19. A Lucrative Outing
19. A Lucrative Outing
Traitor.
Truth be told, wasn't it a little strange to take words from a voice suddenly ringing out of empty air at face value? Obviously I didn't start glaring at Professor Alon over a single word.
But the resentment, the sheer weight of emotion packed into that one word—it hit hard even on a first hearing.
I couldn't help giving Professor Alon a sideways look.
The whole atmosphere practically begged for it, anyway.
A violent lurch.
"Professor Alon!"
"H-Head of Academic Affairs."
"Did I not tell you as much! At a time when we are under the Chairwoman's most solemn command, you resort to illusion magic to deceive people behind my back! Have you lost your mind?!"
The middle-aged Head of Academic Affairs had twisted his dignified face into a demon's mask as he stood snarling at Professor Alon.
He had even hiked up his normally immaculate suit. After taking a moment to steady his breathing, he bent his back toward me—or more precisely, toward the Chairwoman.
"Chairwoman, I offer my sincerest apologies for disrupting your pleasant time together. You placed your trust in me, and I have no words to excuse this failure."
"...Head of Academic Affairs. Is it true that Professor Alon deceived you to come up here?"
"It is. The Professor Alon who was speaking with me took his leave, but when I detected a mana reaction nearby and investigated, I found another Professor Alon heading for the top floor."
Illusion magic, then.
Given the man's specialization, fooling the Head of Academic Affairs would have been a trivial exercise for him.
The Head of Academic Affairs is 3rd Rank, sure, but Alon is a full professor—the gap in both Rank and skill is substantial.
Professor Alon shrank back under the Chairwoman's frigid stare a moment later.
"Professor Alon."
"Y-Yes."
"Leave. If whatever you had to say was urgent enough to justify this, you may submit a proper report or I will hear it at another time."
"B-But!"
"Do I need to say it twice?"
She wasn't even emitting any killing intent or rigid energy. She simply let her voice drop a fraction.
That alone was enough to overwhelm both the Head of Academic Affairs and Professor Alon with the sheer force of her presence and personality. And Milia—where did she go? Did she seriously slip away into the next room? She works fast.
Whether it was out of consideration for me alone, or because I'd just witnessed the Chairwoman's adorable—no, her scatterbrained side, I didn't feel a thing.
More to the point, for a guy who had appeared with such an air of calculation a minute ago, Professor Alon was folding awfully fast.
Right, that reminds me.
'What about Chloe?'
Hadn't she come in with him? I'd briefly forgotten she was there since she hadn't said a word.
A quick scan of the room located her standing in a corner. It wasn't so much that she was cowed—more like she had politely removed herself to a corner since academy staff were in the middle of a discussion.
If anything, Chloe was being aggressive in a different sense.
'She's alternating her glare between the Chairwoman and Professor Alon.'
I had no clue why she was glaring at the Chairwoman, but I could guess the reason for Professor Alon. That voice from before.
I'd thought it sounded familiar somewhere, and it had only been audible when I met Chloe just a little earlier besides.
It was absurd, but the voice had been Chloe's. A slightly more mature-sounding version?
'Am I hearing thoughts from inside her head?'
But then again, after that last word about the traitor, the voice had gone completely silent again. As if it had clapped a hand over its mouth the instant it realized I could hear it.
And it wasn't possible for only Chloe's inner voice to reach me like that. Nothing about it made sense.
'The phrasing was odd, too.'
Calling Professor Alon a traitor, with the implication that that little bastard was the reason "the academy" had been destroyed.
As far as I knew, Grandis Academy was Professor Alon's first workplace. He was from the southern nobility, and hadn't attended any academy in his childhood. He'd studied magic abroad in the Empire, if I recalled correctly.
I remembered this because I had dug into his personal history before the entrance ceremony, looking for any leverage to use when refusing his proposal for a phantom monster attack.
Meaning: whether as student or professor, Grandis Academy was his first time at any academy.
And yet here was a voice saying the academy had been ruined because of Professor Alon.
'Is the voice telling me about future events?'
And using Chloe's voice to do it?
"Hmph."
"Finance Director? What is it?"
"Just an odd thought crossing my mind, ma'am."
That couldn't possibly be it. My imagination had run completely off the rails.
Wasn't this just a side effect of the scabbard? Weird hallucinations in a familiar voice. That was a lot more plausible.
Just in case, I looked back at Chloe. Her eyes were still fixed on Professor Alon—what the... wait.
Why was she glaring at me like that now?
'Am I doing something weird right now?'
I was just sitting here, side by side with the Chairwoman on the bed inside the secret room of her office—fuck.
Now that I thought about it, hadn't the Head of Academic Affairs apologized for disrupting our pleasant time?
This looked exactly like that. The sort of scene where even screaming it was a misunderstanding just made things ten times worse.
And if anyone asked why there was a bedroom attached to the Chairwoman's office in the first place, I'd have nothing to say for myself.
<...Traitor.>
The voice came again just now. Why was it on the verge of tears this time? And the fact that this one seemed aimed at me and not Professor Alon—was that just my imagination?
Goddammit. How was I supposed to salvage this shitshow?
"In any case, Professor Alon, you will come with me at once! I must bring you before Dean Villend immediately to discuss disciplinary measures for the entire Illusion Magic department!"
"H-Head of Academic Affairs. Please, just a brief moment! I have something to say to the two of them!"
"Something to say? Worry about what you're going to write in your letter of apology!"
"N-No, you don't understand! The rock salt mine...!"
"Wait."
"Finance Director...?"
Timeout.
Professor Alon, you son of a bitch.
What did you just say?
"Head of Academic Affairs, I beg your pardon, but please step outside for a moment."
"Finance Director, I respect you, but that doesn't make you my superior."
"Don't worry. The Chairwoman shares my feelings on this."
"..."
"...She seems to be keeping her head down, though."
"She was kind enough to cycle some rigid energy through me just now. I've been suffering from fatigue lately."
"Ah. Is that what that was?"
Apparently satisfied by the clarification, the Head of Academic Affairs nodded. Even Chloe's cold gaze softened a fraction.
Of course, I didn't stop talking—if anyone followed up with why she happened to be doing that on a bed, things would get awkward fast.
And I was suddenly very keen to hear what Professor Alon's business was.
Leaving the Chairwoman behind, head still bowed and trembling faintly from her trauma, I stepped forward to face the Head of Academic Affairs and Chloe.
"As you can see, I recovered faster than expected. It's fine for anyone to come in now. Naturally, Professor Alon's act of deception will be met with thorough disciplinary action."
"No need to bow your head so much. I was irreverent enough to misunderstand your relationship with the Chairwoman myself."
Yeah. Anybody would have misunderstood that scene.
Though, knowing the Head of Academic Affairs was practically a Chairwoman zealot, had he jumped to the conclusion that a nobody like me had slept with the Chairwoman?
"I mean, there's no way the Chairwoman would ever covet a young man like you. I should have trusted the Chairwoman. Foolish of me."
"...Yes."
Ah, so he hadn't. Head of Academic Affairs, you were a very sensible man.
A zealot is a zealot, and the notion of a great-grandmother figure getting involved with a man young enough to be her great-grandson was still absurd to him. Right?
It looked like that had landed a critical hit on the silent Chairwoman, but I'd deal with that later.
"Student Chloe, the same goes for you. Do you perhaps share the same business as Professor Alon?"
"..."
"Student Chloe?"
"...Would you rather not see me right now?"
"Ahem! Student Chloe, you may wait outside. I'll call for you the moment my conversation with Professor Alon is finished."
"Chloe Pisti? How exactly did you get in here?"
"I was caught up in Professor Alon's magic."
"Hmm... Let's call it that for now. You've always been an exemplary student who assists the Finance Director regularly."
The Head of Academic Affairs shot her a skeptical look, apparently having been unaware of Chloe's presence entirely, but her usual conduct earned her a pass.
She had been in and out of the Finance Director's office a lot during the festival to help me, so that probably worked in her favor. Anyway.
So it was that Chloe, who had been staring at the Chairwoman and me until the very last second, and the Head of Academic Affairs, wearing a relieved expression, exited the office.
The Chairwoman lifted her head.
"Professor Alon."
"...Yes."
"So. What you came to urgently propose to myself and the Finance Director has something to do with a rock salt mine?"
"Yes!"
"Before anything else—which rock salt mine are you talking about?"
Salt was an essential commodity, but the sea was, regrettably, an exceedingly dangerous domain. Most of the salt circulating on the continent was therefore either produced along the relatively safe coastlines or came from rock salt.
So there were actually a great many rock salt mines. The odds of this being that rock salt mine—which would only aggravate her trauma—were low.
The Kingdom alone had several of them, for starters.
"The southern rock salt mine! The one that was recently discovered and then collapsed in an unexplained accident!"
A soft thud.
"C-Chairwoman?! Finance Director, the Chairwoman has suddenly collapsed...!"
"It's nothing serious. Don't mind her. So—this collapsed rock salt mine. What about it?"
"Well... it has already been over half a year since that mine collapsed."
Wow, had it been that long already? That mine had nearly crushed our finances, crushed my career, and crushed the academy itself.
Give me some credit for scraping by for six months and somehow clawing our way to the current state of affairs. Only a little longer until I'd secured a lifelong cushy job.
But what about that satanic pit of a mine?
Professor Alon took a moment to steady his voice, shot a quick glance at the door, then suddenly dropped his posture and volume.
What was he up to?
"...In truth, even at the time, no one could determine why it collapsed, and the people who took losses from it were far from few. As you know, most rock salt mines are concentrated in the north, where the Empire is located. The mere fact that one had been discovered in the south—mining hadn't even started yet, and many people had already bought into futures trading on it."
"...Indeed they had."
"The funny thing is, practically everyone who dreamed that absurd dream lost their money, save for a truly tiny handful—"
Fl—inch.
"Professor Alon, your digressions are getting rather long. I am not in a good mood right now."
"M-My apologies. At any rate, the mine did collapse, but it had been evaluated as containing a significant quantity of rock salt. And so the lord intends to rebuild it!"
"Is that true?"
"Most certainly!"
Obviously I hadn't simply heard that the rock salt mine collapsed and wiped out the futures market and said "oh, what a shame" and accepted it at face value. After the Chairwoman confessed to the futures trading, I had immediately conducted my own investigation into how the mine collapsed and whether it still held any economic viability.
The results had shown the mine had collapsed in a truly astounding fashion.
'All three vertical shafts leading down to the rock salt vein collapsed, if I recall.'
Even in a world with developed magic and all manner of superhumans, half the continent's population were 1st Rank ordinary people like me. And miners were almost all 1st Rank poor folk doing that kind of labor.
So digging and maintaining vertical shafts even ordinary people could pass through was an immense labor, consuming vast amounts of time and money.
Maintain them with magic? The labor costs for mages would probably outweigh the profits. Hire a 7th or 8th Rank to bore a hole? What would be the point of building a passage only superhumans could walk, when 1st Rank workers still had to go down?
That was why digging three vertical shafts was a sign that the lord had truly staked his future and invested everything in the rock salt mine.
All three collapsing had effectively meant the lord's bankruptcy.
"I understand Viscount Dabis, whose territory the mine was in, is expected to go bankrupt."
"You're remarkably well-informed."
"More unnecessary words seem to be creeping in."
"My apologies! And you are correct, Finance Director. The original owner of the rock salt mine, Viscount Dabis, did indeed go bankrupt. But!"
"But?"
"Count Beryl, the lord of the neighboring territory, has purchased the rock salt mine Viscount Dabis put up for sale—along with the surrounding lands—and plans to begin reconstruction! This is strictly confidential information!"
Ah. I see.
Alright. I understood all that.
"What does any of that have to do with you, Professor Alon? Why would a count's reconstruction project—wait."
"And this Count Beryl is, in fact, my elder brother."
Professor Alon. Faculty of the Illusion Magic department, hailing from the southern nobility.
Full name... Alon Beryl.
"Therefore, just this once, allow me to make this proposal to the Finance Director not as Alon Beryl, professor at Grandis Academy, but as a member of the House of Count Beryl."
Professor Alon had regained his confidence.
He smiled that shifty smile again as he spoke.
"If the academy invests in the rock salt mine right now, we will grant you the right of first refusal on the initial rock salt extracted!"
"Goddammit."
"F-Finance Director?"
He was spouting bullshit.
Was this guy actually insane?
"..."
And meanwhile, the Chairwoman was collapsed so completely still she looked as though she'd stopped breathing altogether...