"Welcome, my favorite students who love to skip classes. And your highness."

Ms. Wendy greeted us and kneeled in front of Shirley just a bit away from the entrance to Melk. We traveled quickly to Melk by transforming Victoria into a wagon and let me pulled it.

"Just call me Shirley. I don't want anyone to know my identity. Please stand up." Shirley says as she helped Ms. Wendy to stand.

"Then you should have did as I suggested. Disguising yourself." I said.

"No! A girl and a mustache is not a good combination! In fact it will make others pay more attention at her!" Angela protested.

"Well, she can have Victoria as her wig to change her hair color to black if she want to. That's fine, right? While Victoria acted as her wig, we can find the ingredient for a hair dye. I think there are a lot of those in this area."

"You can make one?" Angela asked.

"Yeah. Back then although I can't fight, I still became a hunter. But the only requests I'm doing is herb gathering and the likes. I was lucky to be able to help someone make a hair dye and other kind of potion."

"Then you should have done that from the start!" Angela said.

"What's done is done. I can just do that later. By the way, I heard that you own a hotel, Ms. Wendy?" I deliberately change the topic.

"Yes. It's a good place. I made it so only those with personal connection can stay in that place. I think that place is big enough if everyone in the defense group and evacuation group stay together." She replied.

Defense group are the one who responsible to defeat the monsters during the stampede. We are in that group. As for evacuation group, it will be Hill's and his subordinates' responsibility.

Sophie said she will come here in a week, and I don't know when Hill will come. But I guess it should be days before the stampede.

"The three of you should forget about the stampede at the moment and just focus on the exam. The exam will start next week. If you want to graduate, you need to study since you have been skipping class for a long time." Ms. Wendy reminded us of the exam. After everything that happened, I almost forget that she's also a teacher.

"Ah! I haven't studied for a long time!" Angela cried in despair.

"What? Did you forget that we returned here mainly to take the exam instead of fighting?"

"I thought that we're here mainly for the battle and not the exam. But I heard there's a practical exam, right? I think I can get a high grade in that exam. The grade from practical exam is the most important thing if I want to enter magic college, right?" Angela asked.

"Yes. So for Kayla and Angela, the practical exam is more important. As long as you passed it, the written exam is not important anymore. As for me, written exam is more important since I want to attend medical school. So our plan is to pass the exam, taking care of the stampede, and pass the final exam later."

"You don't need to do that. As long as you at least passed two out of three exams, you can graduate safely. You have passed the first exam and if you pass this one, you don't need to join the last one. But you can take part in it if you want to get a higher mark."

"Seriously? Then we can just go home after the exam." I said happily.

I never thought that we only need to pass just two exam from three. In the past, I just worked hard to pass all three exams. But since the last exam is where my grade is the highest, I guess that's fine.

"No. His majesty said that if you leave before the stampede, I will make sure you didn't pass the test. It's my privilege as your teacher. So even if you passed, you have to wait until the stampede before you got your degree." Ms. Wendy explains.

"…so we have a corrupt teacher. Can I just bribe you?"

"You can bribe me by helping us take care of the stampede. Then no matter how badly you are on your test, I can give you a passing grade."

So I can't escape fighting in the stampede.

"Sigh… can't we just kill everyone in the cult here since there are several other cities that will get attacked?"

"Well… no. Actually, the reason you're here is… the reason we head Shirley here is because of her status." Ms. Wendy explained the reason why we're asked to help here.

Albert asked us to come here was mainly to use Shirley's status as the princess and my Divine Vision to look for the members of the cult. So we will take care of the stampede, then after that, it will be our duty to clear out all the cult members left in this city using my Divine Vision. Then using Shirley's status that will make everyone believe her when she make a speech about the reason behind the stampede. She will convince everyone about the existence of the cult. Then the information will spread to other cities.

So Sonia keep this as a secret. Does Albert really think that the cult will cease their attacks after we told everyone about their existence? Or maybe because once we stopped the stampede and the news of the cult spread, the cult will be more cautious and won't do anything big in near future. Giving us more time to reinforce our strength.

Whatever the case, the king is smart. And he's also being helped by the prime minister and the future prime minister. So they should have thought about it clearly. So I'll just trust his decisions.

"So my brother is using me?" Shirley realized it after hearing Albert's plan.

"Welcome to the club of people that's being used by the king." I grabbed her shoulder and give her a thumb up.

"Who's in the club?" Kayla asked.

"So far, it's just me and Shirley. All his subordinates doesn't count because it's their job to be used." I replied.

"Let's ignore him and continue about our plan. How many evacuation center we have?" Victoria asked Ms. Wendy.

"We have about fifty location. Maybe the number of people in evacuation group is too little. But during the stampede, we can ask the hunter guild to help us. We can tell them to gather people in those spot without telling them that we are ordered by the king. Of course my hotel is one of the evacuation center. We have a basement big enough to hold a hundred people. If we used the whole building, we can let about five hundred people in."

Wendy told us about the location of evacuation center. Unsurprisingly, Red Tail is one of them. Maybe because she know that is our place and it's empty. So I gave her the key to that building I received from Ruby.

"All the evacuation centers' wall has been reinforced with magic. It will hold for a while. So once you see one of the buildings is under attack, make killing the monsters there as your priority." Ms. Wendy continued

"Not me. Once the stampede happen, I will find the cult members hiding among the crowd and kill them before they enter the buildings. It will be dangerous if even one of them enter one of the building. Before the stampede happen, I will look everyone with explosive devices inside their mouth. Tell me about all the secret agents here so I can tell them the people who belong to the cult. But there might be some of them who doesn't have any explosive device inside their mouth so after I told the agents about the members of the cult, they need to investigate on their own. Then once the stampede happen, I will kill them and make it seem as if the monsters killed them."

With this, the number of casualties will be lessened. The thought of cult member hiding among the crowd and entered the building make me shiver. Casualties is inevitable, but the fewer casualties the better. I can only pray to the safety of everyone in other cities.

"Good idea. When will you start gathering info?" Ms. Wendy asked me.

"Once we entered your hotel. At this time, the cult member should be wary to the newcomers. So I thought of making them think that I'm resting after a long journey. I will sneak out of the hotel in disguise and search for the members of the cult."

"Then how will you tell the agents about the members of the cult? Are you good at drawing?" Ms. Wendy asked me if I'm talented in drawing.

"No. But I can just transform Victoria into the cult member's faces. Then I'll leave investigating them to you and your fellow agents."

So far so good. I made sound plans to what we will do later. I'll tell Sonia to inform Albert and Sophie's group. As for Hill's group… I'll tell them once they entered the city.