The Herb Warehouse Incident (4)
"Alketo!"
Iren called out to Professor Alketo in a panic, dropping every honorific. He fixed her with a chilling stare.
"Watch your tongue, Iren. Within the Academy, no one but His Majesty the Emperor can wield power over me. Do not treat me like an ordinary professor."
"I'm sorry! But Frey is lying!"
"Then all the more reason we go together."
"Why?"
"Because this is perjury in a major incident that occurred inside the Academy."
"……!"
"As long as the two of you make contradictory claims, one of you is lying. Therefore we will go before His Majesty the Emperor."
"No, we can't! I don't want to!"
Iren shouted as if she were having a fit. I stared at her in surprise.
Her face had gone deathly pale and her whole body was trembling. It looked for all the world as if she were terrified of something.
Of whom? Of His Majesty the Emperor? Why would Iren fear the man famed for his benevolence?
Wait. Shouldn't I be the one panicking right now? I was attending the Academy under a false identity!
If His Majesty ever discovered who I really was…… Aaaaagh! No! Absolutely not! No—even the Emperor couldn't possibly know every single member of every noble house. I wouldn't be found out.
"Iren. Whether you like it or not, this is unavoidable."
"Damn it! Just take me alone! Leave Frey here!"
"As I already said, that is impossible."
"Please!"
"There will be no change of mind. Frey. Do you consent?"
"Don't you dare agree!"
Iren glared at me with bloodshot eyes. But whether I consented or not, the outcome would be the same.
I let out a sigh and nodded.
"I consent."
"Frey!"
"Thank you for making this easy. Guards."
"Yes, Department Head!"
"When Professor Colton wakes, tell him to advance the Academy's second-half budget for the time being. The herb warehouse must be restocked as quickly as possible. The Imperial Family will replenish whatever is missing anyway."
"Understood!"
"You two, come."
Professor Alketo's hand, gripping both of us, began to glow. At the same moment the imperial seal hanging at Iren's chest flared with light.
Whoosh!
I closed my eyes and opened them again to find a colossal door waiting for us. Even though it was an interior door rather than one leading outside a mansion, it was large enough for twenty people to walk through abreast.
While I stared blankly at it, Professor Alketo spoke.
"Only two people among all the citizens of the Empire are permitted to teleport here. Anyone else who attempts it will suffer mana runaway the moment they lock onto the coordinates, and they will die vomiting blood from all seven orifices."
"……Who is the other person?"
"The head of your house."
Duke Katram, then. I had unexpectedly learned one of the Empire's secrets.
……I seemed to keep stumbling into imperial secrets while living with Iren as well. Probably just my imagination.
More importantly, if Professor Alketo's explanation was correct, this place was—
"Pay your respects. You stand before the audience chamber of His Great Majesty the Emperor."
I immediately prostrated myself fully. Iren bit her lip and glared straight ahead.
"Iren. Show proper respect."
"You're standing too."
Now that we were outside the Academy, Iren openly addressed Professor Alketo as "you." Alketo answered flatly.
"From the moment I arrive here I am both guide and His Majesty's personal mage. Lowering my head or restricting my gaze is not permitted."
"You talk a good game. Listen carefully. The two of us are never going in together. Over my dead body."
"You have no right to decide that."
"Then at least make the request. Ask His Majesty inside."
"Do not get your hopes up."
Professor Alketo fixed his eyes on the doors of the audience chamber. Apparently an artifact that allowed conversation with His Majesty was built into them.
After staring at the artifact in silence for a moment, Alketo's eyes widened slightly. He looked at Iren.
"His Majesty has granted permission."
"……Just like that?"
"Yes. Is that not what you wanted?"
"Haaa. Frey."
"Yes?"
"You probably won't need to, but just in case—cover your ears."
"While I'm prostrating?"
To cover my ears in this position I'd have to smash my face into the floor. But Iren's tone was absolute.
"Cover them no matter what. Understood?"
"Understood……"
"I'm going."
"I will open the doors. Frey, you will not move from that spot until I return."
"Yes."
The enormous doors of the audience chamber began to open without a sound. I was impressed that such a ridiculously large door could move without the slightest friction, but what came next was even more impressive.
When the doors opened, what appeared was not the Emperor's audience chamber but a swirling gate. The true audience chamber was not beyond this door at all; it was hidden in another space entirely.
Fitting for the audience chamber of a magic empire, I supposed. Or simply a waste of money.
If successive generations of the Imperial Family had not possessed exceptional magical talent, no one would ever have attempted something this insane.
Iren bit her lip as she stood before the gate. She clearly hated the idea of an audience with His Majesty. Yet she forced herself forward with a face that had gone even paler.
Professor Alketo and Iren vanished beyond the gate. The instant they disappeared the gate itself vanished, leaving only a flat wall. Where on earth was the audience chamber……?
And what exactly was she going to do once she met His Majesty? I needed to prepare countermeasures.
Still, it would take a little while, so I decided to think it through carefully. That was when the gate reactivated.
With a low hum, only Professor Alketo returned. Still prostrate, I asked,
"Professor? What happened to Her Highness?"
"His Majesty said he wished to speak with her alone."
"……If she is to be punished, what sort of punishment would it be?"
"That is for His Majesty to decide. I cannot say."
"I see."
"Since the two of us are here, I would like to ask. Frey Katram. Which of you is lying?"
"Her Highness the Third Princess."
"An immediate answer."
"Because it's the truth."
"Yet to my ears it sounds as though you are the one lying."
My evaluation of Professor Alketo solidified in that moment.
A pretentious quack.
"Why do you say that?"
"I am thoroughly familiar with House Katram. Direct line, collateral branches, even the more distant bloodlines. Yet you appeared out of nowhere."
"Is that so?"
"Meaning you are so distant a relative that one might doubt whether you can even be called a collateral of Katram."
Not distant—completely unrelated, actually.
"Yet the magical ability you display does not match that status."
"In what way?"
"The Mana Blockage Circuit laid throughout the herb warehouse. Since the Academy was founded, only one person has ever been able to destroy it."
I pricked up my ears. Another imperial secret was about to spill out unbidden.
"That person was……?"
"Yes. His Great Majesty the First Emperor of the Empire, Lionheart Rotnil von Valencia. In the long history of the Empire, no one else has ever shattered a Mana Blockage Circuit. And today two such people appeared."
"……"
Had I just done something far more enormous than I realized?
"The herb warehouse is essentially a bomb packed with substances that react to magic. That is why it is so strictly managed that no one may use magic there. Even I cannot cast a single spell inside it. Do you understand what that means?"
"Not really?"
"It means Her Highness the Third Princess has suddenly risen as a leading candidate for Crown Princess."
"I feel as though far too many steps of the explanation were skipped."
How on earth did the conversation jump there?
"The Valencia Empire is a magic empire. The ability to wield powerful magic means one possesses the makings of a ruler who can lead a mighty nation. An emperor must have a profound understanding of magic. Without it, the Empire itself could collapse."
"Are you saying that simply because her magical aptitude is similar to the First Emperor's, Her Highness can become a Crown Princess candidate? Politics is not conducted by magic alone, and the other princes and princesses surely possess ample magical talent as well."
"No. In this Empire, outstanding magical ability is the only way to rule the realm auspiciously."
The phrasing was strange. Magical ability alone was the method?
"In that situation, Iren demonstrated that someone of equal aptitude stands on her side. Moreover, you are a collateral of a collateral with only the faintest connection to House Katram. You gain the Katram name while minimizing their interference—an advantage."
"And that is why she suddenly shot up the list of Crown Princess candidates?"
"Precisely."
Even after hearing it, the logic remained opaque. What connection was there between magical prowess and politics? Of course it was good to understand magic in a magic empire. But no one could be unaware that understanding magic and actually casting it were entirely different domains.
Besides, there was a fatal flaw.
I was not a collateral of House Katram at all; I was a commoner by birth. The reason Professor Alketo had been unable to place me was precisely because I shared no blood with the Katrams.
More importantly—
"So what is your proof that I am lying?"
"Because you are not of imperial birth. In the Valencia Empire, magical ability that surpasses those of imperial blood simply cannot appear."
"What are you talking about? Have you forgotten that I demonstrated a more refined version?"
"It is always easier for the spectator to offer advice than for the player sitting at the chessboard."
In other words, he claimed I had merely observed Iren's magic objectively and refined it on my own.
"If Iren were to attempt it again, she would cast far more delicately than you."
"I see. Let's say that's true."
"Therefore speak the truth before His Majesty. Unless you wish to be executed for the crime of insulting the Imperial Family."
The moment Alketo finished speaking, the doors of the audience chamber glowed and the gate activated.
Even though it should have been impossible, I thought I heard Iren's footsteps beyond the gate. Thrust! Iren's hand emerged first through the gate.
Huh? Her hand first? Normally feet came first, didn't they?
"Fr…ey……"
Then Iren appeared with a haggard face and collapsed forward.
"Princess Iren!"
I sprang up and caught her. The condition of the Iren I held was anything but ordinary.
"Haa, haa……"
She was panting hard, her face so white it had gone blue. Whether her body was failing or she was simply terrified of something, she was trembling so violently it was alarming.
"Your Highness! Iren! Stay with me!"
"What in the world…… Your Majesty. I am going in."
Alketo hurriedly vanished beyond the gate. Immediately afterward something unbelievable happened with Iren.
"Hic, Frey… sob sob…… Frey……"
She began to cry, endlessly calling my name. Iren shedding tears—I had never even imagined it in a dream.
"Iren! What on earth happened?! What did they do to you in there?!"
"Uuuugh. Hic, hic, hic—. Ulp."
"Ulp?"
"Uweeeek."
Still crying, Iren vomited all over me.