If a guess failed three or more times, Ziel would count it and identify them himself.
“Remove your mask, Lenoa Nihalis.”
“How—how did you know? Can you see through me?”
“I simply can.”
“Oh.”
Three or more failed guesses meant elimination on the spot.
Moreover, you could not ask the same person again once a guess had failed.
This applied to anyone standing with that person as well.
You could guess no further, and if a friend who’d eliminated someone pointed you out later, you’d have no choice but to dance.
“How does Teacher Ziel keep count of all that……?”
“Why, remember when he was at the Knight Order Camp at the Spire and ran that far distance to rescue Student Delev?”
At the words of faculty members unfamiliar with Ziel, his devoted admirer Elcanto offered a quiet remark.
“Do not doubt.”
“Pardon? Professor Elcanto, what did you say?”
“There is no need to question what Teacher Ziel does, everyone. Simply accept it as it is.”
“Ah…….”
Just like that, twenty students were eliminated.
Though some had guessed correctly.
First, there was Quantus.
“Haha! Ann Peshwa! Found you!”
He charged forward like a madman from the very start, threw his arms around Ann without hesitation—and that was Quantus eliminated.
“Hey… stop obsessing over me! Back off!”
“Hahahaha!”
Of course, he was disqualified on the spot.
“Quantus, it’s you, isn’t it?”
“Ah, no! How did you know?”
“Who wouldn’t recognize you… Go dance with Ann instead.”
“…This is rough.”
And so the first couple became Quantus and Ann.
“Really now! Why do I have to dance with you?”
“Because those are the rules?”
“Is there no rule about beating you up?”
“There doesn’t seem to be one.”
The two bickered, yet they danced with surprising ease. Masquerade dancing was an essential skill, and despite their obvious mismatch, Quantus and Ann moved together with unexpected harmony.
‘Are they in love with each other too?’
Caught between misunderstanding and the possibility of distant truth, Ziel moved busily about the hall.
“You’re Yurio, aren’t you!”
“Ah! You’re Karen, aren’t you!”
“What am I supposed to do if you guess in reverse like that!”
“So… what about dancing? Do we have to point each other out… or something?”
Some students hesitated so long they lost their pick.
“Yurio, go dance with Tulia over there—she was just eliminated.”
“Tu… Tulia?”
For just a moment, something sharp flickered in Karen’s eyes. Yurio, oblivious to this, was dragged away reluctantly and took to the dance floor.
Of course he had to dance, so dance he did, but he kept glancing back.
“Eyes on me—we’re dancing together.”
“That—yes, of course.”
“Are you thinking about Karen?”
……
“I knew it. But what can we do? I want to dance too. With you.”
Karen had been paired with Maris.
But Maris trembled in front of her.
“K-Karen, your eyes… could you relax them a bit…?”
“Never mind. Just dance. Over there.”
“Where?”
“Where Tulia and Yurio are.”
……
It seemed as though the pairing had gone terribly wrong.
If one called it a ‘punishment,’ it fit perfectly—Maris was so frightened by the look in Karen’s eyes that she hardly dared speak.
Of course, she danced earnestly.
“Yurio, hold my waist.”
“Huh?”
“They don’t teach dancing in the Northern Region? The man’s supposed to lead.”
“Oh. Right, yes, the Northern Region has a different style of dance.”
“Then just match my feet. Loosen your grip.”
Watching them, Ziel became certain.
“So that’s what jealousy looks like.”
Learning emotions through the students’ actions!
It was excellent study material for Ziel.
Couples were being born in other corners as well.
“What’s going on over there?”
“The atmosphere feels strange.”
“Yeah, something’s different.”
Some pairs were too shy to look at each other, while others no longer bothered to hide their feelings.
After all, they’d spent two years together, rolling through hardship and trial after trial—it would have been strange if such feelings hadn’t taken root.
The masquerade ball was like a trigger, nothing more.
“Mm. I’m quite pleased. Very pleased indeed.”
The students who had dropped out early and not yet been singled out nodded with warm satisfaction. The professors and faculty members shared the same contentment.
“That love needs to last, though.”
“Hush. Let’s not worry about family objections and such things now. Who’s going to stop those two?”
“Even His Imperial Majesty himself couldn’t tear them apart.”
By the time three genuine couples had truly formed, the tension in the hall began to rise in earnest.
Around sixty students had been eliminated.
Now more people were dancing than standing still in the masquerade hall.
Among those who’d survived this far, a desperate battle of wits was unfolding.
‘Dropped out, dropped out, dropped out… Wait, Delev and Celia made it?’
‘No way, Celia survived too?’
This masked ball had another purpose entirely.
A purpose that only ‘two people’ didn’t know about.
“You’re not Celia, are you?”
“Of course not. You’re not Delev, are you?”
“Look at my height. Would I be Delev?”
“Fine. Come this way. Let’s narrow it down.”
Everyone wanted to see it.
The moment those two joined hands and danced together!
And those two were unmistakably exactly who they seemed.
“My prediction was wrong.”
Ziel acknowledged it matter-of-factly.
Delev and Celia.
They were far more desperate than Ziel had anticipated.
‘If I’m found out, I have to dance with that person. I absolutely cannot be discovered…’
‘If I’m exposed, I’m dead. This is the worst day of my life.’
Neither of them cared about dancing.
They simply couldn’t bear the fact that they had to stand so close to each other at all.
And in front of all their friends, no less!
Whenever their friends even mentioned each other, both of them would practically convulse with embarrassment.
Whether that denial was meant to hide the truth or was genuine, only they knew.
“Thirty people left.”
Those who’d been eliminated danced on, while the surviving students watched with keen eyes, searching for the pair.
But the masquerade hall was quite large, and the rule that eliminated players had to keep dancing until the end made the hunt more difficult than it seemed.
Of course, to Ziel’s eyes, everything was visible.
‘Are they getting closer?’
By chance, Delev and Celia, who had been retreating into hiding, were gradually drawing nearer to each other.
And as they approached back-to-back and their hands touched without either of them quite realizing it—
‘No way.’
‘For real?’
They both turned their heads.
Without a word, they seemed to know each other’s identity.
“Hey.”
“What.”
“Remember when we caught the Red Raven?”
Delev nodded at Celia’s question.
“How could I forget?”
“Then let’s do it like we did back then.”
Celia was catching on now, tilting her chin toward the other friends approaching.
“Let’s eliminate them all.”
The duo reformed in a flash.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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