Mister, Want Me to Go Steal You a Nametag?
"May the Emperor's health and prosperity be everlasting."
"Mm."
Aisha bowed with impeccable courtesy to the Emperor.
The council of nations on the disposition of the Holy Kingdom had concluded, and the Emperor had no further business at the Academy. His imperial guard was even now preparing the teleportation circle for their return to the Empire.
So in the end, he never touched Lucas. Is that a good thing?
As Aisha shrugged inwardly, the Emperor remarked offhandedly, "Come to think of it, Aisha."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"I quite forgot to ask. At the very end, where did the 'three' and that slave merchant go?"
"The slave merchant? Ah, now that you mention it, there was one, wasn't there."
Aisha recalled the slave merchant who had been inside the swirling vortex she had unleashed. Her view had been blocked, so she hadn't seen clearly, but somehow the merchant seemed to have been—
hugging all three of them?
Come to think of it now, that was a rather strange picture. Did Lucas know the man?
I'll have to ask later. Forgot all about it.
Slave merchant, slave merchant...
Ah, wait. Lucas's nametag said 'Slave' on it, didn't it? Don't tell me that man is the master?
Hmm. What kind of relationship is that? Where in the world is there a slave who gets along friendly with a slave merchant?
"I see, Your Majesty. I was too busy sealing the Void to look properly."
"That slave merchant was quite the amusing fellow, you know."
"Amusing, Your Majesty?"
"Ah, you arrived late—you must not have seen it. A pity. You missed quite the memorable scene."
"What do you mean, Your Majesty?"
"Nothing. Ask him to show you sometime. He will be Professor Ashlee's academic advisor, so you'll be seeing him often enough."
"The slave merchant is a professor? Oh my."
They say Caesus doesn't discriminate by social rank—apparently it doesn't discriminate by occupation either. I like it already.
Humming inwardly, Aisha saw the Emperor off.
"My fellow professors, thank you for your labor throughout the entrance ceremony. I know you are all busy, so I shall keep this brief and pass along only the essentials."
The Principal had gathered the four Chair Professors, myself included, in the conference room.
"Thanks to all of you, the damage is being restored in short order. Within days, every function of the Academy will be back to normal, and we shall begin the semester on schedule."
"Bwahahaha! If not for Professor Phedia here, whose credit would it be but his own?!"
Vande slammed a fist on the table and roared with laughter. The festival had been officially ruled a nullified draw, leaving our own bout unresolved as well—yet he had accepted defeat cleanly and without complaint.
"What on earth do you find so endearing that you wag your tail like that? Absurd. A feeble little housecat."
Pelia grumbled her complaints, but Vande simply crossed his arms and sneered back at her as if she were the petty one.
"You stood useless before the black mage, and yet your tongue works just fine! Pay her no mind, Professor Phedia. Some tiny halfling seems to be jealous of your abilities, I suspect!"
"I'm a professor, not the security detail! You want me to fight terrorists too? And there are better things to be jealous of—who on earth envies a slave merchant?!"
"I cannot listen to another word of this..."
Mulan, utterly worn down by the Vande–Pelia bickering, gave up and flopped face-down across her folded arms.
"It is true that Professor Phedia distinguished himself with remarkable service. The students were kept safe, and he bought ample time for the audience to evacuate. Now, what have you learned about the black mage Vext?"
"Running a merchant's business means acquiring all manner of channels for gathering information."
"Indeed. And will you provide intelligence on those three you mentioned just as promptly?"
"The evidence is insufficient at present. I ask for time."
"Understood. The dignitaries of each nation are concluding their council and returning home. All have agreed to dissolve the Holy Kingdom. It seems the Empire will take the lead—and likely stir up a war over it."
He must be thrilled, having secured such a flawless pretext for a conflict.
"And the investigation into the black magic—how does it progress?"
"It appears to be a pact with a high-rank demon. Vext alone could never, under any circumstance, produce black magic of that caliber."
That had bothered me greatly as well.
In the original story, Vext had barely managed to complete a single 5th-tier black spell over the course of a full year. For him to cause an incident of this scale right at the entrance ceremony made no sense whatsoever.
He clearly did not accomplish this alone.
There is an accomplice.
"Did he make contact with the demon in his home country?"
"That matter requires further investigation. I trust the Empire will uncover the truth."
"I know a little about demons, actually."
Mulan, still sprawled face-down, muttered with her chin resting on her arm.
"Summoning eight 4th-rank demons is impossible with an ordinary contract. A single human soul wouldn't even cover the down payment."
"What do you mean by that, Professor Setanta?"
"I mean the high-rank demon didn't lend its power to the black mage. Rather, the demon used the black mage as an outlet—the incident happened because it wanted to commit it."
"So this was not a black mage's act of terror, but an assault carried out by a high-rank demon in person?"
"That would be my read. Who knows, though. I'm just a fool who spouts nonsense all day, after all."
"Hmm. Why the Academy would be targeted by a demon of that caliber... I confess I cannot fathom it."
Truthfully, it was beyond my ability to guess as well. Not enough material to work with. But if Mulan's prediction was correct, then it was also true that some enemy out there had designs on the Academy.
A demon, huh.
Maybe it was because I'd just seen Luca, Tia, and Yuri again, but one character from the original story did flicker through my mind for an instant.
The Demon King's loyal Four Heavenly Kings. The Black Knight, the Lich, the Beast King, and...
the Succubus Queen.
The undisputed strongest demon of the 1st Rank. A boss who, due to development delays, only appeared later in the DLC.
Because of that very production quirk, her difficulty and stats had actually been tuned even higher than the other three—or even the Demon King himself.
If I remembered right, there was also retroactive lore establishing that she had simply been unable to participate in the war for various reasons, and had in fact been active in the Demon King's army long before then. She was, after all, the one said to have first seated this era's Demon King upon his throne.
Hmm.
I would need to sit down and sort through the wiki's information on her.
Grinding my brain further without any material to work from would be nothing but wasted time. Besides, the kids were probably getting tired of waiting, so I rose from my seat.
"Whoa, there's a whole town right in front of the Academy!"
Exiting through the Academy's west gate, we made for Kate Town—a shopping village that had grown up around the merchants supplying goods to the Academy.
The Academy housed numerous research facilities and thus consumed a tremendous amount of materials. Beyond the warehouse-style shops built for those deliveries, there were restaurants and taverns as well, so the staff, the security force, and the students all frequented the place.
"It's such a lively town. The Academy alone generates an economy this size, huh."
"Tia is so clever. I still can't really tell the difference between gold coins and copper ones."
When Luca held up her coin purse in bewilderment, Tia kindly helped her sort it out. From way back, Tia had always looked after the two of them in the small, unremarkable ways.
"They might be backed up on uniform orders, so let's check the clothing shop first."
I suggested it to the three of them, and every face lit up with anticipation.
"Welcome, welcome!"
The moment we stepped inside, Montreal the Clothier greeted us. It was a large establishment with plenty of shop assistants and dedicated seamstresses on staff.
"Wow. Are all of these Academy uniforms? The designs are all so different—are we allowed to wear whichever one we like?"
Yuri's eyes sparkled as she took in the wide variety of styles.
"Different aptitudes and specialties call for different attire. You three can pick based on which courses you choose. Getting several sets is standard practice."
"They're all so pretty, though.... How am I supposed to choose?"
I was about to start helping Yuri, who had sunk into the happiest of dilemmas, when a familiar energetic voice rang out.
"No—Shifu, is that truly you! They say the noble ones meet upon a single-log bridge, and the saying fits you to a tee!"
"I've never heard that saying even in the East, Xuehua."
I turned to find Xuehua the Martial Artist, hands pressed together in a single salute.
"You took no injury yesterday, I trust?"
"Thanks to Shifu, I am perfectly intact! But are you well, Shifu? That was no small commotion. We received notice that the semester's opening has been pushed back two days."
"It has. Go on, greet her. This is Yuri, a student who'll be living in the same dormitory from now on. Yuri, this is Xuehua."
"A-ah, hello there...?"
At some point Yuri had hidden herself behind my back, peeking out with just her face. Her ears were drooping flat against her head—she seemed frightened.
"Oho! A fellow practitioner of the martial ways!"
"Huh?"
Xuehua, on the other hand, cheerfully clasped Yuri's hand with her right arm and greeted her warmly.
"These calluses worn to the very edge of the fingers, this brachialis—dense and compressed both. No ordinary training produces hands like these. You are a considerable master, I'd say."
"A-a master?"
"It's a word from the East for one who has attained great strength. By the way, Xuehua—you're an imperial citizen, aren't you? Did you change your name?"
"Ahahaha! Shifu, what nonsense you speak. What matters is where this one's heart resides at present, no?"
Xuehua wavered, transparently flustered.
"The East... do you know much about the East?"
"O-of course I do! Come, look! In the East, they wear uniforms in exactly this style!"
"Oh, you're right! One look and you can just feel it's from the East!"
And so the two of them, neither having ever set foot in the East, reached perfect harmony on the subject. It was a lovely sight, the pair happily picking out uniforms together.
Turning to see what Tia was up to, I found her already trying on a coat with typical initiative—though her long hair kept getting in the way and clearly bothering her.
I picked up a hair tie from a nearby display and brought it over to her.
"Wouldn't tying it back be better?"
"Oh, Professor! Did you go get this just for me? Hehe, thank you."
Tia's eyes went wide as she took the hair tie.
"Wow, the charm on this is huge! Did it look like it would suit me?"
"What wouldn't suit you? And that charm is an artifact, you know. It has the same effect as a mage's hat."
"What?! The Academy makes accessories like this?"
Tia was astonished.
"They were common in the Empire. Street vendors sold them."
"Really? I never even saw one in the Magic State. If things like this exist, why does anyone slog around in those heavy, dorky mage hats?"
"Authenticity?"
"Wow. That's ridiculous."
Tia reacted as though she had been swindled her entire life. She seemed quite taken with it, so I brought over some hairpins too.
"There are other charms like these as well—want to try some on?"
"They're all so cute.... And each one has a bonus effect? Mana condensation, fire-attribute boost..."
"The effects are negligible."
"They're all wonderful anyway. Professor, would you pick out which ones suit me—and put them in my hair yourself?"
"Sure, why not."
I readied the tie, running the comb gently through Tia's shimmering golden hair. She hummed a happy little tune as I worked.
And as I did, Luca came over.
"Find something you like, Luca?"
"This."
What Luca held up was the most basic, utterly plain Academy uniform there was.
"There are fancier ones, and plenty with practical enchantments too."
"This one."
Was it her way of saying she'd stick to the fundamentals? In a way, it was very like Luca.
"Hey, mister."
"I told you to call me 'Professor' when we're out."
"Right. Professor mister."
Halfway there. Sort of.
"Mister, you becoming a professor—it's so you can change your nametag, isn't it?"
Luca asked a question I hadn't quite expected. She wasn't wrong, though.
"That's right."
"If there were an easier way?"
"An easier way?"
"Yeah."
It was a strange question.
"There's no such thing. I'd need at least a 4-Star job. A nametag like that only comes with a seat among a nation's high offices, or strength on the level of an S-rank adventurer."
"I don't know if there's a way or not."
Luca pursed her small lips.
"But what if there is? Like—say, knocking over some country's king and stealing something like Grand General off him. Would that help?"
"Haha, what a fun little fantasy."
"What if I really did steal it?"
"Huh?"
The look in Luca's eyes was dead serious.