What Do You Mean, Grade Rigging? (2)
What, exactly, are public morals?
Beautiful, wholesome customs. A virtuous social climate.
And what, then, counts as beautiful and wholesome?
Chase that question down far enough, keep hanging the logic on one peg after another, and you eventually run into a single fact. Words that sound that noble are nothing but whatever you want them to be—an earring if you hang them on an ear, a nose ring if you hang them on a nose.
Even so. This was too much.
They wanted me to stop selling a drink I had already finished making, a drink that had been on sale for a full week?
When it was this popular?
"No— hold on. Is the problem really that serious? Their grades just went up a little this semester, didn't they?"
"If it were only that, I would have let it slide. But it's a little different. You can't look at this as a simple exam score. You have to look at it as whether or not they can handle a sword."
"A sword? A sword?"
We were talking about doping, and suddenly there was a sword in the conversation.
I looked at Ermia, ready to hear her out.
"The students whose grades were inflated are all from the College of Magic's combat track. The sort who will become adventurers later, or war mages."
"So that's why you said a sword. Because it's dangerous."
"Exactly. The moment they graduate from the Academy, they walk straight onto those fields. They need an exact grasp of their own mana control and the power of their spells. Only then do they act within their limits, and only then do they stay alive."
"And because of the Milk Peach I made..."
"Their spell power has climbed far beyond their control, and in the long run that is not good. Because in the end, it is only a temporary buff."
Hmm. I had never once thought of it from that angle.
Finals were already over, but as long as I kept selling Milk Peach, the buff would hold. Students who could no longer get by without it would grow used to that inflated strength, and then step onto a real battlefield with the buff gone...
Yeah. That was definitely dangerous.
A persuasive reason. A reasonable one.
Ah... even so, it stung a little.
"My head accepts it. My mouth doesn't. My mouth."
"What do you mean, your mouth doesn't accept it?"
"This Milk Peach is genuinely delicious."
A shocking flavor, born where my own knowledge met the power of the status window. The drink had surpassed even the flavor of the original, and simply discontinuing it felt like far too much of a waste.
I poured a glass of Milk Peach and held it out to Ermia.
"Here. Try this. Then you'll understand what I mean."
"The toast was good, so this probably isn't bad either... Thanks, anyway."
"Yes, yes. I'll pour you more if you want."
"Nn— haa. The scent is quite strong. Sweet."
Ermia took the Milk Peach in her dainty hands.
A pale pink, like cherry blossoms blooming in spring. A peach fragrance so thick that you could close your eyes and still swear you saw the color. She leaned her face into the glass and sniffed.
Anyone sensitive to scent would understand. A truly good aroma is one you want to breathe until your lungs are full and you physically cannot take in any more.
Ermia drew the fragrance in until her lung capacity hit its limit. In time with her breathing, her small rib cage rose and fell, rose and fell.
"Are you drinking it through your nose? Go on, try it."
"Ugh. Fine."
A good smell was understandable, but it was better drunk before the chill faded. At my urging, Ermia swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
Then, slowly, she brought the glass to her lips.
At first she only sipped, testing the flavor. But the attempt to take its measure was itself the trap. The moment her tongue touched it, a softness she could not refuse had already slipped in.
The angle of the glass in Ermia's hand climbed higher and higher, and with it grew the amount of Milk Peach she swallowed in a single gulp. A drop escaped the corner of her small mouth and trickled down. Like someone who had just finished a marathon and gone half-mad with thirst, she drank without pause, hard enough that the gulping carried all the way around us.
Watching her drink the Milk Peach as if she were drunk on something...
I started wanting a glass myself.
A dense peach aroma with no shape, and yet unmistakably there. And the thing that gave that richness wings: the sixth taste, fat. The milk's milkfat acted on the flavor of fat known as oleogustus, laying a soft, abundant sensation across the taste buds.
And then... richness and milkfat together, a balance that could easily have tipped toward something heavy. The fructose's own natural, fresh sweetness met that balance with uncanny precision.
Grrr. I can't hold back.
Ermia was putting the Milk Peach away with such relish that the spirit of it got to me, and I poured myself a cold glass.
"Puh— pwaah!! What? Wh-where did it all go... Oh? Thanks. You were waiting to give me the next glass!"
"No, wait—"
I didn't even get the denial out of my mouth.
Ermia raised her mana and snatched the Milk Peach right out of my hand.
Ah. That was the one I was going to drink...
And without a shred of mercy, she downed that glass in a single shot as well.
Damn it. What can you do once it's already gone?
I let the past be the past and asked Ermia what she thought.
"So? How is it? You understand why I'm reluctant now, right?"
"Do grades even matter that much? If the students could drink something like this every single day, they could close their eyes content with that alone..."
"H-hey. Snap out of it."
"Hah— what am I even saying."
Eyes glazed, Ermia had very nearly said something a headmaster must never say. Proof enough of just how hard the drink had hit.
"Ahem. Ahem! For now... I'll watch a little longer. The regulations were ambiguous, and it is largely our fault for being lax about inspections for drugs and buff-based cheating."
"Oh? So I can keep selling it?"
"Yes. If we do end up having no choice but to halt sales, I'll compensate you for the lost revenue, and I won't be stingy about it. I meant to do that anyway."
"Heh. As expected. Normalization is Ermia."
Even I, the one who had made it, had never imagined Milk Peach would lead to this. Looked at that way, the system was rather unhelpful. It wasn't as if it hammered recipes and cooking skills into my body the way somebody's personal mess cook might. All it did was provide the ingredients.
I handled the cooking myself from the first step to the last, and yet I had no way of knowing what the finished product actually did.
Still, I was glad we seemed to have gotten past the crisis that had dropped on us out of nowhere.
"It is a little unfair, though. We check thoroughly for cheating before magical duels... How on earth did this slip through?"
"Well, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it on purpose. It just sort of happened."
"No. I understand. The apple you showed me in the infirmary was the same. It must be a domain that's difficult for you to control, like holy power."
Mm... I wasn't sure it went quite that far.
If she was willing to think of it that way on her own, I saw no particular need to correct her.
"Ah, could I have just ten glasses? No. Could you simply fill this basin to the brim with Milk Peach?"
Ermia waved a hand through the empty air in front of the counter.
And then, astonishingly, a basin the size of the iron griddle I was using took shape. A transparent basin, frozen solid.
Fill that, and it really would be about ten glasses' worth.
What was she planning to do with that much? Research, maybe?
"Hah. I can give it to you, but are you going to study it? An archmage after all."
"No? I'm going to drink it."
"Huh."
"What? I'm allowed to drink it. Two glasses just now and my body feels incredible. Like I've gotten ten years younger."
Ten years younger than that appearance, and she'd be kindergarten age.
For a moment I was desperately curious about Ermia's age, but I didn't say it out loud. Because I remembered Eilenna, who had smashed a peach to pieces with her bare hands.
As Ermia had asked, I filled the ice basin to the brim with Milk Peach. Which also finished off the remaining stock.
"Uh... yes. Here you go. Brush your teeth properly. You'll get cavities."
"Ha. You're probably the only person who would say that to me. Here. Payment for the goods."
"Oh. Generous of you. Thank you."
"Well then... I'll be off. Sorry for dropping in so suddenly."
Ermia rose into the air and departed as abruptly as she had appeared.
She was already out of sight, she moved so fast—and not a single drop of the drink spilled. Incredible.
"It's definitely an insanely delicious drink, but what is this disappointment?"
"Hm? What are you disappointed about?"
"If that human archmage had just shut it down, things would have been so much easier..."
Eilenna, who had been quietly watching the conversation from the side, finally put a word in.
Looking at her now, her ears had drooped a little. She really was disappointed. I would have to arrange a special day off for her soon.
"Then let's wrap up and head out ourselves. Nice that we cleared the stock, too."
"Off— off work? Yahoo!"
Life returned to Eilenna's dead eyes. And as if the exhaustion had been a lie, she finished the closing work in a flash.
Even so, working right beside her, I knew. Objectively and subjectively, the workload right now really was brutal.
After we clocked out, I made summer dishes with tomatoes for dinner, the first time in a while. Things we had often eaten in Nuardel. I hoped they would put some strength back into Eilenna.
"Mmm...! I like it. Fresh and bright. It tastes even better because it's been so long."
"I'm glad."
A successful dinner, and then the next day.
It could feel like a hamster wheel, spinning in place, but we do not meet yesterday. We meet tomorrow. So even if the walk to work looked the same as always, today was, without question, a day that had grown past the past.
"Haa... Today's going to be just as hard, isn't it...?"
"Cheer up, Lady Eilenna. Greet a self who is stronger than yesterday."
"What's with that way of talking. It's weird."
But today felt a little different.
I sensed it starting with Eilenna's reply. The Eilenna I knew would gently humor me no matter what nonsense I spouted...
And that was not the only thing out of the ordinary.
"Choo— chooo... I-it's summer, s-so why is it this c-cold...?"
Even on a morning commute, the street was already blazing under a fierce sun. And on that street, a student had a thick fur cloak thrown over them and was chattering their teeth from the cold.
"Ha, damn it. Why is the wind blowing like this today? My hair's completely ruined."
I couldn't feel so much as a breeze, but there was a student whose hair streamed wildly, already a complete mess, to a suspicious degree.
Eilenna and I forgot the annoyance of the commute and stared. Eilenna, especially, was looking at them with a rather grave expression.
"J-Jinwoo. Those kids— their mana volume is a little strange?"
"Sorry? Even if you say that, I can't really..."
"How do I put it. It's as strange as an elf diligently learning to cook and becoming a famous chef."
"Whoa, their mana is at that level? A future archmage?"
The comparison clicked into place at once. Eilenna's spot-on analogy raised my guard a notch.
If it had been a phenomenon caused by spirits, I would have seen it with my own eyes. But perhaps because it was elemental magic rather than spirit arts... all I could see was one kid shivering and another with an incredible hairstyle.
We were picking our way carefully toward the stall when—
"Kyaaaaa!!!"
"Water! Isn't there anyone who can use water magic?!"
"R-run!!!"
What the fuck.
The opposite side of the street. From the direction of the Academy's main building, people came pelting toward us in a panic.
No. Not coming. Fleeing.
It wasn't terrorism, or a fight, or a magic demonstration. A boy wearing a perfectly proper Academy uniform—unmistakably a male student of Arcadia. He didn't know what to do with his hands, and he aimed them at the sky.
And from those hands, fireballs the size of carriages launched one after another.
"Aaaah! What is this!! What's happening to me!"
Despite the bright morning sun, the fireballs climbed grandly into the air and burst. And that was not even the end of the spectacle. Centered on the student who had become a human firework, a storm of flame slowly began to whirl.
"Shit, I'm sorry!!"
A gorgeous fire show, unfolding in the middle of the street not far from the Academy's main building.
Eilenna spoke without managing to close her mouth.
"It's a mana rampage! For mana to surge that violently, the amount he's built up must be considerable..."
"There's rampage too, not just exhaustion?"
"Yeah. When someone's mana grows beyond what they can handle, they lose control and it ignites on its own. That student... is his specialty flame magic? It's manifesting as fire."
"No. That's insane."
Even as Eilenna and I talked while backing away, the boy kept growing the flames. From the screams that flicked past, he couldn't handle it himself either...
Rampage was exactly the right word.
But then, what had he been doing until it piled up like that? The phrasing was a little odd, but couldn't he just vent the accumulated mana on a regular schedule?
"Why did he let the mana build up? He could just use it as it comes!"
"He's not an idiot— maybe he couldn't?! If mana you've never experienced suddenly piles up, this can absolutely happen— kyaah!"
The flame storm scrambled the air currents around us. Hot wind slammed in from every direction, fierce enough to leave my head spinning. I grabbed Eilenna's hand and fell back.
The heat was like standing in front of a furnace. There was no going forward, and no reason to. A disaster that size had just broken out— who the hell cared about the stall? Staying alive came first.
We were running outward with the fleeing crowd when a single possibility flashed through my head.
The inflated grades of the College of Magic's combat-track students. The strange students I had seen on the way— one cold only to himself, one wrapped in a wind only he could feel. A mana rampage born of a sudden, massive buildup of mana.
Could this be...
Surely not. Right?
Come on. Kids wouldn't end up like this over something that small.
Yeah. It wouldn't be that.
...It had better not be.