“No way… Was there such a big power difference between High Witches? How did Headmaster Tabitha lose so one-sidedly?”
“Why were they even fighting? What’s going on? Are we supposed to do something about this?”
“What can we do exactly? Besides, it looks like the two headmasters have made up. Maybe they were just sparring.”
“Sparring? With that level of injury? It looked more like Headmaster Tabitha was beaten into submission instead!”
The Apprentice Witches in the vicinity quietly chatted among themselves with blind speculations.
Meanwhile, the Senior Witch-level instructors and True Witch-level students had a better understanding of the power difference between the two headmasters.
While Headmaster Tabitha and Headmaster Astoria were both High Witches, Headmaster Astoria also had Aura Lord-level physical prowess.
As such, she was naturally stronger than Headmaster Tabitha, who had no other distinctive strengths to her name.
Even so, they didn’t understand why the two headmasters fought either.
As Vaan watched from the sidelines with Dahlia, he also pondered on the matter before his eyes flickered..
‘Could it be…?’
Vaan faintly guessed it was something related to him.
It was just a brief glance, but he remembered seeing an entire new row of books, the Book of Solomon Raphna, in the library when he went to see Dahlia.
In that case, there was a high chance that Headmaster Tabitha received a copy of the book from Headmaster Astoria earlier and learned about her search for him, or Vaan Raphna, to be exact.
Thus, when Headmaster Tabitha saw Headmaster Astoria close to him while he was still under the alias Vahn Cadieux, she must have figured something out.
‘So they fought because Headmaster Tabitha found out about me?’ Vaan furrowed his brows.
Evidently, Headmaster Tabitha was also a sharp woman. The sharp sense of a High Witch couldn’t be underestimated.
That said, he didn’t know who else knew about Headmaster Astoria’s search for him. It would be troublesome if more people learned about him.
…
After the two headmasters’ fight ended, they dispersed the crowd and had the instructors restore the training field.
Afterward, they returned to the office for a more private talk.
Vaan sent Dahlia back to the library before he quickly joined them, causing Tabitha to frown when she heard the door being opened.
However, her brows slowly relaxed when she noticed it was Vaan.
“Oh my, the guest of honor came of his own accord. What business does he have here, I wonder?” Tabitha uttered with a side glance as she fixed her face in front of the mirror.
“Why did you come here, Teacher Raphna?” Astoria also asked.
The way she addressed Vaan in front of Headmaster Tabitha immediately allowed him to confirm his prior suspicions.
“I came to see what was going on, seeing how the two headmasters were sparring. That said, I presume it was about me, Headmaster Astoria?” Vaan calmly replied.
At the same time, he walked over to the hole in the wall and casually glanced down, scanning the area with his Omni-Sense.
“I suppose nothing escapes your notice, Teacher Raphna,” Astoria wryly smiled before she nodded. “That’s right. Headmaster Tabitha figured out your identity, Teacher Raphna.”
“I am to blame for this,” Astoria added with guilt.
She had accidentally exposed his identity in front of others before. And now, she had done it again.
“Don’t worry about it,” Vaan casually smiled as he used Earth Manipulation to repair the hole in the wall as if time had been reversed.
All the scattered rubbles and shattered glasses were put back together before he used Earth Transmutation to fix them in place.
It was as if the hole had never existed.
Shortly after, he turned to Tabitha and said, “More importantly, what does Headmaster Tabitha intend to do?”
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises, Sir Vaan?” Tabitha ruefully smiled after her initial surprise and said, “I would love to keep a man of your caliber to myself, but I don’t want to get beaten up again.”
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about me. I wouldn’t turn you in for something like killing a sinner who made Wise Scholar Eniwse become an Abomination. You have far too much value to witches to be put to death for something like that.”
“That said, I can’t promise that I wouldn’t report about you to Her Majesty unless you agree to be put under a truth spell and answer one of my questions,” Tabitha stated.
Shortly after she spoke, she immediately felt a threatening gaze from Astoria.
“Don’t worry. I won’t pry into his secrets. I just want to know whether he is on the side of witches or not,” Tabitha quickly assured with a rueful smile.
She was aware that Vaan Raphna’s knowledge could help a lot of witches. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean he would help them; he might even harm them.
Thus, she had to know where he stood.
“Sure, I’ll accept the truth spell for one question,” Vaan agreed with a calm smile.
Fortunately, Headmaster Tabitha was a person who leaned towards academics and didn’t discriminate against gender like the witch supremacists from the capital.
It was also likely that all academy headmasters were like this, but he couldn’t be sure unless he met them personally.
Nevertheless, he could be certain that Headmaster Tabitha would keep her word.
Even if she didn’t, he still had Headmaster Astoria on the side. She would definitely protect him if things turned out differently from what was said.
“Great! Then, please forgive me if I offend you,” Tabitha said before she cast a mental spell on Vaan to make him answer her question truthfully.
However, Vaan’s mind remained unaffected.
The mental spell’s mana went straight into his Heaven-Swallowing Space and got devoured by it, which wasn’t all that surprising.
Given the vastness of his mental energy, he was most likely immune to most mental spells cast by anyone below the Transcendent rank.
Nevertheless, Tabitha didn’t notice her spell had failed and believed Vaan was under the effect of the truth spell.
“Do you think men should reign over witches or the other way around?” Tabitha asked.
Vaan thought of several ways she could have asked her question to find out whether he sided with witches or not. And yet, it turned out to be this one.
“I don’t care about any of that,” Vaan replied.