“Did you really not know?”
“I didn't.”
“Would you look at him…….”
I'd heard that one of the upperclassmen was an imperial princess, but I hadn't known it was Jelly.
The emperor had many children and even more relatives. So even if she was an imperial princess, I had no way of knowing how high her position was.
I softened my voice.
“Jelly, are you perhaps high in the line of succession?”
“You're asking me that to my face?”
“I was curious.”
“What will you do if I'm high? What if I'm low?”
“My attitude would change.”
Jelly stared at me in disbelief, as did Lumin and Ando.
But I was hardly in a position to preserve my dignity as a human being.
“You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”
“You really are strange. I'm not very high in the line of succession.”
“I see.”
“So what are you going to do about your attitude now?”
“I'll continue being kind.”
“That was you being kind?”
Even if she was low in the line of succession, there was no harm in building a good relationship with an imperial princess.
“Jelly. May I give you one piece of advice?”
“Go ahead.”
“You seem dissatisfied with your grade, so I'll tell you this. From now on, try to understand the test maker's intent.”
It was a simple but important tip, and since Jelly did not quite have what it took to contend for first place, I shared it without reservation.
“Th-the test maker's intent?”
“Perhaps because you were raised in comfort, you seem rather poor at considering things from another person's perspective.”
“What did you say?”
“Who writes the questions? Who grades them?”
“Well…….”
“Exactly. The teachers.”
I looked into Jelly's vivid blue eyes and continued.
“Think from the test maker's perspective about why I received a Superior and you received a Pass.”
“Are you giving me advice right now?”
“Does it upset you?”
“It doesn't exactly please me.”
“The test maker probably felt the same.”
Jelly blinked.
“Are you saying I received a Pass because I protested to Ms. Clase?”
“Who knows?”
Jelly's eyes wavered.
During the Performance Assessment, Jelly had confronted Clase, insisting that it was unfair for me to receive such a high score merely for Flower Blooming.
No matter how fond Clase was of her, she had not tolerated a challenge to a teacher's authority.
And so Jelly had been scolded by Clase.
“Surely Ms. Clase didn't…….”
“Of course Ms. Clase wouldn't have done that.”
“What?”
Maybe she had. Maybe she hadn't.
“My point is that you should consider the other person's position—and the test maker's position. Then you'll begin to understand what the test maker intends and what you must do to earn a good score.”
“You mean I should curry favor with them?”
“That depends on how you choose to see it.”
“Then what was the intent behind this Performance Assessment?”
“Ask Elizabeth II.”
“What?”
“That's all the advice you get.”
I shrugged.
“Come to me if you need help. I'll assist you as far as I reasonably can.”
Even if she was not high in the line of succession, hers was still the most exalted bloodline in the Empire.
I smiled gently.
“Ah, should I call you ‘Your Highness’ in public?”
“Forget it.”
Jelly recoiled.
“And I bear no grudge against the Empire, so don't worry. House Draco has fallen, and I want to enjoy the Age of Glory in the Empire. Take Milk Hall alone. There isn't even a confectionery like this in the North. Isn't it beautiful?”
Leaving those words behind, I tried to turn away with Lumin.
But Jelly called out to me.
“Hey, Armand.”
Leaning against Ando with her arms crossed, she said,
“What club are you going to join?”
Everyone seemed obsessed with clubs.
“None.”
“Why?”
“I care more about my studies than activities like that.”
“You're no fun.”
“Perhaps.”
“Are you some kind of model student?”
Apparently, she wanted to get under my skin after I had gone so far as to advise her, but I was not foolish enough to be swayed by such a shallow ploy.
“I am.”
Jelly's eyebrow twitched before she continued.
“Want me to tell you something even someone as dull as you might find interesting?”
“Go ahead.”
“Horror Express.”
An unexpected phrase popped out of her mouth.
“There's supposedly a Horror Express Mystery Shop in Ark.”
Thinking she might have eaten a spoiled cookie, I studied her complexion, but she was not foaming at the mouth.
“They say it's a shop that suddenly appears if you wander around Ark after sunset, and that it sells all sorts of grotesque objects. If you encounter it, you'll get dragged into something terrifying. Well? Interesting, isn't it?”
“How dull. I'll be going now.”
“Don't tell me you're scared?”
I ignored Jelly and pushed Lumin forward by the back.
“Lumin, let's go choose some sweets.”
“Y-yeah…….”
Jelly followed me.
“You got scared, didn't you? You're a coward, aren't you? Huh? Huh?”
Whatever shred of respect I had meant to show her because she was an imperial princess vanished.
“Ando, get this brat out of here.”
“Sorry.”
“What? Did you just call me a brat?”
“Let's go, Lumin.”
“You called me a brat just now!”
Ando dragged Jelly away. Even as she receded into the distance, she kept calling me a coward.
How in the world did the imperial family educate its children?
Then I noticed Lumin looking at me strangely.
“What?”
“A-Armand. The Horror Express Mystery Shop really exists. I know it does.”
What was wrong with him now?
“Want to go?”
“You believe that nonsense?”
“Y-you're not scared, are you?”
“I'm not.”
The corners of Lumin's mouth rose into a smile.
“Y-you can be honest.”
“Shut up.”
Why was there no one normal around me?
“W-wow. Armand's getting angry. So you really are scared…….”
“Shut it.”
“Coward…….”
While running from my grasp, Lumin knocked over a display of chocolates and ended up having to pay for every one of them.
***
The weekend ended, and life at the Ivory Tower began again.
I did not relax my vigilance for a single moment during class.
“Strange, isn't it? History's always like that. Look closely, and it's one strange event after another. I don't know why people are like that. Strange, strange, and then your teeth go bad. So be sure to brush them. Heh heh…….”
“Pfft!”
I deliberately let out a laugh at the lame joke no one else reacted to, putting a satisfied smile on the teacher's face.
“This is a very important part.”
Whenever he said something like that, I listened with even greater focus.
I became so absorbed in taking in everything the teacher said and did that the bell rang before I knew it.
“That's all for today. There'll be a quiz next class, so prepare for it. Class president, follow me to the faculty room.”
“Yes!”
“It's finally over…….”
Karl, who had been stretching, suddenly looked at my notebook.
“Armand, you're good at taking notes, aren't you?”
Karl's voice was loud enough that the student in front of us turned around.
“Armand's notes?”
“Yeah. Look!”
The student furrowed his brow after seeing my notebook.
“This?”
To anyone else, my notes probably looked like a cipher.
I had written down only the keywords that would allow me to reconstruct my memory by following the flow of the lesson.
He tilted his head, then looked at Karl's notebook and understood.
“Now it makes sense.”
If my notebook looked like a cipher, Karl's was a child's scribble pad.
“What kind of handwriting is that? The Emperor of Letters would weep.”
“What's wrong with my handwriting?”
The Emperor of Letters was an emperor of old who had unified the continent's language and writing system.
The student in front adjusted his glasses and grinned.
“You two, that's not how you take notes.”
He held up his own notebook.
The lesson had been organized in neat handwriting using pens of several colors, with tables and drawings added wherever necessary.
Karl stared in shock.
“Are you a genius?”
“I just pay attention in class.”
“Will you sell it to me?”
“No. This one's just for me.”
“Come on, don't be like that!”
“Get away from me.”
This fellow seemed rather ambitious about his grades.
I would have to keep an eye on him.
Leaving the two of them to squabble, I rose from my seat, only for an upperclassman wearing a blue epaulet to approach me.
“You're Armand, right?”
“Yes, that's correct.”
“This.”
He handed me a folded note.
“Read it alone.”
The upperclassman left the classroom immediately after saying that.
I watched his retreating back carefully, then checked the note.
Karl and the student in front craned their heads toward it, but I did not show them.
“What is it? I want to see too!”
“Could it be an invitation to join a club?”
“Maybe! That's Armand for you!”
Clubs were so active at the Ivory Tower that, a week after enrollment, upperclassmen began visiting the first-year classrooms to hand out recruitment flyers.
But the note I had received was something else entirely.
Lunchtime. Twelfth floor of the Ivory Tower.
Lunchtime was now.
I had sensed no particular hostility from the upperclassman who delivered the note.
“Karl, eat lunch with Lumin. Just the two of you.”
“Where are you going?”
“I have somewhere to be.”
“Where?”
“Just somewhere.”
“Where's somewhere?”
After shaking Karl off and leaving the classroom, I climbed the Ivory Tower's spiral staircase.
There was exactly one room on the twelfth floor: the Vice Headmaster's Office.
It did not even surprise me anymore.
The Headmaster had sealed my Attribute, so perhaps now it was the Vice Headmaster's turn to torment me.
When I knocked, a voice like steel scraping against steel answered.
[Come in.]
Inside the room, the Vice Headmaster sat in an antique chair with his back to the entrance, gazing out the window.
“I'm Armand of the first-year Frog Class. Did you summon me?”
[Yes.]
The chair slowly turned, revealing the Vice Headmaster.
Blue light blazed from within the hood pulled over his head.
I was startled, but I did not let it show.
Yes, I had heard about him.
They said the Vice Headmaster of the Ivory Tower was every bit as unusual as the Headmaster.
A lich.
A mage who had escaped death and become undead because of his desire for magic.
The name on his plaque was Nekzul.
[I heard you were born to the Arcane Path of Extinction.]
The rumor had already spread.
“Yes, that's correct.”
[Interesting. That the Arcane Path of Extinction should appear in this peaceful and prosperous Age of Glory of all eras. And immediately after the Empire brought down House Draco, no less.]
He laughed aloud.
That alone made the mana around us tremble and bear down on me.
[Why did you come to the Ivory Tower?]
“To escape the barren North and enjoy the Age of Glory.”
[In front of me…….]
All at once, I could not breathe.
I groped at my throat with both hands, but found nothing there.
Nekzul's magic had become a noose around my neck.
[Do not spout nonsense.]
“I-I…….”
The noose tightened further.
Damn it. Was a teacher allowed to torment a student like this?
[You must feel ready to be honest now.]
The noose vanished in an instant.
I collapsed onto the floor and coughed for a long while.
[Answer properly.]
Nothing had changed.
Gritting my teeth, I glared at Nekzul and said,
“As I said, I came to escape the barren North and enjoy a life in the Age of Glory.”
I gathered my mana, afraid he might strangle me again.
I could not possibly withstand him, but I still had to struggle.
Nekzul, however, merely laced his skeletal fingers together.
[Fine. Then I will change the question. What do you intend to do at the Ivory Tower?]
“Graduate and…….”
[Make a name for yourself?]
My admission application lay on his desk.
“Yes, that's correct. I want to graduate from the Ivory Tower and live well.”
[Desire. A fine motive.]
Nekzul nodded.
[Armand Draco. The Headmaster made that student ring.]
“Yes.”
I already knew that. But Nekzul added one more thing.
[The Headmaster dislikes you.]
I looked into Nekzul's blazing eyes.
He clacked his jawbone as he spoke.
[This is a brilliant Age of Glory. No mage would welcome Extinction unless they were a lunatic warmonger. Do you not agree?]
Yes. That was precisely what I found unfair.
It was not as though I had chosen Extinction.
[It is interesting. That Extinction appeared now of all times, and that those two are both at the Ivory Tower at the same time…….]
Some of his words made no sense to me, but I listened in silence.
[The Ivory Tower is the Empire's finest institution of higher learning—and its most dangerous.]
“Is it dangerous?”
[How many students in each entering class graduate safely?]
The blue light within Nekzul's hood surged violently.
[No, let me rephrase. How many disappear before graduation? And how many of them disappear because of the Headmaster?]
“What are you saying…….”
[I was merely asking.]
I did not believe everything he said, but neither did I dismiss it outright.
[If you were the Headmaster, would you quietly let an Extinction that had crawled in of its own accord go free?]
“I hold no hostility toward the Empire.”
[I know you are not a fool. So do not say foolish things.]
I bit my lip.
Yes. My will did not matter.
That had been true when House Draco fell, and when Winter Castle was taken from us.
Someone with power had merely pointed a finger at us.
That was why I had not wanted to come to the Ivory Tower—or to the Empire.
[Such is the life of the weak. The strong cast the dice, and the weak cling to the number and struggle without even knowing who threw them. Just as I prolong my existence in this wretched form.]
I met Nekzul's eyes and nodded.
There had to be a reason he had summoned me.
And it would probably lead to this.
[Do you want to live?]
Yes.
[Then will you come under me?]
No.
The invisible noose immediately brushed my throat.
I spoke before he could tighten it around my neck.
“The Headmaster is an Immortal. She must be stronger than you, Vice Headmaster.”
The light in Nekzul's eyes wavered.
“You appear to think differently from the Headmaster. But if a descendant of Draco born to Extinction went so far as to follow you, wouldn't that make me even more dangerous?”
[So?]
I did not avoid his gaze as I answered.
“I would prefer a relationship in which we help each other.”
Nekzul fell silent for a moment after hearing me.
A lich's emotions could only be inferred from the clatter of his jawbone and the flames within his empty eye sockets.
But Nekzul was not the sort to suppress his emotions.
His jawbone tilted all the way back, and the light in his eyes flashed wildly.
His eerie laughter pierced my ears once again.
[You propose cooperation with me!]
“Yes. Judging by the fact that you called me here, you must want something from me.”
Everything he had said had merely been groundwork.
Telling me to come under him meant that he had work he wanted to make me do.
[You truly are a Draco.]
The Vice Headmaster spoke with laughter in his voice.
[But first, I must see whether you have the ability to dare call yourself my collaborator.]
“The same goes for me.”
[You mean to evaluate me?]
“Just as you are evaluating me.”
[Where does that nerve come from?]
“From Draco blood, I imagine.”
My life was at stake at the Ivory Tower.
If I let him put a leash on me here, I would die four years later all the same.
And in the end, I was of Draco blood too.
I was not exactly good-natured.
[Fine.]
Nekzul nodded.
[Very well. I will give you one task. If you succeed, I will give you suitable compensation. If that is cooperation, then cooperation it is.]
“What compensation?”
[Impatient, aren't you? Hear the task first. You have not joined a club yet.]
I had no idea why everyone kept harping on clubs.
Nekzul tapped the desk with a bony finger as he spoke.
[Bring one club under your control.]
What was that supposed to mean?
But his next words made my eyes widen.
[If you succeed, I will enable you to use your Attribute even while wearing that ring.]
I'm doing it. No matter what.