A Fiery New Year - 3
With every passing day, the plunderers descending on the Minister's office only multiplied. Civil servants who would normally have carried themselves with at least a shred of dignity and courtesy seemed to have regressed into an age of barbarism and assault. If they'd been holding blades instead of paperwork, they could have passed for Vikings just come ashore.
It was a little frightening. So this was the final form of poor civil servants blinded by the scent of budget money. At this point it wasn't a dark evolution so much as a dark revolution.
"How many left?"
The moment the plunderer—no, the official—from the Ministry of Land walked out, the Minister opened his mouth in a low voice. A question steeped in despair: how many more of these insane waves did he still have to weather?
"Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs, Special Affairs, and Education remain."
"Just the big ones left, then."
The way he muttered it, as if the thought alone made him dizzy, drew a quiet snort of laughter from me. He was right—only the high-difficulty departments were left.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had to dominate continental diplomacy as the sole imperial power. The Ministry of Home Affairs, charged with the Empire's domestic affairs. The Ministry of Special Affairs, whose very existence was half a secret. The Ministry of Education, responsible for raising the next generation of talent. Every last one of them was a money-devouring machine, specialists long since hardened at the art of wringing funds out of people. For a Minister of Finance who had only held the post a few years, they were opponents he was barely equipped to face.
"Damn it. It's not like I left the money with them for safekeeping."
Watching him scrub roughly at his dry face, a deep, private happiness welled up inside me. A superior's suffering was a subordinate's joy.
"It's because you didn't leave it with them that they're acting like this."
And so I dropped a perfectly natural counter on his complaint.
If it really had been money left in their care, would they have raised this kind of ruckus? They would have waltzed in as if it were their right, scooped it up, and been done. Taking someone else's money was always a noisy process by nature.
"Cut the nonsense and check this."
"Yes, sir."
Even against that thoroughly reasonable remark he seemed to have nothing to say, so he tried to shut me up with more work.
It looked like he was crushing me with rank, but the happiness squirming in my chest only doubled. The very fact that he was changing the subject meant the Minister was being driven to the brink.
"Come to think of it, this is the first time the Ministry of Magic has shown up, isn't it?"
Still, the moment I saw the stack of documents he handed me, I casually opened my mouth. The papers I'd just received were the ones the Ministry of Magic had submitted.
It was strange. Even during the supplementary budget season, when every department's eyes went bloodshot, the Ministry of Magic tended to sit quietly off in its own world. Last year, the year before—even before the current Minister took office. With the Magic Tower as their golden lifeline, they simply never needed to come begging to the Ministry of Finance.
Thanks to the Demon Duke's unshakable philosophy that those who walked the path of magic must never go hungry or poor, the Ministry of Magic was a department that truly lived well-fed. As expected of Mother Demon Duke.
...And that same Ministry of Magic, with the Demon Duke as its patron, had this year submitted a request for supplementary funding for the first time.
"Don't tell me the Magic Tower went bankrupt?"
Of course that would never happen, but the situation was unexpected enough to invite the thought. With a little exaggeration, it felt like finding Bill Gates at a free soup kitchen.
"Apparently their New Year meeting ran long, so they still haven't received their funds. The people who are supposed to hand the money over are stuck in the conference hall themselves—what can they do?"
"Ah."
"'Ah,' my ass. You were right there listening earlier."
To be fair, when someone from the Ministry of Magic had come by, they had earnestly explained all sorts of things. The problem was that I hadn't actually managed to listen properly.
I'd been buried in documents from the other departments and simply hadn't had the ears free. Honestly, I'd only realized after the fact that someone from the Ministry of Magic had even visited—how well could I have followed an explanation?
"That's unexpected too. For a meeting at the Magic Tower to drag on."
"It is unusual."
The Minister nodded lightly, as if agreeing with me. With the Demon Duke—overwhelming authority, first place without contest—holding the fort at the Magic Tower, meetings simply did not run long.
Age, career, position, title, ability as a mage—on every measure the Demon Duke held crushing superiority. Raise an objection to that? That wasn't courage so much as suicidal recklessness. So most matters were simply handled the way the Demon Duke wanted, or according to custom; there was no reason for anything to stretch out.
And when I'd seen the Demon Duke recently, she hadn't seemed especially busy or as if anything had gone wrong.
...It's probably nothing.
I fretted for a moment, then settled on a convenient conclusion. Right—her expression hadn't been dark, and she hadn't asked for help. At the very least, it wasn't some negative incident that had blown up.
So think positive. A pack of research-obsessed mages had simply gathered and caught fire discussing the production of some new magical tool. If anything truly serious had broken out, every kind of magic would already be flying through the heart of the Magic Tower by now.
The Deputy Lord of the Magic Tower. Setting aside Her Grace the Demon Duke, who was the Tower Lord in all but permanence, he was the pinnacle of the Empire's mages and an object of reverence—an elder of the magical world recognized not merely across the Empire but across the entire continent.
Even the Minister of Magic and the commander of the Imperial Mage Corps were, from a Deputy Tower Lord's perspective, little more than posts one passed through on the way. Dress it up however you liked—he was a mage standing one step below heaven and one step above every other person on earth.
A pretty shell, and nothing more.
But for the one actually living as that Deputy Tower Lord, he felt neither like an elder nor like a man above all others. What mattered was that he was the second-in-command who got swapped out however many times under a permanent Tower Lord.
The second-in-command who handled the grunt work in place of the first. The Deputy Tower Lord people thought they could maybe tangle with, compared to a Tower Lord they would never dare oppose. That twisted perception made the seat a place of suffering and ordeal. Second-in-command in name only—it was more like the worst flaws of middle management distilled to their purest form.
Outsiders to the Magic Tower alone, unable to address the Tower Lord—a Duke and the greatest mage on the continent—came dumping every request and deal onto him. He was already busy enough with the Deputy Tower Lord's actual duties; it was endlessly irritating.
And was the inside of the Magic Tower peaceful, then? Hardly. He had to coordinate and manage the six towers that made up the Magic Tower: White, Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Black. Dealing with them was, if anything, more bothersome and more infuriating than dealing with outsiders.
Kids these days, honestly.
A mage was a being who had constructed a world of the mind all their own. That such people had strong pride was only natural.
The older mages, at least, had seen enough of the world—and stood close enough to the wall that was the Tower Lord—to come to their senses. The young ones had not. And unfortunately, the bulk of the Magic Tower was made up of those young ones.
Being the one tasked with controlling and managing young people who lived on nothing but their own self-regard. In the ten-odd years he had served as Deputy Tower Lord, he could not count how many times the urge to throw it all away and vanish had surged up in him.
Maybe I should just disappear.
Regrettably, that urge was surging even now.
The Magic Tower's New Year meeting. The gathering where the Tower's major mages assembled to set the year's plans, exchange opinions on new magical tools, and discuss every activity the Tower would undertake.
"Hasn't the Green Tower always handled the Academy instructors? Of course it should fall to the Green Tower again this time!"
"That's not handling—that's a monopoly. Isn't it about time you yielded?"
And so, inevitably, this meeting also decided who would be dispatched to the Academy as magic instructors.
"Ha! Yield, over a weighty duty like introducing magic to students? This is a matter of ability, not charity."
"Which is exactly why the Green Tower must not take it!"
"What was that? Am I to take that remark as the Red Tower's official position?"
And he could say with certainty that never before had the question of Academy instructors been contested this fiercely. Not during his tenure as Deputy Tower Lord, and not under his predecessor or the one before that.
Damn them all.
His head throbbed. Ordinarily they treated Academy instructor duty as a bothersome chore foisted on them against their will—and the moment the situation changed, they transformed into berserkers.
As a mage, he could at least understand the frenzy. Being sent as an Academy instructor now meant teaching the Tower Lord's sole disciple. In truth they weren't going to teach so much as to absorb even a scrap of the Tower Lord's magic through that disciple.
But as the Deputy Tower Lord, not as a mage, he could not tolerate this disgraceful spectacle. He needed to finish the meeting quickly and return to his regular work—and instead, this.
"Enough."
In the end he could stand no more and cut into the argument. Leave this chaos alone and it looked likely to escalate into formal duels; it had to be reined in.
"This year's Academy dispatch instructors will be selected without regard to tower affiliation. Apply as individual candidates, and we will decide among the candidates by vote."
He looked at them with the clear intent that anyone who objected would be persuaded by Thunderbolt, and the noisy young ones finally quieted down.
Yes—this was the best option. Leave it with the Green Tower and there would be problems; give it to any other tower and there would be problems. Even if they chose a specific tower, the fight would simply restart inside it over who got to go. Better to take the time and vote. At least it would leave the impression of fairness.
"Candidates are limited to those present at this meeting."
"Deputy Tower Lord, that restricts the opportunities of mages who could not attend—"
He quietly raised his staff.
"We can hardly dispatch children who are too busy even to attend the meeting."
He lowered it again.
"Let us proceed quickly. If you wish to become an instructor, raise your hand. The vote itself will be conducted in absolute secrecy, so do not worry."
With a small sigh he began the candidate selection, and the meeting attendees started raising their hands while watching one another. A rough count put it at about a third of those present. Plenty of them—if only they showed this kind of zeal on ordinary days.
And while he was confirming faces to get a grip on the candidates—
"I withdraw."
Something unexpected happened.
One candidate suddenly declared withdrawal. He assumed some other duty had simply come to mind late and let it pass.
"...I withdraw as well."
"Yes, myself also."
"I fear the task is rather too much for me to take on."
It wasn't just a few people withdrawing—every last candidate pulled out. Were they joking? After making that much noise only moments ago.
But something felt wrong. The gazes of every candidate who had withdrawn—and even of the meeting attendees who had never applied as candidates—were fixed on the space behind him.
"……."
Following those stares, he turned around, and could not trust his eyes.
The person who had driven every candidate into voluntary withdrawal and successfully registered as the sole remaining candidate. The master who would have to lead the students this year as the Academy's dispatched instructor.
"...As there is only one candidate, this year's Academy dispatch instructor will be Her Grace the Tower Lord."
Looking at the Tower Lord nodding in satisfaction, a desolate feeling settled over him.
"Haha, Her Grace's love for her disciple is truly profound."
"The students are to be envied. If it were possible, I would enroll at the Academy myself."
As an awkward silence settled over this development no one had imagined, people began to force words out one by one.
True enough. The Academy held the Tower Lord's sole disciple. It was entirely possible she doted on that disciple enough to go in person. A thoroughly reasonable inference.
......
The Audit Department Chief.
No—he could not lie to himself.
No matter how he looked at it, this was because of the Audit Department Chief.