RATH 43
TL: Eevee
Strict, solemn, serious.
If you were to ask me who it was that was looking at me looking like the Triple S incarnate, of course it would be human of me to answer!
There are only a very limited number of dukes and margraves within the empire.
And those that operate purely within the borders of empire, unaffiliated with the border margraves or the archduke number just ten.
Their authority is such like an impenetrable fortress that they’re called the Ten Great Families by the other n.o.bles, and the Triple S incarnate in front of me is the head of one of those Ten Great Families, an extremely important n.o.ble in charge of an entire division of the army!
It was none other than Aris’s father, the current head of the Letia family.
“How may I be of a.s.sistance.”
But right now, he’s just a parent of one of my students.
There’s no need to be fl.u.s.tered.
-Owner? You’re totes fl.u.s.tered right now? Legs shaky shaky? Might get caught if you shake a bit more?
-Zip it.
… How the h.e.l.l would I not be alarmed! He’s a marquess. It’s one of the Ten Great Families! Even though they say that the influence of the military families is weaker during peacetime, that’s compared to the other Ten Great Families!
He’s a freaking commander of an army! In past life terms, a three star!(1)
The realm of stars that could move mountains with just a single word!
That kind of person came in, there’s no way I wouldn’t be fl.u.s.tered!
“I came in at my daughter’s request.”
Marquess Letia said as he sipped the tea that the Dean poured him. Like me, the Dean was also nervous, but unlike me, he was visibly showing it on his face.
-She tattled. The kid that contracted the delicious G.o.ddess tattled.
-You really should have hit her in moderation…
-Haang? You want me to hit that tasty, moreover two for the price of one kid in moderation! That’s somethin’ my pride won’t allow, dat!
-We have a marquess come see us because of that, so what the h.e.l.l are you being so brazen about!
-All humans are equal in front of the G.o.ddess Aru-nim! So human t.i.tles don’t matter ta meh!
-It matters a lot to me!
d.a.m.n it, words aren’t getting through to her.
I honestly want to chuck her back into a safe and seal her again, but considering the organization’s fallen and I’m on the run from the princess I can’t do that.
“I do not believe I raised my child to be weak.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed. And Aris, that child followed through the family’s training regime without one word of complaint.”
“How splendid.”
“Indeed. But that child, contacted my wife with a magic video communication tool, and told her this while crying. That school life was too difficult. My wife was quite shocked, saying she had never seen her cry since she was five.”
“Really?”
Although my face gave nothing away, I felt a cold sweat trickle down my back.
d.a.m.n it, she even went as far as crying to her mother.
Even in the army, a hundred questionnaires can’t ever hope to do more than a call to a parent!
And moreover, a kid who’s never let her parents see her cry went and cried to her parents!
If this marquess’s personality was reversed then right now he’d be shaking me by my lapels.
“And so I ask. Is my daughter being bullied at school?”
“She is not.”
Logically speaking, a marquess’ family isn’t one to be bullied, but one to be doing the bullying. If you were to pick on a marquess’s daughter, you’d have to be at least direct imperial family or an archduke, and be named as the successor to have the status to pull it off.
And a brat that’s not even a successor or heir picks on a high-ranking n.o.ble first? That’s basically asking to get offed with none the wiser during the successor debate.
“Then are any of the teachers tormenting my daughter?”
“No, they are not.”
Well, something does p.r.i.c.kle a little, but it’s all for the sake of education, education!
I eat and sleep at the academy for the sake of developing my students’ abilities, and I think and worry again and again for the sake of my students!
-Wasn’t owner eating and sleeping at the academy just ta save ya retirement money? Ya did it just cause it was free if ya just made an escape route using the academy modifications as an excuse, instead of building your own house and digging another escape tunnel anyway! And lookee how you’re spinning your efforts to make the kids struggle!
-It’s alright since it’s half true!
-Then that means half of it’s just a scam!
Well that’s just how the world works. I was doing all this with the best intentions in mind!
“Then what you are saying is that Aris, my child was crying simply because the academy’s training was that difficult?”
“Indeed.”
More accurately, getting hit by the metal bat would have been the difficult experience but I didn’t say that out loud.
The problem was that I’d spent the majority of my social life in an evil organization.
No matter how much you beat the c.r.a.p out of kids there no one ever said anything.
On the contrary, I even got incentives for not killing anyone and obtaining brilliant results!
But the academy is different.
Going crying to their parents after a single encounter with the metal bat, just how weak are the children of n.o.ble society!
-… Owner, owner? It feels weird to be the one saying it myself, but owner can only say that because owner doesn’t hurt even if you get hit by me, if you hurt like other people then you wouldn’t be able to say that?
-But as you said that is an ‘if!’ Since I don’t hurt even if I get hit by you that is not my problem.
-That’s my owner! Itza face of orichalc.u.m! Not even the people with iron faces can’t hold up ta owner!
Hoho, well that goes without saying. If you are a villain, you need to surpa.s.s iron faces to mithril, or an orichalc.u.m face at least. If I didn’t have the face and the guts to scam someone at any moment then there would have never have survived half my life in an evil organization.
“Is that so…”
Behold! In the face of my steadfast att.i.tude, the marquess has started to seriously think this through!
Life is all about timing.
And as a salesman, the best timing is when someone is hesitating like so! If I lose this timing, I will be unable to secure the marquess’s backing, and in the worst case scenario the greatest promotional figurehead of the academy named Aris could leave entirely.
I can’t lose Aris like I did No.17!
“May I ask you something, milord marquess?”
“Speak.”
I looked at the marquess nodding and smiled.
“Did milord, truly not raise Miss Aris to be weak?”
“Indeed.”
“In that case, from my perspective, the training of House Letia is much too weak.”
-Wiing? Owner? Ya taunting him? Ya were quivering in fear cause he’s a marquess just now, you go nuts with fear or something? This is a proper challenge oi?
-Wait. I’m scattering the bait right now so don’t ruin it.
“That is to say, you are looking down on the training of the Letia family?”
“That is so.”
“P, Professor Nicerwin!”
The dean that was playing the part of the tea shuttle was aghast. Well if you’re going to aim for an opportunity, you need to take on some risk with it!
Perhaps if the opposition was some hot-headed musclebrain, but if it’s this kind of composed type then this much of a taunt is alright.
“…I’m listening.”
Look here, although his words have turned icy, he said he’d listen, did he not!
Of course these types tend to hold very long and nasty grudges compared to the hotheads so it can be very dangerous if it fails, but it’s alright if it succeeds.
“Milord, The Letia house, no, most of the families that hold the ranks of marquess or higher are all families with a long ill.u.s.trious history spanning back from the beginning of the empire.”
“Indeed.”
“The history of the empire already spans a thousand years. And the history of the Letia family has also seen those same one thousand years with it.”
“Hm… so is what you wish to tell me that our family’s training methods are outdated?”
“If you wish to put it so bluntly, yes.”
These types are great because they’re easy to work with.
If it was someone like Sir Reia then I would have had to explain it through to the end, but to think he would interrupt me to say exactly what I wanted to say.
But as if his mood turned for the worse the marquess’s eyes began to glint dangerously.
“The house has never ceased to improve itself over the years.”
“Indeed.”
“And yet it is still lacking?”
“It is.”
“And what would be the reason?”
“It is because the empire is the continent’s most powerful nation.”
“Meaning that compared to the t.i.tle of the strongest, our family’s training standards are too low?”
“They are.”
Even if I don’t explain in detail he understands with short simple answers.
The fact that people like him are army commanders are the reason why the future of the empire is bright.
“In that case, I can take it to mean that you believe that your education pa.s.ses the mark?”
“I have not experienced the Great War myself. While countless lives on the continent were fighting and dying, I was holding onto life receiving the elves’ treatment due to my weak and infirm body. Because of that, I do not know the thing called war.”
-Weak? Weeeeeaaaaaaaaaaak? Coming from the person who kicked up a s.h.i.tstorm with the imperial princess during said Great War? Did all the infirm people in the world just die of their weak bodies then? Izzat why the bulls.h.i.t that owner’s weak’s coming from owner’s mouth then?
-It’s a concept, a concept! Nicerwin Ain is a weak infirm patient concept!
-Haang? You think any of the students in this school will buy that? And because of the rumour that owner has a similar personality to elves the students are thinking of elves as this evil race that are worse than the demon race?
-Weren’t elves always a naturally evil race?
-… I don’t think making retorts were supposed to my role, but this feeling that I should make a retort!
Whatever the metal bat felt, the conversation continued.
“But as I did not know of war and only saw it from a distance, I could see something instead.”
“And what would that be?”
“The empire is the strongest nation on the continent. That is something that every country on the continent acknowledges. And because of that, the empire is a symbol of fear.”
“And what does that have to do with anything?”
“Do you know why the human race fears the demon season?”
Demon season. The time when the evil G.o.d’s apostle, the demon king appeared.
Humans fear this monster that only seeks destruction.
“The demon king is of a realm that can simply not be reached with the power of humanity, no, the other races as well. That is the case. The empire is simply too strong.”
To humans, the demon king is a monster that is very difficult to deal with.
Only three demon kings had appeared in the world since its creation, but humans feared the demon king’s strength and named and feared the period the demon king appeared as ‘demon season.’
And that was the case for the empire at present. Having forced its powerful neighbouring nations to their knees with brute strength, to the other nations, the empire was no less than the demon king.
“But, that is not an excuse as to why my child cried.”
Tch he’s not falling for it.
Is he the type that’s easy to talk to but hard to convince?
“There was a time, when Yugrasia was known as one of the best educational inst.i.tutions in the empire.”
“Are you trying to change the subject?”
“But, at present it is an academy where it could vanish at any moment. And what do you think the reason for that was? The deteriorating quality of the teachers? The poor quality of the students? No. It was because they lacked urgency. It was because they held the steadfast belief that Yugrasia would be the best academy, always and forever.”
“And just what is it that you are trying to say?”
“There is only one reason why I came to this academy. As a summoner, I wish to reform this school named Yugrasia as the greatest. My educational philosophy is simple. You forget what you hear, you remember what you see, and you understand what you try for yourself. The best way for students to understand their own skills is to experience it for themselves. And among those methods, practical experience is the greatest.”
After listening to my words the marquess seemed to be lost in thought.
To be honest I would have said something else if I wanted to be more persuasive, but then I would look too much like a player of the game.
Nicerwin Ain was a scholar who knew nothing of the world and dedicated himself to the study of summoning within the elven woods!
But when the famed school of summoning, Yugrasia was at risk of closing, Nicerwin Ain was a pa.s.sionate man who came to this school for his pa.s.sion for summoning! Was the type of concept I had to match even as it felt somewhat awkward.
The opposition is a direct subordinate of the imperial palace who has faced all sorts of trials and tribulations. Moreover, a commander who led an army.
Of the other heads of the Ten Great Families, I had the opportunity to meet four of them in the past, but even within their varying personalities, all of them had at least a hundred shadows hidden away.
There was one who acted the fool, one who pretended to be airheaded all the while scrutinizing everything down to their finest detail, so in that case, would this man who was foreboding from the word go have his own shadows hidden away!
Of course not. There’s no way that kind of person would survive the house of h.e.l.l that was the imperial court.
“Can you prove it?”
He’s hooked!
The moment he said that, the game was already over.
“They said that rather than telling something a hundred times, it is better to show something once.”
As I stood up with a smile, I moved over to the pre-prepared room.
I knew this would happen!
-Metal bat, you have a mission!
-Wazzat? Bashing in the back of the marquess’s skull in the waiting room?
-Am I insane? Go tell Professor Muam this.
-Wiing? That kiddie gramps? Whazzat?
-Plan B. Today’s night study is Plan B.
-Plan B? What’s Plan B?
Plan B.
It was a night study designed for the scenario that the students were better than I expected, for the scenario that the students here might be on the level of my old disciples in the organization, a night study even more difficult than now!
-… Those kids’re gonna die.
-They started this.
They dare call in their parents? While I’m showing the marquess the increased difficulty, I will let you know just how happy you have all been until now!