Unfazed by Baiyi’s chilling threat, she calmly replied, “No, no more Duchess. I left that filthy place long ago. Just call me Harllotte.”

  She glanced down at the toppled plants and said, “These adorable kids are only asleep, you see. Don’t worry; I’m not so bold as to really hurt them.” She stepped closer to the Fifth Walker, and the blurry moonlight illuminated her alluring figure.

  “Or, rather…… are you looking for a good chance to turn me into a dryad, as told in legends?” She cooed, offering up an irresistible suggestion.

  She was Vidomina’s mother and the ex-Duchess of Breighton. She was a belle with so much beauty, she could start a war amongst nations, much like Helen of Troy. However, her beauty had brought her nothing but strife, and in the end, she had joined the Godsfall cult and became Baiyi’s enemy. The Fifth Walker reserved some conflicting views on the seductress. Although he agreed that a foe as dangerous as she was ought to be slain, he could not bring himself to kill the mother of one of his students with his own hands.

  The fact that the woman was really beautiful was also another reason Baiyi was not so eager to kill her. She was not wearing the partial see-through satin gown she had been wearing the last time she saw Baiyi; instead, she had opted for a tasteless and unalluring black robe — a robe of the Godsfall cult. However, this did nothing to hide her beautiful figure and mature grace. No matter what one chooses to wear, beauty could not be tarnished.

  “Curious…… Why are you here?” Baiyi muttered in a low voice, and without waiting for an answer, he vanished instantly, reappearing inches away from Harllotte. In less time than it took to blink, he had grabbed her neck and lifted her up.

  “You can’t possibly be here to see your kid, can you?” Baiyi said, steely.

  At this point, a normal person would lose their composure from fear, but Harllotte was completely placid, like a doll; she did not look like she planned on struggling, either. Even her breathing remained steady as she gazed at Baiyi with a serene expression before saying, “Impatient, aren’t you, Master Hope? Whatever happened to chivalry?”

  “Oh? Now I see…… You guys at Godsfall have such interesting toys,” Baiyi remarked, instantly discovering the secret of her body. Apparently, Harllotte was not there in person. The body in front of him had been formed by a strange creature similar to one of his students, Potter the Owl.

  As there was no point in killing a substitute, Baiyi let go of her and decided to listen to what she wanted.

  “This is our corvine messenger. It is a mystical creature used by the members of our organization to communicate with each other,” Harllotte explained briefly. Then, she added, “The purpose of my visit was not to cause harm, dear. I come in peace from our organization.”

  With that said, she got on one knee and raised two storage pouches up to Baiyi. “These humble gifts come from our organization, in celebration of your success in establishing your academy.”

  \r \r \r

  “Interesting,” Baiyi mumbled and accepted the pouches. He had not expected the Godsfall Cult to be the type to exchange gifts for events out of societal customs. In fact, they were the first organization to congratulate him with gifts!

  Could it be that their previous request for a truce was not a misdirection but an honest request? Or had they decided to try and recruit Baiyi after realizing that he was a disturbing and troublesome foe?

  As soon as he opened the pouches, he discarded his second theory. Both pouches were filled with gold coins, jewelry, and magical materials. He was sure even they did not believe that mere trinkets could buy him out; hence, they were probably just adhering to courteous customs.

  Harllotte seemed to have read his mind and offered an explanation. “The organization would not try to bribe the Messenger of a God. We, however, wish to make amends to the previous, unfortunate conflicts between us. We really aren’t enemies.”

  “Oh, alas…… this time, at least, you people did not expect me to buy your crap just because you asked me to,” Baiyi replied sardonically.

  “Hmm. Then, what must we do to earn your trust, O’ Messenger of God? Shall I offer myself?” Harllotte whispered, and a seductive expression emerged on her beautiful face as she slowly sauntered toward Baiyi. Her eyes seemed to contain a passionate anticipation that sprung from the depths of a dangerous mind.

  At this moment, describing Harllotte’s beauty as something akin to the treasure of a dynasty would be doing her a disservice. She was currently so bewitching, her beauty would be nothing short of kingdom-toppling. Baiyi finally noticed that despite the fact her black robe was conservative, with the right posture, it was translucent enough to partially see the body parts that mattered, which were not shielded by any underwear. This was the sort of reward one would get just by standing close enough to Harllotte.

  Fortunately, Baiyi was a man with ample amounts of self-control, chivalry, and ethics. Furthermore, he knew that the person standing before him was not Harollotte herself. The ‘reward’ offered by Harllotte was one that was enough to make the average man go crazy; perhaps, some women of legend, such as Daji and Tamamo-no-Mae, had as much carnal beauty as the one before him. This was why it was not surprising that such a case of tragic perversion had happened in the Wright family.

  Baiyi coldly pushed the woman away. In his eyes, the closer she got to him, the worse she looked. With the same cold demeanor, Baiyi replied, “Now that you have passed your message, shouldn’t you leave?”

  “Understood.” The vixen wisely took another step back before snapping her fingers once, and Baiyi’s mutated plants sprang back to their roots. They began to look left and right hastily, trying to make sense of the situation. It made them look quite comical.

  “I bid you farewell,” Harllotte said and began to walk away.

  Suddenly, after a few steps, she stopped in her tracks and turned to gaze at the mansion behind Baiyi with an expression of unwillingness.

  “You want to see Vidomina, don’t you?” Baiyi asked.

  “Me? A sorry excuse of a mother? Not worthy of her audience,” She replied serenely, shaking her head sideways. “Please take care of her for me. I’ll return the favor one day.”

  After saying that, she dissolved into a small cloud of black fog, which then condensed into a crow seconds later. As soon as the crow appeared, it took off into the night sky.

  After watching the crow fly away, Baiyi shook his head sideways and murmured, “Such a pitiful woman.”

  He kicked the slobbering Jawflower which had been charging towards him and walked back into the Aegis’ residence.

  The thought of informing Vidomina of her mother’s visit crossed Baiyi’s mind, but when he entered the mansion and saw Vidomina sitting close to Little Mia as they copied each other’s homework, the nagging thought evaporated from his mind; instead, a new thought compelled him to grab his feather duster and approach the two brats who were not doing their homework properly.

  February was a little hectic for Baiyi, and most of his time was devoted to his upcoming academy. He was glad that he had Aya and Joseph, the new part-time teacher, to help him teach the students; without their help, he would have been forced to stop classes for a long time.

  Vidomina’s father had very generously sponsored Baiyi’s endeavor with ten million gold coins — a very kind sum. Other organizations he has had dealings with — the Church, the Walthart royals, and the Sorcerers’ Association — had made monetary contributions towards Baiyi’s academy, as well. Even Undine, whose motive could not be ascertained, had contributed five million golds to him. So far, in just a short period of time, the Fifth Walker had amassed about twenty million golds in donations; it was just enough to cover some of the cost of the building.

  The Southern Duke, who did not see eye to eye with the soul armature, had sent over a full construction team consisting of thousands of workers and mages. Everyone on the team were veterans, especially in the field of realm excavations.

  To Baiyi, this was more helpful than gold coins because of the size of the team and the number of experts were in it. The Southern Duke had lent him this team for a year, and this gesture had earned him a favorable impression with Baiyi.

  Minor issues such as lab apparatuses were solved for him by Duke Wright and the Dole family.

  Meanwhile, the Doors of Conundrum — the organization Baiyi had long since been pretending to be a part of — made a promise to Baiyi that when his academy had been established, they would send over a group of academic sages who had a knack for teaching. Furthermore, Mr. Owl, Mr. Sorry, and some other of Baiyi’s colleagues had accepted his offers to become teachers at his academy. Hence, he had every possible problem with human resources covered.

  Baiyi also did not have any problems with attracting students. Due to Arfin city’s mayor’s help, many nobles had already expressed interests in his upcoming academy. Many non-clingy dads had decided to send their daughters to his academy, and this interest was not limited to people in Arfin city. Many parties living in other places had expressed their interests, as well.

  The only explanation one could offer about why Baiyi was getting so much support, was that the soul armature’s reputation was finally being put into good use.

  Baiyi then communicated with the leader of the forest fairies, which was still in the small realm he wished to build his academy, and asked it to watch over the construction team. After that, he spent some time and a large amount of money to build a trans-realm portal to transport his building materials to the realm where he would be building his academy. The construction had begun.

  The building’s design had been designed by the Engineer Walker; it contained a fusion of architectural concepts from this world and from earth. When the design was completed, Baiyi carefully scrutinized it to make sure that the Engineer Walker did not sneak in some design ideas that his fellow members of the Gentlemen’s Club would applaud — such as secret passages to the girls’ dormitories or bathrooms.

  Baiyi found nothing of the sort, though; the Engineer Walker had been professional this one time, so the blueprint was approved.

  However, the Engineer Walker’s request to design the girls’ uniform was regrettably denied.

  According to Baiyi’s rough estimation, the construction team would require three months to construct the building, and after that, they would require another half a year to build its facilities. This was already the fastest speed they could attain, in a world where magic existed. It was many times faster than the amount of time it would take to construct a similar establishment on earth.

  Now that the construction had begun, most of Baiyi’s troubles had been resolved. Therefore, to the joy of his students, he now had the time to go back to a leisurely activity he enjoyed: teaching. This marked the return of Mr. Hope the teacher.Two of the most famous deadly women in Chinese and Japanese myths! Daji was from China, the favorite consort of King Shang Zhou; while Tamamo-no-Mae was a courtesan of Emperor Konoe (Japan). Both were described to be fox spirits disguised as women (with the Japanese actually explaining that it had always been the same spirit, who first became Daji then Tamamo-no-Mae) because of how much havoc they had wrecked onto the people just by being too beautiful for the emperors to resist.