Leave a comment
After entering the office, Suleyman quickly bowed before talking about everything they found out relating to the situation with Mira being attacked.
Kairos himself had admitted it was all because of the grudge he held after the incident during the examination, but the main problem was what caused the situation to escalate to the point it did. The head of the Beltran family, Marquis Alphonse Beltran was away from home in a faraway place to perform some investigation, which meant his wife was currently in charge of leading the house. She was a very doting woman and would give in to any of her son’s whims.
Alphonse had a more reasonable mindset, but since he was away and unable to restrain her actions, the situation had reached its current point.
「And about that sealing barrier, apparently it was a prototype smuggled out from a Spellcaster Army’s warehouse where it was being kept. The device was left where it was activated, so we sent a group to retrieve it.」
After explaining the situation, Suleyman appended that sentence. Solomon replied with a quick Thank You, then looked at the buns and cleared his throat. Now that Suleyman was present, he had to reassume the demeanor of a king, he could not allow himself to slip.
「If that was a prototype, I guess that means it was made here. I’m quite pleased to find out you’re producing things like sealing barriers.」
Without caring about Solomon, Mira took another bun and threw it in her mouth. After thoroughly chewing it, she washed it down with pure-white peach juice. Her cheeks brightened feeling the sweet flavor of peaches spreading all over her mouth. Solomon glanced at her through the corner of his eyes, then looked at Suleyman standing straight upright looking like he had a steel rod instead of a spine. That sight reminded him of a teacher watching over an exam.
「Well, to be honest that was meant to be some sort of insurance for the future. We are a country of spellcasters after all, so if our spells were sealed it could easily spell doom for us. So if we studied how those barriers are formed, we could research countermeasures. The prototype that was used was one of the products from that research.」
As he explained, Solomon stood up from the couch and walked away in an attempt to resist the buns’ temptation, sitting down at his office chair again. There were still a large amount of gifts on the table, so he decided he would thin them out a bit when he was free.
「That makes sense. You’re really thinking about a lot of things.」
Muttering that, Mira threw another bun into her mouth.
「Well, even if I look like this I’m still the king.」 Was Solomon’s reply, which caused Suleyman to narrow his gaze at him. Those eyes were judging Solomon for talking in such a self-deprecating manner even while being the king.
「Right. Then, what about the spirit arms?」
Trying to gloss over that, Solomon moved into the next topic, which was also the information Mira thought most valuable from the incident.
「It appears the mother was the only one involved in their acquisition, neither of the three possessed any information.」
「Hmm, are you sure?」
「Luminaria revised the information with them, so I believe they hid nothing.」
Suleyman plainly stated the gathered information. Solomon was convinced that was all they could learn from them, while Mira wondered just what they had done during the interrogation. At some point, Luminaria appeared beside Mira and took one of the buns like it was the most natural thing to do. Solomon and Luminaria both had to readjust their manners to appear in public, but Suleyman’s judging gaze was less stern with Luminaria.
「Then we’ll just have to ask the Marquis’ wife directly. Suleyman, send her a letter for her to come tomorrow at noon.」
「Certainly.」
「And one more thing. These are the wood shavings I mentioned before, take them to the research team.」
Solomon lifted the bag that had been left on his desk, giving it to Suleyman who walked over to receive it with both hands. After taking it, he checked the contents.
「This looks rather complicated to fully understand. I’ll get it analyzed right away.」
Looking at one of the shavings, covered in a layer of thick moss which hinted at its age, Suleyman said that, though his attitude showed he was more than willing to work on it, as opposed to how his words sounded.
「If you’ll excuse me now.」
Now that he was done with his report of the interrogation, Suleyman left the office to proceed with his duties.
「Still, that was really unfortunate.」
Luminaria spoke as she held a bottle of pure-white peach juice on her hand.
「Truly troublesome indeed. He had a rather haughty attitude when I saw him in the academy, but are you sure you’ve been keeping good watch over the things happening there?」
Mira was aware that altercations were unavoidable in any place where people got together, like in the academy. But Kairos’ behavior was extremely oppressive, abusing his status as a noble even against an instructor like Hinata. Luminaria would have never remained passive if she saw something like that happening there.
「Well, I relegated everything related to the academy to the past attendant…」
Luminaria began chewing on a bun as she added 「but research is all he thinks about…」, with a slightly displeased tone and narrowing her eyes looking at some distant point.
Just like how Creos was the attendant of the Tower of Summoning, the person with the most influence in all the other towers were currently attendants, and they oversaw all the faculties of the academy, examining their teachings and plans. The Tower of Magic was the only exception to that, their Wiseman, Luminaria, was available and could take over those duties, but doing so could create an imbalance with the other towers as they would be clearly superior. That led to Luminaria hesitatingly imposing those duties back to the former attendant.
That former attendant was just a researcher, however, so even if he kept the Magic Faculty in his mind, he would often seclude himself because of his duties as an attendant, so anything related to the students would be too much for him to keep track of. As a result, the fruits of his research led to the faculty’s skills skyrocketing, the students there gaining power others had not seen there before, but that also caused many to become arrogant just like Kairos.
「Creos frequently visits the academy. From what I could see walking together with him through it, the students looked tightly united. After this incident I’m certain kids like Kairos will become less relevant, so all the other students who were being held back by them will be able to rise in strength themselves. You don’t necessarily have to take charge of everything, but maybe just visit it from time to time?」
Mira recalled that time she walked around the academy together with Creos, Hinata, and Amaratte. She recalled how they treated the two attendants with the utmost respect and the straightforward and juvenile envy with which they looked at her. The people the students could admire, those who were at the level they wanted to reach, they were right in front of them, they could be seen walking amongst the students, just that was enough to infuse them with plenty of motivation to strive forward. Mira had experienced something similar when she was a student, she remembered that feeling very well, but her words had a different tone to them, she spoke like she was a parent watching over the backs of her children.
「Well, either way, it’ll have to be after this whole situation blows over. But I’ll visit them sometime if you say so.」
「Don’t forget to do it regularly enough.」
After gulping down a bun, Luminaria spoke about the changes and checked on things with a disinterested voice, but Mira insisted that the matter was really important and had to be supervised constantly. In reply, Luminaria just repeated 「I know, I know」, the entire exchange happening in front of King Solomon who could hold her accountable for it in the future.
「So you’re talking about the academy huh. I’ve only known what I learn from the written reports, so maybe I should go with you to visit it.」
Solomon reached out for a bun himself as he piggybacked onto Luminaria’s decision.
「That’s a good idea. There are things you can only be aware of once you see them for yourself.」
Mira nodded as she recalled her visit to the academy again. Though she failed to realize what kind of commotion would arise if the king and one of the nine wisemen visited the academy. Either way, that was not Mira’s business anymore.
「That reminds me, what is that examination they have supposed to be? I could count on my hands the number of spells that would actually be useful in combat.」
