What, What!?
The crowd in front of the train was completely dumbfounded when they heard Lu Mingfei's words.
Especially Schneider—he had been in the Execution Bureau for years and thought he had seen it all. But now, looking at Lu Mingfei, who looked like he had just crawled out of a slaughterhouse, someone who wouldn't even need makeup to play a deranged serial killer… The first thing out of his mouth was:
"Have you eaten? If not, let's eat together."
"Ugh—!"
As soon as he said that, the Execution Bureau members behind him, who were already barely holding it in, completely lost control.
The sour stench filled the air. Aside from a few people, almost everyone was vomiting like crazy. It was truly a sight to behold.
"Cassell College's welcome ceremony is pretty unique, huh?" Lu Mingfei raised an eyebrow, looking at the group hunched over and retching on the ground.
Schneider's face turned green with frustration. He glared at the vomiting Execution Bureau members, mentally noting to settle the score with them later.
Then, he turned back and said, "Sorry for the embarrassment. We were actually planning to assist in the rescue, but now it looks like that won't be necessary."
Nono covered her nose and fanned the air, trying to dispel the awful smell. "Professor, maybe we should let Mingfei go wash up first?"
"Yeah, it really stinks!" Xia Mi grimaced and moved upwind. "Professor, can we not stand here? Lu Mingfei and I just went through a brutal fight—we're exhausted and starving. Can we at least clean up first?"
"Where's Finger? Didn't I tell him to come back with you?"
Schneider glanced into the train a few times, but there was no sign of that lazy mutt. His expression darkened in dissatisfaction.
"Uh, Professor Schneider…" Xia Mi mumbled. "Finger-san said… he'll come back tomorrow."
She hesitated for a moment before adding in a low voice, "I think he was scared to death by how Lu Mingfei looked. No matter what, he refused to come back with us."
"Heh, is that so?" Schneider sneered, then turned his head and said, "Go back and tell Norma to deduct his credits. The reason? Mission failed!"
Not long after, Schneider dismissed the Execution Bureau officers and had Nono lead Lu Mingfei to the dormitory. He himself had some matters to take care of.
He spent a full thirty minutes washing up, scrubbing off the bits of flesh stuck to his body. The nauseating stench of blood finally faded a little.
After changing back into his Cassell College uniform and tidying up his appearance, he couldn't wait to head straight for the cafeteria—he was starving.
Ten German pork knuckles, ten roast ducks, fifty servings of pan-seared foie gras with lemon juice, twenty truffle bread rolls, ten giant bowls of meat sauce noodles, and more.
Under the shocked gaze of the cafeteria chefs, Lu Mingfei wiped out the mountain of food stacked on the table.
"Amazing!" Xia Mi gave him a thumbs-up. "As expected of my junior—strong and with an appetite to match!"
Nono eyed him up and down, genuinely curious about where all that food was going.
"The taste is decent, but the nutritional value is too low," Lu Mingfei said as he elegantly wiped his mouth.
He wasn't being picky—ordinary human food simply had little nutritional value for him. He had to make up for it with sheer quantity.
"Nutritional value... too low?" Xia Mi tilted her head in confusion. "But these dishes aren't low in nutrition. Then what do you consider high in nutrition?"
Lu Mingfei thought for a moment before answering, "Tao Steel and nutrient porridge, I guess."
Suddenly, he felt a pang of nostalgia—memories of following the Emperor in his conquests across the galaxy, sitting at the table with his battle brothers. Back then, he had found the food barely edible, but now, for some reason, he kind of missed it.
Nono and Xia Mi were completely lost.
"Tao Steel? That… sounds like something you can actually eat?"
"It's pretty late. You two didn't come here just to wait for me, did you?" Lu Mingfei put down his napkin and looked at them curiously.
"Not really," Nono shrugged. "Professor Schneider just asked me to tell you that tomorrow is a Day of Liberty. He hopes you'll make good use of it."
"With Caesar and Chu Zihang gone, a Day of Liberty is probably going to be boring. So, S-Rank, we're looking forward to seeing what you'll do tomorrow~"
"Where did they go?"
Lu Mingfei was a bit confused. Without those two around, how was "Day of Liberty" supposed to stay lively?
After all, the winner of Day of Liberty could make any request, as long as it was within moral and legal boundaries. Even asking the school beauty to be their girlfriend for a day wouldn't be refused.
Because of that, both the Lionheart Society and the Student Council treated it as a competition to determine who truly held the highest status in school.
But now, for the first time, both the Student Council President and the Lionheart Society President were mysteriously absent.
"Last time, the Bronze Plan caused Chu Zihang's dragon blood concentration to spike too high. He can't show his face right now." Nono rested her chin on one hand, absentmindedly drawing circles with the other.
"As for Caesar... seems like something happened in the Gattuso family. His old man called him back."
"Pompeii Gattuso."
Lu Mingfei's brows furrowed. Something about this felt off.
Although he hadn't read through that notebook entirely, both he and Lu Mingze had their suspicions about Pompeii's true identity.
"What's wrong?" Nono tilted her head.
"Nothing, it's fine."
Lu Mingfei shook his head, keeping his thoughts to himself.
He needed more time to properly investigate Pompeii Gattuso.
At the same time—
Schneider returned to the control room, repeatedly reviewing the surveillance footage from the Chicago train station.
"Stop! Right there!" He suddenly spoke, staring intently at the footage. "Zoom in, Norma. I need to see the writing on that metal rod."
"Understood."
Norma enhanced the image, focusing on the metal rod held by the white male. She then used advanced technology to extract and display the text.
"Can you translate it?" Schneider asked.
"It's difficult, but I can try." Norma searched through the database while responding. "The text doesn't belong to 'Dragon Script.' It appears to be an extremely ancient language. Comparing it with known records, I can only barely translate one sentence."
"What do you mean?"
Schneider's eyes lit up as he asked.
If he could just decipher a part of it, he might uncover the secret behind how those people created the Nibelungen and forcibly dragged others inside.
At that point, if they could reverse-engineer the technique, they might even be able to invade the Dragon Kings' Nibelungen domains in the future. That would be a groundbreaking advancement for the cause of dragon slaying.
"That which sleeps eternally is not truly dead. In that strange and ancient era, even death itself may pass away."
Norma displayed the only translated sentence on the screen.
The completely cryptic passage left Schneider bewildered. He had hoped to steal the secret of invading the Nibelungen, but instead, the translation only deepened his confusion. He had no idea what it even meant.
"Professor Schneider, the principal is trying to contact you."
Just as he was lost in thought, pondering the meaning of the passage, Norma suddenly interrupted him. "It's something important. A board member... something happened."
"What?!"
Schneider's expression shifted, and he stood up immediately, his face turning serious. "Who?"
"The head of the Gattuso family—Pompeii Gattuso."
Norma's tone remained steady as she continued.
"Just now, Principal Hilbert received word that during a family banquet, Caesar Gattuso assassinated Pompeii Gattuso and took something with him. The Gattuso family has already issued a warrant demanding that the principal and the Cassell College assist in hunting down Caesar Gattuso!"
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