[School of Magical Surveying] The door was plastered with old notices, so worn out you couldn't tell when they had been posted.
"Perfect."
I smiled with satisfaction and grabbed the doorknob. As I opened the door with a creak, the musty smell of old paper stung my nose. Piles of all sorts of documents were scattered about the lab.
And in the midst of that chaos, I saw a middle-aged man sitting at the desk with the largest pile of papers. He was wrestling with the documents with hollow eyes. Could that be Doloren, the head of the school?
At my appearance, he irritably lifted his head, his voice sharp and on edge.
"I'm sure I wrote 'No salesmen' on the door."
"... There was so much stuff plastered on it, I must have missed that."
"Damn it..."
He let out a deep sigh and went back to his paperwork. It seemed he planned to ignore me. I guess a little shock therapy is needed.
"My name is Isaac Upperhills, I'm a new student."
"Like I said, we don't have money to buy any magical dev... what did you say?"
"I said I'm a new student."
At the words 'new student', his eyes sparkled.
"A new student after 10 years!"
"... Has no one come for 10 years?"
He shot up from his seat and approached me. He extended his hand for a handshake and said.
"A pleasure to meet you. I am Giuseppe Guarneri, the senior researcher of the School of Magical Surveying. Just call me by my name."
"... So you weren't the head of the school."
"Professor Doloren, the school head... she's off exploring an unauthorized dungeon, as usual."
An unauthorized dungeon. The name itself sounds highly illegal. I'm not going to get arrested later, am I?
"It'll be a few more days before Professor Doloren returns."
He grabbed both my hands and exclaimed, overcome with emotion.
"I don't know what kind of scam brought you here, but welcome!"
"For now, just stay and breathe. I don't ask for anything else, just please don't run away."
"Yes, sir..."
Is having a new student really that joyous of an occasion? I thought he would give me work, but it seems he plans to leave me be until I get used to this place. 'Well, that's good for me.'
Since it's come to this, I might as well enjoy the easy ride. And so, I picked an empty desk at random and sat down. Just then, Giuseppe, my senior, spoke to me.
"So, want something to drink? Are you hungry?"
"No. I'm fine. Really."
"... Is that so. Alright, make yourself comfortable while I finish this paperwork. Like it's your own home."
"Okay. Thank you."
Scratch, scratch.
The only sound in the lab was the scratching of Giuseppe's pen. I asked him.
"How long have you been working on that?"
Giuseppe barely managed to open his mouth.
"... Three."
He wouldn't look like this after just three days, so it must be three weeks.
"—Three months. I've been buried in these for the past three months."
The mood turned somber. 'Not three weeks, but three months...?' Wasting half a semester on paperwork.
That's less of a joke and more of a horror story. We stared at each other without a word. 'Senior Giuseppe, is he going to die at this rate?'
This wasn't the time for me to be coasting by myself. We're in the same boat, we should help each other out.
"Senior Giuseppe."
"What is it?"
"Could I perhaps help you with the paperwork?"
"You? But you just got here today... can you do it?"
"Yes. I learned how to do simple administrative work back at the academy."
"Even so, giving work to a new student who just arrived..."
I pointed to the cot next to the desk and said.
"You must be tired. Why don't you lie down and get some rest?"
Giuseppe's gaze shifted to the cot. Is he contemplating it?
Strange.
After suffering for three months, it should be a hard offer to refuse. A moment later, his mouth opened.
"... It's fine if you can't do the work. Just familiarize yourself with the format while I get some shut-eye."
"Yes. Sounds good."
"And!"
"Absolutely. Do not run away while I am sleeping."
"... Yes."
That's quite a heavy promise. I guess a graduate student must have run away before. He shuffled over to the cot.
"I... need to rest for a bit."
Seeing him like that, I felt a pang of pity. To think he's been doing paperwork in a world without Excel...
How terrible.
Not long after lying down, Giuseppe was snoring, fast asleep.
Zzzzz. Sleep well.
I'll finish the work.
"Alright then. Shall we begin?"
I turned my eyes to the documents.
"There really is a lot to do."
And they aren't for internal records, but for external reporting. Probably for the Imperial Court and the Magic Tower. Those two are the school's source of funding, after all.
The pile of documents to be processed seemed endless, no matter how many pages I turned.
"It would be nice to have Excel at times like this..."
Stop.
The hand holding the quill pen froze.
"Wait, can't I just make it...?"
If there's no Excel, I just have to make one. 'Even when I solved nonlinear differential equations, I'd just use mana to get an approximate value.' If I could turn that process itself into a magical device, it would become an excellent Excel machine.
Let's give it a try. I scraped together anything nearby that could be used as material. A broken chair leg.
A stopped clock. And mana stone powder. This seemed to be enough.
Giuseppe had a dream. A dream of his younger self in his father's study, reading an epic poem. The young Giuseppe spoke. -"And so the Great Mage Doloren defeated the Dragon of Ruin.
Wow... so cool." Old and weary, Giuseppe stared blankly at his younger self from across the study. 'I shouldn't have read that book back then...'
If he hadn't, Giuseppe might not have ended up under Doloren. Of course, Doloren wasn't a bad person. She always treated Giuseppe as her best friend.
But not as a fellow researcher. Doloren left the school's internal affairs to Giuseppe while she went around stirring up projects, always returning with some new problem. Decades had passed, and the only thing that had grown were his dark circles.
Giuseppe understood.
A genius can never understand the heart of an ordinary person. It was frustrating, but he had no intention of blaming her. A genius simply runs ahead, leaving the ordinary person behind.
'It's my fault for being born ordinary.' Giuseppe looked at his younger self in the dream and smirked. 'Brace yourself, Giuseppe.
You'll be cleaning up after Doloren for the next twenty years.' Giuseppe turned his back and walked toward reality. To prevent the school from being shut down, he had to somehow prepare all the documents required by the Imperial Court by the deadline.
And so, Giuseppe opened his eyes. And for the first time in a very long while, in a bed.
"My shoulders feel comfortable..."
It seemed he hadn't fallen asleep at his desk. 'Right, the new student arrived.' He said he'd handle the paperwork, but he probably couldn't do it properly.
Still.
The intention to try was commendable in itself. Giuseppe chuckled and walked over to Isaac.
"The Imperial Court's manual is a bit tricky, isn't it? Even if you can't do it, don't give up, just take it one by one..."
And then he saw it.
"Huh...?"
Click, clack. Scratch, scratch.
A magical device in the shape of a wooden prosthetic arm, writing out documents all by itself.
"What... is this."
Giuseppe's pupils trembled as if in an earthquake. Isaac noticed Giuseppe.
"Ah, you're awake."
"... Yes."
Giuseppe couldn't say any more. You need to know something to even ask a question. The current situation was just bewildering.
Click, clack.
Regardless, the magical device kept moving. The thing, which looked like an unfinished wooden prosthetic arm, was filling out a 'document'.
[Year 342 / Equipment Purchase / Expenditure: 3 gold / Balance: 127 gold] "This is insane."
A curse escaped Giuseppe's lips.
"What in the world did you make, newbie?"
"A calculator."
"A calculator...?"
The calculators Giuseppe knew were useless machines with gears and cogs. Any mage could do basic arithmetic, so why would they need a calculator? 'But this thing...'
Click, clack.
Seeing it fill out documents, it was hard to call it a simple calculator. 'It's handling the work for me...' Giuseppe's intuition analyzed it.
"Is it a machine that takes thoughts sent via mana and draws them as figures...?"
He barely managed to figure out what it was doing, but he couldn't comprehend its operating principle at all. The new graduate student, Isaac, answered with a smile.
"Yes, that's right. I've named it the 'Mana-differential device for spreadsheet computation'."
"Hah."
A needlessly long name. If you submitted a business proposal with a name like that, it would be rejected without a second thought.
Isaac added.
"...or you can just call it 'Excel'."
"Excel, you say..."
He didn't know what it meant, but it had a nice ring to it. This was, in a word...
"Revolutionary."
Giuseppe said as he looked at Isaac. The hardship of paperwork lies in the 'hands'. You suffer all day because your hands can't keep up with the problems your mind has already solved.
And now, something else could do it for you. No more writing until your fingers break. It was ecstatic.
Giuseppe, half-mesmerized, asked the new student.
"Where did you borrow this machine from? The School of Classical Alchemy? What's the rental fee?"
"There's nothing like that."
"Nothing?"
"I just made it."
"... You're lying."
"Would you like to see the schematics?"
Giuseppe took the schematics for 'Excel' from Isaac. 'This is insane...' Many parts were encrypted, but he could at least recognize the mana circuit section.
'It transforms polynomial functions into recurrence relations, then repeats simple calculations...' With a principle like this, there would never be any calculation errors. He couldn't understand any of the other parts.
Ah.
Except for the structure. The prosthetic arm part of 'Excel' was made from a broken chair leg, and the gear section that provided power was made from a broken clock spring. '... To create such a magical device from a pile of trash...'
A shiver ran down Giuseppe's spine.
"... A new student really made this?"
The feeling he had when he first met Doloren came rushing back. Isaac Upperhills is a genius.
"Well, we're short on time, so I'll keep working."
Isaac picked up the topmost parchment from the pile of documents and placed it in the center of the magic circle. Then, the crystal fragments on the magic circle began to glow faintly. A moment later, the prosthetic arm passed over a clean sheet of parchment placed at the edge of the magic circle.
And just like that, the [Imperial Academy’s Magic Tower School Certification Maintenance Report] was completed. Just by 'thinking' from where he sat, the new student had the prosthetic arm complete the document. No matter how many times he saw it, it was astonishing.
"How... how is this...!"
He could hardly speak properly. Then the next document, and the one after that. Perfectly sorted accounting ledgers—by year, by item, by expenditure and income—piled up one by one.
Every single one of them had been tormenting Giuseppe all day long. He had seen the schematics, but he still couldn't figure out exactly how it functioned. Giuseppe gave up trying to understand.
Instead, he spoke to Isaac.
"You're a genius."
"No, I'm not."
"Too much humility is a poison."
"... I'm really not."
"You are not someone who should be rotting away in a place like this. I will report to Professor Doloren and write you a letter of recommendation."
In Giuseppe's view, this was no place for a genius. It was truly a shame, but... just as Doloren had left Giuseppe behind, this young man seemed to have the right to do the same.
"However, when you do leave, please leave 'Excel' behind."
Isaac was flustered by Giuseppe's words.
"... There's no need for that."
"You're not being modest, I see... but why? With talent like this, you could go anywhere you want, be it the Imperial Court or the Magic Tower."
"I want to be right here."
"... What?"
Giuseppe stared intently at Isaac.
This kid.
What did he just say?
"I'm serious, Senior."
"I'm going to bury my bones here."
At Isaac's words, Giuseppe's eyes began to redden. It seemed this genius had no intention of leaving Giuseppe behind.