The Interview Exam
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop.
By carriage, I arrived before the main hall of the Academy.
So this is the Imperial Academy.
There was no time to admire the building. The examiners who had trailed me all the way from the entrance examination grounds escorted me straight to the headmaster's office.
Knock, knock.
"Who is it?"
"Alex, sir. As arranged in advance, I have brought the Second Prince of the Kingdom of Draikna."
"Do come in."
The headmaster's office looked much like any ordinary place of work — a round table and sofas for meetings, a desk and bookshelves for business. I looked at the old man seated at his desk, attending to his duties. The name engraved on his nameplate was Vernacel. The headmaster of the Imperial Academy itself.
He flinched.
The moment Vernacel met my gaze, his eyes clouded over. The fountain pen slipped from his fingers. His neck went rigid, and his arms hardened stiff at his sides.
"I am Demesis Kal Reg Drakan. I hear I was summoned here. You have something to say regarding my special admission, do you not?"
I spoke in a low, calm voice, hoping he might gather his wits.
"Y-yes. Greetings. I am called Vernacel, headmaster of the Gloria Imperial Academy."
Vernacel belatedly lowered his eyes and bowed to me. He looked far older than I, yet there was nothing strange about him addressing me with honorifics from our very first meeting. Anyone who laid eyes on me raised their speech.
"Mm. So this is the sort of man you are. This is more than I imagined — no, I can hardly breathe."
He tried to keep his composure, but in the end he began casting protective magic over himself. Raising wards around one's own body right in front of a guest was a grave discourtesy, but survival comes first for everyone. Terrified by my merely gazing at him in silence, he stacked barrier upon barrier until, at last, he barely withstood the pressure.
"Alex, don't leave — stand beside me. How mortifying, but I find myself terribly on edge."
He even stationed the examiner Alex at his side as a bodyguard. Alex, who until that moment had looked ready to bolt from my presence, went white at the headmaster's request and edged past me to stand at his side.
"Um, Lord Demesis. Kgh — your mana. Might you lower your mana a little?"
The headmaster, who had seemed so composed and kindly, made the plea with every trace of ease gone from his face.
"This is my power held back as far as it will go. On top of that, I am wearing a special item for mana control."
I raised my arm to show the bracelet, then pulled my hood down lower to emphasize the cloak. Everyone complained they could not endure my mana and my presence, but this was the best I could manage. I kept my body in a constant state of released tension. I had gathered my mana as much as I could and banked it in my heart, and I even wore a control item crafted by the court mage — if sitting across from me was still too much to bear, then there was nothing more I could do about it.
"I see. Then I understand. Heh. I thought I had met every sort of person in my years, but such pressure as this is a first."
The headmaster forced up a genial smile and wiped away his cold sweat. He maintained his dignified manner, but in his heart he surely wanted nothing more than to kick back his chair and flee on the spot.
"This hardly seems an occasion for pretending at ease, so let us come straight to the point. Why did you pull me from the examination hall and speak of special admission?"
I asked why I had been brought all this way.
"I had heard of you beforehand, Lord Demesis. The King of Draikna contacted us time and again, urging caution. But by the Academy's principles, every applicant must sit the entrance examination, so we proceeded with the testing — though I can allow it to continue no longer."
"And why not?"
"Because the other examinees faint, my lord. In place of the examination, I have resolved to meet you myself and decide upon your admission."
An interview exam, just for me. So this was how it would be?
Had I kept sitting the entrance exam, I would no doubt have passed. But if the headmaster judged me too overwhelming a presence to admit, I might be cut right here. Having thought that far, I quietly studied the man across from me. Very well, then — let us see how he conducts an interview.
"N-no, I would never presume to refuse you, Lord Demesis."
However he had interpreted my quiet stare, the headmaster shrank into himself and offered his excuse before I could say a word. I had merely found the format of an interview delightful. Apparently he had taken it for anger.
"It is only that I cannot fathom why you wish to enter the Academy at all. Is there truly anything left for you to learn here?"
"Whether there is anything to learn, you say?"
"Oh, please, do not misunderstand! I do not mean our Academy is lacking — it is that you are simply too extraordinary, Lord Demesis! They say you subjugated the Western Demonic Realm, and wiped out a bandit stronghold on the road here besides. If that is so, then no one at this Academy is fit to teach you."
The subjugation of the Western Demonic Realm. That single deed alone would be carved into the histories. Armies of Dragonians and humans alike had marched on expeditions to tame the Western Demonic Realm, but none had ever been brought to so clean a conclusion as mine. Not long after I rose from my bed at eighteen, I departed on that subjugation expedition — to learn just how far my strength reached. The journey, chasing fleeing monsters ever onward, at last arrived at the western edge of the land, and there I brought the expedition to a close that no one had ever achieved. No professor at the Academy could have done it. Perhaps no one on the continent could have. At least within this Academy, there was no one more capable than I.
But.
"You misunderstand. I did not come to the Academy to study swordsmanship or magic. There is no one stronger than I regardless."
The headmaster, eyes still lowered, nodded. Everyone who beheld me directly felt it — that I was stronger than they, strong beyond all measure, with no end to be found. And so they seize upon their fear before anything else.
"The reason I applied to the Academy lies elsewhere. I hear that here, those of my own age gather — the most outstanding talents, without regard for race, station, or wealth."
"Th-that is correct."
"I came to see them. When the seedlings who will represent the future of their races gather in one place, it promises to be most fascinating."
I was curious about the Academy's system, and I wished to see the Imperial Capital as well, but this reason outweighed them all. I wanted to make friends my own age. With so many different races gathered in one place, surely I could find at least one friend who would not be afraid of me? That was my hope.
"The most outstanding of talents. The seedlings who will represent the future of their races."
The headmaster turned my words over and sank briefly into thought.
"You are the future of the Dragonians, Lord Demesis. Perhaps their present as well."
"That is so."
I was the prince of the Kingdom of Draikna who would one day lead the Dragonians, and having already accomplished the subjugation of the Western Demonic Realm, I was hailed as the Dragon God. I could stand for both the present and the future of my race.
"If you have come seeking promising talents of other races, then you have come to precisely the right place. Our Imperial Academy is, without question, where the finest gather regardless of race."
The Academy had been founded to raise talents loyal to the Empire, but its guiding principles had since changed. It now embraced every race and taught them without discrimination, so that they might come to understand one another and win peace for the continent. The reason the Academy chose its students without regard for race, and my purpose in coming here, were one and the same.
Exchange.
To be sure, the other students came for the finest education the Academy could give, but their wish to learn alongside students of other races was the same as mine.
"If your desire is simply exchange, then I hardly know what to say. I shall strive to spare you every discomfort I can."
The headmaster scratched his head. After a moment's hesitation, he ventured a new proposal.
"Then — would you consider becoming a professor rather than a student? Even as a professor, you could converse with the other students."
"Professor or student, either would do. But I have no gift for teaching, so student suits me better."
Everyone would simply tremble in terror — whom, exactly, was I supposed to teach?
"Even as a student, Lord Demesis, everyone will fear you."
"I am making an effort to speak with others, you know."
I indicated my bracelet and cloak to the headmaster once more. This was how hard I was trying not to look frightening.
"Yes. I understand. It is an honor to receive you at our Academy. I shall see to your every convenience, Lord Demesis."
"Good — we understand each other well."
He was a headmaster of considerable adroitness. He feared me, yes, yet he never once crossed me, and he saw the questioning through to its end. From him I heard the points of caution in Academy life, and won the promise of a few special considerations on my behalf. So long as I did no deliberate harm to any student or teacher, no special sanctions would be placed upon me. Satisfied, I concluded our conversation and left the headmaster's office.
"Are you quite alright?"
"Whew."
The moment Demesis's presence faded from the room, the headmaster's shoulders slumped and he heaved a sigh deep enough to sink through the floor. He had kept his nerves drawn taut the entire time; the instant he let go, every ounce of strength drained out of him.
"Did I answer in my right mind?"
"You looked perfectly composed, sir."
He asked Alex to take stock of his own condition. Pressed down beneath a fear close to suffocation, he could not be sure he had managed anything resembling a proper conversation. He had tried to keep his fear at bay and hold onto his reason, but objectively speaking — had he really seemed all right? At the very least, Alex said he had looked fine on the surface.
"That is the most terrifying Dragonian I have ever seen. No — it is the first time I have ever learned that such a terrifying being could exist at all."
"Same here. And it will not be only us. Everyone will feel the same."
Quite some time had passed since Demesis departed, yet still they had to work at it — sipping tea, loosening their shoulders — merely to quiet their pounding hearts.
"But will it truly be all right?"
"All right? What do you mean?"
"Can we truly admit such a man to the Academy? It would be blessing enough if people merely did not faint upon meeting him — but could classes actually proceed as normal?"
A few exchanges of conversation had been enough to spend the headmaster's every reserve of mental strength. In the examination hall, countless students had fainted at the mere sight of him, and his abilities were beyond all measure of the tests devised for examinees. He was a figure too fearsome, too mighty, for the Academy to contain.
"Alex, you could not have known this, but Demesis's admission was in fact a matter approved from the Imperial Palace itself. I was given no choice in whether to accept him or not."
"What? Then he was to pass regardless?"
"Not necessarily. Had he failed to meet the requirements for entry, or had meeting him in person led me to judge him too dangerous a man, I intended to refuse — even in defiance of the Palace's request. But it seems I need not go so far."
Alex turned the headmaster's words over carefully in his mind. Was he saying he had judged Demesis acceptable?
"Fear kept me from asking half of what I wished, but in any case — the reason Demesis seeks to enter the Academy accords with the very ideals we pursue."
To accept the races and cultures of many without prejudice. To learn and speak together, understand one another, and welcome the spring of the continent side by side. That was the headmaster's conviction, and the goal of the Academy. And astonishingly, Demesis's stated purpose — to come and exchange with other races — matched it exactly. True, his power ran far beyond all capacity, but that was a burden the Academy would simply have to shoulder.
"Demesis will enter the Academy Special Class. And send advance notice to the students entering this year's Special Class: they will share a classroom with Demesis. We will accept applications only from students with the courage to endure his fearsome presence, and form the class from them."
The Academy Special Class had always been where the most outstanding students gathered. This year, a single condition had been added to it: only those who could sit through lessons beside Demesis need apply.
"Lessons shared with such a man cannot be ordinary lessons. Prepare a separate curriculum and a separate faculty to match the Special Class."
Demesis's admission was a gamble for the Academy as well. Should they manage to contain such a figure, the prowess of the Imperial Academy would be rated high indeed; should they fail, a catastrophe born of overreaching ambition might well unfold. Confronted with the arrival of a man unlike any before him, the headmaster resolved to pour his heart into preparing the schedule.
Whether Demesis would prove a gift to the Imperial Academy — or a bomb — no one yet could say.