Chapter 238
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Inside the principal’s office, Principal Hawke, Professor Dorothea Clarkson, Professor Randall Collins and Professor Barnes were gathered once more. And along with them in the office, were a tall and slim man wearing a pair of glasses and in a grey robe, and a similarly tall red headed woman in a dark blue robe with a full suit of tight leather armor underneath. Each of them was wearing a pair of glasses, and under the light on the ceiling of the office, their glasses were showing a light blue shine.

 

“Agents, thank you very much for coming.” Principal Hawke said to the slim man and a woman, while handing them two full folders: “Your enrollment and registration papers are now fully prepared. You now have full access to all facilities in the entire academy. This should aid you in your investigation, please let us know what else we can help you with.” 

 

“Thank you Principal Hawke.” the slim man took the folders from Principal Hawke and said: “So first things first, we would like to have access to all of your documents and evidence from your internal investigation.”

 

“All of them?” Principal Hawke frowned, looked at the two headmasters and one headmistress in the office and asked: “I’m afraid we can’t authorize that - we’ll need to redact certain records because they contain certain sensitive information - ”

 

“We’ll need all of them, without any redaction. That’s non-negotiable.” the female agent said in an emotionless tone, without even looking at Principal Hawke: “If you want our help, you’ll need to come completely clean with us. All evidence and records should be open to us. And we will need full access to all students’ living quarters and personal matters, even private rooms and private storage places.”

 

“No. That’s grossly inappropriate.” all three top administrators from the three houses objected simultaneously.

 

“Agents, please understand that the academy takes in students from various prestigious families.” Principal Hawke said: “And it’s very common for all of them to carry secretive personal belongings when they come to the academy. So it’d be highly offensive to these students and their families if you just invade their spaces like this.”

 

“That’s easy, just give us a list of these students.” the male agent said: “We’ll know who to avoid.”

 

“What, so the students with normal backgrounds should just let you go into their places and submit to your search?” Professor Hellbruck crossed his arms and asked: “That’s not it, we can’t have that. You can have your investigation in our facilities and common area, but I’ll not have you just blatantly prying around in our students’ living quarters.”

 

“I agree. This is way over the line.” Professor Randall Collins nodded in agreement with Professor Barnes: “We have the authority and even duty to decide for our facilities and our records, but we can’t just decide for the students.”

 

“If not for your students, you wouldn’t even be in this mess.” the female agent said.

 

“I agree, we could just provide a list of off-limits students. So that we could stay away from the potential backlash from those families and still keep the investigation as thorough as possible.” Professor Dorothea Clarkson said.

 

“That’s an unfair proposition.” Professor Barnes said: “More than half of YOUR students are from traditional and somewhat privileged families, but the absolute majority of our students are either from normal families or from civilian backgrounds. They would not be snooping around and disrespecting your students’ privacy.”

 

“And most of the students from my house are not interested at all in fireworks or low level craftings that require the contaminated materials.” Professor Dorothea Clarks scoffed and said: “We should just go with the most effective route and get this over with. Do you want this thing to drag on forever? Or do you want to get it over with?”

 

“And what? If you want this over, why don’t you just do a mandatory search on all students and faculty and their personal belongings?” Professor Barnes scoffed: “What kind of precedent are you trying to establish here? You wanna tell the students personally, that because they are not from prestigious families, they will just have to roll over and deal with the abuses of the administration?”

 

“Okay, enough!” Principal Hawke raised his voice and stood up from his chair: “Agents, please excuse us. But can we set this issue aside for the moment? You are now granted full access to all facilities and libraries in the academy, as well as all of our notes and evidence from our own internal investigation. We will definitely let you know when we’ve reached an agreement. In the meantime, agents, please feel free to contact any of us directly.”

 

“That’s fine.” the two agents exchanged looks, then the male agent nodded and said: “We will start right away. But before that, please first take us to the living quarters.”

 

“Noted, please follow me.” Principal Hawke walked to the door: “Let me take you there personally.”

 

The two agents looked around the Principal’s Office for a quick moment, then followed Principal Hawke out of his office.

 

Professor Barnes shook his head, then walked out of the office without acknowledging either of the two professors still in the room.

 

“Headmistress, I’ll go back to my experiment now.” Professor Randall Collins nodded at Professor Dorothea Clarkson, then headed out of the Principal’s office following Professor Barnes’ footsteps.

 

Professor Dorothea Clarkson sighed, then went out of the principal’s office, and started heading towards her own office.

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