The Magic Academy's Physicist

Chapter 49: Your Paper’s Kind Of Awesome (8)

Chapter 49: Your Paper’s Kind Of Awesome (8)

A faded memory.

If I traced a fragment of that memory back to its origin, it revealed a picture of me during my joint Masters-Ph.D program.

During this time when I hadn’t yet been in the labs for two years, a senior of mine who’d occasionally have a smoke in the smoking booth in front of the science building randomly brought up an interesting topic.

? Do you know what scooping means?

? Yeah, I do.

Although I had only been a young graduate student who’d just learned research methodology at the time, I knew the concept of ‘scooping’.

? It happened to the lab next door, apparently.

? No wonder. That’s why you could hear things being thrown around last night.

The atmosphere of the lab that had gotten scooped was basically a house of mourning.

Of course it’d be, they’d lost the baby that they’d spent long, arduous hours racking their brains to birth.

? Was it China or Taiwan? I don’t know which one exactly but it seems that their research was on the same subject. The guys over here received government funding to finish their tests and everything, too, and were just about to submit it for a physical review but well, they said that the other country got it approved first.

? Then what’ll happen to the paper written by the other lab?

I already knew the answer. But I asked in case there might be some ray of hope that those people could hold onto.

But it was as expected.

? It all goes down the drain. If they were to publish with the same content, nine times out of ten they’d be accused of plagiarism. At best, it’d be seen as ‘they researched something similar at the same time’.

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot”¹, was it?

It was true, at least in this field. There was no one here who wasn’t struggling, and watching each other go through it was a tragedy in itself.

A graveyard to those who’d come in because this was more valuable than money, but in fact couldn’t do anything without that money. That was what academia essentially was.

? It sucks. I heard that they invested a whole five years into it.

Shallow words of platitude wouldn’t do anything for them. Only time could heal this. And as ones in the same boat, we could only watch them from afar.

And half a year after that conversation, the senior who I’d thought to be strong-minded gave up as well and negotiated with the professor to graduate with masters, which made me realize that this domain was deeper than the Mariana Trench.

So in order not to drown in this sea, one had only two choices.

To get onto land, or.

Learn how to swim.

She finished tasks faster than anyone and grasped how to fight to keep her piece of the pie. That included being attentive to what other researchers were doing and determining the next direction.

There wasn’t anyone who didn’t know about Professor Hasfeldt’s obsession with Flare, but Aether had had three years to observe that fact with her own eyes.

And so, she knew.

If she delayed even a little, this could be taken.

Technically, that didn’t matter all that much from Aether’s perspective. She wasn’t staying in this world forever and her priority was filling out the index of the hardcover over achievements.

However, she didn’t want her ‘achievements’ taken by Hasfeldt of all people.

Most people were motivated by negative emotions more than positive ones, like a student who was studying because they were anxious about not getting into university. In an ever-competitive society, a little bit of slacking led to being eliminated.

And at this moment, the Golden-Eyed girl realized that she won this competition of Flare research and development.

The news of victory began with a Thump, the sound of something being dropped.

The papers that Professor Hasfeldt had been holding fell due to the effect of gravity. It was such a feeble sound that Hasfeldt unconsciously let out a disbelieving sigh.

A shaking voice seeped into the air.

“Just now... What were you saying......?”

She heard wrong. She must have.

She had to have heard wrong. Perhaps those were the thoughts playing over for Hasfeldt.

“Ah, Professor Hasfeldt. I meant to ask this when I saw you. Well.... Why didn’t you attend when the Fire Mages had been summoned?”

“... There was a summoning?”

“Indeed. This student here, you see, she completed Flare!”

Hoho, Robespierre chuckled, then continued.

“And so I invited the members of academia to request an urgent review, except for those who were busy, of course.”

“That’s.......”

Aether’s paper review had only taken a little over a week. It had needed to be verified as soon as possible given that it was an Ultimate Magic that could deal with a Cataclysm.

But it wasn’t just her paper. Whenever a new spell was created, the Philiut Empire would immediately deploy it on the front after ramming it through the review process.

Whenever that kind of reviewing took place, all the experts of that field would be called to assembly and Hasfeldt had been the only one who declined when someone from the Society had asked for her attendance.

“It’s quite unfortunate. If only you had been there, Professor Hasfeldt, you would have vividly witnessed the historical process of Flare being presented to academia.”

“F...lare.... You mean, the Flare... that I was researching......?”

“Yes. The Flare that your family had been continuously researching.”

A confirmation.

Her complexion turned uncharacteristically blue for a moment, then became white as if covered with powder.

“Ah, as for your earlier question, Miss Aether. The patent for the scroll that composes Flare is given to both the first author and the co-authors so you’d need to discuss this well amongst yourselves.”

“That part won’t matter. It wasn’t for the purpose of making profit, anyway.”

“Then that’s enough about patents.... Would you be able to make a presentation on your research findings sometime today or tomorrow?”

The Golden-Eyed girl nodded and replied affirmatively.

Klais’ mind blanked in that instant.

It was as if Flare had exploded in her mind and the flash was slowly fading. A sense of futility indescribable by any existing language snapped the strands of her neurons and synapses.

Hasfeldt broke away from the two and ran in the direction of the front desk. Her robes tangled in her feet and prevented her from moving quickly, but this much discomfort was fine for the sake of getting her paper reviewed.

The hallway was empty. There were no obstacles in Klais’ way, and there shouldn’t be.

“.......”

Watching Hasfeldt as she ran in the direction where they came from, Aether bit down slightly on her lip.

**

There was a section in front of the desk for one to submit papers for different categories. From the left, there was Fire Magic, Water Magic... no, there was absolutely no time to make these observations.

“Hello, Professor. Will you be submitting a paper?”

She nodded wordlessly in response to the clerk’s greeting. Their eyes were the color of red spider lilies boiled down.

Red eyes. They were the same as her own, yet they felt alien somehow.

Come to think of it, Chairman Robespierre had also given her this kind of look today. As if they were pitying Hasfeldt herself.

“... This one, please.”

Professor Hasfeldt held out the envelope containing her paper.

Before the actual reviewing process, all papers were checked to see if there were any problems with the form. This task took no more than five minutes. Professor Hasfeldt had been part of academia for years so the chances of being criticized for improper format were practically zero.

All her previous papers had passed and they would continue to do so in the future. Hasfeldt was certain that this paper, too, would safely go through.

Her Flare research would amaze the academia and she would be acknowledged by many. As well, it would be sufficient in dealing a vindictive blow to those cowards who’d turned their backs doubting the power of Fire Magic.

It had to. Completely, absolutely. It needed to and it must.

It should have been.

“... I’m sorry, but this can’t be qualified for the actual review.”

“Pardon...?”

The desk clerk, after looking over the paper and humming a few times, gave this response.

“What are you saying...? Is there something wrong with the format? Did you even check properly?”

“The thing is.... This can become a case of plagiarism.”

Plagiarism. That was ridiculous.

“I did this research on my own. You should know since you’ve studied Fire Magic here, that we were the only family working on this...!”

“Ah, you must not have heard yet.......”

Hasfeldt had raised her voice but the desk clerk’s eyes were only filled with sympathy.

“Another already submitted a paper with the same topic as you, Professor.... They developed how to output and use Flare first so even if you present this, there’s a high probability that it will get rejected.”

The desk clerk couldn’t look directly at Klais. They kept glancing sideways at her, from which Klais abruptly turned away in anger.

The two people from earlier were already here.

The chairman seemed to be contemplating the situation from a distance, and standing closer than him was the Golden-Eyed girl, brushing down her hair as she watched her.

“Ah, ahhh....”

Hasfeldt’s pupils trembled harshly. That last dream of believing that she had hallucinated was eaten away, leaving only reality.

“Ah, ahhh, ah, ahhhh.......”

Someone had once said.

“No, it can’t.......”

That a person went through five stages of grief, the first one being.

“It can’t be?!!!”

Denial.

Footnotes

1. by Charlie Chaplin