Chapter 68 : Chapter 68

Everything happened too quickly.

The room fell silent for a full second. The triumphant smile still lingering on Wood’s face froze completely as his pupils shrank.

The three advisors almost sprang halfway out of their chairs at the same time. The woman with glasses had her lenses crooked; the bald man dropped the documents in his hands, which scattered across the floor with a rustling sound; the young female committee member instinctively covered her mouth.

Ryan slowly withdrew his right hand. A trace of blood stained his knuckles. He rotated his wrist lightly, the movement as graceful as if he had merely brushed a speck of dust from his sleeve.

His gaze calmly swept past Andre, who was twitching in the corner, before settling on Wood, whose face had turned pale as he stood frozen in place.

“From just now,” Ryan said, “you two have been a little noisy. It interfered with my thinking.”

He turned toward the three dumbfounded advisors.

“As I recall the terms of the contract we just signed very clearly—both sides have the right, within forty-eight hours, to use any means that do not violate the academy’s fundamental regulations to search for evidence. During that time, neither party may directly interfere with the other’s investigative process in any form. Is that correct?”

The woman with glasses opened her mouth but failed to produce a sound at first. She only nodded reflexively.

“In that case,” Ryan continued, his gaze returning to Wood’s face, causing Wood to take an uncontrollable half-step backward until his back struck the edge of the long table, “the words spoken just now by Mr. Andre Garcia clearly constituted interference with my personal investigation. Within forty-eight hours, I will face the possibility of expulsion and the ruin of my family. Under such circumstances, my mental state is currently very unstable. Out of respect for the spirit of the contract and in order to safeguard my legitimate rights, I took a small measure to stop the disturbance… that should not be a problem, should it?”

His wording was polite.

Yet paired with Andre’s agonized groaning in the corner and the chaos scattered across the floor, that calm tone instead carried a chilling eeriness that crept into one’s bones.

The three advisors looked at each other. Under Ryan’s tranquil gaze, they once again shook their heads almost unconsciously with slight movements.

No… there was no problem.

According to the literal meaning of that damned contract, it seemed that… there truly was no problem.

Ryan nodded, apparently satisfied with their understanding.

He turned back toward Wood.

At this moment Wood had nowhere left to retreat. His back pressed against the cold edge of the table as his fingers clawed tightly at its side, his knuckles turning white.

“As for you, Mr. Green,” Ryan said evenly, “it is unfortunate. Although your companion appears to be… in rather poor condition and may require some time to recover, you yourself still appear perfectly healthy.”

Wood’s throat bobbed violently.

“I hope,” Ryan finished, “that in the remaining forty-seven hours and… fifty-eight minutes, you will find the answer you are looking for.”

After saying this, he looked at no one else. He turned and walked toward the door. His steps were steady, his back straight, as though the brutal and bloody strike moments ago had merely been an illusion.

Ryan pulled the door open.

Cold air from the corridor rushed inside impatiently, diluting the smell of blood and shock that lingered in the room. He stepped out and closed the door behind him, completely cutting off the gazes, the groans, and the deathly silence inside.

The corridor stretched long and dim.

Only a tall window at the far end cast down a strip of gray-white light.

Outside the window, leaden clouds hung low over the academy’s ancient buildings, unmoving.

The sound of his boots striking the stone floor echoed in the emptiness.

Once.

Then again.

Like the cold, steady ticking of a countdown for his forty-eight hours in a desperate situation.

By any ordinary reasoning, Ryan should never have accepted that wager.

It was clearly a carefully woven net. Andre and Wood were eager to pin the crime on him; Princess Cecilia’s seemingly impartial ruling had in fact tightened the noose even further. The forty-eight-hour limit was so short that it resembled a mocking countdown.

Every condition was absurdly unfavorable to him.

The merchant guild tied to his family, public opinion already shaped against him, a judge whose stance clearly favored the opposing side, and the possibility that his opponents could use family resources—or even magic—to erase evidence.

A stalemate, denial, and delay would have been the more rational choices.

Even if he could not clear his name immediately, at least he would not be instantly judged and cast into an irreversible abyss after forty-eight hours.

Ryan had almost chosen exactly that.

He had tensed his nerves, preparing for a longer battle of words, searching for breathing room within the gaps of the rules.

He had even begun to feel a hint of irritation.

Why had the Eye of Probability not activated?

Since his transmigration, this ability had accompanied him like a shadow. At crucial moments it often gave vague warnings.

Yet it had remained silent when the explosion occurred.

Silent when he was taken away for questioning.

And even now, when he faced this near-coercive judgment, it remained silent.

He had almost begun to suspect that the ability had left him—or had been suppressed by some rule of this world.

That uncertainty brought a deeper unease.

For a long time, he had relied—at least to some extent—on those flashing probability numbers to avoid the worst outcomes. Now he could not help wondering: was it precisely because of that reliance that, when the ability failed, he had fallen into such a passive position?

What if the next time he faced danger, it still did not appear?

Amid these tangled thoughts, at the subtle moment just after Cecilia finished announcing the conditions of the wager—

At the edge of his vision, above the heads of Andre and Wood, the familiar translucent text finally appeared again.

【Andre Garcia & Wood Greenwood】

【Current Intention: Frame Ryan Velt and his family’s merchant guild by accusing them of supplying inferior Ice Crystal Flowers that caused the explosion, thereby ruining Ryan Velt’s reputation, subjecting him to severe punishment from the academy, and implicating his family.】

【If the current wager is refused and the stalemate continues, probability of their objective succeeding: 40%】

【If the current wager is accepted, probability of their objective succeeding: 10%】

The words floated in the air, glowing with a cold white light. Their edges trembled slightly before fading away after a few seconds.

So it really was them.

Although he had already suspected as much, seeing the Eye of Probability directly expose their framing still sent a cold surge of anger up his spine.

Those two sanctimonious hypocrites loudly accused him of harming his classmates, yet they were the very ones who had engineered the disaster themselves. A fellow student had been severely injured because of them, and yet they still played the role of righteous accusers with practiced ease, attempting to shift all the blame onto him.

Ridiculous—and contemptible.

Yet what concerned him even more were the two probability numbers.

Forty percent?

Even under such disadvantageous circumstances, their chance of success was only forty percent. What did that mean?

Had they left behind a fatal flaw?

Was the academy itself not as united as it appeared?

Or… was there some other variable that even Andre and Wood had not anticipated?

And after accepting the wager, the probability dropped sharply to ten percent.

Ten percent.

So low that it was almost negligible.

It was practically a direct hint: by accepting this wager that appeared to be a desperate gamble, he was actually far more likely to break the trap.