Chapter 62: The Boring Infodump
“Well, you are both a noble and a mage. That begs the question, are you in both worlds or are you in neither, Lady Elidranthia?” Alistar, the professor and vice principal of the academy, said.
“Aren’t you a noble yourself, Mage Alistar?”
“I am a mage first before a noble. Just like your maid here, I was elevated to the rank of a noble because I am a mage. Well, I was just a court noble with a viscount as a title right now. I have no land to govern,” Alistar answered.
“Then, what do you mean when you ask whether I am a mage or a noble? Are you asking for my allegiance? My loyalty?”
“Haha. What a sharp kid! That’s a bit too blunt, my dear. Let’s just say I wish to know your interest,” Alistar said, neither confirming nor denying Elidranthia’s questions.
“Hm… Are you with the Theocracy?” Alicia asked. Her question popped out of nowhere. Eli looked at Alicia with a weird look as if she was stupid. The theocracy favored mages, claiming that mages were the children of the divine. Some narcissistic mages would probably prefer that country.
“My loyalty rests with the Althemer Kingdom. Of course,” Alistar answered. Eli almost rolled her eyes. Of course he would answer it like that. Any other answer would be met with the gallows. “... That is exactly why I asked you that question, Lady Elidranthia.”
“Huh?”
“Hm… You are Alicia, right? How ambiguous. I don’t feel that kind of insight emanating from you. But if you think back a little while, that question could be interpreted in two ways. How mysterious. No wonder people often say you have prophetic abilities.”
“Hm? Does that mean you truly sided with the Althemer Kingdom?”
“Before we delve into that question, I must ask you a question. What is a kingdom, Lady Elidranthia?”
“A nation ruled by kings,” Eli answered. It was a textbook answer. Any kid studying at the academy would answer the same way. The teachers even taught them that in history lessons.
“How are kings chosen? A king is believed to have noble blood. Yet, with true gifts from the goddess, who is higher?” Alistar pondered. He then gave the confused Elidranthia a smirk. “Well. Let’s not dawdle on such dangerous topics. Let’s switch to a more lighthearted conversation. You wanted to support these kids, right?”
“That’s my intention, yes.” Eli nodded.
“I wanted to help you. Shadowstep is a big place, and the royal capital has gotten a bit crowded, you see. I believe your endeavor will reduce crime in the capital. With reduced crime, mages and citizens alike will prosper. You might not realize this, but farmers are important for the nation. Such jobs also reduce the workload for mages here in the capital.”
“Is that so?” Eli didn’t fully buy his explanation. It seemed as if Alistar wanted to curry favor with her rather than truly supporting these poor people. But that didn’t matter. Eli believed she could make a company that would prosper. As long as Alistar didn’t intend to sabotage her, she would accept his help.
“Well, that’s about it. I support you, Lady Elidranthia. May you succeed in your endeavor.”
“But this orphanage will be under my name, alright? And so is the money,” Eli said. At the very least, she must have control over the matter. There is no way she would accept spies and saboteurs in her new company.
“Understood. Thank you for this meeting. I shall excuse myself. I have lessons to teach. I believe both of you have lessons to attend, Lady Elidranthia, Mage Alicia. It’s not good to skip your lessons just because you are a high-ranking mage.”
“As long as we passed the test, it’s fine!” Alicia, the lazy bum, said. Despite her ignorant speech, she actually kept her word and passed. If only she would mind her attitude more, Alistar wouldn’t need to care, but she had been ignoring social and etiquette except in classes. He wondered if he had to amend the rules of the academy for Alicia.
“Alright… I will attend the class tomorrow.” Eli sighed. She wasn’t too keen on learning about history. History was written by the winners. It was not the truth.
In the nobles’ class, the history taught her about how Althemer was founded. How the small kingdom suddenly expanded far and wide. How the honorable king and nobles of that time persevered under harsh conditions. How the mages and the citizens supported him.
In the mage class, history was taught under the mages’ lenses.
“So, are you saying that mages are the pillar of the kingdom, Miss Adelaide?” one student asked.
“Yes. Unlike the western kingdom, Althemer valued their mages. They didn’t waste the mages on the frontline but made tools of war. With the tools made by mages, ordinary knights could win against low-level mages and, if they were lucky, they could even assassinate high-ranking mages.”
“But mages are still employed by the military, right?”
“Of course. Who is going to make the bombs, cannons, and walls that the knights are going to use? Who is going to make the tools of war?”
“Miss Adelaide, why do we let nobles rule over us? We won the war for them. But I don’t think nobles view us with respect,” a student asked. She definitely came from Slane Territory with how she viewed mages with elitism.
Eli understood her reasoning, but she couldn’t agree with her. Meritocracy was good, but attitude must win above all else. If this world ran on a full meritocracy, it wouldn’t be too different from her old Earth, where the rich oppressed the weak and the poor. Without conscience and ethics, the people in power in a meritocracy would deny the potential of the growing bud.
“... Well, nobles are supposed to represent the people, while the Mage Union represents us, the mages. If we let mages run everything, mages might be overworked. The proof lies in the theocracy. Despite having mages in power, they stagnated. Moreover, the tools we made could very well be used against us. If that happened, the citizens could riot and oppress us instead. Remember, the ratio of mages to ordinary citizens is one in a thousand.”
“They certainly weren’t very good at doing their job. Look at the filth in the western capital. Hahaha.” The class laughed as they mentioned the slum where Eli had gone on a rampage just yesterday.
“The nobles said it was because there were not enough mages…” Eli gave a wry smile. Being in both worlds was painful. On the noble side, they accused the mages of slacking on their job, while on the mage side, they blamed it on the nobles’ management skills.
The next lesson was about elemental affinities.
“Okay, class. You have learned about sensing mana. Now, we shall learn about elemental affinity.”
“Teacher, everyone, even normal civilians, know that there are six elemental affinities, right? Why do we need to learn about them?” a student asked. Eli knew about it as well. There are six affinities: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, Light, and Dark.
However, she always wondered where the limit was.
“Yes. There are six elemental affinities. But what do they govern? What is the most efficient? You need to ponder this. Magic is mysterious. What you believe might be contradictory. For example, fire elemental affinities not only govern fire. They also govern heat. Otherwise, you couldn’t have forges or heating pipe enchantments. Yet, somehow, lightning falls under fire elemental affinity as well. We don’t know the reason.”
“But how can we heat things without fire? Fire is the easiest thing, right?” a student asked. Despite having seen the forges or even a magic oven, she couldn’t fathom how to heat things without fire.
“It is possible. But the method will only be taught in the enchanting lesson next year.”
“Next is wind. What does it govern? Is it wind? Air? Then, why can you use wind magic as a radio?”
“People believe earth magic governs materials, but how can you cast a rock bullet with it?”
“Then water. People believe they can create water, but how can they create ice and snow? Why is it easier to move water instead of creating it?”
“Next is dark magic. People believe it is illusion, but what are illusions? Is it something we can see, or something born from our imagination?”
“Next is light magic. People say light magic heals all things, but what about disease? As you can see, there is still much to learn. Do not limit your senses and continue to ponder the depths of mana,” Teacher Adelaide said.
“What I am about to teach you is the summary from the Mage Union, but this statement is by no means final, understood?”
Eli tilted her head. She wondered why the rules seemed flexible, but always dismissed them as magic. And true to her thought, even the experts here also wondered what mana could do. Why did it need to be split into six affinities? What about skills?
As she took notes during the lesson, she spotted Alicia sleeping through it all. She certainly wasn’t going to dabble in philosophical questions. Alicia could use magic, and she had become a successful mage because of the goddess, and that’s all that mattered.
Meanwhile, while Alicia and Elidranthia were studying hard, the courtroom was in an uproar. It was all because the Mage Union had found mages imprisoned within the royal capital.
The king had to ultimately demote more than five nobles because of this incident. But things were getting out of control. The corruption ran deep. If he had to punish everyone, not only the three dukes, even the king himself would get implicated.
This event had happened right inside the capital after all.
What’s more suspicious was how fast these organizations reacted. They couldn’t find any more leads. All knights and nobles who were implicated had either disappeared or been killed.
“Were they really killed?” the king asked.
“The report says they were killed. But…” Darius, the prime minister, frowned.
“Yeah. There were no bodies, or the bodies were too disfigured to be recognized. We have stirred the hornet’s nest. Do you think they will retaliate?”
“We have to do it sooner or later, Your Majesty,” Darius said.
“We need to do some thorough cleaning among our ranks. These reapers are getting out of hand,” the king said. He then stared at Darius, “Do it carefully.”