The military academy, having dumped the prospective cadets at the bottom of a cliff, had removed the stairs with magic. In their place were only thin ropes twisted without knots, slender iron bars, and a stone wall with faintly carved grooves.
The academy’s principal spoke through a magic amplification device so that everyone could hear.
“Assemble at the Grand Field within one hour!”
The cliff was 55 meters high.
Anyone who fell would be safely caught by the instructors stationed here and there, but if things went wrong, they could suffer serious injuries at the very least, or even die. Every year, one or two died, and in bad years as many as four or five.
The moment the word ‘Assemble’ dropped, the prospective cadets each chose their own method and began scaling the stone wall.
Only those who arrived within the time limit would be granted the right to enroll.
It was the military academy’s final gate, born of the particular nature of a school that produced future soldiers.
On the stands that encircled the Grand Field sat the parents of the prospective students. Each of them held a magic magnifier.
Parents whose children reached the Grand Field would attend the entrance ceremony, while parents whose children were eliminated would take them home.
Today was the day of the third and final practical exam, as well as the entrance ceremony.
Those who had passed the first and second rounds, theory and interview, had already been announced. Results were given only as Pass or Fail, with no rankings. Even so, the rankings always got around.
No one knew how, but everyone knew who had placed first through tenth, and even those below. The school lent weight to the rumors with its silence.
In today’s third practical exam, rankings would be set by order of arrival even if the school did not wish to assign them. Naturally, today’s first-place finisher would become first in the overall admission rankings and the flag-bearer representing the incoming class.
“Professor Hubert, Dro will make it up.”
“What matters is making it up, even if only by a chin-up’s margin. Indeed. Henri will make it up as well.”
The one tapping the back of Hubert Eigenhardt’s hand as if to comfort him, and thereby betraying his own anxiety, was Pignon Moreau. He was a tailor, and quite a skilled one, whose clients included Eigenhardt along with the Empire’s high nobility. As a successful immigrant, he had the wealth to send his son to the military academy.
“Won’t Dro make it up within the first three?”
“Who can say.”
Eigenhardt hoped his son would not commit the folly of coming up within the top ten. What he had learned while living as an outsider in the Empire was that one must never get ahead of the Empire’s pureblooded high nobility.
When Drowpis had placed first in the first-round theory exam, he had frowned slightly. In the second-round interview, whether or not it was because of some penalty for being a second-generation immigrant, Drowpis had dropped back to the top twenty percent. Only then had he let out a sigh of relief.
“Goodness, someone made it up in five minutes. I do hope they cross that lake safely.”
Eigenhardt’s wife, Marie, exclaimed in admiration as she looked through her magic magnifier.
“If he has basic mana, he will walk out at the far end of the field.”
Eigenhardt replied matter-of-factly. As he said, once one came up from the bottom of the cliff onto the ground, there was the Ether Lake, made of mana. Though it was an artificial lake, it did not get anyone wet. The rule was to cross by walking along the lakebed.
Those with weak mana could breathe inside the lake, but they would be fooled by the labyrinth and slide down off the cliff. They would have to start over from the stone wall. Those with no mana had no choice but to stick their heads up above the water. The moment they did, they would be struck by a magic arrow and automatically eliminated.
A cadet without mana could not handle the academy’s training.
Would the first to climb the stone wall make it across the Ether Lake safely? Just as it had become the burning question of the moment, the first-place finisher came up the stairs installed at the end of the Ether Lake, slowly, one step at a time.
The way he rose, face first and then his whole body, as though surfacing, was so majestic and elegant that it seemed unreal.
This was the very effect Eigenhardt had aimed for.
Ooooh!
Clap, clap, clap.
“Dear, it’s Marquis Leo Herzl’s eldest son.”
“So it is.”
Eigenhardt nodded at his wife Marie’s welcoming words.
He was relieved it was not his son.
Each time he had to tiptoe around the Empire’s moods like this, Eigenhardt thought of his homeland, the Kingdom of Charleture.
The Kingdom had outlawed magic research.
Hubert Eigenhardt had been an outstanding research professor, practically the founder of the elemental magic arts. The Kingdom’s people went wild for magic tools and followed him like a religion. The King’s authority was threatened. The Kingdom deemed magic research an act of treason and confined him to a sealed laboratory under surveillance.
They did not kill him. Magic elements went into the Kingdom’s temperature and light, and into the King’s garments. Warm in winter, cool in summer, bright even in the dead of night, and when touring the Kingdom, a magic garment sturdier than any armor. The King, at least, had to enjoy all of this.
‘Had they accepted it a little more generously, my homeland would have developed further, and the King would have been more respected.’
Eigenhardt believed the magic arts had to advance for the perpetuation of humankind. Because individual nations could survive only if humankind endured, he had chosen this nation, where he could research the magic arts.
Holding the hundred-day-old Drowpis in his arms, he had crossed the border, a line between life and death, together with his wife and the disciples who would carry on his research.
A first-generation immigrant.
A scholar who had come in search of a second homeland, carrying the Aionios Dream in his heart.
By casting him out, the Kingdom of Charleture lost its chance to develop, while the Aionios Empire, which had grown as a multiethnic nation of immigrants, expanded into a colossal empire.
“Dear, second place is over there. Looks like a provincial lord’s son.”
Breaking Eigenhardt’s reverie, Marie Eigenhardt pointed to a man.
From the seats where the provincial nobles sat, a man stood up and thrust both clenched fists high into the sky.
“I would like Dro to come in outside the top ten.”
“Yes. I feel the same way.”
At Eigenhardt’s words, his wife let out a sigh and gave a small nod.
After immigrating, Eigenhardt had released throughout the entire Aionios Empire the magic conveniences that only the Kingdom of Charleture had enjoyed.
Thanks to his magic technology, the streets gained light at night, and with every household using magic nuclear fuel, people spent cool summers and warm winters. The military was equipped with powerful magic weapons, and merchants setting off on long journeys checked on one another using communication orbs fitted with artifacts.
The usage fees for all of this went to Eigenhardt.
The richest man in the Empire, a successful immigrant.
If the fees went unpaid, the magic energy would lose function or break down.
Eigenhardt’s disciples had tried to fix the problems, but repairs required his own hands. Because he was extremely busy, repairs were only possible with payment in advance. Even then, one had to wait quite a long time.
―Professor Hubert, why won’t you teach the core technology?
―Everyone fails at the final elemental formula. There is a particular mana that resonates with it, and I have not managed to create a technique that overcomes that sensitivity. I am ashamed of my shortcomings. I will strive harder.
Whenever he was summoned by high nobles or to the Imperial Palace, he bowed his head. Faced with his talk of insufficient skill and his apologetic manner, as though he did not know where to put himself, they could pick no further quarrel with him.
Eigenhardt chose to apologize again and again. He kept slipping imaginary numbers into his teaching so that no one could follow the core technology. He had realized that he could survive only by becoming someone the Empire needed.
Whenever discontent seemed to be rising among people, he implanted magic arts that allowed the use of basic mana in high nobles who had been unable to form a Circle.
It was extremely rudimentary magic—lighting a magic tool’s flame with mana, lifting documents from a distance with mana—so basic that calling it telekinesis would be embarrassing.
Only nobles can wield magic.
By creating this proposition, Eigenhardt erased the suspicion aimed at himself.
The Teacher of the Empire.
Though he had become someone everyone looked up to, his standing in the Empire never advanced a single step beyond professor. Eigenhardt had no interest in politics, but each time he watched Drowpis grow up so brilliantly, he wanted to protest the imperial law that barred immigrants from involvement in central politics.
Those with ability should sit in those positions. Only then do nations, and businesses, develop. This was his long-held philosophy. Though he had never spoken of it anywhere.
“Dear, I hope our Dro arrives after Grand Duke Begitz’s youngest son does.”
“Somewhere in the middle would be just right.”
The possibility that their son might not make it up never once crossed the couple’s minds.
***
Meanwhile, I, Drowpis Eigenhardt, standing at the bottom of the cliff, was gazing blankly up at its edge.
I had thought I’d died too after killing the twelve assassins.
The instant I registered my swollen blood vessels bursting and my brain going cold, I’d collapsed onto the corpses of the twelve, after all.
I had no idea why I, of all people, was standing here.
This place, so vivid.
A single day from the past.
If this was a dream, then even in a dream, I didn’t want to pass this stage.
This military academy was harder to graduate from than to get into. Graduates made up less than twenty-five percent of incoming students.
At graduation, cadets wore the rank insignia of Magic Warrant Officer and went through one year of mandatory service. After that, they rose to second lieutenant and went down one of two paths.
They either took the super-elite course—advancing into central politics to take control of the Ministry of Magic and the Ministry of Defense, or rising all the way to Magic Officer under the Emperor’s direct command and Commander of the Imperial Guard—or they put down stakes as field-grade officers commanding frontier units.
The super-elite course was the path for the Empire’s purebloods, and putting down stakes was the path for foreigners. In this way, the Empire used the military academy to raise soldiers who would put down stakes in the army. To the outside world, it used the academy as a tool to advertise its acceptance of diversity and its generosity.
The pretext was clear. Anyone could enroll, and graduation depended on grades.
Up until graduation, at least, it was equal by anyone’s standards.
Sandwiched in between were those of mixed blood.
A few mixed-bloods had entered central politics. Those who had inherited the blood of high nobles or army corps commanders were used as symbols of diversity.
Even though it was an opportunity won by the half of the blood they carried, the Empire paraded them in its propaganda.
An Empire whose doors are open to everyone and where the chance for success is guaranteed.
Fooled by this catchphrase, my father had chosen this Empire.
I was the son of Hubert Eigenhardt, the genius magic-elemental scholar and the foremost magnate of the Empire.
People babbled that this was an age when money became power, but I was the son of an immigrant who didn’t hold even a fistful of power.
Even if I graduated from this military academy.
For foreigners, who couldn’t even count as half-bloods, the Empire was no land of opportunity.
Foreigners were eternal outsiders.
The success guaranteed to outsiders was limited to the military, and rank only went as high as field grade. Economically, they were meant to live only at a middle-class level, and the proper attitude for a business was to offer it up to the Imperial Palace as a pledge of loyalty. In other words: succeed in moderation.
Whether it was thanks to the mana and magic power of the twelve assassins I’d swallowed right before dying, or because my desperation had reached the universe and it had helped me, I hadn’t died. I’d regressed.
I was quick to grasp that much, at least: I’d been given a chance to live again.
Now, then. The question.
How am I going to live?
“Looks like you can’t bring yourself to do it either.”
“Ah. A little. No—did it look that way?”
Flustered by someone suddenly speaking to me, I stumbled over my answer. I’d been about to go home instead of climbing the cliff. I’d planned to go home and think about how I would live.
The academy doesn’t deserve to have me, after all.
But of all people, it’s this jerk who comes up to talk to me?
“If you barely make it up, there’s the Ether Lake. I hear your father made it?”
“Father makes it every year.”
“Then you must know a clever trick for crossing it.”
Barely.
He probably meant it was one mountain after another. Even climbing the stone wall was a challenge.
A clever trick, huh.
Was he saying he’d cheat? Crib off someone, maybe? Or was he asking for help?
Gaston Philippe.
The youngest son of Duke Michiel de Philippe.
A third-time applicant.
An empty vessel whose bloodline was the entirety of his ability, who always washed out at the stone wall.
In my past life, I’d helped that son of a bitch and climbed up together with him.
Taking him for a human being when he was nothing but a duke’s son.
Thinking he’d become one of my connections.
He did become a connection. When the war broke out, he recommended me as a frontline commander and drove me into the land of death. Hoping I’d die. He must have believed that even if I became a war hero, it would be honor earned by dying.
I was my father’s only blood relative.
He must have dreamed of splitting the entire fortune my father had amassed with the Imperial Palace, gulping it down, and living off the honey.
When I led the war to victory and came back alive, he must have pinned a false charge of treason on me.
And when that charge was cleared, he must have sent the twelve assassins of death.
“......Wasn’t it crossed with mana?”
A clever trick, my ass.
“Th-that’s right. It’d be rude if you’re looking at me like I’m an empty vessel. I formed my Circle and opened up as a magic body.”
“That’s something to celebrate.”
“Looks like you couldn’t? Judging by how you’re hanging around like this, unable to bring yourself to climb even after taking first in theory? I guess it really is hard when you’re not of imperial blood or a noble? Ah, I’m Gaston Philippe.”
He worked racist awareness into his words while holding out his hand with a down-to-earth air.
Duke Philippe’s standing in the Empire was tremendous. Everyone bowed their heads before that name. Before my regression, I’d bowed my head too.
This was where all of the Empire’s connections began.
Where the Purification Alliance began.
In other words, where all my targets were gathered.
I changed my mind about going home and, instead of shaking his hand, grabbed a rope. A certain idea that had just come to me because of Gaston Philippe’s approach set me in motion.