Chapter 89
“Next week, the second semester starts already.”
The faculty lounge on the third floor of the Main Building.
A deep sigh slipped out, along with the clink of a teaspoon against a teacup.
“I have no idea how two months have gone by.”
“Tell me about it. I blinked, and it was already the start of term.”
“Doesn't this vacation feel especially short?”
Students were not the only ones who dreaded the start of term.
The professors felt exactly the same.
“Professor, I heard you visited the Southern Rosen Kingdom this time. I'm jealous.”
“I went on a family trip to clear my head.”
“I heard it's famous for its seafood dishes, though.”
“It really was amazing. Especially the butter-roasted lobster...”
Idle chatter went back and forth, an attempt to delay even a little the end of vacation creeping ever closer.
If it were up to them, they would turn back time.
“More importantly... has everyone heard the news?”
But the cruel reality was drawing nearer and nearer.
“Student Lunaris Evermoon really did go and earn the title of Archmage.”
And with the terrifying(?) natural disaster of the first student Archmage in history, no less.
“Well, yes... Head Raymond of the Magic Department had been making a racket about it everywhere.”
“Heh, heh. So it really came to this in the end.”
In the silence, sighs rose from here and there.
Even the professors who had stayed out of the conversation and focused on their own work couldn't ignore this topic; they pricked up their ears.
“I figured she'd become an Archmage before graduating from the Academy, but...”
“I never imagined it would be this fast. To think she'd break through after just one semester...”
“Exactly! What's even more troublesome is that this Archmage isn't a professor or a teaching assistant, but just a student.”
The thought that they would have to spend seven more semesters—three years and six months—with this natural disaster made their heads burn.
Still, the Swordsmanship Department professor, the Political Science Department professor, and the Economics Department professor would probably feel like they were watching the fire from across the river.
“So... starting next semester, we're supposed to teach magic to an Archmage?”
But for the professors in the Magical Engineering Department and the Magic Department, it was no one else's problem.
“Heh, heh-heh-heh...”
For the professor in charge of Basic Magic Theory, especially the one who taught first-years, it felt as if a meteor were about to crash down on their head.
All he could do was laugh. He really was a top-class professor.
“Can you imagine it? I'm writing formulas on the blackboard, and at the very back sits an Archmage with their arms crossed, watching while yawning. That horrifying scene.”
“Oh, no...!”
“If it were me, I might have applied for a sabbatical.”
“Well, what would be different from last semester? A high mage or an Archmage—neither of them is controllable.”
Saying he'd already emptied his mind, the professor stared into the air with a serene expression.
“Anyway, Student Lunaris is often absent, isn't she? And even when she does come to class, she'll just sleep through it full-time.”
So he said, with utter resignation, that he wasn't even planning to wake her.
“You should at least pretend to wake her. Do you want to ruin the whole atmosphere for studying?”
“The other students don't even see Miss Lunaris as the same kind of student anyway.”
A dragon(?) was thankfully sound asleep, snoring kooo- phew-, and there wasn't a brave fool at Elterion Academy who'd dare wake it.
“Still, theory classes are held indoors in the morning, so that's at least better.”
This time, the professor in charge of Practical Magic clutched his head and groaned.
“The practical course I teach is... truly a disaster in itself.”
In the afternoon, Lunaris was a cat that had gotten plenty of sleep... no, a dragon.
She was a troublemaker who couldn't rein in her surplus strength and caused all manner of problems.
“Just thinking about having to perform tricks before an Archmage makes my stomach ache. Honestly, I'd rather be the one receiving instruction from the student.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“Well, as last semester, I'll ask her to do a magic demonstration in the first class and excuse her from attendance for the rest of the lectures.”
It was practically the same as saying he'd given up on teaching her altogether.
Even last semester, he had already been made to write a report and take a pay cut for abusing a professor's privileges.
“Wouldn't that be the best option for me, that student, and all the other students as well?”
But no one criticized him.
Instead, they simply nodded, calling it a wise decision.
“By the way, how about the Magical Engineering Department?”
A professor from the Magic Department asked the professor from the Magical Engineering Department, who had been nodding off.
“Isn't the Magical Engineering Department the one that's most on the spot? After all, that's the Archmage's specialty.”
“Hmm? Ah, well, Student Estel is our first priority, so...”
The professor from the Magical Engineering Department scratched his head after being jolted awake and said,
“And starting next semester, Head Liliana herself is going to take the lead. She said she'd personally handle the lower-year foundational design course.”
“Huh— the head of the Magical Engineering Department herself?”
“At Elterion Academy right now, Head Liliana is probably the only one who can teach Student Lunaris anything.”
Envious sighs broke out among the professors of the Magic Department.
“I think Head Raymond of the Magic Department should take a more active role as well!”
“Still, at least Head Raymond devotes the entire Thursday to us. If not for that... ugh! Just imagining it is horrifying.”
Then someone looking out the window suddenly blurted out.
“However.”
“...?”
“Magical Engineering does seem like something Head Liliana has plenty to teach, but in pure magic, isn't it possible that even Head Raymond can no longer control Student Lunaris?”
“...!”
In an instant, a silence as if cold water had been splashed into the lounge settled over the room.
Even so, until now there had been a thick wall between Head Raymond and Lunaris.
There was the gap between a high mage and a top-tier mage, between an ordinary mage and an Archmage.
But that was no longer the case.
Now that Lunaris had awakened as an Archmage, the two of them were effectively on equal footing.
What's more, Lunaris's specialties were formulas, spells, and instant-cast magic that skipped magic circles.
“If she gets even a little annoyed and lashes out with magic...”
“...Wow. Just now, I imagined a star falling before a defensive spell could even be deployed.”
“Second semester... isn't going to be easy...”
Sighs once again seeped out from all around.
It was a day with less than a week left until the start of the second semester.
*
“Tomorrow is the start of the semester.”
Basement of Linea Hall, maid lounge.
The maids stood in neat rows in the somewhat cramped room.
Their gazes were all fixed on the head maid, Odette.
A solemn atmosphere hung in the silence.
The only sounds were nervous gulps and the whirring of the magical device Lunaris had set up—the air conditioner—echoing faintly through the room.
Ironically, the pleasant cool air that eased the summer heat now felt like the chill of a battlefield.
“The residents of Linea Hall are top students who represent Elterion Academy. So we maids have to pay even more attention and support them with everything we've got so they can focus on their studies.”
Odette paused for a moment and looked around at the maids.
The head maid's gaze flashed sharply.
“...Especially.”
At that single word, the maids' shoulders flinched.
“As for Lady Lunaris, who is under special watch... we need special measures.”
Odette's expression was solemn as she said that.
The other maids were the same. They looked determined, as if they were knights about to go to war.
“It is highly likely that Lady Lunaris won't meet her attendance quota this semester.”
“...”
“Therefore, no matter what it takes, by any means necessary, we must drag the young lady out of bed...”
“U-um... Head Maid?”
At that moment, a rookie maid cautiously raised her hand.
“Can we... really wake up the Archmage?”
Starting with that, worried voices burst out from all sides.
“No matter how I look at it, it's impossible.”
“Even if all of us went at her together, Lady Lunaris would wipe us out with a single finger...”
“I don't see a shred of hope.”
Amid the rampant defeatism, there were still some who tried to spin a happy ending.
“B-but still! She's been in bed for two whole weeks without taking a single step out... even meals are handled in bed. If she's slept enough by now, then by the start of term she'll surely come out on her own...”
“Abandon such foolish hope! You still don't know Lady Lunaris? Even if she woke up after sleeping for a month, she'd be the sort to sleep for another week!”
Of course, a realistic senior maid immediately woke her from that dream.
“I've thought about it, and Lady Lunaris must be a dragon.”
“Exactly! She's come out into the human world for amusement and is enjoying a period of hibernation!”
At last, someone burst into tears.
“I don't mind getting hurt. But! I can't stand this helplessness, where I can't do anything...”
“Sn-sniff, sob!”
It bears repeating, but these people weren't going off to die somewhere.
They were just going to wake up a single student who liked sleeping in.
“Everyone, calm down.”
Odette deliberately raised her voice.
“I know it will be a difficult battle. I'm afraid too.”
At the head maid's confession, the sniffles subsided.
“Even so, we must wake her.”
Because that is the pride and duty of the maids who manage Linea Hall, the finest dormitory of Elterion Academy.
“Remember that we are the only ones who can save Lady Lunaris from the danger of repeating a year.”
At the beloved head maid's appeal, the maids wiped away their tears.
Resolve returned to everyone's eyes once more.
“The fortunate thing is, starting tomorrow, we have a week of preliminaries.”
The first week of Elterion Academy is both orientation and a course-change period.
“Lady Lunaris will use that as an excuse and not step out of her dorm room for the entire week.”
It couldn't be helped, since academic regulations are regulations.
Even the person who first drafted the school rules probably never imagined that a student like Lunaris would exploit them like this.
“So we'll use this to our advantage too.”
Ms. Odette's eyes gleamed as she declared that they would use this period to measure Lunaris's combat power and formulate a strategy.
“Our final goal for this semester is to get Lady Lunaris to a 70% attendance rate.”
At the absurd goal, the maids began murmuring that it was impossible.
“If she's absent more than 30% in each subject, she'll fail for insufficient attendance!”
But Odette was unwavering.
“Do you intend to let word spread through the Empire that an Archmage has repeated a year?”
“Th-that...”
At Odette's sharp rebuke, the maids fell silent.
“And we're not the only ones acting. Her Highness Princess Celestina has granted permission to call in the imperial palace knights, and Head Raymond has also agreed to lend a hand.”
“Ah, Your Highness... Head Raymond...!”
Only then did hope blossom on the maids' faces.
They felt that with an Archmage, a knight order, and the maid alliance, it was worth a shot.
“Everyone, get plenty of rest tonight. Starting tomorrow, things will get really busy.”
The maids steeled themselves, saying they would do their best until the day Lunaris was reformed.
...Once again, to emphasize, this isn't about fighting a war or going out to hunt a dragon.
It is nothing more than the maids' tearful struggle to somehow turn one lazy student into a proper person.