Ride My Steed, Knightly (2)
The moment the Imperial Palace's positive response came through, the Academy launched work on the commercial district.
I'd expected Kirlin to drag her feet again — she'd hesitated when I first floated the idea — but this time she was surprisingly enthusiastic.
"Because the Head of the National Security Office said something nice for the first time."
Kirlin clutched the Second Princess's handwritten reply, her dark complexion flushed as she chattered away, practically bouncing.
"This has never happened once since I became Principal. I always get chewed out in writing, and one time they even summoned me all the way to the Imperial Palace. I was so scared I actually peed a little. Ah, that's a secret!"
She hurriedly pressed a finger to her lips.
"Anyway, this is an opportunity. I'm going to build the best Academy commercial district there is, so that if the Head of the National Security Office ever comes for a site inspection, she'll be satisfied."
"That's great. Glad it worked out."
"This is all thanks to you."
Suddenly Kirlin seized my hand.
"Ever since you came, everything's changed, and I even got praised by the Head of the National Security Office. So from now on, stay by my side and… ah?!"
She cut herself off, startled, and flung my hand away as if it had burned her.
"I got too excited… sorry."
"Seeing you in such a good mood makes me feel good too."
"R-right…"
Kirlin clenched and unclenched the hand that had held mine, mumbling something under her breath, then finally hung her head. Cute.
The first round of shops we planned to bring in were a restaurant, a bakery, a barbershop, a general store, and a bathhouse. On top of those, I proposed including a famous, high-end dessert café from the capital — the very place that made the cream pie I'd wolfed down by myself after hurriedly wrapping up a meeting with Knightly.
You might think it overlapped with the bakery, but this world ran on a medieval fantasy setting. The bread from the bakery wasn't the kind from my previous life; it was a staple food eaten in place of rice, which made it a bit unsuitable to treat as a snack.
And looking at our student body, half of them were girls. Girls this age considered hanging out at a café — sipping drinks over sweet desserts and chatting — one of their main daily pastimes. And it wasn't just the girls. What boy doesn't like sweets?
The faculty and staff were in the same boat. With nowhere to have a casual conversation, they ended up loitering in department offices or the shady smoking area behind the main building every single day. A dessert café had to be brought in, if only for the welfare of everyone living at the Academy.
And honestly, I wanted to be able to eat those desserts easily myself. Asking Olicia to go into the city every time was a bit much.
On top of that, I presented one more proposal to the Principal and Ismera.
"You're suggesting we create a Theory Department training site in the commercial district?"
Ismera asked back, straining to keep her expression under control.
"I heard the Theory Department has a class specialized in accounting and commerce. We'd bring those kids in and have them do practical training. Instead of just studying from books, they'd learn on the actual job."
Our Academy was the Special Operations Academy. In crude terms, a spy school. But we didn't raise every student to be a spy doing spy work. It was simply an institution that trained the all-purpose civil servants the Empire wanted, which was why it included a Combat Department — a specialized curriculum other ordinary academies didn't have.
Accordingly, next year's graduates wouldn't all become Black Agents. Some would go into ordinary civil service, and others would be dispatched here and there as needed. Naturally, that included kids who'd go to the Imperial Palace's Ministry of Finance, or serve as accounting and disbursement officers at major institutions. And though it was genuinely rare, there would be kids who went into the private sector instead of civil service, so they needed to accumulate diverse experience and learn practical skills — not just combat and theory.
Even those who became Black Agents didn't exclusively do assassinations and the like. They also carried out missions like undercover employment and embezzlement, so they needed at least a baseline of knowledge.
If we produced well-rounded students like this, the Second Princess would be satisfied, and the current system — with me as professor and Kirlin as Principal — would hold. And since maintaining the current system was the best outcome for both me and Linus, that was why I was going out of my way to meddle even in another department's affairs.
Ismera opened her mouth with a thoroughly fake smile.
"As expected of the Combat Chief Professor, that's certainly a bold and creative idea." What is this ignorant oaf doing, sticking his nose into another department's business?
"Well, I suppose my constitution is different from the more sedentary Theory Department." You stuck-up, close-minded hag. I'm giving you a free idea here.
"I'll discuss the matter positively with our department's professors." Absolutely not. Are you insane? You want to turn students into shopkeepers?
And as for Kirlin, who'd been sitting quietly listening between us —
"That sounds like a really good idea! Let's include it!"
"Eh? No, that's… hoho…" That darkie?!
At Kirlin's unexpected reaction, Ismera hurriedly scrambled to get her face back under control.
"Principal." This ignorant thing. "Of course I also believe Professor Dian's words are a hundred, a thousand times correct. However, various discussions are needed, so perhaps we might proceed with some leeway?" We're absolutely opposed.
"By discussion, you mean the Imperial Palace's permission?" Would you look at that?
When I cut in, Ismera turned to me with a gentle crinkle of her eyes.
"If necessary." Let's not make this bigger than it needs to be, hmm?
"No need to worry about that. They already approved the commercial district — surely they wouldn't oppose this?" Still haven't grasped the situation? "Then let's write a letter and send it for now. After all, the Theory Chief Professor has already agreed." If you keep this up, I'll drag your name into it and run it up to the Imperial Palace.
At that, Ismera said nothing and pressed her lips shut. Sneaky elf.
"This is something we can do at the Academy's discretion without even needing to tell the Imperial Palace." Let's just play nice. "No need to go stirring up the Palace over nothing." If you keep opposing, I'll submit a formal proposal to the Imperial Palace without mercy. With your name on it.
"Now that I hear it, Combat Chief Professor Dian's words feel entirely reasonable." Haa, this is fucking awful…
With Kirlin's enthusiastic approval and Ismera's reluctant agreement, this passed as well.
Now it was a matter of where to build the commercial district, and I already had that figured out too. Roughly midway between the center, where the main administrative buildings like the main hall were clustered, and the south, where the dormitories and faculty residences stood, two four-story buildings of unclear purpose faced each other across a road. They also connected to the western main gate, so accessibility was excellent — setting up the commercial district there would be ideal.
Fortunately, Ismera didn't even bother with her usual roundabout sniping on this point.
Bolstered by the Imperial Palace's positive response and the Principal's approval, the Academy administration office swiftly sought out interior contractors, signed the contracts, and conducted site visits with shop owners from the city. Occupancy was confirmed for nearly every shop we wanted. Construction began that very day.
The sight of wagons loaded with interior materials and laborers filing in one after another was truly a spectacle.
"Hey, Dian."
I was standing with my arms crossed, watching the scene, when a gravelly voice called up to me from below. Looking down, I found Kazadar, the dwarf Combat Equipment Professor, staring up at me.
"Shouldn't you be in class? What are you doing here?"
"Damn it, I can't concentrate for the life of me."
Kazadar spread his ten thick fingers. Every last one of them was bruised blue at the tip.
"What's that? Did you dig a tunnel with your bare hands?"
"Got distracted during a practical demonstration and smashed 'em with the hammer one after another. Of all things, that site is visible right out the workshop window."
He grumbled, jabbing a finger at the construction site in full swing.
"Human construction techniques are so primitive it drives me insane. You can't do it the way they're doing it now. And the bathhouse in particular needs meticulous work!"
"So what should they be doing?"
"That's what I wanted to ask. Can I make one request?"
I knew what this dwarf was about to say before he even said it.
"You want me to let you join the construction, don't you?"
"What?! How did you know?!"
"What's a dwarf going to say when he's licking his lips and fidgeting with his hammer, if not that?"
"You're a sharp one, aren't you!"
An Academy professor popping in and out of a construction site whenever he had free time… In my previous life that would've been a scandal, but if the professor in question was a dwarf, the story changed completely. Dwarves were a race fundamentally skilled in mining, construction, design, and crafting. If Kazadar were put on that site, he could dramatically shorten the construction period.
That said, he couldn't skip classes — but if he only went during free periods, it was something I could authorize within my own authority without even reporting to the Principal. No reason to refuse.
"Alright. Let's do that. Only during free periods, though."
"Thanks, Dian! I was itching so bad I thought I'd die!"
A delighted Kazadar dashed toward the construction site on his short legs.
The rumor that a commercial district was being built at the Academy spread in an instant. A restaurant, a general store, a bathhouse, a barbershop, and so on — and even that a branch of a famous dessert café from the city was coming in. And that all of this was thanks to Combat Chief Professor Dian, who had "proposed to the Imperial Palace a project that had nothing whatsoever to do with the curriculum and only drained the budget, risking possible dismissal, all for the students' welfare."
Until now, people had either used the low-quality commissary run by salaried Academy staff, or else had to take a carriage all the way into the city. And even that was difficult for students, who couldn't come and go freely — so a commercial district that included a dessert café? This was a more shocking, more welcome upheaval than Dian's overhaul of the combat curriculum, and a noteworthy achievement besides. Even the students who'd been complaining that combat class had gotten brutal had no choice but to acknowledge it this time.
Because of this, Dian's popularity soared sky-high among the students — no, among everyone, including professors and staff.
The truth was, this was something the Academy could have just carried out on its own, and the only reason they'd bothered informing the Imperial Palace was as a kind of PR — a "look how hard we're working on this and that." It absolutely wasn't as if Dian had gone and struck some noble, self-sacrificing bargain. The rumor had just gone around and around, getting more distorted with every retelling. But there was no way ordinary students would know that, and anyway, if it hadn't been for Dian the commercial district never would have happened, so in the end it really was thanks to him.
"I like Professor Dian so much."
"He's handsome, he plays along with jokes, and he's so kind. How can someone like that even exist?"
Students whose fondness for Dian had reached its peak gathered whenever they had a spare moment to talk about him. The number of students who loitered around hoping to run into Professor Dian when he patrolled campus with a wooden sword slung over his shoulder also grew. There were even more and more students gathering in twos and threes after hours to practice separately at the training grounds, hoping to catch his eye.
And along with that, the students' interest in Knightly increased as well. It was already common knowledge that her father, the Duke of Toulouse, was on friendly terms with Professor Dian.
"Senior Knightly. What kind of person is Professor Dian?"
Today, as usual, a few first-years who didn't know Knightly's cold, prickly personality well enough came bustling up to her and bombarded her with questions.
"Have you known him since you were little? Then you must know what he likes too, right?"
"I don't know that crap, so get lost. If you ask one more useless—"
"It's Professor Dian!"
At that moment someone shouted from the other side, and the first-years abandoned Knightly mid-sentence and ran toward the voice.
"Let a person finish talking!"
Knightly shouted nastily, but the first-years' attention had already long since left her.
"Professor Dian! Hello!"
"Uh, yeah. What are you all doing gathered here? Plotting a rebellion or something?"
Dian tossed a pointless joke at the students flocking to him like a cloud, and giggles erupted here and there.
"You're so handsome! Please go out with me!"
"Should I? Then you'll wait for me until I get out of prison for luring and abducting a minor, right?"
Another burst of laughter.
"Please look at my swordsmanship! I practiced so I could show you, Professor! Hyah! Hyah!"
"Oh my, well done. If this were a cooking school you'd already be valedictorian."
"Ah, you're so funny!"
Watching the bustling crowd surrounding Dian, Knightly, left all alone, unconsciously bit down on her lip.