Recommended Admission
Had things gone as they should have, I would have entered the Academy the day after the duel. But because of the internal injuries I’d sustained, I’d been forced to remain in the Temple for several days.
“I’ll check your condition. Please stay still.”
The sister priestess in her spotless white robes placed a hand over my abdomen.
If I had to compare it to something from my old world, it felt a little like having a stethoscope pressed against me.
As I waited, indulging that pointless thought, a warm current began to rise from the priestess’s hand.
It was the same light I’d seen in my dream.
Divine Power.
The power bestowed by God upon priests and priestesses.
That power could heal any wound.
“Hm……”
The priestess, checking the condition of my body through Divine Power, tilted her head with a faintly strange expression.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, not at all. If anything, you’re healthy.”
Healthy was good, wasn’t it?
I couldn’t understand why she was making that face.
“I was only surprised because this is my first time seeing such a case. I thought you’d need at least a month of rest, but…… you’ve already recovered completely.”
“Then?”
“Yes. You’re free to return to your daily life now.”
The fact that I was finally escaping this dreary Temple put me in a good mood.
The food served here for patients was all bland and tasteless, as if the cook had forgotten that flavor existed.
If that were all, I could have endured it somehow. But the prayers that had been pounding into my hyper-sensitive ears twenty-four hours a day were another story entirely.
I think I could recite those prayers with my eyes closed now.
I wasn’t joking.
If someone asked me to memorize them, I really could.
Of course, no one would be cruel enough to make me do that.
“If you’ve packed everything, please follow me.”
Following the priestess’s guidance, I left the Temple.
Outside, two familiar faces were waiting to greet me.
Bella and Derick.
“It’s been a while, both of you.”
“It’s only been a week.”
“Seeing that shameless grin, I’d say you’ve fully recovered.”
“All thanks to Bella worrying about me.”
“W-when did I ever worry about you?!”
“Oh, sure, sure. You’re just pretending you didn’t. You came all this way to meet me because you were worried, weren’t you?”
“……Enough. Get in the carriage already.”
Bella turned her head away after saying that.
If I teased her any more, she might genuinely stop speaking to me for days, so I obediently climbed into the carriage.
Bella and Derick followed after me and got in as well.
“Then, we’ll depart.”
At the coachman’s call, the carriage set off.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The carriage was racing toward the Academy.
Along the way, Derick explained the matter of my admission.
“Originally, I intended to have your enrollment procedures completed the day after the duel.”
But that plan had fallen apart.
I had won the duel, yes, but my internal injuries had been severe.
That left me with no choice but to recover at the Temple, and in the end I’d missed the admissions window entirely.
“So the schedule for your entry got all tangled up.”
“How tangled are we talking?”
“At this point, you’d have no choice but to wait for next year’s admissions.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me……”
Just missing one date and I’d have to wait an entire year?
That was absurd.
If Medeia had to attend the Academy alone, it was easy enough to imagine what would happen.
At most a month.
Within that time, Medeia might very well run wild.
“Isn’t there any other way?”
“There is exactly one. A recommendation admission.”
“A recommendation admission?”
“Yes. Fortunately, the young lady herself can write the recommendation letter. The problem is that recommendation admission comes with an examination.”
“An exam?”
“It’s a kind of restriction, meant to prevent recommendation letters from being handed out carelessly. If there weren’t a test like that, people would line up in droves trying to get their hands on one.”
I roughly understood what he meant.
So all I had to do was pass the exam.
It didn’t sound that hard.
“Is the test easy?”
“If it were easy, would it still be a test?”
“…….”
He had a point, so I had nothing to say.
Derick gave a small snort of laughter. “Well, still. If you managed to beat Hate, you should pass without much trouble.”
“In that case, that’s a relief.”
“Even so, don’t let your guard down. The difficulty certainly won’t be simple.”
“Understood.”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The Academy invited the greatest names in each field to serve as professors, so that students with widely different talents could be educated according to their own strengths.
And the person who now stood at the very top of the Academy was the Tower Master of the Golden Magic Tower.
“Principal Ileyna, we have a student scheduled for recommendation admission today.”
“Recommendation admission? That antiquated system is still around?”
“Yes. It has remained unchanged since the first principal.”
“Ugh…… who’s going out as the examiner?”
“No professor volunteered. That’s why I came to you. Is there anyone you’d like to appoint?”
“Just give it here. I’ll look at what kind of brat it is.”
Snap.
When Ileyna snapped her fingers, golden sparks flew, and the document in her secretary’s hand flew over to her.
“Name’s Kael. Status is……”
As she read on, Ileyna’s expression twisted.
“A slave? Hey, this document’s wrong, isn’t it? Why would a slave be coming into the Academy?”
In the Academy’s thousand-year history, she had never once heard of a slave entering as a student.
For a moment, she even wondered if her secretary was playing a joke on her.
“It says exactly what’s written there. The recommendation letter was issued by the Astellia family.”
“Astellia?!”
One of the great pillars supporting the Empire.
The Duke’s House of Astellia.
If a recommendation came from a place like that, there was no reason to doubt it.
“Why would they send a slave from a place like that……?”
“If you’re curious, why don’t you go out there and supervise the exam yourself?”
“That sounds like a hassle.”
“Then return the file. I’ll find another professor.”
As the secretary reached to take the document back, Ileyna let out a strangled yelp and snatched it to her chest.
“Hey! I said it’s a hassle. I never said I wouldn’t go. Good grief, you’re so impatient.”
At Ileyna’s exaggerated reaction, the secretary’s eyes turned cold.
“Why do you act so evasive when you’re going to go anyway?”
“Well…… because it’s fun?”
“……I see. I’ll look for another professor.”
“Hey! Hey! I was wrong. I was joking, joking.”
Only after Ileyna apologized did the secretary’s irritation finally ease.
“Then I’ll assume you’ll be preparing the exam yourself, Principal Ileyna.”
Just as the secretary was about to leave the principal’s office, she seemed to remember something and added, “Come to think of it, there’s one unusual detail about the student entering through recommendation admission this time.”
“An unusual detail? It wasn’t mentioned in the file.”
“My shadows confirmed it, so it isn’t in the paperwork.”
At the word shadows, Ileyna’s expression sharpened at once.
When the secretary spoke of her shadows, it was never about anything but top-secret matters.
“What is it?”
“The recommendation student fought a duel with Hate, the princess’s escort knight, one week ago.”
“What? The disciple of the Thunder Sword dueled a student? Can you even call that a duel? Wasn’t it just a one-sided beating?”
Ileyna’s reaction was perfectly natural.
Hate was not someone an ordinary student could hope to face.
But at the secretary’s next words, Ileyna could not help but stare in shock.
“Unlike your expectations, that student was not the one being toyed with.”
“Then?”
“Hate was defeated.”
“……What?”
Ileyna looked at her secretary as if she could hardly believe it.
Not a single tremor touched the secretary’s eyes.
The currents of mana flowing around her did not so much as waver.
There could be only one meaning.
It was true.
Everything she had said was fact.
“A monster, then?”
“I’m not sure. One thing is certain, though: he is not an ordinary student. I think we’ll need to keep an eye on him.”
“Interesting.”
Whatever was amusing her, Ileyna soon broke into a grin.
“I’d been thinking the Academy was too quiet lately. Looks like a big wind is about to blow through.”
“It’s your job to keep the Academy running peacefully and quietly, you know.”
“Shut up! That boring sort of Academy life is what makes students lazy!”
Ileyna rose from her seat.
“Good. The new student should be arriving soon. Shall we go greet him?”
“And yet you’re flooding the air with that much mana while talking about greeting him?”
As the secretary said, yellow sparks were already crackling violently around Ileyna’s body.
“Hm? Did I do that? Huh, maybe I’m just excited after such a long time. I’m having a little trouble controlling my strength.”
“……Please don’t kill some innocent student.”
“Who said anything about killing? I don’t have that kind of hobby.”
With that, Ileyna vanished from the principal’s office.
Strictly speaking, she had become lightning itself and shot out of the room.
All that remained in the office were the stacks of papers blown skyward by the shockwave of her departure.
“Haah……”
The secretary bent to gather the scattered documents, vowing that she would have words with Ileyna when she got back later.