IV

  After my encounter with the meathead, I returned to the dorm. The housemistress gave me a cold stare as I passed through the lobby, but that was the extent of my problems. The adults must’ve smoothed everything over; Galla probably hadn’t made a fuss over it.

  When I got back to the room, I found the hinge had been repaired, and the ink stain had been cleaned up. They hadn’t gone so far as to put a new inkwell on my desk to compensate for the broken one, but apart from that, everything had been set right again.

  I was done caring about the meathead, but I wondered if I owed our third roommate an apology. When I imagined just how shocked he must’ve been yesterday when he saw the state we’d left the room in, I felt a twinge of pity.

  However, when I looked around the room, I realized that he probably hadn’t seen it at all. His luggage wasn’t here yet, which meant he hadn’t arrived yesterday. Unless, of course, he’d temporarily been moved to another room because we’d messed this one up so bad that it hadn’t been fit to sleep in.

  In any case, I was hungry. I decided I’d better grab some breakfast. I’d left the residence before dawn, so I hadn’t eaten anything at all.

  Gong, gong, gong. I heard a bell chime three times while I was still working out my breakfast plans.

  The dorm soon became noisy with the sounds of students emerging into the corridor. It must’ve been a wake-up call, which meant that it was time to eat. I headed out with everyone else.

  The beautiful smell of baked bread filled the air as I descended the stairs and headed for the dining hall.

  After I’d eaten from the buffet-style breakfast, a sort of homeroom started.

  “Please look at this.” The housemistress pointed to a canvas—a large, thick sheet similar to a sailcloth—that hung on the wall with a wooden rod. Rather than a painting, though, there was a list on it. “Before you can graduate from the Knight Academy, you must gain three hundred credits from the options listed here.”

  Oh, it’s a lesson plan. Three hundred sure sounds like a lot. I hope we can at least get ten credits for each course.

  The housemistress’s talk could be summarized as follows:

  Half of the three hundred credits—one hundred and fifty of them—came from courses unique to the Knight Academy. Of those, one hundred were practical classes and the remaining fifty were lecture-based. That meant a third of the credits gained at the Knight Academy came from lessons involving physical activity.

  The lecture courses included compulsory and optional classes. Students received a very different curriculum depending on what they chose. Infantry, cavalry, and artillery officers needed very different training, but those weren’t the roles we were studying for. The categories here were quite different.

  Some of my fellow knights-to-be aimed to ride kingeagles and become sky knights. Of course, a knighthood alone didn’t make someone a sky knight—a very different curriculum was required. In fact, there were a lot of special skills that were demanded of a sky knight. Fortunately, training in all of those skills would count toward their graduation credits.

  But students hoping to become sky knights had a high chance of being rejected. The housemistress explained that those with no prior experience riding kingeagles would need intense training, and they’d be forced to quit the course unless they showed real potential. Presumably, anyone who was too scared to look down while in the air would be kicked off the course instantly.

  The remaining credits—the last hundred and fifty—were entirely lectures on general topics which were also common to the Cultural Academy. One hundred and twenty of those credits came from compulsory classes, while we were free to choose how to obtain the remaining thirty.

  The former seemed to cover basic education, such as the Shanish language, math, social studies, and history. Even a knight would shame themselves if they didn’t understand a bare minimum amount of culture. There were many choices for our options. Some subjects sounded similar to chemistry, but I imagined they’d simply teach us nonsense.

  There was an elementary course on Ancient Shanish too, but I’d had enough experience with that language for one lifetime. Actually, make that several lifetimes. I planned to avoid it even if I lived through seven different lives. In fact, I’d hated reading ancient writings in my past life too.

  One of the courses in particular caught my interest: The Kulatish Language. I was surprised that they even had a way of teaching it to us. It was knowledge that could become invaluable at some point in life. Learning the Kulati’s language—the other race of people who inhabited this world alongside the Shanti—could be a major advantage. If this kingdom were to collapse, I could live in hiding in a region ruled over by Kulati, or escape persecution by relocating to a land where my people were safe. In either case, knowing their language would be crucial.

  As much as the Kulati were said to hate the Shanti, Eurasia was a big place, and hatred for Shanti didn’t necessarily exist in every region. There could be safe places out there, like remote islands that remained undiscovered.

  “Does everyone understand?” the housemistress asked.

  It wasn’t clear exactly how much she’d expected us to understand, but my guess was that half the people here were clueless.

  “If it’s too hard for any of you, come and see me later. We’ll make a lesson plan together.”

  I bet she’ll be making those lesson plans all day.

  “Now I’ll inform you of today’s arrangements. You’ll be tested to see whether you can be exempted from some of your compulsory classes. I’m sure some of you have already studied enough Shanish and math to skip the basics, so those students will be awarded the necessary credits.”

  Really? I don’t just get to skip those classes, I get the credits for free? Such compassion. Is there a god or a Buddha helping to manage the academy?

  “However, applying for exemptions is optional. Make the application yourself, and the course teacher will test you. Those who didn’t score well enough on the exam the other day won’t be allowed to apply. Those who choose not to apply for exemptions, and those who aren’t eligible for any exemptions, please focus on selecting your courses instead.”

  I see. They’re making use of our exam results again.

  It made sense to set an eligibility threshold as it saved a lot of teachers’ time. Otherwise, they would’ve had to talk to every student.

  Excelling at that entrance exam had caused a ton of problems for me so far, but now I was glad I’d done it. My three years of hard work hadn’t been for nothing. Well, except for the ancient Shanish lessons—those were still worthless.

  The talk of exemptions and getting free credits was music to my ears. Probably because of past trauma I harbored from my days as a credit-chasing college student.

  ✧✧✧

  “Wow...” the old math teacher said. “It’s hard to believe, but your math knowledge might actually surpass mine.”

  “Really?”

  Hooray! I had to stop myself from cheering. If he let me skip math and abacus classes, I’d earn a whole thirty credits for free.

  “I think you could benefit from some of the specialized courses at the Cultural Academy, but you’ve nothing left to learn from the Knight Academy’s compulsory math courses.”

  “Thank you.”

  All right. Sounds like I can skip them.

  “But your skills with the abacus could use some polish.”

  “Oh?”

  I’m not good enough with an abacus?

  “I’ll be generous and let you skip the intermediate abacus class, but I want you to take the advanced one.”

  Despite being called abacus class, it wasn’t just about moving beads around; it also included some of the clerical calculations needed for things like account books. I’d already learned just about everything I needed to know in this area, but apparently not thoroughly enough. It sounded like I’d only narrowly avoided taking the intermediate classes.

  By the way, their abacuses weren’t the type used in Japan. They had a similar design, but rather than each row having five disc-like beads with a reckoning bar separating them, each row included nine round beads.

  Still, I could consider myself lucky to have skipped half the course. And I’d been made exempt from all five modules of the math course, which was great. All in all, I was able to skip twenty-seven credits’ worth of courses in this subject.

  When it came to the other mandatory courses, I was exempt from the entirety of Shanish and all but the final modules of history and social sciences. In total, I was allowed to skip one hundred and four credits out of the one hundred and twenty that made up compulsory education. And for the special Knight Academy courses, I was also exempt from sixteen out of fifty credits.

  It all came to a total of one hundred twenty credits skipped. So overall, out of three hundred credits, I’d been given forty percent of them for free. Wonderful.

  After being interviewed until late at night, I returned to the dorm. The housemistress was there, looking rather frazzled after dealing with kids all day.

  I felt hungry, so I headed to the dinner hall and found Myalo eating some late dinner. All of the exceptional students had undergone a lot of interviews, so he’d probably been busy until recently like I had. I took a well-stocked tray and went over to him.

  “Mind if I sit here?” I asked.

  “Please go ahead,” he replied.

  We talked as we ate.

  “This system’s great. I bet you got out of a lot of classes too.”

  “Yes, I was exempt from ninety-three credits,” he replied.

  Ninety-three credits. Amazing.

  The curriculum had been designed to help kids who couldn’t write or do basic math catch up with everyone else. We were about the age of a fifth grader, so children who’d studied—either under a governess at home or at a cram school—were bound to be able to skip the first five grades’ worth of courses. I’d expected the smart students with a good education to skip between thirty and forty credits, but ninety-three credits was incredible.

  “I knew you were a smart one, Myalo.”

  I shouldn’t be so surprised.

  “I’m nothing special. How did you do, Yuri?”

  “One hundred twenty credits.”

  Myalo’s spoon fell from his hand and landed on his wooden tray with a clatter.

  Is one hundred and twenty really that much? Well, it’s not like I can lie.

  “I should probably mention that I’ve been studying a lot,” I explained. I’d learned from Carol that being overly humble was not a good idea.

  I’ll just tell him that it’s because I work hard. It’s true that the only reason I can skip so many credits is because of everything Satsuki put me through.

  “I-I see. Well, it’s still impressive. You must have set a new record.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  I’d rather not go around breaking records. I’d feel bad about it since I’m cheating.

  “I don’t care about records, but I’ll be glad if I can graduate easily,” I said. “Hopefully I’ll be finished here before too long.”

  “Yes. Though I’ve heard that it’s not possible to graduate from the Knight Academy too early.”

  Huh?

  “What do you mean?”

  “Because we have practical classes.”

  Ah, those.

  Some of the courses needed to be taken in sequence without skipping anything, kind of like how someone couldn’t learn multiplication without learning addition first. It was going to take me years to clear every practical course from beginner to advanced.

  “Oh, you’re right. I wonder how many years it’ll take to get through practical classes if everything goes smoothly.”

  “Seven years, in theory,” Myalo replied without pausing to think.

  He really does know everything.

  “Then I’ll graduate at seventeen if all goes well.”

  Rook had told me that people normally graduated around twenty-two or twenty-three, so seventeen felt a little optimistic. For example, suppose there was an advanced jujitsu class that required skill on the level of a third-year high schooler. If someone younger were to be permitted to take the course, they’d have a hard time keeping up. They might try to make up for their lack of experience using talent and hard work, but they’d always be smaller than the other students on the course.

  Problems of that sort could increase the minimum of seven years to something more like fifteen years.

  “I’ve heard that no matter how talented or strong someone is, they won’t be allowed to pass the final practical classes until they reach twenty.”

  Oh. That’s way later than I expected.

  “Why? Don’t they want us to graduate quickly?” I asked.

  “In some cases, graduates are sent off to war as soon as they have their knighthood. So the academy won’t award one to someone who isn’t fully grown, no matter how talented they are.”

  “Ah, so it’s like that.”

  It would be awful if someone with enough talent to graduate at the age of seventeen could be sent off to die on the battlefield before they’d even grown up. The academy’s compromise was to set a minimum graduation age of twenty. It was bad news for me, because it meant I’d be stuck here longer, but I could see why it was a good policy from a political standpoint.

  “Sounds like there’s no point in hurrying,” I said.

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” Myalo agreed.

  Even graduating at twenty was going to demand a lot of hard work. That said, the number of free credits I’d earned would make everything a lot easier for me.

  “Is it the same at the Cultural Academy?”

  “Cultural Academy students can graduate at any age. In fact, graduating early is a mark of distinction, so many people hurry to do so. Exemption from courses is much more important there than here.”

  That’s interesting.

  “You sure know a lot, Myalo.”

  “I really don’t. All I know is this sort of boring trivia.”

  I wouldn’t call it boring trivia...

  “Where did you learn it all?”

  “Where...? Well, you could say that remembering all these trivial things is what people from witch families do for a living.”

  Really? Well, I suppose that’s what bureaucracy is all about.

  “I’ll bet witch families like yours have a ton of history behind them.”

  “That’s true. My family is one of the seven witches, after all. I can trace our history back to the days of the empire.”

  All the way back to the empire? That’s impressive.

  It was possible to trace the Ho family’s roots that far back too, but we were just an average family of farmers in the southern region of Scandinavia in those days.

  Back then, my ancestors—whose names had been lost to time—had prospered enough on their farm to become influential within their village. My ancestors grew wealthy, and when war caused the collapse of the empire, the family head’s ambition drove him to use that confusion to his advantage. He fought until our family was the most powerful one in all of the southern territory. Then, when the Shiyalta Kingdom was established, my family scrambled to win the favor of Shiyalta Flue Shaltl—or perhaps she came to them—and they were made the chieftain family of the south.

  We were basically just upstart farmers, but that had all happened almost nine hundred years ago. Over the course of a few centuries, any family could go from being upstarts to prestigious. Our family tree only started being recorded around the point that the family gained authority over the region, so we didn’t quite have the honor of being able to trace our history back to the days of the empire.

  “The seven witches? I can’t even imagine what they do.”

  I’ll bet it’s some important work in the royal castle.

  “I assure you it’s nothing pleasant,” Myalo told me.

  “I don’t believe that. I know that they handle all the bureaucratic work.”

  Unlike fighting or carpentry, bureaucracy was difficult to appreciate because it wasn’t the sort of work you could see in action. Nonetheless, it was indispensable to any developed nation. A small village could be ruled by a single person because one elder could single-handedly keep track of all the goings-on, but a single monarch couldn’t hope to watch every corner of a kingdom made up of millions of people. There would always be a need for others who became the eyes and ears—not to mention the arms and legs—of the nation’s ruler.

  “That’s certainly the right answer if the question comes up in an exam, but in reality, they corrupt offices and line their own pockets.”

  “They do? I don’t get what you mean.”

  Though I’m not surprised corruption exists. Maybe it’s even a given for a country in this era.

  “Let me give an example: if they’re in charge of a harbor, they’ll employ a longshoreman to steal cargo from the ships. When it’s the managers orchestrating the theft, there’s no way to prevent it. That means anyone who doesn’t want their cargo stolen has to pay a bribe. It’s the easiest job in the world, the family can simply sit back and let the money flow in.”

  “That makes sense...”

  A longshoreman was a worker who loaded and unloaded cargo from merchant ships. There were no standardized shipping containers or cranes, so all cargo had to be moved by hand. The royal capital heavily relied upon ships for the transport of goods, which made a longshoreman’s job one of the most crucial types of manual labor in the royal capital. The idea of making it routine to corrupt that sort of worker sounded dangerous to someone like me.

  A little deception and bribery didn’t mean the entire country was doomed—such things could never be completely stamped out among bureaucrats, after all—but at the very least, there needed to be periodic purges. Cleaning up corruption would bring down families who relied on it. Given that these seven witches boasted proud histories that stretched back to the days of the empire, it must’ve meant they’d never experienced that kind of cleansing. Various offices must’ve been allowed to rot under their amoral influence the entire time.

  “That’s not exactly what my family does. They work in real estate. Not that that’s any better—they’re a blight that does no good to anyone,” Myalo continued.

 

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