"Tsk, fine."

Although unwilling, Frederic immediately dropped his act, recognizing the fact that his strength is not comparable to her, he had to admit defeat for now even if it hurt his pride. But internally, it didn't stop him planning of backstabbing her if a chance appears before him. After all, she did put a wound on his pride, Frederic truly wanted to see what kind of expression she would make when that day arrived. It won't be long as it seemed that some of the people in this room secretly hold the same opinion as him toward her. To them, her existence is akin to a blade that would slit their throat at any given time if they decided to ignore her despite knowing her alarming strength.

Of course, it mostly because she offended them by interfering with their business after recognizing their business was, in fact, against the law. The corrupted influential believes that the Rainford Family must have been the one running off their mouth to her, knowing she will make a move upon hearing the information. Because the latter didn't have any suspicious dealings, the corrupted influential couldn't bring Rainford Family down together with them; it left them with a discontent feeling.

'Tsk, why is that girl still alive? What are they even doing? I should have known that they can't be trusted, those bastards!' Frederic cursed under his breath when his eyes discovered Mia still alive and well, shown in the monitor on the meeting table. He didn't look at the monitor before because he believes that the people he hired would take care of it but, it seemed that their so-called reliable reputation is just a joke now that the mission ended up as a failure.

'And what the heck is that overly suspicious masked person? I'm the one bringing the assassin and his group in secret, but how did that one sneak in without alarming the formation? Is there another conflict occurring underneath my plan? Or is it some kind of betrayal?' thought Frederic whilst gazing at the display on the monitor.

"So, as you all can see, there are a few intruders in the Academy despite having mages standing guard on the entrance, including the formation protecting the building. Yet, these intruders somehow managed to break in, does anyone here have any information regarding this?"

The 'Ice Empress' said. If one didn't know them any better, they might think of her as the one standing on top of hierarchy based on the aura she emitted; it somehow makes her look like a leader of the sort. But the actual reason is that she's a lot more powerful than most of the people in the room, so in essence, she has the power to voice out her opinion first before others. And this is also another reason why the corrupted influential isn't happy with her in their group; they didn't like to be command under a woman younger than themselves. For Rainford Family, those who understood her capabilities, they didn't mind giving her the authority of the Head family because they believe she can lead them to a better prospect, even at the cost of their pride.

If it means their future generation can live a better life, the cost is definitely worth it. Although her real identity remained mysterious even now, she had managed to convince them of her exceptional capabilities by completing the challenges in a matter of a month. That is how insanely absurd the woman dubbed as 'Ice Empress' is. Also, Rainford Family is not like some other corrupted influential Family as if that is the case, there won't be 'Ice Empress.'

"I don't know but, I have checked the formation personally and, I found no problem there."

Gerald replied, receiving a few approving nods from others since they have done the same either by themselves or their subordinates, before coming into the meeting room. As for the others, they immediately look away when her eyes passed over them. It seemed they didn't care or maybe, believes that the Troll can handle the problem in their place. After all, most of them only have average talent in magecraft, so unless they put a lot of effort into it, which is impossible knowing their prideful personality; they have no strength to speak of when this kind of situation came up. They have no other choice but to rely on the monster given to them by the Headmaster.

"That kind of thing can be deal with for later. What we have to be worried about is this masked individual, does anyone here have any idea on who this person might be?"

"Indeed, if it's an individual with that much strength, it has to be famous...but I have never heard of an individual wearing a mask in the first place, don't even mention about it being a fox."

"Neither did I."

And just like that, each of them replied that none of them have any idea of who that suspicious individual might be. When all of them, people with a great background denied having knowledge of such an individual, they come to a realization. With a solemn tone in his voice, Gerald spoke.

"This individual is dangerous. If he or she is simply an individual without any great backing whatsoever, we can bring the individual to our side and if that didn't work out, kill it right here and now before it could cause trouble to us but..."

"...Yeah, I agree with you."

"Now that you said it, I also agree with your thinking. If it's just on the level of that girl, Mia, is it? It might have been fine to leave her alone since she can be handle by our guardian easily if not for the masked individual."

"But that masked individual seemed to have the power to fight on par with our guardian despite my common sense saying otherwise. We need to do something, either bring it to our side or kill it."

The group then started conversing with all sorts of planning in mind. An extreme example of that is by taking Mia hostage, they can utilize the masked individual's power even better since it seemed to be protecting her for some unknown reason, or a moderate one like pardoning it for its mistake of intruding in their base and asked the individual to join their side. But before they could conclude, a sudden shouted makes them turned their head and look toward the display in the monitor.

"Impossible!"

It's just a single word, yet most of the people in this room have the same exact feeling after witnessing an unimaginable scene at this very moment. It's like seeing a truck suddenly appearing in front of your face while you were in the middle of an empty street and overrun by it without having the time to step aside. If you were lucky, you might have a second chance to reborn into another world by the whim of some unknown god, but otherwise, you die for good. That's how they felt seeing their unfathomable 'guardian' who they believe to be unbeatable, got bitten to half by a giant lizard with flame all over its head.

At first, the salamander has been firing fireball at the Troll but, the latter immediately healed itself after a moment has passed. Perhaps, the salamander realizes its spell couldn't hurt the Troll, and so, it decided to devour it instead, literally. Of course, the Troll resisted by punching it in the head for a few times but, it was nothing but a futile act as salamander's scale is pretty durable, at least enough to withstand the punch for a couple of minutes. Because it has slow speed due to its bulky body, the Troll couldn't run away from it, so it decided to keep punching it until eventually, it got bitten from the head, by the salamander.

"Hmm, maybe I should have ordered it to do this in the first place...but well, it didn't bother me much anyway. In the end, the result is the same."

Sheila whispered while watching the salamander, slowly devouring the Troll. If it had been the past her, she might have freaked out by such gore sight. But now, she's already used to it. It's kind of scary to think that she can get used to this kind of thing but, it might prove useful somewhere along the line? Let's say if she accidentally came across a monster feeding on a human. It isn't hard to think that she won't be able to fight properly, considering what she had just witnessed.

"Thank you, salamander. You're a great help to me today. I'll call you again whenever I need your help later, okay?"

Sheila bid farewell to the fire sprite before it slowly dispersed to the surrounding, just like how it suddenly appeared in the beginning. While the salamander was fighting with the Troll, she used the chance when people were focusing on the fight to secretly drank the mana regeneration potion to refill her mana back to the brim. Also, the reason why she decided to summon the fire spirit is that she wanted to see how powerful it is upon finding a worthy opponent for it. After all, her fire magic has already reached the max level, which is at level 6.

Another reason is, she wanted to create a persona that she can make use of once the time demanded it. As someone who wanted to create an organization so that the society won't get destroyed to damnation, she needs to make some kind of history about its creation. After all, who would join a new and suspicious organization without having any sort of history to back it up?

This persona named 'Shiro,' Sheila's going to make it the leader of her yet-to-be-named organization. If she had used her real identity, it would definitely risk her family to the many hidden threats in such a big world, which can easily be avoided by creating a fake persona. For now, she's planning to cause trouble everywhere so that the people will spread the name far and wide at the very least. Of course, by doing that, she would turn everyone who can be her future allies into enemies, which is very unfortunate but, she decided to go along with it anyway. After all, the risk of getting betrayed, lessen for a bit.

If her would-be allies believe in the rumor and whatnot, she would rather not be friends with such people. They are the type of people that are easy to be manipulated by information, after all.