A Strange Feeling (3)
The Academy had returned to normal.
Every last golem had been blown apart, and the professors watching from the sidelines broke into applause. The students cheered—though more than a few also voiced their regret that the golems had been destroyed so early.
“Hah… hah… I’m wiped.”
Some, like Irina, collapsed flat on the ground in exhaustion. Others were a different story entirely.
“More! I wanted to smash even more of those rock piles!”
That one was roaring at the top of his lungs while blood poured freely from his head. I made a mental note to steer clear of him from now on.
“This might actually be worth a paper. A weakness in the circuit like that… or maybe not. Hard to use in real combat, don’t you think?”
There was even a magic-track student carefully analyzing the magic circle Cal had woven. Christine, I think her name was?
The golems were gone, but the chaos remained. Traces of the desperate resistance put up to destroy them still scarred the grounds. Academy students were elites one and all—attacks fired or swung by people like that were never going to be ordinary. The floor had been torn up; the outer walls were mottled with burns and frost. The students seemed to notice it too, eyes darting uneasily this way and that.
That was when it happened.
“E-everyone? Wh-why are you all acting like that?”
“Ah, Professor Violet. It’s just… the Academy looks pretty badly damaged.”
“Damaged? Hmm. No, it isn’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Th-there isn’t so much as a single hair’s worth of damage. Ahaha. W-were you really worrying about something like that?”
Professor Violet giggled. For someone who normally trembled even in front of her own students, the reaction was completely out of character. I don’t think I’d ever seen her laugh like that before either.
“Th-the Academy isn’t that soft, you know? Look.”
She swept her staff through the air. At once, violet powder rose from the parts of the Academy grounds that had looked ruined.
“Wh-what’s that?”
“Did the professor cast an illusion?”
Amazingly, every spot the violet powder touched became perfectly clean. Yet it didn’t feel restored so much as stripped bare. As a school for nobles, even the Academy’s floors were normally decorated with extravagant flair. The cleaned areas, though, were smooth and blank as a white canvas.
Iren propped her chin on her hand, looking intrigued. So she’d noticed too.
“I always wondered how everything was fixed by the next day no matter how badly it got wrecked. So this was the secret.”
“You figured it out?”
“You did too, didn’t you? That wasn’t her casting an illusion. She was dispelling one.”
Iren was right. Professor Violet had undone the illusion magic.
That smooth surface was adamantium—the so-called strongest magical metal. With special mana treatment, it could shrug off even high-tier spells without a single scratch. An absurdly expensive material.
Just to be sure, I ran my hand over a building that hadn’t been “damaged.”
Wow. How had I never noticed until now?
“The entire Academy—buildings, floors, everything—is adamantium?”
“I only just realized it myself. This is genuinely incredible.”
Exactly. The Academy’s true form was nothing more than solid, undecorated adamantium structures and grounds. Every lavish ornament our eyes had been taking in was pure illusion magic.
Even I, who considered myself well-versed in illusion magic, had been completely oblivious until Professor Violet dispelled it. Truly befitting the highest educational institution of a magic empire… or just a colossal waste of manpower.
No—definitely a waste of manpower.
Earlier the ground itself had been overturned. That, too, had been nothing but illusion. Imbuing every single magic particle with mass and refining it so finely that no one noticed… what country could even pull something like that off? Until this moment I had never dreamed even the Empire was capable of such a stunt.
Professor Violet kept giggling at the students’ dumbfounded faces.
“A-as you can see, nothing’s damaged at all, so p-please don’t worry. C-come on, first-years—first period is Illusion Magic, right? L-let’s head inside.”
Beaming, she started toward the Academy building. The first-years exchanged glances, then swarmed after her. After witnessing something like that, of course they’d be eager for the lecture.
Iren’s eyes were sparkling too. I caught her by the shoulder and stopped her.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Iren. I won the bet, didn’t I?”
“Ah.”
She looked away. I just kept smiling and shifted my head to stay in her line of sight no matter which way she turned.
“My first win.”
“Y-yeah. Congratulations. Recognizing Cal’s potential and solving everything with nothing but advice… that’s impressive.”
“You haven’t forgotten the wager’s prize, have you?”
“Haa… only talking to you for a whole week, right?”
“Yes.”
Something inside me felt strangely light and clear. I had no idea why.
Then she looked at me with a mischievous glint. What was that about?
“You’re full of surprises, Frey.”
“About what?”
“Telling me not to talk to anyone but you for a week. I never knew you were that possessive.”
“……?”
My mind went blank at her words. Possessive? Me? Toward Iren? Not even the young lady—toward Iren?
Before I knew it—
“Ha! Don’t be ridiculous!”
I raised my voice.
“Why? Am I wrong?”
“Absolutely not! This was purely a punishment I proposed just to mess with you!”
“For something like that, the timing was awfully perfect.”
“Timing?”
“Right after I told Cal he could relax around me, you suggested it. Were you jealous?”
“Never! Ha! You’re full of yourself, Iren! Just because you’re a princess doesn’t mean you get to act so high and mighty!”
“Is that so? Well, look forward to the week. I’ll make sure you fall hard.”
“You’re the one who’s going to be in real trouble, Iren. The promise is valid even outside the Academy.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll keep it no matter what.”
And so began the week in which Iren could speak only to me.
Day one. Today itself.
Everyone in the classroom—even Professor Violet, who was supposed to be teaching—stared fixedly at Iren and me. The reason was simple: a brightly smiling Iren was looking at me instead of the blackboard.
As the Empire’s Third Princess, Iren naturally drew a lot of attention even during lectures. The fact that she sat in the back by the window made no difference whatsoever.
Professor Violet, who despite being the instructor kept staring at Iren instead of doing her job, carefully asked:
“Um, Miss Iren? Why are you looking at Frey right now?”
Iren just kept smiling and cleanly ignored her. Professor Violet slumped into her seat in shock.
“Th-the princess is finally starting to throw her weight around. I-I’m going to get demoted to assistant professor, then never get research funding, and die a miserable mage. Eeeek!”
“Professor, it’s a misunderstanding.”
In the end I had no choice but to speak up. Once I explained how Iren had ended up like this, Professor Violet looked at me with a peculiar expression.
“F-Frey.”
“Yes?”
“S-so you had that side to you.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, it’s absolutely not that.”
“H-how do you know what I was thinking?”
“Anyway, it’s not. Understood?”
After emphasizing the point, I also warned the classmates who were somehow smiling at me.
“It’s not whatever you’re all thinking.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Don’t get any weird ideas, you bastards.”
“Got it, Young Master Katram (planned escape).”
“Don’t stick weird tags on the end of that!”
I deliberately maintained a high-handed attitude at the Academy. It was the only way to keep anyone from discovering that I wasn’t actually a branch member of House Katram but its head butler.
Anyway, it seemed I was collecting some very strange misunderstandings. Iren was watching me with a thoroughly pleased look.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Isn’t everyone around us proving my point?”
“Proof means judging a hypothesis with perfect evidence. What you’re saying is just nonsense.”
“Oh dear, oh dear. Frey doesn’t understand people’s hearts at all, does he?”
“I understand them well enough.”
“Hmm. Doesn’t seem like it.”
“L-love quarrels aren’t allowed in the classroom!”
“I already told you it’s not that!”
In the end the Illusion Magic lecture fizzled out completely. The students, however, seemed far more interested in the spectacle Iren and I were putting on than in any actual class.
The moment break began I left the classroom. Immediately the romance-obsessed idiots started chasing after me.
Leading the pack was Cal. That little bastard! I do him a favor and this is how he repays me?!
“Young Master Katram! When did things progress this far with Her Highness?! Have you given up on Lady Katram? Or did you trade up to the higher-ranked princess?!”
“Shut your mouth before I kill you!”
“I’m the second son of Count Raufen! I have a duty to know!”
Count Raufen wasn’t even a central noble and held no particular office—what the hell was this nonsense?
Another one had latched on behind him.
Aaron Karim. Last time I’d bet on him winning and lost my wager with Iren because of it. Now he was shouting:
“H-how should I go about making progress?!”
Progress? Who was he even dating right now? Don’t tell me he was actually going out with Miss Rotnil?
“How the hell would I know something like that?!”
“But Young Master! Earlier in the classroom!”
“In the classroom?”
“Her Highness was only looking at you, and you were grinning from ear to ear!”
I stopped dead in my tracks. The ones following me bounced right off the magic barrier I’d thrown up and went flying backward.
Grinning? What kind of bullshit was that? I—
Suddenly my face was reflected in the window beside me.
There I was, wearing a faint, thoroughly satisfied smile.