Enrollment Procedures (3)
"What in the world is this…"
The vivid jungle vista vanished, and in the test room, Tia sat all alone, sobbing at the top of her lungs.
It was nothing like the whiny crying she did when things didn't go her way or she got cranky and fussy. The sound of her struggling to breathe between sobs nearly set me off crying too.
My body moved on pure reflex. Before I knew it, I had rushed into the inner chamber and was holding Tia in my arms.
"It's okay, Tia. It's okay."
"Huaaah…! S-sob, huaaah!"
"All the scary things are gone. You can relax now."
"Huuuuh…"
I wrapped my arms around Tia's head, stroking it desperately as I tried to calm her down. She was in a full-blown panic, completely unable to pull herself together.
Well, of course—she'd been confronted with those grotesque monsters out of nowhere. Someone should have explained beforehand that things like that were going to appear.
A sudden flash of anger made me whip around, and the Headmaster averted his gaze, sweating cold drops.
"M-Mommyyy…"
"Mommy's right here. I'm right here, so everything's going to be fine."
Tia clutched the hem of my clothes and burrowed into my chest. Her breathing had steadied, so she seemed to have emerged from the panic, but the shock clearly still lingered.
I had no choice but to slowly stroke her back and wait for the tears to stop. Tia's pitiful cries echoed along the dome walls for a long while. It felt as though Tia and I were the only two people left, utterly alone in this enormous room.
"Hic…"
"You okay? Not scared anymore?"
"T-Tia was never scared? Not scared at all?"
"Ha…"
The moment the tears stopped, she was playing tough. I wiped the tear stains from Tia's eyes one more time and pulled her into a tight hug.
Even if there'd never been any real danger, just hearing Tia's screams—that crying—was enough to tear my heart apart. I'd always assumed that even if I became a father someday, I'd feel nothing much whether kids cried or not. I guess there's no telling what life has in store for people.
"What exactly happened here, Headmaster?"
"Well, you see… how strange. Why has the whole system gone down like—"
"Headmaster. That's not what I'm asking."
Hand tightly clasped around Tia's, I felt my irritation surge the moment I turned back around. Watching her fiddle with the control panel like Tia didn't even exist, how could I not be angry?
And anyway, what kind of school makes its students face off against monsters as an entrance test? Unless you were Superman, any child would do nothing more than collapse to the ground and scream in that situation. What in the frozen hell was this nonsense, testing a kid's 'adaptability' and causing an incident like this—
"We apologize. It seems the difficulty was misconfigured…"
Was he seriously calling that an excuse? Heat flared up my neck and I bit my lip. With the bitter taste of blood on my tongue, I took Tia's hand and pulled her along.
"Marquis. I am truly sorry. Would it be possible to cancel her enrollment?"
"That's Miss Yulia's prerogative, of course."
"Excuse me? E-excuse me? Just—wait a moment! What did you just say?"
"Seeing the Headmaster's attitude, I've gotten a clear picture of this school's caliber, and my desire to enroll my child has withered away entirely. I should thank you for arranging this occasion. Now, if you'll excuse us."
Every fiber of me wanted to slap him across the face, but I held it in, resolving to convey my decision with as much courtesy as I could manage. There was no way I would send Tia to a school like this. A school where not even a shred of consideration for a child existed, starting from the Headmaster on down—how could it possibly teach its students well?
I gathered the bewildered Tia and walked out of the test room. The Headmaster immediately came scurrying after us, cold sweat pouring down his face.
"Um, Guardian! Please, just wait a moment! Do you know what ability Miss Tiamat used just now?"
"No."
"It's called Spell-Breaking. In that brief instant, she unraveled the magic the test facility had activated and shut down its function entirely. It's a remarkable ability—it means she possesses an exceptional understanding of magic. Saint Sophia prides itself on being the world's finest in that very field. There is no school better suited to making Miss Tiamat's talent bloom. So as for canceling her enrollment, might I ask you to reconsider—"
"I'm not interested. What good is a prestigious school, when the person doing the teaching isn't fit to be called an educator?"
From the way he desperately clung to us, Tia's talent was apparently the real deal. But my heart had already left the building.
The footsteps behind us went silent, and I assumed he'd given up. Yet when I glanced back, the Headmaster was bowing at a full ninety degrees.
"I am truly sorry. My excessive greed wounded your child deeply. I have no other excuse to offer. I will apologize with complete sincerity, both to her and to you, her guardian. This will never happen again. Should you decide to enroll, I promise that all of the faculty, myself included, will do everything in our power to help Miss Tiamat develop her abilities."
"…"
It seemed the Headmaster had only now fully grasped the situation, because he was finally offering a proper apology. He really was different from those stiff-necked noble bastards. We did have one around here who'd violate a person and never utter a single word of apology, after all—
"Hm?"
I shot the Marquis a sidelong glance, and he gave a sly little smirk, so I turned away in disgust. The Headmaster remained bowed, awaiting my answer.
An apology that belated, and one I couldn't swallow a single grain of—what good would it do? I had already made my decision.
I was just about to say so.
"As an act of contrition, we will waive the tuition!"
"Alright. She'll enroll."
"Hweh?"
"Yes?"
Everyone messes up once in a while. When someone bowed that respectfully and apologized that sincerely, I figured I could accept it. It was absolutely not because I heard the words 'tuition waiver' and my eyes spun around. And it was absolutely not because I thought it might erase the debt I owed the Marquis. Not at all.
"Tia, what do you think? Do you want to go here?"
"Mm-hm! There's so many amazing things, Tia wanna come here and learn!"
"…"
Well, there you have it. When Tia wanted to learn that badly, I couldn't very well crush her dreams. There was simply no way that Tia—bravely answering with her eyes still red-rimmed—could be any cuter than she was in that moment.
After leaving the test room, the Vice Headmaster guided us through a brief explanation about the school. Honestly, very little of it stuck. Flexible curricula tailored to each individual student rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, and so on—it all went over my head. The school had a good reputation, and both the Marquis and the Hero sang its praises as a prestigious institution, so I simply resigned myself to thinking it must be a good school.
"Well then, safe travels. Thank you once again for deciding to enroll."
"Yes. We'll be going. Oh, right—one thing. Just so you know, Tia is actually the child of a dragon. The faculty really should be aware of that."
"I—excuse me…?"
Leaving behind the deathly pale Vice Headmaster and Headmaster, we exited the school. Tia, meanwhile, seemed to have completely forgotten the whole ordeal already, looking happy as could be. Was I the only one overreacting? A faint unease settled in.
"Tia, that Spell-Breaking thing you did earlier? How did you do it?"
"Mm? Tia dunno? Just got scared and yelled…"
"…"
Once we climbed into the carriage and heard Tia's explanation, I was rendered speechless by sheer absurdity. The number of times Tia had wailed and carried on until now was beyond counting, yet never once had it caused a blackout like today's. Perhaps, when confronted with an enormous threat, Tia's subconscious had automatically intercepted the magic. If she ever learned to wield it at will, it would undoubtedly become an extraordinary ability.
"Hm. Spell-Breaking…"
"Is something the matter, my lady? You look as though something's caught your attention…"
"No, nothing. I was just lost in thought for a moment."
Why did that man suddenly act like that? Not my concern, I decided, and put it out of my mind.
The moment Tia settled into her seat in the carriage, she began nodding off. Had someone laced the carriage with sleeping gas?
"If you sleep now, you won't be able to sleep tonight."
"Mm… still sleepy though."
"If you fall asleep now, I'm leaving you in the carriage."
"R-Really?!"
"Kidding. Don't worry, just sleep. Mommy will wake you when we get there."
Adorable little thing. As I slowly stroked Tia's hair, all sorts of thoughts welled up. I'd always daydreamed about how nice it would be if Tia had some exceptional talent, but now that it was actually reality, I felt strangely unsettled. When the Headmaster of a famous academy begged and pleaded to the point of waiving tuition, this had to be a talent that went far, far beyond impressive—but I couldn't help wondering whether it would only work in Tia's favor. That was what worried me.
"About the pearl necklace—if it's uncomfortable, you may take it off and return it now."
"Ah, that really was useful. Here you go."
"Instead, wear this from now on."
"This is…?"
A silver-gleaming thread descended into the palm that had just handed over the pearl necklace. When I opened my fist, a rounded lump of metal was glowing there. A silver pendant. Judging by the delicate engravings, it was by no means a cheap trinket.
"My lady?!"
"It's a locket."
Click.
When the Marquis pressed the button on the pendant, the cover flipped open. I peered inside and let out a faint sigh. It was a picture. A picture of Tia and me standing side by side.
"What is this?"
"I painted it. What do you think?"
"Excuse me? You painted it? It's not a photograph?"
"Nobody here has ever taken a photograph, so what else would it be? Obviously a painting."
Startled, I looked into the pendant again. Even knowing better, it looked every bit like a photograph—the quality was astonishing. How could anyone paint something so tiny with such detail…
I closed the pendant's cover and tried it on around my neck. "It feels a bit much, receiving something like this…"
"Your expression says you're delighted, though. Don't feel too weighed down by it. Just think of it as a standard employee benefit."
"…"
The length was just right, it wasn't heavy, and it was quite pretty on top of it all—I liked it enormously. And apparently all of that had shown on my face. Fooling the Marquis any further would be a lost cause, so I decided to be a little more honest.
"Thank you…"
Somehow I suspect that single phrase was the most heartfelt thing I'd ever said to the Marquis in all this time.
"What? The lights still aren't back on?"
Click, click.
The Headmaster pressed the lamp switch and furrowed his brow. It had already been a full hour since the blackout began. Even after seeing Miss Tiamat and her guardian off at the school's front gate, the lamps remained stubbornly dead.
"Headmaster, about that… this has become rather a difficult situation…"
"Can't you simply reset and restart it? Why is the restoration taking so long?"
"Well… you see… haah… It would be faster to show you directly."
The Vice Headmaster soon gave up on a verbal explanation with a sigh. Instead, he touched the wall, revealing the magic circuit embedded within it. At the sight of the circuit diagram that materialized in the air, the Headmaster's mouth fell open. The circuits were charred through, entirely unusable.
"You should assume every magic circuit in the school is in this state. Everything will have to be ripped out and replaced from scratch—restoration will be no small undertaking."
"This is practically…"
Only now did the Headmaster fully grasp the situation. The child called Tiamat hadn't pulled off some charming little trick like Spell-Breaking. It was an attack that destroyed not the magic being cast, but the caster casting it—a pulse capable of neutralizing every magical existence, monsters included. He had never heard of such a thing, nor seen it in all his years.
"Thank goodness it's vacation. If a spirit had been here, it would have dropped dead screaming on the spot…"
He'd been mildly regretting the tuition waiver mere moments ago, but his thinking had shifted entirely. Lowering his pride a little and waiving the fee in exchange for recruiting a monster of that caliber—what an absurd windfall. And yet, at the same time, a worry gnawed at him: once the semester began, could they actually keep that strategic-weapon-grade brat properly in check?
It'll work out somehow…!
The Headmaster gritted his teeth and shook off the worry. The daughter of a dragon, was it? With the twilight of his career approaching, the arrival of a new prodigy could only make his heart race.