Spring Day (1)
Spring Day (1)
Thanks to the Running Crew, I reached the academy even earlier than I had expected.
Now I had to push until closing time.
Without a moment's hesitation, I walked straight into the library.
I swiftly surveyed the interior layout.
The first floor was a lounge area. The second through fifth floors were reading rooms, their collections organized by subject.
What I needed was the education section.
"Curricula, teaching resources…"
As it happened, the education section was right there on the third floor.
Focusing on that spot would serve me well.
At a brisk pace, I made my way up to the third floor.
As curfew drew near, I ran into students heading down to the first floor.
We exchanged brief greetings, and I continued toward my destination.
The reading room itself was easy to locate.
It announced itself proudly with a prominently displayed printed notice of the usage rules.
[Library Usage Notice]
No outside food or drink.
Maintain silence at all times.
…
Conduct causing discomfort to other users is prohibited.
Store personal belongings in the lockers.
These were all points I knew already, but I decided to observe the formalities and read them over once before proceeding.
After a quick skim of the rules, I stepped into the reading room.
"…?"
A fair distance away, I spotted Flora.
She was supposed to have returned to her lodgings after spending time with Ayla. What was she doing here?
Running into her in a place like this was completely unexpected.
Naturally, Flora and I made eye contact.
Flora halted where she stood, then came trotting right over to me.
Leaning closer, she whispered in the quietest voice she could manage.
"Nothing happened?"
"It was uneventful."
"Hmm, considering that… 'uneventful'…"
She gave me a long, slow look from bottom to top, as if she had already deduced I had just come from turning the slums upside-down.
Her gaze snagged midway on my shirt—splattered with a few specks of blood and caked in dust—and she frowned.
"Please wait just a moment."
She vanished abruptly between the bookshelves, only to return carrying the coat I usually wore.
When I sent her a look that asked when she'd even had time to grab it, Flora gave a small, soft smile.
"I brought it precisely for this. Don't we need to cover up the dust and blood as much as possible?"
She had prepared for this without my even having to say a word.
I offered Flora my thanks as I slipped on the black coat she handed me.
"You've gone to a lot of trouble."
"Not at all. This much is only natural, Professor~"
I was an instructor, not a professor.
No, not a professor, an instructor.
Flora was toying with me again. She must have gotten a taste for messing with the title.
There, I played along with her teasing by offering a light correction, but this time I added a small twist of my own.
Maintaining a straight face, I fixed her with a perfectly still stare.
The unexpected turn of events must have startled her, because she tilted her head before cautiously parting her lips.
"…You aren't angry, are you?"
"Of course not. I was just teasing you a little."
"You startled me."
Only then realizing she had been had, she made a show of trying to snatch the coat back from me.
We traded a bit of harmless mischief, just enough not to disturb anyone, before she was the first to move.
"What brought you here?"
"I came to look for curriculum materials for my lectures."
"Aha~"
In turn, I asked Flora what had brought her to the library.
"Flora, and you?"
"Me?"
To my question, she left an answer that was full of implication.
"You'll find out if you follow me."
I followed after Flora as she led the way, her reaction carrying a hint of anticipation.
Among the students diligently hitting their books, one person caught the eye more than any other.
"Urrrgh… what in the world is this Magic Circle…"
Ayla was gracing the library with her presence.
She appeared to be in the middle of reviewing; her notes were a riot of attempted solutions.
More precisely, she had been wracking her brains over the Academy Column.
The Academy Column, was it?
Hoping it wasn't so, I took a closer look.
There she was, locked in a staring contest with the problem I had submitted.
Having watched this, Flora quietly approached and tapped Ayla on the shoulder.
"Ayla?"
"Just let me finish this. Wait for me just a moment."
"No, that's not it. The instructor is here."
"The instructor?"
A strange silence passed between the two of them.
Absorbed as she had been in the problem, she finally turned to look at Flora.
Flora nodded in confirmation.
After that, her gaze naturally drifted to me.
"When did you get here?"
"Just now."
I took a seat next to Ayla, who had frozen up, and casually glanced at her notes.
She had stacked around her some of the reference books needed to solve it and had them open as she worked.
I could see the traces of her efforts to break through, bringing every scrap of knowledge she possessed to bear.
I rated her attempts highly, even if she hadn't found a clear path yet.
I grew curious as to what evaluation Ayla herself would give.
So I pretended I knew nothing and asked her about it offhandedly.
"What Magic Circle are you working on right now?"
"Oh, this?"
Ayla held the column out to me.
"It's the Academy Column quiz that comes out every month; lately it's gotten really popular."
"In what way?"
Ayla fell silent for a moment before pointing at the column.
"Besides its curious title, 'Spring Day,' the problem itself is being called the hardest one ever. Word's going around that the Chancellor finally drew his sword because they'd been too easy for so long."
For a moment, I thought I must have misheard.
A level where maybe five people a month get selected… and that was the hardest ever?
I had thought it was just about right, but I never expected it would be rated as the hardest one yet.
That said, if you keep challenging it relentlessly by any means available, it's not impossible to crack it.
I had designed the problem with that very idea in mind.
While those thoughts ran through my head, Ayla had already refocused on trying to solve it.
I, too, would have liked to hear more about Spring Day, but there was a genuine purpose that had brought me here.
"Flora, if something comes up, come find me right away."
After signaling to Flora that I was leaving Ayla in her hands, I confirmed her small answering nod and left the spot.
Finding the bookshelf I wanted was not difficult.
Consulting the guide, I made a quick pass over the shelves—and then came up against one obstacle.
'The very things I'm looking for are missing, aren't they?'
Everything else was there, but materials on curricula and the Magic Tower Practical Exams were nowhere to be found.
It was almost as if someone had acted expecting my arrival.
Yet there was no reason for someone to go to this kind of trouble just to get in my way.
Before I wasted any more time, I decided to request assistance from a librarian.
I headed to the information desk I had noticed on my way in. The librarian stopped what he was doing and looked at me.
"You must be the newly arrived instructor."
"…You know me?"
"It's simply that of all the professors and instructors I've ever seen here, yours is a face I've never met before."
That implied he had committed the faces of every faculty member at the academy to memory. It gave me a moment's pause.
Not only that, but he even knew my name.
"One moment, please. Instructor Karon…"
The librarian ducked down behind the desk, busied himself pulling something out, and then began piling it up neatly—as if building a tower.
"You should be fine taking all of these."
"What is all this?"
To my question, the librarian checked the check-out list against the materials laid out on the table as he answered.
"The Chancellor had asked me beforehand to hand these over when you came, Instructor."
"The Chancellor did, you say?"
"Yes. His instructions were to make sure you take every last one of them without missing a single item."
Had the Chancellor predicted that I would come to the library today?
That probably wasn't it.
He had most likely prepared these in advance with just such a situation in mind.
Whether that day was today or tomorrow.
I could feel that, even if the Chancellor harbored suspicions toward me, he was more sincere than anyone when it came to education itself.
Oblivious to my thoughts—or perhaps wholly unconcerned—the librarian calmly sorted the documents before asking again.
"Is there anything else you need?"
"Apart from this, I need the materials for the Magic Tower exams that have been held over the last three years."
"Ah, that would be difficult, I'm afraid."
The librarian shook his head and explained why.
"The questions are strictly prohibited from being taken outside, so no one may speak of them."
"Wasn't that restriction originally not in place?"
"Indeed, but they amended the regulation three years ago. The cited reason was to maintain distinct score differentiation, though I'm not familiar with the finer details myself."
At the word differentiation, I tilted my head.
"Were there no other reasons given besides differentiation?"
"No. The official notice contained no other statements to that effect."
Without question, such a provision had not existed before I was imprisoned.
Back then, every year when the exams took place, you could learn what topics had been set.
Which fields of study they were focusing on.
Where they had added the differentiating factor.
I had kept track of it annually because, even without any business inside the Magic Tower itself, I could still catch glimpses of the direction they were pursuing.
But this irony—explicable only if the Magic Tower's standards had not actually fallen—piqued my curiosity.
Before long, I might have to make an appearance at the Magic Tower just as I did at the Order.
* * *
After that, I spent my time sifting through the materials right up until the library closed.
What I hadn't managed to read yet I resolved to finish back at the lodgings, and then I departed the library.
The resources were all loaded into a crate, so transporting them posed no difficulty.
As we were heading back to the lodgings, the conversation meandered this way and that before eventually turning to the Running Crew.
"Ayla, you've been running really well lately. Haven't you built up your stamina?"
"You really think so? You could tell?"
"Hey, you're completely different from when you started. Of course I'd notice."
"Heh heh. Then all my hard work paid off."
Ayla smiled cheerfully at Flora's praise.
On the surface it simply looked like a scene of Flora boosting Ayla up, but in truth, Flora had a plan all along.
Deep down, she was hoping Ayla would come out for the Running Crew every day.
Flora must have judged this to be the perfect opportunity, because she casually sounded Ayla out.
"How about coming every day?"
"Mmm, it's not a bad idea, but…"
Mid-answer, she turned her head and looked straight at me.
"What does the instructor think?"
"Of course I'd be glad to have you join us, Ayla."
No sooner had I said it than she threw her hat into the ring.
"Then I'll come every day."
"Great! To celebrate, shall we up it to 3.5 km starting tomorrow?"
"I still prefer 3 km for now."
Flora, thoroughly buoyed, had even tried to press for increasing the distance.
But Ayla's honest response shot it down.
Flora did not give up there. Through her persistent persuasion, she eventually secured an agreement to increase it to 3.5 km starting the following week.
How much farther had we walked after that?
Before I knew it, we had arrived in front of the lodgings.
Just as we were about to part ways with Ayla as usual, she tilted her head.
"Now that I think about it, where are you staying?"
It was a question so genuinely innocent it couldn't possibly be anything else.
Up to that point, Ayla had only known in a general sense that Flora was staying off-campus rather than in the dormitories.
Word had gotten around that the dormitories were already at full capacity too, so even if she'd had questions, she must have kept them firmly to herself all this time.
As it happened, Flora—though it was the truth—ended up giving an answer that was perfectly ripe for misunderstanding.
"Me? I'm staying with Professor Karon."
"Huhhh?"
At the very moment the question left her lips, Ayla's gaze snapped to me.
"Instructor, what does she mean by that?"
"Ah, well. There are some circumstances…"
Flora wore an expression that showed she realized—a beat too late—she had made a mistake.
She hurriedly tried to do damage control, but Ayla immediately cut her off.
"Flora."
"Uh-huh?"
"Stay quiet."
"Okay."
Cowed by the force of it, Flora read the mood and nodded slowly.
When I came to my senses, I found myself already at the heart of the storm.
Ayla, having seized the initiative, took one step closer, folded her arms, and spoke.
"I'll make my judgment after I've heard everything the instructor has to say first."