4. It's Not an Attack, It's the Entrance Ceremony
4. It's Not an Attack, It's the Entrance Ceremony
Boom!!! Kaboom!!!!
"Hmm, so that's Illusion Magic... Quite elaborate."
"They even reproduced a proper manticore. It seems to have physical substance, too, doesn't it?"
"They must've embedded a specific object or artifact inside the illusion. It's an extremely advanced illusion, though they couldn't quite replicate the characteristic menace of a genuine 7th Rank monster."
"That's not what matters. The key point is how sophisticated the illusion is. It seems like it could be applied in quite a few ways... To think that magic born from barbarian shamanism would reach this level."
Above the ceremony hall, in the VIP waiting room.
A leisurely discussion was unfolding among the many dignitaries gathered there—kingdom ministers, the heads of major trade companies, headmasters of other academies, great nobles, and prominent figures from the Empire alike.
The monster that had burst through the hall's wall was a manticore. If it were real, everyone present would have either resigned themselves to death or fled desperately.
But knowing—as they had been "briefed" in advance—that it was only an illusion turned it into an entertaining spectacle.
"Even so, isn't this a bit excessive? A monster attack during an entrance ceremony..."
"This is Grandis Academy, is it not? The kingdom's finest institution, and the one overseen by the Chairwoman herself. Even if a real manticore had charged in, there wouldn't have been any problem."
"At any other academy, there'd be all sorts of talk. But because it's Grandis Academy, it's actually refreshing and quite good."
"...Ahem, please don't forget that the headmaster of one of those 'other academies' is present as well."
Naturally, a few voiced concerns over the rather extreme event, but the favorable voices far outnumbered them—all thanks to the reputation of Grandis Academy and its Chairwoman.
If any ordinary academy pulled a stunt like this, every kind of criticism would have erupted. But the kingdom's premier academy was a different story. Some were even praising it as a new horizon in evaluation.
Besides, the kingdom's strongest 8th Rank had personally guaranteed the students' safety. If you couldn't trust the Chairwoman in terms of force, you couldn't trust anyone in the kingdom. The dignitaries' calm demeanor was, in a sense, only natural.
Crunch!
"That spear-thrusting girl—isn't that Risha Claudia? I see now why the Margrave dotes on her so much. Superb skill."
"What's more, she just struck one of a manticore's few weak points. I've heard the Claudia family educates its children in monster lore as well—she certainly lives up to that."
"This year's freshmen are fearless. Charging a manticore with that much enthusiasm? At their age, I'd have bolted already, haha!"
"There are students fleeing too. But most are standing their ground, and once they properly threw themselves in, they realized the opponent isn't a real manticore after all. Ah—magic just flashed over there."
Boom-crack!!!
"Oh, considerable firepower. Who on earth was that spell from—cough."
"Princess Beatrice is merely here to 'study abroad.' Is there a problem?"
"N-No, my lord."
"Indeed. There is no problem whatsoever, publicly speaking. Act prudently."
"Understood!"
The many dignitaries were fully absorbed in assessing the students. Their appraisals wouldn't become grades or anything of the sort, but being remembered by such people was likely a far greater benefit than mere scores.
That said, only a tiny fraction of the countless new students were concerned with such matters—just the great nobles and prodigies who would eventually associate with those dignitaries after graduation. Most of the rest were simply fighting hard for points and evaluations.
Still, the greatest attention was fixed not on any particular student but on the manticore illusion itself.
"Come to think of it, the Imperial Magic Ministry published a report not long ago. It predicted that the utility of Illusion Magic would increase dramatically in the future."
"But that's the Empire, isn't it? A magic-oriented superpower. Here in the kingdom, martial artists are better respected..."
"Even if that's the case, it's well worth investing in early. Should our academy establish an Illusion Magic department as well?"
"As far as I'm aware, Grandis Academy is the only academy in the kingdom with an Illusion Magic department. So this—even if the method is rather rough—did succeed in catching our eye."
"I'll need to prepare an investment. Think of it as betting on the future."
Talk of Illusion Magic naturally became the center of the conversation, and there was plenty of discussion about investing in the kingdom's sole Illusion Magic department.
Yet not a single person among them voiced any concern about the students' safety, nor about friendly-fire incidents among the Magic Department students.
It wasn't that the dignitaries were without human feeling, of course—it was because the Chairwoman had personally taken the field.
"Chairwoman, how is the work going?"
"It's a bit of a chore."
A small space set apart inside the hall.
Cramped but positioned so that the entire hall was visible at a glance. There, the Chairwoman sat in a chair, idly flicking her fingers this way and that.
To my 1st Rank eyes, it looked like she was just moving her hands out of boredom, but—gazing down at the hall—the effect was unmistakable.
"Hey! Watch the sword! Don't swing it at me!"
"You still don't get it? Look."
Clang!
"What the—what're you doing all of a—!! Huh?"
"There's a barrier like this around all of us, see? Swing real weapons all you want—you won't get hurt at all."
"Whoa, you're right. Wait—but there's magic flying right over our heads?"
"Ah."
Boom!!!
"Hey, you damn mages! Aim only at the manticore! Can't you hit a target that big?!"
"Doesn't matter—getting hit won't affect you anyway! You think chances like this come often? Just ignore it and keep firing!"
"These insane sorcerers!"
Two thousand students. Two thousand. That massive crowd was charging at the manticore like mad, every single one of them out for points and evaluations.
It created problems different from those of a panicked mass stampede. If things had proceeded normally, the danger would have been people shoving, trampling, or crushing one another, but the manticore, though large, wasn't big enough to be surrounded by two thousand. As students wildly swung weapons and fired spells at it, friendly fire vastly outnumbered strikes on the monster itself.
In the end, even with my additional schemes, the Chairwoman's task remained the same: ensuring the safety of every last student. And no matter how things unfolded, that was effortless for her.
"Finance Director, do you happen to know what I'm doing right now?"
"...I've heard that what separates 5th and 6th Ranks is the presence or absence of Sword Aura, and that the line between 6th and 7th Ranks is whether one can project that aura outside the body."
"Heh-heh."
"And that an 8th Rank like you, Chairwoman, can freely manipulate intangible forces such as Sword Aura."
"For a martial artist like me, it's not Sword Aura but Rigid Energy. But to be blunt, the distinction between 'Sword Aura' and 'Rigid Energy' and all that hardly matters. The power itself is the same; people just give it different names based on the weapon used."
Casually dismissing the martial arts field's most heated and blood-pressure-spiking debate—which weapon's ki is the strongest—the Chairwoman murmured.
"Anyway, I simply wrapped my Rigid Energy around the students. It functions as a substitute barrier this way."
"Around all two thousand of them?"
"Of course. If the new students only numbered half that, I could've done it in my sleep."
"............."
Moments like this really drive it home. That this is the world of Dark Kingdom, and that the Chairwoman is a transcendent powerhouse.
Man, 1st Rank sure is miserable.
I was wallowing in that bleak reality for only a moment before a sudden question occurred to me, and I asked the Chairwoman.
"But at your level, there wasn't any need for you to leave the VIP room, was there? You can chat with me just fine, so why bother taking time away from the dignitaries..."
"Ah, because it's annoying."
"Pardon?"
"Those young ones just jabber and jabber. None of the so-called dignitaries gathered here are even from my generation."
"Well, by that standard, I'm one of those 'young ones,' aren't I?"
"You're joking, right? Obviously, the Finance Director is different. What I mean is, those young ones care about nothing but money and reputation. Every single conversation is loaded with political intentions or hidden meanings—it's genuinely exhausting, you know?"
I swallowed the question of whether I, as the Finance Director, wasn't also obsessed with money. The answer was obvious anyway.
At any rate, the Chairwoman seemed to have used this as an escape hatch and simply ditched the whole VIP socializing. Now I kind of felt bad for Professor Alon.
'I went around saying the Chairwoman's time is precious, and here she is like this. Maybe I should reduce that forty percent cut—'
Kwa-bang!!
"Oh, the manticore illusion just demolished another wall. I'll have to clear the rubble too."
"Cancel that."
"Finance Director?"
"Nothing."
Was I the only one who saw every collapsing wall as money? The hall had to be used again tomorrow, so I'd need to contact the Carpenter's Guild right away. How much would the surcharge be for repairing something that huge within a single day? We'd probably have to bring in the Magic Tower to re-consecrate the enchantments, too.
'Let's just stick with forty percent.'
Besides, judging by the dignitaries' reactions, the investment money was going to be substantial. Considering it the price for reviving the Illusion Magic department, it was practically a bargain.
While I was busy convincing myself, the Chairwoman, who had safely cleared away the wreckage with a few flicks of her hand, turned to look at me.
"By the way, Finance Director, your method worked beautifully, didn't it?"
"Hm? Ah, you mean the premium intel."
"I never would have thought of it. Imagine—selling information about the manticore attack to the freshmen."
Well, the most effective way to stop them from being "surprised" by the manticore was letting them know in advance.
It was essentially leaking exam information, which a faculty member should never, ever do. But, just as the Chairwoman said, this "attack" barely affected their grades, so it was fine. Of course, since the students didn't know that, they were still charging the manticore with everything they had...
Well, the students would never see the detailed breakdown of their evaluations anyway, so they'd all finish feeling proud about having gotten a good score. That's why the Chairwoman had permitted selling the information. If I'd suggested selling midterm-exam answers, she'd have clobbered my skull with that hand of hers. Terrifying.
"But doesn't this amount to a betrayal of the students who paid the bribes? They could've stood out even more if they held the information exclusively."
"That's why I gave them much more detailed intel."
"Detailed?"
"The exact time the manticore would appear, the specific wall it would burst through, its behavioral traits and the weaknesses that come with being an illusion, the most visible spots from the VIP seats—things like that."
The Chairwoman's plan had been to pass manticore-attack information to students like Risha and extract further bribes.
The moment that previous meeting ended, I'd gone straight to Risha and the other bribe-paying students and traded the intel for their bribes. From the students' perspective, it was an offer they couldn't refuse.
I'd simply added one small remark: "The intel was leaked from the Illusion Magic department."
Other students knowing about it? That was because the Illusion Magic department—the ones who planned the event—accidentally let the information slip. Or something like that. Anyway.
Since I "knew" about the leak, I'd specially provided them with extremely detailed attack intel out of "loyalty." As expected, Risha and the other bribe-paying students were thoroughly satisfied.
As a bonus, I'd assigned them seats that would let them stand out the moment the manticore attacked. They had undoubtedly left a strong impression on the dignitaries.
Besides, I hadn't entirely lied, either.
"By the way, how did you sell the information? You couldn't have mobilized staff members for this..."
"I have personal connections. There's absolutely no risk of suspicion."
"Hmm."
Obviously, if it ever got out that the mastermind behind the information sale was me, it would be disastrous—so I went through some "middlemen."
All I did was hand the intel—allegedly leaked from the Illusion Magic department or whatever—over to those guys. Selling the information and all the rest was something they handled on their own. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Moreover, those guys were the type who wouldn't suffer any consequences even if the whole thing came to light... and, more importantly, they were reliable enough.
"Is this 'personal connection' the Student Council?"
"Just some goddamn underclassmen."
After all, isn't it common sense for upperclassmen to sell departmental intel or old exam cheat sheets to their juniors?
This particular case was admittedly grander in scale, but the Student Council was... already notorious to begin with. Especially the current Student Council president—that bastard of a junior of mine—made it even more so.
A special pipeline only someone like me, who hadn't graduated all that long ago, could have. Those Student Council bastards probably jacked up the prices further and skimmed plenty for themselves, but as long as they surpassed the minimum expected sales revenue I'd set, I could look the other way.
In the end, the Illusion Magic department would get the investment they wanted; bribe-payers like Risha would leave their mark on the dignitaries; the other students would believe they'd earned decent scores (or something like that); and the Chairwoman and I would secure a substantial budget. A happy ending all around.
"Oh, looks like that student is about to make her move."
"...Wasn't she supposed to limit her power?"
"She was. She even agreed not to use Sword Aura... Huh?"
A light flickered.
Down there, from behind the seething mass of students, a glowing figure walked slowly toward the manticore. The students charging the manticore gradually stepped aside, as if blocking her path were simply not permitted.
Even though the enemy was an illusion and every student was under absolute protection, combat set their blood boiling. Yet even those heated students retreated, quietly or noisily, before that light.
At last, a straight path reaching all the way to the manticore opened up, like the parting of the Red Sea.
And the student, Rus Spero, swung his light-emitting sword.
The symbol of the 6th Rank. Unmistakable Sword Aura.
Kwa-baaaaang!!!
With a deafening roar, the manticore—an illusion and nothing more—was bisected and vanished. Then Rus sheathed his sword, having blown away what little remained of the other intact walls.
"... ... ..."
"... ..."
Goddammit, you bloody protagonist.
You promised to limit your power. You said you wouldn't use Sword Aura.
Even if I grant you a hundred concessions on the power-limit thing—
'Why do you destroy a wall every single time you draw that sword?'
What, do you have a vendetta against walls or something?
Pay for the repair costs, you bastard...