What Do You Mean, Rigged Grades? (1)
The combat-track fourth-years finished their practical exam, and with that, finals for every year came to an end.
The other years had been forced to wait even when they wanted to sit their tests first, and the delay had grated. Students who hadn't studied enough, though, were glad of it. The academic calendar had its clear advantages and its clear drawbacks.
Departmental grade reports climbed, stack by stack, all the way to the principal's office. Principal Ermia Belfast looked them over one by one with a languid gaze.
The reports from Combat, Alchemy, and Administration had already been reviewed by their respective department heads. Only the magic department's report still needed both review and approval at once.
A study of ancient spirit-realm sealing sigils... not bad. A wheat-field sigil symbolized binding in the old days. So there was a pact between the spirit realm and the human world. Hmm. The thinking was sound up to there. The finish is a shame. B.
Ermia Belfast was principal and head of the magic department both. If the Empire's greatest archmage didn't take the post, who else would?
For her it meant twice the work, and she loathed it to the bone, but... well. It couldn't be helped. Her magic was the finest in the Empire. That much, at least, was fact.
The magic department's final projects fell into three kinds: a research project on ancient magic for the scholar track, a research project on practical magic for the applied track, and last, for the combat track...
Combat-magic sparring. Now this is actually fun.
There was a combat-magic sparring practical.
The research reports other students had written out stitch by stitch were cute enough in their way, but combat-magic sparring was different. To Ermia, a walking strategic weapon, the magic duels of students still growing into themselves were stimulation at its peak. Dopamine itself.
Didn't people always say fights between the weak were the most entertaining? Ordinary battles barely satisfied her, so the earnest, unspoiled magic combat of students delighted her all the more.
She hadn't been able to watch the sparring in person. Even so, already standing at the highest realm, she could replay a duel from the document of its results alone.
Ellen Fiore and Kai. A noble against a commoner. Both fourth-circle... not bad. They'll put food on the table after they graduate.
Rustle, rustle— Ermia turned the sparring reports page by page and read their battles through mana control, spell power, and spell application. Magic sparring graded on those three, and she read with the assigned scores in mind.
Both of them at three for mana control, and nine for spell power? What kind of nonsense grade is this?
Each category was scored out of ten, with zero at the floor. At a glance the three abilities looked separate, but in truth they influenced one another and held a balance.
Students or not, they were members of the renowned Arcadia Academy. There was no way they failed to grasp mana control—the most basic of basics—or the power of their own spells. Normally mana control and spell power came out the same, or with only a hair of difference between them.
Well... next, for now.
Exceptional cases always existed. The black-haired stall owner visible just outside the window was himself an unprecedented oddity, wasn't he?
Ermia held on to her composure and opened the next students' sparring report. But the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that...
Why? How is every single one of them this skewed between mana control and spell power?
Faced with grades that defied common sense, she flipped rapidly on.
Rustle, thump— at last she turned the final page of the magic-sparring reports. Even the student on the last page scored three in mana control and seven in spell power. Set against an average that usually varied by only about a point either way, the figures were absurd.
It wasn't one or two students. Every combat-track student in the magic department had come out like this?
That supervising professor. How much did he pocket?
She could think of nothing else: the professor overseeing the exam had taken a bribe.
Not long ago the nobles had yanked her about until she was dizzy with it. Seeing them reach even for grades—one of the things students treasured most as proof of what they'd achieved—rage surged up in an instant. How could people called nobles be so utterly lacking in any notion of fairness, integrity, or impartiality?
Hiss, seethe—! Anger climbed until even the breath from her nose grew loud, but confirming the facts came first. Ermia looked at the communication crystal set at one corner of the desk, and just as she was about to pour mana into it and summon the supervising professor—
Wait. Something's off.
Think about it reasonably. Did this even make sense? Not every student was a noble. Some were commoners. Had commoner parents paid bribes?
The professor was strange, too. Even if every parent offered a bribe, would he take them all at face value and raise every student's grade? No professor of Arcadia Academy would do something that stupid.
And yet she also couldn't believe these grades were the plain truth, free of any manipulation. Set them beside the same students' midterm scores, and there was no way anyone grew that much in so short a time without some special method.
Wait. Was there really none?
Don't tell me.
In that instant, one possibility flashed through Ermia's mind.
Crash—!
She scrambled to her feet and looked out the window. A sky without a single cloud, brilliant sunshine—and the street in front of the academy's main building was packed with people. Very packed. A crowd that had left "the weather's nice, so we stepped out" far behind.
Ermia narrowed her eyes and watched the flow more closely. Then she understood.
Kang Jinwoo. You again?
Not only students, but faculty, nearby merchants, even outsiders had flocked in. The whole crowd flowed into a single stall and spilled naturally back out, making a circle.
Kang Jinwoo's ability, which worked something like a miracle. It seemed that ability had caused yet another fine mess.
"Two orders of tteokbokki and two Milk Peaches, please."
"Ah, but I want a ham-and-cheese toast."
"This idiot comes to a tteokbokki stall looking for toast. Just eat the tteokbokki."
"Hnnn."
I mean, it was a toast stall originally.
A week since I'd put tteokbokki and Cool— right. Milk Peach on the menu. I'd heard the academy was in the middle of finals until a few days ago, and still the crowd hadn't let up. Starting today the exams were effectively over and everyone was just waiting on summer break, so of course the place was about to burst at the seams.
Unlike before, I was running two huge iron griddles at once. On one, spicy tteokbokki simmered low and steady. The other was the same as ever, for toast and eggs.
Add dishes and start making drinks, and no matter how fast your hands moved, the orders slowly fell behind. So Eilenna, who had been handling the register and the customers, took the drinks on as well. I really hadn't expected it to get this busy, and I felt bad about it. But what could I do? It was already done.
"Two orders of tteokbokki, ready."
"Thank you. Um, about the Milk Peach..."
"Ah, sorry. One moment!"
I packed the two portions, still warmly simmering, and handed them to the student. The Milk Peach still wasn't out? The flow was supposed to be drink up front, food from me, then out. I asked the customer to bear with me and looked at Eilenna.
A chill—
Eilenna's spirit pressure... it's gone?
"Huuu... huuuuh..."
"Eilenna, Eilenna! Pull yourself together!"
"Huh? Oh? Sorry. Did an order come in?"
The relentless work had knocked the sense clean out of her. She hadn't even noticed an order had come in; she was just staring into space. This wasn't going to work.
I made three Milk Peaches in her place and handed two to the customer.
"Sorry for the wait. Please enjoy!"
"It's fine. Thank you~"
The last cup I gave to Eilenna.
"Eilenna. Drink this while you work. You don't look well."
"Ah, no. That drink—Milk Peach is the problem. I'm clearly exhausted, but the moment I drink it my strength comes back. Then I'm tired again. I drink again. Tired again..."
"Eilenna, look in front of you."
Slowly, but unmistakably, I pointed at the front of our stall. Her head followed my hand.
The scene before us was a worse crowd than the last toast craze. This time the line didn't so much run clean to the main building as crumple into a winding snake all along the street. Proof that not only students, but outsiders, were waiting.
"All rested? Let's get back to what we have to do."
"No!! I don't want to! I want to go back!"
"Ah-ah. Drink it down and buck up."
"Hieek, hieeeek..."
If Eilenna collapsed now, the shop would literally seize up. I force-fed her the Milk Peach she was refusing.
Gulp, gulp—
"Puhhh. W-welcome. How can I help you?"
"Hm. Works like a charm."
Of course I hadn't made Milk Peach with this in mind. By the standards of people in this world, tteokbokki would be plenty spicy. I'd only thought I ought to make a drink that could cut the heat alongside it.
I didn't think the effect would hit this hard.
No—I'd figured that even if the mana density ran high, it'd be about knight-order mess-hall level. Contrary to that, Milk Peach had a considerable kick when it came to shaking off fatigue. It couldn't touch mental exhaustion, so it felt like a last-resort drug, but still.
"Mm, aahh! The tiredness just vanishes. If I didn't have this, I wouldn't have survived finals."
"Maybe the brain likes it because it's sweet? The peach smell is nice, too..."
"Hmm. You think so?"
Students who drank it tossed out a word or two of high praise. Maybe because the ingredients had even thrown up a warning about high mana density, individual differences seemed smaller this time.
Business, honestly. When it failed, the anxiety was enough to drive you mad, and when it succeeded too well, you felt like you'd die from the strain. A spitefully tempting thing that left you unsure what you even wanted.
I wasn't a merchant, but I was still someone in the food trade who cooked, so whether I liked it or not I had to care whether the business rose or fell. Even if this place went under, I still had my restaurant waiting back in Silbaerin. Then the anxiety would disappear, and all that would be left was the pure dopamine of a smash hit.
"Business, I love it, love it, love it!"
"Hi, hieeeek..."
Eilenna, business is fun, right? It had better be. Otherwise this was going to be hard to endure.
Cheering like that, I sold through the food, and before I knew it I'd cleared that long, long line.
"We really waited forever... Boss. Three Milk Peaches and two orders of tteokbokki, please."
"Yes. Thank you!"
Business was so good I wasn't even sure where to cut it off, so I'd made plenty. Even after I packed an order for the last customer, a little was left. I'd eat this myself, bit by bit. Wondering if Eilenna might want some too, I turned toward her.
Twitch, twitch...
But her face had burned itself out to a blank white, and only her pointed ears were trembling. Mm. Yeah. In that state, eating would be hard.
The moment the last customer left, she dropped into a chair. She'd worked hard. When she headed back to Nuardel later, I ought to send her off with a fat bonus.
Maybe I'll rest a bit, too.
The customers were gone, so I took my own tteokbokki and Milk Peach and sat on a folding chair. Rice cakes that had simmered a long while, a glossy scarlet sheen sliding over them. The spicy-sweet scent stabbed at my nose, and just as my tongue went out ahead to meet the sticky sauce before it could drip—
"Hey. Is Kang Jinwoo here?"
"Mmf. Yes?"
Ah, damn it. Right when I was about to eat, I dribbled it.
I got up and looked at the owner of the familiar voice. Ermia Belfast. The academy's principal, whom I hadn't seen since the infirmary. What was this about, all of a sudden? Did she want tteokbokki?
I asked her.
"What brings you here? Did you come for tteokbokki?"
"No. Not that."
If someone came to a food stall and it wasn't to eat, the odds were high it was bad news. A sense of foreboding brushed past me.
"That drink you made. You called it Milk Peach, right?"
"Yes. What about it?"
"Sorry, but I think you're going to have to stop selling it as of today."
"What?"
Hold on. Coming out with this all of a sudden didn't match the contract. When we signed, she'd clearly said I could run it for as long as I wanted, and the contract had various other clauses besides. One of them allowed any food so long as it didn't harm the academy's public morals. Was my drink harming public morals now?
I pressed her, almost accusingly.
"Lady Ermia. Are you saying Milk Peach has harmed public morals?"
"Yeah. Kind of a lot."
"Eh."
"Because of that Milk Peach, the kids' grades got weirdly inflated! One or two would be fine, but it's every student, so stop selling it for now. Please."
"No, what the—"
Grade rigging? What?
It seemed the mana density of Milk Peach, and the effect that came with it, really had been intense. Just as Ermia said. Kind of a lot.