I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 917: Where Is She?

"Or did you forget I know what she does? All of your little secrets will surely interest your wonderful rector. Your sister, your own life—you have much more to lose than I do. Now, release me before you regret it."

Adam pursed his lips, clenched teeth visible, jaw cracking. Whatever wore Quintella's gentle face to command him with such bored finality, to smirk at him as if he were mere marionette dancing at the snap of its fingers on a stage surrounded by suspended blades, made his blood burn in rage.

Release it? If he did, he could negotiate, understand why it had replaced Sarah first, and now Quintella. It would save him, and perhaps help him design a plan to rescue his sister. It was the most sensible choice, the choice of reason. He knew it.

He closed his eyes. And when he reopened them, sky-blue mana blazed like wildfire. His fingers tightened around the wrist of the fake Quintella. When he answered, his voice came out like a deep echo from a collapsing cave.

"You think you know me?"

Bao froze on his shoulder. Her whimper caught in her throat, and her paws trembled on Adam's neck. For a week, she slept and ate with him. She watched him let the orcs imprison him, his duels, and how he cleansed them of their eternal curse. Dangerous field trip. Yet no matter where she searched in her memories, all she saw was Adam's comforting smile. At worst, his icy voice and disdainful smirk. Even before that, since she had met Quintella three months ago, not once had she seen him so enraged.

The fake Quintella froze, too. She snarled, her eyes wide. "Of course, I do—AHH!"

A scream tore through her confident facade. The stench of charred flesh rose with dark smoke from her wrist, where solar flames turned Adam's palm incandescent.

The nearby students crowded around them. Someone screamed to fetch a teacher. The others shouted for Adam to stop, that whatever the young Quintella had done didn't deserve such treatment.

Adam barely glanced at these strangers from the Houses of Invocation and Transmutation before the voice of the fake Quintella sliced through the commotion.

"You dare stake your life—"

Adam interrupted her, each word detached in a command. "Where is she?"

"Enough!" A teenager gripped his arm firmly. "I can't watch you abuse this child anymore."

He pointed his wand at Adam, and the others followed with righteous grimaces. Mana condensed at the tip of their enchanted wood, while the imposter's smirk returned to its face.

Fools. All of them!

"Back, dogs!" With Adam's hiss, his mana blasted a concentric wave outward. Students were flung to the beaten ground, their wands drawing powerless curves beneath the winter sky.

Before they could get back to their feet, Desmond rushed to Adam's back. He glared at the students, purple lightning boots crackling. "Whoever interferes will spend their breaks in Teacher Laetitia's infirmary."

"Last chance." With Desmond having his back, Adam leaned closer to the imposter, exhaling a cloud of frozen mist into her face. "Speak, or I'll search her myself after obliterating you."

The fake Quintella lowered her face, blonde hair hiding it. Her shoulders trembled for a heartbeat. Then, she threw her head back, cackling without care for the agony in her right wrist or the consequences of Adam's choice.

"Amusing, truly. I knew you, among all the others I tested, would entertain me after fifteen thousand years. I admit it. Quintella's memories aren't enough for me to predict your reactions... yet. It appears to me that you hate being forced to do something. Memorised." She snapped her gaze toward a teacher rushing at them from the other side of the campus, then toward the crypt-like classroom of Marcellus Noct Virein. "We've played enough for now. Find me if you want your sister back. I'll be waiting. Memorised."

"You're not leaving," Adam growled, his palm blazing.

When he thought he would vaporise it, however, his eyes widened at his fading flames. The spell was being unmade, not through brute force, but with a precision that far outmatched his mana control. He felt as if a magus who understood his own spell better had snatched and snuffed it like a candle.

"Try to stop me." With those words, the wrist he clutched dissolved in a puff of grey smoke. The fake's arm and body followed.

Adam had no time to understand how in the realm his spell failed before the smoke shot to the sky. He watched it disappear behind the Common Hall. His nails dug into his tight fists. Mana flared around him, distorting the air into a chaotic canvas that made even Desmond back away from him.

"We'll find her, Adam," Desmond tentatively said, his voice strangled by his tight throat as he gazed at the approaching teacher. "But we need to leave. Now!"

Adam snapped his gaze at him. Desmond's face was wrenched in genuine care. For him. For Quintella, too. But care wouldn't calm him down. He wouldn't calm down at all.

The person he despised most right now was himself. He had vowed to protect Quintella, promising himself to replace her horrible memories with ones of happiness. Where was she now? Taken while he was curing the orcs.

Pathetic lying bastard, no better than Gaston.

As he cursed himself, he stomped toward the plain behind the common hall. Each step left a melted print onto the ground. There will be no negotiations, no compromise. Haldris could learn his secrets, but he would never give up on Quintella... It would be worse than giving up on a part of his heart.

Through the storm of his rage, he clung to the imposter's words. Memories. Fifteen thousand years. All the others it tested... No one was that old besides the teachers of the House of Exorcism, and the tests sounded odd, which made him think of the trial to inherit one of the seven great houses' legacies. Which one of them was brazen enough to let it take place in the middle of the college?

If he were right, that would explain why it chose to flee before a teacher could confront it. To where? There were dozens of buildings with hundreds of rooms within. Meaningless search if it was hidden like Leoric's. No, someone had to know!

He turned on the empty plain toward Desmond.

Frowning, Desmond asked first. "Sarah?"

"Sarah," Adam repeated, his voice like frozen fire. "She's the first that thing impersonated. She must have set it free, or at least found where it hid."

Desmond pressed his lips into a tight line. "She must have led Quintella there, then left with the fake wearing her face, or someone would have noticed her disappearance. I mean, the imposter did... It's more confusing than Teacher Viktor's classes, but I think Sarah's innocent."

"We'll know after we find her." Adam narrowed his eyes, but still found the gentleness to pat Bao's head tenderly.

The baby Pandarok felt his care beneath the rage. Her trembling eased, and she leapt to the ground with a growl that Adam understood as, "I know where she is at this time of the day. Follow me!"

She scrambled toward the garden, and he chased after her.

Midway, Desmond clicked his tongue. "We'd better hurry. One of the bastards called for a teacher. If they catch us, we won't escape hours of punishment."