A Proposal from the Radiance
I'm praising you so much······!
"……Just what in the world is going on here?"
Erguis pressed a hand to her forehead.
Even if she longed to vent every drop of her bottled-up fury, there was always a day of reckoning waiting—a day when her nose would get broken for it.
"The places money needs to go are mountain-high. Is Professor Carlos here?"
"Yes. Right here."
Carlos of the Martial Arts College thrust his hand high in the air. He was the messenger she had sent to find Professor Lu once the catastrophe had been brought under control.
"Explain yourself. Why has Professor Lu failed to appear?"
Erguis looked down at Carlos with eyes gone cold.
"There's been a problem. It's a matter requiring classified handling."
Carlos bit down hard on his lower lip, reading the room.
Too many ears listening, was that it? Well, then. There was no problem left that could get any worse.
"Classified… how convenient. Report."
"Hah… Chancellor. Professor Lu has been murdered."
As Carlos delivered the news with ashen skin, Erguis clutched the back of her neck.
"…Damn it all. And he was the one keeping things in order!"
Hah—
"You've determined the cause of death, I trust?"
"Several teaching assistants and the Imperial Execution Bureau have arrived and are currently investigating. However, there are extensive external and internal injuries. It's definitely a homicide."
"Deploy additional disciplinary units immediately."
"Already done."
"Good. As it should be."
She hadn't spoken a word out of turn. This time, even if it was bad luck, it was the second-worst kind. They had avoided the absolute worst.
The absolute worst would have been Arlea's death. One could almost call it heaven's favor. They had taken her for a wastrel, never imagining she had been hiding power like that—and while cleaning up this rampage, no less.
Carlos absently ran a hand along his own throat.
"It would be better to save the bad news for later. The Holy Spear is coming down from the North. It won't be too late to grasp the details then."
"You're right. But it seems you have more to say?"
"About the escort knight Her Highness the Imperial Princess leads. He's no ordinary man."
"No ordinary man?"
"As you know, those who can wield an Aura Blade are rare."
"Indeed. The Imperial Guard suffers so for want of new blood that they go through hell for it."
"Yes. That's why they call the Imperial Guard the final destination for the empire's swordsmen. But in nearly thirty years as a professor… I've never heard of an Aura Heart that strong."
Well. Erguis let out a sigh.
"Even a rich man, once ruined, can last three years."
Hah—
"…House Yohan. That count's house was a prestigious knightly family. They merely became tainted by corruption. That boy faithfully confessed his family's sins and survived."
As compensation, he became a royal knight. At Erguis's words, Carlos gave a slow nod.
House Yohan.
A name that had once resounded across the entire continent in glory. A house of imperial meritorious service that had even attained the rank of Court Count and served the imperial family. Now, merely speaking the name invited a purge—or a punishment equivalent to one. It was taboo.
"So. Carlos, why bring this up?"
"I'll go see the Radiance myself. A mad dog doesn't pick and choose who it bites for no reason. He's a child of House Yohan. Trouble is bound to break out."
Carlos regarded him as an unknowable mystery. Pure white hair. An untainted purity that nothing could soil. And yet the suspicious demons piled deep in Carlos's soul refused to settle. Occupational hazard, he supposed. A swordsman held it as the highest virtue to know an enemy at a single glance.
When Carlos spread both arms in appeal, Erguis finally raised the white flag.
"Don't overdo it. And if things go sideways, die alone. Understood?"
"Yes, Chancellor. I shall obey."
Carlos offered a silent bow to Erguis, who had granted permission with surprising readiness, and set out at once to find Arlea, leaving the great auditorium behind.
Outside the great auditorium, students thronged in a sea of bodies. Carlos moved toward the outer grounds. Arlea was a hard case, but by temperament alone she was a woman who preferred to avoid collision. Like a cornered rat biting a cat—only at the end did she throw a screaming fit and earn the name of mad dog.
Meaning she's wandering around somewhere outside. Somewhere without crowds or anything else.
Just as Carlos predicted, finding Arlea took no time at all. She stood in the fountain plaza, radiating a cold so absolute it forbade approach.
Chewing her thumbnail with methodical intensity while muttering something under her breath, she was living up to the mad-dog moniker with every fiber of her being.
Touch her and you die.
Carlos fought down the tremor in his pupils. To be shown a sight like this from the very first moment—he really had gotten old.
"Who dares. Standing with your neck so stiff before the Light of the Empire."
Arlea, sensing the presence of an onlooker, snapped shut the encyclopedia she had been reading with an audible crack.
"Y-Your Highness the Imperial Princess."
Carlos bowed his head, breaking into a cold sweat. Fortunately, Arlea did not look particularly bothered. But complacency was forbidden. Every member of the imperial family was a walking disaster.
"What is your name?"
Arlea asked.
"Carlos. A university professor."
"……Carlos Cloud. Correct?"
"That is correct."
Arlea's brow immediately furrowed. A figure from her memories. In order to claim Mikhail, she had needed to depose the other princes and princesses. The army under her command had fought a civil war against the rebel faction, and Carlos had been one of the men who gave her no end of headaches during that war.
He wounded Mikhail.
They were enemies on the level of oil and water, but she mastered her rage. Causing a scene right now would derail her own plans. There was no choice in the matter. Without letting any of it show, Arlea donned a face of iron.
"My introduction is late. The Light of the Empire—the Empire itself. I am Arlea Katrin Kiessen."
"I present myself before the Radiance."
"Don't bow any lower—get to the point. Carlos. How much surveillance has the First Prince placed on me?"
Carlos froze solid, swallowing dryly like a sailor who had locked eyes with a medusa.
"For the Commander of the Imperial Execution Bureau, stationed in the capital, to come in person… the empire's future must truly be bright, no?"
"What is that supposed to mean."
Swallowed fury boiled as phlegm in Carlos's throat.
The Imperial Execution Bureau. An imperial intelligence organ so opaque that even its existence was ambiguous. People who would sacrifice everything for the well-being of the empire as a whole. The Emperor had assigned that supreme quasi-military institution to the First Prince—the Crown Prince.
Carlos broke into a cold sweat, wondering if his identity had been exposed.
"I already know everything, so speak freely. There are no eyes watching."
Lately, quiet rumors had been circulating in the capital. That the empty-headed wastrel Arlea had suddenly become a different person. At first he hadn't believed it. Now Carlos had no choice but to believe.
"You took me for some nobody, it seems. How disappointing, Carlos. The First Prince will be disappointed."
"How much do you know?"
"Let's just say I've surpassed the level an Imperial Princess alone is supposed to know. More than a wastrel would. I have two proposals. Care to hear them?"
"Please speak."
"Make one person the greatest on the continent. Whether through a war of public opinion or whatever else—I don't care how."
"Leave that to me. I will see it done without fail. However, I have a question."
"What is it?"
Carlos bowed his head.
"Is that for the sake of the empire?"
Arlea answered without a flicker of hesitation.
"I am the empire, and the empire is me. How could you possibly question it?"
"Understood. I shall obey your command."
I woke up in the infirmary.
I had survived an accident that left me half a corpse. Checking the calendar, several days had already passed.
Damn it.
By now I should have been shipped back to the capital and settling into a pleasant discharge. The view outside the window was nothing but the half-destroyed great auditorium. Getting out of here easily was clearly a lost cause.
Rrrrrrk—
"Are you all right? I've been waiting."
Having heard I was awake, Erguis came flying in at a sprint. I dipped my head in a greeting of the eyes.
"Yes. I'm fine. Thank you for your consideration."
"Not at all. If anything, I should be the one speaking. Thank you for saving the students."
Beside my bed, Erguis swept her hair back. An understated, average-looking beauty, as befitting an elf. The fresh, powdery scent of a virgin milf rose off her.
Ugh. This is killing me.
Anyway—how long had I been out?
Ssshk—
"Don't move. Your treatment isn't finished y—"
Erguis couldn't finish the sentence. Every wound had been healed clean. From what I'd overheard in passing, I was supposed to spend nearly half a year in recovery and then get discharged!
Is this the effect of a special privilege?!
Damn it, you system bastard. You're desperate to make me a dad, aren't you. Are you that frantic to throw a pure-love yandere party?
"Good heavens. Perfect regenerative ability. This—this is a miracle! Patrick! Patrick, are you there?!"
Hey. Cut the theatrics. I want to get discharged, and now it looks like I'm about to get stuck here permanently. If you're going to mess with me, mess with me properly. Don't just piss me off.
Whether she couldn't hear me or simply didn't care, Erguis summoned a whole crowd of people.
"L-Look at this."
Erguis pointed at me.
"My word. The wounds have completely healed. All thanks to His Majesty the Emperor. Aah!"
"There is a possibility of mutation related to baseline healing capacity. Please, an autopsy!"
The department chairs chattered until their mouths went dry.
"Shh!"
Erguis snapped for silence. She was also the one who had put the first-years in danger in the first place, and if there had been fatalities she would have been bracing for severe disciplinary action. I was something like the hero who had saved her life line. Great. The plan was starting to tangle worse and worse.
The injuries seemed fully healed already. I scratched the back of my head.
Shit, what about Arlea?
She must have taken a shock. A chilling sensation crawled over me, and I bolted upright.
"The Princess—did Her Highness the Imperial Princess happen to summon me?"
Erguis, who had been murmuring with the professors, nodded in affirmation.
"Ah, yes. She left word to send you to her the moment you woke. Would it be all right if you went now?"
You really ought to rest more, Erguis added. No. Never mind. I'd been summoned—I couldn't exactly refuse. That woman was capable of anything, no matter how deranged.
"Where would a knight go, leaving his liege behind?"
"Oh, ooooh!! That is the man who should be the model for all knights!!"
They say even misconceptions are dangerous. Everyone's looking at me weird.