The plan started the day before Ash left the Academy.
He had already told Elma about his intentions to drop out before even starting the procedure, but he was yet to reveal the full scope of his plan. He needed to sort out a few things first, and that included making up his mind on whether or not to trust Elma or rule her out of his plan altogether.
However, after going through a lot of simulations and thoroughly considering a lot of things, he realized it would be very arduous to complete his plan without her.
Hence, he told her everything before leaving.
"I will need you to go out after curfew." He began. "Do it for only one night—the third night after I leave the Academy."
After this, if the White Death didn't rear its head, she would have to do the sa thing five nights after.
The goal was to lure the thing out while using an Alpha Student as bait.
"But isn't this thing most likely with a grudge against Nobles? You said so yourself... so wouldn't it be better to use an actual noble as bait."
Of course, Ash had thought of that.
In fact, it was one of the reasons he hesitated to bring her in, to begin with. However, after considering a few things, he surmised that it was probably okay to do things this way.
"The darkness cloaks the enemy's allies, but it also serves as a benefit for us. It's not like it would be easy to tell who you are if you hurriedly leave the Library and make sure to stick to dark and obscure locations."
An emphasis was placed on the location being obscure.
"To best improve our chances of the White Death showing up, we have to choose a place where it is confident of winning... so you will choose a location that is a little distance away from any help."
"I think I have the perfect place in mind." Elma had responded. "I could take it as a pretext for returning to my dorm early, so it makes sense logically."
"Perfect!"
With Elma's identity not being obvious until it was probably too late, the White Death would have two choices—retreat or attack.
However, Ash already had a very good idea of the choice the person would make.
'Attack!'
Whether the White Death was a transmigrator or not, it clearly wasn't intent on following the original storyline. And, the only reason the White Death strictly killed Nobles was due to the insecurity and hidden frustration that Dustan felt towards the privileged students of Alpha Class and the system who allowed the unfairness to continue festering.
'In fact, the first student that Dustan killed in the original storyline was actually the one who defeated him in the Promotional Exams, which is one of the clues that was eventually used to point to Dustan as the killer.'
However, since the White Death was different this ti around, their motivations for killing were completely different. The fact that their killings—from students, to Investigator, to Instructors—thus far were random proved that.
'In the novel, Dustan only killed the Special Investigator because he got too close and figured out his identity. However, Dustan learned the man wouldn't harm kids due to the death of his family and the trauma he suffered... so he approached the Special Investigator with the pretext of surrendering and killed him after wrestling with himself for so long.'
Even his killing of a few Instructors was either by accident or out of sheer necessity.
However, this new enemy intentionally went after these targets as if it was an unstoppable predator seeking the fresh taste of prey while enjoying the thrill of the hunt.
As a result of this reasoning, Ash was certain that the White Death was going to attack Elma.
They then agreed on the ti this would take place, and that Elma would use flashy moves in order to signal her exact position and condition throughout her confrontation with the White Death.
"Rember not to stay too close to the ground." Ash had to warn her. "The accomplices will grab you and kill you if you do that."
"I could burn them all with my flas."
"You think the Instructors didn't coat themselves with their Elental Attributes for defense? What good did that do? They must have so kind of Magia-Blocking outfit on, which also explains why they couldn't be tracked after every killing."
It wasn't easy getting access to such an outfit, but the wear was useful in so lines of work... which was why Ash was even more certain that the accomplices were being harbored by the Academy's Staff Quarters.
Guards had access to such outfits since they weren't Mages and had to protect themselves from attacks from enemies.
Ultimately, he was determined to uncover the identity of the accomplices, which would be further confird on the night of Elma's attack by the White Death, and after defeating them while keeping his identity hidden, he would continue his investigation secretly.
If the accomplices knew the identity of the White Death, that would be good.
However, if they didn't... that would cause him no big problems.
Because he was planning to smoke them out using another thod—though it was risky.
It was the sa thod Seth Zephyr used to smoke out the White Death during the last act of the serial killer's sage.
Ash would need a lot of ti to perfectly prepare for it, however, which is why he abandoned the plan once he got the 10 day notice and decided to play it safer than ever—choosing to covertly uncover the White Death's tracks using its accomplices.
All of that planning led to this current mont.
The mont where Ash stood beside Elma, staring at the White Death while having all of its accomplices sprawled on the ground.
"You know... you're pretty smart." Ash chuckled. "To think you'd use the guards to do your bidding while hiding in plain sight."
He would not have noticed at all if he didn't pay rapt attention to everything and keep his exercise of due diligence.
'I was almost fooled by that little stunt with the guards, but once I cald down a little, I was able to piece things together and act appropriately.' He smiled.
What kickstarted his suspicion was the bloodshed.
'The way the blood was spread about in the murder scene doesn't follow the description of the novels, and it certainly doesn't follow the killings that have been taking place.' He had thought.
That ant there was sothing suspicious about the death.
There was also the fact that the corpse was covered with a tarp, hiding its face. He tried to get close to the tarp, but he could already see the body language of so guards and he realized they would have stopped him before he opened it and realized the truth.
That the corpse was a fake.
No guard by the na of Jas died that night.
In fact... no guard died at all.
It was all staged to throw Ash off the scent, while giving an alibi to all the guilty parties present.
"Your four accomplices... and the fifth one, the lookout, were all at the scene of the cri, but at different periods." Ash began. "You started with the four who would have killed in my room, and then the fifth was the lookout, watching out for the other guards who would have been patrolling."
It was all clear to him now.
"After my yells, the lookout stalled the other guards and made sure they delayed in arriving at the scene, which gave the four enough ti to stage the death. Jas scread and fled the scene, and you used a lookalike doll that had already been prepared for that mont... along with so blood you got from god knows where... to set up the cri scene."
Finally, the real White Death—who had been in front of Ash while all of this was happening—also stalled him by playing the victim and spreading fear to the other Workers.
This caused him to waste precious monts and also shake him up emotionally.
"This created the illusion of a murder taking place while everyone had an alibi." He smiled as he reached the conclusion.
"Did I get it right?"
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