Following Albert's instructions, he made his way to the faculty room.
When he arrived, the staff member there guided him to yet another room, and the moment he opened the door — Ermes's eyes went wide.
Desks were arranged in a U-shape around the entrance, and seated there in a row was a diverse array of faculty members. Roughly ten or so, perhaps.
What they all had in common was that every single one of them was either resting their chin on their hand or directing hostile gazes his way — there wasn't a shred of goodwill toward him to be found.
The curtains were drawn, and the room's lighting was somewhat dim. The ambient temperature was cold, and the hardness of the floor seemed to press up at him from below.
And in the center of the space created by the U-shaped desks, right in the very middle, a single chair sat waiting — could they really be expecting him to sit there?
"Please take a seat, Ermes."
That was exactly what they expected.
This was exactly like being the defendant in a trial. Surely this was no way to treat a student — even if only nominally.
However, between the positioning, the gazes, and the lighting, they were projecting an overwhelming sense of intimidation with almost no subtlety. At this point, the intent was painfully obvious.
These faculty members were probably all from prestigious families — and if so, a normal student, someone who held status and authority as supreme values, would surely have been terrified by now, unable to string together a coherent statement. That was probably their aim as well.
But Ermes was Ermes.
The very first thing he felt upon seeing this scene wasn't fear or dread — but exasperation.
It was just an interrogation of a single student. They probably had other motives too — but still, devoting this much manpower and passion to interrogating one student was the very height of inefficiency.
Thinking such things, he outwardly took his seat obediently. The bearded male teacher sitting directly across from him — the same one who had urged him to sit — spoke once more.
"Well then, shall we begin, Ermes? I am Auban von Lujandru, the grade supervisor, from a Marquis House. I expect you already know that, of course."
He did not know that, of course.
Ermes struggled considerably to suppress the urge to say so. Before he could, Lujandru the grade supervisor displayed a surprisingly mild, almost friendly expression.
"Now, don't be so stiff. The reason we called you here is that we wanted to ask you a simple question. That is to say —"
After pronouncing something utterly unbelievable with a perfectly straight face, he finally cut to the heart of the matter — the question he actually wanted answered.
"The recent contest. Just what sort of
cheating
did you use to make
B
Class
win?"
"............"
...So that was how it was.
With those words, Ermes decided that his trust in these faculty members had dropped considerably.
Not "whether he had done something" — not even "what exactly he had done."
In their minds, it was already a foregone conclusion that Ermes had cheated. What remained was simply the process of figuring out what exactly he had done — and they believed this without the slightest doubt.
Perhaps sensing Ermes's silence, Lujandru adopted an unnaturally friendly tone and pressed further.
"There's no point in staying silent, you know — it won't help you. Don't worry, I understand perfectly. You were jealous of the A Class students, whom everyone envies, and you wanted to drag them down by any means necessary, correct? A truly commoner-like and despicable way of thinking — but I won't blame you. Correcting youthful indiscretions like that is part of our job, and this is an academy. We don't discriminate based on status. If you confess, nothing bad will happen to you."
Was it his imagination that he had made a discriminatory remark right before declaring that he didn't discriminate?
...However, he was starting to get the general picture.
First, the purpose of calling Ermes here was, as stated, to question him about the details of the contest.
The strategy was to strip him of his composure in this room designed solely to intimidate him, and then have Lujandru question him in a friendly manner to coax a confession out of him.
It made sense. It was an effective method for extracting a confession — if that person had actually done something wrong, that is.
"Well, even if you say that..."
He briefly considered firing back with something clever, but decided it was pointless to be roundabout with this lot, so he went with a straight answer.
"We haven't done anything. We simply used the time leading up to the contest effectively, fought in accordance with the rules, and won. That's all."
"Stop talking nonsense!!"
From the side, a booming shout came flying at him.
That was the opening salvo. One after another, furious accusations rained down on Ermes.
"There's no way that's true! Get real!"
"More importantly, do you even understand that you're the one being accused here!?"
"This gentleman is the elder brother of the Marquis House head! To spout such lies to a man of his standing — at an academy, perhaps, but otherwise your head would be—"
"Oh my, the 'elder brother' of the 'head.' How curious that the teacher himself isn't the head."
Oh no — in his irritation, he had impulsively stepped on a landmine he absolutely should not have.
As evidence, the shouts fell silent. The faculty member who had let slip the information about the head shut his mouth, and veins bulged on Lujandru's temples.
"...I-I consider the noble work of guiding young minds with futures ahead of them to be far more important than being a house head. I simply passed the inheritance to my younger brother. You — I would advise you to stop making unnecessary baseless assumptions. It may be something a commoner cannot understand."
He had managed to recover — barely, at the last moment. For an instant, he had turned a wrathful glare at the faculty member who had spilled the beans, and traces of deep-seated inferiority complex and prejudice bled clearly into his word choices. But outwardly, he maintained a composed expression.
Taking the fact that he had disrupted their composure as a win, Ermes seized the initiative in the conversation.
"Actually, you're proceeding under the assumption that 'cheating occurred' — but do you have evidence to support that? If it's unclear whether cheating happened or not, I would think proper procedure would be to first present grounds for the 'it happened' side, wouldn't you?"
"...Hm? Oh, is that all?"
However, Lujandru actually seemed to settle down at those words.
"Don't you understand? We have evidence — more than enough of it, in fact."
With a tone that held absolute conviction, as though stating a universal theorem from the depths of his heart, he declared unwaveringly:
"B
Class defeated
A
Class. Isn't that the absolute proof — the irrefutable evidence of cheating?"
"..."
"The noble sons and daughters who were chosen to belong to A Class — a class I myself once belonged to — versus the washed-up failures of B Class! In status, education, etiquette, skill, and magic! A Class is superior in every way — and yet in a magic battle of all things, A Class fell behind B Class!? Impossible! It can't be done!"
"Exactly! Is there any greater proof than that!? You — you all have already been found guilty of going against the righteous path!"
"And the most suspicious of all is you — the commoner transfer student from the second term! Do you understand!? Now be a good boy and talk — don't waste any more of our time!"
...Ah, he remembered now.
Yes. Status supremacy, magic supremacy. They regarded these as absolute, unchanging, infallible truths.
They refused to acknowledge anything beyond them, and treated any deviation as an anomaly to be dealt with —
— aristocrats who had solidified this way of thinking. Unlike students who hadn't yet been fully tainted, these were adults who had been thoroughly steeped in it to the point of no return.
The current state of this kingdom, as he had glimpsed at a party he once attended with Katia.
Something he had almost forgotten — something he had wanted to forget — through his interactions with the students. He had finally remembered it.
For these faculty members, B Class's victory really was enough to serve as absolute proof of an anomaly.
And that was exactly why they could carry out this interrogation so thoroughly steeped in presupposition and prejudice.
...He knew, in truth, that this was wrong.
What he had learned after nearly giving up, only to be stopped by Sara — that before making snap judgments, you should get to know someone properly first.
But even understanding that, he thought.
Faster than understanding, and before diving deeper —
Right now, he wanted to refute them with everything he had.
To Ermes, who had fallen silent once more, Lujandru now proclaimed triumphantly.
"You see now, don't you, the righteousness of our position!? If anything, you should be the one producing evidence that you 'didn't cheat'!"
"The Marquis is quite right! Well, such evidence couldn't possibly exist!"
"That's right — the contest is in the past! There's no way to go back and examine the past in detail to prove there was no cheating —"
"— I
do have such evidence, actually
."
That was why, first, he told them.
To silence the faculty members who were making a racket as though they had caught him red-handed, and to produce the very thing they believed did not exist.
The so-called "evidence of not cheating." He would bring it out now.
(...No, truly — thank you. And that's incredible.)
Rising to produce it, Ermes expressed gratitude and respect in his heart.
Toward the employer who had prepared this absolute proof as though he had foreseen the entire situation.
(...Before the contest even began — at that point already. Did you foresee that this would happen, Duke Yurugen...)
And then, slowly, he walked toward the center.
The faculty members were about to reprimand him for standing without permission, but the indescribable pressure radiating from him left them unable to say a word.
Standing directly in front of Lujandru, the grade supervisor, he produced a certain magical tool from inside his coat and placed it gently on the desk.
"...Wh-what is this?"
"A magical tool that records visual footage, along with its playback components."
Understanding the implications, the faculty members erupted in commotion.
"This contains the entirety of the contest, captured from beginning to end. Filmed from three angles overall, plus individually recorded footage of hard-to-see areas — eight recordings in total."
"What—"
"Since the battle itself was relatively straightforward, every student's movements from the very start to the very end have been completely captured. If any student was making suspicious movements, this should reveal it."
The ultimate tool for doing exactly what they had claimed — "observing the past in detail."
Faced with this, Lujandru nonetheless attempted to counter.
"S-so what!? A mere video recording can be faked easily enough! For example, unnatural magic power readings—"
"In addition to that."
Just as he expected — "he would say exactly that," the man himself had told him, which was why he had been given what came next.
He produced a bundle of documents — the follow-up evidence — and placed them on the desk as well.
"Magic power measurements of every participating student taken before the contest began. Additionally, a rough overview of magic power fluctuations across the entire battlefield during the contest. Furthermore, information on each student's Bloodline Magic to the extent it is known, along with predicted battle conditions based on that. And then..."
"...Wh-why..."
Far more detailed contest-related materials than anyone could have anticipated.
As Lujandru was about to ask why such things existed, Ermes smiled and delivered the answer.
"They were provided by His Grace, Duke Yurugen von Trackia. His words were — 'It is my beloved daughter's moment to shine; I would not want even the slightest chance of cheating to go unnoticed,' or so he said."
Of course, the real reason was different.
There were probably many objectives, but the greatest was — predicting this exact scenario and preparing these materials so that Ermes could use them to dismantle the faculty members' arguments.
Reaffirming his awe at Yurugen's insight and thoroughness, Ermes continued.
"And when His Grace examined all of this data — he stated that 'there is nothing unnatural; the victory of B Class is valid, and I must, albeit regrettably, acknowledge as much.'"
Naturally, the "albeit regrettably" part was also a lie.
But they didn't know Yurugen's true purpose. They could only measure others by their own yardstick.
And —
Yurugen's
daughter
belonged to
A
Class.
Therefore, they would convince themselves that this was something Yurugen had investigated because, just like them, he wanted A Class — the class his daughter belonged to — to win, and had been forced to reluctantly acknowledge the result. On an emotional level, this carried supremely high credibility.
Probably anticipating this effect as well — thinking back to that intellectual and unfathomable smile —
Ermes wore a smile very much like it, and delivered the final blow.
"Well then. We have presented evidence beyond any doubt that no cheating occurred, with grounds rooted in the actual circumstances — can you produce anything more compelling on your end?"
Meaning: it will be
you who
concedes.
That there would be no wriggling out of this.
Applying this pressure with his entire being, Ermes locked his gaze onto Lujandru the grade supervisor, whose face was twisting with cowardice.