Predestined Encounter (3)
Taking me away? A private sparring session tailored by a professor to foster a student's personal growth wasn't something meant to be casually interrupted.
Yet the two instructors had carried on their discussion as if I weren't even in the room, and before long, permission was granted.
...With Professor Jake taking charge of leading me away.
I couldn't help wondering if this was really okay.
"...Professor. You aren't dragging me off to get punished, right?"
"Hm? What makes you think that?"
"Remember that time you hauled me off after I caused trouble and made me clean the entire swimming pool?"
Back then, I genuinely thought I had been sold off to work a salt flat. I couldn't fathom how anyone could make a single student scrub an Olympic-sized pool from top to bottom without any help.
And then Professor Jake hadn't even shown up until the sun was setting, casually telling me that was enough for the day.
Having sweated half to death over a single mishap in the past, I had developed a knee-jerk habit of suspecting the worst whenever Professor Jake offered to take me somewhere.
"Ahem... It's nothing like that, so relax."
"Are you certain?"
"Come now, I bought you a proper cut of meat afterward because I felt bad, didn't I? Why are you still holding onto that ancient history?"
Seeing Professor Jake clear his throat with a guilty cough, my shoulders gave an involuntary twitch of dread.
Don't tell me... again? The suspicion flared, and I quietly tightened every muscle, ready to bolt at a moment's notice. There was no way under heaven I was going through an ordeal like that twice.
We exchanged idle banter the entire walk, but I never once dropped my guard. Even so, by the time I finally realized where we were headed, it was already far too late.
We had arrived outside the academy grounds. At the very least, I could be sure he wasn't planning to put me to manual labor.
And yet... this felt like a predicament far worse than scrubbing a swimming pool.
"...?"
"This is where you're going. I won't be following you past this point. Someone else will guide you inside."
Was he pulling my leg? No, no matter how much Professor Jake loved his practical jokes, even he wouldn't fool around with something like this.
...Which made it all the more terrifying.
"Excuse me... Professor?"
"Ahem. I've said all I need to say. Someone is waiting, so get inside quickly. Don't be too nervous, all right?"
"I don't think nerves are the issue here... How could someone like me dare step foot into..."
This place... was the private residence of the ruler of this country, the Grand Duchy of Ardelion.
If he were acting in his official capacity as Chairman of the Board, professors might visit him at the academy. But this wasn't the Chairman's office.
My jaw hung slack, eyes blinking in disbelief. As I stood frozen in place, a heavy hand shoved me forward from behind.
"Do you have any idea how much longer you're making His Grace wait while you stand around gawking?"
"Ah..."
To keep the Grand Duke himself waiting while I dithered on the doorstep was a diplomatic disaster in its own right.
"Haaah..."
A long sigh escaped my lips unbidden, but there was no turning back. I had no choice but to head inside.
"...To think you'd be summoned like this. I never could have imagined it either."
Watching his student's bewildered expression while shoving him through the gates, the professor hadn't found this circumstance easy to swallow either.
Of all the countless students in the academy, why Junon?
The question was inevitable. Yet in truth, that line of thought required a correction.
It was precisely because of that relentless, reckless tenacity—throwing himself into danger without ever giving up—that a brand-new wave of change was rippling across the academy.
Therefore, the question ought to be phrased differently: among that sea of students, Junon was the only one capable of catching the Grand Duke's discerning eye.
There was no longer any time to ponder how things had ended up this way. All I could do was go in, discover why he had summoned me, and hear what he wanted.
That single thought occupied my mind as I followed the maid guiding me through the grand corridors.
Before long, the double doors swung open.
"Welcome."
The Grand Duke, the man who had extended this invitation, greeted me with a warm and luminous smile.
Professor Jake had told me not to be nervous, but I suspected any ordinary student thrust into this situation would be paralyzed with fright.
Yet I... had lived through tensions far more suffocating than an audience with royalty.
"I greet Your Grace."
"...Ho-oh."
When I offered a calm, unruffled bow without a trace of trembling, a quiet sound of admiration slipped from the Grand Duke's lips.
"I was worried you might be overwhelmed with anxiety, but it seems there was no need. Excellent. Please, sit wherever you feel comfortable."
With that, the Grand Duke stood up from his desk, gathering several documents, and took a seat across from me on the plush sofa.
"Well now. Where should I begin..."
"You may speak as casually as you see fit, Your Grace."
After all, I had no intention of running away.
At my composed reply, a faint grin curled on the Grand Duke's lips.
"There have been quite a few monumental incidents lately. Every single one of them could have put our students in mortal peril or escalated into a national crisis, yet the damage was contained before it could spread."
The Start-of-Semester Evaluation. The defense of Alkaid Hall against the Orthoptera. The forced engagement ceremony orchestrated by the Count Coutelli family. The covert deployment of an internal silencing barrier at the academy. And finally, the terror attack at Dubhe Hall.
The incidents the Grand Duke rattled off one by one were each massive affairs capable of shaking the principality.
And there was a single person tied to every last one of them.
Me.
"It would be difficult to dismiss all of that as mere terrible luck that happened to drag you along each time. What do you think?"
"I cannot say for certain, Your Grace. If memory serves, there were always other students caught up alongside me."
I wasn't about to nod and readily agree. So long as I didn't know what the Grand Duke wanted from me, I had no reason to yield an inch.
"In the case of the Giant Kud Rat, a significant number of students were attacked, and during the Orthoptera raid, the entire academy was in utter chaos. I was merely one student among many caught in the fray. As for Adele's engagement banquet, I simply couldn't look the other way as a friend. And whether it was the silencing barrier or the incident at Dubhe Hall, as a vanguard holding the front line, it was only natural for me to be drawn into the center of the conflict."
The Grand Duke likely found my defense thoroughly unpalatable.
I was smoothly reciting technically accurate explanations that skirted around the real truth.
If he wished to strip away that veil of doubt right here and now, he would need to present irrefutable evidence. Decisive proof that I had intentionally engineered those outcomes.
"Haha. This is a bit much. I didn't bring you here to conduct an interrogation."
"..."
"Very well. It seems I must be entirely frank with you as well. I suspect that you were at the very heart of all these matters. Am I mistaken?"
"I cannot say."
In truth, just as the Grand Duke said, the incidents were far too prominent to convincingly deny.
On top of that, there were too many recent occurrences—the End-of-Term Evaluation, the Class Assignment Exam, and even the makeshift replica phantom duel—where I had stepped into the spotlight.
The Grand Duke had simply refrained from dredging those up. Had he wanted to dig through the paperwork, he could have unearthed mountains of circumstantial evidence.
What I needed to ascertain was just how much of that had already been brought to light.
Where would others begin to question things? How far had information regarding my actions spread?
"Dear me. If that is how you feel, I suppose I have no choice."
Seeing through my guarded silence, the Grand Duke slid two separate documents across the table toward me.
"It was the Belshuar Ark that first aroused my suspicion. There was no conceivable reason for an ordinary student to be wielding an artifact of such immense tactical influence."
"...Indeed."
"Even for someone like Ophelia, renting out an object of that caliber required a direct report to me. That was the moment my questions about you began. Well... aside from the Marquis and Marchioness of Emerald, and the Count and Countess of Beryl, no one else is aware of this."
The Belshuar Ark. The young lady had done everything within her power to assist me, concocting various excuses to smooth over the paperwork.
Yet that alone had been more than enough to sow seeds of doubt. The moment another incident occurred, it was inevitable that eyes would turn toward me.
And then, as if on cue, Count Coutelli's reckless scheme exploded into the open. From that point onward, it would have been abnormal not to thoroughly investigate my past movements.
That string of suspicions had been woven together to produce the thick dossier sitting before me.
Even so, contrary to my deepest fears, none of this had been leaked to high society or the public. Even though weeks had stretched into months, absolute silence had been kept.
That meant... he had gone out of his way to accommodate me.
"You have something you want from me."
"What makes you say that?"
"You could have revealed my achievements on the spot to enact immediate reform within the academy. The fact that you held back proves you were being considerate of my circumstances. And in return, Your Grace wishes to ask something of me. Am I wrong?"
He had dispatched Professor Jake to escort me at a time when eyes were scarce and a plausible excuse existed.
The private audience arranged through that discretion was built upon requests and solicitations rather than royal commands or coercion, demonstrating thorough consideration for my personal standing.
Even though the Grand Duchy was currently desperate for someone capable of steadying its heavily tilted scales.
Even though revealing all of this would have granted tremendous political leverage to the commoners and lower-class vanguards and support roles languishing in Classes C and D.
He had held his hand to the very end, simply because bringing it to light might make the person involved uncomfortable or burden them beyond endurance.
A faint smile touched the Grand Duke's lips.
"Indeed. Your deduction is entirely correct."
"And you intentionally steered our conversation toward this conclusion?"
"Precisely. I deliberated over whether to bring up the core matter immediately, but I gambled that a man capable of pulling off such feats would be sharp enough to follow the breadcrumbs."
In that case, the question was what the Grand Duke truly desired from me...
And that was far too easy to see.
"If you wish to place me at the vanguard of your movement in the academy... I must refuse."
"...May I ask why?"
"My public image has been somewhat exaggerated. While things may look impressive on the surface, I am simply not the caliber of man you take me for. Furthermore, that path does not align with the personal goals I wish to accomplish."
Bringing about reform to balance the scales of the principality was a noble cause, but it did not guarantee my survival. Standing out too prominently was an enormous risk that would paint an inescapable target on my back.
The faint smile lingering on the Grand Duke's face instantly shifted into a bitter grimace.
As if clutching at a final straw, he offered an alternative suggestion.
"Do you have any desire to join a team, perhaps?"
"No, Your Grace."
The answer was the same. Even if it were a team other than Tembris, belonging to any organized unit would inevitably become an exploitable vulnerability.
Call it a lingering trauma, but I simply had no desire to return to life in a party. Besides, I had long since grown accustomed to acting alone.
"How regrettable..."
Wearing a bitter smile, the Grand Duke closed his eyes.
He had watched the nobles' corrupt machinations for countless years, waiting for the right figure to emerge. Now that this person had flatly refused, he could not bring himself to force the issue.
His decades of wisdom told him that coercion would only breed poison. Therefore, he would press me no further.
"Very well. If your resolve is so steadfast, I shall not compel you. However, would you grant me one promise?"
The single promise the Grand Duke asked of me... was nothing of great consequence.
After all, there was no chance of such a thing ever happening in this life.
With that, the private audience concluded.
In accordance with my wish that the truth behind the dossier remain hidden, the Grand Duke buried the documents beneath his seal. The solitary snag that had been cluttering a corner of my mind was neatly swept away.
Riding back in the private carriage arranged by the Grand Duke, I managed to arrive at the academy just in time for afternoon lectures.
And there... the reality of the situation was already beginning to show.
"Gasp! Why are you so badly hurt?"
"Ahaha, well... I just took a bit of a tumble."
"How on earth does taking a tumble leave wounds like that? What happened to you...?"
One by one, the number of injured students was visibly increasing.
Why were they returning covered in bruises and blood? The answer was painfully obvious...
"I somehow scraped through this semester, but there's no way I can afford the next one. So... I'll just have to pay for it with my own flesh and blood."
The sudden, catastrophic hike in academy tuition.
In the end, it all came down to money.