Children of the Rune – Winterer - Chapter 585

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 37.
The Princess and the Detective (37)
Lucian’s eyes widened as he looked at Boris, then back at Maximian. Maximian, who had been feigning indifference, suddenly spoke as if remembering something.
“What’s wrong with you? Are you also a first-year? I was talking about my own grades.”
With the refined athleticism he’d cultivated, Lucian hurled the bread he’d been eating with remarkable accuracy, coating Maximian’s forehead with bacon grease. While Maximian glanced around searching for something to throw back, Lucian had already fled to the opposite table in an instant. As Maximian picked up the last remaining apple and narrowed his eyes, gauging the distance as if preparing to throw, Tichiel spoke.
“But Maximian, about your grades this time….”
Maximian quickly pretended to give up and took a bite of the apple. Then he replied.
“As I said, I’d say it’s slightly below average.”
At Nenyaple, where less than half advanced to the next year, below average meant repeating a grade. Tichiel shook her head.
“No, that’s not it. If that were the case, you’d just spend another year here. But this time you submitted an answer sheet worthy of expulsion, didn’t you?”
Just then, Lucian, who had crept back, widened his eyes and looked at Maximian.
“Wow, you’re really getting expelled? That’s amazing!”
Maximian’s eyes twitched slightly.
“What do you mean amazing?”
“I mean it’s brave! I don’t have the courage to do something like that.”
“That’s not a matter of courage. It’s a matter of stupidity.”
“No, come on. You’re smart. You’re doing it on purpose. You don’t want to be here.”
Lucian’s unguarded manner of speaking often reduced complex situations to simple clarity. Tichiel and Maximian both looked at Lucian simultaneously, then at each other.
Soon, Tichiel spoke.
“Maximian, is that really it? It’s not that studying is difficult—you just hate being here?”
When Maximian didn’t answer, she asked again.
“Why? What’s uncomfortable about it? Or do you have some other plan?”
Maximian silently scraped his grain porridge clean to the bottom, then shrugged his eyebrows.
“Do I look like someone with future plans to you?”
“Then why are you doing this? I don’t understand….”
Lucian interjected again.
“I understand perfectly! Because I don’t want to be here either!”
Maximian glared at Lucian.
“And why is that?”
“Because studying is hard! But if I quit now, I think Father will scold me, so I can’t. That’s why I think you’re brave! Oh right, you didn’t have a father.”
“….”
Unable to listen any longer, Boris opened his mouth.
“Lucian, everyone’s situation is different.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. But I like it here if it weren’t for studying. It’s fun being together like this! So if it were me, even if I hated studying, I’d probably just fail enough to stay another year. Then I could just play around and get expelled next year! But why are you trying to get expelled right away? Is it that you hate being here even without studying?”
Lucian’s words had once again struck at the core of the matter. Finally, Maximian spoke.
“Stop it. I have no obligation to explain myself to you. Just say what you came to say, Tichiel. I failed the exam, so what? Is there some other concern besides me being kicked out of here?”
“Yeah, there is….”
As Tichiel trailed off, Maximian gestured with his hand as if urging her to continue. Tichiel had intended to return Juspian’s letter to Maximian, but when he gave her a sharp look of refusal, she placed it on the table instead and continued speaking.
“I discussed it with Father in a letter earlier. I tried my best to persuade him, but I don’t think I can change his mind. I’m sorry. Let me apologize on his behalf. Not that you have to accept my apology, but….”
“Fine, enough. Can you just get to the point? I’m well aware of your father’s views, expulsion is already decided, so what now?”
“Your father did come up with options in the meantime. The first is what you heard yesterday… and the second is that he said there’s a way to repay all the tuition he’s spent on you so far.”
“Tuition? Ah, so I just need to repay that?”
Over these two years, the tuition Juspian had paid on my behalf was astronomical, and while I had no money, I didn’t collapse in shock. Would my wealthy friends just set it aside and make soup with it? I could reasonably borrow it in thirty annual installments and repay it. And handle the interest over fifty years….
Tichiel gazed at me as though she could see into my thoughts, pressing her lips together with a sheepish smile.
“It’s not money… he wants you to work it off. In other words, he’s asking you to serve as his assistant.”
I twitched one cheek. Work?
“Your father is truly remarkable. His obsession is pathological. Does he really need to work someone like me—who knows absolutely nothing about magic—so hard that it satisfies him? So, how long am I supposed to do this?”
“It’s quite a while.”
“Quite a while—exactly how long… wait. How much is the daily wage for being an assistant?”
Tichiel laughed again, stammering slightly.
“Father thoroughly investigated precedents of assistants who knew nothing about magic, and… he set the daily wage at twelve Elso.”
“What?”
If the daily wage was twelve Elso, accounting for rest days, that came to about four thousand Elso a year. Ten years of work would be forty thousand Elso, and even a hundred years wouldn’t reach four hundred thousand….
Boris tilted his head and spoke.
“Sounds like he just wants you to live with him.”
I was just setting down my spoon, which made jumping up an excellent option.
“You really…!”
I glared at Tichiel, but five seconds later, I realized she had nothing to do with this problem. Come to think of it, Tichiel had simply been saddled with the annoying role of intermediary. In other words, she was a victim caught up in her father’s madness, and through no fault of her own, she even had to apologize for being his daughter.
In the end, I turned my gaze to empty air and spoke.
“I really can’t believe it. Your father, I mean. His first impression was a bit off, but for a while I thought he was quite a decent person. Now I’m taking that back. I’m sorry to say this in front of you, but honestly, he seems a bit insane. Why is he so persistent? What does he want to do with me? There’s nothing an assistant who doesn’t know magic could do, and does he plan to hang me from the ceiling like dried fish?”
The more I spoke, the more it all seemed like obvious truth, and my anger surged. I continued staring at that irrelevant space, swinging my arms through the air as I shouted.
“Why does a great archmage who’s lived over a hundred years need someone as stupid, arrogant, and irritating as me?!”
When I came to my senses, every student in the Dining Hall had stopped moving and was staring at me.
“Uh….”
Some dropped their forks or let food fall from their mouths.
I had meant to direct my anger at Tichiel, but instead I’d shouted at the entire Dining Hall, and some students even seemed to feel compelled to answer.
“Y-yeah. Why?”
“So why would an archmage need an idiot?”
“Let’s reframe the premise. Even if he’s stupid, arrogant, and… what else was it? Anyway, he might not be an idiot after all.”
A few Nenyaple students whose minds had gone slightly strange from studying frantically until the night before last immediately began debating. Was that really the definition of an idiot? Could a person be both stupid and arrogant? The modifiers “stupid, arrogant, and irritating” were too long—let’s search for a proper predicate….
“Let’s escape from these lunatics.”
Despite having created the situation myself, I said this and stood up abruptly. Since I’d finished eating and dozens of wanderers carrying trays were milling about looking for tables, it was an appropriate moment to leave.
Breaking through the crowd of students at the Dining Hall entrance didn’t seem easy, but there was someone with special talent in this field. No one at Nenyaple wanted to collide with Boris. Whether he was conscious of it or not, Boris walked straight through the students who parted around him like iron filings encountering two opposing magnets. The rest of us just had to follow.
Just as we were about to escape, a variable appeared. A voice called from near the entrance.
“Maximian! Maximian Lipkne! Are you there!”
It was Professor Kin. The Summoning Magic Master’s Order, was it?
Whenever I heard that voice calling my name, an instinct to hide kicked in, regardless of whether I had any reason to. I tried to do so this time, but unfortunately, there was someone beside me with the exact opposite instinct.
“We’re here!”
Tichiel waved her hand, and Professor Kin, who had been wandering back into the Dining Hall, immediately turned around and approached us. He grabbed my arm without hesitation and spoke.
“Come with me.”
“Ah, wait a moment. At least explain why you’re doing this….”
But Professor Kin didn’t have time for explanations. He dragged Maximian away from the Dining Hall entrance as though every second mattered. Even Tichiel, who had inadvertently triggered this chaos, was startled by the sudden turn of events and hurried after them, calling out.
“Professor, what’s happening? What did Maximian do wrong?”
Professor Kin offered no explanation to Tichiel either. He seemed to have no time for it. As he hauled Maximian along, he suddenly appeared to remember something and muttered a brief incantation. In that instant, both of them vanished from sight.
Left behind, Tichiel, Boris, and Lucian stood frozen in stunned silence. What on earth had just happened? A professor had used teleportation in broad daylight, outdoors, in front of countless students who hadn’t even studied magic—and simply disappeared?
And he’d taken a student with him?
“….”
All three were so bewildered that they failed to notice the massive surge of commotion erupting behind them at the Dining Hall entrance—a counterflow of people creating bottlenecks, collisions, and a chain of accidents.
“Hey! Did you see that? That was actual teleportation, right?”
“What? Teleportation?”
“Who was that? Who did it?”
“But who did they take with them?”
“It was a professor, wasn’t it? Which professor was it?”
Boris was the first to regain his composure.
“Something serious has happened.”
Tichiel nodded slowly, then suddenly shook her head rapidly as though snapping back to awareness and spoke.
“Yeah, this doesn’t seem like an ordinary matter. I’m going to my chamber. I need to talk to Father about this.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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