WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 59: 11. St. Yansk University and the Chamber of Secrets (2)

──────

* * *

For a week after that day, Ivan was able to return to being a peaceful gardener.

That was, unless Aesidis happened to make eye contact with him and came running with a blade in hand. She was gradually turning into an aggressive monster.

It was an unwelcome development for a civilized person who did not attack first.

In any case, the catastrophe that had struck Pritchenkaya was cleaned up within a week.

Considering both the scale of the incident and its aftermath, there was no way everything could truly have been resolved in a week. Fortunately, Pritchenkaya had a capable intelligence agency. One that prioritized domestic intelligence.

Dmitry wanted to boast about the beautiful ending he and his subordinates had created. If he had his way, he would have shouted from every rooftop that they deserved to be called founding heroes, but he was not in a position to do that now.

Thud!

“Ghk!?”

“Your form has fallen apart. Again.”

“S-senior... th-this...”

“Again.”

He was currently doing a handstand with his head pressed against the floor.

If he turned his gaze, Dmitry found himself among the strange juniors who willingly stood upside down beside him, their eyes sparkling as they watched Ivan.

Spineless fools.... Dmitry corrected his posture as he mourned the weak spirits of modern intelligence agents.

The man before him was the only human besides the Hero Party with a record of personally slaughtering one of the Seven Dragon Generals.

So it was not fear.

Respect?

Respect. Yes. He was an elder who had made quite a name for himself even in the Annihilation Unit, the predecessor of the Counterintelligence Command, during the fiercest days of the war.

Yes, respect. He was absolutely not afraid. No? There was no reason to be afraid. He and that senior were the same rank, lieutenant colonels. Besides, Dmitry was still young. Once he received a promotion, they would see.

“Ah, Colonel Petrovich. You have arrived?”

“What? Ah, my apologies. When there are too few stripes on your insignia, your voice gets quieter. I could not hear you very well. Would you mind speaking a little more sharply? Ahem. Bring me some water, Colonel... Lieutenant Colonel! Hahaha. Really, even if you have retired, once a soldier, always a soldier....”

“Ah, wait. Words, sir. Let us settle this with words. Ah.”

“Sorry. No, I said I am sorry. I am apologizing. No. Casual speech? When did I ever?”

“Ah, please put that potion down.”

“...Urgh.”

Dmitry, who had been beaten in his imagination, quietly closed his eyes.

Yes. It was respect.

* * *

Only after Ivan had thoroughly tightened the Counterintelligence Command’s discipline did he manage to accept their long explanation.

Planting explosives, well, that was one thing.

The Royal Guard Division preparing a rebellion...? It must have been difficult to stop. Detecting it beforehand was impressive, too.

Dwarves underground...? What was that supposed to be?

Destroying the Crown Prince faction’s network in the House of Nobles, detaining the current king, seizing the national treasury and royal vault. Oh, impressive.

After roughly taking in all the events Pritchenkaya had endured on the same day, and hearing their desperate explanation, “We were trying not to lay a finger on anything within your area of responsibility, senior, so ha ha, perhaps we did not build enough rapport with the field agents. Ahahaha,” he nodded.

Ivan understood that the Counterintelligence Command had been busy.

But was the Counterintelligence Command not supposed to be busy?

Sometimes, these barbaric premodern people had a tendency not to regard the obvious as obvious.

To put it harshly, it was like watching someone praise a knife for being sharp or a pen for producing ink.

Was he supposed to understand that the Counterintelligence Command had neglected a key protection target because it was too busy conducting intelligence work?

Things had not been like that in his day. While serving as a scout for the Hero Party, he had infiltrated enemy territory, stolen intelligence, and sabotaged key assets at the same time. It was true.

Why could young people these days not even manage something like that? It was deeply lamentable.

So Ivan devoted the entire weekend to giving the Counterintelligence Command a thorough attitude adjustment.

The Counterintelligence Command agents were happy to receive direct mentoring from the founder who had created their workplace.

Ivan was happy that Pritchenkaya’s intelligence agents had become that much more elite.

Dmitry was unhappy because he had been forced to come in unpaid over the weekend and participate in training that had not been included in the semiannual training plan.

* * *

After a long back-and-forth, Dmitry finally managed to speak while sitting on the sofa, supporting his trembling legs.

“Um, senior. Are you going to school tomorrow?”

“I have to.”

“Um. Well. Ah... Her Highness told me not to say anything yet, so I really cannot tell you, but... um. Soon.... There will be a commendation...?”

“A commendation?”

“Yes. Soon means, considering Her Highness’s personality, probably tomorrow.... Dress neatly when you come in tomorrow. If possible, at least trim your beard.”

“I am not in a position to receive a public commendation.”

“Yes, well, none of us are. But I have a feeling the commendation might not be public. It might be a very private kind of praise. You know? The intimate kind between a man and a woman.”

Ivan snorted at that worthless nonsense and stood up.

He was not an adolescent boy, so as a rational adult, he could infer the Princess’s position.

She had only just fully secured her political footing, yet she still had to decline the transfer of the throne. There was not enough justification to depose a perfectly healthy king.

The Crown Prince being kidnapped and terrorist attacks occurring in the capital were not the king’s fault. That was what had been officially declared. The moment they criticized the king’s incompetence, the entire capital guard structure, beginning with the Counterintelligence Command, would be torn apart.

No matter how powerful the House of Nobles had become, they could not allow that to happen. The military structure, including the capital’s Royal Guard Division, was naturally the private yard of high-ranking nobles.

Therefore, the king was not incompetent. A few incompetent treacherous officials had simply obscured his vision. Once that conclusion had been reached, inheriting the throne would instead become grounds for criticism.

In other words, the Princess could not officially commend either the Counterintelligence Command or Ivan himself. No country publicly rewarded secret agents in the first place.

Still, unreliable as Dmitry might be, he was not the sort to joke about something involving the Princess.

Lost in thought, Ivan returned to the orphanage.

His eyes suddenly fell on the orphanage wall, where the paint had peeled away. They invested enormous sums in beautifying the building every six months, yet it still ended up like this. The orphanage children walked along the walls.

If he was going to receive something, money would be best.

Ivan nodded and headed toward the director’s office.

* * *

As he had once reflected, if there was one absolute rule in every academy story, it was this.

The academy’s headmaster, or university president, was the strongest person in the setting.

That was right. He did not know why the seat that ought to be occupied by an experienced administrative bureaucrat was usually given to a genius magician with the appearance of a child, or a master from a previous generation who had rejuvenated into the body of a child, but that was generally how it went.

Come to think of it, Dumbledore had also been the strongest person in Europe. That was why he had successfully stopped Britain’s Heavenly Demon, whose life goal was to attack a combined elementary, middle, and high school educational facility. Judging by what happened to Hogwarts after Dumbledore’s death, it was an extremely reliable rule.

If one were to name the strongest people in the world in this era, a few powerful figures from the previous generation could be mentioned. But they were sensible people, so they had neither reason nor leisure to become university presidents.

In the middle of all this, if one were to name the strongest person in Pritchenkaya, there happened to be someone who had once been the head of the administrative bureaucracy, who commanded the obedience of the military, treasury, judiciary, and legislature all at once, who now had no official position and was therefore ready to take an honorary post, and who was conveniently of marriageable age.

What did it matter whether their martial strength was the greatest or not? No matter how barbaric the premodern age was, even on Earth, people who held power through martial strength alone had disappeared with the end of antiquity.

Naturally, “the strongest” meant the person who possessed the strongest power.

That was right.

The strongest person in Pritchenkaya.

After safely sending home the former university president who had come to work Monday morning without suspecting anything, Elizaveta Kirillovna Krasilov began a complete renovation of the president’s office. Krasilov did not provide retirement pay.

“Ah, use ebony there.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, no, forgive me! Your Highness!”

“Do not be so formal. Have I not come here as the university president?”

“Yes, President!”

The work of turning the president’s office into the East Court’s office was astonishingly completed before noon. In Pritchenkaya, they ground up people instead of time. Unlike time, people were resources that could always be reproduced.

Once the president’s office had become reasonably livable, meaning it was only about fifty percent as luxurious as the East Court, Elizaveta finally nodded to the Royal Guard officer standing watch.

“Now, bring him here.”

“I obey Your Majesty’s command.”

“Ahem.”

“Yes, President.”

The Royal Guard officer did not even dare think that if she wished to be treated as the university president, she ought to leave the Royal Guard at the palace. With a strange expression, the officer bowed and left the office.

Elizaveta stretched and looked out the window.

The campus on that sunny summer day was full of lively students, as though the chaos of recent days had nothing to do with them.

How enviable.

Elizaveta had never attended school. In this world, where there was no concept of a formal education curriculum, higher education was mostly handled through private tutoring at home.

Half of her childhood had been spent at court, and the other half on the battlefield. Her education had focused on military studies, politics, and the theory of kingship, along with noble etiquette and court etiquette.

That meant she had never experienced laughing so innocently and walking around in groups with peers her own age. Even the students over there were not much younger than her. She considered anyone up to ten years younger to be her peer. Ivan was therefore also her peer.

“Hmm....”

The official announcement of her appointment as president of Saint Yansk University would have reached the House of Nobles by now. Those old men would be burning with agitation.

Saint Yansk University was an internationally prestigious institution. The nobles therefore tried to enroll their children there by any means possible, not merely for education but as part of international social activity.

Looking at it the other way around meant this.

If she completely occupied the university, most of Pritchenkaya’s nobles would effectively have their hostages in her hands.

Elizaveta smiled coldly. It was a smile befitting the ruler of a shogunate, a monarch who controlled the kingdom’s darkness.

An excellent ruler obtained dozens of benefits from a single policy. The university presidency was not simply a threat aimed at the House of Nobles.

No, that was merely a secondary objective. There would have been many other ways to placate the House of Nobles.

Therefore, her true tactical objective was....

“President. I have brought him.”

“Tell him to enter.”

The Royal Guard officer opened the president’s office door with a strange expression, never once wondering why she wanted to be called president if she was going to speak like that.

Behind the officer entered a man wearing neatly washed work clothes, a fresh towel draped around his neck.

“You have come.”

“...Yes.”

“Sit. I have much to say.”

The man looked at Elizaveta, who had occupied the president’s office, then looked around the office that had been completely transformed from the one he remembered. After that, he looked up at the ceiling and muttered.

So much for getting paid.

But that was not the sort of etiquette one should show before royal blood, so the sensible and polite man soon sat down on the sofa.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried