~ Chapter 146: School Festival ~

[Illsyore’s point of view]

It was the 4th of Zor of year 3 of the Illsyorea Age, and I was sitting at my desk looking over the various expenses that were needed on the 1st of Zor, when the Magic Academy Festival took place.

The name of the Age was suggested and enforced by the Emperor Varakium Paramanium, stating that almost every powerful kingdom would reset the calendar to its birthday. The same went with the Paramanium Empire, it was already the year 6438 of the Paramanium Age and year 76450 of the Great Age. The latter was a mysterious date which was rumored to mark the beginning of civilizations on the Thorya, Allasn, and Sorone Continents. It was also a year no one apart from the well-taught historians knew about.

Although Savannah was impressed by this, I felt like I wanted to bury my head in the ground like an ostrich. Who names an Era after themselves?!

At the very least I did not need to come up with weird new names for the months and days of the year. What we used was the Paramanium ones. Although, technically speaking a day had 28 hours by my own measurements, they were divided into 24 cycles with 70 minutes instead of 60. The concepts of minute and second were not used that much by regular folk. For the most part, they used the position of the sun in the sky to determine if it was time to work or go home.

This world was also definitely bigger than Earth, so it was no wonder that it had longer days, but having it divided into 24 hours made it confusing for me, who had a different sense of time.

They were four seasons too, although we barely felt the winter here on Illsyorea unless I used a bit of magic, which meant that I was closer to the tropics. The months of the year were Mezur, Mun, Hegra, Dey, Nefa, Miu, Zel, Zor, Nek, Asser, Ard, Krantugiano. Yeah, that last one was the equivalent of December on Earth. As for the days of the week, those were Meiran, Aldaran, Eikos, Dov, Nemis, Esu, and Tian. All of these were actually names of previous past heroes, or so the story went, while others believed they were just a bunch of made-up names by a drunk dwarf on top of a unicorn hamster... Yeah, I also had no comment on that one. Not even the people of Paramanium, who used them the most, did not know what the origin of these names was, and the historians themselves stuck with the idea of heroes rather than that last one.

Then again, I myself had no idea what the origin of the week and month names of those used on Earth were either. Who bothered to learn that stuff anyway?

This being said, on the first day of Zor, for the past three years, we would gather to celebrate the opening of the Illsyorea Magic Academy with a grand festival in which the students were the main organizers. The end of the year was on the 34th day of Krantugiano, which also coincided with the Empire’s Day back in Paramanium.

During the first year, they played a theatrical piece called the ‘The drowned goose’, which was a children’s fairy tale about a goose who drowned while trying to keep its egg afloat the top of a storm cloud. The moral of the story was that you should not be like the goose who thought the egg would drown if she let it be.

On the second year, they played something far more different, the story of how the great Paramanium Empire came to be. This happened because that idiot Emperor Varakium tried to lend a helping hand to Savannah’s class. The poor students did not really know what to do NOT to offend one of the most powerful humans on the Thorya Continent. I served him hot chili tea later that day as ‘thanks’ for turning my festival into a political battleground where the foreign parents couldn’t stop praising how great his Majesty was.

Ah~, how funny it was when Emperor Varakium ran as fast as he could to the nearest chalice of water. I was the only one who laughed his ass off though, everyone else looked as pale as a ghost.

Then, on this year, things were going to change. I ordered the students and teachers to find a story to play which should be fun and entertaining for everyone not a politically correct dwarf on stick that screamed ‘Eat me haggis!’ like a rooster at sunrise.

And so, they did... Or rather, they took my advice a bit too literally and wrote the story themselves, the story of the ‘Eat me haggis!’ Dwarf. I had... I had nothing to comment when I heard about it, and for some reason Emperor Varakium thought it was going be some sort of ancient lost literary masterpiece. On the other hand, I was just surprised that they knew what haggis was.

Who thought about adding sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs; minced with onions, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt in an animal’s stomach and then cook it in the oven? Or if you went by a Romanian traditional recipe, the drob, where instead of an animal’s stomach you could use a sheet of dough and then use lamb or pig’s liver, lungs, spleen, heart, and kidney instead of sheep, to which you add an assortment of herbs, boiled eggs, and bread soaked in milk. I never ate haggis but had plenty of drob during Easter and Christmas holidays. My mother and Alina used to cook them all the time.

Of course, Tamara overheard me saying there was a recipe similar to haggis, and she didn’t lose the chance to pester me with questions about the recipe. At first, I thought about not telling her a thing, but I never should have underestimated my nekatar wife’s power of interrogation over me, especially when she applied it in bed. I gave up and told her everything I knew about it, and I did not regret it at all!

That night, Tamara gave me a bunch of good reasons to try and see if I could remember other cooking recipes from Earth.

During this festival, besides the drama play and the various stalls with handmade goods by the students, the teachers were also in charge of organizing various competitions through which they would show the parents how much they improved. For some reason though, they thought that last year’s events were more or less an elaborate illusion cast by Savannah.

My wives also prepared their own special little events with which their students helped them out.

Tamara had her own cooking show, in which she displayed her amazing cooking skill in collaboration with the students. It was her against the Yung Mai, and the students were their assistants, while the parents were their official taste testers. This year, I was hoping for Tamara to win, but her opponent proved to be someone difficult to defeat. This was probably the only situation in which an Over Supreme lost against someone weaker.

Then again, I always lost against Natrasku and Bachus’ diapers... or a woman’s glare.

Zoreya organized a drama play, but in her case, it was an interpretation of how Melkuth defeated the Divine Hydra in an epic battle that lasted seven years. It was basically a glorification of how awesome that one god was, and I was 100% sure he was puffing up his chest and smirking from up there in the clouds when she enacted that battle.

Nanya was originally supposed to organize a school-wide pranking competition. Yup, that demoness did not betray my expectations of her mischievous spirit, and I often prayed my two boys didn’t pick up after her. Let daddy’s genes be the dominant ones!

Since Nanya was not here, the students handled everything, and the class representative was the one placed in charge of making sure nothing was overboard. Of course, I also pitched in with a few rules just to make sure no one was planning to blow up the Merions in my sewers. As for adult supervision, I left the blacksmith siblings in charge.

The basic idea of this challenge was that the students designed an entire room filled with pranks. The customer would enter the room and while following certain instructions, they had to make sure not to get pranked. The winner of the competition was the one whose pranks managed to hit the most people.

As for Ayuseya’s event, every year, she oversaw a debate competition. For a lot of people, this was a boring nightmare, but for the more politically inclined individuals, this was one of the most anticipated events of this festival. Since she could not be here this year, the Emperor of Paramanium, with a little persuasion from Savannah, offered to oversee the event.

The principal of the Magic Academy, which was me, had his own event as well. It was called the Dungeon House!

This was basically a mini dungeon built by my students with harmless traps like wall spears with stuffing at the end and gelatin falling blocks. The purpose was for the guests to have fun trying to go through this place without using any magic just their wits and agility. The people who never had a chance to explore a real dungeon had a lot of fun going through this one.

Having a festivity during the academy’s inauguration day was a common thing on all the three continents, but they were not as elaborate and fun as Illsyorea’s. I heard of this little fact first from Emperor Varakium and then it was confirmed by some of the teachers and students.

What usually happened abroad was that they would celebrate by gathering at a big table, where the teachers began to nominate their best students and then declare with pompous high praise how their Magic Academy was the best for them. All of this, of course, was for the purpose of gathering more funds, more students, and grow a sense of pride in their students.

The idea of having the students prepare the festivity, organize competitions, or make their own stall to sell their goods was unheard of before, mostly because a lot of the high and mighty nobles thought it was going to be beneath them. With my academy’s policy ‘all are equal in status’; the students didn’t have to worry about bringing shame to their name and instead go all out and have fun with everyone else.

As one would expect, not everyone agreed with my policies, and a lot of the noble students arrived at the academy with a high and mighty attitude, but no matter how much they fussed about it, they never received the privileges they thought they were entitled to. Some of the parents were outraged because of this, but once I showed them the contract they signed when they enrolled their students here, they would usually shut up. Those who didn’t were all but free to take their spoiled little brat off my island, unless of course the students were the complete opposite of their parents and wanted to continue study here while obeying my rules.

Unfortunately, every year there were always a few families who would return to their homeland with their children because they believed they weren’t treated properly here. Out of all of them, usually one or two students didn’t want to return and were actually having fun blending in with everyone here. In those situations, both I and the teachers here would step in to prevent the parents from making the mistake of pulling the student out of my academy.

At the end of day though, the festival was a complete success where most of the people had fun and made good memories. The first to leave the premises of the campus were the parents and guests. Then, at sunset, the students would gather around a big campfire and celebrate their success by dancing to the music played by Lumia Shora’s band. A few new romances would sprout here and there, and maybe a few rivalries too.

When the music stopped playing, the students returned to their dorms under the watchful gaze of the teachers, who made sure none of the men had the good idea of sneaking inside the ladies dorm. The few who did try were stopped by a bunch of well-hidden harmless traps and mobs. If they wanted to peek, they had to have the skill to reach the windows first.

On a side note, the Illsyorea Academy Festival did not mark the beginning of the school year, but rather the half of the second semester. The school year would end on the final day of Asser, which gave the foreign students plenty of time to get back home to their parents. Winter in this time and age was extremely dangerous on all the continents except for Illsyorea, we had good house heating. What the students learned during the year here, they could apply back home with ease. On the other hand, those who remained in the dorms were free to take up a part-time job in the town, join the winter festivities, practice their skills at their leisure in the training grounds, or expand their knowledge by reading the books in the Illsyorea Library.

Later, when the sun had set and the moons were up in the sky, the nightlife of Illsyorea began. Thanks to the illumination provided by my magic devices and the numerous powerful monster patrols at night, the citizens of Illsyorea felt protected and at ease to walk out as such late hours.

The small park I made ended up being a favorite location for the new lovers, and the men with too many coins in their pockets or the need to loosen up a bit had plenty of places to visit.

The construction and opening of every establishment on Illsyorea had to first go by me and respect certain legal conditions. For now, I was the main builder in this town, so everything had to go by my specs. In time, I planned to leave this job to proper architects and Dungeons, but right now, I had none. I was the only builder on this island.

Among the first night establishments I gave the approval to was Zofran’s Bar, which sold some pretty good imported liquor. The fridge I made with the help of my Power Crystals proved to be helpful to Zofran. I was so happy I learned to better cast my spells and didn’t need to go around shouting ‘Pun Pun Kyun’ or other ridiculous nonsense chant all the time.

Zofran’s Bar was popular among the tired sailors, but this rowdy bunch was kept in check by the two guards employed here. They were once adventurers of Godlike Rank, but they were retired now. As for why they chose my island as the place to retire to, well that was because of their families. Being born as commoners meant that their children would not have such a good chance at getting an education. A bunch of Magic Academies rejected them already, but my Illsyorea was not like that. For the two of them, this place was perfect, and their children weren’t so bad at studying either.

Not far from Zofran’s Bar was Kleya’s Dancing Tavern. This was a luxury establishment that was targeted at wealthy individuals who looked for a place to relax and spend a good amount of money on overpriced drinks. This place offered the chance to listen to good music and watch talented dancers as they swayed their hips on the stage. It catered for both men and women alike, but while the rich customers could go and chat with the hosts here, they were forbidden from getting over-familiar with them.

In other words, Kleya’s Dancing Tavern was Illsyorea’s equivalent of a Host Club.

If someone had DEEP pockets or felt lucky tonight, they could always drop by Narkas’ Casino. It took me a while to come up with the laws and rules for this one, especially since Narkas was not too pleased about my ‘budget limit’ policy, through which the casino prevented their customers from spending too much or if they were too lucky from playing too much. The term ‘bought the house’ was used to let the customer know when they reached the peak of their winnings. The win-lose rate had to be carefully managed as well, and I planned on having people win far more often than they did at a regular casino back on Earth.

I tried to make it fair for both the customers and owners of the casino. Therefore, you could go to the casino and by betting only up to a certain fixed amount of money you could either triple that sum or go home with your empty pockets. This idea made the casino surprisingly popular and thanks to the fair win-lose ration as well as the budget limit applied to each customer, this place ended up having a lot more customers who dropped by only to enjoy the games rather than try to win some money.

In fact, there were so many customers, Narkas asked me to expand the casino or make a second one, which I did.

The last type of nightlife establishment on Illsyorea was Mastaya’s Brothel. When Mastaya came to me with the suggestion for this place, all of my wives were against it because of how poorly typical brothels treated their workers and also because it was an STD heaven.

Allowing this place to open was not easy for me, but I considered it to be a necessity to my island for several reasons. First of all, since I built my own body, I knew how it worked. There were certain impulses, certain desires which came out from a genetic instinct. The need to procreate was powerful in all species, and usually if one denied this need or actively destroyed it, for most individuals the body was programmed to self-destruct. Things like depression, lack of desire to do anything, low energy, all of these would set in because they would theoretically increase the individual’s chance to get into an accident. If they lived out in the wild, they would be dead in less than a month. Basically, it was a decrease in awareness towards potential predators and dangers because the body considered its existence as useless. But this biological factor was only one of many that influenced social behavior, and also varied from one individual to another.

Even if a species reached sapience, it did not mean that all of a sudden it stopped having biological needs. Those needs were programmed at a genetic level. They didn’t care about society, they didn’t care about the mind’s thoughts, they only acted based on the impulses given to them. As for reproduction, in this case, the typical formula was that when an individual stopped having the ability to procreate be it because of the environment or a physical accident, their body would begin the shutdown process. In nature, this organism was of no use anymore, therefore, it had to be stopped and recycled so that the material it was made out of could be of use for other lifeforms. After all, nature did not care if we had a mind or not. All of these were after all the macroscopic results of the microscopic chemical reactions within each cell. It was a domino effect in which you could have the luck of getting it to go your way or not.

But again, I discovered that our mind, emotions, relationships and so on played an especially important factor in how this ‘shutdown process’ affected our bodies. On this world, in an extreme situation, for example, if someone entered this mode when they had no friends, their minds were ruled by fear and a powerful sense of impotency towards any activity, and their emotions were on the negative scale, this usually either resulted in suicidal depressions or an abnormal sexual desire which was for the most part satisfied through rape. Back on Earth, this desire was satisfied for the most part by the porn industry, but it did not eliminate the actual source of the problem, the mental state of the individual, the loneliness they considered themselves to be trapped in.

Some of the biggest lies told by Earth’s society, and of which I became aware only after I made Illsyorea and was confronted with approving the night establishments, was that you could not expand your circle of friends, that you were worthless if you didn’t act like every other member of society, or that just because you didn’t think like everyone else you were doomed to never find someone to love you for who you are. The solution to these fears, to these lies, was to simply step out of your comfort zone and try to meet new people by acting as yourself and not as the mask your mind considered to be the best.

While I was thinking about all of these in the background, the official statement was that the brothel was going to be a safe and clean place where men and women alike could go and fulfill their sexual desires if they lacked a partner or were widowed. Making it legal and safe took out a part of the immorality stress it had on those paying for the services.

There were both men and women out there who sought to work in this environment, so why not make it safe and clean for them and their customers as well? As for the religious fact, there was none as far as I knew. Thank the gods none of Earth’s religions had a chance to develop here!

Making this place safe and clean, now that was a challenge. The best way to do it I figured was by going to the doctor and getting a permission slip from them. Both the prostitute and the client were required to have periodic checkups. As for the safety, that was guaranteed through hired bodyguards as well as allowing the prostitute to actually choose who she wanted as a customer.

Thanks to these simple nightlife establishments, the happiness factor on my island was on the rise, and I had yet to introduce the concept of a Game Arcade or board games.

True, maybe I was overthinking some things, especially the whole genetic factor and instinct thing, some people just wanted to act evil, but in the end, what mattered for me was the happiness of the people who lived on my island. If they were happy, they could provide me with Magic Energy on their own will. The more people that were happy, the more Magic Energy I had to use. Therefore, my level had not stopped going up ever since the first humans stepped on this island!

On the Boss Island, I learned that what I saw as a status window was nothing more than a simplified version of what my senses could perceive. The game-like skills and abilities were a shortcut to use to a certain type of Magic Energy equation. Learning to make one from scratch wasn’t so complicated either, I just had to learn how to mold the Magic Energy to do what I wanted, the problem was remembering and repeating the process exactly.

Every being on this planet had within their subconscious a little program like that which allowed them to use certain abilities and skills. My wives were also aware of this, that was why wherever they traveled they gathered and absorbed Magic Energy within their bodies. Just like me, they could grow in strength without actually hunting monsters or killing others. That was just the roundabout easy method. The non-aggressive one was Magic Energy meditation, but to use it, well... that was the tricky part. Not everyone could accept this let alone understand it, and both of which were mandatory in order to use it, that was why I planned I teaching it to my children as soon as I believed they could properly use it.

Actually, Tamara was the first of them to use it, then it was Ayuseya, followed by Shanteya and Nanya. Zoreya was the last one to use it because her energies were mixed up with Melkuth’s Divine Energy. She first had to learn how to properly differentiate between the two. This knowledge also allowed her to create and manifest that near indestructible shield of hers.

As far Divine Energy went, however, I had no idea how to use it or how to identify it. I just knew something was there doing something based some laws that could literally mold reality as I knew it.

And suddenly, I felt as though my mind went from reading reports regarding the 1st of Zor to wondering how the Divine worked.

“Maybe I need a break...” I let out a heavy sigh and massaged my forehead with two fingers.

I then leaned back in my chair and turned around to look outside. Making this a revolving gaming chair was a great idea. It was super comfy too!

“Three years since I officially opened the Magic Academy... Oh, how time sure flies.” I thought to myself as a small smile formed on my lips.

Such a peaceful day. Nothing can ruin this. I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and relaxed.

It was at this moment when Ayuseya’s distress signal was activated and an alarm similar to that in a military compound sounded in my office. It was a real Red Alert here, a DEFCON 1 alarm with red light flicking from the ceiling and everything.

“ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! WAIFU IS IN DANGER!”

I was startled out of my chair and fell on the floor.

With a groan, I got up and said “When the hell did I make this sort of alarm?!”

Yup, I completely forgot about it after I got the idea to make it into compact bracelet. The screen on it showed Ayuseya’s name lit up by a green color.

“She’s not in danger, but she needs my help with something. I wonder what?”