Proof of Worth
Lately, a quiet rumor had been circulating through the Academy: if you had the talent, Prince Rohen would take you in.
The origin of that rumor was, naturally, Dana.
They say that life is a comedy when viewed from a distance, and a tragedy when viewed up close. Her life was a tragedy even viewed from afar, and so she had drawn no small amount of pity from those around her.
And yet, despite being the daughter of a family that had fallen through treason, she had appeared with her burn scars healed thanks to the Prince's intervention — and that alone was bound to set tongues wagging.
At first, many assumed that with looks like hers, she must have seduced him with her appearance, the way Princess Aria did. But once the Military Department's third-year classes began in earnest, the situation turned on its head entirely — because Dana demonstrated skill so clean-cut it could shut the mouths of every student in the department.
The third-year Military Department curriculum, by design, took battles from history, walked through them in exhaustive detail, and then posed the question: "In this situation, what strategy would you devise?" — opening the floor to free discussion.
And Dana would pick apart every flaw in the strategies the students put forward, dismantling them one by one. Her own strategies, meanwhile, tolerated not a single point of criticism — they were, quite simply, optimal.
Granted, the Military Department had plenty of talented students beyond her. But rather than raising genuine objections to Dana's proposals, even they merely offered refinements — additions here and there that only made her strategies more perfect still.
As the days wore on, the professors began doing everything they could to avoid giving her the floor during lectures. She was guaranteed to demolish whoever spoke, so to spare themselves the humiliation, everyone kept their mouths firmly shut, producing scenes of perfect silence.
Thanks to that, those in the Military Department who had once quietly dismissed her vanished completely — because they had finally realized that her middling grades up to that point had been nothing but a facade. If anything, deliberately maintaining mid-tier marks spoke to a talent of an entirely different order.
With all this in the open, it became obvious to everyone that Prince Rohen had taken her in not for her beauty, but for her ability. And so the perception spread widely among the Academy's Imperial students: if you had the talent, then even a child of a traitor's fallen house might be embraced.
Which meant, naturally, that it was Lapis who found herself far busier than usual. Going to Prince Rohen directly was too intimidating for most, so everyone reasoned that going through the comparatively gentle-natured Lapis was the safer route.
Rohen had, in fact, positioned Lapis as his channel of communication quite deliberately — but the sheer number of people swarming her was genuinely becoming a problem. She was already juggling a dizzying array of double majors, and her elective load was just as staggering.
Aria, on the other hand, remained just as surrounded by empty air as ever. If the only reason she was close to the Prince was her talent as a mage, then all the whispering behind her back wouldn't change a thing.
"……With grades like mine, I've got a real shot, don't I?"
"Delusion's free, but even the top-ranked students are flocking to Lady Lapis."
"Think about it. Even if the top students land the best positions, they'll need hands and feet underneath them, won't they?"
"And they'd hardly need us for that kind of hiring."
"Fair point, I guess."
"Lucky Military Department kids. Even if Lady Lapis turns them away, they've still got Dana to impress."
And just as that last student said, people had been quietly gravitating toward Dana, who was all but designated as the Prince's military advisor. Her fellow third-years kept their distance out of pride, but the graduating class and the first- and second-years requested meetings with her quite frequently.
Dana received those requests, but never passed anyone along to Rohen. Whether she even had the authority to do so was questionable in the first place — and the odds that someone like her, all theory and no battlefield experience, would be deployed as the Prince's military commander right out of the Academy were slim.
"You've come again."
"Apparently I'm not the first. But…… I'm not a Military Department student."
"Then would it not be better to seek out Lady Lapis? I say this again and again — I have no right to an audience with my lord for the purpose of patronage."
"If you received the power of his Word to heal half your body's burns, wouldn't that suggest considerable favor?"
"I cannot say I am despised, that much is true. But it is precisely because of that favor that I know my place and act accordingly."
Dana was sharp enough to roughly grasp that Rohen had designated Lapis and Aria as the channels through which he was willing to be approached. Which meant that territory was one her own feet must never trespass upon.
"As you well know, there are far too many people around Lady Lapis."
"They say a pearl in the mud still shines. Talent inevitably stands out — no matter how many people crowd around, if Lady Lapis's eye is true, one can still be chosen."
"Easy to say when it isn't you."
"It is precisely because it is me that I can say it. Am I not proof? There was not a single point of contact between my lord and myself, and yet he found me and took me in. If you have confidence in yourself, I am rather urging you to have courage."
"……"
"And if Lady Lapis is overwhelmed, there is always Lady Aria."
"She's too hard to approach, honestly. One word from her and I'd be cut down on the spot."
"If that small hesitation is all it takes to make you dither, one might say your talent is exactly as unremarkable as that suggests."
"……"
"In any case, I have no intention of meddling in matters beyond my authority. No matter what you say to me now, it changes nothing."
At Dana's lengthy send-off — your business is concluded, now please be on your way — the man sighed and turned his back.
Nothing to be done about it, then.
He had tried to take the easier road. But with things as they were, only one means remained.
"Pardon my intrusion."
"What is it?"
The café set up in front of the department that trained butlers and maids. The man from moments before approached Aria, who was in the middle of revising a thesis, and addressed her.
Her reaction, predictably, was prickly — and at the sight of it, the man flinched even as he bowed his head politely.
"I've come to ask a favor of Princess Aria."
"Of me?"
Aria opened her mouth, thinking this was a first, her eyes filling with interest.
"Go on."
"I would like you to arrange a meeting with Prince Rohen."
"Why?"
"Because I wish to prove my ability to His Highness, and be taken under his wing."
"And you came to me instead of Lapis just because I looked like the easier mark?"
"Not at all. It's simply that there were so many people around Lady Lapis…… no matter how discerning her eye, I could easily be passed over like a pebble on the roadside."
Hearing that, Aria took a sip of her tea and held out her hand.
"Give it here. That thing you're carrying. The documents proving your worth, I presume?"
"Ah…… yes! That's correct."
The man handed over the papers, and as Aria took them, her head snapped up in surprise.
"Fifty million Penny in just three months?"
The contents of the papers listed, month by month, the sums of money the man had deposited with a major merchant house. Fifty million in total — proof enough of how extraordinary it was for an Academy student to generate that kind of income in a mere three months.
But what mattered, of course, was how he had made it.
"It's the revenue from selling things I made."
"Then shouldn't you also be telling me about those things?"
"That…… I intend to explain at the meeting with His Highness."
Aria fixed the man with a narrow-eyed stare.
"Th-this is in no way improperly obtained profit, I assure you."
"Right. It would be rude of me to demand an artisan's craft, I suppose. Well…… fine."
Gathering up her thesis, Aria rose from her seat.
"You mean it? Really?"
"If something you built yourself can turn a profit like that in three months, then it has clear value. I can't go demanding an artisan's secrets for myself, so you'll have to discuss the details with Rohen directly."
As she started walking, Aria turned her head toward the man standing there dumbstruck.
"Are you coming or not?"
"Y-yes, Your Highness!"
Things had gone better than he'd dared hope — the man half wondered if he was dreaming — and at last he stumbled into motion after her.
The place Aria led him to was the artificial forest within the Academy grounds, where the Knight Department conducted its mock battles. Lunch hour was approaching, so he assumed things would be wrapping up soon — and he wasn't wrong, for in the distance the Knight Department's graduating students were trudging slowly toward them.
Most of them were caked in dirt and in sorry shape, but Rohen alone was remarkably clean.
"What's this about?"
"There's someone who wants to meet you, so I brought him."
"Me?"
"Says he made and sold products of his own design — netted fifty million Penny in three months."
Aria passed the documentary evidence over to Rohen. If the claim was true, it was genuinely intriguing from his perspective. The talent he had most wanted to acquire at the Academy in the first place was precisely a skilled craftsman.
Because one of the most effective ways to win the people's consent for making Magic Stones permanent — and for removing the Demonic Tree — was to offer them conveniences just like that.
If public goods made from permanent Magic Stones rather than consumable ones, as things stood now, won a favorable enough response, then the backlash against removing the Demonic Tree would diminish in kind.
"I think it's a good idea. I also like that the next person attached to your side is a man, not another woman."
Aria leaned in close, lowering her voice to a whisper at his ear, and Rohen smiled faintly.
"Well, in the end you'll be standing at my side as my wife anyway, won't you?"
"That's not something you should be saying out here, don't you think?"
"Are you suggesting we save it for the bed?"
Reading those words, Aria flushed crimson and crumpled the paper in her fist without a second thought. She whipped her head around to find the man standing blankly, regarding her with a puzzled expression.
Thank goodness he wasn't in a position to see the writing, she thought.
And because Rohen found her flustered reaction so endearing, his hand drifted of its own accord to gently smooth her hair.
"……Whatever you're looking at right now, erase it from your head."
At Aria's words, the man nodded slowly. Then again — if she didn't want it seen, couldn't she simply have swatted the hand away?
With Rohen's hand resting atop her head, apparently savoring it in her own subtle way, the two of them looked…… not quite like the rumors suggested. More like a brother and sister who genuinely got along well.
No — "brother and sister" wasn't quite right either.
A well-matched pair, perhaps, was the better way to put it.
Afterward, the man and Rohen moved their meeting to the rooftop of a little-frequented building deep within the Academy grounds.