Academy? Absolutely Impossible! (※It Wasn't Impossible?!)
"…It would be better if I explained why, wouldn't it?"
That snapped me back to myself. If I just sat here and let this go on, my trip to the Academy would be as good as decided. I was certain of it.
Get it together. Listen to the reasons, and push back on every last thing I could push back on.
I had to be brave…! Brave enough to look the person who was my legal guardian, my advising professor, and my landlord—a terrifying combination—in the face and say that no meant no…!
I nodded, wearing the most serious expression I could manage.
Ria's mouth opened.
"Eight years ago, our country unified the continent, right?"
I nodded.
"And four years ago, we brought down the Demon King."
I nodded again. Why was she suddenly reciting a story I already knew? The thought flickered past, and I dragged my focus back into line.
I almost fell for it…!
I glared at Ria. To think she would stoop to a trick this petty. Soften me up with things I already knew, then slide the Academy in later when I wasn't looking!
But I wasn't going to fall for the same method twice. I'd been caught by this exact trick in my previous life, when a professor hauled me off to graduate school.
Too bad for you.
"Why are you smiling all of a sudden?"
"Ah, it's nothing…."
Ria stared at me without another word, but that was all she did.
"…Shall I keep going?"
She picked the explanation back up.
"When the Demon King was still our enemy, maybe a hard line made sense. But there's no need for one now that he's gone, so a few years ago the Academy started taking people who weren't born in the Empire. You knew that, right?"
"No…? I-I didn't."
I really hadn't. And Ria must have known that. The last time she asked whether I had any interest in becoming a professor at the Academy, I had refused outright and told her the only Academy news I ever wanted delivered was a death notice.
Ria looked at me for a long moment, then sighed.
"Th-then what does any of that have to do with me…?"
"You know how it is. The Academy is a meritocracy, right? They did the bare minimum of ideological screening, sure, but the spirit of it was if you've got the ability, you're in! So they packed the place with people from the old kingdoms and duchies."
It was part of the policy of conciliation, Ria muttered, which meant the screening only checked whether someone had ever taken part in anti-regime activity.
Something was off, though. Why was she talking as if I already knew all of this? That the Academy ran on merit, that people from the kingdoms and duchies had enrolled—I was hearing every bit of it for the first time.
Even so, thanks to my brilliant mind and outstanding intellect, I could more or less follow. Which meant I could spot the strange part and attack at once.
"But you said they've been admitting them for years. So why, all of a sudden, this year…."
"Right. In an ordinary year, it wouldn't be a problem at all. You have no idea how hard the Intelligence Bureau's agents are working inside that Academy. Last year, nothing happened there. Not on the surface."
Ria cut me off and let out a sigh. Something big was coming. I could feel it.
"The problem is that this year, Her Imperial Highness is enrolling."
"Th-the Princess?"
"Mm. She turns seventeen this year."
I see. And what does that have to do with me?
"…Right now you're thinking, what does that have to do with this."
"I-I'm not."
"It does. That's why you have to go to the Academy."
"What?"
"As a bodyguard. You're going in as the Princess's escort. Disguised as a student."
A bodyguard? Me? Why?
No. That wasn't the important part. The important part was avoiding the Academy altogether. I took one step toward that.
"Why me, of all people…? There have to be other escorts besides me."
"Of course there are other escorts. You are…… a hidden one."
"What?"
"An escort pretending to be an ordinary student."
"Which still doesn't explain why it has to be me……."
Hearing that, Ria scratched her cheek.
"Are you asking because you genuinely don't know?"
"I-I really don't. There must be other people besides me…."
"I think you're under some kind of misunderstanding. There are other people besides you. You're only one escort among several."
"Then wouldn't it be fine if just one of me weren't there…?"
"Are you serious?"
Heavy. The air sank all at once. A faintly furrowed brow. Eyes gone thin.
My body trembled. A voice reached for my ears.
"When the others said you alone would be more than enough, I'm the one who talked them out of it."
"Ugh…."
"Emily. Humility is fine. Tearing yourself down is not."
"…Yes."
Ria's voice was gentle. The mood was not. That was my fault, for misspeaking. I should have thought a little longer before I opened my mouth.
"Among the people we could actually trust with the Princess's protection, there isn't anyone whose face is as unknown as yours."
"For that, I'm grateful."
I meant it. It felt odd to say, but my name was fairly famous. I knew perfectly well that, set against that reputation, I was living a very quiet life—and that every bit of it was thanks to Ria working herself to the bone on my behalf.
Thinking about it that way, shouldn't I repay the favor, even like this? Even so, I truly hated the Academy…. It was a breeding ground for disasters!
Incompetent teachers, a hidden dungeon, a sinister cabal scheming after it…. Wasn't that the entire stock of academy-story clichés?
Wasn't there some way out— I was still turning it over when the words escaped me.
"I-I'm eighteen, though? The Academy starts at seventeen, doesn't it?"
"It does, doesn't it."
I drew a deep breath. This was probably my last chance. Time to build an argument with my outstanding brain!
"Th-then, since I'm eighteen, I can't enroll together with the Princess!"
"……The Academy accepts transfers, too."
"Well, it might be possible, but…."
I swallowed. This was the crux.
"I-if I get in as a transfer, won't all the attention land on me?"
"…Well, yes? Considering what a transfer requires."
"Then I don't think there's any point in guarding her in secret…! Y-you said you were assigning me because my face isn't known, but isn't this a contradiction?"
"Yeah. I know."
"Then—"
Thud.
Something dropped in front of my eyes. The same as before: a document rolled into a tight cylinder.
"So I made you a new identity."
"……What?"
"Age, seventeen. I found a suitable house among our collateral branches, so the paperwork won't be a problem."
"What? Seventeen? I don't want that! I'm eighteen! I'm an adult!!"
"It can't be helped. If you'd just gone in as a professor last year, none of this would have been an issue."
So that offer last year had been about this….
"Even if I lie and say I'm seventeen, will anyone else believe it?"
"Honestly, I don't think they will…."
Ria's gaze traveled up, then down. I understood at once what that meant.
"Even so, I can't enroll you as a ten-year-old."
"Wh-what's wrong with my height!"
"You didn't even reach a hundred and forty centimeters this year, did you?"
"If you round it, it's a hundred and forty-one!"
"Neither of those is a height that suits an eighteen-year-old. Not a seventeen-year-old, either. The Princess's height, right now—"
"Uuuuugh!!"
I don't care! I'm mad!! She knows my height is a complex, so why would she say something like that!!
When I came back to myself, I was on the bed with the blanket pulled over my head, curled into a ball.
"Hah!"
What? Had it been a dream?
I checked the time. Eleven. I looked out the window. It was bright.
"So it was a dream."
Of course it was. Something that awful couldn't possibly be real. My paper being rejected, having to go to the Academy—all of it must have been a dream.
"……Still, maybe I should fix it a little?"
I didn't know why Ria had rejected it, but she must have had a reason. And I could more or less guess what it was. There had been a part that snagged at me even while I was writing it. Probably that.
"Honestly, it's useless."
The approach was novel, yes, but the conclusion had no use. Unlike mathematics, magic also has to survive the question so what do you even use this for? …Mathematics isn't immune to that question either, but with magic the demand is far harsher.
I thought that was only natural. No matter how genius or revolutionary the logic you used to construct a spell, what good was it if the result was useless? Suppose there were a spell that made every word you spoke come true, and its side effect left you unable to speak. It would mean nothing.
"…Hmm."
The paper I had written was similar. If I explained it with that same example, it was something like a spell that makes the words you speak become reality, on the condition that you may speak only in Odeham. Not useless. As good as useless.
"Using Piacent's Theorem to break a magic circle's components down through the Alquette–Raoul equation, and even folding the satellite circle into the primary one, is fine as far as it goes…… but it certainly isn't more efficient than operating the satellite circle on its own."
I had glossed over that in the paper, and she had caught it from nothing more than a brief skim……. Ria really was incredible. She was in a completely different league from that bastard. Of course, set next to that fucking asshole, most professors would come off looking decent.
"…What do I do."
Raising the efficiency was impossible. To do that, I would have to start over from the very beginning. Should I try combining it with dimensional magic, the way I had first thought? Some other good method—
"Emily?"
"Eek?!"
A voice, suddenly, from behind me.
"What are you doing?"
"R-Ria!?"
"Who's Ririria?"
"Wh-why are you suddenly in my room……."
I got that far and realized it. Breakfast time had already come and gone.
"What's this?"
Ria's hand moved faster than my reaction. The paper, covered in the traces of everything I had been worrying over. Embarrassed, I flailed a hand through the empty air. I could not defeat Ria's superior height, and in the end I surrendered.
"I-I wrote a paper this time, and there's a part that bothers me……."
"Ah, that was it? Sorry, Emily. I wasn't trying to look on purpose."
"Ah, I know…."
"Thanks. Sorry?"
Pat, pat. Warmth settled over the crown of my head……. I felt like I was melting….
"So. Are you ready?"
"Ready for what?"
"You have to go to the Academy. There's less than a week left."
"WAAAAAAAH!!!!"
So it hadn't been a dream. Damn it.