Chapter 20
I ended up wolfing down five egg tarts.
Only after stuffing the last bite into my mouth did I finally start to wake up a little.
I patted my stomach with satisfaction and swallowed the last mouthful.
“Hey, I know it’s kind of funny to ask now, but..."
I was in the middle of swallowing a cough because it felt like a crumb had caught in my throat.
The two people who’d been watching me happily devour egg tarts just a moment ago approached hesitantly.
“Could we ask your name?”
I thought it was awfully late to ask.
Well, the sudden arrival of guests had made the timing awkward.
“Me? My name is Lu—”
“Huh? Luna, right?!”
Just then, someone called out to me from afar in a cheerful voice.
It was a familiar voice.
I whipped my head around and saw Senior Estelle waving as she came over through the gap in the crowd.
“Estelle? What, you know her?”
The boy blinked and looked back and forth between Senior Estelle and me.
Before I knew it, Senior Estelle had stepped right up beside me and hooked an arm over my shoulder.
“Yep, yep, of course! Let me introduce you. This is Lunaris Evermoon, my new apprentice!”
At Senior Estelle’s words, the two of them went blank for a moment.
They exchanged glances.
“Lunaris Evermoon? You mean the top freshman?”
“The Lunaris who’s rumored to be an advanced mage?”
When they both blurted it out at once, I couldn’t help but nod with a sour expression.
“Well, for now, that’s true...”
The hiccups and gasping breaths were downright obvious.
“I-is it true you skipped the entrance ceremony too?”
“And that the Linea Hall maids have it out for you?”
I quietly looked away and let my words trail off.
“That’s about right too...”
My mouth felt a little dry.
There were rumors about everything.
“Then is it also true you’ve already blown up three academy buildings?!”
“...I didn’t blow them up. And it wasn’t three.”
At the absurd remark, I waved my hands and denied it.
Exaggeration has its limits. I’m not some kind of academy terrorist.
But when I thought about it carefully, the numbers did seem to match.
If I count the auditorium in the Magic Hall, the Linea Hall dormitory, and the incident I caused in Old Sepia Hall just yesterday...
“Ah, maybe three is right.”
“Hiiiiiik!”
“My goodness...”
Scratching my cheek, I gave an embarrassed answer, and the two students’ expressions hardened bit by bit.
“Pfft! Wow~ Our apprentice has already caused plenty of trouble, huh!”
Unlike those two, Senior Estelle laughed and gave my shoulder a light pat.
“It’s fine, it’s fine~ In the Magitech Department, causing accidents is practically a way of life from professors to students. Once you start experimenting, having something blow up is perfectly normal!”
“No, but blowing up three buildings with magic is a bit...”
The two pairs of eyes fixed on me trembled relentlessly.
It definitely seemed like just moments before they’d been watching me eat egg tarts with satisfied smiles.
Now they were looking at me like I was a killer rabbit who’d slit their throats if they touched me.
“If you’re done here, can I take this one with me?”
“Uh, y-yes! S-sure!”
“Take her. Take her away quickly, please.”
At Senior Estelle’s casual words, the two of them nodded furiously up and down as if they’d been waiting for it.
“W-well... I still have something else to do separately...”
“Come on, I know you’d just go take a nap anyway. Let’s go together. I’ll show you something interesting.”
Without any intention of listening to my opinion, Senior Estelle grabbed my arm and yanked me along.
Come to think of it, a true magitech geek’s arm strength was surprisingly strong.
“Whaaa?!”
And my body was far too light to resist that power.
*
What Senior Estelle brought me to was a miscellaneous-goods stall run by Magitech Department students.
Compared with the other stalls, this one had an unusually large crowd, and all sorts of strange parts and gadgets were on display.
Oddly enough, there were more older people who looked like professors than students.
They stood in front of a few magitech items and did nothing but drone on about things like potential and practicality.
“Hey, Estelle! Why are you so late? Break time ended ages ago.”
As soon as the boy manning the stall spotted Senior Estelle in the crowd, he blurted out a complaint.
“Without you, we couldn’t even properly explain the magitech goods. Do you know how many prospective sponsors we lost?”
“Sorry, sorry~ It’s a bit much to call this a substitute, but I brought you a living shop sign!”
Senior Estelle abruptly shoved me forward, right in front of him.
“This one came over from the neighboring stall after proving what they can do, you know?”
“We’re already so busy we can barely think straight, and now you bring someone to draw in even more customers?”
Grumbling, he stared at me intently.
“Well, cute enough.”
“If you’re thinking of making a move, you’d better stop.”
“Why, are they already spoken for?”
“No, but this one is a lot scarier than they look.”
“Haha! What, are they the rumored top freshman or something?”
With a playful side-eye, Senior Estelle let out a chuckle.
“Yep, that’s right. Lunaris Evermoon. The very apprentice who just became mine.”
“...You didn’t bring a shop sign. You brought store security.”
The boy cleared his throat and straightened his back for no reason.
The etiquette training had worked perfectly.
Seeing his reaction, Senior Estelle burst out laughing.
Then she leaned toward me and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Do you know why I brought you here?”
“To help with the stall?”
“I didn’t exactly bring you here to have you do anything. I just wanted to show you around.”
I glanced around subtly.
There really were a lot of strange items.
It was hard to tell what they did just by looking at them.
If I examined them carefully, I might even be able to find a few items that were homages to the conveniences of modern civilization, things I’d often seen in my previous life.
It wasn’t impossible, either, since this was a fantasy world based on the original novel, not a typical medieval fantasy world.
They even had a beam projector that laid the thoughts in your head out in front of you, so there was no way there wouldn’t be other things like it.
“So what are you doing here, Senior?”
“Something like a side job? A part-time gig, maybe...”
Senior Estelle grinned as she picked up a random piece of junk from the floor.
“As you can see, I’m selling the magitech items I’ve made little by little in my spare time. If I just let them pile up in storage, they’d only become clutter.”
I glanced over the magitech goods on sale at the stall once more.
I wasn’t exactly sharp-eyed, but I could tell the quality of the items here wasn’t very good.
It didn’t seem like the sort of tool the ‘Star of the Magitech Department’ would have made just to sell off at a discount.
“Senior Estelle, I heard a rumor that you made magitech items recognized by the Imperial Palace. Is that true?”
“Huh? Where did you hear that...? Well, I suppose it is such a well-known rumor that if you set your mind to it, you couldn’t help but hear it.”
I hadn’t exactly investigated it; I was just recalling the original novel’s background knowledge, but anyway.
“Well, that was just luck once in a while. And experiments don’t always succeed, either.”
The senior paused for a moment, then quickly looked around.
After confirming that nobody around us was paying attention, she lowered her voice as much as possible and added:
“Actually, everything I’ve put out here is failed experimental work.”
“...Ah?”
At my involuntary surprised sound, Senior Estelle quickly brought her index finger to her lips.
“Shh. The customers can’t hear that.”
The senior snickered and gave me a playful wink.
“A great success is always followed by dozens, hundreds of failures, after all.”
I stared blankly at the senior, then quietly nodded.
Her not fearing failure felt a little impressive.
“Anyway, since they’re failures, it’s a waste to just throw them away, so I improve the usable ones and put them out like this.”
Senior Estelle went on with a shrug.
“Even if I get a scholarship, living expenses are separate. And besides, every now and then I want to buy some high-grade materials, not just the standard-issue magitech supplies the academy gives out.”
Come to think of it, Senior Estelle had an unexpectedly practical, frugal side.
Maybe that was why? For some reason, I felt a strange sense of familiarity with her.
...Such a diligent person.
How on earth did she end up doing something so dangerous?
No matter how I thought about it, I couldn’t understand.
*
When I entered Elterion Academy, I set up a schedule to contact Deputy Commander Albert of the Imperial Mage Corps remotely once every two weeks.
Honestly, it was a hassle, but I was told there was no choice if I wanted support from the imperial budget, so I decided to bear with it.
Today was the day of the first regular report.
As I fed mana into the communication crystal ball, I reflected on the past two weeks.
...
Sssup.
It didn’t seem like I had anything in particular to report.
Really, nothing had happened, so I didn’t know what to say.
-Haaah...
But hearing the deep sigh coming from beyond the crystal ball, clearly brimming with displeasure, made it seem like the deputy commander had quite a lot to say to me.
-Uh... Lunaris?
He also seemed to have plenty he wanted to say.
I was so glad his face wasn’t even visible in the crystal ball.
If we’d been looking each other in the eye, it probably would have been more than just a little awkward.
-You were sent to clean up incidents, and instead you're causing incidents. What exactly am I supposed to do about that?
“Haha...”
-I’ve already had two incidents reported to me, two separate ones.
Our deputy commander had definitely seemed very gentle and mild right up until the academy entrance exam results came out.
Now he looked pretty angry.
-What are we supposed to think when you wreck the wall of a building in a class with the princess, then have a magic duel with Department Head Raymond in the princess’s dormitory?
...Wow.
When I actually did it, I hadn’t thought it was that big a deal.
But when you phrase it like that, it really does sound disastrous.
-In the imperial palace, people are half-jokingly saying I planted someone at the academy to assassinate the Third Princess, you know.
“I had my reasons for all of it, reasons.”
I went on, yawning so lazily my jaw almost cracked.
“And if I make this much of a scene, doesn’t that have the side effect of drawing relatively less attention to the princess?”
-...You’re unbelievably good with words.
My sigh on the other side carried every emotion imaginable.
-Anyway, have you gotten any closer to the Third Princess?
“...”
Before I knew it, I broke out in a cold sweat.
Come to think of it, I had completely forgotten.
Two weeks had passed since Elterion Academy opened, and tomorrow would mark the beginning of week three.
And yet, I hadn’t even managed to strike up a conversation with the princess.
I hadn’t even managed to make her acquaintance.