Chapter 3: Terrorism Always Happens on the Academy Enrollment Train (1)
Every genre has its formula. That thing they call a cliché.
Come to think of it, it’s only natural. For a set in the shape of a specific genre to hold together, there must be common elements.
Take the classic Hero story, for example. In Ivan’s estimation, the format of this stale genre goes as follows.
A Demon King, or an antagonist, appears.
The Hero forms a party.
The Hero sets out on a journey to bring down the Demon King.
A process of defeating the Demon King’s executives one by one unfolds.
One of the executives becomes enamored with the Hero.
At journey’s end the Demon King dies and the world regains peace.
On the basis of this format, Ivan had believed this world was a classic Hero story.
But now, Ivan was desperately dredging up Kim Seon-woo’s memories from 30 years ago and drawing up a list.
What is the formula of the academy story?
***
The Princess had gone on about “winter is coming” as though she were from House Stark, but she was wrong.
It is currently January. Obviously the dead of winter, and the orphanage had thrown a lavish New Year’s party not long ago.
Which meant there was still time to spare before the university’s term began.
“An academy, huh…….”
Ivan fell into thought, missing the reference collection he had impulsively burned 30 years ago.
He was fairly sure there had been a few academy stories in there. He could hardly remember the titles anymore…… something about a Heavenly Demon going to an academy, or someone doing swordsmanship, or a Mount Wudang disciple going, or a shaman going……
Jotting down what he could recall on short notice, it came out like this.
A sort of academy formula.
Anything can come to an academy.
Literally—from cowboys to Heavenly Demons, anything can come.
Which means it also includes assassins who’ll stab the Hero’s Party’s precious sons and daughters in the back.
The academy will always be invaded.
Sadly, academies suffer invasions more frequently than front-line strategic fortresses.
Statistically, it’s widely known that so long as the protagonist doesn’t withdraw from school, the probability of the academy being invaded converges to 98%.
Demonfolk infiltrate the academy.
At this point, when the Demon King is dead, all Seven Dragon Generals are dead or missing, and the demonfolk have been enslaved or driven to the ends of the earth—
Setting aside entirely the question of how they could possibly infiltrate the middle of the United Kingdoms, and a mere educational institution at that—
—it means demonfolk sympathizers, or demonfolk themselves, are guaranteed to be hiding in the academy.
Demi-human races like goblins and orcs can be excluded for now. These fellows don’t have the sort of appearance that lets them hide even if they tried.
Better to assume it’s the ones capable of mimicry, like succubi or demons, doing the hiding.
Among the undergraduates and faculty, there is a traitor.
You need to find the faculty member who is strangely hostile toward the protagonist.
Odds are high that the fellow is a demonfolk agent.
Inside the academy there is a secret ruin or a hidden relic.
St. Yansk University is a newly founded institution with less than 10 years of history, and it’s an unambiguously national university whose construction the late king personally ordered in the heart of the capital—yet for some reason one must assume there’s a “secret room” inside……
The academy’s undergraduates divide broadly into three types. Students, demonfolk-affiliated villains, and government agents.
Here, “students” does not mean model pupils who study hard. These fellows are as good as time bombs too.
They’re forever getting caught up in accidents and needing to be rescued, and of all people it’s the protagonist who has no choice but to do the rescuing.
The remaining students—that is, the ones who don’t get caught up in accidents—divide again into one of two types. The quiet student whose name is merely mentioned, and the student who envies the protagonist.
Of course, up to here can be treated as part of a charming school life. The problem is what comes next.
Students connected to the demonfolk. Fellows who should effectively be classified as demonfolk agents, demonfolk spies, demonfolk partisans.
If they catch my eye, kill them early.
The orphanage director, formerly an Annihilation Corps officer, narrowed his eyes and drew an underline.
The best method of protecting allies was the annihilation of the enemy.
Up to here it was no different from an ordinary hobby.
Next, government agents.
If the children of international dignitaries have enrolled en masse, then naturally agents will be dispatched to protect those children.
The problem is that in most cases an agent doesn’t set out on an expedition to perform only a single mission.
Which is to say, the children’s bodyguards will spend their leisure hours working as splendid friendly-nation spies.
These fellows can’t even be killed. Since they aren’t from hostile nations, laying a hand on them causes an immediate diplomatic incident. Their nominal position will be “student,” after all.
There’s no age restriction, so it wouldn’t be strange for wartime active-duty agents to enroll either.
The orphanage director, formerly an Annihilation Corps officer, stroked his chin and sank into worry.
It’d honestly be better if people I know showed up. At least we’d be able to talk.
Ivan gazed blankly at the hatchet mounted on the wall by the director’s office entrance and thought.
If, during an academy exam, training, or any other situation, an instructor says “it’s safe,” a crisis is guaranteed to arrive.
This is why corporations should abolish their internal safety inspection systems and outsource all safety inspections.
Given the nature of an academy where spies and assassins, demonfolk and traitors outnumber the students, about the only safe place is the headmaster’s office.
Even Dumbledore didn’t die in the headmaster’s office.
Generally, headmaster—or chancellor—ought to be a key administrative post filled by a bureaucrat, but strangely, in an academy it was “common sense” that the headmaster be the strongest being in the setting……
Next. The most important thing.
Let’s recall the “ending condition” of an academy story……
The academy’s ending conditions are “survival” and “world peace”…… wait. Hold on.
If this world is currently an academy story, and everything that has happened up to now is nothing but “background events”—
Let’s organize this.
A Demon King appeared, a Hero killed the Demon King, and the world regained peace.
At this point, a mere 4 years after the war ended, the United Kingdoms are on the verge of shattering; they may be pouring their energy into national reconstruction now, but competition over resources and colonies is heating up more and more.
And in the many occupied territories that were once the demonfolk’s homeland, each nation’s military government is still exploiting demonfolk slaves.
What is there that could qualify as a main story?
A world war? No, that’s not it.
An academy story takes as its protagonists figures somewhere between high school and university age.
If a war grand enough to be called a world war broke out—not a mere localized conflict—the limits on what such students could accomplish would be far too glaring.
In that case……
The Demon King’s resurrection……?
Ivan took a sip of coffee and glared at his notepad with sunken eyes.
No matter how he looked at it, that was the most reasonable answer. A story where the descendants of the Hero’s Party face a resurrected Demon King and restore the world’s peace.
Taking the Demon King’s resurrection as a given, assuming the students drop out around their second year…… and estimating that the academy invasion happens at least a year from now.
What needs to be done right now?
He wrote one more sentence on the notepad, picked up his coat, and rose.
[Terrorism always happens on the academy enrollment train (or means of transport).]
Ever since Harry Potter, in a setting that has trains, academy enrollment always involves a train. (Otherwise a carriage may be used. If there’s a common point, it’s that both trains and carriages are vulnerable to terrorism. In fact, all means of transport are vulnerable to terrorism. Traveling on foot was no different.)
And these United Kingdoms were using the military supply railways laid down so feverishly during the war directly as civilian transport trains.
Of course, even a military supply train is vulnerable to terrorism. Ivan’s 18 years of military service can attest to this.
The demonfolk also favored trains for inland military supply transport, so Ivan had both prevented train terrorism and perpetrated train terrorism more times than he cared to count.
That was always how the Annihilation Corps’ work went.
Today too, Ivan misses the Republic of Korea. That peaceful world where boarding a train meant doing battle not with terrorism or mounted bandits, but with elvan-stone-baked eggs and tuna gimbap.
Elvan-stone-baked eggs and tuna gimbap were added to Ivan’s “list of things to eat once I get back to Earth.”
***
“Just you wait!! Just you wait, seriously! All of you watch closely!! How—how successful I’m going to be!!”
Standing on the train platform hauling an instrument case and a suitcase, Esidis sniffled and glared at the crowd.
The crowd was holding up an enormous banner, sending her off.
[The eldest daughter of Great King Einar! Top-of-class admission to St. Yansk University!!]
She wasn’t top of the class, nor even second—but Esidis didn’t refute it. Those people had deliberately written that phrasing precisely to enjoy that reaction from her.
[We’re proud of you! The Kingdom of Droan’s finest! Beauty!] [Inheriting the blood of the great conqueror Great King Einar, she challenges the conquest of the orchestra!!]
“What’s!! wrong with the orchestraaa!!”
Esidis let out a shriek, turned around, and boarded the train.
Behind her back came the sound of laughter—wahahaha!
Horrid, horrid people. The least they could do is cheer for me……!
The train departed, and she buried her face in her sleeves, sobbing as she receded into the distance.
The crowd, who had watched her through the train window, murmured among themselves and dispersed.
“The young lady will keep her spirits up all the same, won’t she?”
“Of course she will—whose daughter do you think she is!”
“Those Kingdom of Krasilov types are so pasty, I can’t say I trust them……”
“Still, His Lordship didn’t send her alone, so don’t you worry. She’ll do just fine, naturally.”
The crowd that had been teasing Esidis—Great King Einar’s retainers—departed, each murmuring their own worries.
The eldest daughter of the Hero’s Party’s Berserker, “the Slaughterer” Einar Ulriksson. Esidis Einarsdottir.
Admitted to St. Yansk University, College of Music, Orchestral Department!
***
That very train, which the retainers of Droan’s Viking Einar had seen off so grandly, is derailed two days later near the border of the Kingdom of Krasilov.
Naturally, it was “common sense” that an enrollment train departing for the academy would be caught up in terrorism, so Ivan was not surprised by this.
Instead, he picked up a revolver and an axe.
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