Muyoku no Seijo wa Okane ni Tokimeku

Chapter 2: Leo makes an appearance.

In the large open courtyard, a huge full moon hung overhead in the night sky.

A luxurious white building glowed as it basked in the moonlight and casted a delicate shadow everywhere. The light of fixedly placed lamps flickered and occasionally distorted the outline of that shadow.

The Weizsäcker imperial academy was preparing for tomorrow's entrance ceremony. Usually it would be silent at this time of the night, however, right now the spacious courtyard was filled with prominent internal members of noble society, as if there was a ball about to take place here.

However, the expression that reflected on their face through the moonlight was not one of festivity, it was full of tension. Their gazes were fixated on one point — the middle of the courtyard, where a magic formation was located.

That's right, these people were the parents of the noble children who are turning 12 this fall.

Excluding those who the empire had invested in and had meritorious service, all the nobles inside the empire have the blood of a dragon flowing through them. It had been continuously passed down and once they turn 12, they're summoned to the academy — as expected, this bloodline does not run thin.

Joining the academy is the fate of the nobles, but it is also something to be boastful about. Therefore, while saying things such as 「Dear me, having the entrance preparations taking place in the dead of night is truly an inconvenient thing wouldn't you say,」they open drinks and come to the courtyard to see if their children have been summoned safely.

Now, a light shines from the magic formation, and at the same time, a single 'student' appeared.

It seems that it was the son of a viscount family, his parents simultaneously let out both a sigh of relief and a sigh of disappointment. He safely arrived at the academy but, he appeared too early. Just like pulling in a big fish takes lots of time, those with large amounts of magical power appear later than others. For the young boy, his magical power had barely met the requirements for the summoning.

The summoned children have their name verified, and then they are shown to their dorm room by their upper classman. Back in the days of when the empire was unstable, there were many children who had magical power that were summoned who didn't know about the academy. Nowadays, since a large majority of 'students' are from noble lineage and that commoners with magical power are very rare to come by, preregistering your name to a room before the entering the academy was normal.

In this manner, one by one the 'students' appeared, and after confirming that they've been safely summoned, their families headed home. Now the number of people left over have become very scarce.

The cheerful and chattering nobles who had their children enter the academy are separated behind a line. Leftover was a single married couple who stared at the magic formation with a grim look on their face.

One had an ashen moustache, a gentlemen with a robust build in the prime of his life. The other had elegant and graceful looks with a few signs of wrinkles from her mature age, the madam to the gentleman. The madam finally let out a gentle sigh and turned to talk to her nearby husband.

「...Hey, dearie. As I thought, that child — Claudia's child isn't going to appear is she?」

Squinting his amethyst-colored eyes the man — the old Harkenberg marquis did not say anything.

The flustered madam started talking by herself, as if she had been overwhelmed by anxiety.

「Our dearly beloved Claudia, we learned 12 years ago that she had given her life in order to give birth to a single daughter.... Our grandchild, if they're alive this year they would be of-age to enter the academy. We had mobilized the entire force of our marquis household but we still could not find her, even though I had a glimmer of hope that the strong summoning formation of the empire's founder would be able to do what we could not...」