Chapter 62
Fortunately or unfortunately, there were not many contract violators.
“Who do you think you are, testing the Heavenly Lord's mark…?!”
“Ameeeeeeen!!!”
The researchers from our Papal See were clergy to begin with.
The holy power had them on a leash held by the Heavenly Lord, but they were fundamentally devout people, so there were ‘almost’ no violators.
As for the Imperial Mages….
“Ngh….”
“This one is the most seriously injured. The person beside him is a servant from his household.”
First: those who tried to leak information for personal gain.
“The holy power acted like lightning magic, cooking him inside and out. His life is not in danger, but….”
“Rehabilitation will take a long time. That is what he gets for ignoring the Heavenly Lord's warning. Hmph!”
As Montefiora and the Saintess who had come to treat them had said, the price for ignoring the Heavenly Lord's warning was steep.
They had not died, but it would take quite some time for them to return to normal, at the very least.
Imperial Mages were sixth-tier by default, and everyone knew how much effort it took to reach that point….
“Tsk….”
“Good thing I didn't send the letter….”
They made excellent cautionary examples for everyone else.
Second: those who had been threatened.
“Ugh, I'm sorry, Young Master….”
“Hmm….”
These were people who had coveted information on Akion's magi-circuit fabric and threatened an Imperial Mage to pry it out of him.
The exosuit project itself was being handled in secret… but news of the technology demonstration beforehand had inevitably leaked.
“Young Master, there is no need for pity. The Imperial Security Bureau confirmed that this man tried to sell the information to pay off gambling debts.”
Only, this one had meant to pay off his gambling debts with the proceeds from the information.
Akion felt pathetic for having momentarily sympathized with him.
“If you wish, Young Master, we shall deal with this criminal for attempting to leak Imperial secrets.”
“Please do, knights.”
“W-what?! N-no! Anything but the crime of leaking state secrets, nooooo!!”
That took care of one more.
The final case was….
“Heh, hehe, hehehe….”
“I was wrong! I was wrong! Uhehehe!!”
Upon proper investigation, it turned out to be not one person but a group of five. The clergy who ‘almost’ never violated the contract belonged to this group.
As for why they had been punished by divine retribution….
“God exists!!!!”
“Ameeeeeeen!!!”
“Good grief.”
It had begun with a daring experiment born from curiosity about whether ‘God truly exists.’
“Well, Young Master, hear me out. This fellow was an incorrigible rascal who never really believed in God.”
“And?”
“But his priest friend, who had shared his joys and hardships since childhood, was apparently participating in the project as well. And that very friend is the priest lying over there.”
It was the curiosity of a mage who believed that humans defined themselves, rather than God defining humanity.
If the God of Catholicism was the father and mother of all humankind… was He truly watching over them?
“How does the Heavenly Lord's divine punishment work?”
“Are you questioning the Heavenly Lord's divine punishment?!”
“No, think about it. Aren't you honestly curious? By what principle, by what method, and in what way does He punish us…?!”
“……That is genuinely intriguing.”
And so, apparently, a group of mages and clergy who wanted to study divine punishment had gathered and done this.
“You wanted to experience divine punishment? What a truly idiotic idea.”
“Join us immediately!!!”
They had organized it, caused an accident, and all five had been carried here together, all in a single day.
Akion looked with contempt at the group of mages and clergy snickering from their sickbeds.
“Ugh… I didn't know there were people like this outside my workshop too.”
“Heh heh. It seems there are such people in your workshop as well, Young Master. In any case… as the manager and person responsible, this was certainly due to my negligence. I shall take responsibility.”
“No, it's fine. I expected someone like this to appear eventually… And since they did not actually leak it to an outsider, let's just leave these people to Lord Montefiora to deal with.”
“Heh heh, thank you. They will all be deeply moved by your generosity, Young Master.”
Should he call them researchers, or mages?
Akion shook his head and decided to leave them to Montefiora.
He had something more important to do now, after all.
“Since you're here, let's work on one thing together.”
“I have personally come all this way, and you want to dump work on me instead of taking me on a date?”
It was the production of all-weather academy uniforms using magi-circuit fabric!
The Tower Master had happened to come up to the capital as well, so Akion proposed that she join the research.
“You were the academy's president, weren't you? We need an experienced perspective to catch the eye of Her Imperial Highness the Empress Dowager, who is the chairwoman.”
“Is that so? Then I shall bring Rellia.”
The exosuit production was not his highest-priority task, so he intended to take his time and refine it properly.
But with orders for the new academy uniforms due in only a few months, he needed to do his utmost right away. It was time to borrow even the help of a magic cat.
Of course, there was not much for Akion to do.
Aside from making the washing machine, that is. Montefiora had asked to handle the design and hiring the tailors, so Akion had passed those tasks on to him.
“Oh, don't be like that.”
“Once I approve it, both the Empress Dowager and the Emperor will have no choice but to approve it as well. Do you think I don't know what you're scheming?!”
“One wish ticket.”
“Can you handle the price?”
“As long as it isn't anything excessive.”
Of course, for this to pass, he would have to win over the final evaluators: the Empress Dowager and the Emperor.
However, bringing in the Tower Master could solve that in one stroke through preferential treatment.
Of course, Akion had a reason for wagering a wish ticket.
‘The Tower Master isn't the sort of person to ask me to do anything strange.’
Whenever she asked Akion for something, it was usually a scientific question,
or occasionally a request to go out for a walk using Goldie's desire to leave the house as an excuse—though apparently she went around bragging that it was a date.
There was never anything particularly troublesome.
That was why Akion, having recklessly handed out his wish ticket, said….
“Then… two requests that aren't excessive should be fine, right?”
“Let's hear them first.”
“First, I would like you to put on an academy uniform and go for a walk with me.”
Akion felt a little dizzy at the Tower Master's mama-katsu request.
Akion wearing an academy uniform… and going on a date with the Tower Master?
Wasn't that mentally dangerous in several ways?
“Tower Master… is that your kind of thing?”
“Silence.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
But Akion was a broad-minded man.
He could indulge the Tower Master's tastes and self-serving request.
And her next request was also something he could agree to,
“While you're in the capital, teach a lecture at the academy.”
“……You want me to teach engineering to academy students?”
The problem was that, after the coilgun incident, Akion had become somewhat skeptical about spreading knowledge.
Of course, he could make an effort to change the examples so that people could not make the same associations… but wasn't investing time and effort in that rather annoying?
“You are exempt from inscribing the magic circles on the academy uniforms anyway. All you have to do is make the washing machine… You must have time to spare.”
Akion also wanted more scientists and engineers to emerge.
However, after three kinds of troublemakers had been struck by divine punishment and fried just today, wasn't it only natural for him to restrain himself?
“Even so, annoying things are still annoying.”
“Sigh. Then it can't be helped.”
- Swish.
“This will be of no use now.”
“Wait. What's that?”
That was before he saw the splendid professor's nameplate emerge from the Tower Master's cleavage subspace.
“Hmm? It's a nameplate.”
“I mean, what is that nameplate?!”
“Hmm, who knows? It is useless now….”
The nameplate, made of smooth black stone, bore Akion's name along with the following words.
[Professor of Magi-Engineering Akion Enersis]
A single word attached before Akion's name.
“Professor!!”
“It is a little beyond my authority… but who in this world knows magi-engineering as well as you? You have effectively founded an entirely new field, so there should be no problem giving you the title of department head and professor.”
What did the title of professor mean?
It belonged to those who had reached the end of a field of study and expanded the territory beyond that endpoint!
The highest and most honorable title for those who constantly questioned, analyzed, and investigated!!
Of course, in his previous life, Akion had coveted it even more because he wanted the sweet research funding and a killer laboratory of his own. Anyway.
“But since you dislike it so much… I suppose this nameplate will never be used. What a shame, truly a shame….”
“Grrrk…!”
Hadn't she been with Akion for nearly three years?
She already understood more than half of Akion's desires.
- Sway, sway~!
“The cost of making it was considerable too… I have no idea how to dispose of it, either. Hmmm….”
What if Akion really became an academy professor, established a department,
and set up a real laboratory under his own name instead of a workshop, where he could recruit legal research slaves—no, graduate students?
And since the Imperial Academy was national, what if all of it was free?!
“Gasp, gasp….”
“Hmm. Akion. Your breathing seems rather labored. Is something troubling you?”
It was an incredibly tempting deal for Akion.
More than anything, an official title like this would bring him tremendous recognition as a social animal.
Akion was human too, and the hardships he had endured in his previous life and this one had left him with desires like that.
- Snap!
“I'm sorry, Tower Master, but I must decline the title of professor.”
“What?!!”
But Akion endured!
The reason was….
“If I did that… how would it be any different from insulting the professors who are already there? And even if we silenced people with power, it would not be good for either me or you, Tower Master.”
Respect and admiration for the existing professors!
The academy's current main faculties were the Faculties of Magic, Knight Studies, Arts, and Administration.
Could the professors who had devoted themselves to those fields really have only a shallow understanding of them? Absolutely not.
Considering the time they had spent immersed in research, giving Akion a position through connections could be an insult.
“………What nonsense are you spouting?”
Of course, from the Tower Master's perspective, it sounded like utter nonsense. Because,
“Those people were the ones who asked me to bring you here.”
“Pardon?”
“When I stopped by the academy to check on Flare, do you know how desperately the department heads ran up to me and begged me to bring you on as a professor?”
“Huh?”
This had happened because the academy professors themselves had requested it in the first place.
“The professors from every faculty at the academy are clamoring to hear even one lecture from you on science, you brat!!”
“Eeeek.”
The academy professors' fervent requests for a lecture had driven the Empress Dowager to desperation, so she had asked the Tower Master, who happened to be there, for help.
“They recognized you and want to give you the position, so why are you trying to throw the opportunity away yourself?! Just shut up and accept it!!”
“Oh, yes. Understood.”
“And, sigh. I understand what concerns you, Akion… so if you really feel that way, go as a temporary professor this semester. I will speak with the president and the Empress Dowager, so arrange your schedule yourself.”
“Yes….”
For Akion, who still could not grasp how valuable his engineering was, the Tower Master kindly shoved the nameplate into his arms.
- Pat, pat~!
“Ack, you're ruining my hairstyle.”
“Enough! Tsk, tsk. So pointlessly modest….”
And his kind heart, which sought to respect fellow seekers of knowledge,
she praised—and took her revenge—by messing up the hair Akion hated.
And this scene….
- Tap.
“Ancestor…?”
Flare, the Seventh Princess who had recently returned to her ancestor's era, had been watching from near the entrance.
She had been searching everywhere to ask the Tower Master about her changes, but had encountered this scene the moment she entered the Imperial Mage Corps research institute after hearing the news.
“Could it be… the Tower Master and Young Master Akion…?”
Even through Flare's eyes, which had never experienced romance, love was practically dripping from the Tower Master's eyes.
The Emperor had deliberately kept this from Flare for her sake… but Flare eventually learned it after all.
In that situation, Flare….
- Crack…!
Her pupils split, and she slipped slightly into battle mode.
“This won't do….”
Just as it had with the Tower Master, dragons sometimes wanted to possess beautiful things.
A benefactor she had secretly taken an interest in, perhaps.
A benefactor who was more handsome and kinder than she had expected.
“
Akion
Young Master
is
,
mine
I mean….”
* * *
That was true of Flare, who had returned to her ancestor's era, as well.
Unaware of Flare's transformation, Akion enjoyed a pleasant week.
- Boom!!!
“Who put armor in the washing machine and ran it?!”
“Uh, is that not allowed…?”
“You lunatic, blowing out the motor wasn't enough, you blew up the entire washing machine!!!”
In the meantime, the daily chaos of Akion's workshop was reproduced in the Imperial Mage Corps research institute,
but Akion still had little to do.
Most of the work involved magic processes, and both Goldie and the Tower Master had participated after making the previous bulletproof and slash-resistant maid uniforms.
His additional tasks were improving the washing machine and trying on the new academy uniform.
“Why do I have to try it on?”
“Young Master Akion is around the same age as the academy students! And more importantly, the clothes look so good on you… Hehehe!”
“Wow! Young Master, it suits you so well… Huh? Whoa!? Her Highness Flare and the Tower Master are having nosebleeds!! What happened?!”
“It's nothing.”
“It is nothing.”
There were the tailors, Goldie's fussing, and the bleeding incident involving the two dragons(?). But anyway.
- Clomp, clomp.
Akion was walking with lighter steps than ever.
Because….
[Temporary Professor - Akion]
“Hehehe.”
He was striding through the academy wearing a nameplate bearing the title of professor, temporary though it was!!
“Oh, you finished this too? Then try the next assignment that builds on it.”
“Grrrk….”
In his previous life, Akion had once watched exploitative professors and imagined that he wanted to become just like them.
Wasn't being a professor the very dreamlike title that let you devote yourself entirely to your own research by working graduate students with a nod, gesture, or even a kick?!
“That person is….”
“Silver hair with blue streaks… There's no one with hair like that besides an Enersis, is there?”
That was why the title of professor had been a dream for Akion.
Besides, academy students were usually around Akion's age.
“Temporary… professor? What, wasn't there a notice that someone was coming?”
“Someone around our age from Enersis is becoming a professor?”
“I heard the eldest son is in the north right now. Then who is that—oh, wait, who is that person?”
Unlike Akion, who was wearing ordinary clothes, everyone else was dressed in academy uniforms.
The strange sense of superiority that came from this tickled something deep inside Akion's heart.
Naturally, that feeling came from,
“Akion… Akion Enersis…. Ah?! The developer of the incandescent light bulb!”
“That's right! The one who also developed that electric heater…!”
“Wow, wow, wow! So he's coming to the academy as a professor? Him?!”
“Then… he'll be opening a laboratory, right?”
those sly applicants hoping to enroll as graduate students.
- Gulp.
They were fresh research slaves volunteering to enroll,
so how could Akion possibly contain his excitement?!
Akion wanted to run over, clasp their hands, and shamelessly coax them, saying, ‘It's hard to get a government job in the Empire these days. How about joining my lab?’
“Whew, hold it. Hold it, inner exploitative professor….”
In any case, this temporary professorship was a scheme by the Tower Master and the Empress Dowager.
They were determined to seat him at the academy somehow and spread engineering far and wide… so Akion decided to make the most of it.
Of course, if he accepted a professorship at the academy, he would have to travel back and forth between the capital and Enersis….
“I shall fly you there. Goldie can come too.”
“G-Goldie is a little scared of high places….”
What could he do when the Tower Master herself offered to fly them there?
If that proved impossible, Akion resolved to build some sort of transportation.
- Clomp, clomp… tap.
And so, amid countless curious eyes, Akion stopped in front of a certain large lecture hall.
“Hoo, haa.”
There were probably countless academy cadets waiting for him inside.
Although it was only temporary, this lecture would probably be Akion's proper debut at the academy.
- Rattle!
And so he opened the front door of the lecture hall with resolve.
The lecture hall, which was arranged in a semicircle like an ancient Roman colosseum and seated more than a thousand people, was….
“Ohoho! Young Master Akion! Welcome!”
“Ho ho ho, grandson-in-law. You've finally arrived?”
“Hehe… Goldie did a good job dressing you.”
Ben Montefiora, head of the Faculty of Magic and commander of the Imperial Mage Corps;
Aurelia Pendragon, chairwoman of the Aurelia Pendragon Imperial Public Academy and Empress Dowager;
and the Tower Master of Redashed were seated in the very front.
Akion had expected those three. They had already hinted that they would come sit in on the lecture.
“Hehe, hello….”
But why was Princess Flare sitting beside them as well?
And she was even wearing a design identical to the prototype academy uniform Akion had worn!
And even setting that aside,
“So that's Akion Enersis?”
“He's much younger than I expected. And that head of his produced those magi-devices?”
“What does age matter for a genius? If he leads the field, he deserves the title of professor! But….”
“If he says anything ridiculous, we must give him a piece of our minds! Heh heh…!”
the front of the lecture hall, close to the podium, was packed with people around Count Delford's age.
And every one of them held titles such as professor or associate professor in their respective faculties.
“Akiioooooon─!!!”
On top of that, his sister Hermione Enersis was waving a placard back and forth and calling out to him.
“Ah.”
He had thought this would merely be a moderately pleasant science lecture,
but he was supposed to lecture before the leading scholars of the continent, not merely the Empire?
And while enduring the antics of his incredibly overexcited sister???
“Huff, huff. Young Master, sorry I'm late… Huh? Why aren't you going inside? What could be in there—Eeeek…!”
‘A defense…?’
Akion felt the PTSD from his degree defense beginning to resurface.
And while enduring the antics of his incredibly overexcited sister???
“Huff, huff. Young Master, I'm sorry I'm late… Huh? Why aren't you going inside? What's in there—Eeeek…!”