It's Not Like I Can Just Not Enroll
It's Not Like I Can Just Not Enroll
Everything made sense now. That was why Haspelt had been treating me so well these past few days.
There was no time to think it over. The moment I finished reading the emperor's letter, I bolted outside.
I headed for the third floor of the Earth Magic Research Building. It was the primary habitat of the golem-crafting professor and her graduate students. If you looked around the far end of the hallway there, you would spot a nameplate with a familiar name.
[Meriga Herlein / Present]
Knock knock knock.
I rapped on the door like a cat scratching to get out of a bathroom. I was in such a rush that my hands grew clammy.
"Come in."
I opened the door and stepped inside, and the characteristic smell of rare earths stung my nose. It was a wholly different scent from the Fire Magic lab.
In the middle of it all stood Professor Herlein, who was busy dissecting the arm of a high-grade magic beast.
"Oh my, what brings you here?"
"I have something urgent to tell you."
I explained the whole situation to Professor Herlein.
I had found a letter on Professor Haspelt's desk, and the sender turned out to be the emperor himself. And according to what I'd heard, the emperor's son was trying to bring me into the imperial palace as a royal attendant or concubine.
After hearing the full story, Herlein gave a faint smile and spoke.
"Then there's only one option, isn't there?"
"Yes."
Enrolling in the academy.
"Not even a prince would dare break the academy's ancient traditions."
Tillet Magic Academy was an institution that served both education and national defense. To coax and appease the commoner and lower-noble mages who held back magic beasts along the thousands of kilometers of the northern border, the academy had to maintain its own independent status system.
And it would throw that away for some moronic reason like dragging one slave into the imperial palace? I was willing to bet an assassin with a sword-dance would show up at the imperial palace any day now.
"Good. There's a saying about pulling out a dragon's horn while it's still hot. Let's begin the crash course right now."
Herlein abandoned what she was doing and seized my wrist.
"First, you need information, don't you?"
Our first destination was the library.
**
Tak.
Kleis Haspelt set down her chalk and dusted off her hands.
"That is all for today's lecture. Class president, please collect last week's homework and place it in the assignment box."
After receiving the students' farewells, she turned and headed out.
"The professor hasn't been covering much material lately."
"Yeah. Do you think she has a lot on her mind?"
"Heehee, I wish it were like this every day!"
She heard those voices behind her, but she had no luxury to pay them any mind.
Kleis walked the leaf-strewn hallway, sunk deep in thought.
Beyond the classroom wing lay the corridor that connected to the research building. Until just the day before yesterday, a certain girl could be found sweeping that corridor. Her hair was plain, yet her golden irises—those were what left the deepest impression.
Aether.
Three years ago, the Gold-Eye Tribe slave she had purchased at the market.
She was the girl who, despite the relentless and unreasonable demands Kleis had placed on her from start to finish, had carried them all out without a single complaint. So much so that Kleis had occasionally wondered whether she had been working the girl too hard.
Even though she had known it was unreasonable, there was one reason Kleis had driven Aether so relentlessly.
'I need a spell with greater destructive power.'
It was only five years ago. Right after graduating from the academy, she served as a combat mage. Freshly wearing the insignia of a Major, she was forced to fight bloody battles against countless magic beasts on the front lines.
Many of her comrades died. Days spent piling up mountains of corpses were beyond counting.
Seniors lost their arms; juniors lost their legs. Even Herlein, who led tens of millions of golems and advanced all the way to the First Defense Line, ultimately lost an eye. And in exchange for all that, Kleis was left with a crushing sense of helplessness.
What good was graduating at the top of her class? What good was being praised as a pioneer of Flame Magic?
She could not protect her comrades against Calamity-class beasts, and against Extinction-class beasts, even her own magic proved useless.
After becoming a professor, she developed exactly two supreme-grade flame magics: Chaser Flow and Corona. Across the entire Arens Continent, they were the flame spells with the greatest destructive power.
Even those, however, were nothing more than an exercise in futility against an Extinction-class beast.
So people began to say it outright. That the destructive power of Flame Magic had hit its limit.
It was her teachers, her juniors, her colleagues who said it. They had long since shifted their research goals—instead of increasing raw magical power, they now worked on increasing the number of residual shots or developing methods to destroy magic beasts from the inside.
Around the time that talk began to circulate in the capital city, dressed up as fact, the support from the imperial palace started drying up too. The existing magic beasts could be suppressed with the spells they already had. The reason the empire had been investing in supreme-grade Fire Magic in the first place was to eliminate Extinction-class threats—and once word spread in academic circles that this was impossible, the justification for funding simply vanished.
The number of scholars researching the enhancement of flame magic's destructive power dwindled steadily, until at last, only Kleis remained.
That was when she caught wind of a rumor that a secret Gold-Eye Tribe auction was to be held in a nearby slave market. To Kleis, short-handed after a string of graduate student defections, the news was enough to make her ears perk up.
In the end, Kleis spent an enormous sum—a thousand gold coins—to purchase the girl.
— This is a mid-grade scroll. Convert it to high-grade output.
— It's done.
— Here is a low-grade magic stone. Use only this to write a high-grade magic circle.
— Will this do?
— Load argon gas into the output section. Demonstrate whether a scroll imprinted with supreme-grade Magic Arts can produce an output exceeding twenty sieverts.
— I've done it.
The genius of the Gold-Eye Tribe exceeded even what the old tales had described. Kleis, who lived and breathed only for boosting the power of Flame Magic, had no reason not to work the girl to the bone.
But.
— What would you say to thirty thousand gold coins in exchange?
The letter she had received two days earlier still swirled inside her head.
'Four months, was it?'
The deal was that in four months' time, her assistant would be placed as a direct attendant to a prince, and in return, she would receive a vast sum.
Kleis was already being squeezed for research funding. It wasn't that Aether was useless, but compared to thirty thousand gold coins, which choice to make was blindingly obvious.
Thirty thousand gold coins. Compared to what she had paid at the slave market, the offer was absurd—but she could rationalize it. Aether's value was not determined by her Gold-Eye Tribe heritage alone. One had to allow, of course, a certain amount for a prince carelessly spending the treasury.
There was another factor. Kleis's personal assistant, in terms of ability alone, and equally in appearance—she was so outstanding that she could proudly bear the epithet "peerless beauty" without a hint of exaggeration.
The contract with the imperial household had been concluded. Still, since she was a girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe purchased at great expense, Kleis figured she might as well put her to one more task before sending her off to the imperial palace.
"I'll need to visit the imperial palace."
10:10 a.m. Kleis stopped by her laboratory to retrieve her coat. At this hour, her assistant should be working, she thought.
Contrary to her expectation, the lab was eerily quiet. Kleis swept her narrowed eyes over the surroundings. It was then that she spotted a brief note left on the desk where Aether usually worked.
[Professor Herlein summoned me; I'll be back shortly.]
"Meri? Why would she suddenly..."
She had no time to probe further. Kleis gathered her coat and witch's hat and departed for the imperial palace.
[Went to the imperial palace. Resume the work we suspended a week ago.]
She left only that note behind.
**
The emperor, Yelchin Philiut, welcomed Kleis warmly. He even cast aside the work he had been attending to.
The audience chamber was transformed in an instant into a reception room. One hundred and eight royal attendants prepared a luxurious mobile table, refreshments, and a pot of black tea with practiced speed.
Drip. The emperor poured the tea, thick with the scent of lavender, and opened his mouth.
"Good. I knew you would come quickly."
"I only fear I have robbed Your Majesty of precious time."
The Kleis who ordinarily used a relaxed conversational tone was nowhere to be seen. In a deeply solemn voice, she began to answer the emperor's questions one by one.
"What do you think of the offer? Would thirty thousand gold coins be acceptable?"
"It is more than generous."
Considering the usual price, that was—she swallowed the last words. The corners of Kleis's lips stretched toward her ears.
"Is there anything more you desire? I shall grant you one wish, as a special consideration."
"What manner of wish do you mean?"
"Something like expanding your territory, or finding you a fine son-in-law, for instance. Such things cannot be solved with money alone, can they?"
"That would be far above my station."
The only thing she needed was research funding. Land or a groom—she could take them or leave them. No, having them would actually be an annoyance.
Eyes peacefully closed, Kleis drank down her black tea.
"Then let us wrap this matter up quickly. You are a rather busy person yourself, after all."
"There is, however, one thing I am curious about."
"What is it? Speak."
"Why has the Second Prince set his sights on my slave?"
"I have been wondering that as well."
It was common knowledge throughout the empire that the Second Prince was mad for women. He already had thirteen young noble ladies as concubines, and the number of maidservants summoned to his chambers was rumored to be seventy. Thanks to that, the chronically low blood pressure of his officially betrothed was reportedly cured long ago. Or so the gossip went.
No matter how ravishing the girl, the gap in status was simply too vast. She could not help but suspect that the prince, who was supposed to uphold dignity and decorum, had carried things too far.
"Lovely women fill the world to overflowing. I find it difficult to understand why His Highness the prince would seek intimacy with a child of lowly blood."
"I have heard that the child is of the Gold-Eye Tribe. Was that report true?"
"It was."
"Given that their kind is rarer than even the high elves, I suspect he sees no reason to distinguish between noble and base. Besides, are the Gold-Eye Tribe not said to be a race composed mostly of peerless beauties?"
"It is only a fairy tale."
Of course, insofar as Aether possessed beauty that rivaled the Goddess herself, that particular part was no fairy tale.
"Fairy tale or fable, what does it matter? What matters is that my son has taken a liking to your servant."
Kleis bobbed her head in a slow nod.
"If that is the prince's desire, then I understand. Ah, now that I recall, you did mention that His Highness will be applying to our academy this term."
"Indeed. Debaucherous as he is, the boy does have a talent of his own, so I expect he will pass with ease."
The emperor let out a sigh fit to shake the audience chamber.
The Second Prince's vicious character was a well-known rumor across the capital. That sigh was clearly the emperor worrying about the empire's future.
In this situation, Kleis—Duke Haspelt—chose silence.
With that, the exchange between the emperor and one of the Four Great Dukes came to an end.
"Then I shall take my leave now."
"Travel safely back."
Twenty minutes was all Kleis needed to return to the academy. The imperial palace and the academy both lay within the capital to begin with.
"......?"
Even after she came back, Aether was nowhere to be seen. She promptly searched every corner of the Flame Magic Research Building like she was hunting for lice, but there was no report anywhere of anyone having seen the girl from the Gold-Eye Tribe.
Next, she went to the Earth Magic lab. When she asked a half-dead graduate student, he told her that Professor Herlein had taken the girl somewhere.
'Friend or not, taking my slave without permission is hardly good manners.'
But that friend was the type to let sound advice go in one ear and out the other. Rather than give her a sharp scolding, it was better for Kleis's own mental health to just shrug and let it go.
Diligent as she was, Kleis hated wasting even a moment of time. She decided to grade undergraduate assignments until her assistant returned.
The assignment called for raising the output of an advanced circuit above a certain threshold. Structurally, it was next to impossible for a first-year to solve. Only a handful of ambitious students would even manage to lay a finger on it.
And sure enough. Most of the assignments had been turned in blank, or after only a cursory scribble.
Zero points, zero points, three points. This one showed some real effort, so ten points. And then zero points again.
The total was out of fifty. The majority of the students had failed to even reach half.
Then, suddenly—
Thunk.
"This is..."
A circuit, filled in with both simplicity and precision. Kleis let mana flow through it and checked the output at the output section.
Thirty-six sieverts. A figure six sieverts clear of the passing mark.
"How could...?"
When she came to her senses and looked, three other students had solved the problem in similar ways. Subtle, but distinct differences existed between them. It was hard to call them copies of one another.
The one thing they had in common: they had all used a special kind of magic stone. Beyond that, she found no other peculiarities.
And Kleis knew perfectly well what that magic stone was.
"Transistors, they were called."
There was no way a mind sharp enough to earn tenure could fail to notice. In a flash, a certain remark flickered through her thoughts.
— I will not disappoint you.
"......."
Kleis chose silence again.