Suspicious Pinky (6)
And with that, I had Hindrastar's word that she would become an academy student. She sniffled her way back to the applicants' dormitory, and I headed home in a considerably lighter mood. A polymorphed dragon as an academy student — talk about a lucky break.
I walked in the door in high spirits, only to find Olicia sitting at a dinner table that had already gone cold, radiating a full-blown sulk.
"Dian! Why on earth are you so late?! Did you go squandering your time at some dessert café again?"
She pounced on me the moment I came through the door.
"Sorry, sorry. One of the applicants wanted career counseling."
"Hrm. I see."
She nodded, thoroughly satisfied that academy business had been the reason. What Olicia feared most these days was that I might slack off the way I had in Brunswell, get myself fired, and send us both packing back there.
"Alright. I'll reheat dinner. Go wash up in the meantime."
While she set the pot on the brazier, I washed up and changed. Tonight's dinner was beef bourguignon — beef slow-braised in wine until it was falling apart. One bite told me it was extraordinarily tender; she must have used a very fine cut. I'd pulled a few late nights recently over the Special Cadet selection, and Olicia had decided I needed to replenish my strength. So this was what she'd meant.
"This is really good."
"I spent all day making it with the utmost care. So — did today wrap up without any major incidents?"
"Of course. Who do you think I am? I'm Dian."
"That's exactly the kind of overconfidence that makes you slip up."
I laughed and told her about the day's events. The academy's front gate turned into a marketplace with every race under the sun crowding in. The fierce evaluations. The failed applicants getting mowed down like wheat at a fall harvest.
I absolutely did not mention the orcs or the werewolf. If I told her I'd gotten mixed up in the orcs' brawl, or that I'd put down a werewolf's rampage, Olicia would foam at the mouth and her eyes would roll back in her head demanding to know why I'd done something so dangerous.
When the story reached the girl from the Leblanc Mercenary Corps — Sophie — Olicia's eyes lit up and she clasped her hands together.
"That's really amazing. She's only twenty, and she's already working in a mercenary corps and applying to the academy on top of that."
"Well, I don't know if she's all that impressive."
More accurately, she wasn't an impressive dragon.
What kind of dragon in this world joins a war just to cause chaos, gets her ass handed to her, gets banished by her own kind for the humiliation of it, and now lives in human form?
The next day, before evaluations began, I waited in front of the applicants' dormitory and called Hindrastar aside.
"Wh-what! What are you trying to pull now?!"
"Shut it. You."
I pointed a finger at her as she squawked and laid down the law.
"Don't even think about failing on purpose."
"If I'm not good enough, I might just fail. That's how it works."
"Oh? Is that so?"
I folded my arms and looked down at her.
"If you fail, I'll report to the Imperial Palace that very instant that I've found you. And then what do you think happens?"
"You crazy bastard?!"
"Hindrastar, who they'd given up looking for and forgotten about, shows up — of course they'd have to catch you again. And who'd come to grab you? Me and Linus, same as last time. Only this time you can't even transform into your true form…"
"Then I just won't fail!"
Her face had gone deathly pale, and she snarled the words through clenched teeth.
"Not failing isn't enough. Come in first. You have to take the top rank to become a Special Cadet."
"That's impossible. I'll try, but…"
"If you don't come in first, I'll report to the Imperial Palace that very instant that I've found you. And then what…"
"Waaaaaah! Fine! I'll do it!"
In the end, Hindrastar burst into tears again. She'd cried back then too, when we were pounding her behind the noble army's lines. Separate from her being a total brat, she might just be the type who cried easily.
Dragon tears — I didn't know the scientific basis, but they were supposed to be excellent magic materials, so I'd collected a few drops and sold them for a pretty decent sum. Now that she was polymorphed, they were no use to anyone.
"Captain! Aren't you coming?"
The Leblanc mercenaries, packed and ready to leave the academy, were waving from across the way.
"Didn't you tell them you're not going back to the mercenary corps?"
"I didn't. I was just about to tell them."
"Then hurry up and go."
I gave her a sharp smack on the rear with the wooden practice sword I used for campus patrols. Hindrastar recoiled in utter disgust and fled toward them.
"Shall we be off, Captain?"
"I'm not going!"
"What?"
The Leblanc mercenaries stared at each other, baffled by Sophie's sudden declaration.
"You're not going, Captain?"
"You got wax in your ears? I'm not going back to that shit-maggot mercenary corps!"
"Why all of a sudden…?"
"You think a delicate little lady like me belongs in a place like that? Huh? Get the hell out of my sight right now!"
Hindrastar took her frustration out on the poor mercenaries, throwing a full-blown tantrum. Did she really have to go that far? Then again, she was a dragon, so it wasn't entirely incomprehensible. Dragons treated other races like insects.
Still, if she was going to live at the academy, she couldn't just let that garbage personality of hers hang out in the open. She was going to need some socialization.
And so the second day of evaluations began.
I stepped into the written exam hall and found Hindrastar sitting with her chin propped on her hand, staring blankly at nothing, not writing a word.
"Applicants, I ask that you give it your all until the very end and finish strong!"
I shouted it loud enough for her to hear. Hindrastar spotted me, flinched, then ducked her head and started working her pen in earnest. At least she was writing something. High-intelligence monster that she was, a dragon wasn't a complete idiot.
"Come on, everyone! The finish line isn't far now! Hang in there!"
"Fuck, fuck…"
I followed her from exam hall to exam hall, offering encouragement, and Hindrastar kept glancing at me and muttering curses under her breath.
Once every evaluation had concluded, Kirlin assembled the entire faculty. The first thing we did was check the comprehensive score sheet, and first place was — fortunately — Hindrastar.
As a polymorphed dragon, she had naturally displayed outstanding ability in the Combat Department evaluations, which were primarily tests of martial prowess, and posted thoroughly satisfying scores. Her theory scores were a bit lacking, but her combat scores were so absurdly dominant that catching her in the total was already impossible.
An atmosphere had already formed among the professors that Hindrastar would be the final selection, and Ismera didn't seem to have any particular objection. If she'd known there was some kind of connection between Hindrastar and me, she would have opposed it tooth and nail — but there was no way she could know that. And even if she had known, it wasn't exactly cheating, so it wouldn't have been a problem.
A polymorphed dragon's capabilities far exceeded those of an ordinary human, so Hindrastar taking first place was purely her own ability. Besides, even though the public notice said werewolves and vampires couldn't apply, there was no clause prohibiting polymorphed dragons. In the first place, why would a dragon even bother polymorphing just to take some academy exam?
So this was no problem at all. I'd just cracked the whip and told her to give it everything when she'd been planning to half-ass it and drop out.
After considering the comprehensive scores and the observation evaluation scores together, we unanimously agreed to select Hindrastar as a Special Cadet. Second and third place were quite outstanding in their own right, but they couldn't compare to Hindrastar, and at Ismera's suggestion we deliberately limited the number of successful applicants to one.
"I don't believe there's any need to deliberately lower our standards simply to increase the number of successful applicants. As the Empire's Imperial Special Duty Academy, it is necessary that we instill the impression that our selection process is a rigorous one."
A perfectly reasonable point. Ismera really was a supremely competent elite professor, if you set aside that conniving personality of hers.
Kirlin would announce the final results, and the rest of the faculty accompanied her to the auditorium where the applicants had gathered.
"Thank you once again for applying to our Special Operations Academy. In accordance with the academy's internal criteria, there is one successful applicant."
A murmur ran through the applicants as Kirlin spoke from the podium. Hindrastar clasped her hands tightly together as if in prayer, squeezed her eyes shut, and wore an expression of utter desperation.
Was she hoping to be selected, or hoping to fail? Either way, she hated both options equally. Get selected, and she'd have to live here with me. Fail, and she'd be sitting down for a three-way reunion with Linus.
"I will now announce the final successful applicant."
"Goddess, I beg of you. I'm sorry for all the chaos I've caused. Please, take pity on me…"
Kirlin let the silence stretch, and in the hush that fell over the hall, Hindrastar's prayer carried with particular clarity. A dragon calling on a god — now that was a rare enough spectacle to make even the Goddess faint from shock.
"AAAAAGH!"
At Kirlin's announcement, Hindrastar let out a strangled cry that could have been a scream or a cheer.
"Congratulations, Miss Sophie. And to the remaining applicants who were unfortunately not selected, I offer my condolences…"
But Kirlin's words were drowned out by Hindrastar, who had collapsed to the floor and was now wailing at the top of her lungs.
"She must be overjoyed to have been selected."
"Well, considering what kind of academy we are, of course she'd be happy."
I gave Lina a plausible enough answer and raised a thumbs-up at Hindrastar.
"WAAAAAAAHHH!"
The moment she saw it, Hindrastar wailed even more pitifully, as if the world itself had come crashing down.
A scratch-scratch of a pen made me turn. Priestess Maya, seated with the faculty, was watching Hindrastar and jotting something in a small notebook. Follow-up observation on a patient discharged from the infirmary? So diligent. Just like the priestess Rormane had so strongly recommended.
