A Meeting of Eccentrics
Roc Island.
With all the first-year students away on their Dispatched Evaluations, a summons had gone out to the professors. They were gathering one by one at the Central Banquet Hall, every professor who taught a first-year class.
“Ugh, I hate wearing clothes like this.”
And from the very entrance of the banquet hall, Byeolya, the Toxicology professor, was in the middle of throwing a full-blown tantrum.
On top of her usual bandage getup, she had a black suit jacket draped over her shoulders and was even wearing actual trousers.
“It's embarrassing, so shut your mouth. Please.”
Standing beside the sulking Byeolya was Hong Peng, the Magic Combat professor.
“You were planning to see Lady Nephthys dressed in that weird half-naked outfit of yours?”
“Honestly.”
Byeolya smirked.
“Out there they call you Kizen's resident weirdo, but did the weirdo in you die? You've completely finished adapting to city life, haven't you?”
“Don't be cheeky.”
Hong Peng said in a serious voice.
“I've told you before, haven't I? This place is worse than the steppes we grew up on — survival of the fittest, plain and simple. Show even the smallest opening and they'll come swarming like wolves, ready to tear you apart. How long do you think anyone's going to cut you slack just because you're from a different culture...”
Click.
Just then the door opened, and a dignified-looking middle-aged man stepped into the building.
“Ah, ladies. A fine evening to you.”
It was Professor Eric Aura, who taught Jet-Black Mechanics. Spotting the twin sisters, he doffed his hat in greeting.
The moment Byeolya opened her mouth to answer with her usual brand of rudeness, Hong Peng shot forward with lightning speed and sealed her sister's acupoints at the throat, cutting off her voice.
“Good evening, Professor Eric!”
She then conjured up a warm smile and clasped her hands together.
“It's been so hard to find time to see each other these days, hasn't it?”
“Haha! We're all so buried in preparing our classes, after all. With the BMAT and everything else — the older one gets, the slower one adapts to change, I'm afraid.”
Eric's gaze turned to Byeolya.
“I've heard all about your exploits, Professor Byeolya. I look forward to the wisdom you'll continue to share with our students.”
Byeolya could only make strangled noises — “Eek!” “Ugh!” — no actual words coming out. While she flailed silently, Hong Peng and Eric exchanged a few pleasantries and then parted ways as naturally as could be.
Thud! Thud!
Byeolya hammered her fist against Hong Peng's back, then pointed furiously at her own throat with a wild expression.
Hong Peng sighed quietly and used the tip of her finger to release the blocked acupoints.
“Ah! Ah!”
Her voice finally returned. Byeolya glared at her sister, brows knitted.
“You've completely lost your mind, you know that? I'll melt you from head to toe—”
“Let's get inside. Lady Nephthys will be here soon.”
Shoving the volcanically furious Byeolya by the back, Hong Peng ushered her into the banquet hall.
The interior was extravagantly lavish. Wine and light refreshments were laid out on a great round table, and a number of professors sat around it deep in conversation. When the two women entered, several professors rose to courteously offer them seats — but Hong Peng declined with a smile and made for the most remote corner of the room. There she planted her sister, a devastating poison bomb that could go off at any moment.
“I'm begging you. Just sit still.”
“Tch.”
Byeolya, looking thoroughly displeased, threw both legs up onto the table — and was immediately shut down by Hong Peng.
Not this. Not that either.
Letting her troublesome younger sister's nagging wash over one ear and out the other, Byeolya ordered a henchman to bring her drinks. By now Hong Peng's trousers had holes bored clean through them by her poison, transformed into something like an artfully distressed fashion statement.
“Lady Nephthys is entering!”
Right on cue, the host of the evening made her appearance.
Every professor rose from their seats.
Alongside Vice Principal Jane, a tiny girl with flowing silver hair came into the banquet room, waving her arms this way and that. She caught sight of the professors and beamed, waving her arms energetically.
“Hi, everyone! Been keeping well?”
The professors answered with a crisp, uniform bow.
At the center of the hall's podium stood one large, plush chair. With practiced ease, Jane slid an arm under Nephthys's armpits, hoisted her up, and set her down in it. Then she took a single step back and stood behind the chair, hands folded neatly.
“It seems all the professors in charge of our first-years are gathered here.”
Jane looked around the room. Her gaze lingered last on the Hong Peng–Byeolya twins seated at the far edge, then returned to the center.
“We've assembled to discuss a matter concerning the BMAT. We would like to hear your opinions freely and without reservation.”
“Yeah! Yeah!”
Nephthys chimed in, bobbing her head along.
Jane turned her head.
“First, we'll hear from Professor Duncan, who requested this meeting. You have the floor.”
Professor Duncan, who taught Toxicology to the back-tier classes, rose from his seat.
He had been in a foul mood lately, thanks to the students in his class who kept sneaking off to audit Byeolya's Toxicology lectures instead.
“Ahem! Ahem! I'll get straight to the point.”
The man with the thick brown beard swept his gaze across the assembled professors.
“Administering the BMAT five separate times is, quite simply, too many.”
Several professors nodded quietly. Truth be told, this was a point on which a fair degree of consensus had already formed among the faculty.
“If any of you walk into a first-year class these days, you'll all feel it yourselves.”
Duncan sprayed spit in his agitation.
“‘Does this have anything to do with the BMAT?' ‘Is this on the BMAT?' That's all the students ever say, no matter what we do! As an educator, I find it utterly sickening and nauseating!”
His pupils darted sideways for just an instant — a lightning-fast sweep over Byeolya, who sat with her legs crossed in the most supercilious manner.
“In reality, the difference in focus between classes related to the BMAT and classes that aren't is enormous. That's a problem, I say! The tail is wagging the dog!”
This time Duncan's eyes turned to Nephthys, who sat in her chair beaming serenely.
She swung her legs back and forth and even hummed a little tune, looking for all the world like she was in the finest of moods.
“We understand why you revived the BMAT for the upper years and extended it to the first-years, Lady Nephthys! The intent was good, it weakened the anti-Kizen factions, and it's true the students gained several positive effects from it. But!”
Duncan's voice rose, spittle flying.
“Now the side effects are showing. The most important thing of all — our curriculum — is being cast aside! The students care only about concocting dark magic they can use for the BMAT, while neglecting the dark magic and knowledge right there in their textbooks! Such lopsided thinking will do nothing but poison the still-tender hearts of our young students!”
“Indeed.”
Another professor cut in — a tall, gaunt woman.
“Professor Duncan may be exaggerating a little, but it's true that BMAT is all that exists in these students' heads. Can you deny it? It's stimulating. It's fun. It's a stage where you can raise your own honor in front of countless spectators. Of course everyone prioritizes the BMAT. Kizen's curriculum has never been treated like yesterday's cold rice before.”
“Exactly so. If only for the sake of the students' actual competence, I believe the BMAT must be discontinued!”
“The BMAT was, after all, a stopgap measure to right the public opinion that tilted during the Saintess incident! Now that sentiment has stabilized, I see no reason to keep it going!”
One professor after another voiced opposition to the BMAT. Most of them were traditionalists who favored textbook-centered instruction and valued solid theory and academic achievement.
But there were professors who pushed back, too.
“This year's first-year BMATs are Kizen's biggest hit. If we cancel so important an event over flimsy reasoning, the backlash will be fierce.”
“If you regard the BMAT not as an exam but as part of the coursework itself, there's a great deal to be said in its favor.”
“And the kids' focus has sharpened, hasn't it? Weaving textbook material into BMAT topics — shouldn't that be a basic skill for any Kizen professor?”
There were unmistakably professors who valued the BMAT. Most of them, like Byeolya, were the ones who had achieved substantial results with BMAT-tailored lectures.
Then a single hand went up.
“May I say a few words?”
The noisy banquet hall fell silent in an instant.
Bahil, the Curse Studies professor in his snow-white suit, rose slowly from his seat.
Nephthys smiled brightly.
“Mm. Go ahead!”
“One moment, first.”
Bahil approached Nephthys and rummaged through his suit jacket.
Then, in a gesture like a gentleman presenting a lady with flowers—
“ICE CREAM!!”
—he presented a flower made of ice cream.
The only person in this entire world who kept ice cream stored in a sub-space enchanted with permanent freezing magic, ready at all times for any chance encounter with Nephthys, was Bahil.
“Haaah.”
Jane let out a deep, disapproving sigh, while Nephthys's eyes sparkled like stars.
She seized the ice cream and stretched her little mouth open as wide as it would go —
Snatch.
Jane, standing behind her, plucked it away.
“You promised you'd only have five a day. I'm confiscating this one.”
Robbed of her ice cream, Nephthys bit down on empty air with a hearty “Ahn!” Naturally, she tasted nothing at all.
Her brightly smiling face began to freeze over bit by bit. Her lips trembled in disbelief, and those huge blue eyes started flooding with sorrow at an alarming rate.
“MY ICE CREAM!”
Nephthys revolted furiously and started throwing a tantrum. Jane, utterly unmoved, simply raised the arm holding the ice cream high above her head.
CRASH! BANG!
Just then, a tremendous racket erupted from the corner of the room.
Byeolya, who had leapt to her feet, was shouting with a face full of terror.
“Wh-what is this outrage?! Madam Vice Principal! Do you truly want us all dead?!”
“...I beg your pardon?”
“Give it back right now! Can't you see the monster is about to unleash her wrath?!”
Byeolya was staring at Nephthys as if she were witnessing the awakening of some unspeakably dreadful monster.
...What on earth is that woman saying now.
Jane sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead.
Just what were the odds of the world's greatest fools gathering in a single room?
And this was supposedly a meeting of the world's finest necromancers. Even some backwater village club would have better discipline than this.
With no other choice, Jane handed back the ice cream. Nephthys calmed down as she ate it, and Byeolya sank back into her seat clutching her chest.
“Then, let us resume.”
Bahil returned to his seat as if none of it were out of the ordinary — remarkably composed, having lost not an ounce of momentum through all the chaos.
“I believe both sides have valid points. It is true that the BMAT has greatly boosted the students' motivation and practical abilities; it is also true that concerns are warranted about course material and theory growing thin, with the BMAT now outranking the professors' own transmission of knowledge. Yes — everything said is correct.”
Bahil squared his shoulders.
“Which is to say, viewed from the other side: pushing forward with all five BMATs as they are, and scrapping the BMAT entirely, are both moves far too extreme in one direction. We must each concede something.”
The room went quiet at his words. Bahil met Nephthys's eyes and continued.
“And so, I propose the following.”
Bahil suggested merging the fourth BMAT and the fifth into a single examination. In exchange, the number of eliminations would rise to one hundred, and the examination period would be greatly extended to five days and four nights.
“Hmm.”
Jane spoke up.
“After the fifth BMAT comes the second-year promotion exam. I worry that two major exams back to back would place far too heavy a burden on the students.”
Duncan, leader of the anti-BMAT faction, spoke up carefully, watching Bahil's expression.
“Merging the two exams would, in the end, only make the BMAT's importance loom even larger, would it not?”
Right at that moment.
Yet another hand was raised.
“Might I trouble you all to hear me out for a moment?”
It was Walter — the new Hemomancy professor who had stepped in as Silaje's substitute.
Jane nodded.
“Go ahead, Professor Walter.”
“Thank you.”
Walter gave a slight bow and began his explanation.
“Let us proceed with the existing BMAT as scheduled — while running the coursework evaluation season in parallel alongside it.”
As the professors listened to his detailed proposal, they found themselves nodding along without meaning to.
“Ooh!”
“Not bad at all, is it?”
And so Walter's proposal was adopted with overwhelming support — from every professor, Bahil included.
A new wind of change swept through Kizen.
“Hup!”
“Got everything packed? Nothing left behind?”
The day had finally come — the last day of their Dispatched Evaluation, the posting at Vengeance they had all grown so fond of.
Simon and his group finished packing in the room they had been using as lodgings and were heading down the stairs.
“...Sniff. So. You're finally heading back to Kizen, then.”
Waiting in front of the Vengeance lobby were Agent Block and his secretary.
Block was dabbing at his eyes with a handkerchief, sniffling loudly.
“Agent, why are you crying!”
Meilin came up to him grinning, teasing him openly. Block gave his nose a mighty honk with the handkerchief.
“It was pure luck that such good kids got assigned down here. This week — I'll never forget it as long as I live.”
“Neither will we, Agent!”
While Block was too busy sobbing to speak, his secretary sighed and explained in his place.
“A Kizen henchman has prepared a teleportation circle in the front yard. It is time for your return to Roc Island.”
“Thank you for everything, ma'am!”
The secretary exchanged light handshakes with Simon and Dick, and shared a boisterous, laughing hug with Meilin. The two of them had hit it off from the start and had gotten along like sisters.
“Ma'am!”
This time Camibarez came running and threw her arms around the secretary in a fierce hug. Perhaps she'd caught Block's tears, because her own eyes were brimming as well.
The secretary stroked her hair gently.
“Surviving at Kizen matters, of course. But don't lose yourself along the way, all right?”
“I won't! Thank you, ma'am!”
Camibarez smiled brightly.
“Please take good care of Sasha!”
“Of course. The Agent and I will look after her, I promise.”
Block had agreed to become Sasha's guardian as her godfather. It seemed she would be able to see them again soon, once her body had recovered.
And so, while everyone was busy with their farewells—
“Huh?”
Meilin's gaze swung around.
“Isn't that Agent Seywir over there?”
Seywir, laden with the contents of his office and attempting to slip out the back door unnoticed, flinched and froze like a petty thief caught red-handed mid-heist.