Toppling the Professor (2)
At the Academy, each professor had a study in the administrative building that doubled as both office and receiving room. Melitt, newly appointed as a professor herself, had been given her own space as well.
It was hardly a bad room—not with the floor, the proximity to the entrance, the window, and all the rest. The size was the same as every other room anyway.
There was only one unsatisfactory detail.
Her neighbor.
This term, the professors selected to join the faculty were not one, as originally planned, but two.
That was because an extra vacancy had opened up: the seat left behind when Frad Ressanti had been stripped of his post.
And into that seat had stepped Ressanti’s direct disciple—the very person he would have pushed into a professorship if his own plans had gone through and Melitt had been driven out.
Her name was Rachel Vermi. She had been Melitt’s classmate at the Academy, and their feud had begun back when they were both still students.
So naturally, the two of them were at odds.
Even now, for instance.
“Oh my.”
“….”
As the sun dipped toward the horizon and Melitt stepped out of her study, she happened to run straight into Rachel, who was coming out at the exact same time.
The two of them had fought so much over the years that they had long since stopped speaking to each other at all. Emotional exhaustion was not something anyone could sustain forever, and certainly not for years on end.
There was a reason people said it was still better if you were at least fighting.
So it was a surprise when Rachel, first lifting that sharp little nose, snapped at Melitt.
“That orphan girl you dug up—she’s in my class, isn’t she?”
Both Melitt and Rachel had been assigned to teach the common magic language course this term.
The subject’s content and scope were fixed, and the textbook was already complete, so it was a sort of kindness meant to help brand-new professors still getting used to teaching build experience.
Though really, it was both a concession and a dumping ground. More seasoned professors, once they had enough years behind them and a clearly defined field, preferred to teach something related to their specialty.
In any case, from Melitt and Rachel’s perspective, they had been assigned the same course as that hateful woman.
It was an unpleasant situation.
But worse than that—
“I’d like to see how far an orphan who doesn’t even know a single word can keep up with class. Just once.”
Rachel laughed, deliberately provoking Melitt.
It was as good as a declaration: the treasured child you picked up—I’m going to make her suffer in my class.
But Melitt only gave a snort of laughter.
“Pfft.”
Then she went down the stairs without another word, leaving the dumbfounded Rachel behind her.
…What was that bitch’s problem?
Rachel gritted her teeth alone in the hallway.
She thinks I can’t do it, does she? Hah. That’s hilarious. Just watch—by the time I’m done, her precious little darling will be begging to leave the Academy with her own mouth.
Of course, Melitt had laughed for an entirely different reason.
She simply had absolute faith. No matter what tricks Rachel tried, Ellie would tear straight through them with effortless ease.
The weekend passed, and Monday morning arrived.
Rachel walked into Ellie’s first-period common magic language class and swept her eyes across the students before smiling.
“Today, we’ll be having a short pop quiz.”
The students stirred in confusion. A quiz? They hadn’t learned anything yet. Rachel added at once,
“The range is elementary. Of course, for all of you first-year Academy students, I’m sure it’s already been well learned, but we’ll be doing this as review.”
Her gaze lingered on Ellie for a moment.
“Everyone, please clear everything off your desks except for a pen.”
Rachel gave the students thirty minutes, then collected the tests.
Most of the children had written their answers with comfortable ease. As expected, the average should have been around 85 out of 100, with three or four perfect scores.
“Assistant Sir, please grade them according to the answer sheets and bring them to me on Thursday. Now then, we’ll continue with the lesson for the remaining time, so open to Chapter 1, Lesson 1.”
And then three days later, Thursday morning.
By now, the students had been at the Academy for about a week, and as they grew more confident and settled in, one by one they began to drift into the lecture hall.
The graded tests were stacked neatly on the lectern.
“Before today’s lecture begins, Assistant Sir—those tests are sorted by score, yes? I’ll hand them out starting with the lowest marks.”
“Y-yes….”
The assistant looked around at the students as though this wasn’t his fault.
A ripple of displeasure went through the room.
The children had all been prepared for the Academy to be a competitive place.
But wasn’t this a bit too cruel? The other professors didn’t go this far, did they?
If she had simply praised the top few students, the children would have accepted it without complaint. Instead, everyone agreed that this was going too far.
The reason Rachel was doing it, however, was simple: she hadn’t thought it through.
Her mind was full of nothing but the idea of making Ellie suffer and landing a blow on Melitt.
If she had been the kind of person who thought things through, she never would have reached the conclusion that she should torment a student because of her personal grudges in the first place.
“First, the student with the lowest score and the weakest result… is…”
Smiling brightly, Rachel picked up the test paper at the very top of the stack.
“Ellie student! Come up and take it!”
Then—
“…?”
“??”
In a classroom already thick with vague hostility, a new emotion was added to the mix.
Confusion.
“Um….”
From the center of the classroom, a boy raised his hand timidly.
“That’s mine….”
“Pardon…?”
Rachel looked down at the paper, startled. The first and last names were written on it. It was obviously not Ellie’s.
For a moment, she wondered if she had taken the wrong one, but the score was 45. That was indeed low enough to be among the worst.
“W-well, ahem, sorry.”
“N-no….”
The student really did come all the way up front, then returned to his seat with his head bowed in embarrassment.
His friends sent him comforting looks or anxious glances from beside him.
And just as much, their hostility toward Rachel deepened.
“Ugh….”
With things having turned out this way, even Rachel had to admit she had stepped in it. She should have checked the names before tossing the papers around. Now she’d gone and made herself disliked by some innocent kid for nothing.
Wouldn’t it have been better not to arrange the tests by score in the first place?
Better yet—what if she hadn’t decided to torment Ellie at all?
Those two questions never even surfaced in her head.
Rachel Vermi was that kind of person, and that was why Melitt despised her.
“Th-then… next is….”
This time for sure Ellie would be there, Rachel thought as she checked the names, only for her face to stiffen. It was another student again.
“T-this is strange. Just a moment?”
She began flipping through the tests one by one. Chris, Misha, Ainya, Brijik, Revan… no matter how many she turned over, she could not find a single paper that simply said “Ellie” without a surname attached.
What the hell.
Rachel clenched her teeth in anger and glared at Assistant Sir, the one who had graded the papers.
“Assistant Sir. It looks like you’ve lost one student’s test paper. How do you intend to take responsibility for this?!”
“Y-yes…?”
Sir was a frail-looking young man—short, with a face so delicate he almost seemed feminine. When Rachel suddenly raised her voice, he trembled and asked back in alarm.
“Th-there shouldn’t be anything missing… I checked it over and over—”
“Don’t lie! The paper belonging to the student who should be at the very top is missing!”
“W-well, if you mean maybe wh—”
Then, from a seat by the window, a girl’s voice rang out through the classroom.
“Professor Vermi, if you’re looking for mine, it’d be faster to count from the other side.”
It was Ellie.
She had been sitting by the window all along, watching the scene in the warm morning sunlight, but now that things had become ridiculous, she had finally stepped in.
“What…?”
Rachel stared in disbelief, but Assistant Sir also shouted helpfully,
“Y-yes! Ellie student was one of the five perfect scorers!”
“!?”
Rachel hurriedly checked again. It was true.
This…
Was this cheating, then?
But Ellie was faster.
“If you suspect cheating, I don’t mind taking an exam of the same level again. In front of several professors, if necessary.”
In truth, it was Ellie’s mercy.
If Rachel blundered ahead and started yelling about cheating or whatever, it would only make her own disgrace worse, so Ellie was mentioning it first and trying to put an end to things cleanly.
But Rachel was not the sort of person who could read that intention.
“…!”
She could only grit her teeth and glare at Ellie.
Seeing her like that, Ellie sighed.
This isn’t going to work.
Melitt had warned her. The professor in charge of common magic language might try to make trouble for her, and if she wanted, they could change her class.
But Ellie had refused.
She believed conflict was something you had to face head-on rather than avoid, and besides, a professor disliking her wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
She had told Melitt before that an A+ from someone who hated her was worth more than the same grade from someone who liked her.
So Ellie’s original plan had been to soothe Rachel along at a reasonable pace and drag things out until at least the semester evaluation came around.
This isn’t going to work.
She couldn’t keep someone like this around for an entire term.
Even if she herself stayed quiet, the other students wouldn’t. It was obvious Rachel would just keep piling up resentment in the same fashion from here on out.
Three months? Four?
At that rate, Rachel would be thrown out for sure. The only difference would be whether it came as a resignation or an expulsion.
In that case—
There’s no reason to leave her alone.
Ellie decided she would actively bring Rachel down. A disruptive change of professor at the end of the term was not exactly welcome, and besides, this was another chance to gain new experience.
Stella, sitting beside Ellie, saw the look on her friend’s face and understood at once.
Ah, she thought, she’s already thinking about doing something enormous again without batting an eye.
Even if not much time had passed since they met, the judgment of someone who watched a person closely, day after day, tended to sharpen very quickly.
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