Mage×Family

Mission 4: The Elegant Interview

The day of the interview had come; the most dreaded obstacle that lay before them. In theory, it should've been the hardest, but Tanya and Loid were both far too skeptical to be so overly confident. Regardless of what came next, this came first, and it wasn't something they could afford to fail. Failure meant setting back plans for a whole year at least, if not more considering the emphasis on prestige. For Loid, it meant setting back Strix, if not outright canceling it. For Tanya, it meant putting her hope of gaining access to a pristine education at the nation's top school in jeopardy. For Anya and Yor, it threatened to tear their newfound family apart, regardless of whether the latter saw it as more of a cover story than a family. It was still a family nonetheless.

The preparations were extensive, the test interviews conducted were many, and Loid seemed insistent on planning for every conceivable eventuality. He was as thorough as Tanya would've been herself, even more so in fact. His preparedness leaked over into the realm of paranoia, at least from Tanya's perspective.

Tanya had no problem with it, however. 'Know thy enemy' and whatnot, after all. However, in this case, they were less of an enemy and more of an obstacle they had to appease. They had to get approval from the judges, and if Loid was to be believed, they would be watched and judged from the very start to the very end.

Tanya questioned just what sort of insane school went through that much effort to single out the 'inelegant' lower class, but then reminded herself that they were dealing with not only the rich but the inherited rich, old money. Most of these people got their money from birth, and thought that having huge sums of money was as natural as existing. Although plenty were worthy of respect and knew how to use that money properly, many did nothing more than sit on it and live off of their inheritance alone rather than working to improve society, and that meant those biases of working for finances would result in the characteristic superiority complex they were preparing to soften up.

Whatever the case may be, they were fighting an uphill battle, one that they were (at least in theory,) very prepared for. Emphasis on in theory, Tanya didn't have much confidence in Anya, but Loid and Yor could possibly pass alongside her.

Before them stood Eden Academy's vast campus, towering over them all. The school grounds contained all grades from first to twelfth, meaning it was quite massive overall for a school, let alone a school as prestigious as this one. The family of four walked amidst a crowd of several other families, each vying to have their children enlist in Eden Academy and dressed in their best. Out of all the families here, only a fraction of them would succeed, and the odds were stacked against them all.

'What was the name of the project that made me? Project Eve, was it? How ironically fitting that I'd be going to a school called Eden of all places...' Tanya mused as she began to survey her surroundings.

She needed to keep her composure, even if she was skeptical if they were truly being watched. True to Loid's suspicions, she spotted observers in the overhead passage above them as they walked by, peering down and jotting down on notepads. Optical formulas quickly improved her eyesight, making spotting them a bit easier, although the formulas could only do so much. She was once an artillery spotter, after all; she needed a good eye.

The exam had already begun, no turning back now. Victory or Valhalla.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

"Elegance makes tradition, elegance is what makes the world a better place..."

That was the philosophy of Henry Henderson, the Housemaster of Cecile Hall. It was his duty now to handle the entrance exams for the incoming new generation of Eden Academy. For him, the entire academy was sacred ground, in which the inelegant were staining with their very presence.