The Royal Lyrindarium Academy is a four-year institution.
The reason this was decided probably stems from the developers wanting to add three more years of high school to the middle school curriculum.
This academy doesn’t have a legally established curriculum. From a system standpoint, it’s thoroughly a private academy. The system is determined based on the intentions of the people operating it—that is, the ones funding it.
In the first place, this nation didn’t even have a proper concept of elementary school, let alone high school. There were similar places, but those were exclusively for wealthy families.
In the long term, it might be better to establish such places to educate children. I plan to suggest it once Alice really becomes the Emperor.
Anyway, looking at modern society, there are very basic aspects that have never been established by law, so what about other parts?
In modern society, things that should be illegal are naturally carried out legally and openly.
And Charlotte was properly utilizing that “legal aspect.”
It took three days to figure out the whereabouts of Charlotte and Mia, who disappear every morning.
During that time, Alice and I were working hard in our own way. Primarily, we wandered around the student council room, chatting with the noble kids, subtly asking them for things we hoped they’d handle later, all while spinning our words around to make the answers ambiguous so they could decide what it meant.
We couldn’t even later ask why they didn’t help. After all, those were just conversations we had briefly during student days.
But just that ‘possibility’ alone would make the noble kids vote for Alice. And that would be useful until the moment Alice becomes Emperor.
…In a sense, it was a more cunning method than the modern politicians who throw around empty promises.
The problem was that Charlotte’s actions had gone a bit further than what we did.
“I can’t just let this slide.”
Until I finished talking with the kids from the noble class, Alice hadn’t caught on to Charlotte’s movements, but she said that to me after school.
“If we don’t see any countermeasures, we have no way of dealing with it. We need to find out what method Charlotte has chosen.”
“How do you plan to find that out?”
“…The only way is to go there in the morning and find out directly.”
Alice replied.
“That’s exactly what I said two days ago.”
When I told Alice a similar thing after seeing Charlotte not moving among the noble classmates, she insisted she wouldn’t do it out of pride.
But it seems she changed her mind after seeing the faces of the noble kids.
“It can’t be helped. If we don’t, we’ll just get beaten up without knowing what the opponent’s strategy is.”
This time, she didn’t mention that ‘it’s a foregone conclusion that I’ll be elected.’
In fact, I still viewed the situation somewhat optimistically. After all, no matter what Charlotte does, Alice is the Crown Princess of the nation. What are they going to do, cast aside the next Emperor?
“Alright then. I was curious about what Charlotte was up to too.”
*
Charlotte was quite a skilled swordswoman. In this world, being a “skilled swordswoman” means you quickly notice when someone with similar or lesser skills is tailing you.
Thus, it was difficult to wait in front of Charlotte’s room and follow her. My swordsmanship was terrible. My strength lay in shooting arrows. It would be one thing to tail her from a distance, but sneaking along the same hallway in the building was out of my capabilities.
If I had the ability to rewind time, I could manage it somehow, but that wasn’t possible right now.
It wasn’t like I could just follow Mia either; the student council president and vice president probably wouldn’t act separately while promoting themselves, so if Charlotte was next to Mia, the result would be the same as just following Charlotte.
So the method we chose was—
To boldly follow the two of them.
Since we’d eventually get caught anyway, we might as well just go along.
After all, we were just wandering around the classroom; what difference did that make?
Of course, we didn’t just start following them from the beginning. Charlotte would definitely notice and try to shake us off.
…Honestly, I really don’t understand what we’re doing over something as trivial as electing a high school student council president.
“Oh, over there.”
The first person to spot Charlotte was Alice.
And when Alice saw where Charlotte was heading, her expression was a mix of surprise and then turning pale.
That’s because we found Charlotte at the very classroom of the commoners, Class D.
There aren’t that many students in a single grade at this academy. Combining the two noble classes, there are 30 students, and in the two commoner classes, 60.
In reality, even though they say all academy students are the same, it’s quite a blatant discrimination to only place about fifteen nobles in one class while stuffing thirty commoners in another.
However, in a world where social classes are still strongly prevalent, simply saying “we’re all the same” is already quite shocking.
And because these students in the academy prioritize “equality,” each person is given “a precious vote.”
It may seem commonplace, but in this world, it’s not.
Commoners do have the right to vote. But most of them are too busy working to go vote, and even if there are commoners who do vote, they’re typically those who are wealthy and well-off. Naturally, they vote in a way that benefits the established powers.
Naturally, the ones who dominate the voting process are those rich and leisurely nobles.
Moreover, there is still no suffrage for women. Women lack both the right to run and the right to vote. The acceptance of Alice and Charlotte’s candidacy is simply because this is an academy.
And this distorted reality is considered “common sense” in this world. It’s something even Alice, with her somewhat principled thoughts, overlooked as a ‘given.’
Now that I think about it, the academy being run like this might just have been a foresight that “the world will change later” built into the system.
“……”
Anyway, upon seeing Charlotte enter the classroom, Alice quietly approached it.
Then, looking through a window in the hallway, she gasped.
I too stealthily followed and looked into the classroom—
…And there were bottles of alcohol everywhere.
No, it wasn’t that a drinking party was happening.
It was literally ‘bottles of alcohol’ everywhere.
Bottles full of high-quality Velbur wine.
“……”
I can see why Alice, with her mouth agape, couldn’t say anything.
Even I, who thought Alice would win in the end while knowing the number of commoners and that votes were equally distributed among them, never expected this.
Since anyone can run and anyone can vote, I naturally thought of modern electoral systems, and therefore thought that all legalities existing to maintain that sacred election would be similarly present.
Of course, in modern society, whether it’s a legitimate election or not, the practice of buying votes is to be avoided.
But this era is one of harsh aristocracy.
And at the same time, it’s the era of fierce capitalism.
“No, this is definitely cheating, isn’t it?”
After being momentarily dumbfounded, Alice suddenly snapped back to seriousness.
…It seemed Alice, with her eyes wide open, felt that this was somewhat excessive.
Indeed. I also thought Charlotte would use more orthodox methods.
But then again, thinking about it, if she used any other method, Charlotte wouldn’t stand a chance at all.
I kind of understood…but not really.
No matter what, living in modern society, I just didn’t find that situation appealing.
Look at Mia next to us; she has a look on her face that questions whether this is right.
This looks like a conversation is needed.
*
“I didn’t bribe anyone, you know?”
However, surprisingly, Charlotte seemed to not have really handed out that alcohol.
“I simply held a tasting event for cultural exchange. Velbur wine is quite famous even in the Empire.”
“And you brought only the most renowned of the bunch. Plus, you brought all those bottles just for a tasting event?”
“Exactly.”
That’s right.
When you listen to someone’s words while feeling good after drinking, things often sound a bit better.
Moreover, since it’s a ‘tasting’ event, there’s no need to get drunk enough to forget the conversation.
But…
Still, it’s the same as giving them the drinks outright, isn’t it?
Isn’t that dangerously close to bribery?
……But then again, thinking of this era, it might be acceptable.
The term industrial age is a magical phrase.
What kind of era turns all kinds of bizarre crimes into common sense? What the hell was going on back then?
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