"Good morning, Princess Margaret."
At nine o'clock on Friday morning, at the entrance to the grand auditorium of Delarion Third National Mechanical College in the Tobesk University District, Shade greeted the princess, who wore a rabbit-fur windproof cloak.
Princess Margaret was visiting the college today and would be attending several lectures.
Shade had not originally been invited, but Director Anlos had given him a pass for the place on Monday. After several days of "learning foreign languages," the princess had grown more familiar with Shade. She had probably misunderstood why he was here and assumed he had come to protect her. Thus, when she spotted him from afar, she called him over for a few words and then arranged for him to join the visiting party.
Higher education institutions of the Steam Epoch were also quite novel to an Outlander. The towering castle-like buildings and garden-like campus made the inside and outside of the college seem as though they belonged to entirely different eras.
The ancient college system retained the splendor of the Old Era, though in this age, commoners who passed the examinations were permitted to enroll.
Princess Margaret was dressed in full formal attire today. Since Shade had investigated beforehand and knew that her itinerary had nothing to do with subjects such as history or folklore, he was quite unconcerned about security for the day. The princess was mainly here to inspect the college's basic physics, mathematics, mechanics, and architecture departments, and the presentations she would hear were all related to those fields.
Besides members of the delegation, the entourage included city hall officials, reporters, and staff assigned by the college itself to accompany them.
Everything seemed perfectly normal. Dressed in the warm winter formalwear Miss Galina had sent over through the maids, Shade followed at the very