The Emperor's Decree and the Ground I Tried to Disappear Into
You're the ones who signed up for this class, and now you're giving me hell.
I never imagined it. Not even in my wildest dreams. I had no idea how vast a web of misunderstanding and rumor my sudden declaration of surrender — and the vanishing act that followed — had spun among those illustrious original protagonists.
Three days ago. The capital's high society.
"Oh my, have you heard? They say Young Master Wienheim has actually given up on Lady Ceria. It's true."
"The man who pursued her faithfully for ten years? Just like that?"
"I heard he's locked himself in a basement to teach commoners how to hunt magical beasts. I couldn't even imagine doing such a thing."
"You don't suppose he's received a terminal diagnosis? If he's trying to settle his affairs quietly, I suppose I could understand."
"I heard something far more interesting. They say His Highness the Crown Prince applied pressure behind the scenes."
In every salon, my name was chewed over beside fragrant teacups. I knew none of this. If I had, I'd have clutched the back of my neck in horror long ago. The plan to quietly vanish had, instead, been promoted to the capital's greatest mystery. And of course, those rumors found their way to the very people they concerned.
"Headmistress. What on earth is the meaning of this?"
I dropped the student roster onto her desk with a snap. The names written across the very top of the page — Ceria Erdin and Kyle del Helios — seemed to be laughing at me.
The Headmistress glanced at me over her silver-rimmed glasses and rummaged through her papers as if none of this were of any particular concern. A middle-aged woman with silver hair pinned neatly in place. Gentle in appearance, but this was the woman who had held the Imperial Academy in her grip for over twenty years.
"Ah, that. I'm sure you've heard the news by now, Professor. About what happened on the border ten days ago."
"...And what does that have to do with me?"
"His Majesty was furious. While commoner-born knights were being torn apart by magical beasts on the front lines, the children of the nobility were learning tea-party etiquette at the Academy. Unseemly, he called it. And so an imperial decree was issued."
The Headmistress flipped through her papers and read.
Those who hold succession rights to their houses, and those of top-student rank or higher in each department, shall without exception complete practical survival credits.
"Noblesse oblige, I believe they call it."
The world swam before my eyes.
There was no such imperial decree in the original novel.
The border magical-beast problem had been a single line of background setting in the story, mentioned once and never brought up again. But in reality, it had crystallized into the Emperor's wrath and an imperial decree — and that decree had shoved the romance-fantasy protagonists straight into my lecture hall.
The original story was changing. And it was changing with me at the center.
But I didn't have the luxury of dwelling on that terror right now.
"E-even so, why my class of all things? There are other practical courses!"
"That's precisely the problem. The tame ones — Basic Self-Defense Magic Practical, Magical Beast Ecology Practical — those filled up weeks ago. Everyone with any sense fled to the easy options. But your course, Professor..."
The Headmistress tapped the syllabus.
Practical Magic Applications for Great Magical Beasts in the Frontier Region
"The name alone is enough to make anyone flinch. It's a commoner's ladder to the Frontier Knight Order, so the nobility wouldn't give it a second glance, and you're an unproven new professor. Under ordinary circumstances, no one would have come."
"Then assign them to a different course!"
"There's one more problem."
The Headmistress adjusted her glasses and sighed.
"This decree targets heirs and top-ranking students. That includes His Highness the Crown Prince and the young masters of every great house. Can you imagine placing people like that in just any course? The instructor's social rank becomes an issue."
"Social rank?"
"A commoner-born professor teaching His Highness the Crown Prince? The standing doesn't match. Among all the practical-course instructors at the Academy, you're the only one of noble birth. Every other practical course is taught by commoners or retired knights."
I was at a loss for words.
Because I'm a noble?
I had chosen a post teaching commoners specifically to stay out of the romance-fantasy protagonists' line of sight. And the fact that a noble — me — occupied that very post had become the condition that dragged those protagonists straight to my door.
I had leapt into the fire of my own making.
The Headmistress flipped another page and added, "What's more, His Highness's chamberlain contacted us directly. His Highness reviewed the practical courses available and took an interest in your syllabus, Professor."
"...His Highness himself?"
"You did have something of a name in aristocratic society, after all. What with the rumors surrounding Lady Ceria. From His Highness's perspective, if he had to complete the practical credits anyway, choosing your class was convenient in more ways than one."
Convenient.
Right. Of course it was convenient. A seat from which he could observe his surveillance target in person.
"You've become famous, Professor, so you may as well take it in stride. The whole capital was in an uproar over you giving up on Lady Ceria — and thanks to that, your name is certainly well known now."
"...The problem is that it doesn't seem to have become known in a good way."
The Headmistress smiled gently. I hoped the amusement in that smile was just my imagination.
I left her office with heavy steps.
Quit.
Instinct screamed it. But cold judgment followed immediately on its heels.
I can't. Father wrote a letter of recommendation staking the family name. Resigning before a single semester is over would smear the House of Wienheim.
The words I had spoken to my father myself rang in my head.
Better to stand in plain sight than hide and invite suspicion.
Right. If I ran from this post now, that entire logic would collapse. Staying would be better. The moment I fled, the real problems would begin.
Now that it had come to this, there was nowhere left to retreat.
It was a considerable walk from the main building to the old annex. I passed the manicured flower beds and marble halls of the main campus and kept going. The farther I went, the more the buildings aged, and the grass grew wild and unkempt. At this point, you could have told me it was an abandoned wing rather than part of the campus, and I would have believed you.
Moss clung to the stairs leading down into the old building's basement. I pushed open a rusted iron door, and a wave of cold damp and mold struck me in the face.
I'm supposed to teach a whole semester in here?
Under ordinary circumstances, a handful of commoner students dreaming of the Frontier Knight Order would have been sitting in there, yawning. Today, however, was different.
A strange tension reached me before I even opened the door. A low, quiet murmur from inside. I drew one breath, then pushed it open.
Some twenty students turned their heads toward me in unison.
Ceria was sitting in the front row. Hair tied neatly back. A gaze that had nothing in common with the glittering socialites of the capital. There was none of that innocent smile the original novel had described a hundred times over. What sat in its place was something sharp — the look of a person honing a blade.
...Huh. That's a little different from the original.
The seat directly beside her was empty. Whether no student had the nerve to sit next to a baron's daughter, or whether she had put that distance there herself, I couldn't tell.
In a back-row corner, Dietrich Eisengart sat with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Eldest son of the Northern Grand Duke. In the original novel he was called the Black Knight of the North, a genius of the sword — but looking at him now, he just seemed like a university student napping before class.
Beside him, Julian Bernstein was smiling mildly through half-lidded eyes. That face of his, always half-shut. You could never tell whether he was smiling or dozing, but the calculations turning behind those slits were faster than anyone else's in this room. The fact that he hadn't so much as wrinkled his nose at a basement reeking of mud and mold told me he was no ordinary customer. There was a reason he was the half-lidded type.
And in the dead center of the back row sat a man in a pure white ceremonial uniform, a sword at his waist.
Kyle del Helios. Crown Prince of the Empire. His head was tilted slightly as he looked up at me — as if he were waiting for his prey.
While I was still gathering myself, Ceria spoke first.
"Professor. I have a question."
"Go ahead, my lady."
"I was told this course includes live combat training against actual magical beasts. Is that a fact, or merely a rumor?"
Not the question I would have expected from a romance-fantasy heroine. I answered with care.
"It's a fact. However, given the high risk, you may substitute with theoretical instruction if you wish—"
"No. That's all I needed to hear."
Ceria cut me off cleanly and straightened in her seat. Something like relief flickered across her face.
What is that reaction?
Any ordinary noble young lady would have gone white at the words "live combat training." This one looked glad to hear them. As if she had enrolled in the course for the sole purpose of getting that answer.
A setting that had drifted past in a single line of the original novel surfaced in my memory. Ceria's hometown — a small barony on the frontier. The year she turned twelve, a pack of magical beasts swept through the territory and burned half of it to the ground. By the time the knight order arrived, three villages were already ash.
In the original, it had been nothing more than a single decorative line of pitiable backstory. The Ceria sitting in front of me was not pitiable. Those were not the eyes of someone crushed by trauma. Those were the eyes of someone grinding her teeth, determined to smash that trauma to pieces.
Don't tell me she actually came here because she wants to get stronger.
Something clicked into place.
Wait. The Headmistress had said I'd been assigned this course because I was the only noble professor. But Ceria had just confirmed the existence of live combat training — and looked relieved. That was not the reaction of a student forced here by imperial decree. That was the reaction of a student who had chosen this class herself.
Which meant the Headmistress's explanation had a hole in it.
Noble professor, my ass. Ceria took an interest in this course first, and the rest of them followed her, didn't they?
Crown Prince Kyle had his eye on Ceria. If Ceria enrolled, and Kyle enrolled after her — and if the other romance-fantasy male leads piled into whatever course Kyle had chosen—
Then from the very beginning, the starting point of this chain had been Ceria. The imperial decree had only pulled the trigger. She was the one who had loaded the round.
...Which means that no matter how hard I tried to run, the moment Ceria took an interest, it was already over.
A chill ran down my spine.
While I was still absorbed in Ceria's reaction, a voice of impeccable breeding cut in from the back row.
"You have quite the reputation, Professor."
Kyle del Helios was watching me with his arms folded. He was smiling at his leisure, but his eyes were not smiling at all.
"The man who pursued Lady Ceria for over a decade, only to abandon everything one day and slink into a basement lecture hall. A fascinating tale."
The classroom went silent in an instant. A few of the commoner students held their breath. They had not expected to watch the Crown Prince pick a fight with a professor at point-blank range.
You're the ones who enrolled in the first place. Why the hell are you taking it out on me?
The words rose all the way to the back of my throat, but superhuman patience held them down.
"...Your Highness. What exactly are you trying to say?"
"Nothing of great importance."
Kyle leaned forward slightly.
"It's merely that when a person changes so dramatically, it tends to be one of two things. Either they have truly come to some realization. Or they are orchestrating something behind the scenes."
A brief silence settled.
The air in the classroom froze solid.
Ordinarily, this would have been the moment to bow my head and let it pass. The man across from me was the Crown Prince of the Empire, after all. But I was the professor. In this mold-reeking basement lecture hall, I had no reason to yield even to him.
"Your Highness."
I met Kyle's gaze head-on.
"You are welcome to watch. However, I will say one thing."
"And that is?"
Kyle's eyes narrowed by a fraction. Almost no one had ever said such a thing to this man.
"And if you are curious as to why I changed, the answer is simple. I came to a realization. That is all."
"..."
"You said you were wagering on the latter. I will ask you again at the end of the semester. We will see if your answer is still the same."
Kyle looked at me for a long moment, then leaned back against his chair. The smile was gone, but something like unexpected interest flickered through his gaze.
"...You are an interesting man."
The first gate, cleared.
Into that opening, Julian's half-lidded eyes eased a little wider. More precisely, they opened halfway further. When this one opened his eyes, it meant the situation had become entertaining.
"If I may add to His Highness's remarks, Professor."
Julian rested his chin on his hand and looked up at me. The corners of his mouth were still curved in that gentle smile.
"I have a question of my own, you see. I've searched high and low for any academic papers or combat records of yours in the field of magic, and I've found... nothing. Anecdotes about the Fireworks Magic you set off in front of Lady Ceria, on the other hand, are abundant."
He tilted his head, still smiling.
"If you'll forgive the impertinence — have you ever actually slain a magical beast in live combat, Professor?"
This bastard just smiled and drove a knife in.
It was a vicious question. Either answer was a trap. Say yes, and with no records to show I became a liar. Say no, and I was confirmed as a professor with no combat experience.
But I had no intention of yielding this time either.
"Young Master Bernstein."
I looked Julian straight in the eye.
"The top student of the Diplomacy Department sitting in a practical combat-magic course makes for quite an interesting picture itself. Do you have combat records of your own?"
Julian's half-lidded eyes stopped for a fraction of a second. An unexpected counter, apparently.
"And since you brought up fireworks, allow me to share something. The core of Fireworks Magic is the precise distribution of mana and control of timing. The same principle applies in live combat. The only difference is that the target of the detonation is a magical beast, not the sky."
Julian's smile stiffened for a beat, then returned.
"...Professor, you're more interesting than I expected."
Would you people stop calling me interesting. I have never once wanted to be an interesting person to any of you.
The second gate, cleared as well.
A heavy thud sounded from the back row. Dietrich Eisengart planted his elbows on the desk and opened his eyes for the first time. Cold grey irises locked onto me without a flicker.
"Professor."
This one did not circle around the way Julian did.
"I've cut down magical beasts myself on the northern front. First deployment at sixteen. Thirty-two kills to date. Do you actually have anything to teach me?"
The classroom froze over once more. This time, even Kyle's mouth curved up at the corner. It was a pure martial provocation, a different grain entirely from the Crown Prince's needling.
I looked Dietrich straight in the eye and answered.
"Thirty-two. That's impressive. I mean that sincerely."
Dietrich's gaze wavered by a fraction. He had braced for sarcasm, and sincerity had come back instead; it seemed to have thrown him.
"But let me ask you one thing. Did you take down all thirty-two of those beasts alone?"
"...I did."
"Then I'll ask you this. What will you do when the thirty-third is one you cannot handle alone?"
Dietrich's mouth closed.
"This class does not teach you how to kill things by yourself. It teaches you how to come back alive when you can't. I believe that time will prove necessary even for you, Young Master."
Dietrich stared at me without a word. A few seconds passed, and he closed his eyes again. There was no rebuttal.
The third gate, done.
God, I wish they'd all just drop the course.
Inside, I was completely drained. Outwardly, I opened the attendance book as if nothing had happened.
...I'm screwed. Blind spot, my ass. This was the most dangerous front line all along.
The man who had boasted to his father that he would hide a tree in the forest was now surrounded by the fiercest beasts in the heart of that forest.
And the biggest problem of all was that I had to teach these beasts their first class.