After my realization that Arrence was deliberately teaching his students wrong, I continued to watch for another ten minutes as he ‘taught’ them about magical video recording.

“Right then, all necessary instructions are on the board. Class, I think it’s time for you to demonstrate what you’ve learned. Please get out your notebooks and prepare a Mancia inscription for video recording.”

As I watched the students get to work, I had a sinking feeling about what would happen next. Still, I was here primarily to observe at the moment.

On the other hand… I started writing out an actual video recording script, just in case. It honestly wasn’t all that hard to work with.

The students were clearly having a much rougher time of it though. Watching closely, I was able to divide them into roughly three groups. Those who were following Professor Arrence’s instructions, those who had studied on their own time, and those who were doing nothing.

Twenty minutes later, I got to see how Arrence treated all three of these students.

“Class, it is now time to present. Show me your video recordings please?”

Maybe three students had a working setup, all of them ones I’d pegged as doing independent study. Arrence sneered, and marched up to one of the students who hadn’t got a display working. I recognized her as one of the teenagers who’d attended my impromptu fireworks display last night, and she was outright quivering with fear.

“What is this Gina? My instructions were very clear and yet you don’t have a working video recorder.”

“But professor I followed your instructions exa-”

He leaned in until his hook nose almost touched Gina’s forehead and sneered, “Clearly not, or you’d have a working video recorder. I will be seeing you in detention later.”

Oh no.

I watched in horror as Arrence clearly intended to seek out another way to belittle Gina, “Why don’t I show you? Let’s go see Geoffrey’s effort, he’s got a working setup.”

And with that Arrence marched over to Geoffrey, practically dragging a terrified Gina in his wake.

“See, Geoffrey here followed the instructions and he’s got a working setup.” Then Arrence actually looked at Geoffrey’s inscription.

Geoffrey shrugged, “I made a working video recorder.”

Arrence glared, “Indeed you have, however the instructions were very clear about how. This is not how I instructed you to make a video recording inscription in the slightest. As such, I will be seeing you in detention later.”

Only then did Arrence notice something, “And you! You haven’t inscribed anything at all. How can you possibly justify this!?”

The student in question shrugged, “I’d get yelled at no matter what, so why bother?”

Arrence stormed back to his podium, and announced, “As it is clear the entire class is composed of sniveling incompetents, I will need to take extreme disciplinary measures. I will be seeing all of you in detention later this evening.”

Right, I’d seen enough. I stood, opened the door to reveal the pair of security personnel I’d had waiting, and dismissed the notice-me-not effect I’d had up.

“No you won’t, Arrence. I’ve been sitting in on your class the whole time, and it’s clear to me that you view this more as an opportunity to terrorize children than anything else. You teach them wrong on purpose, then use their failures as an excuse to belittle them. As such, you are fired. Security will escort you to the train as soon as you collect your personal effects.”

Arrence laughed, “And who’s going to be teaching them Mancia in my absence then?”

In an extremely unimpressed tone, I answered, “Anyone. Security, get him out of here.”

Arrence was swiftly removed from the room, and I made my way to the podium. Staring out at the traumatized students, I sighed. “You can have the rest of this period off. Starting tomorrow I’ll be substituting until a proper replacement for Arrence can be hired. I apologize for not noticing his actions sooner.”

With that the students started filing out of the classroom. I made my way out into the hallway as well, and quickly wrote a notice for the classroom’s door.

As professor Arrence has been fired for gross misconduct, there will be no further Mancia classes in this room today. Classes will resume tomorrow.

-Headmaster Adrian Adley

I checked my watch. Huh, it was about lunch time now. So off to the cafeteria I went.

Turned out to be the same menu as the first day I’d shown up, and I decided to try the Macaroni and peas today. Still had some mashed potatoes though.

Max was at one of the staff tables, and I sat next to him. “So, how’d the audit go?”

Max shrugged, “The Budget was very helpful and it was a quick efficient job. But Humbernot really made a mess of the school’s finances. Did you know he was actually selling teaching positions to anyone who would pay?”

I frowned, “No, no I didn’t. But that explains quite a lot about how Professor Arrence got his job. I swear he was only here to terrorize children.”

Max looked at me thoughtfully as he ate a bite of sausage, “I note the past tense. Guessing you fired him?”

I nodded, “I had security escort him to the train. He’ll be leaving today, like it or not.”

A grunt, “Can’t say I ever had the displeasure of talking to him, but good riddance.”

With that we ate the rest of our lunches in relative silence, the food being reasonably enjoyable. I’d picked the oatmeal raisin cookies for dessert today, and I was rather up in the air over whether I preferred them over the pudding.

Still, eventually we got up to go our separate ways. Then I noticed Max hesitate slightly.

“Something wrong?”

“Just thinking I’d rather avoid being on the same train as the former Professor Arrence.”

“Well there’s five of them a day. Just wait on the platform until he leaves then take the one afterwards.”

Max hummed in thought as he went on his way. As for me, I had to start the process of hiring a replacement Mancia treacher.

I got to my office in a few minutes, and started typing up a message to fax. The keys of the typewriter produced nice clicking sounds as they clattered away, and pretty soon I had a basic request for prospective teachers to interview ready. I set it in the fax machine, punched in the fax number for the department of education, and hit send.

The document was pulled through the photoscanner, and I proceeded to get some routine paperwork done while I was waiting for a reply. An hour or so later there was a rather unexpected knock on the door of my office.

“Come in.”

It was Jethro Abraham Rug, along with one of the other custodians, her name take reading Jade. They looked happy.

I motioned for them to sit, even as I slid a couple chairs out from the corner with telekinesis.

“So, what brings the two of you to my office?”

Jethro spoke first, “The shipment of new equipment you ordered came in on the train a little while ago, and there’s a full hazardous magic suit in there. Two of them actually.”

I hummed in acknowledgement; I had in fact ordered those. “I know it’s not enough for a full hazmag team, but the budget can’t cover more for at least a month.”

Jade said, “Thank you. We’ve lost… so many friends trying to clear out various messes here over the years. It… it means a lot that we finally have the safety equipment to handle it properly.”

I sighed, “You should have always had that equipment. Not only was Humbernot dangerously negligent, but he was embezzling a good chunk of the school’s funding to support his habits.”

Jethro nodded, “Ah yes, I saw what became of his office during that final bender. We all did.”

Jade shivered in disgust, “We’ve done what we can, but that room will probably need to be totally remodeled to be made serviceable again. There’s just too much soaked into the walls and floorboards.”

I thought for a moment, “By the way, why was he actually removed? I was told Humbernot had some sort of mental break, but that doesn’t quite track with everything I’ve learned about the man. I don’t think the bender would have been enough to get rid of him.”

Jethro winced, “It’s not a pleasant story, and I don’t know everything that happened. But I think he finally did something that couldn’t just be covered up. We all heard the ruckus as he fooled around in his office, then the two prostitutes he’d hired ran for their lives with major bleeding injuries. Went to look in Humbernot’s office, and he was lying there catatonic. I think those two had to do something in self-defense and it reacted badly with all the drugs he was on.”

My jaw dropped slightly as what had happened sunk home, “How did the news of this not get out!? Humbernot was here for a decade, and this sort of gross misconduct should have gotten him investigated years ago. I could understand the embezzlement not making the news for quite a long time, but the headmaster of a boarding school going on drugged up benders isn’t the sort of thing you just miss!”

Jade took a moment to catch her breath before answering.

“Mr. Adley, you’re forgetting that we’re fifty miles out from any major population centers. With the relatively slow trains, Humbernot would have more than an hour for cover-ups before anyone showed up. Couple that with having the phone lines monitored and he was very good at keeping people from looking too closely.”

I sighed, “I’ll need to do something about that. Need to make sure whoever has the job after me can’t get away with that sort of malfeasance.”

The rest of the meeting with the custodial staff petered out relatively quickly after that, and I turned my attention to the matter of filling in as Mancia teacher until a replacement could be hired. But I couldn’t just let my administrative duties go un-performed. They were too important not to.

That’s when my other side chipped in; he could simply authorize us to be in different locations for a while. That way I could teach Mancia for a bit, while he could take care of the admin work.

Right, that could just about work.

The two of me were still mulling the idea over when one of the secretaries paged me “Headmaster Adley, there’s a telephone call for you. It’s from the educational department.”

I picked up the telephone, “Hello, this is Headmaster Adley speaking. Is this the educational department?”

The pleasant woman’s voice on the other end answered, “Yes, I’m with the educational department. We’ve received your hiring request for a replacement Mancia teacher. We don’t have anyone available at the moment, but we should be able to contact you in a few days.”

“Thank you. Is that all?”

“No, actually. Since you started running the school we’ve noticed rather a lot of sudden personnel turnover. You’ve been very diligent about documenting reasons for any firing, but the sheer volume of staff you’ve terminated is cause for some concern. We’re going to be sending over a couple private detectives tomorrow to look over the rest of the staff for any more bad actors.”

I hummed sadly, “Thanks for the advance warning.” I paused for a moment, “Curiously, what’s happened with Humbernot? I’ve recently learned some very distressing things about my predecessor and I want to know what’s going on.”

“The doctors finally managed to wake him up at least. He’ll be standing trial in about a month, once the worst of the withdrawl symptoms have passed.”

The next day I got up bright and early. We had breakfast, got to our office, then my other side penned a simple authorization. Reality lurched, and suddenly we were apart. I took a look at the other me, “Nice to see you again, Adrian.”

“Same to you.”

“When was the last time we weren’t together?”

My Sharp counterpart thought for a bit, “A few months ago, when we had to deal with another schedule conflict. This is the fifth time we’ve done this.”

And with that, it was off to teaching.

It was only on the way there that I realized I had no idea what sort of level the students in the various classes were at. Ah, this could present a bit of an issue.

The first class of the day turned out to be the same group of kids I’d watched Arrence belittle. As I watched them come in, I asked, “So, I honestly have no idea what level of understanding you’re at. But I know Arrence didn’t teach you how to record video properly. So I’m going to cover that today.”

What followed was proof that I really should stick to administrative work, because I was no good at teaching. I scrawled out a detailed technical explanation of exactly how Mancia video recording worked on the whiteboard, only to look at the students and realize with horror that they’d been completely lost. Their gaze had that distinct unfocused look of someone that didn’t understand a word of what had just been said.

I asked aloud, “I went way past what any of you were prepared to process, didn’t I?”

One of the younger students towards the back asked “Um, Headmaster Adley… what do all those big words mean?”

I looked up at the whiteboard, and the litany of technical jargon all over it. A trained professional would understand what it meant without even the slightest trouble, but these kids clearly weren’t trained professionals.

The rest of the period went effectively a long drawn out vocabulary lesson as I explained exactly what the various technical terms I’d used meant. The whole time the class was extremely on-edge, as if I were trying to bait them into a mistake I could use to punish them.

I only got through about a third of the jargon by the end of the class period, slumping into a chair for the few minutes until the next bunch of students arrived.

The second period was much the same as the first in terms of results; I blew way past what the students were ready for and then spent the rest of the period backtracking through jargon. Same story for the third period, and then it was time for lunch.

Reality lurched, and the two of me were once again in the same body. He asked, “So, how did it go?”

“Terribly. The class was… reasonably well behaved. It’s just that I’m apparently not very good at teaching. I honestly wonder if simply treating it as a supervised self-study period until the replacement is hired would be a better idea. You have anything interesting to report?”

“Routine paperwork. Got another telephone call from the education department, apparently there’s a shortage of interested Mancia teachers, but they’re sure they’ll find someone.”

The other Adrian mentally patted me, and together we went to get lunch. I was barely thinking about the food as I ate though, trying to figure out how I could somewhat improve the quality of my teaching skills until a proper substitute could be hired. After about half an hour of eating though, I still had nothing.

Fortunately I only needed to subject the students to my distinctly bad teaching skills for two more days, because that’s when the replacement teacher arrived. Unfortunately, I recognized him immediately.

Staring icily at the Archmage in question from across my desk, I asked, “So, Mr. Demouls. What happened to your little magical mafia? Last I knew you were still trading in dangerous magical statuary and protection rackets. Did someone finally betray you?”

They sighed, “They’re all dead, sadly. Still, that chapter of my life is behind me now. I’ve spent the last two years studying to be a teacher, and I’m fully qualified.”

I leveled an unimpressed glare at the three of them staring at me from behind two eyes, “You do understand that for the safety of the school and its residents I will require you to sign a magically binding contract, correct?”

Mr. Demouls smiled, “Certainly!” no doubt thinking he could just slice through it if the terms irked him later. Good, let them think that.

I wrote up the contract in front of him, making extra certain to lay the Mancia on thick where he could see it. After only a couple hours it was ready, and I passed it to him for signing.

He read it carefully, then signed with a cocky grin. His grin vanished immediately when my other side’s contribution kicked in, clamping shut around his actions. There would be no cutting his way out of this contract.

“Adrian, you didn’t tell me you were an Archmage!”

My unimpressed glare returned, “I’ll be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t know already. It’s not like I keep it a secret. Still, it was very convenient for me that you didn’t. Today is a break day for classes in general. You start teaching Mancia tomorrow. Your office is on the second floor, room 81.”

Mr. Demouls left my office at the same time the two private detectives entered. I greeted them, “Hello, do you two have anything of interest to report?”

The pair of anonymized individuals frowned, “Yes. Someone tipped off the teachers that we were coming. Everyone was squeaky clean when we looked, but something seemed distinctly off about quite a few of them. Here’s the list of teachers we think are in need of a surprise inspection.”

And with that the pair of honestly rather disturbing fellows left. I watched them go, then started reading their report.

Of course I barely had a minute to myself before Lucy came in, “Mr. Adley, there’s a call for you. It’s important.”

I picked up the telephone, “Hello? You’ve reached Adrian Adley, head of Red Point Magic Academy.”

The reply I got was… somewhat concerning, “Hello, this is Heron Blue. Is there room at your school to enroll another student?”

“...Probably, give me a few moments to check the dormitory listings.”

I immediately started digging through the relevant files, and swiftly located the ones about dormitories. There was room.

“Yes, there’s room. So… what sort of student are we looking at having here?”

Heron’s voice quivered, “My little boy Geoffrey… He’s eight years old… and he’s an Archmage.”

My thoughts ran cold. Archmages did not form naturally. The only way to make one was to get a cooperative Sharp and Ductile in the same body, and that fact wasn’t public knowledge. Most were the results of bizarre magical accidents, though I knew of at least one where all members joined voluntarily.

I asked, “Heron, what happened?”

I could hear the distress in her voice, “He… He was playing with his friend Xiu, then something happened and there was fire and now Xiu’s dead but Geoffrey’s insisting she isn’t dead and he’s doing things I don’t understand.”

Yep, that was definitely an underage Archmage right there. “We’ll take care of him. I understand that this is a difficult time for you, but if you come over on the train I can explain most of what happened.”

“Why… Why can’t you just tell me over the telephone?”

“Because someone might be tapping the wires, and detecting that isn’t one of my specialties. This is extremely sensitive information, and I will be swearing you to secrecy over it. This has to happen in person.”

Missus Blue relented, and then all that remained was scheduling.

Ultimately, it was determined that Geoffrey would be enrolled starting two days from now. After a lengthy period of consoling Heron Blue of course.

I groaned as I put down the telephone; why couldn’t things like this ever be simple.

Still, it was about time for dinner. So I got up, and opened my door to see Ford Carpenter along with his two little minions Sarah and David. Considering the device they’d been holding to the wall, they’d clearly been eavesdropping. And was that shimmer… they had a notice-me-not field up.

“How long have you three been sat there spying on me?”

The three students startled at the fact I noticed them, and immediately ran for it. Oh no you don’t. I threw up a force field blocking the hall, and closed in on the trio “All I want to know is what you heard. Then you can go.”

Ford practically growled “We’ll never talk!”

Sarah on the other hand said “You hired a mob boss to teach us!”

As for David… he was rapidly dashing at me to throw a punch. A punch that had clearly been enhanced with a lot of Bionce alterations to his muscles and skeleton. I projected another field to block him, but lost my concentration on holding up the first.

The instant the three of them had a clear escape route, they took it. As they legged it, I pulled out my radio.

“Security, this is Adrian Adley. Ford Carpenter, Sarah Gray, and David Gray were eavesdropping on me during sensitive contract negotiations. Please confiscate their listening device and ensure they attend detention. In addition, David Gray tried but failed to physically assault me.”

There was only a moment before I got a reply “Understood, we’ll deal with it.”

And then I started making my way to dinner. It was pizza night, and I wanted to get there before my favorite type had been all picked over. Turns out that pepperoni with olive was popular.

I caught a glimpse of security hauling Ford Carpenter off to the detention office as I entered the cafeteria, but it really wasn’t my concern at the moment. I was hungry, and food at the top of my priorities list.

I took my place in line, waited until I reached the front, and smiled when I saw that I’d gotten here just in time for the last two pepperoni and olive slices.

From behind me, I heard a teenager’s voice, “Oh. I’d been hoping to have one of those.”

Wordlessly, I floated one of my slices over to the boy’s tray and collected a cheese slice to replace it.

I heard a simple “Thank you” from behind me as I moved on to collect my dessert.

As I sat and ate, I mentally reviewed what had transpired today. I’d finally hired a replacement Mancia teacher, I had an underage Archmage coming to the school in a couple days… and a trio of children with a known tendency for vigilantism had heard everything I’d said in there. Oh this was going to cause so many problems down the line.

Still, the food was good enough to take my mind off those issues at least a little bit. Especially the pudding I’d gotten for dessert.

Once I was done eating, I made my way to my bedroom for some much needed sleep. I had a feeling I’d be rather deprived of it the next few days.

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