Chapter 63
Top floor of Elterion Academy's Magic Hall, the dean's office.
Morning sunlight was spilling over the antique mahogany desk.
Dean Raymond, who had just returned from an all-night regular Magic Tower meeting, gulped down a cup of premium coffee to soothe her weary body and mind.
A sweet aroma tickled the tip of her nose.
“Heh-heh~ These days, taking part in meetings is quite enjoyable.”
Even if she was worn out, her mood was quite pleasant.
That was because she had firmly taken the upper hand over the Magic Tower's haughty elders lately.
And the reason for that was, of course, the title of 'Lunaris's mentor.'
Before being the youngest archmage candidate, Lunaris was the only mage in the Empire who could freely wield natural mana.
And the one teaching that monster of a mage was none other than Raymond herself.
Though she really did wonder if she was teaching her properly, anyway.
After all, when a student shines, the mentor's fame rises with them.
She didn't just keep handing Lunaris mana stones and whatever else she could as 'teaching materials,' then keep class going by coaxing and soothing her.
It was all an investment in the future.
“The sight of them begging, 'Please, just once, bring Student Lunaris to the Magic Tower symposium,' was hilarious... Ohohoho!!”
It was just then, as she laughed out loud at the memory of last night's meeting.
-Knock knock knock!!
“Dean of the Magic Department! Are you in there?!”
The knocking on the door was incredibly forceful.
The sound was so sharp it almost seemed like the door itself would break.
“Come in.”
Soon, familiar faces burst in.
Led by Howard, the chief professor of the Department of Political Science.
Professors from the Department of Economics and the Department of Magic, even the experiment-crazy Department of Magical Engineering and the Swordsmanship Department, whose professors were Sword God worshippers, came pouring in.
They came swarming in as if a regular staff meeting had been called.
Dean Raymond was about to make an irritated remark, but stopped and cleared her throat. The professors' expressions were anything but normal.
This looked like something serious had happened.
“Is something wrong? I just got back from the conference and I'm a little tired, so if it's not urgent, come back tomorrow...”
“Yes, it really is urgent, Dean!”
Chief Professor Howard snarled as he raised his voice.
For someone who usually repeated 'noble dignity' like a catchphrase, his voice was unusually sharp.
It was all because he hadn't slept properly last night.
A good night's sleep is that important.
“This is no time for a leisurely tea break! Elterion Academy was turned upside down last night, that's what I'm saying!”
“Excuse me? The academy was turned upside down... Did a demon beast attack the campus?”
“Ha! I'd rather it had been a demon beast. Then we could've exterminated it.”
“Then...?”
“Because something even worse showed up, isn't that the problem!”
-Thud!
Chief Professor Howard slammed the thick bundle of papers he had tucked under one arm onto the desk.
The impact made the coffee in the cup slosh.
“Around 3 a.m. today, a top-class magical reaction was detected in the area of the second training ground in front of the Sword Dance Hall.”
“...!”
“The alarm started blaring like crazy, students and staff alike scrambled to evacuate, and... it was an absolute mess, a total mess!”
“Oh? Top-class magic, huh...”
Unlike the blustering Howard, Dean Raymond's eyes sparkled with interest.
The fact that the barrier installed at Elterion Academy had sounded the alarm meant one of two things.
Either an unregistered outsider had used magic without permission,
or some off-the-charts magic classified as top class had been cast.
In the first place, under normal circumstances, there was no reason for the alarm to go off.
Because at Elterion Academy, the only person who could use top-class magic was Dean Raymond herself.
...No, wait.
Come to think of it, there was one more candidate.
“Don't tell me... it's that student?”
“That's right! Lunaris Evermoon, that brazen freshman!”
With a trembling hand, Chief Professor Howard pulled a small pill bottle from his pocket.
He wrenched the lid open roughly.
He chewed and swallowed a blood-pressure pill without water, venting his frustration.
“She keeps waking everyone in the academy up, tearing the training grounds to pieces! I've never seen a student pull off such creative disasters this many times since I started teaching!”
“Calm down, Chief Professor Howard. Well—if we're being precise, the alarm going off is partly my fault too.”
“No, how is that the dean's responsibility?”
“Hmm—shall we say I was complacent? I never imagined there'd be another academy member besides me who could unleash top-class magic.”
More accurately, I didn't expect one to show up this quickly.
Raymond forced down the smile tugging at her lips and turned the first page of the report.
The scene photo caught her eye first.
A deep crater and a scorched floor. It was a disaster as though a star had fallen there.
‘This is...’
Familiar traces. Lunaris's signature spell, provisionally named Starlight Bureumi.
It had definitely been an unfinished spell the last time she saw it, so it seemed she had finally completed it.
“By the way, were there any casualties?”
“The fourth-year top student, Gaios Leonhardt, was there.”
“Goodness... how?”
“They say they sparred.”
At the words of the professor from the Swordsmanship Department, Dean Raymond unconsciously rubbed her face.
If there were casualties... then the story would be different.
“Ahem! S-so? Where is Student Gaios? Has he been operated on yet? Surely his condition isn't too bad...”
“No. By now he should have finished questioning and gone back to his dorm to rest.”
“...Pardon?”
“He was limping, but apparently he got back in fine.”
At that, Dean Raymond let out a languid sigh.
“What? Then it wasn't really a big deal, was it?”
“You're scaring the life out of people for no reason. So irritating.”
“Not a big deal, you say, Dean?”
“You said nothing happened, didn't you? And the circumstances behind the magic were an agreed-upon spar.”
He even defended them by saying it was only energetic students burning with the passion to learn late into the night.
The sight of him defending them instead was downright shameless.
“But if the student had failed to control the magic properly, it could have led to a major accident...!”
“Do you know what it means that magic classified as top-class came crashing down, and he still walked back to the dormitory on his own two feet?”
“...”
“It means that, in the split second she cast the spell, she controlled the impact.”
In other words, she had perfectly controlled the magic.
Dean Raymond continued with a beaming smile.
“She held back a lot—really a lot. If Student Lunaris had been serious, Student Gaios would've spent the whole second semester stuck in bed.”
“...”
“Now that I look at it, Student Lunaris has a surprisingly soft heart, doesn't she? Ohohoho!”
The professors stared at one another, stunned.
She had almost burned a person alive, and she was calling her soft-hearted.
This dean was no ordinary doting fool.
“Dean, please stop dodging the point.”
Chief Professor Howard growled, pressing down the veins bulging at his temple.
“In any case, isn't it true that she destroyed campus facilities, disrupted the study atmosphere, frightened the students, and made the staff suffer!”
Bracing himself on the desk, Chief Professor Howard leaned forward as he continued.
“What worries me most is that student's lack of control! She's only been enrolled for half a year, and how many incidents and accidents has she already caused?”
“Ah, but isn't that energetic and nice? Doesn't it bring some life to the academy?”
“It's not life, it's killing intent! Even the maids in Linea Hall have had to wage war every morning just to wake that one student, and the hardship they go through is no joke!”
Come to think of it, those maids were all gathered in the break room, thoroughly enjoying the cool breeze.
One air conditioner had turned the worst working conditions into the best working conditions, at least for summer.
“Anyway, Dean of the Magic Department, please do something about Student Lunaris. At the academy, you're the only one who can stop her!”
The other professors nodded cautiously.
For the sake of the academy's peace, they needed to somehow hold back that unruly troublemaking cat running wild as she pleased.
But Dean Raymond only shrugged.
“Well... I'm not even sure whether I can stop her anymore...”
“Pardon? What do you mean by that?”
“Why, didn't you say a top-class magical reaction was detected?”
“Th-that's true, but...”
“You do know what that means, don't you?”
“What... Ah!”
“Doesn't it mean our Student Lunaris has finally stepped into the realm of the archmage? Or that she's literally right on the doorstep!”
Dean Raymond's eyes glittered as though she had fallen into ecstasy.
It was a striking contrast to the professors' faces, which were turning pitch-black.
“My goodness! She hasn't even been enrolled for a year, and she's already on the verge of reaching the archmage level... This is something that will go down in imperial history! Ohohoho!”
The dean suddenly sprang to her feet and continued.
“Control and suppress a genius like this with school regulations? On the contrary, we should let her run even freer so her talent can blossom!”
“Y-yes, now that you mention it, that does seem...”
“Maybe we'll get to witness the end of magic...”
The professors from the Magic Department began nodding and admiring her as if Raymond's madness had infected them as well.
Honestly, before they were professors, as mages, all they could do when they looked at Lunaris was marvel.
“Has everyone lost their minds?!”
Of course, that didn't make a dent with the professors from the other departments, who knew nothing about how cool magic was.
“Is this the Magic Tower? It's a comprehensive educational institution, an educational institution! Do you really plan to destroy the whole academy just to raise one student?!”
“No, well... saying it that extremely...”
“If you keep acting like this, Dean, we won't just sit by and do nothing. We'll go speak to the chairman and lodge an official complaint!”
At those words, the triumphant expression on Dean Raymond's face stiffened a little.
Within the academy, she wielded tremendous power, but the one person she always gave ground to was the chairman.
“That's true... being too lenient isn't good for education either.”
The dean sighed, resting her chin on interlaced fingers as if reluctantly conceding.
“I'll take responsibility and figure out countermeasures.”
“And then you'll just say that and slip away with a smile...”
“I'll discuss it properly with Dean Liliana of the Department of Magical Engineering and deal with it somehow before this summer break ends.”
Come to think of it, that was a little irritating.
Lunaris was a member of the Department of Magical Engineering, so why did she, the dean of the Department of Magic, have to go through all this trouble?
If Lunaris had offered to transfer to the Department of Magic, she'd have gladly stepped up.
But Lunaris wasn't the type to do that.
And it wasn't as if she could just ignore it, either... after all, most of the status she enjoyed at the Magic Tower was thanks entirely to Lunaris.
And if Lunaris were to receive official archmage certification from the Magic Tower?
“The mentor of the youngest archmage...!”
At the thought of a title that would shine on her for the rest of her life drawing closer, Dean Raymond broke into a grin.
*
“...”
I had definitely gone to sleep before sunrise, but when I opened my eyes, it was still pitch-dark outside.
I stared blankly at the room sunk in darkness.
It wasn't like time had reversed.
No way... had an entire day been wiped out?
Glancing at the clock and doing a rough calculation, I'd slept for well over twenty hours.
My ambitious plan to flip day and night had failed completely.
I was supposed to make only half a turn in the air, but I ended up making a full one.
Well, I suppose I could've slept that long.
After a long time, using magic nearly on par with top-class level while forcibly controlling it together with telekinesis magic had left my body thoroughly drained.
If I didn't have any other problems, I might've slept not twenty hours, but twice that.
-Grrr...
Yeah, if only I weren't hungry.
In fact, the reason I woke up now wasn't because I'd finished sleeping.
It was because the organs inside my body were sending survival signals, telling me to shove something into my mouth.
“Baaah...”
I got up, climbed out of bed, and shuffled out of the room.
My destination was the cafeteria in the basement. There should be leftover ingredients or something there.
A duty maid guarding the kitchen? Who cared.
I was so hungry I couldn't see straight.
Anyone who tried to stop me would get a Heavenly Demon Death Missile planted straight into their vitals.
...Still, Ms. Odette was scary.
I carefully made my way down the stairs, making sure not to wake that terrifying head maid.