Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 159: Clues

Professor Baswara?

No.

Her mind immediately hit a wall. It was a finely tuned search engine calibrated for patterns and anomalies, but nothing? The name triggered no recognition within the vast, meticulously constructed database of this world’s history she’d been compiling for hours. Baswara... Baswara... Baswara—

But it did trigger a memory from a different vault entirely. One made of real stone and real blood.

Ah!

Elder Dragon Baswara. Five thousand years old. Sovereign of the Sapphire Depths. The Sea Drag—

WAIT!

Eastiel’s younger brother, Elias, existed here. Arzhen, Ruby, Nikolas, even Anton Vasiliev, they were all present, their roles adapted but their essences recognizable.

They were narrative extensions plucked from her real-world relationships and conflicts, woven into the fabric of this high school AU to provide depth and tension.

And obviously, Oathran’s world of acquaintances would expand the same in this world too!

If the System, or whatever power crafted this reality, drew from the core identities of its inhabitants to "fill in the blanks," as Eastiel described, then Oathran’s ancient connections would also have reflections here.

His world wasn’t just hers and Eastiel’s grafted onto a new setting, of course. Now that Oathran existed, it contained shadows of his epic, draconic history.

But, and here was the critical twist, those reflections would be translated. A five-thousand-year-old Sea Dragon wouldn’t be a Sea Dragon in a boarding school.

The narrative would bend, would find a role that fit the setting while preserving the original relationship. A mentor. A protector. An authority figure?

Who would this elder dragon be in this fabricated world?

She dove back into her mental archive, the library of this world’s lore she’d been building page by tedious page. She scanned through noble lineages, faculty records, historical texts on the school’s founding. Baswara yielded nothing.

She couldn’t believe she’d miss anything.

If the name existed in any official record she’d seen, she would have seen it.

Or perhaps, she didn’t.

She was just looking at the wrong place.

Official records were one thing. It could also be deliberately hidden. But history in a place like this was also written in stone, in mortar, in paint. It was etched into the very bones of the building.

So, why would her mind’s eyes lifted inward, reconstructing the visual map of Scholomance Athenaeum? Because it was giving her a hint.

Corridors. Walls. Portraits of—

The Grand Hallway of Headmasters.

Grim, oil-painted faces staring down from ornate frames, each labeled with a name and tenure. She’d passed it time and time again, her focus always on her destination, not the flat image watching her go.

Ah!

Professor Baswara.

Not a current teacher. Not in any registry she’d seen. But on a wall. The stern, kind-eyed face of a man with a beard like frothing seawater and eyes the color of a deep, calm ocean. The plaque beneath it would read, "Headmaster Baswara."

Predecessor to Current Headmaster Lazuardi.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.

Perhaps outside of this world, Professor Lazuardi too was a dragon?

The current headmaster, a man she’d only seen in passing, distant and enigmatic.

She never heard of that name, though. In the real world, Lazuardi meant nothing to her. But then, well, no human in the real world knew how many dragons there were and it was impossible to know for sure either.

Apparently, this fabricated world was far more meticulously crafted than she’d assumed. It wasn’t just a flat stage set for teenage drama. It had strata. It had a hidden mythology that mirrored their real one, translated into academic robes and painted portraits.

Heh.

A smile spread across Cecilia’s mind, though her face remained schooled into polite inquiry. She had watched Eastiel grapple with the existential terror of this place, his fear of the power that could reshape him. But the sheer, breathtaking craftsmanship of it only hit her now.

Whoever, or whatever, was up there, pulling the strings of this reality... they were amazing.

Clues!

"Professor Baswara?" she asked, her tone carefully nonchalant. "You mean, the previous headmaster?"

Oathran turned from his contemplation of the smoothie to look at her, a flicker of mild surprise in his grey eyes. "Yes."

"You know him? How is he? Is he... healthy?" Cecilia pressed, layering her question with just the right amount of generic, polite concern.

"Mm, too healthy, perhaps." Oathran took a thoughtful sip of his broth. "His retirement seemingly freed him from... some mortal constraint."

He said it with the air of someone repeating an inside joke he didn’t fully understand but appreciated the sentiment of.

Then his gaze sharpened, focusing on her. "You..."

Cecilia felt the shift like a drop in barometric pressure. She recoiled slowly, subtly putting a few more inches between them. "What?"

"If my memory’s right," Oathran began, "he should’ve retired before you entered the Athenaeum. And I remembered him hoarding all his research projects and everything with his name on it from the school to store back home instead out of spite because of the school’s bureaucracy."

He leaned forward a fraction, his eyes narrowing. "How did you know him?"

Ahh... the question... it assumed a level of personal, contemporary knowledge she shouldn’t possess. She dodged, turning the question back on him.

"You live with him?" she asked, her own voice a mirror of his sudden curiosity.

"Can you please answer me first?" Oathran countered, his politeness now edged with steel.

Time for the fallback. The boring, logical, nerdy explanation. Cecilia shrugged. "The school’s hallway of headmasters? Also who wouldn’t know their own school’s headmasters? Wouldn’t it be common knowledge?"

She sold it perfectly, acting as if this were the most obvious thing in the world, as if she’d just casually memorized the entire rogues’ gallery of old academics on her way to class.

Oathran stared at her for a beat. Then a slow, disbelieving smile touched his lips. "No. Nope."

He shook his head. "I, for once, didn’t know my elementary school’s headmaster’s name until I was told to ask for his signature for reasons I will not disclose."

He leaned in again, his voice half-amused, half-accusatory. "And what normal person would memorize the name of old people on the walls?"

"Me," Cecilia blinked, the answer automatic and utterly sincere. And in that moment, she was hit with a wave of genuine disorientation.

Was... normal people genuinely wouldn’t... observe those kinds of things?

Her entire life, her power was built on observation, on connecting disparate dots no one else saw. The idea that someone would walk past a wall of historical portraits and not absorb the data was... alien.

"And," Oathran continued, finally taking a bite of his now-cooling meat pie, "His magic study topic is goddamned boring. He’s not famous at all."

Okay.

Now Normal!Oathran was starting to freak her out.

[You mean Transfer!Oathran, Cecilia?]

’...let’s change him to Normal!Oathran instead.’

This version of him, observant, casually insightful, possessing a dry, almost mundane wit... was somehow more unsettling than the majestic, sorrowful dragon. This was a person she could have a normal, weird conversation with. And it was throwing her completely off-balance.

Why had she become the one out of touch with normalcy now? And why... was she kinda offended?

"Oh, wait," Oathran said, his eyes narrowing again as he chewed. He swallowed. "They said you’re the top nerd. I see now. Apparently such a refined young lady like you can also be a top nerd..."

"I-is that an insult?!" Cecilia blushed, the heat rushing to her cheeks before she could stop it.

Those lines again!!!

That ’impressive’ line... that ’can I hold your hand’ line... that ’it’s nice to die with you’ line... that ’the last thing I want to see is your smile’ line!

AND NOW THIS?!

’Apparently such a refined young lady like you can also be a top nerd...’

He looked... amused.

The same cadence. He’d used it to remark on her brilliance in magic, on her compassion, on her very existence. Now he was using it to categorize her as the school’s bookworm.

The audacity?!

It was ridiculous. It was infuriating. It was a grotesque, mundane parody of the most... uhh... ’sacred’... moments of her life, delivered by a boy with a mouthful of meat pie in a nearly empty cafeteria.

And it made her face burn hotter than any dragon’s fire.