Freshman Helper
Freshman Helper
Someone called out to me. It was a male student with red hair and crimson eyes—Lorwell.
"Hello, upperclassman!"
"......?"
I wondered if I was finally hallucinating. Or maybe I'd developed sleepwalking.
There was no reason a current academy student would call someone who hadn't even enrolled an upperclassman. Still, on the off chance, I pointed at myself and tilted my head.
"Were you speaking to me just now?"
"I owe you for last time."
"I'm not an upperclassman. I don't even go here."
"You came out of the Fire Magic Research Lab at dawn."
Uh. Hm. What was I supposed to say? He seemed to be under a major misunderstanding.
I occasionally introduced myself as Professor Haspelt's exclusive graduate student as a joke, but only when Haspelt took me along and introduced me to someone else.
I lived like a graduate student, but my real status was slave. Just a high-end slave who could do a little math and apply it to Magic Theory.
The general public's view of the slave class wasn't good. Academy students possessed a third status, so their prejudice against slaves might be weaker, but....
No one could predict how things would play out. How Lorwell would react upon learning my status was something I could only know by actually talking to him.
Aside from Professor Haspelt, who'd never cared much about class, and Professor Herlein, who'd risen from commoner to noble, I could count on one hand the number of people at the academy who still treated me well after learning my status.
Against that backdrop, should I have told this male student my real status? He wasn't someone I'd see often, so I figured there was no need to bring it up.
But if I tried to dodge and got caught, that would cause its own problems.
Fine. In that case, I went with the "no lying" strategy.
"Upperclassman...?"
"I'm not an upperclassman. I'm Professor Kleis Haspelt's exclusive assistant."
"Assistant? Ah, so that's why you came out of there."
"Yes. I take on the work the professor finds difficult to manage time-wise. She's a busy person, after all."
"Then you'd know about this too, right?"
"Pardon?"
"Actually, I'm taking Professor Haspelt's class. It's called 'Basic Flame Magic'.... Well, when the professor lectured yesterday, she seemed somehow listless. She gave us fewer assignments than usual, too. If it's not too forward, may I ask what's going on?"
Uh.... That was news to me.
"I'm afraid I don't know the details there."
"I see. Then.... May I ask one more thing?"
"Yes. Go ahead."
The moment I nodded, Lorwell pulled a sheet of Magic Paper from his chest. The Magic Paper bore traces of a half-finished high-grade flame magic inscription.
"This is an assignment due by class this morning, and I really can't solve it."
So.
What did he expect me to do...?
**
The academy wasn't something you could map one-to-one onto an educational institution from my original world.
Was it like high school, or like university? You couldn't easily answer either way. If I had to say, it was half high school, half university, with a spoonful of military academy mixed in.
Maybe because of that, academy undergraduates often addressed professors as "teacher."
It wasn't technically wrong. First-years especially had a designated homeroom and took theory classes only in their assigned classrooms.
What this implied was significant. The fact that undergraduates called a professor "teacher" could mean those students actually thought and behaved like high school students from my original world.
For example:
"You're really going to teach us?"
Lorwell's eyes sparkled brightly.
"I've got time right now."
"Then please wait a moment! I'll go get my friends."
It plainly showed he thought of me as some kind of tutor, even though I'd clearly said I was the professor's assistant. To me, with a mental age nearing a carton of eggs, that attitude was unbearably endearing.
It felt like watching freshmen who'd just entered university. Because of that, I nodded and agreed to help, even though I could have justifiably refused.
Of course, it wasn't purely goodwill.
Lorwell had said he was taking Professor Haspelt's class. That meant he was someone who had a point of contact with Haspelt.
I needed people who could vouch for me, even in preparation for when I'd eventually pass the academy entrance exam. It would be difficult if Haspelt was entirely at odds with me. Incurring a duke's displeasure was far more dangerous than I could imagine.
In other words, give and take.
"Assistant, hello?"
"Ah, hello......."
The same combination as last time. Two male students and two female students. By their manner, I could see they were just starting to adjust to school.
Wow, cognitive dissonance hit me hard. I hadn't even enrolled, yet I'd lived here two years longer than them. Did that make any sense?
We settled in at a large wooden table nearby. Working on assignments with your cohort like this must have been part of campus life. Ah, the good old days.
Lorwell thoughtfully bought coffee. He held out an espresso in a tumbler. I thanked him and soothed my bodily fatigue with the plant alkaloid.
Ah, caffeine. Light of my life.
"The homework Professor Haspelt assigned last week was to complete this scroll. But no matter how much I rack my brain, I just can't solve it."
"It's totally unfair! We're just learning the basics, so what are we supposed to do with something like this?"
Right. I knew that feeling well. I'd been through it myself.
You said you were good at math? Then you should have had no trouble constructing a mana formula of this level.
That's how Haspelt had assigned me five high-grade flame formulas to complete by the next day. If I hadn't had that kindling-for-a-paper I'd received as an otherworld-entry perk, I'd have been resold at the slave market on the first day.
"Isn't there any way to solve it?"
"Hmm."
I fixed my eyes on the complex mana formula. The level was high-grade Flame Magic.
It wasn't a formula for implementing a specific spell. It asked them to walk through the process of completing a basic closed circuit.
Sure enough. For an assignment given to first-years, it was fucking absurd.
I pointed to the northeast section of the circuit and asked.
"Which Magic Stone would be best to place here?"
"In class, we learned it's better to select a component that can amplify the circulation section. But...."
"You're saying there's no Magic Stone that fits?"
All four of them nodded. The timid-looking female student even let out a deep sigh.
"Have you tried adjusting the Output Section?"
"It was no use. The professor told us to produce an output of at least thirty sieverts......."
An involuntary laugh burst from my lips at that.
"Thirty sieverts?"
"Yes."
I'd seen tens of thousands of circuits over the past three years, so I could tell. No matter what you did, you couldn't make a scroll with that kind of output with the materials available here.
If they worked this hard and then heard something like "actually, that problem has no correct answer" during class, how crestfallen would they be?
"Until when do you have Professor Haspelt's class today?"
"It's at eight in the morning."
She wouldn't be back in the lab until at least ten, then. Normally, I'd have been sweeping the floors until then.
This was a chance to announce a research result first. If she saw her students solving the problem she'd posed in an unexpected way, she'd immediately grasp the utility of the transistor. Either way, Haspelt had a sharp eye.
I pulled twelve transistors from my hip bag and handed them out to the students.
"What are these?"
"Magic Stones."
"I've never seen Magic Stones like these."
"They only started hitting the market recently. Despite how they look, they're top-grade."
"T-top-grade?"
"They're Magic Stones called transistors. Transistor refers to a substance that has both mana conductivity and resistance."
The students' mouths fell open at my words.
"Do components like that really exist?"
"You'll see when you use them. If you make good use of these fellows, you can control mana however you want. It's also possible to amplify the circuit's output, of course."
I didn't tell them absolutely everything. Teaching every single detail from start to finish wasn't a pedagogy suited to university-level education.
Guiding them with the right amount of curiosity so they could solve the problem themselves—that was my personal educational policy.
I gave exactly two hints. The first was the fact that, depending on how you arranged the transistor's three legs, current could flow, or it might not.
"If I do it this way, the mana cuts off completely."
"Why...? I did it exactly the same, so why is mine flowing?"
"The Magic Stone is bilaterally symmetrical. Try plugging it in the other way."
"Ah! I see. It works now."
Then the second. They could complete it using only three transistors.
Any fewer, and they couldn't reach the target of thirty sieverts. I knew the exact number because I'd realized it while researching on my own until dawn today.
"It works!"
"Me too...!"
"Was it really this easy?"
All four finished the assignment in under thirty minutes. When they activated their circuits with their own mana, the output exceeded the target. Little exclamations of admiration burst out around the table.
"But the finished circuits are all different."
"Of course. There's more than one way to build a circuit."
All the students nodded along at my words.
**
After receiving repeated thanks from the freshmen, I returned to the lab. In the private laboratory, absent Professor Haspelt, only silence hung in the air.
Professor Haspelt's desk was a mess. There was no way that witch, who practiced neatness to a fault, would have left her lab in this state. What on earth had she been up to yesterday?
I started by organizing the heaps of documents covering the desk. In the middle of it, a single gold-trimmed sheet of stationery slipped out from between the papers and fell to the floor.
What was this.
Without thinking, I picked up the letter and read it.
####
[To the Esteemed Heir of House Haspelt,]
[My second son is now of the age to sit the academy entrance examination this year. The school you attend, that is.]
[As it happens, on a preliminary visit, my boy went in secret and says he saw you. Alongside the slave you keep by your side, of course. I gather my son has taken an interest in that slave.]
[Perhaps he's developed a frivolous attachment, but he's mentioned wanting to take her as a concubine. I was vehemently opposed at first. A noble imperial bloodline taking a slave as a wife.]
[Still, his obstinacy seems difficult to break. In the end, I struck a compromise with the foolish boy. For now, if he can bring her here as a servant, he may do so. So I am sorry, but I seek your understanding.]
[Four months from now, what would you say to 30,000 gold coins in exchange? I do not wish to dent the pride of a founding family. If you happen to desire something else, I shall grant it.]
[No reply is necessary. Come to the Imperial Palace at your leisure and share a cup of tea.]
[The Emperor, Yelchin Philiut (seal)]
####
"Ah."
I'd opened Pandora's box.