No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (5)
I finished the meal without even registering whether the food was going into my mouth or straight up my nose. The moment I was done, and before the sun could set, I stormed straight into the dean’s office.
“Dean, does this mean the academy isn’t being dissolved after this semester?”
“Pardon? Who told you that? The academy is proceeding exactly as planned, Saintess. The representatives of each nation have finished aligning their positions.”
“Really? Even the Empire?”
“Yes, including the Empire. The academy schedule remains unchanged.”
The fact that the food hadn’t actually gone up my nose during dinner with Peter, and that I wasn’t sitting here with a dumbstruck expression even now, was entirely thanks to the etiquette lessons I had somehow absorbed.
“But that incident happened. So many people nearly died—and quite a few actually did. The Imperial Church even mobilized their paladins and drew their swords! How can the schedule stay the same?”
Logically, none of it made sense. When something that severe occurred at an academy, the academic calendar was supposed to collapse into chaos. At the very least, the powerful figures from every country who had sent their sons and daughters here shouldn’t be letting it slide. No matter how coldly they viewed their children as tools for political maneuvering, in moments like these they still valued those tools and showed a measure of care.
“We have the Hero and the Saintess present. Above all, the Imperial Church’s paladins ultimately sheathed the swords they had drawn of their own volition. Moreover, the Empire is already demonstrating sincerity by beginning to purge the church from within.”
“They’re purging the Imperial Church?”
“The clergy gave orders to draw swords and charge at the Imperial Princess. On the contrary, it would be strange if they weren’t being cleaned out.”
Even with proper justification, purging a political organization of that scale was bound to cause considerable upheaval. Normally the responsible parties would be cut loose as “tails,” and the purging side would exaggerate those tails to inflate their achievements. Yet from the acting dean’s words alone, it sounded as if the Empire had begun a full-scale, frontal purge of the Imperial Church’s clergy.
“Are the Imperial Church’s priests simply taking it?”
“Ah, that part. Saintess, an Imperial subject is ultimately an Imperial subject. No matter how important the church may be, if it insults and defiles the Empire itself, the matter is settled.”
“But the church’s division…”
“Is a matter of pride. And the Imperial Church incited that pride. Yet in the end, that same church ordered its paladins to draw blades against Her Highness the Princess. How does that look?”
Well, it made sense. If one took the Hero’s non-Imperial origin as the root cause, the Empire’s wounded pride and the Imperial Church’s desire for independence had combined into a synergistic disaster. In that light, the church’s call to charge against us—including Julia—was practically a self-inflicted political deathblow.
Why didn’t I know any of this?
“Both the orthodox church and the kingdom would naturally focus more on the church’s division, wouldn’t they? If it became known that the Imperial Church split off because the Empire wanted it, then failing to stop it would damage their own prestige.”
“But you knew, Acting Dean.”
“Of course. After all, I sit in a clear management position within the Iron Alliance—even if only at the mid-level. The breadth of information I receive is correspondingly wide.”
So all the information I had gathered and absorbed until now was nothing more than a tiny, limited fragment of the whole? At that point even I failed to keep my expression under control.
If events were flowing in that direction, it meant every piece of data I had organized needed to be completely reexamined. No, not just the data. Every channel that had taught me or fed me information had to be rechecked. Had to be.
I thought I’d climbed out of the well, but it turned out to be nothing more than a pond…
“Everyone holds great expectations for you, Saintess. The things you’ve accomplished even while inside that pond have all been remarkable.”
“I nearly dismantled the Iron Alliance.”
“Yet you did not actually dismantle it. The core leadership has essentially been purged, and thanks to that, someone like me was able to sit in this academy’s dean’s chair.”
Though I am still only the acting dean, he added. In his tone and bearing I sensed no falsehood—at least on the surface. Of course, it was possible he was deceiving me.
“In any case, we’re really just letting everything proceed as normal? I can understand overlooking the Imperial Church, but we have no idea when or how monsters might appear next.”
“It is precisely because of the details surrounding that matter that the Empire is allowing things to continue. The Empire’s genius archmage has been tasked with leading the investigation to confirm the situation.”
“Wait—something else I didn’t know about just popped up?”
“Both His Imperial Majesty and the archmage were carefully selecting an appropriate stage for their debut. Investigating an incident that neither the Hero nor the Saintess could resolve would grant them considerable face, wouldn’t it?”
Yes. So everything was political after all. That aside, the acting dean who had called himself a mere mid-level executive seemed to possess information far broader and deeper than such a title suggested.
“So the reason I blew up the Iron Alliance’s leadership was pure luck?”
“It was not luck. It was because we were already there.”
In other words, the organization had already been festering inside; the slight shock I delivered had simply made it burst. So yes, that was luck.
“I see.”
“That is skill, Saintess. If it had truly been an attack relying solely on luck, it would only have strengthened the existing leadership and ended there.”
“Well, thank you for the kind words. Anyway, I appreciate all the information.”
“Aren’t we all in the same boat with you now, Saintess? Ask me anything, anytime.”
Somehow I had obtained quite valuable information for free. But of course I still had to be cautious. The other party was a merchant. Unless they were some freakish exception, merchants pursued profit in every action. After all, where had the very concept of a “free lunch” originated? It was a capitalist trick handed down from those very merchants. Even if they didn’t know the formal theory by name, they had certainly internalized the principle.
“Then I’ll be asking for your help often from now on.”
“It is my pleasure to be of assistance to you, Saintess.”
Even so, it was correct to accept the information being offered for now. I worried it might be biased in a particular direction, but information from anywhere carried that risk.
So from here on, the person I needed to watch was that archmage. No—before that.
“W-what? Why are you dressed like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Y-you’re showing so much skin!”
I couldn’t lose to Peter. After he had invited me to dinner with that kind of atmosphere, the one making a fuss now that I appeared in slightly lighter attire than usual was Sieg.
Honestly, I didn’t think the outfit was all that extreme. It was simply a voluminous purple dress that revealed the shoulders and collarbone. It wasn’t plunging so low that it showed cleavage or the blue veins beneath the skin. The back was slightly open, but only that much.
“Is this showing a lot of skin? At this rate things are going to get crazy soon.”
“Soon? What are you planning now?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s go. You said we were eating.”
In truth I had been planning something. Handling everything with a single currency felt too burdensome, so I had begun searching for other breakthroughs. Among them, the most certain, proven, and immediately executable was the so-called “idol” plan, which I intended to launch soon.
No, no. I wasn’t going to dance and sing myself. I meant the word in its more classical, traditional sense—closer to deification or idolization. I would speak of it properly once it reached full scale.
“Hey, you… I mean… never mind.”
“Why?”
“No, it’s nothing. Really.”
Peter had been burdensome because of his looks, but this guy was such an earnest blockhead that he was giving me a different kind of burden. At this rate it really did feel like I was just toying with one innocent young man. In terms of appearance alone, Sieg could afford to act arrogantly, and in practice he did behave rather authoritatively toward anyone he judged beneath him—like a little old-fashioned nag, to exaggerate slightly. Seeing such a guy reach the restaurant, then lose his composure the moment I lowered the shawl from my shoulders, made me feel strangely unsettled too. That gaze of his kept pricking at my nape. Wait, didn’t men’s eyes usually converge on the chest? Why the nape?
“What is this place? I thought we were going somewhere nice, but you’ve never eaten here before? That’s pork, Sieg, not an orc. You don’t have to rip it apart like that.”
“S-shut up. I know what I’m doing.”
The kid was adorable. As for me, I had spent months making constant efforts to adapt to this world, and at least when it came to table manners my mother had dragged me to all sorts of restaurants so I wouldn’t embarrass myself in front of a future girlfriend. It hadn’t been too difficult. Sieg, on the other hand, clearly had zero experience in this area. Even though the church had taken him in as the Hero for quite some time, I wondered what on earth they had been teaching him instead.
Thanks to that, most of our conversation at the rather upscale restaurant consisted of me pointing things out half in jest and half seriously, him getting mildly angry in a not-unpleasant way, and me bursting into laughter. It was harmonious in its own fashion, yet no matter how much I had declared this a business meeting, it probably wasn’t satisfying for Sieg at all.
So for this occasion I decided to throw in a little service.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“Where? Somewhere more fun. Hurry up.”
It would be troublesome if our Hero—who I would be seeing a lot of from now on—became discouraged and deflated every time he looked at me. To at least leave him with good memories, I took Sieg’s hand and led him to a tavern in the slums. The friendly owner and I had become somewhat acquainted while I distributed miracles of healing there. It wasn’t for nothing that he had shouted in front of the Saintess, “If you ever visit my tavern, I’ll give you tons of service!” The man was no ordinary fellow.
“Ah! N-no, S-Saintess!”
“Not only the Saintess—the Hero has come too. You said you’d give tons of service, right?”
“Ah, no, that is… um…”
“I’m joking. We’ll pay, so bring lots of delicious food. Oh, and my clothes might not match the atmosphere here, but you’ll overlook that, won’t you?”
“But… how could someone like you come to such a shabby place…”
It seemed he genuinely hadn’t expected us to actually show up. Well, I understood. Still, I had no intention of apologizing for the inconvenience and leaving, so right there I kicked off my shoes and went barefoot.
“Behold! This Saintess has personally stepped on this tavern with bare feet. Therefore the blessing of the saint now dwells here, and it is no longer a shabby place! Owner, treat your Saintess properly!”
I burst into laughter without meaning to. Sieg, who had been watching with a what-is-this expression, finally started laughing along with me.
In the end, we ate and drank comfortably, danced and sang to the lively music, and created quite wonderful memories. Personally, it reminded me of the third-class party scene from that masterpiece movie about a massive sinking ship, which made the whole thing even better.