Always remain humble.
It was an old maxim passed down in Yeouido, the famed house of the blade.
No matter how thoroughly one prepared or how much bone-grinding effort one put in.
There could always be someone stronger than oneself, and there inevitably would be. It was both a realization and a warning.
"Lloyd Schultz. I will be blunt."
The same held true in the world of <Jjam Academy>.
Just as I had grasped the examiner's intent, someone else could have grasped it as well.
Honestly, that much fell within the bounds of what I had expected.
But.
"I have come to help you."
I had honestly never expected Professor Garahevi, wearing an extremely solemn expression.
In other words, the very person who had set the questions, to twist his own intent.
Chapter 03 - I'll Borrow the Top Spot
- Who did what?
- Professor Garahevi of the Magic School stole the placement test paper and answer key! How could a full professor do something so disgraceful......
They said that sharing a secret dramatically increased one's sense of inner closeness.
Or perhaps the old saying that generosity sprang from a full granary had simply proven true.
- Hmm, so Professor Cotiar had been carrying out the same task?
- I-I'm still only an assistant professor! And I only did it because Mr. Schultz told me to......!
- Ah.
- But surely the other faculty have not all been doing this kind of thing behind the scenes, right?
- Well, that is something nobody could possibly know.
- Just as I thought! It is not that I was bad; I was simply far too naive all this time.
The evening before the placement test. That was just yesterday evening.
Sophia, who had come to give me the test paper and answer key, had brought me some unexpected additional information.
- But does that not create a problem for your plan, Mr. Schultz?
- A problem?
- At this rate, the freshman Professor Garahevi has his eye on might come in first on the placement test.
- That does not matter. What I want is to be among the very best, not to come in first.
If she had viewed our relationship in a somewhat detached light.
For instance, if she had thought of it only as an ordinary student-professor relationship in which we helped one another until graduation in exchange for money.
- Are you really going to let this pass? This is a perfect chance to severely punish a full professor who is disgraceful beyond measure!
- It sounds as though life at the Academy has been causing you a considerable amount of stress.
- I-it is not particularly like that?
- Even if we do not approach him first, there is a good chance they will come to us.
- What? How could that......
- You will see. That is, if Professor Garahevi's purpose is to rig first place on the placement test.
- That would be a relief, but what if he does not come to us?
- In that case, we can use this information as leverage and pressure him directly.
She might not have told me that she had seen Professor Garahevi in the administrative office.
Because that was not part of our contract.
- And I should mention this just in case, but I trust you will not call me Mr. Schultz at the Academy.
- What? Then what should I call......
- What else would a professor call a freshman but by his name?
- That is a joke, Mr. Schultz. You are not an ordinary student.
- ?
- ??
Even so, Sophia voluntarily passed along information that would help me.
It suggested that she had begun to think of us as an "us."
Whether that was because of the Scorpion Cidrom, or because I could splurge on expensive Steam Alchemy experimental materials, I did not know.
In any event.
"This may be rather disconcerting for you. I understand."
Thanks to her, I was able to face Professor Garahevi in a fairly calm state of mind.
"From your perspective, a professor you are meeting for the first time today has said he can help you with the outcome of your placement test."
If I had been summoned without knowing anything, and an Academy professor had brought up the "outcome of my placement test."
Even I would have had no choice but to feel a little tense.
"Ah, but there is no need to worry. You did extremely well on the written placement test."
Professor Garahevi continued, wearing an expression both proud and genuinely regretful.
"The problem is that you did too well. As you know, Imperial Solarian Academy does not consider the status or class of its entrants."
But status and class did not disappear.
Some members of the faculty, steeped in such things, would rather have students from high-status families claim titles such as first place or top honors.
And if need be, they would abuse the authority given to them to arrange it.
"How foolish and frustrating that is...... As a fellow professor, I can only be ashamed."
Professor Garahevi appealed to me in a voice filled with heartfelt anguish.
If Sophia had not warned me in advance, I might have mistaken it for sincerity.
Had he become an opera singer instead of a professor, he could have made quite a few noble ladies weep.
"Your name is being discussed among them right now."
The seniors have been talking about you a great deal lately.
I barely managed to keep my poker face from breaking at a remark that made me wonder whether this was an academy or the Korean Army.
"A few of the more extreme ones already seem convinced that you, Lloyd Schultz, cheated."
Whether those few extremists were a real group or one Professor Garahevi had invented to pressure me.
They had, remarkably, arrived at the inference closest to the truth.
"They are openly insisting that your written score be lowered, or that your admission to the Academy be revoked altogether."
"......"
"How could they do such a thing when you have done nothing wrong, you ask? Surprisingly, similar things happened last year and the year before."
"......"
"It pains me to say this, but if you had missed only a few more questions, you would not have become embroiled in anything like this."
"......"
"Still, do not worry too much. I have come to prevent anything unjust from happening to you."
"......"
"I looked into your records. You entered the Academy through the long-service benefit your now-deceased parents received as Imperial civil servants."
So surely I should not allow the Academy opportunity you had gained through your parents to be squandered so pointlessly.
He could understand, a hundred times over, that I had studied hard for the written placement test and done well. But unfortunately, this world also contained things that effort alone could not overcome.
Here, making a "wise choice" to avoid the anger of the status-conscious faculty would be the best choice for everyone.
That was the general feeling of it.
Professor Garahevi subjected me to an uninterrupted barrage of gaslighting.
He said that if I agreed to have my written placement-test score adjusted down somewhat, he would prevent any additional disadvantages from befalling me.
"But...... you have not said a word this whole time."
I did not dislike this type of person.
'If I coax him properly, I can move him about like a chess piece—pliant as the tongue in my mouth.'
I could tell merely from his zealous manner of persuasion.
Even if the request itself was improper, the professionalism with which he had come all the way here in person to achieve his goal was difficult to find even in Yeouido.
"Well, I understand. You may have been nervous because you have never experienced anything like this before."
Giving up the top spot on the written placement test was not much of a problem for me, either.
What I needed was to be near the very top of the rankings—high enough to draw the Emperor's attention—not the title of top scorer itself.
But that was only my position.
It was not something Professor Garahevi could simply come to me and announce.
"Then may I take your silence to mean that you will accept my help?"
Professor Garahevi's brow drew into a shape that showed a measure of displeasure as he held out his hand.
"Professor Garahevi."
"Hm?"
"Who is it? The student who was supposed to come in first on the written placement test in my place."
At my answer, his hand and pupils trembled as though an earthquake had struck.
***
"W-W-W-What exactly do you mean?! A student who was supposed to come in first?"
Professor Garahevi stammered like someone who had choked as gastric acid surged up from an empty stomach.
The possibility that Lloyd Schultz—a non-hereditary noble whose parents were both dead, an orphan—would strike back at him.
Had never existed anywhere in his expectations.
"You know better than I do what I mean, Professor."
"You are free to misunderstand, but being rude is another matter entirely."
That was why he feigned calm as best he could.
'He is only acting that way because he feels wronged. It is not as though he knows anything.'
Even if Lloyd's expression was not the sort a boy his age would make when he felt falsely accused.
Professor Garahevi steadied himself as though hypnotizing himself.
After all, unless Lloyd had planted an insider within the Academy.
How could he possibly know that Garahevi had received a request related to the placement-test scores?
"Is it really a misunderstanding?"
"Lloyd Schultz! Do not become so full of yourself over a mere perfect score......"
"So it was a perfect score. If you lower my score, someone else's ranking will rise."
"That is only natural."
But Professor Garahevi could not help turning white at Lloyd's next words.
"Making the second-place student first would be far too obvious, so it cannot be second place."
"......Listen here."
"And pulling some dimwit far down the rankings up to the top would require too much work. My apologies. A low-scoring student, I mean."
"......"
"So, set aside second place, set aside all the failures."
Lloyd had risen to his feet before he knew it, folding down the fingers he had spread as he approached.
"Among the students with scores high enough that they would naturally rise to first if I stepped aside."
Conversely, Garahevi involuntarily took a step backward at a time, like a guilty man.
By the time he had been driven back against the wall of the now-empty classroom.
"And if we exclude even those whose connections overlap with mine."
"T-This is......!"
Lloyd took several sheets of paper from an elegant envelope tucked inside his clothes and handed them over.
"It should not be difficult to identify the student who enjoys Professor Garahevi's favor, or the backing that student has."
[Guide for Students Sponsored by the Sachsen Patronage Association]
[Frank Scholarship Foundation Talent Scouting...]
[Margrave of Rheinland...]
[Future Spark Scholarship...]
[Blue Tower Knocking Support Project...]
With every document he read.
Professor Garahevi went from white to pale.
Beginning with the Duke of Sachsen and the Duke of Frank, whose names everyone in the Empire knew, and the Margrave of Rheinland, who was practically the king of the North.
And even the Red Tower and Blue Tower, whose prestige he could never dismiss as a mage.
The fact that every one of them sponsored the student before him carried an unmistakably clear meaning.
'C-Could it be he was not an orphan?!'
Lloyd Schultz could not possibly have been born to two civil-servant parents.
Those were merely falsified documents meant to conceal the "secret of his birth."
It meant he had support that could not even be compared with that behind Graysong Silva, whose parents had merely asked that their illegitimate child be made the top scorer on the placement test.
"Professor Garahevi, where were you and what were you doing yesterday evening?"
"......W-Why are you suddenly asking about dinner?"
"Do I truly need to say the reason aloud?"
"......"
He even seemed to know that Garahevi had taken the test paper and answer key out.
"W-Wait!"
This would not do.
Professor Garahevi clung to his thoughts, which kept trying to go blank, and began desperately squeezing out the best move he had.
'The fact that he is concealing who his parents are must mean he cannot reveal them openly......'
Though the onslaught of Lloyd's sponsorship certificates had left his mind feeling as if it had been slapped raw, he was still a full professor who had spent years in the Academy.
After all, most of those who gathered under the grand signboard of Imperial Solarian Academy.
Were illegitimate children and bastards, little more than their families' dirty secrets. Lloyd was surely no different.
"I acknowledge that I may have made some rather unrefined remarks."
Professor Garahevi struggled to take hold of the conversation's lead.
But unfortunately.
"Do you mean the remark that the student Professor Garahevi was asked to favor had to be made the placement-test top scorer in place of me, the perfect scorer?"
"W-When did I ever say such a thing?!"
"Honestly, it does not matter."
"......What did you say?"
The initiative had passed to Lloyd before the conversation had even begun.
"What changes if I become the top scorer on the Academy placement test? If there is a student who needs it more than I do, I will gladly yield it."
"You have thought very well! Yes, now we can finally speak sense."
"On one condition."
"......What condition?"
"I cannot use magic."
"......???"
"And despite that, I intend to receive excellent grades in the Magic School's general courses that every first-year must take."
I cannot use magic, yet I would earn excellent grades in the Magic School.
Garahevi's thoughts had stopped for a moment, but before long he grasped Lloyd's true intention.
"A-Are you asking me to falsify your grades right now......?!"
His face reddened, and a sharp voice burst out of him at the same time.
"Falsify? Just as I am yielding, I am asking Professor Garahevi to yield a little as well. Would it not be best if we simply kept things amicable?"
"How dare you play such worthless word games with me!"
Unlike him, Lloyd was brimming with ease.
What had been a meeting in which Professor Garahevi was supposed to pressure and persuade Lloyd.
Had already completely reversed its nature.
"Then I cannot yield, either."
"His Majesty himself will attend this entrance ceremony! Even if it is not me, you cannot become the top scorer anyway!"
"Solarian III is coming to the entrance ceremony?"
The moment Garahevi mentioned information he ordinarily would never have revealed.
Lloyd's manner changed with terrifying abruptness.
"Watch your tongue. Disrespect toward His Majesty could be considered treason......"
"You will guarantee that I receive grades at the highest level in the Magic School's general courses throughout my first year."
"Lloyd Schultz!"
"And I will give the new-student representative's speech at this entrance ceremony."
"Did you not hear what I said? His Majesty the Emperor will be coming in person!"
"Every time Professor Garahevi refuses my proposal, I will add another condition."
"......"
The confidence of a freshman who seemed to feel no pressure whatsoever from an Academy professor's authority.
Sponsorship and documents so excessive that they went beyond suspicious, far too much to be granted to a single person, along with the meticulousness of concealing his birth secret by falsifying documents.
And unlike the leisure he had shown until now.
'The instant he heard the word Emperor, his attitude changed......'
The instant he learned Solarian III would personally attend the entrance ceremony, his demeanor had changed completely.
With the unexpected crisis running his brain at three times its usual clock speed, Professor Garahevi reached one conclusion.
'C-C-Could Lloyd Schultz be a hidden scion of the Imperial family?!'
And he was a full professor of the grandly titled Imperial Solarian Academy's Magic School who had threatened that hidden scion of the Imperial family with lowering his placement-test score, all to grant a request from a moneyed upstart hereditary noble.
Professor Garahevi himself, without even realizing it, had reached the terrifying conclusion that he was walking toward the guillotine.
"I have yet to hear your answer."
To Professor Garahevi, the hand Lloyd held out with a smile looked like a blue-tinged blade.
"May I take it to mean that Professor Garahevi accepts my conditions?"
Taking it felt as though it would cut his hand, while ignoring it felt as though it would take his head.
"O-Of course. I knew from the beginning that you were a most excellent student."
In the end, he had no choice but to clasp it, like a man swallowing mustard through tears.
"Well, then. Please take very good care of me until I graduate."
"Until you graduate?!"
Then Lloyd wrapped the hand he had shaken Professor Garahevi's with in his other, empty hand.
"I have only just enrolled, so I was at a loss over what I would do if I ran into trouble. Yet you have offered your hand first like this."
"No, I was not the one who offered......"
"Let us keep going just like this!"
Like a hunter securing a beast caught in a trap.
Thoroughly and without the slightest gap.