34. Darkly and Secretly
34. Darkly and Secretly
Why? How come?
The stares stung.
Every gaze in the classroom became a dagger aimed straight at me.
The proctor didn't intervene.
Because that person was in on it too.
Why. How come.
I clutched my throbbing head and read the question.
*
The day after exams ended, the grade appeal period began.
How could the scores come out that fast, you ask?
This was a world where people who could track bullets with their eyes weren't particularly rare.
If you grabbed just a few of those people and put them to use as convenient grading machines called graduate students or teaching assistants, you could grade three hundred five-hundred-question exam sheets in a single night.
For starters, my own grades turned out pretty decent.
I went around constantly advertising that I wasn't smart, but strictly speaking what I had was a bad "math-and-science brain."
Equations, chemical formulas, magical formulas, that sort of thing.
Compared to that, I prided myself on having a good liberal-arts brain for history and law, and a good phys-ed and arts brain for martial arts. (With some distortion involved.)
The problem was fundamentally with this world for labeling you a moron just because your math-and-science brain was bad. It wasn't that I was a moron.
Unlike the other students, I'd accumulated extensive real combat experience as John Armstrong, which gave me a considerable advantage in this exam.
The special branch questions played into it too...
But not every student could produce good results like I did.
And right now, they were busy filing appeals, trying to avoid being held back by any means possible.
"Professor, I have an objection. The problem about subduing the Indomitable Spear using the Glory of the Beastfolk style—the answer is the same as question one and question two."
"And what is the problem with that?"
"Question two states that we're to subdue an Indomitable Spear coated with lethal toxin, but the Glory of the Beastfolk doesn't use gauntlets. Therefore I believe subduing it without taking damage is impossible."
"Did I include a 'without taking damage' condition in the question?"
"Ah..."
"The Glory of the Beastfolk School begins with built-in detoxification. Unless you let the spearhead spill your guts, you can withstand ordinary snake venom."
Unfortunately, the professor wasn't an easy mark either.
From the outset, winning an appeal against someone who did nothing but eat, sleep, and research this stuff was extremely difficult.
But that didn't mean their questions were always correct.
In the end, the essence of this theory exam was to make sure students learned how to handle each weapon.
In other words, if you could demonstrate the theory in practice, the appeal would be accepted.
For example, even if the correct answer against a sword was "deflect the blade's face and target a vital point," if someone demonstrated to the professor "catch the sword with your teeth and break the opponent's neck," it became an additional accepted answer.
Of course, so far very few students had ever pulled that off.
And as it happened, a student who could pull it off was right here.
I rubbed my chin, considered for a moment, then called over one of my classmates whose grades looked borderline this time around.
"Uh... Allen? Why'd you call me?"
"Which questions are making everyone's grades so borderline?"
"Well, about that..."
Figured.
One of the exam's killer questions was the ballpoint-pen problem.
I thought about it for a moment.
My grades were sufficient. Was there really any need to look after my classmates' grades too?
No. There wasn't.
In that case, was there a reason to file an appeal?
Yes.
They had the nerve to embarrass me with a ballpoint-pen problem?
That alone was reason enough.
If I could get revenge on the professor by finding multiple accepted answers, I'd gladly do it.
I read back over the exam paper.
Then I picked out about fifteen questions and lodged an appeal with the professor.
That day, I earned the nickname <Alternate-Answer Fairy>.
*
Once the theory exam ended, there was the sparring exam.
However, the sparring exam functioned more like bonus points given to students whose theory scores were lacking, so students with stable grades didn't need to take it.
Since this exam meant "show us in practice what you couldn't show us in the theory," what mattered here wasn't victory but performance.
And to show a good performance, a good sparring partner was required.
My classmates' gazes fixed on the Alternate-Answer Fairy.
Probably thinking, Maybe this time too?
"I can spar up to about thirty people."
"Hey! Thanks, man!"
Wow. The popularity I commanded.
After receiving all those love calls from the students, I turned away with a sly grin.
Thanks to my performance, not a single student had a borderline score on the theory portion of the final.
Which meant the guys asking to spar with me now weren't guys desperately short on points.
And something I'd realized while studying alchemy: nothing in this world was free.
I'd already boosted their grades with duplicate answers; expecting bonus points on top of that was greedy as hell.
Which in turn meant I was under no obligation to match their sparring rhythm.
That day, the Alternate-Answer Fairy gained another nickname: <Gatekeeper of Bonus Points>.
===========
"Are you a communist, Boss?"
"Why, all of a sudden?"
"I heard you prevented polarization in the Hero Department’s grades by making everyone regress toward the mean."
"What are you talking about? I've shot at communists, but I've never been one."
"Then why'd you do that with the grades?"
"Uh... it looked fun?"
Trying to assign meaning to everything only wore you out.
Every so often you ran into a person who just wanted to watch a forest burn.
After the strange experience of receiving both resentment and gratitude from the students, our film crew gathered in the studio.
It was to strengthen our bonds before break started.
After a light social gathering and before we parted, I didn't forget to give the actors some instructions.
"When you go out there, manage your image well, do your volunteer work properly, and don't go around causing trouble!"
Stares flew at me as if asking whether I, of all people, should be saying that last part.
"Especially Ceres and Kylie. You two, train yourselves over the break. Season 2 is going to include a lot of power-up events for Mari and Isis, so you need to get stronger."
A strong person could act weak, but a weak person could not convincingly act strong.
And since their faces were already known, doubles weren't an option, so they had no choice but to genuinely become stronger.
Fortunately, they didn't seem averse to training.
After sending the magical girls off, I also exchanged farewells with Ailey.
"I’ll go back to the Magic Tower and start making the things you ordered."
"I'll come pick them up soon."
"Okay."
"Tell the Tower Master I'm doing well. Right—he's probably bored enough to throw a fit by now, so tell him to collaborate on the things I mentioned."
"I’ll try. Oh, and Allen."
"Yeah?"
"I'm Ailey."
Could this kid read my mind now too?
After sending Ailey off as well, the only person left to see off was Nikolai.
"Nicol. Got anything going on this break?"
"Once I go back to my family home... I don't really have plans."
"Do you absolutely have to be there?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Work with me some this break."
"Still, I'd like to spend some time with my parents for the first time in a while..."
"John says he needs a manager."
"- My parents will understand if I tell them their son is going away to build his credentials."
What a remarkably rational friend.
"That doesn't mean come right away, though. Let's meet in half a month. Spend time with your parents in the meantime. Right, where's your house?"
Nicol unfolded a map and showed me.
"Here."
"There's a branch of the Dimension Magic Tower in the nearby city. It doesn't have a portal terminal, but teleportation should be possible. I'll buy you a round-trip ticket, so go visit them."
"Teleport tickets are expensive, you know."
"Employee benefits."
To Nicol, I'd probably look like a boss who hands out first-class tickets for a trip home.
"And take this."
Nicol caught the jewel box I tossed.
"What's this?"
"The seal of the Price Family."
"Huh? Why are you giving this to me?"
"You're the director of a magical-girl show now, so other nobles won't leave you alone. They'll probably visit and pester you all day while you're home. Most will back off if you refuse, but a few nobodies will insist on throwing their authority around. Show them that seal and they'll fall in line."
"And if they still don't back off after seeing it?"
"Call me."
"That was kind of cool just now, Boss."
"I know."
Only after confirming that Nikolai had received his teleportation did I head to the portal terminal for the Empire, where Leon was waiting.
When I arrived at the terminal, Leon and Pia were there, surrounded by imperial knights under strict escort.
"Hey. Did you say your goodbyes properly?"
"Yeah."
"Your sentences keep getting shorter?"
He nodded.
"Sigh."
"Allen! Might you be busy this break, by any chance?"
"Sorry. I've got backlogged movies I have to shoot."
"Ah..."
Pia was visibly dejected.
Her blonde hair drooped down along with her shoulders.
So I decided to tell her a secret.
Ever since way back, whenever she got down, just tipping her off to a secret only she knew had been enough to get her to bounce back quickly, so it'd become a habit.
"The thing I'm filming this time, it's the John Armstrong sequel. Let's go to the premiere together once it's done."
At that, her expression brightened.
Because she was a huge fan of John Armstrong.
For reference, Leon didn't know about this filming either.
That was because, now that I'd received a priest title and could make films under my own name, reports no longer went up to Leon.
The only ones who knew were my maternal uncle, the chief of the Counterintelligence Department, and the Uncle Emperor.
After getting a warning from them not to go overboard, I was shooting it in secret.
Honestly, the reason I hadn't shot a John series side story was partly to let things cool down, what with all the spies being dispatched into the Empire that way.
Now that three years had passed, enough time had gone by.
Pia brightened at information that even the Empress and other imperial family members didn't know.
"The value of this intelligence...!"
"What?"
"No. It's nothing at all!"
"Sure."
Must've slipped out by mistake.
From behind me I felt Leon's lukewarm gaze.
He looked like he had something to say to me, then closed his mouth again.
Then instead he whispered something to Pia...
Even with my enhanced hearing, the sentences I faintly caught were something like this.
- You... that gi... like... him?"
- Shut... bro...
- You... gonna... tell... wha...?
Thwack.
"Whoops."
Pia's low blow landed squarely on Leon.
Leon's torso folded into an L-shape.
'Mm. The siblings get along well.'
I'd been worried they might be on bad terms since they were in the middle of a succession competition, but that didn't seem to be the case.
Come to think of it, at the entrance ceremony they were the Parma siblings, and here they were just siblings, so maybe that was possible.
The image they had to show their supporters and the faces they showed each other were clearly bound to be different.
The quick-witted escort knights averted their eyes, pretending not to see the siblings' back-and-forth.
As expected from a knight order that professed neutrality, they were well-trained.
After a brief commotion, the imperial escort party crossed the portal together.
Once across the portal, an escort party was waiting for them there too.
While they secured the perimeter right after portal transit, when security was at its weakest, Leon and Pia boarded the carriage safely.
"Good work today. See you later."
And so Leon and Pia departed.
I stood blankly at the terminal exit and watched the carriage recede into the distance.
The escort knight order followed the carriage without so much as a glance toward me, as if I didn't exist.
One of them passing by gave my shoulder a pat on the way—a bonus.
Once even they were seen off, I quietly headed for the restroom.
I pulled the sketch map from my pocket, memorized it, then ran it through a process of decomposition and re-composition and burned it with a lighter.
When I went to the place marked on the map, a man begging came into view.
A cross shape faintly visible on the back of his hand.
I recalled the X mark on the map and flicked a gold coin at him.
The man wordlessly picked up the coin and entered an alleyway.
I followed him in.
Once we'd gone in deep enough, he glanced around, then slipped behind a poster.
I followed him in there too.
Behind the poster was only enough space for a desk and two chairs.
Large-scale spatial distortion was too easy for someone with sensitive mana detection to notice, so this couldn't be helped.
In the darkness, with not a single light, he relayed my instructions in a distorted voice.
[The orders will be given only once. I will transmit them once you are prepared.]
"Ready."
[Following the trail of the cockroach caught last time, it had to go and lay its eggs in the inner chamber, of all places. Because of this, I'd like to mobilize other cleaners, but in doing so the probability the cockroaches will catch on is high. Therefore, in this operation, you are to clean alone.
The objective is to render the eggs in the inner chamber invisible. The supplementary objective is to locate and dispose of the parent organism.]
"Orders received."
Nod.
The moment my words ended, the contact vanished into the darkness.
I rose from my spot and transformed into John once again.
Flash.
'I was going to make a transformation belt, no matter what.'
Along with that useless thought, I exited from behind the poster—and found myself inside an inn.
They'd set up an alibi too, huh.
I stuffed the contents of the materials laid out on the bed into my head and came out by the window.
With my room as reference, the target was visible two buildings over.
As if they wanted no one to see what they were doing inside, every last window of that building was boarded up.
'Clearing all of that out was going to take a lot of equipment.'
It looked like I'd need to buy a fair amount of iron from a nearby smithy.
*
The next day.
The boards were removed from that building's windows, but among the capital's citizens, no one found it strange.