Off on Assignment - 2
Hearing that absolute garbage — If the diplomatic channels go up in flames over this mess, it's on your head, so hang in there! — I couldn't sit still another second. I hurriedly handed everything off to the deputy chief, parceled out the urgent work among the section chiefs, and threw myself into preparing for the Academy. Four years into my life as a civil servant, and this was the first dispatch nightmare of its kind.
"Come to think of it, Academy security forces are being pulled out too. Is there anyone left who can assist me?"
"There is not."
"Right… and the support funding would be how much, then?"
"There is none."
"…A source for operational expenses?"
"There is none."
"Then what exactly is there?"
"There is nothing."
It was truly, spectacularly awful. Whoever said you can't spit in a smiling face clearly never met the Foreign Minister. I might not have spat, but I was fairly certain I could plant a fist in that cheerfully beaming face without much trouble.
"Sorry about that. Officially, you're just a regularly dispatched inspector. If we suddenly hand you more manpower and budget than usual under those circumstances, it would be far too obvious."
"Even so, how am I supposed to operate with nothing in hand? Even the northern dispatches at least send you off with proper supplies!"
"Don't worry yourself too much. It's only that we can't give you anything officially. If something truly necessary comes up, I'll find a way to support you."
Recalling that final conversation with the Foreign Minister, I let out yet another sigh — they were coming more frequently by the minute. Being thrown into a situation where every word I heard only made me more anxious, then being told not to worry… what kind of twisted mindset was that?
A director-level officer being shipped off on an indefinite assignment was already miserable enough. That the destination was the Academy made it worse. And now I was told a director heading off on a long journey would receive no support at all. "All alone" wasn't a figure of speech. I was genuinely going to stroll into the Academy by myself and dig in for the long haul.
Of course, the Foreign Minister had said he'd "find a way," so the money would eventually wind its way to me through some convoluted channel. But until then, I'd have to live on my own coin.
"Still, you can come back and rest during the breaks. Practically an Academy student yourself, eh?"
"Please. Just. Shut up."
I ground my teeth at the Minister's deliberately provocative remark. Breaks? What the hell did a civil servant care about breaks? The workplace just changed; that was all. My heated reaction only earned me a look from the Minister that said, And what are you going to do about it, exactly? — a smirk that carved a hole straight through my chest.
That this man was my direct superior was a legend in its own right. Absolute bastard.
"I'll be going now. Just give me the dispatch papers."
If I couldn't change the future of being buried at the Academy, the least I could do was get away from a face I didn't want to look at. Every second spent staring at the Minister felt like my mental fortitude was being shaved away in real time.
"You've got no parents to cover for you if you cause trouble, so be careful."
"Your Excellency!"
I shouted as he handed over the papers and slipped in one last jab.
Please, let karma find this man someday.
"First Section, focus your investigations on what I told you."
"Yes~"
"Second Section, sort out the Class Two documents separately. You know those need to be finished quickly."
"Yes, yes, of course."
"Third and Fifth Sections don't have anything major pending, so handle things as they come."
"Understood."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"And… Deputy Chief. Hang in there."
"Yes, sir. Thank you."
Standing in front of the Ministry of Finance building, I gave my final instructions to the senior staff and scanned them with an uneasy heart. The deputy chief, who'd just had seniority dumped on him because of my dispatch, was the one who actually deserved consolation. The Fifth Section Chief at least had some basic common sense, so he could be left alone. But the other section chiefs, free of their director in the Audit Department… would they really stay quiet?
Should I drag the Second Section Chief with me even now?
If three section chiefs formed a trinity, there was no telling what might explode. These were the same lunatics who, even while I lived in the office and watched them in real time, had somehow slipped past that surveillance and incurred the Golden Duke's wrath.
Who was next after the Golden Duke? The Duke of Victory? The Iron Blood Duke? At that point I might have to sprint to the ducal estate, slam my forehead into the floor, and offer the section chiefs up as sacrificial tribute. This director knew nothing! Please, just spare my life!
"…Why are you looking at me like that? It's terrifying."
The Second Section Chief shivered as if a chill had run through him under my gaze, then asked warily. He had probably just glimpsed a parallel world in which he himself was the sacrifice.
"It's nothing."
I considered, right to the end, whether to pull a water-ghost move and drag the Second Section Chief down with me — then shook my head and gave up. The whole point of this situation was that Karl alone, carrying the name of inspector, had to go quietly so as not to rattle the three great powers.
I couldn't suddenly take the Second Section Chief now, and I had no real justification for doing so. Honestly, the justifications were overflowing — but the fact that I couldn't take him remained the same.
Am I really supposed to trust these guys? These bastards?
I took in the section chiefs snickering among themselves. For a moment, everything went dark.
"We'll manage without causing problems. We can hardly dump more trouble on a director already suffering out in the field, can we?"
My expression must have twisted the slightest bit, because the deputy chief finally spoke up — and only then could I nod. Right. If I couldn't trust the section chiefs, I'd trust the deputy.
"Still, if anything happens, contact me immediately."
"Yes, sir. I will."
"…Good."
Only after leaning in for one last quiet word in the deputy chief's ear did the carriage take me up and turn south.
"Goddammit. These roads are a disaster."
Leaving my anxiety behind, the carriage set off in grand style — and the closer it got to the Academy, the more it bounced and swayed as if surrendering itself to some club's pounding rhythm. Coachman, coachman, pump this party…
I distinctly remembered budget being drawn for road construction around here years ago. Looking at the state of things, that money had clearly gone into expanding some local magistrate's mansion instead of the roads. You son of a bitch. The moment I arrive, you're first on the list.
No sooner had I entered the nameless local official at the top of my kill list than the carriage bucked again, as if applauding the decision. You must be having a hard time running these roads too, huh? Alone on assignment with no one for company, I had long since struck up a modest friendship with the carriage itself.
The coachman was outside, of course, but the gulf in status was so overwhelming that speaking to him would only make the man jump out of his skin — which left the carriage as my sole friend. Still, I wasn't particularly grateful for this particular rattling expression of camaraderie.
"Damn it. If only I could use teleport."
Teleportation wasn't exactly common magic, but for the sake of smooth travel, teleportation circles had been installed in the empire's major cities. Given the Academy's importance, one should have existed there as well — yet the peculiar nature of the region where the Academy stood had led to their thorough exclusion.
Back when the Kpelleofen Empire was still a low-level kingdom, the continent's strongest power had been the Apels Empire. The place that had thrived as the capital of that Apels Empire was, today, the site of the Academy.
What was it again… The Apels Empire had encouraged education and built the Academy in all its splendor, and even after Kpelleofen took Apels by the throat, they couldn't quite bring themselves to raze the Academy or rebuild it elsewhere — so they simply kept using it. Besides, money had been too tight back then for them to be picky.
But if a city that had once been an enemy capital became too lively and too easy to reach, it might give Apels restorationists a place to gather. So, the story went, teleportation circles were deliberately never installed. For roughly that reason, the Academy had never enjoyed the benefits of teleportation, and the only ways to get there were to abuse a carriage — or hire a mage capable of casting the spell.
It might have been a plausible reason at the time. But three hundred years after grinding Apels into the dirt, it was no longer something anyone needed to care about. The Apels restorationists had long since been hunted down with Kpelleofen's characteristic tenacity and gone out in a blaze of glory.
The real reason nothing had been installed to this day was simply that it was expensive. Teleportation circles weren't something just anyone could slap together, and the maintenance costs were no joke either. There was nothing near the Academy but the Academy itself, so no one particularly needed to go there — and with most facilities already on campus, no one particularly needed to leave…
That damn Minister.
I was certain of it, having seen him reject a proposal to install a circle at the Academy for exactly those reasons a few months ago. If I'd known I'd be the one dispatched here, I would have forced it through somehow. In the end, it always circled back to the Minister being the problem. Please, just drop dead of a sudden illness somewhere.
"Director, the Academy is coming into view."
"Oh."
With no one to talk to, I had been drifting along the stream of my own consciousness. The coachman's words snapped me out of it, and I brightened as I took in the massive walls faintly visible beyond the window. Whoa… those are high.
"Impressive. To look that large from this distance."
"As you may already know, Director, merchants targeting faculty and students have gradually gathered here, so the place has grown considerably. Then the merchants' families came, and more merchants targeting those families, until the Academy stopped being a simple educational institution and became a city in its own right."
An academy city…
I half expected a student who was really good with a railgun to show up.
After that, the coachman and I fell silent again, and only the carriage's rattling filled the air. The long, miserable journey had finally loosened our tongues once the Academy came into sight, but we weren't exactly close enough to chat freely. The suffocating silence broke only after we passed through the gates.
"Security manpower has dropped significantly."
I tucked the dispatch papers — which I'd shown the gate guards — back into my coat and checked the street beyond the window. Crowds of people. Quite a few shops. But no guards in sight. All civilians living in the academy city — or rather, at the Academy.
"Hmm, is that so? First time here, so I wouldn't know."
"Even the gate usually has four men posted."
His words brought back the moment we'd passed through. The guards had trembled like a phone on vibrate the instant I showed the papers — a spectacle rare enough that I'd tossed them a word of encouragement — but there had only been two soldiers at the gate, not four.
So they really are in the middle of reassignment.
"There are no assistants for you inside the Academy."
"We can't give you money either, so manage on your own funds."
"If that bothers you, well, what can you do? You should have become Minister yourself."
The Foreign Minister's words (as remembered through an extremely subjective and distorted filter) floated back to me. Hearing them and understanding them with my head was one thing; seeing it with my own eyes was another entirely. In the Academy — a completely unknown space with which I'd never once had any connection in my entire life — I would have to hold out alone under the name of inspector.
When… is the break, again…?
College was usually June. Was it the same here?
Once more tasting the feelings of a college student who starts looking toward the end of term the moment classes begin, I only managed to end my long carriage life when we finally stopped in front of the Academy's main building.