High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1193: Chapter 255 The Hearing Begins

The wizard in white who had first questioned the location of the meeting merely fired the initial shot of the argument.

Immediately afterward, a wizard in red from Jiuyou Academy stood up and expressed deep concern that Alpha Academy had one more student representative than Jiuyou Academy. Another wizard in white bluntly pointed out the lack of professionalism in Jiuyou Academy’s student representatives, who were not adept in the ”Wizard’s Code” and couldn’t understand that the ”Representative Group” did not mean equal numbers. The extra representative from Alpha Academy precisely represented the ingenuity of institutional arrangements, and so on.

Representatives from both sides exchanged fire across the conference room, a heated and lively exchange of words.

The advocates for strife from Starry Sky Academy and the debaters from Atlas Academy, representatives from both schools, sat in the center of the conference room, craning their necks left and right, until they were sore, yet they all kept their mouths tightly shut, watching the spectacle like a play.

The chairman at the podium had no choice but to bang his gavel forcefully and shout at the top of his lungs to barely maintain control as the situation gradually deteriorated.

Throughout this process, Zheng Qing maintained his silence and a docile smile on his face. Meanwhile, Sepulano kept his typically somber demeanor, sitting at the table with a commanding presence akin to a king.

”Today is just an informal hearing, where we’ve invited all of you to discuss the recent accident and sort things out! It doesn’t involve any voting or declaratory documents! Let’s not get tangled up in these details!”

The warlock in charge of the hearing on the chairman’s podium tried to placate the red-robed and white-robed wizards on both sides, but his answer did not satisfy everyone.

”The issue of numbers concerns fundamental fairness; it’s not a detail, it’s a key element!” shouted a wizard in red.

”Student Sepulano has been subjected to a deliberate attack! That was no accident!” another wizard in white retorted just as vehemently.

Zheng Qing sighed softly and quietly took out his pocket watch to glance at the time. He had a Fishman Language elective in the afternoon, and he hadn’t had lunch yet—there wasn’t much time to waste here in an argument with others. However, as a directly involved party, and one who was currently at a slight disadvantage, simply walking away would mean not only giving up on defending his rights but also slapping his own academy in the face after having offended Alpha Academy.

He certainly did not want to end up like Nicolas, shunned by both schools.

”Silence,” said a handsome warlock sitting on the chairman’s podium slightly to the right. His voice was not loud, but it immediately had a stunning effect—the representatives from Alpha Academy instantly fell silent.

Zheng Qing knew that warlock and had dealt with him before. He was the President of the Alpha Academy Student Council and the leader of the Blood Comrades, currently His Excellency Augustus.

Sitting in the chairman’s podium’s middle to the left was another serious-faced, tall warlock. Although Zheng Qing was not familiar with him, as a student at Jiuyou Academy, he could recognize that this was the current Lei Zhe.

Unlike Augustus, Lei Zhe simply swept his gaze over the left side of the room and subdued the once-ferocious spirit of the red-robed wizards.

Truly the most outstanding student leaders of the leading university, Zheng Qing silently praised in his heart, yet couldn’t help but fantasize what it would be like if he were the one sitting behind that chairman’s podium.

Sitting in the very middle of the podium was the hearing’s presiding officer, a young warlock in a yellow robe wearing half-rimmed glasses and a fair complexion. Zheng Qing remembered he was the President of the Atlas Academy Student Council, but he didn’t remember his name.

”Well,” the presiding officer cleared his throat, ”now that we have achieved a consensus, let’s get started. As is customary, the first order of business is to introduce the identities of everyone present.”

”But since this is an informal meeting and we all know each other, we can skip this step. There are six representatives, including myself, on the chairman’s podium, sent by the Presidents of the First University, in no particular order—and everyone knows who we are...”

”Seven!” A slightly shrill voice suddenly interrupted the presiding officer: ”There are seven representatives on the podium!”

The speaker was the three-headed parrot.

The presiding officer glanced at it and quickly corrected himself: ”Yes, yes, there are seven of us representatives, responsible for supervising the entire hearing process.”

The three-headed parrot nodded in satisfaction.

The presiding officer lowered his head, adjusted his glasses, and continued, ”Today is April 29th, Wednesday; the time is now 11:45 am; we are about to begin a hearing concerning ’the accident that took place near Lin Zhong Lake on the evening of April 11th, Saturday.’ The parties involved...”

With this, the presiding officer looked up at the separate seats on both sides of the chairman’s podium: ”One is student Sepulano from Alpha Academy.”

Sepulano stood up, bowing politely to both the chairman’s podium and the student representatives below.

”...And the other is student Zheng Qing from Jiuyou Academy.”

Zheng Qing clumsily stood up, imitating Sepulano’s gesture, nodding to both sides.

”Very well,” the presiding officer nodded with satisfaction, turning to the student representatives below, ”I now declare the hearing officially open, with Sister Korma’s first round of questioning. Those with questions can put a slip of paper into the sprites’ trays for verification by the members of the council before joining the second round of questioning.”

Saying this, the presiding officer pointed to a large clump of green hanging from the ceiling.

It was only then that Zheng Qing noticed the swathes of green festooned with a group of sprites in gray uniforms, dragging small palm-sized trays of woven vines. Hearing the presiding officer’s voice, the sprites floated in an orderly procession over the heads of the student representatives, while another group distributed paper and feather pens.

”Are these feather pens for us?” Zheng Qing heard a red-robed warlock whisper to a wizard beside him, not far away.

”Yes,” his companion replied in an equally low voice, ”but I think we should see what others do... I remember our senior mentioning that the feather pens distributed during student council meetings can’t even write ten thousand words before the nibs go bald.”

Listening to these amusing conversations, Zheng Qing laughed inwardly; the tension stirred by the presiding officer gradually dissipated a little.

He glanced at Sepulano.

The fat wizard sat behind the desk expressionless, with his fingers interlocked on the table, staring at his own fingertips. Behind him, on the windowsill, concealed by a thin curtain, two mice heads peeked out.

But before Zheng Qing could discern if there really were two mice there, Sister Korma on the chairman’s podium had already begun to question him.