The Magic Lecture (1)
Sherry served tea to Amelia with a visibly sour expression, then reached out and prodded the girl's swollen right cheek with her fingertip.
"A-are you all right?" Hershey asked, offering an awkward smile.
"Yes. This much is an everyday occurrence. Please don't concern yourself."
"...So this really is just a normal day for you."
"More importantly, Lady Amelia, do please speak comfortably with me."
"No. I couldn't possibly."
A lady-in-waiting and a maid were not the same thing. A maid was a commoner, but a lady-in-waiting was labor of a far more elevated class. She managed her mistress's schedule, instructed her in etiquette, and helped her maintain her dignity—her duties were, in effect, closer to those of an attendant-in-counsel. Such vital work could never be entrusted to a commoner; naturally, it fell to rigorously educated nobles.
Which was why even a lady-in-waiting could not presume to speak down to Amelia—and all the more so when that lady-in-waiting belonged to House Windsor.
"Ahem."
Having just displayed something less than ladylike, Amelia cleared her throat in embarrassment. Luid cast her a sidelong glance.
"You should learn to hold back."
"...Sorry."
Luid then poked Sherry's cheek with the tip of his staff—pok, pok—and a soft blue glow shimmered as the swelling sank back down.
Sherry bowed her head. "Thank you, young master."
"And you, Sherry. Don't give my sister too hard a time."
"I will make the effort—provided the young lady abides by the rules."
"That's a funny thing to say, Sherry. Want to get hit again?"
"I do not shy away from a fight."
Amelia's and Sherry's eyes locked. A crackle of unspoken hostility seemed to leap between them, like electricity arcing through the air.
Reminds me of home. Nice.
Even before he'd come to the Academy, Sherry and Amelia had never gotten along. Watching the two of them bicker brought back the manor tucked away in the far reaches of the North. The adorable polar bears you'd spot if you took the snowboard out to the backyard and glided a little ways downhill. The serpentine monster with all eighteen heads—he'd even affectionately named it Medusa.
He loved the big ones too, but the best of all had been the arctic foxes. They looked like tiny Samoyeds—at first glance, he'd honestly mistaken one for a puppy.
They'd all been good friends. Perhaps it was because he'd lived through the desolation of modern society, but the untouched nature of the North felt new and wondrous every single day.
Best of all, there was his endlessly warm big sister and his mother. The maids, a little cold on the surface but quietly attentive underneath. All good people.
Compared to that, the Academy was...
"Haaah."
Another sigh escaped him. Back home, there had never been a single thing worth frowning over. Here, there was always something demanding his attention.
"What's wrong, Luid? Is something bothering you?"
"Maybe I'll just quit the Academy."
His true feelings slipped out without thinking. It was the single most foolproof way to avoid getting entangled in meetings with the protagonist's circle. And it was a peaceful method, at that—no one would be harmed.
"Wh-what?!" Hershey shot to her feet, startled. Her pupils wavered.
My goal's basically already accomplished, though.
Luid's listless gaze was filled with Hershey. Half the reason he'd come to the Academy had been her. He still remembered how unbearably tragic she'd seemed when he'd read the original novel.
But that cliché—Hershey turning into a villainess—looked like it had been averted. He'd taken proper countermeasures; nothing short of extraordinary would touch her now.
As for the other half—the worry that the protagonist Justin might die without him...
Am I really necessary, though?
In the original, Luid had been the type of character who slept at Delin's Lake and only emerged to help whenever the protagonist found himself in over his head. In other words, the value of "Lazy Luid" lay entirely in his overwhelming power itself. And that, he reasoned, could be replaced by the Sword Princess Amelia.
Amelia was seriously strong. The original novel never said so outright, but she was more than enough to play the joker's role in the episodes to come.
Should I actually just quit?
For a moment, temptation gripped him.
"Wait just a moment! Quit the Academy?!"
"I'm considering it."
"But— but why?" Hershey's eyes grew moist. "Who is it?"
Amelia's expression turned grave as well. "Is someone bullying you? That Justin kid?"
"Or... is it because of me? Have I been a bother?"
"Just say the word. By tomorrow, they won't exist to you anymore."
"......"
Luid blinked at the pair's wildly disproportionate reactions.
I'll table it for now.
From Amelia's response, he could tell that if he actually quit, someone would be held responsible. Probably Justin. And Hershey hadn't been branded a wicked woman in the original for nothing—if his own standing hadn't been House Windsor, kindness wouldn't have come so freely to anyone beneath him.
For now, it seemed wiser to keep watching. More than anything else—
I shouldn't push my own duties onto someone else.
After all, he wasn't actually a child.
"Loafer."
Clifford stood with his hands clasped behind his back. He stared at the sunlight streaming into the office for a moment, then turned around—wearing, for some reason, the grin of a victorious man.
"So. What business brings you here."
"Has anything happened recently?" Luid asked, his eyes sliding slightly away.
"Oh, something happened all right."
It had been a probing question—wondering if there was some incident he himself didn't know about—so the flat confirmation genuinely startled him.
"The wall of the Colosseum, which had stood guard over this great Imperial Academy for three hundred years, has collapsed. A catastrophe of historic proportion."
"......"
Luid was struck speechless.
"Repairs came to 120,000 gold. Factor in the cost of the Haemuk Highlands you squandered the other day, loafer, and you're well past 500,000 gold."
Clifford was practically preening.
Why does he seem so thrilled about this?
Luid was bemused.
"What, even you must be terrified at the prospect of a bill this colossal, hm? Hahaha!"
Clifford let out a hearty, unrestrained laugh. It was the face of a man whose thirty-year toothache had finally been pulled.
"I knew you'd come crawling! House Windsor's child-rearing is famously strict. Especially that Duchess of hers—cold as ice and frost. She would never let this slide..."
Well, that part's fine.
Luid knew exactly how much money his family had. The Windsor Duchy was barren and harsh, but in exchange, the land was rich with all manner of rare minerals.
Still, he decided to play along with Clifford's mood.
"Yes. I was scolded terribly."
"AHAHAHAHAT!"
Clifford laughed loud enough to shake the rafters.
...What is wrong with this old man?
Regardless—if he was in a good mood, things would go smoothly.
"There's just one favor I'd like to ask."
"A favor? What could a man who has the whole world at his feet possibly need from me?"
"Grant this one thing, and I'll give you 500,000 gold on top of it."
Jolt. Clifford's body flinched.
"...Does that include the mess you made in the Haemuk Highlands?"
Luid nodded. "I broke that too, after all."
"Ahem— hm, hm, hm." Clifford covered his mouth and coughed several times. Then, with a wave of his hand, he settled onto the reception sofa and crossed his legs. Luid sat down across from him. "So. What's this favor?"
"Rach's Orb. Would you be willing to transfer it to me?"
"What?"
Clifford spoke as though he'd just heard something absurd. "You fool, you'd hand over that report for a mere 500,000 gold? Wait, no—hold on. That 500,000 is money I was owed in the first place. So it'd be free, wouldn't it."
The 500,000 gold, which had been pure exaggeration, had seamlessly transformed into a legitimate outstanding debt. Luid decided not to dwell on it.
"You researched it for nearly ninety years and produced nothing. From what I hear, the research was abandoned some twenty years ago. Isn't it just a useless white elephant at this point?"
"Hoh. Well, well. And just how did you come to know all that?"
Rach's Orb was the life's work left behind a hundred years ago by Rach, a lich who had pursued immortality. In his quest for eternal life he had inflicted tremendous harm upon the world, and after the knightly order assembled by the Imperial Academy of that era struck him down, the Academy had taken possession of the orb as a trophy.
"You fool. That was a great achievement of the Imperial Academy's storied past. Even without research results to show for it, do you have any idea what an honor it is to hold such a relic?"
Clifford was very carefully omitting the fact that tourism revenue from Rach's Orb reached 100,000 gold a year. Naturally, Luid knew that too.
And that's exactly the problem.
The catastrophe looming on the horizon was going to happen precisely because Rach's Orb was on public display. Countless protective enchantments had been layered over it, sealed inside a transparent glass case—until some mastermind emerged and dispelled the magic. The lich, lying in wait inside the orb and patiently biding its time for a counterstrike, would awaken and possess Nia Lion.
Mass chaos would erupt. Many people would die. Afterward, the lich would search the surroundings for a lair to claim—and the target would be Delin's Lake, where the mana concentration was highest.
That was right. The lich would walk straight back into its own grave. Because Lazy Luid would crush the uninvited guest in a single stroke. And with that, the incident would be resolved, for the time being...
The trouble was, no one knew exactly when it would happen. Well, of course—novels don't come with calendars.
Which meant that since he slept pretty much all day, every day, the odds of having to fight mid-nap were disturbingly high.
Just thinking about the stress of it annoyed him. His mind was made up: break the orb, and break it fast.
"You're asking me to hand over one of this great Academy's prized attractions for nothing? Honestly. They say the rich only get richer—tsk, tsk."
In other words: he brought in 100,000 gold annually, so no 500,000 gold payout could justify giving him up.
At this point, Luid pulled out his trump card.
"If you give me the orb, I'll transfer the copyright to my magic lecture to the Academy."
"Wh-what did you say?"
Clifford's eyes went wide. But they soon turned fierce. "Why would you give that away, you fool?!"
He really is impossible to read.
Luid was dumbfounded. "Do I look like such a shameless wretch that you'd suspect me of stealing credit for your work?"
"I'm talking about the copyright to the recording of my magic lecture."
Clifford asked quietly. "...You mean to hold one?"
Luid nodded. "If you give me Rach's Orb, that is."
Clifford cleared his throat. "Well. That does change the conversation."
A lecture recording's copyright meant the right to sell memory crystals capturing a distinguished mage's lecture. A lecture from a famous-name mage could fetch anywhere from several hundred thousand gold to, at the low end, tens of thousands, depending on the content.
And right now, Luid was the hottest topic in the entire magical academy. The lecture explaining the great magic that had demolished the Colosseum. No mage alive could resist it—it would start bidding at a bare minimum of a million gold.
"Ahem..."
It was an offer he couldn't refuse. But still—look twice before crossing even a well-worn bridge.
"You there. What do you intend to do with it? Don't tell me you have an interest in immortality."
"I just want to study it. Simple curiosity."
"Research would be a waste of time."
Clifford probed, none too subtly. "The greatest mages in the world researched it for ninety years and came away with less than a speck of dust. There's nothing inside it. The mana of the life's work dispersed into the atmosphere when Rach died—it's nothing but an ordinary orb now. And you still mean to pay such an enormous sum to acquire it?"
"I haven't researched it myself, though."
It was an exceedingly arrogant thing to say. And yet it was also, irritatingly, a perfectly reasonable one.
"Hmm. Your intentions strike me as somewhat dubious, but—fine. If it's research you want, you may have it."
Luid's face brightened.
"However! I refuse to trust a lazybones like you. The magic lecture comes first."
In one sentence: if you want the orb quickly, hold the lecture quickly.
Luid nodded. He didn't know the exact date, but the lich incident was still a long way off.
Moments after Luid left, Phoenicia approached.
"What on earth just happened?"
"Happened? Nothing happened, obviously."
"That's exactly what's strange. Every last thing in your collection is some half-baked trinket, yet you dote on Rach's Orb as the one item that actually does its job—and now you'd hand it over without a word of complaint?"
"Hm? When did I ever say I'd give it to him?"
Clifford folded his hands behind his back and smiled a sinister smile. "I said I'd lend it. Eheh. EHEHEHEHAT!"
"For research purposes" had only ever been valid for as long as Luid remained enrolled at the Academy. And with no formal contract drawn up, Luid would have no grounds to claim ownership whatsoever.
"I've finally landed one on him. Hahaha!"
Phoenicia murmured, "Good heavens..." and pressed a hand to her forehead.
The sight of a father swindling a twelve-year-old and laughing himself breathless over it...
She found she could not, in good conscience, bear to watch.