"Good morning everyone." The staff greeted the cadets.
Unlike usual, there was no response from the cadets.
It was clear that the mourning air of death was still there after a week.
But here was the difference…
"Let's continue on our normal schedule," the substitute head said.
But as he was about to continue, a voice came from the crowd.
"Do you guys really don't feel anything over what happened?"
It wasn't anything more than a whisper.
But in the silence of the large ground, it echoed like a haunting question.
"Hmm?" The staff turned, his eyes now toward the cadet who spoke out from the Squadron.
"Cadet Elionor Marvin from Squadron 24, speak clearly on what you mean."
There was no expression of annoyance or irritation on the staff's face.
It was completely calm.
The respective cadet, Elionor, finally couldn't take it anymore as he raised his voice.
"Are you people just going to ignore what happened a week ago!?"
He came walking out the squadron.
"Those people risked our lives with us to save this academy!"
He started shouting now.
"Yet! You people couldn't even give them a proper funeral!?"
There was complete silence in the ground as Elionor shouted.
His voice echoed in the large space, right into the ears of the staff, who was calm as ever.
"You, you people couldn't even protect your own academy and expected us to do it!?"
His voice finally died down, reducing the noise in the ground back to the whispers of the wind.
Mikhail observed the situation silently with his squadron.
'As said, these people are too weak and naive.'
At this point, they were just finding reasons to put the blame on.
Their weakness was too hard to accept.
Mikhail's eyes turned to the staff, waiting to see his response to the words.
And after a few seconds of silence, the staff turned back to his original position.
"There. These few seconds of silence are enough for their honor."
Facing the cadets, he was about to speak again when Elionor tried to shout again.
"You can't-"
Unfortunately for him, the staff was done with his bullshit.
This was the moment that the Cadets of Blackmire would finally understand their worth.
And Mikhail had been waiting for it.
Taking the gun out by his waist, the staff pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The shot travelled straight past Elionor's head, grazing his cheek.
The boy's eyes widened with horror and panic as if his life just flashed past him in a second.
"A little to the right and you would've been dead."
The staff strapped the gun back to his waist.
"Now tell me, if you were to die right here, who would've retaliated to your death?"
His question was heard loud and clear in the ground, the silence as flat as ever.
Elionor, who had collapsed to his knees in fear, was unable to answer.
His mind was still reeling from the shock of how close he had been to death.
Step.
The staff started walking toward him.
"Your squadron?"
His sharp black eyes went to the squadron he came from, searching for answers.
Elionor's trembling eyes turned to the back, only for a horrified gasp to escape his lips.
All of them..
Not a single one was meeting his gaze.
All of them had been reduced to absolute rats with one shot of the gun.
"None." The staff finally reached him, his eyes locking down on him from above.
"In fact, I'll ask this, which person from here would even bother to mourn your death if you were to die here?"
"Look around and see. Raise your hand if you would mourn for him."
But this time, Elionor was too defeated to even try. The reality had been too harsh on him.
Unfortunately, it would only get worse for him as a crunching kick was delivered to his cheek.
CRACK! THUD!
Blood spilled in the air as Elionor's face slammed on the ground.
"None. That's your worth in this world."
Grabbing the boy's bloody face by the hair, the staff pulled him up close to his head.
"You, to me, to the Empire, to these people are nothing more than a mere speck of dirt."
At this point, there was not a single spark of rebuttal left in Elionor's eyes, with tears streaming down his face.
"Honor and respect is never fully earned. That's a fat lie."
The staff spat on the ground.
"It's half-given from your birth and half you have to earn. But your respect and honor?"
A smirk spread on the staff's face.
"The only respect you were given at birth is to be discarded by your parents to the wilderness rather than being buried alive at a day old."
The staff let go of Elionor's hair, letting him fall to the ground, now completely broken.
"If these people who died had done enough in this world, then they would've definitely been honored. Not just the academy but the whole world."
He started walking away.
"But the problem?"
The staff turned back.
"You people think too highly of yourselves. Too important. Too worthy."
Mikhail listened to the whole truth with a calm expression.
He knew a lot of people were getting butt hurt right now.
But unfortunately, that was the cruel truth.
The best thing you could do was just accept it.
"But the reality?"
The staff spit on the ground.
"You sit at the lowest of the lowest in this world. Disposed out of the walls like trash."
He pointed to the spit on the ground.
"In the eyes of the Empire, this spit holds more value than your life."
He started walking back to his original position.
"So don't come crying about respect and honor. If you had enough respect, the Dominique wouldn't have watched you die like insects that day."
Every word of his stabbed into the hearts of the cadet like a hot knife.
"So realize that you aren't even the worth of a normal human. You are worthless and the fact that none of you can say anything about it, proves it as the absolute truth."
He ended his speech, the ground still in the echoing silence as it was before.
Elionor's body lay on the ground, now defeated and broken.
'A clear delivery of truth to the cadets.'
And the defeated expression on everyone's face clearly showed it.
"Now, let's continue."
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