Chapter 216: Excursion (3)

Imperial Palace, in the teaching room.

Sophien looked at the scattering of materials lying on her desk. All of them were Deculein files provided by the Intelligence Service.

“The Imperial Intelligence Service is indeed amazing…”

Ahan was surprised, but Sophien remained sullen.

“This is their basic job, to monitor and investigate the nobles of the Empire. To them, Deculein is an equal factor to Zeit.”

“Aha. Is that so? If that’s the case, this must be something you’ve been investigating before, right?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, right. They said that the Professor is coming today with a present. Did you hear the news?”

“I heard…”

Sophien put a pipe in her mouth and set fire to the tobacco stuffed inside. She puffed out smoke, snorted, and coughed.

“…Ahem.”

It was an attempt to get to know her father better.

“Why did the last Emperor enjoy such things?”

He was hailed as a sage who pursued harmony with the priesthood— of course, by his servants. However, his hobbies, such as fishing, smoking, and hunting, weren’t very interesting. Was it because of the inertia due to the hundreds of years of regression, or had she never resembled him when it came to hobbies?

“It will be even more fun if you are with someone.”

Sophien laughed at Ahan’s words.

“You mean to put a smoker in front of me?”

“Oh… not for that. As for hunting or fishing-“

“Forget it. It is difficult to understand the principles of human beings. Even if it’s my father.”

Putting down the smoke pipe, she opened Deculein’s file.

[…He was called a prodigy during his childhood, but his growth slowed down as time passed. When he was about to be reduced to that of only standard level, he began to show his theoretical prominence.]

A sentence summarizing all of Deculein’s history and information. The keywords were a child prodigy, limited talent, tower’s entrance, and theoretical prominence.

[He was appointed to a professorship based on that theory. However, there are also several claims that the Professor’s thesis is not his work but robbed of other people’s ideas. There were several reports from an insider of the tower, but they were all ignored.]

Professorship appointment. Thesis robbery. Insider reporting.