Chapter 83
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 83
Chapter Title: Investment Blunders and the Metric Stand
One day, my little sister suddenly showed up with an investment plan.
But if that investment was on the verge of turning into worthless scraps of paper, how should I act?
The answer to that isn't even on Sci-Hub.
"A clerk now, of all times..."
I handed Anna the mental typewriter.
"..."
"..."
Anna stayed silent for a long while.
Her hands trembled visibly.
Tap tap.
I patted her shoulder and said,
"It's okay. You hadn't invested yet, right?"
"...But I almost lost everything."
"That can happen."
How many STEM kids have dived headfirst into finance, underestimated it, and gotten wiped out? Not just once or twice.
Even the god of physics, Isaac Newton, bombed in the stock market.
"Far in the future, you might be raking in cash from the investment world, Anna."
"When would that be?"
"Hmm..."
For statistics and probability theory to be fully leveraged in making money, information would need to be transparently available...
At the very least, we'd need the internet, right?
So, probably...
"Around 200 years?"
"..."
Slump.
Anna's shoulders drooped.
Laura spoke up to her then.
"Miss Anna, there are products out there that guarantee your principal while still earning returns."
"...Those exist?"
Anna's eyes lit up.
You'd think she'd just detected gravitational waves.
"Tell me, Laura... What is it?"
"It's a deposit account."
"Oh..."
Before Anna could deflate completely, Laura pressed on.
"I'm not joking. How many imperial citizens do you think can even access a central bank? Just by using a bank, Miss Anna, you'd be among the top financially savvy citizens in the empire."
"...You're right."
Anna was convinced.
This was a major accomplishment.
Turning around the mindset of someone who'd already lost money once and was gearing up for round two.
Laura's got a real gift for words.
"Please make the most of this opportunity."
"Yes..."
Seeing Anna so downcast tugged at my heartstrings.
I couldn't just leave her like this.
Time to stuff her full of food.
"Hey, sis, how about that restaurant from last time for dinner tonight?"
"...We go there on days I fail at investing?"
"No... That's not it."
Did I just step on a landmine...?
Need an excuse, quick.
Aha.
"Tomorrow's the Uphills Foundation inauguration. We should have a pre-celebration, right?"
"...Yeah, true."
That evening, we dined with the Magic Survey School folks, Laura, and Anna.
Swing swing.
Anna was swinging her legs wildly under the table.
She thought the tablecloth hid it, but she couldn't evade my 24/7 detection magic.
She seemed thrilled now that the school members were gathered.
Senior Giuseppe marveled,
"An official inauguration already? Time flies."
"Tell me about it. Feels like yesterday we blew up Wasteland Mountain."
Then Dolloren's eyes sparkled as she spoke up.
"Should I say a few words at tomorrow's event too?"
...What did this woman just say?
"No way, School Head."
"What? I ponied up the cash and made the land—can't I get a speech?"
Dolloren shot back incredulously.
I gave a wry smile and replied,
"What day is tomorrow?"
"What day? The foundation inauguration."
"Besides that. At the Magic Tower."
"Magic Tower...?"
Dolloren tilted her head.
Senior Giuseppe sighed and answered for her.
"Tomorrow's the Magic Tower's regular general assembly, School Head."
"Oh."
I'd suspected as much, and yep—she'd totally forgotten.
"I haven't gone in so long, I forgot it even existed..."
Dolloren's face paled.
She urgently grabbed Giuseppe's sleeve.
"Giuseppe... Could you cover for me? Please?"
"No."
Giuseppe refused flatly.
"Sending a proxy when the School Head is perfectly fine and in the capital violates the charter."
"Then... could we postpone the inauguration by one day?"
Screech.
Anna's leg-swinging stopped dead at Dolloren's words.
Giuseppe said,
"We can't do that. Are you suggesting we delay the academic schedule for one School Head? The kids in the foundation—your junior's little ones—are all looking forward to tomorrow."
"..."
Dolloren shrank back.
"You have to go, right?"
Nod nod.
Dolloren reluctantly nodded.
Dolloren-class cruiser: moderate damage.
Sinking confirmed.
Magic Tower Main Building, 45th floor grand conference hall.
The Magic Tower general assembly was underway there.
Dolloren stared blankly at the scene.
"It's been a while for this too."
To forget the inauguration, Dolloren focused on the spectacle before her.
Today's assembly felt quite different from the old days.
The most noticeable changes were two.
One: piles of parchment on the conference table had been replaced by paper documents.
And two: quill pens were gone from the scribes' hands.
Click, clack clack.
Every time the metal bands on the scribes' heads glinted, the mental typewriters on the desks moved on their own, stamping out letters.
"...That concludes this quarter's performance report from the Magic Tool Material Processing School."
One School Head's presentation ended.
Normally, they'd wait for the scribes to catch up, but with mental typewriters, no need.
The next presentation flowed right in.
But Dolloren couldn't focus on the content.
"Foundation site... Funds... I helped with all that too..."
Lost in thoughts of the foundation, the agenda had shifted.
"Next item: the 'Standard Unit System,' aka the metric system adoption."
At "metric system," Dolloren's ears perked up.
Her beloved student's fruit.
The standard unit system.
Dolloren's mind snapped back to the hall.
"What will they say?"
She listened eagerly.
The first strike came from the opposition leader, the Bloodline Inheritance Magic School Head.
"The intent is good, but it's too much for administrative tasks. Could we delay?"
"Hm?"
Dolloren tilted her head.
Opposing it?
This?
Before Dolloren could speak, another School Head cut in.
"Paper and typewriters are fully rolled out—still too hard?"
"..."
"If not, accepting it would help in many ways..."
"No, it's not just that. The metric system risks collapsing our incantation symbolism."
"...So what do you want?"
"Slow the spread of the metric system in the magic world."
Old mages nodded in agreement.
Then, Professor Gedric, proxy for the Ideal Gas Magic School Head, interjected.
"You use Kelvin and Celsius just fine—why oppose this? Isn't it the same line?"
"...Everything has an order. I'm just saying take it slower."
Addressing the "proxy," perhaps? The Bloodline School Head's tone roughened.
"Does that mean defying the imperial decree?"
Gedric pointed out.
The Bloodline Head bristled.
"Not defying! The Magic Tower has academic freedom guaranteed by the Imperial Court!"
Many School Heads agreed.
Changing lifelong units felt like surrendering vested rights.
"So we keep every school using different units?"
That was madness.
Dolloren started getting heated.
"That's why they sent me here."
She realized.
Why she was stuck in this boring meeting.
She'd skipped the inauguration to shut down these reactionaries.
"This metric system has way too much of Isaac Uphills's personal bias!"
The Bloodline Head pointed triumphantly at the Flame Element Magic School Head.
"I heard your proposed 'caloric' unit wasn't included?"
"Well... that's true, but..."
The Flame Head glanced awkwardly at Dolloren.
Dolloren spoke up.
"The Magic Survey School's stance on caloric is unwavering."
"..."
"It can't be a scale if it's just hypothetically pointing to the cause of change, not change itself. Until the caloric theory is rigorously proven, setting a heat unit is premature."
Dolloren stared down the Bloodline Head who'd lit the fuse.
"..."
"..."
Dolloren had no intention of backing down.
This was the Magic Survey School's cherished project.
Couldn't mix in unverified impurities into their unit system.
The Flame School Head raised his hands between them.
"I agree with the Magic Survey School."
The Flame Head immediately folded.
Overpowered by Dolloren's momentum.
The Bloodline Head's hands shook.
He muttered,
"Damn. Have you all lost your minds...?"
Moments later, he yelled at Dolloren.
"Can't do it because it's unprovable? What about your research topic!"
Dolloren's research: "Measuring the End of the World."
She wanted to define the world's start and end with clear spatial and temporal scales.
Dolloren's eyes narrowed.
"...You wanna go right now?"
"What if I do?"
"I'll formally re-verify your thesis."
"...!"
The Bloodline Head gaped, speechless.
Then he said,
"Using thesis verification for petty revenge is..."
"Scared? It's no big deal. My student beat me during his master's defense."
"..."
The room buzzed at Dolloren's words.
"Wasn't that rigged by Dolloren...?"
"Shh, she'll hear."
"..."
Deep wrinkles furrowed the Bloodline Head's brow.
"A serf's daughter with no roots. You don't know your place, rampaging like this...!"
"It's the unit system set by that sky. Shut up and follow it."
"Urgh!"
The Bloodline Head's face flushed beet red at Dolloren's retort.
Dolloren secretly hoped.
A little more prodding, and the old man might snap and charge.
But then the Dean intervened.
"Enough."
The room froze at the Dean's word.
"Adopting the metric system is efficient long-term. Postpone caloric discussion; officially adopt the standard units in the Magic Tower. That's it."
The Dean's decision was absolute.
The other mages complied silently; the Bloodline Head swallowed his rage and bowed.
Dolloren bit her lip.
"Just a bit more and..."
The assembly ended.
Mages filed out, but Dolloren stayed seated.
"Thought you'd rush to your student. Why linger?"
The Dean asked while sorting papers. Dolloren grumbled back.
"Why stop me? That was my chance to crush those vermin."
Nod nod.
The Dean nodded sagely.
"Not every school has real substance. Plenty of bluster."
"Then why...!"
"Dolloren, you wouldn't know from your youth. Decades ago, they were the shining theorists."
"Most of that's obsolete trash now."
"Flawed theories aren't meaningless. They might be vital stepping stones in magic's progress."
"..."
"And crushing them here would shrink or kill their ongoing research."
Dolloren recalled the new researchers she saw in the lobby.
Some were those School Heads' students.
She spoke.
"...I was short-sighted."
"Good. Smart thinking. Crush the metric opponents by force now, change comes fast—but backlash is inevitable later."
"...My student and I could weather that."
"What if the backlash hits after you and your student are long dead? Who stops it then?"
"..."
"Disciple. Not everyone can be like you or Isaac. Remember that."
"...Yes."
Dolloren pondered, then continued.
"Then, instead of re-verifying old theses, can I attack new submissions?"
"..."
The Dean muttered,
"No growth at all."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Do as you like, within charter limits. Your freedom."
"...!"
In the following weeks, a bloodbath hit certain schools' subpar papers.
Rumor has it the Bloodline Inheritance Magic School Head suddenly retired over this...
But only the parties involved know the truth.
...What's certain: after that, opposition to the metric system shrank dramatically.