4. It's Not an Attack, It's the Entrance Ceremony
4. It's Not an Attack, It's the Entrance Ceremony
My office sits right next door to the Chairwoman's.
Ordinarily, the Finance Department would've been assigned its own separate space like the other departments. But since the department consisted of exactly one person—me—and the Chairwoman wanted to emphasize that I was her closest aide, she stuck me here. At least, that was her explanation.
At first, having the Chairwoman in the next room felt deeply, profoundly uncomfortable, but time took care of that. These days I actually appreciated it—when something came up, I had the shortest possible route to go chew her out.
In any case, given where my office was located, it was genuinely rare for faculty to make the trip all the way to the Finance Director's door. The only people who did were ones like Laura, who didn't find me personally intimidating, or people who were at least department-head level.
The man standing in front of me—Professor Alon of the Illusion Magic faculty—fell into neither category, yet he radiated an odd, quiet confidence. What was his angle?
"So, to be clear: you're proposing to unleash a monster illusion during the entrance ceremony?"
"Precisely. All in the interest of raising the academy's educational standards!"
"...Let me start with this: what kind of monster?"
"A Manticore."
You absolute goddamn lunatic.
The moment I heard the monster's name, I nearly crumpled up the report he'd handed me and hurled it in his face. I restrained myself. Barely.
A Manticore? Did he just say a Manticore?
A Manticore is a monster with a lion's face, a heavily armored body, a scorpion's tail, and bat wings. If I skip all the finer details and get straight to the conclusion:
A Manticore is a 7th Rank monster. If one is sighted, every city in the vicinity is required to shift to a quasi-wartime footing.
Monsters ranked 8th Rank and above rarely venture out of the western wilderness of the Empire, so for all practical purposes, the Manticore might as well be the single most destructive monster that actually threatens nations.
And he wanted to unleash one—illusion or not—during the entrance ceremony? As a surprise?
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Finance Director, I understand what you're thinking. You're undoubtedly wondering if I've lost my mind."
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Regrettably, one cannot afford to lose one's mind before attaining the ultimate truths of Illusion Magic. A steadfast psyche is the single most important requirement in our discipline."
He gave the impression of being reasonable, while being anything but.
This was a familiar sight to me. Professors are not educators who also happen to be scholars—they're scholars who educate on the side. Yes, they teach students, but more than that, they're people utterly consumed by their own fields of study.
Magic-department professors in particular had a habit of launching into exhaustive lectures about their specialties the moment the topic came up, even after you'd already told them no.
Whether that was because they spent every day cooped up in gloomy laboratories doing nothing but research in the dark, or because they were desperate to pitch their work in hopes of vacuuming up more funding, I couldn't say.
Before this professor could launch into a deeper explanation of Illusion Magic, I cut him off.
"Professor Alon, I apologize, but I don't have much time to spare. So let me get straight to the point."
"...Very well."
"What you've brought me is, in essence, an addition to the entrance ceremony program—and an addition whose fallout would make it impossible to proceed with the rest of the ceremony normally afterward. So if we do it, it would have to come at the very end of the ceremony. Correct?"
"Exactly!"
"But I have no authority over the entrance ceremony's schedule."
"..."
Yes, I'm the Finance Director. Yes, I handle every expense that goes into the entrance ceremony, and the final report ultimately lands on my desk. But that doesn't give me the right to meddle in other departments' affairs. I'd never wanted that right in the first place.
Take the exam-hall collapse, for instance. Transporting the injured was the Medical Department Head's job. Managing the rest of the exam and announcing results was the Chief Examination Officer's. All I did—fittingly, for the Finance Director—was assess repair estimates and calculate the financial damage.
So Professor Alon's proposal wasn't something he needed to discuss with me in the first place.
And there was no way Professor Alon didn't know that.
"If you wanted to propose a simulated monster attack using Illusion Magic during the entrance ceremony, the place to go would've been Academic Affairs—or at the very least, the Planning Department."
"That's, well..."
"I assume you already went to them first, Professor Alon. And I assume they told you they'd approve it—if I gave my permission."
This wasn't a case of them dumping work on me. The academy faculty did dislike me, but that dislike had so far capped out at gossip and chilly treatment.
No, the real reason was simpler: they genuinely needed my approval.
"So I'll ask you directly."
"..."
"Exactly how much is this going to cost?"
The reason Professor Alon had come all the way to me was almost certainly because his proposal exceeded the budget already allocated for the entrance ceremony.
And spending a single coin beyond that budget required my sign-off. No exceptions.
At my question, Professor Alon swallowed once, then quietly produced a report and placed it in front of me with excessive politeness.
Beneath a long list of line items, the final projected sum stood at the bottom.
"Oh, what the fuck."
"F-Finance Director?"
"Are you insane?"
I dropped the formal speech without even thinking about it. The words just came out.
This bastard was trying to slash the academy's remaining lifespan at a dead sprint.
"I—I'm aware it's a substantial sum! However...!"
"Talk."
"Excuse me?"
"You've been oddly confident this whole time. You've got an ace up your sleeve, don't you?"
"Ah..."
"Fine, I'll hear you out. Spit it out. You're a professor—so go ahead and convince me like one!"
Students panicking from a Manticore attack—even an illusory one? Students getting injured while fleeing? Dealing with the illusion's aftermath and any parent complaints that might follow?
I'd set all of that aside for now. Those were absolutely things that had to be considered, but as Finance Director, my most pressing concern was something else entirely.
It has to bring in money.
Or at least be worth the money spent.
The academy isn't a trading company. Not everything it does needs to turn a profit.
Replacing textbooks with better ones for the students, upgrading practice equipment, recruiting a new professor—those all cost money without bringing any in, and I didn't oppose them with a barrage of profanity. They were things the academy was supposed to do.
But hadn't all of those budgets just been finalized at the department-level budget meetings? Each department was free to spend its allocated funds as it saw fit, which meant Professor Alon's proposal had most likely been rejected by the Magic Department itself—and that was why he'd come to me.
So if he was asking me to spend fresh money, not money already set aside...
Then what he was proposing had better be productive.
"Haah... Professor Alon, I apologize for my rough language earlier. Do you see those stacks of documents beside me? I've been working overnight for two days straight now, and all of those have to be dealt with today. My nerves are a little frayed."
"N-no, I understand completely, Finance Director."
"So please—I'm begging you—tell me you've brought logical, rational arguments. I'd rather not use harsh language with you again."
That last part was sincere. I was so exhausted I could drop dead, and if all he did was spout nonsense about improving educational quality and testing students' improvisation skills, I really was going to crumple up his report and throw it in his face.
Once I'd managed to calm myself down, a visibly tense Professor Alon took a deep breath and began to speak.
"According to a recently published report from the Imperial Magic Ministry, an analysis of projected trends over the next thirty years indicates that Illusion Magic will become the single most commercially valuable discipline. Two centuries ago, Illusion Magic wasn't even classified as magic—it was dismissed as a branch of barbarian shamanism and never had its day in the sun. But the times have changed."
"And?"
"Riding this trend, interest in Illusion Magic is rising among the Kingdom's ministers and its Mage Corps. Several of those figures personally attend the Grandis Academy entrance ceremony every year, gracing the occasion with their presence."
He was taking too long to get to the point. And if I thought it was too long, it was too long.
Professor Alon must have noticed my narrowing gaze, because his words sped up.
"If a Manticore—crafted from a highly sophisticated illusion—were to appear at such a ceremony, it would instantly become a focal point of interest in Illusion Magic."
"Is there a pressing need to stir up that kind of interest by pulling a stunt like this—sorry, by staging something resembling an attack—during the entrance ceremony?"
"Ordinary people remember visually shocking, astonishing experiences far longer. It's a method that allows us to test the students' improvisation, trial a new evaluation approach that breaks the existing mold, and simultaneously draw attention to Illusion Magic."
"Unless I'm mistaken, everything you've said so far boils down to a benefit for Illusion Magic—which is to say, a benefit for your department alone."
Professors couldn't fund their research on the academy's budget alone. I understood the objective well enough: catch the eye of a trading company or a person of influence, secure outside investment, and keep the research going.
But why, exactly, should we spend the academy's own blood-bought money to do a favor exclusively for the Illusion Magic department?
At that, Professor Alon lowered his posture slightly and continued in a quieter voice.
"The academy will receive a donation equal to twenty percent of all future investment secured by the Illusion Magic department."
"...Hm."
"How does that sound?"
"The exact contract term shall run thirty years from today. If the investment total fails to meet a baseline target after the first year, the donation share increases to thirty percent. Furthermore, the donation will be made under Professor Alon's personal name, not the Illusion Magic department's."
"P-pardon?"
"Those are my terms."
"Th-thirty years? And raising the share to thirty percent—"
"I'll give you time to think it over. The deadline is before I leave work today."
"Just a moment. It's already afternoon, and if the deadline is before you leave work..."
"..."
"Ah."
What's with the "Ah," you prick.
Professor Alon glanced at the mountain of paperwork piled beside me, realized that even at the earliest I wasn't going anywhere before midnight—meaning he had plenty of time—and promptly bowed his head and exited the office.
Then again, at this rate I might not leave until tomorrow.
I stared at the Himalayan range of documents that clearly wasn't getting finished today.
My face crumpled, and I slumped over.
I want to go home...
*
"Um, Finance Director? You've been looking awfully... disheveled lately."
"I haven't been able to leave my office for three days. It's unavoidable."
"And the dark circles under your eyes are rather..."
"I'm at least washing up, aren't I? Besides, didn't you anticipate exactly this kind of workload and have the bathroom and sleeping quarters built into my office in the first place?"
"Hm. Hmm."
Sure, even when I clocked out, all I did was head to my quarters inside the academy—but sleeping at home versus sleeping in the office nap room were two entirely different orders of existence.
Staring at the boss who was the root cause of my all-nighters stirred up a natural, instinctive urge to kill, but while I'd been pulling consecutive overnights, I'd also been hearing the sounds of the Chairwoman working in the very next room.
If she was pulling the same shifts, what was I supposed to say? I just sighed and handed her a document.
It was the exact approval proposal I'd received from Professor Alon.
"Hm? This is...?"
"A proposal from Professor Alon of the Magic Department's Illusion Magic track. For your convenience, Chairwoman, allow me to summarize it in three bullet points."
1. Wants to unleash an illusion monster at the entrance ceremony to promote Illusion Magic.
2. Says it'll help with education.
3. So give him money.
"That is all."
"...He came all the way to the Finance Director's office to submit this in person?"
"That's correct."
"You let him leave in one piece, I assume?"
"What exactly do you take me for?"
If I'd been an 8th Rank without any moral restraint, sure, I'd have caved his skull in on the spot. But I'm an infinitely rational member of society.
Next year, for reasons I couldn't quite pinpoint, the Magic Department's budget would get slightly trimmed. That would be the end of it. Probably.
"So. What's the rest of it?"
"How did you know there was more?"
"Because if Professor Alon's proposal ended there, the Finance Director I know wouldn't have even bothered reporting it to me. He'd have crumpled it up and thrown it in the trash himself."
"...He proposed donating twenty percent of all future investment the Illusion Magic department receives to the academy."
"Oho."
Was the Chairwoman changing, little by little? Once upon a time, a deal like this would have drawn nothing but a look of distaste from her. Now, she seemed genuinely intrigued.
Still, I hoped she wouldn't change too much.
"However, I judged the terms insufficient and revised them. The details are also in the document."
"A fixed deadline, a conditional increase in the percentage share, and the donation made under his personal name... These are all essential protections. And conveniently omitted by Professor Alon when he presented the proposal, I imagine."
"They're scholars, not merchants. I can overlook this much."
If a trading company had tried a trick like that, I'd have hit them with the full abuse-plus-skull-cracking combo, but he was a colleague from the same academy.
More to the point, from where I sat—having conducted a fair number of negotiations and deals by now—it was a rather endearingly amateur attempt at deception. I'd decided to let it slide.
But the Chairwoman's expression was... odd.
"Chairwoman, how would you like to proceed? In my opinion—"
"Wait. Would you mind if I gave my opinion first?"
"...? No, not at all."
Let's see. She was probably going to say we couldn't pull a stunt like this at the entrance ceremony. Or that the only students who'd benefit were the Magic and Martial Arts tracks, while the Administration track students would just end up as bystanders. Or maybe she'd bring up the risk of panicked students getting injured or trampled.
Given the Chairwoman's nature—her devotion to the students and to education—those objections would've been inevitable. I'd never been enthusiastic about this deal anyway, so if she opposed it, I'd planned to simply agree.
"I think we should accept it."
"Pardon? May I ask why?"
"Because if we tip off the Claudia family's young lady or Princess Beatrice—or any of the other candidates who've been slipping us bribes—we can collect additional bribes on top of it!"
"..."