11. The Academy Entrance Ceremony Is the Antonym of Peace
11. The Academy Entrance Ceremony Is the Antonym of Peace
The entrance ceremony attack scenario came to an abrupt end.
Right after the Ballpoint pen Magic and just before Allen rushed at the remaining thugs, the Head of the Hero Department, who had resurrected from somewhere, stopped him.
He whispered something to Allen, who stood frozen before another victim with a ballpoint pen he'd acquired from who-knew-where, and Allen nodded, withdrawing the ballpoint pen.
"<Everyone, calm yourselves.>"
Even a word no one would've taken for an incantation became one, generating a magic circle large enough to cover the dome's ceiling.
Pure-white snowflakes descending from the magic circle calmed tens of thousands of people.
Having demonstrated the overwhelming majesty of an Archmage, he explained the entrance ceremony attack scenario and raised awareness of the threat of terrorism.
"I do not know what thoughts this incident may leave you with, but I hope you will take a moment to consider at least once how you should conduct yourselves should such a situation arise on this island."
After that, Pia Parma's speech was smoothly skipped (they hadn't planned to let her give it anyway), and the entrance ceremony was brought to a successful close.
Once the eventful entrance ceremony ended, Leon forgot all formality and stretched.
"Karl. Where'd you park the car?"
"If you'll wait at the entrance, I'll bring it around."
Leon wanted nothing more than to get back to the hotel and rest as soon as possible.
The day had been so dense that even a post-ceremony celebration at the hotel would've been a struggle.
But there was one man who existed to betray Leon's expectations.
"Hey, Leon. Karl. Come with me for a bit."
The star who'd drawn all the massive aggro had come backstage.
The expectation of some bad news coming out of his mouth did not disappoint, hitting the mark precisely.
"Department Head's calling for us. In his office."
"... Because of the ballpoint pen?"
"Bingo."
"He didn't just call for you?"
"Said you should come too."
"..."
Leon and Karl rubbed their faces for what felt like the umpteenth time that day.
*
A quiet atmosphere pervaded the interior.
The scent of herbal tea filled the room.
Heinkel Faust, the Head of the Hero Department and a legendary Hero, savored the nose-tickling herbal aroma as he gazed at the two young men seated across from him on the sofa.
"Handle them carefully."
An archmage could have steeped tea with a finger, but he insisted on doing it by hand, claiming otherwise one could never appreciate its beauty.
"Thank you very much."
I figured a chance to drink tea made by one of the greatest Archmages in the world was too rare to pass up, so I lifted my cup.
Whoo—
Then I remembered that blowing on your tea was a breach of etiquette.
But he only smiled like an affectionate grandfather looking at his grandson.
"You really are William's son."
"You remember my father?"
"I couldn't not. Though he never became a Hero, he was a youth who stood out in the Hero Department."
Amazingly, Heinkel had been the Head of this school since my father's day.
For an Archmage who had transcended limits, lifespan held little meaning.
His soul was already rooted in the constellations of the heavens, while his body was merely a shell he could recreate at will. He was effectively a Constellation residing on earth.
It wasn't for nothing that he wielded more influence than the Academy President.
The fact that someone like him remembered my father and me left me at a loss for words.
"Your father cracked a graduate student's head open with a microphone during the festival attack scenario."
... Didn't really want to be remembered like that.
At the Department Head's words, I made a bitter face and sipped my tea.
Oh, this was good.
As someone who'd eaten giant cockroaches in a nuclear fallout zone near Ash, it was faster to list what I couldn't eat, but even considering that, the bitter tea the Department Head had served was excellent.
Though Leon and Karl didn't seem to like it.
The Department Head read on my face that I was enjoying it and looked pleased.
"Do you happen to know why I called you gentlemen here?"
"Uh... because I fought too brutally, I suppose?"
"Yes."
At that answer, I couldn't help but question it.
This world still had little awareness of brutality.
The fact that I'd watched the Father Beheading Show at age three said it all.
So it was hard to understand why the Ballpoint pen Magic had been curbed for its brutality.
If this counted as brutal, how were we supposed to handle actual Hero work?
But the explanation the Department Head gave after reading my thoughts on my face was enough to satisfy me.
"To avoid misunderstanding, I should say it wasn't because of the students—it was because of the graduate students."
"Sir?"
"Try to imagine it yourself. Between having your throat cut by a sword and having a ballpoint pen driven into your eye, which do you think leaves deeper internal scars?"
"Ah..."
A person who died inside a Sanctuary could be resurrected. Their mind was another matter.
That's why actors who perform in Sanctuaries typically undergo training at the academy to become accustomed to death.
The experience of burning, the experience of drowning, and so on.
They go through fairly intense training: they must grow used to death inside the Sanctuary while never losing their wariness of death outside it.
And among them, a fair number go on to graduate school specifically to specialize in Sanctuary adaptation.
The problem was that among the deaths they'd grown accustomed to, neither the experience of being killed by having a ballpoint pen hammered into their skull nor the experience of watching it happen was likely to be included.
At the Department Head's point, I found myself with nothing to say.
"But why a ballpoint pen, of all things? Aren't you fundamentally an unarmed fighter?"
In a world where the fighter class genuinely existed, shockingly, the experience of being beaten to death by a person's fist left barely any internal scars compared to the experience of being killed by a ballpoint pen.
Averting my gaze from the Department Head's seemingly admonishing stare, I confessed the truth.
"Consider it a... message, maybe?"
"What?"
"A slip of the tongue. I thought that in a one-versus-many situation, a ballpoint pen was the most efficient means of suppression."
Simply put, I meant to deliver a morale kill.
Crushing enemies beneath a tank was far more effective at breaking their morale than shooting them.
Especially against terrorists with no room for negotiation, making an example of one to seize the psychological advantage tended to improve the operation's success rate.
So I'd simply made an example of the upperclassman playing the cultist who approached me.
"Did you perchance come straight from some battlefield? For a son of a noble family..."
"He's too merciless, right?"
Leon, beside me, agreed with the Department Head.
I was aware of that myself.
But the experiences of my former life and this life had been more than enough to reshape me into this kind of being.
"Strange. William was hot-blooded, but he wasn't quite this much."
Right.
Father was still on the merciful side after all. Merciful enough to crack a man's skull kindly with a single punch.
Compared to that, my fighting was a bit messier, more brutal, and far too detached.
Even though this world was lenient about brutality, since he was at least standing in the position of an educator, the Department Head seemed unable to simply overlook my state.
Because I could very well turn into a high-performance psychopath.
So I had no choice but to reveal one credential that could get me through a situation like this.
"For what it's worth, I'm a Baptized One."
"Ah, were you now? That sets my mind at ease."
The moment I took out my baptism certificate and showed it, the Department Head accepted it right away.
Baptism was a guarantee given directly by a god.
Normally it was bestowed as proof that a soul had reached maturity, but occasionally it was also used to guarantee the mental state or soul state of someone whose condition didn't match their age.
It also served as a guarantee that, whether by birth or for some special reason, the person possessed a mature mind and soul.
To him, I was probably just an unusual fellow born that way.
The moment the Department Head learned I was Rictus's Baptized One, he pressed the matter no further.
Questioning a Baptized One was an insult to the gods, and even if you did, it was practically meaningless anyway.
If a problem arose with a Baptized One, the baptism would be withdrawn at once; its significance was never trivial.
After that, the consultation with the Department Head concluded with some light casual conversation.
Just before I left after thoroughly enjoying the refreshments in the Department Head's office, he spoke to me as I stood at the door.
"Once again, congratulations on your admission, John."
"Thank you, Karambelt."
*
From the moment we left the Department Head's office until we exited the building, Leon and Karl kept their mouths tightly shut.
Inside the elevator they kept stealing glances at me as if they had something to say, but they never opened their mouths until the very end.
Then, the moment we got into the car and Karl deployed a soundproofing barrier, Leon rounded on me.
"Hey! How does the Department Head know your identity?!"
Judging by that reaction, it was impressive he'd held it in until we reached the car. Seriously.
He said his mouth had been itching—how did he manage it?
I calmed down the prince, who was grabbing me by the collar and shaking me, and answered their questions.
"I showed way too much evidence. The Department Head isn't an idiot, so of course he'd know."
First, the Ballpoint pen Magic.
Killing someone with a ballpoint pen was something almost any competent Hero could do.
But the problem was that his opponent was a graduate student of the Hero Department.
The Ballpoint pen Magic wasn't a technique you could pull off against someone at the graduate student level unless there was a significant gap in combat ability or you specialized in it.
The issue was that there was one actor who'd recently demonstrated that exact Ballpoint pen Magic in a film.
And as it happened, I'd just shown proof that I'd received baptism at the Temple of Rictus at the exact same time as that actor.
While Allen's and John's faces and ages were different, their height was similar.
Even in another world, humans taller than 180 cm were rare.
With evidence this overwhelming, there was no way the Department Head, who had once worked in the Hero industry, could've missed it.
The Department Head was no NPC.
"Then what do we do? If your identity gets exposed, will you even be able to live school life?"
"What're you so worried about? The Department Head also once worked in the Hero industry, so he knows the etiquette among Heroes. Far from telling anyone else, he'll probably even help hide my identity."
Most Heroes and supporting actors conducted their activities with their faces revealed. But occasionally, a few worked with concealed faces.
Such people were generally called <Luchador>. Since a Luchador's identity was directly tied to the actor's career, they tended not to reveal it.
If they did reveal their identity, it meant they trusted the other party that much, and the other party doing their utmost to keep that identity hidden was proper etiquette.
Besides...
"The Department Head was a Luchador too. He'll look after his industry junior well enough."
"Now that I think about it, you did say something like that when we left the room. Karambelt, wasn't it...? Huh?"
Karambelt?
In the driver's seat, Karl's shoulders flinched as he listened to Leon.
Agion Karambelt.
He had been the greatest Demon King role that had once driven the entire world wild.
A recurring villain who appeared frequently across various Hero series because of the setting that he resurrected even if killed.
He had retired decades ago, but he was still an actor revered by all actors and every wizard in the magic towers.
If you asked how famous he was, you could compare him to Darth Vader from Star Wars.
"Hey, the car's swerving. Get a grip, dammit."
For a magic car—which filtered the driver's mana and emotions to some degree to reflect them—to shake this much, the driver had to be exceptionally worked up.
But my voice didn't seem to reach Karl.
What hobbies could wizards shut away in Magic Towers possibly have?
Anything sweaty was obviously out, and they were already using their heads plenty with research.
It was only natural for such people to become film fanatics.
Agion, in particular, the pinnacle of wizards, was as much a superstar to wizards now as he'd ever been, even decades later.
"An autograph...! An autograph...!!"
"Hey, your character just broke down. You're dropping the honorifics."
"Does that matter right now?! An autograph from Agion Karambelt!"
"Forget it. Where'd everything I just said go? He's a Luchador. A retired Luchador living his daily life—what could be ruder than asking him for an autograph?"
"No, more importantly, how do you know who he is?!"
"Forget? I'm John Armstrong."
Once you climbed to this level, it was stranger not to know the Heroes.
"Aagh! I should've become an actor!"
"Oh, don't worry. I've already got a role in mind for you."
"Really? I'll do it!"
Casually abducting Karl into his schemes, John's lips curled upward.
Leon could only sigh as he watched the two of them.
'And these guys were supposed to be my escort...'
.
.
.
"Hey, but now that I think about it, why'd we follow you to the office?"
"That? I was afraid I'd get chewed out if I went alone."
"... Didn't you say he called for us, too?"
"Hehe. Lied."
"..."
Flash.
A burst of light flared inside the car.
Once the light subsided, the backseat contained only Allen, slumped drooling over the seat, and Leon, with veins bulging on his forehead.