What Is an Academy For?
"All right. In that case."
"What are you doing?"
I drew out a scroll. It was a transfer scroll, taken from the von Clyde storehouse before I set out for Felione. Draw the formula written on it wherever you meant to arrive, and activating the scroll would carry you there.
"Inscribe the transfer formula under the von Clyde seal."
"Hah! You'll be at that Felione, or whatever they call the place, won't you? The academy's right there. Use your own legs, boy."
"That's exactly why I'll be at Felione. I'm von Clyde, and a young lady with a broken engagement besides. You follow?"
"Plenty of eyes on you, then."
Most likely. Things with the Second Imperial Prince were already delicate enough. The ones watching me would be royalist nobles, or the sort sniffing around the empty seat of a fiancée.
"Right. And before long, more of them will come asking you about me."
"Fine. I'll carve the formula. I swear, nothing good ever comes of meeting you."
"Still—am I really all right taking this for nothing? Your ancestor made it."
I asked again, just in case, and he gave a grudging nod.
"Fire God or a tin whistle, it's the same. No one to use it, and it's scrap iron."
"Got it."
An absurdly expensive weapon, by the look of it. The performance was guaranteed, though, so it would do.
"What's this gun called?"
"Died before he named it, so the name's whatever you give it. Now get going."
What to call it? Put my own name on it—Magic Gun Tati? No. Naming a gun after myself felt wrong even to me.
"When you name a weapon, you usually put a little feeling in it. Use the name of someone of the opposite sex."
"Was Viola like that?"
"Probably. You just called the Holy Sword the Holy Sword, didn't you?"
"Yeah."
What else was I supposed to call the Holy Sword? And I had no idea why he was looking at me as if I were something pitiful.
A name of the opposite sex. Right. Nothing came to mind, honestly. I'd have to actually know a woman's name or two. Tatiana's mother's was out of the question.
Which left one option.
"Victoria. How's that?"
"Body you've got now, shouldn't you be giving it a man's name? Victoria sounds a lot closer to a woman's."
"I'm a man."
"Say that to a mirror. The world won't see the Hero Tati. It'll see the Grand Duke's daughter of the North. Well—naming a weapon that way isn't the worst notion. It's not a lover's name. Just a pet name."
Settled, then. Victoria.
"See you around."
"Disappear already. Spare a thought for my end of this."
"Sure."
The name was chosen, and there was no reason to linger. Stay too long and catch noble eyes, and I'd only be asking for trouble.
A long walk out of the forge, and Laura was waiting in front of the carriage. She kept glancing toward the smithy, curiosity written all over her—diligent, in her own way. I'd told her not to come in, and she actually hadn't. The moment she spotted me, she came running like a mutt that had found its master.
"Oh? Don't tell me the blacksmith Karif gave you that?"
"Yeah. Turned out pretty decent."
"As expected. I don't know if it's those looks of yours, but to think even Karif would hand over something like this..."
Laura's eyes glittered at the revolver.
"It's not the looks. I told him to make me a weapon, and he did."
"What will you use it for?"
"Shooting."
"Even so, isn't it just the sort of thing nobles hang up for show?"
Better to show her than explain.
I lifted the revolver and aimed at the sky.
Bang.
A bolt of light tore from the muzzle, drew its arc, and climbed into the sky.
"Ah. So that's for firing off that brutish swordplay of yours. Not that I even know whether it counts as swordplay."
"Laura. I can put an air hole through your face just as easily."
"I'm sorry."
I looked over the revolver in my hand. It shone gold, but a closer look made plain it was no ordinary mineral. If it dated from the Age of the Seven Gods, that would have been a time when exploration of the Abyss was already well along. Ore from deep in the Abyss, perhaps. One thing was certain: that age had been far more advanced than this one.
Felione was, in the most literal sense, as vast as a fortress. Was the entire city the academy called Felione? They said it had everything one could need, and judging by where it sat, it was probably a satellite city of the Imperial Capital. In the worst case, a fortress whose job was to buy time before the capital itself had to be defended.
Step inside, though, and it was a reasonably convincing academy city. Mana drifted through the air along the road in, and the rumor that magical scholarship flourished here looked to be true.
I glanced around at the people out walking.
"Why is it nothing but adults?"
Not a single child in sight.
"Of course. Most of Felione's students are the sons and daughters of noble houses from every country. Childhood education is handled at home in any case. They're all of age."
So Felione existed solely for specialized study. Nothing but nobles who had lived long enough to be called grown. Every noble I'd met had been arrogant, or desperate to keep up a noble's dignity, and they'd have come out of a place like this. Most likely, this place held nothing but the rotten ones.
Like so.
"Oh my. Oh my, my. And who might this be? Why, if it isn't the young lady of House von Clyde—the one whose engagement was broken."
The type with a fan, and a face built mostly of paint. Women like her turned up constantly in the romance novels that Archmage used to read. To think one existed in the flesh. Sprawled there for anyone with a nose, reeking of the urge to put me in my place. A real bitch.
So who was she? Not knowing was natural enough, but even so—was that how you spoke to a classmate who hadn't shown up at school in ages? The retinue trailing after her didn't help my opinion.
"And you are?"
"Still pretending you don't know me? You must be ashamed."
Did she have to sound so cheap?
"Ashamed? Of what?"
"Of what? You're the worst young lady imaginable. A lady who broke an engagement with an imperial prince. Who's going to look twice at you now?"
No one, probably. All the better. Bound in a marriage, I couldn't move as I pleased, and even hunting demonic beasts and monsters would be that much harder.
"I don't know who you are, but a young lady's life seems to have no purpose except marriage."
"Ha! What a thing to say. For nobles, a political marriage exists so both houses may profit. A young lady, from this point—"
"My house is House von Clyde."
"And?"
The moment the name left my mouth, her eyes went sharp. An inferiority toward von Clyde, then. She'd come to laugh at me, and ended up the only one smoking with rage.
"Don't measure us against some frail little nobody house. We inherit the seat of Grand Duke of the North. You think one broken engagement is enough to dirty that name?"
"Did you just call our house a house of nobodies?"
She'd have to tell me what her house even was.
"I said I don't know who you are."
"Hnh! A barbarian in a noble's mask, and that's all!"
If she was going to shake like that, she might as well say her piece.
"And if we throw the mountains open, the one who pays is the Empire. You know that?"
As I understood it, leave those mountains open and the Empire's rear is split wide. The kingdom at least had terrain in its favor, and a Hero as an option for holding back the encroachment. The Empire had no such luxury. The other three grand ducal houses, wallowing in wealth and glory, owed it in the end to the Grand Duke of the North. It wasn't funny in the slightest.
"That tongue of yours is as fine as ever! We're leaving!"
The woman who had been carrying on swept off with her followers.
God, I hate this.
"Who was that?"
"Lady Esili of House Iris, in the East. A grand duke's daughter—an engagement to an imperial prince would have been discussed, naturally."
I tipped my head at that. Plausible enough. So she'd come for me over the broken engagement. There would be more of this ahead, most likely.
"Hoh. That's why she bristled at me."
"Yes. I'd imagine so. This is exactly the difficult season. Young ladies will be lined up to sneer at you for the broken engagement."
Far off, more young ladies had gathered in clumps. They weren't even demonic beasts. Why travel in packs?
"Nobles fight in the most revolting way."
"Only the noblewomen. The young lords at least have the bluster to throw a glove and fight."
The more I saw of nobles, the less sense they made. Even in my days as the Hero, finishing the job and slipping out had been the right choice. Carn had maintained, right to the end, that binding oneself to the nobility was the better path.
"And the North?"
"Perfect, obviously. Fighting with nothing but words is a disgrace."
There were people who treated knocking someone flat by force as barbaric. Words alone were certainly not to my taste. Somewhere with no witnesses, and I'd have put a hole in that Iris woman's head.
"Where's my class, anyway?"
"The dormitory first, perhaps? There's still some time."
"Might as well."
I wanted to see just how fine a dormitory nobles actually lived in.
The dormitory stood inside Felione's grounds, and the building was enormous. How much money had gone into a mere dormitory? Whitewashed, raised in the style nobles loved. A single dormitory, and it was this. The academy's main hall had to be staggering.
"Men and women are housed separately."
"By the book."
I'd wondered whether nobles and commoners were separated as well. So Felione's rule—that noble and commoner stood equal—did hold, at least that far.
"Even so, the facilities differ from floor to floor."
"Felione can't be short of budget over dormitories."
Not embezzlement, then.
"Rooms are reassigned according to grades at the end of term."
"Are they?"
"Those whose grades rise and those whose grades fall trade places. And the first floor is genuinely awful. No toilet of your own—you use the public one outside."
Then nobles and commoners alike would compete as if their lives depended on it. Nobles, to keep their place. Commoners, to live even a little better, if only inside Felione. Felione's way of assigning rooms was interesting enough.
Were there exceptions?
"Any exceptions?"
"Ah. Yes. The four grand ducal houses keep the top floor."
"Isn't that discrimination?"
Felione preached equality. Was this still allowed?
"Call it discrimination if you like, but the fee for the top floor is paid in full, under the name of sponsoring Felione. And the children of the four grand dukes—sons or daughters—can't destroy their grades. Family honor wouldn't allow it."
Always at the very top, so no one even bothered calling it favoritism. They had it easy here. Far to the south, soldiers were probably still fighting monsters even now.
"House Clyde played the part of a noble house well enough. But the soldiers on the front can't enjoy any of this."
"In the end, it's a noble's privilege."
A noble's privilege. Set the soldiers on the line and the villages along the border beside this dormitory, and the gap in civilization was unmistakable. This place felt like a relic of some more advanced age, while other regions had never advanced at all and had only declined. They took the Abyss's blows directly, so it couldn't be helped. Even so, these nobles preened over commoners in every way, and enjoyed the privilege on those same commoners' coin.
Something occurred to me.
"I do wonder what happens, later, if the Night pushes this far. No army left to meet it. No Hero, either."
How would Felione's students react? Scream, and run? Or go looking for some other bait?
As far as I could see, Felione needed to be torn apart and built all over again.