(Heartfelt thanks to Fengdiehua Qiming for the 5,888 reward, and to Yume no Shouyou, Lei Xiang, Dream, Love Is Tiring, Xin Yu Er, Maple's Withering, and others for their rewards!)
Walpurgis Royal Academy of Machinart, main gate...
Inside this immensely sturdy gate stood a reception room.
This reception room was generally used to receive guests looking for a particular student or professor at the academy.
Since they were not visiting the academy itself or coming on academy business, guests who came for personal reasons were not allowed into the academy grounds or provided lodging.
Thus, after arriving at the academy, such visitors would only be escorted by the guards to the reception room inside the gates. If they wished to see a student, professor, or member of the academy's upper ranks, they first had to inform the guards, who would then notify the person in question.
To put it bluntly, these visitors were like people visiting a prison. Their movements were restricted, and aside from sitting obediently in the reception room and explaining the purpose of their visit to the guards, there was nothing else they could do.
It was a very fitting comparison.
After all, the academy walls looked far too much like prison walls, and the rules imposed heavy restrictions on the students. The students' Automatons could practically be treated as prisoners as well, unable to enter or leave the academy freely. And at this moment, someone was seated in that reception room.
He was a gentleman in his thirties or forties, dressed in a fur coat and rather splendid attire. Though slender, he had a sturdy build. He looked like a refined researcher, with an air of elegance about him.
This dignified gentleman sat in a lavish chair, holding a cup of black tea. Yet he had