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The entrance ceremony has ended uneventfully… Well, it would be a stretch to say that, but the academy is now on its regular class schedule. Though with that said, the students will be concerned with the lesson orientation and reviewing the fundamentals of magic for a long while, so it’s sure to be a tedious time.

Still, this period is a very important stage. This is when the students create links with the upperclassmen and professors of their respective faction and begin factional disputes within the classroom.¹ The influence they get in this period can last for the whole school year, so it’s nothing to laugh at.

Naturally, this applies to the faculty as well, we’ll be running around to expand the factions of our employer’s children, if not the faction we’re serving itself. These busy days when we can’t just neglect the new and old students are going to continue on.

And yet why is this thing sitting on top of my desk?

「Professor Hender, what is this?」
「Hahaha, Professor Herman, it’s something from the rumored top passer. Being that she has the principal’s signature, this isn’t something we can ignore.」
「…… Good grief, that’s just troublesome.」

What was left on my desk is a usage permit for the training area and a supervisor designation form. Of all the times, I’m going to have to supervise the training of students in this busy period, it seems. That principal is a headache. Up until now, he’s been a puppet of the vice principal who’s a part of the second prince faction, but it looks like this time he has turned into the Iglesio household’s a̲s̲s̲-kisser. Both of these aren’t particularly good for me since I’m a part of the first prince faction, but with the other obviously having brought me more trouble, it would’ve been better if he stayed a puppet instead.

「I had plans to have a meal with class A students today, but……」
「How enviable. That’s something out of reach for a class D adviser like me.」
「If I could, I’d rather have you take my place. The food is expensive, but I don’t really have the leeway to savor the taste.」

While I call it a meal, it’s practically a time to flaunt one’s authority and financial strength. They flaunt their valuable implements and report which families have joined under their wing. They show gifts of money, poke on people’s weakness, and if you show even a slight opening, you’d end up being labeled a traitor.²

As expected, since it’s only the children of this academy, cases of bribery and political fraud don’t really happen, but there are times when children display brutality exactly because they are children. While I’ve been a professor for a reasonably long time, and I finally landed on the position of a class A advisor, that is honestly something that I prefer not to see so much.

As there’s a supervisor designation form, it’ll be considered an issue if I don’t go to the training area but on the other hand, if I don’t attend the lunch meeting, that’ll only give students material for criticism. I’d like to at least join the lunch meeting even if I get there late, but will that top passer Lily allow me to do so?

With heavy footsteps, I head on to the training area. The starting period written on the usage permit has already passed, but in the end, it’s just an apprentice magician’s training. It’s likely nothing worth to note and there shouldn’t be any problem with me being a bit late.

◆◇◆◇◆

「What the…… What are they doing?」

I couldn’t help but express it out loud. There are five people inside the training area. The top passer Lily; the heir of the Bodwin family Teybert, commonly called the divine child of flame; the girl who I read from reports to be 『diseased』 but has somehow managed to enroll as a magician, Urania; the daughter of the Ormos family who, despite serving as the first prince faction’s most trusted confidants, only rarely attend parties, Solarima³; and lastly, a girl observing from the sidelines, likely an attendant of one of them.

If I’m not wrong, they’re currently playing a ball game similar to dodgeball, hit-the-middle⁴, in which a person stands inside a circle drawn on the ground and the others remaining pass a ball around while trying to hit the one inside the circle.

However, what they’re doing has clearly deviated beyond that of a children’s game. First of all, their ball is ridiculous. While it’s camouflaged to appear like an ordinary ball, those are highly complex magic tools. In the first place, I can’t even begin to imagine how much it took to camouflage it, but the interior mechanism is obviously as absurd.

The three outside the circle are passing around the ball, and it seems that as they’re doing so, they’re loading it with their own magic power. From being enveloped in flames, winds, and water, these change constantly. In the small window of time when they touch the ball, they extract the magic power from the previous person, and load their own magic power into it; what they’re doing should demand a considerable level of magic power control. With how easy they’re making it seem, I guess that’s only to be expected of a class A student.

However, what’s noteworthy is the girl inside the circle, Lily. The ball being passed around her is naturally being done so with her as a target. And this is thrown to her way while having the characteristics of the magic power loaded prior. She casually catches it like it’s nothing and at the same time, she instantly extracts the magic power inside it, loading it with her own magic power before throwing it back to one of the three.

Unlike the usual ball passing which is done while being careful with the one you’re passing the ball to, she’s disarming something that’s clearly at the same level as combat magic. Honestly speaking, in regards to magic power control, I can’t help but think that nobody else but the sages can teach her any more than she already knows. At the very least, there’s nothing I can teach her about it.

「Sola! Your control is getting sloppy! Tebby! You loaded too much magic power, it’s going out of control! Urania! You’re being too indecisive! Stick to just one attribute!」

Moreover, Lily is even giving appropriate guidance to the other three. She completely grasped things that, from an outsider’s perspective, isn’t obvious unless pointed out, explained the issues at hand, and even gave corrections. She might even be a better educator than I am.

「So this is the magician the Iglesio household employed with serious intent…」

I can’t help but imagine how much we stand to gain if I can take her into the first prince’s faction, but the Iglesio household is a special entity, the only household that can ignore the royal family’s decree. No, even if the household itself is out of the question, she is still a child. Maybe I can win even just her over to our side……?

For the time being, the fact that I now have a valid excuse to cancel my attendance for lunch meetings was a great source of relief.⁵

1. Silva: Factional disputes at school… how fun. 11/10 I wouldn’t attend such school
2. Lyly: Ah, like private school, got it. I don’t miss the times at all.
   Silva: at, what school do you go to? Mine wasn’t that toxic
3. Lyly: Lol, that moment when everybody has a longer description than the protag
4. 中当て
5. Lyly: Lol, yeah, politics on lunch? Nope, nu-uh. Never on the dinner table, that’s not a very cash money way to spend time.