༺ I Can’t Not Enroll ༻
Everything now made sense. The reason for Hasfeldt’s kinder behavior towards me these past few days.
There was no time to think deeply about it. As soon as I finished reading the Emperor’s letter, I ran out.
I headed towards the Earth Magic research wing on the third floor. It was a place mainly inhabited by professors and grad students who created golems. When I searched the end of this hallway, I could see a sign with a familiar name.
[Meriga Heerlein / In Office]
Knock knock knock.
I knocked like a cat trying to claw its way out of the bathroom. My hands were sweating from urgency.
“Come in.”
When I entered and closed the door behind me, the distinct odor of rare-earth elements stung my nose. It was quite a different smell from the Fire Magic lab.
Professor Heerlein was in the center dissecting a high-level beast’s limb.
“Oh my, what brings you here?”
“I have something urgent to tell you.”
I explained everything to Professor Heerlein.
That I saw a letter atop Professor Hasfeldt’s desk from the Emperor. How there were talks of the Emperor’s son wanting to have me as a palace servant or mistress.
After hearing the whole story, Heerlein smiled gently and spoke.
“Then there’s only one way.”
“Yes.”
To enroll in the Academy.
“Not even a prince would be able to break the ancient traditions of the Academy.”
Tilette Magic Academy served as an institution for both education and national defense. To continue appeasing mages of commoner or low-class noble backgrounds, who were defending the northern borders that stretched across thousands of kilometers against the Magic Beasts, the Academy’s independent status system needed to be maintained.
Violating that for some dumbass reason like having a single slave in the palace? I guarantee that there was going to be some crazy sword-wielding asshole showing up at the palace.
“Okay. Pull out the dragon’s horn while it’s hot1a parody of a Korean idiom; the English equivalent is to strike the iron while it’s hot, they say. We’re going to fast-track, starting from now.”
Heerlein set aside what she was working on and grabbed my wrist.
“We need to get information first.”
The first destination was the library.
**
Clack.
Klais Hasfeldt put down the chalk and dusted her hands.
“This is the end of today’s lesson. Class president, please collect the homework from last week and place it in the assignment box.”
After the students bid her farewell, she headed out.
“Miss Hasfedlt hasn’t been making much progress in her lectures lately.”
“I know. Is she worried about something?”
“Hehe, I wish it was like this everyday!”
She heard them talking behind her but she had no time to pay it any mind.
Klais walked the leaf-covered corridor while deep in thought.
The corridor that went beyond the school building all the way to the research wing. Up until a couple days ago, there was a girl who swept these corridors. She was someone with distinct gold eyes unlike her plain hair color.
Aether.
The Golden-Eyed slave that she had purchased from the market three years ago.
Despite the consistently unreasonable demands, that girl did everything without a single complaint. In fact, it even made her wonder whether she was pushing her too hard.
She had one reason for treating Aether so harshly despite knowing how unreasonable she was being.
‘I need magic with even more power.’
It was only five years ago when she had graduated from the Academy and became a War Mage. With her new rank as a major, she had to fight countless bloody battles against the Magic Beasts on the frontlines.
Many of her comrades died. Bodies piled up and formed mountains for days on end.
Her senior lost an arm, her junior a leg. Even Heerlein, who had commanded millions of golems to advance all the way to the first line of defense, lost an eye in the end. As a result, Klais felt powerless.
What had been the point of graduating top of the class? What did it matter that she was considered the pioneer of Flame Magic?
She couldn’t protect her comrades while fighting the Calamities, and her magic was useless against the Cataclysms.
After becoming a professor, she perfected two Ultimate Flame Magics. ‘Chaser Flow’ and ‘Corona’. They were the strongest Flame Magics in all of Ahrens Continent.
But even those were ineffective against Cataclysms.
And so someone said. The power of Flame Magic has reached its limit.
Her teacher, her juniors, and colleagues all brought it up. It was after they had already shifted their research to increasing the number of remaining ammo or destroying the beasts from the inside instead of reinforcing the magic.
By the time this was going around the state like it was fact, the funding from the palace began to dwindle. The nation had been investing in the development of Ultimate Fire Magics for conquering Cataclysms but with the existing beasts already being subdued with the current magic and rumors saying that such magic was impossible, they no longer had purpose in funding it.
The number of scholars researching the power increase of Flame Magic slowly diminished until only Klais remained.
Then one day, she heard that there was a secret auction of Golden-Eyed people taking place at a nearby slave market. She was intrigued by the news since she was in need of more hands with all the grads taking off on her.
In the end, Klais paid a thousand gold pieces to purchase this girl.
─ This is an intermediate scroll. Tweak it into a higher-level output.
─ It’s done.
─ Here is a low-grade mana stone. Construct an advanced magic circle using only this.
─ Is this okay?
─ Prove if it’s possible to produce more than 20 sieverts when using a scroll with ultimate magic after putting argon gas into the bloom.
─ Here it is.
The genius of the Golden-Eyed people was beyond what the fables told. Klais had no reason to hold back, being obsessed with Flame Magic reinforcement as she was.
However…
─ How would you like exchanging her for 30 000 gold?
She was still thinking about the letter she received 2 days ago.
‘Is it four months left, then?’
The exchange that was taking place in four months, where she was going to be given a large sum of money for her assistant becoming a personal servant of the Prince.
Klais had been running low on research funds. Not to say that Aether was useless, but compared to 30 000 gold, it was obvious what she should choose.
It was a whole 30 000 gold. Considering how much she had spent at the slave market, it was an overly generous offer but she was fine with it. Aether’s worth wasn’t only based on her being a Golden-Eyed, after all. Of course, she somewhat had to take into account the Prince’s liberal use of the national treasury.
There was nothing else. Klais’ personal assistant was not only competent, she was also stunning in appearance.
She signed the contract with the Imperials. Still, she had paid a hefty price for this Golden-Eyed girl so Klais decided to assign her one last thing before sending her to the palace.
“I’m off to the palace.”
10:10 a.m. Klais dropped by her lab to grab a coat with the assumption that her assistant would be working at this time.
But contrary to her thoughts, the lab was strangely quiet. Klais looked around with sharp eyes. Then she finally discovered a note on the desk where Aether usually worked.
[Summoned by Professor Heerlein. I’ll be back.]
“Meriga? Why would she suddenly….”
She couldn’t think much about it. Klais grabbed her coat and witch’s hat before heading to the palace.
[Gone to the palace. Resume your work from last week.]
Leaving only that short memo.
**
The Emperor, Yelchin Philiut, warmly welcomed her. He even abandoned his work in the process.
The throne room instantly transformed into a reception area. About 108 palace servants prepared a luxurious portable table with refreshments and a pot of black tea.
Trickle. The Emperor started to speak as he poured the tea smelling strongly of lavender.
“Yes. I expected you would come soon.”
“I apologize for taking up valuable time, Your Majesty.”
Klais’ usual demanding speech was non-existent in this place. With a solemn tone, she began responding to the Emperor’s inquiries one by one.
“What did you think of the offer? Wouldn’t thirty-thousand gold suffice?”
“It is more than enough.”
Relative to the normal unit cost that is, she didn’t say. Klais’ smiled wide.
“Do you wish for anything else? Just for you, I will grant something.”
“What kind of wish?”
“Expanding your territory, finding you a decent husband, and the like. Such things cannot be had by money alone.”
“I am inadequate, Sire.”
She only needed research funds; some land or a husband didn’t matter as much. No, they’d actually get in the way.
Klais took a sip of tea, eyes closed.
“Then we can end the discussion here. You are quite the busy one, too, after all.”
“I do have one question, Sire.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
“Why does the Second Prince desire my slave?”
“I wonder that as well.”
The whole population was aware of how the Second Prince of the Empire engaged in many love affairs with women. He already had thirteen noble ladies as his mistresses and bedded another seventy maids. Thanks to that, his fiancée who was to be his consort was cured of her low blood pressure, so they say.
Although the girl was a significant beauty, the difference in class was too great. She wondered if the Prince was going too far when he should be maintaining honor and dignity.
“It is difficult to comprehend why His Highness wishes to be with someone of lowly blood when there are many other beautiful women in this world.”
“From what I hear, she’s one of the Golden-Eyed. Is that true?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Why make the distinction when she is even rarer than a High Elf, I suppose. The Golden-Eyed are known to be unparalleled beauties even, no?”
“It’s merely a fable.”
Of course, it wasn’t a fable that Aether possessed looks that were comparable to the Goddess.
“What does it matter if it’s a fable or a fairytale? The important thing is that my son has taken a liking to your servant.”
Klais nodded.
“If that is the will of the Prince, then. Ah, you also mentioned that the Prince will be applying to our Academy.”
“Indeed. He’s a depraved one but talented in his own way so he should be able to pass easily.”
The Emperor’s deep sighs filled the throne room.
There were already rumors throughout the state of the Second Prince’s distasteful character. The Emperor was sighing in concern for the Empire’s future, surely.
Klais, the Duchess Hasfeldt, chose to be silent in this situation.
Like that, the conversation between the Emperor and the 4th Grand Duchess came to an end.
“Then I will take my leave.”
“Take care on your way.”
It only took twenty minutes for Klais to return to the Academy since the palace and Academy were both located in the capital.
“……?”
Aether was nowhere to be found even after she returned. She soon combed through the whole Flame Magic research wing but no one had seen a Golden-Eyed girl.
She then went to the lab of Earth Magic. When she asked a grad student near collapsing, she was told that Professor Heerlein took that child some place.
‘You may be my friend, but it’s ill-mannered of you to be taking my slave without my permission.’
Her friend was someone who let advice flow into one ear and out the other. It was better for her mental health to just accept instead of arguing about it.
As a diligent person, she detested wasting even a moment. She decided to mark the students’ assignments until her assistant returned.
The assignment was to surpass a certain level of output for an advanced circuit. Structure-wise, it was impossible for a first year student to complete this assignment. Only a few determined ones would’ve been able to attempt this.
As expected, most of them were either blank or submitted with some scritching.
Zero, zero, three. Ten marks for getting this far. Another zero.
The total mark for this was out of fifty. Most of them didn’t even get half.
And then.
Whump─.
“This is…….”
It was a simple yet sophisticated circuit. Klais let some mana flow and observed the bloom output.
36 sieverts. The figure was 6 sieverts more than the passing grade.
“How…?”
She then noticed that three other students also solved the problem with similar methods. There was a difference between all of them, as slight as it was. They couldn’t have copied each other.
The common thing between them was the usage of a specific mana stone. Besides that, there was nothing else of note.
Klais knew exactly what this mana stone was.
“A transistor, was it?”
As someone brilliant enough to receive tenure, she most definitely recognized it. A single remark crossed her mind.
─ I won’t disappoint you.
“…….”
Again, Klais chose silence.
