Chapter 1: The Frontier Margrave’s Branch School of the Female Knight Academy
1
The conflict with the vampires had been settled, the migration and aftercare for the elves was somehow finished, and it was finally a day in early autumn where I could catch my breath.
Queen Toko-san, who had come to Lohengrin Castle for the first time in a while, spoke up while munching on the local specialty, imo-yokan (sweet potato jelly), which had been served in the drawing room as a tea snack.
“Hey, so, it’s about Suzuha.”
“Yes?”
“To put it bluntly, she’s in danger of being expelled.”
“Expelled…?”
“Wh-wh-wh-what do you mean by that!?”
My younger sister, Suzuha, let out a scream. She was in a total panic, as this was a complete bolt from the blue.
As her older brother, I also wanted to hear the details.
“Well, it’s a bit of a thorny issue,”
Toko-san said, tossing the last piece of imo-yokan into her mouth.
“I’ll tell it in order. Actually, right now, the Royal Strongest Female Knight Academy in the capital is a total den for the Old Military Mainstream Faction.”
“…Excuse me?”
The Old Military Mainstream Faction—I remembered them.
They were those “special” people who sent only four of us into the Ogre’s Jungle and started an unwinnable war of aggression against the Duchy of Uentas.
Yuzuriha-san, who was sitting next to me, furrowed her brow.
“Wait, Toko. I was supposed to have purged all of them.”
“Most of them, yeah. But among them, there were a very small number for whom no evidence of fraud or corruption could be found at the time, right? You didn’t go as far as executing those guys, did you?”
“Well, that is true…”
“Anyway, as a result of the military core being completely replaced, those idiots lost their place. So, they drifted off to the ‘sidelined’ Female Knight Academy.”
“…Um, Toko-san, is the Female Knight Academy considered a ‘sidelined’ post?”
“I mean, yeah. To be blunt, a Female Knight Academy without Yuzuriha is the ultimate dead-end job.”
“I feel like neglecting education is a bit of a problem, though…?”
“I agree, but when you compare it to ‘glamorous’ roles like military administration or the Joint Staff Headquarters, it’s inevitable. Besides, the Female Knight Academy is technically ‘Royal.’ On paper, it’s not a direct subsidiary of the military. Though, the Royal Family doesn’t have a shred of actual discretion over it anyway!”
“I see…”
It sounded like there were complicated circumstances.
I figured asking more would just be poking a hornet’s nest, so I stayed quiet.
“But what does that have to do with Suzuha?”
“About that. Suzuha and Yuzuriha followed Suzuha-nii from the capital all the way out here, right?”
“Yes.”
“In short, she doesn’t have enough attendance days. Well, for my part, I know her skills are head and shoulders above the rest, so I processed it as ‘graduating via report submission’ and called it a day, but…”
I see. I was starting to get the picture.
“And people complained about that treatment?”
“Exactly. They’re saying since there’s no prospect of Suzuha returning to the capital’s academy, she should be expelled immediately. It’s basically just harassment.”
“Hmm…”
Even if it was harassment, it technically made sense in its own way.
Toko-san, seeing right through my thoughts, said:
“I’m telling you now, Suzuha-nii. You don’t need to think about whether it’s logical or not. There are plenty of students who graduated via report because they couldn’t attend for various reasons. Right, Yuzuriha?”
“Eh, is that so?”
“It is as Toko says. Since the students are basically all daughters of nobles, taking leaves of absence or graduating via reports due to family circumstances is a common occurrence. —However, Toko. Shouldn’t the Chairperson of the Female Knight Academy have enough power to brush off such interference?”
“Well, you see… I’ve been so busy since becoming Queen that I stepped down as Chairperson six months ago. I honestly didn’t see this coming.”
“I see how it is.”
“Well, I tried to force my way this time, but they warned me that since I’m no longer the Chairperson, my meddling is an ‘abuse of authority.’ In other words, if things stay as they are, there’s a high chance they’ll bring this up again whenever the opportunity arises.”
I see. I understood the situation more or less.
Basically, as long as Suzuha didn’t return to the capital, expulsion seemed inevitable eventually.
In that case, I should first ask the person in question for her opinion.
“Hey, Suzuha—”
“Even if I am expelled, I will absolutely never leave your side, Brother.”
“…But Suzuha, you worked so hard to get in.”
“In the first place, I entered the Female Knight Academy because I wanted to be of use to you, Brother.”
“I see.”
Confirmation of intent: complete.
That said, now that I’ve become a Frontier Margrave, it would be difficult for me to leave this territory—
While I was agonizing over what to do…
“So, I have a proposal for Suzuha-nii.”
“What is it?”
Toko-san, wearing a sly grin, said this:
“—How about building a Branch School of the Female Knight Academy in Suzuha-nii’s territory?”
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I repeated that unimaginable proposal in my head several times.
“Um, you mean building another Female Knight Academy?”
“Exactly.”
“In the Lohengrin Frontier Margrave’s territory?”
“That’s the idea. And once that school is built, we just transfer Suzuha there immediately. Then those total idiots in the Old Military Faction won’t be able to lay a finger on her.”
“But this place is a total backwater, you know?”
“To put it another way, it’s convenient for training female knights because they can go out to hunt monsters right away. It’s also close to the border, so it’s easy to mobilize for service in an emergency.”
“I see…?”
“Besides, even if we went through the trouble of kicking those idiots out of the capital’s academy, with the way things are now, they’d just take root in some other department. It’s actually less trouble to just build a proper school separately.”
“How would the current students feel about that…?”
“Those guys are incompetent and only care about power struggles, so they leave the actual education to the instructors. The curriculum is stuck in the past.”
“Hmm…”
If that’s the case, I thought it might be a viable option.
—And actually, when we were discussing what to do with the profits from the Mithril mine, the idea of building an educational facility had already come up.
In that case…
Wouldn’t establishing a Branch School of the Female Knight Academy in the territory be killing two birds with one stone?
And in the future, if we could train all the female knights who protect the territory locally… that would be ideal.
“I understand. I’ll consider it.”
While I said that, I was actually quite enthusiastic on the inside.
“Great! Looking forward to it, Suzuha-nii!”
Saying that, Toko-san stuffed her mouth with more imo-yokan,
resulting in her choking violently and groaning, “Nga-gugu…!”
2
When I consulted Ayano-san, who is probably the most knowledgeable about our territory’s finances at the moment, she gave me an easy “Okay.”
“I believe it would be excellent.”
“You think so too, Ayano-san?”
“I believe it is worth constructing.”
It’s hard to say that the successive Frontier Counts of Lohengrin were enthusiastic about education.
In the capital of the territory, you won’t find a single decent school, let alone a university.
To build a school myself in such a territory, even if it was a training institution for knights…
and knowing my own sister would attend, naturally, I was fired up.
“In that case, Ayano-san, where should we build it?”
“That is a difficult question. A regular school is one thing, but a military academy requires a vast amount of land. Currently, it would be difficult to secure a large plot in the center of the capital…”
“Then, how about the top of that mountain?”
I said this while pointing to the mountain visible from the window.
Lohengrin Castle is built on a sheer cliff, and outside the window, beyond a deep canyon, several barren mountains can be seen.
Among them, on the summit of the closest and most rugged barren mountain, there sat a solitary building.
It was once a monastery, but it was currently unused and vacant. After all, it was far too inconvenient.
Supposedly, it was built on such a rugged peak because they wanted a monastery isolated from the world, but even I think they went a bit overboard.
Well, putting that aside.
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