Chapter 1162: Student Affairs

What was Student Affairs?

In theory, Student Affairs was the lifeline of a university student.

The office handled everything surrounding an education without quite belonging to the education itself. A failed course registration, two mandatory classes occupying the same hour, an incorrect residence assignment, a missing document, or a petition requiring approval from someone the student had never heard of—all of those problems eventually found their way there.

Lucavion had always considered the purpose reasonable.

During his life on Earth, however, he had heard enough university students discuss Student Affairs to understand that the respectable definition concealed another one.

A problem that required five minutes to explain could consume several hours. A message could remain unanswered until the deadline approached closely enough to inspire religious devotion. A student could gather every requested document, cross the campus, wait in line, reach the counter, and discover that one absent signature had transformed the entire expedition into rehearsal.

Course registration inspired the best stories. One department would listen patiently and send the student elsewhere. The second office would understand the problem perfectly, but only a third possessed the authority to solve it. The third would then explain that the student had begun at the wrong department.

Lucavion had never attended university on Earth, so none of those experiences belonged to him directly. He had once suspected that frustration improved them during retelling.

The consistency of the accounts had gradually weakened that suspicion.

He had fought monsters, crossed battlefields, navigated noble conspiracies, and survived magical examinations administered by people capable of making a classroom more dangerous than most forests. University bureaucracy remained one of the few forms of suffering his previous life had denied him.

The Imperial Academy appeared willing to correct the omission.

Magic, it seemed, had not eliminated bureaucracy.

Lucavion followed the directional markers through the central administrative district until they delivered him to a broad stone building east of the main lecture complex. Student Affairs occupied most of the ground floor, and the Academy had spent enough money on the office to make waiting look dignified.

Polished stone stretched between rows of padded chairs. Thin runic lines carried registration information beneath the counters, crystal projections displayed changing queue numbers, and glowing signs divided the room into Records, Residence, Petitions, Course Access, and several categories whose differences probably became important only after someone chose the wrong one.

Students occupied nearly every row.

Two older students stood before a projected timetable, arguing with an overlapping practical session as though the schedule had arranged the conflict out of spite. Near the residence counters, a freshman explained an assignment problem while her roommate guarded a stack of signed forms. The clerk heard them out, checked both Academy cards, and directed them toward Residence Administration on the other side of the hall.

Neither girl protested. They exchanged the hollow look of people who had already visited at least one counter and began walking again.

Lucavion watched them pass.

’The stories may have been understated.’

The office itself functioned with uncomfortable efficiency. Every clerk understood the responsibility assigned to the desk, and each procedure appeared perfectly sensible when examined alone. The students caused the difficulty by arriving with problems inconsiderate enough to cross administrative boundaries.

A registration mistake could involve scheduling. Scheduling might require faculty approval. Faculty approval demanded a petition, and the petition would naturally require a document issued by the office the student had visited first.

Near another counter, a young noble stood beside a servant carrying a leather case worth more than some students’ wardrobes. The clerk examined the papers between them, removed one page, and tapped an empty line near the bottom.

"Guardian authorization is missing."

The noble looked down at the page. "My household submitted the authorization with the sponsorship documents."

"They submitted confirmation that your household sponsors you." The clerk slid the page back. "They did not authorize this petition."

"Those are different?"

"They have different names."

The servant leaned over the noble’s shoulder. Both stared at the empty line, perhaps hoping rank and wealth might frighten a signature into appearing.

The clerk had already called for the next student.

Lucavion moved on before his amusement became impolite.

He stopped at a crystal panel marked GENERAL INQUIRIES and placed his Academy card against the surface. Several categories unfolded beneath his name.

RESIDENCE

REGISTRATION

RECORDS

PETITIONS

COURSE ACCESS

The final option sounded close enough to his problem. Lucavion touched it, and the crystal answered with a chime.

C-47

The larger projection above the waiting area displayed C-39.

Eight people stood between Lucavion and enlightenment.

He reclaimed his card and settled into an empty chair near the Course Access counters. For the first time across two lives, he had officially joined a Student Affairs queue.

The experience remained entertaining through C-40.

At C-41, a student two rows ahead checked three documents in four different orders before hurrying toward the counter. Another emerged from Records carrying a fresh form and joined a different queue without allowing despair to slow him.

Lucavion stretched one leg beneath the neighboring chair and revised several earlier opinions about university students.

The entrance opened during C-42.

He glanced over when people near the door shifted aside and found a familiar chestnut-haired girl walking into the office with a broad-shouldered young man half a step behind her. She carried her Academy card in one hand and a folded notice in the other. The young man held a document folder beneath his arm, his attention moving from the counters to the waiting students before settling upon Lucavion.

The girl found him a moment later.

Her stride broke for less than a step. The young man’s expression became carefully neutral, which had become his preferred expression whenever Lucavion entered the same room.

’That separation lasted admirably.’

Lucavion had not even reached the counter.

Elara turned toward the inquiry panels without acknowledging him. She and Cedric consulted the notice, selected their categories, and received separate queue assignments after a brief disagreement with the second crystal. Elara pressed the same option again. The crystal remained unmoved by her confidence.

Cedric pointed to another category.

She selected it with the air of someone accepting a temporary compromise rather than admitting that he was right.

Only after checking the overhead board did she cross the waiting area. Cedric followed and claimed an empty chair, leaving Elara to stand before Lucavion with the folded notice held against her card.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

Lucavion looked up at her. "Good afternoon."

"You were assigned to the Martial Arts Block, and your residence was confirmed this morning." Elara placed both facts between them. "I have already removed the obvious answers."

"That was thoughtful of you."

"Why are you here?"

"I came to clarify an academic—"

"What happened?"

Lucavion paused. "You interrupted the explanation."

"You were about to use six words where one would do."

Cedric rested his Academy card against one knee. "This is usually the part where you answer her."

"I was making excellent progress before the interruption." Lucavion shifted his attention back to Elara. "Nothing happened."

She sat in the chair between them, though the movement brought no surrender. Elara tested the remaining possibilities in quick succession: a discrepancy in his results, an access restriction attached to his rank, an error in his permanent placement. Lucavion dismissed each suggestion without offering the detail she actually wanted, while Cedric watched the exchange with the patience of someone who knew assistance would only prolong it.

The queue projection changed to C-43. A woman near the front collected her folder and crossed toward the newly available counter.

Elara waited until the movement cleared. "What academic matter?"

"My placement created a question."

"Which question?"

"Whether the Academy permits something."

Her fingers tightened around the notice. "Permits what?"

"That is the part I intend to ask."

Cedric looked from Lucavion to Elara. "He has answered every question."

"Do not encourage him."

"I was criticizing the questions."

Elara turned the flat weight of her attention upon him instead. Cedric adjusted the folder across his lap and withdrew from the discussion with the dignity of a man who had recognized danger early enough to survive it.

Lucavion inclined his head toward him. "A sensible retreat."

"You are not involved."

"I appear to be the subject."

"Unfortunately." Elara returned to Lucavion. "You could simply say that you do not intend to tell me."

"I do intend to tell you."

Elara waited, and Lucavion allowed the pause to mature before adding, "After I know the answer."

Elara stared at him, then folded the notice with one precise movement and settled it across her card. Whatever reply first occurred to her apparently lacked the restraint required for Student Affairs.

The board changed to C-44. Three students rose at once before two discovered that the clerk had called from the Residence section. One sat down again with the weary disappointment of someone who had briefly believed the institution was ready to acknowledge him.

Lucavion let Elara’s interrogation end there. She had established that he had no crisis involving his placement or results, and he had established that further questions would produce only more accurate ways to tell her nothing.

Her own business remained unexplained.

The folded notice did not resemble anything issued by a crystal inquiry panel. Cedric had arrived carrying supporting documents, and neither of them had entered the room with the aimless irritation of students correcting an ordinary registration error.

Lucavion looked from Elara to Cedric.

"Then what brings the two of you here?"