The math laboratory of Schmarin Academy.
Lian, the blonde knight, was sitting at a research table surrounded by all sorts of formulas written everywhere.
With the help of Dean Belthas, he had arranged a meeting with the President of RMNA.
“Are you the one who was looking for RMNA?”
“Oh. Are you a member of RMNA?”
Lian stood up and bowed to the young woman in a wrinkled white lab gown entering the laboratory.
“I am the escort…..”
“RMNA does not care about name, gender, or status. It only looks at the pure passion of the individual.”
“……”
“Academic freedom is the fundamental right of intellectuals who support the Empire. The Academy is the ivory tower of truth, so even the Royal Family cannot suppress it.”
“…… That is an outrageous statement.”
The young scholar slightly lowered her glasses that were perched on the tip of her nose and fixed her gaze on Lian’s blue eyes.
“What is your intention to look for ‘Rimina’… Ah, I’m sorry. Among the members, we tend to call RMNA as Rimina. Anyway, I don’t understand why you would be interested in Rimina.”
A sense of unapproachable charisma was felt from the body of the female scholar, whose small stature barely even reached Lian’s chest.
“If it is for pure research purposes, I will grant access, but all other purposes will be declined. What is your purpose?”
“……”
Lian didn’t expect that they would get straight to the point before even introducing themselves, so all the words and excuses he had prepared became meaningless.
What kind of organization is this that they were being so strict….
Lian’s red lips curved beautifully as he quickly turned his words around.
“Of course. ‘For research purposes’. What other purpose could there be in the ‘ivory tower of truth’?”
Only then did the female scholar, who had been standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a fierce air, entered and sat down with a somewhat softened expression.
“In that case……”
“?”
“You’ll need to take an entrance test. Since Rimina is an official academic organization of the Academy, a certain level of basic knowledge is required. After all, you can’t study the Kerma Hypothesis with someone who doesn’t even know basic arithmetic.”
“……”
“Would you like to take the test now?”
“Yes.”
Lian felt a slight sting to his pride.
Even though he! He may not appear so but he was once hailed as a ‘genius’ to the point that even royal professors were left speechless. And now, a mere unnamed mathematician from a provincial academy…..
Before he knew it, the female scholar returned from the professor’s desk with a problem sheet and handed Lian both a pen and a blank page to write the answers.
“Then, the first question.”
‘This is nothing. How many problems in the world could I not solve….’
“What’s the representative average value of the Northern Archduke? (Answer based on the 100 top-rated texts).”
“……”
“What are you doing? There are 100 questions, and we don’t have time. Write your answer quickly and move on.”
“U-um… Professor?”
Lian scratched the back of his head and asked.
“Is it okay if I start with the second question?”
“Disqualified.”
Something.
Was definitely strange.
* * *
“A resort business?”
After finishing a satisfying meal, Klisha moved to the reception room of the Duke’s palace, where all four walls were open, allowing the breeze to flow through.
“Yes, Shasha.”
Duke Andrew continued with a smile.
“Our Miami is now ready to shed a bit more of its exclusivity and, in line with the current trends, consider opening up its pristine nature to the general public.”
“……”
“Until now, it has only been allowed to the nobles to individually buy land and build villas, but I thought it would be nice if commoners could enjoy it as well.”
Andrew, sitting on the large green sofa, continued speaking in a soft voice.
“Coincidentally, the Chairman of U, Tomma Ryuiken, who is also here, suggested developing a resort. The idea is that commoners could also use it in a membership format, paying a certain fee.”
“Oh. That’s a good idea.”
Klisha, setting down her glass of sweet tropical fruit-flavored sangria, tilted her head in curiosity.
“But why are you telling me this now…… I don’t even have money to buy a membership.”
At that moment, the young man with black hair and red eyes spoke up.
“You don’t lack money, Lady. You have a black card from the Central Royal Bank, don’t you?”
“Yes?”
“How about making a small investment? The ‘funds’ will be temporarily tied up, but this is a business where profitability is definitely guaranteed.”
“……”
Klisha, staring blankly at the face of the Northern President, who was smiling more beautifully than usual, finally snapped back to her senses and opened her mouth.
“That, no matter what….. it’s not my money. It’s not just a penny or two, and if I get caught spending it recklessly…”
“100,000 ruels.”
Eugene cut her off with a rather cold tone.
“Lady. are you aware that the membership fee for the black card alone is 100,000 ruels?”
“?!”
“In addition, the annual fee for the first year is 100,000 ruels, and since it’s an international card, an additional 100,000 ruels will be added. A 200,000 ruels deposit for transaction fees will likely have been pre-paid as well…..”
Eugene’s red eyes curved beautifully.
“It seems, Your Majesty, that you’ve already used 500,000 ruels from His Majesty’s joint marital trust account, haven’t you?”
“!”
Klisha’s face turned pale.
“Eh? I never heard anything like that? Hmm? I think I might have heard something about it?”
Eugene slightly leaned his upper body toward the confused Klisha, and spoke in a seductive voice.
“Even without including the loans from Toma and Currency….. it seems that the current economic situation of Her. Majesty. the Empress. doesn’t look too good.”
The corners of Eugene’s lips curved into a crescent moon.
“Now that it has come to this, if you invest a bit, Tomma Holdings will guarantee you more than double the profit. The debt you have now, Lady, is an amount you could never pay off even if you work your entire life. However…”
Eugene placed both hands on Klisha’s shoulders and smiled brightly.
“Lady. Don’t you want to become rich?”
* * *
“Keeeeeuuuuukuuuu.”
Mirhi, the capture leader, knelt down in front of the bird that seemed determined to act and flapped its wings aggressively.
“Even if you speak like that….. Master Bird…… I don’t understand.”
“Keeeeeuuuuukuukuu.”
“So, what I mean is, I wasn’t trying to catch you, Master Bird. Well, I was trying to catch you, but.”
Mirhi, who had just been knocked down twice by the bird’s wings while trying to catch it, finally spoke up.
“Believe me, I have my own circumstances. The truth is, people like me, powerless office workers, are in a position where we have no choice but to do as our annoying boss orders. You can call it the sorrow of being a work slave.”
“……”
The mysterious bird with golden eyes remained silent, as if urging Mirhi to continue. Feeling a bit more relieved, Mirhi began to ramble, sharing irrelevant and unnecessary information.
“…..That’s how it happened. Honestly, it’s not really our fault. We have no idea where the young lady of this house went. The employer, that is, His Majesty the Emperor, has been causing a ruckus with his bad behavior and insults… demanding that we bring her back immediately. Ah, not Master Bird, I mean the young lady…. Yes.”
Mirhi looked around, then raised one hand and whispered to the ‘Master Bird’, as if telling a secret.
“Actually….. he told us to capture Master Bird, too. He even threw a tiny trap at us. Such a bad person…..”
“Kyaaauukuukuuukyyyaa.”
As the large red bird flapped its wings, Mirhi once again fell flat on his butt.
“Ugh. So, if you want to curse…. If you want to curse, don’t curse me…… that…… that…… it should be that person in the palace……”
The bird flew into the sky without looking back.
“…… So.”
Mirhi stared blankly at the direction the bird flew off to, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
‘What am I doing? No matter how much they say it’s a magical creature or whatever… What exactly did I just do with that beast?’
Mirhi felt an uncomfortable unease from the monologue he had just had, but he decided to bury it deep within his heart.
‘Let’s go back. This capture mission was a failure, anyway.’
Shaking his head, Mirhi, the Emperor’s lifelong servant, turned and began to walk away.
He could not even dream of what the consequences of badmouthing his employer to the Master Bird, or rather, the incarnation of ‘Pathfinder Cuckas’, would be.
* * *
「What’s the representative average value of the Northern Archduke? (Answer based on the 100 top-rated texts)」
This was the most difficult problem.
The blonde knight Lian, who was kicked out after only the first question in the entrance test, was staring at the answer sheet while occupying the eight-person table in the reading room on the third floor of the central library of the Schmarin Academy.
‘No. Out of nowhere. What is this….’
Lian’s blue eyes narrowed.
Yesterday afternoon.
“Professor. Isn’t there an error in the question itself?”
“What?”
Mathematician Amber Cornet, who quickly declared his ‘disqualification’ and walked away.
At the words that stopped her in her tracks, Amber turned around, lightly brushing back her curly brown hair.
She was known as the greatest genius in the Empire, who laid the foundation for analytical geometry at the age of 11, solving Kerma’s Last Theorem at the age of 14, and even annotating and publishing the Seven Greatest Problems in Mathematics at the age of 16.
It was a well-known incident in the mathematics world that she rejected offers for tenured professorships from prestigious institutions such as Zekrit University, which is regarded as the best private school for someone of her age, the National Mathematics Research Institute, and especially the N.I.T. (Nassa1[T/N: Yes, you read that right . It’s Nassa, not NASA] Institute of Technology), where the Empire’s most renowned geniuses had gathered, and chose to stay at Schmarin Academy at a young age.
This is what she said at the time.
“I like the free research environment at Schmarin. Especially, the open-minded approach to academia, I find it appealing.”
To someone like her. How dare he point out errors in the given questions.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“It means exactly what I said. It’s an error.”
“Hah.”
The brown-haired female scholar turned around as if there was no need to hear more.
“To find the average value.”
“?”
“You don’t even need to bring up any other formulas. It doesn’t even provide any function conditions.”
“……”
“At the very least, it should specify what the average value is for……”
The brown-haired female professor approached the troublesome student, who was complaining while sitting at the desk, and with one arm resting on the desk, she began to speak.
“Hey, you, Mister Escort.”
“……”
“That statement itself is enough reason for ‘disqualification’. You should be able to tell right away. If you don’t even know how much effort goes into a research subject, well….. that’s the problem.”
“……”
Amber stared at Lian’s blue eyes for a moment, then gently pushed up the side frame of her glasses with her finger and said.
“Considering the reputation of the recommender, and your appearance is also passable, I’ll give you one more chance. If you don’t understand, at least thoroughly study the works ranked in the top 10 before you challenge it.”
“……”
The female professor’s mumbling voice rang in Lian’s ears as she left, her white gown fluttering behind.
“These days, kids have no guts. They keep trying to take the easy way out.”
“……”
The blonde young knight, who had not stepped into a ‘library’ since his teenage years, was tugging at his blonde hair resembling a golden wheat field in autumn.
At that moment, someone quietly approached Lian and gently tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey……”
“?”
“Please refer to this. I….. I think we need change as well now.”
“?”
A small lady, who had covered her face up to her nose with a handkerchief, handed a small note to Lian and disappeared to the back without even giving him a chance to greet her.
“What?”
And on the note he unfolded. There was a list of books and their locations written in neat handwriting.
「b. ca. 113. Me and the Northern Archduke’s xxx (not suitable for minors)」
「b. da. 214 The Northern Grand Duke’s Obsession Strategy (not suitable for minors)」
「c. wa. 017 Ah, let me go, Your Highness the Archduke (rated 15 and up)」
「d. nc. 416 The Magic of Day Turning into Night (not suitable for minors)」
「e. sa. 032 I am consumed by the xx Grand Duke (not suitable for minors)」
……
「f. dc. 291 Northern Grand Duke’s xxxx Collection (not suitable for minors)」
‘What is this…?’
The Blonde Knight Lian.
No, the Grand Duke of the North, Lian Bartier de Perza, Lord of Bartier and Serie Mountain in the northeastern part of the Empire, and the only Duke in the Empire, was momentarily at a loss for words, holding the note in one hand.2[T/N: The terms ‘Grand Duke’ and ‘Archduke’ have different meanings depending on the region. But it seems the author used the terms to mean the same title, so I’ll be using both depending on the context.]
