038. Reward
038. Reward
Chairwoman of Velvet Hunter Academy.
【 Magic Emperor (魔帝) 】 Rina.
Among all the nonplayable characters, there was no one who attracted more attention or collected more nicknames than she did.
The ones that came to mind right away:
[ National Elementary Magical Girl ] [ Magic Kid ], [ Goo-Goo ], [ Stretchy ], [ Short-ass ], [ Legal ], [ Brat ].......
Et cetera, et cetera.
Even though she barely appeared in the game, she was a complete scene-stealer.
Of course, that was only natural, since she was the publicly acknowledged strongest being in the entire Velvetsra universe.
That was why Players kept requesting, pleading, begging, and threatening the development team to somehow make Rina a playable character.......
[ Day 565 of praying for Brat Chairwoman new character release 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 ]
└ Velvet School Life! GM : Chairwoman Rina is too powerful and would break the power balance, so it is impossible!
The dev team's reply was always a clean refusal.
But there was one slightly odd point here.
If she was the strongest in the universe, why didn't she step in when the academy—or the world—was in danger?!
Even when Demonized Humans infiltrated the academy and turned it into a wasteland, even when a demonic beast powerful enough to swallow an entire city in Korea ripped through a Gate and appeared.
She never left the Chairwoman's Office.
In response, Players—half complaining about the unreleased Chairwoman, half genuinely confused—
had publicly pilloried her, saying that she was probably just an incompetent figurehead Chairwoman and questioning whether she really was the strongest in the world (lol).
But the answer to that question was revealed in a PV released for the third anniversary of Velvet School Life.
Showing the doomed world line where the Player did not act as a Sponsor—known as 'If you're not here, we're doomed.avi'—the question was neatly resolved.
In that world, the Chairwoman appeared as a far more mature beauty.
Slaughtering all sorts of monsters and Demonized Humans with a power approaching the divine, she thoroughly demonstrated her form as the Sovereign of Magic.
But even she reached her limit, and in the end, battered and bloody, she glared at the enemy and lamented.
— Haah, to think the enemy was this powerful....... Causality, of all things! Aah! To think it was fated from the start that I must not step forward! As I thought, was hope with the academy all along......?
Just as a meteor crashed down overhead and the world's annihilation was imminent,
she clenched her teeth and cried out.
— It is not over yet! I shall execute Regression Magic at the cost of my time and memories!
And then a magic circle encompassing the entire world unfolded, and the world rewound once more.
Right back to the moment Velvetsra begins.
She had lost even her own age and memories as an aftereffect of the Regression Magic,
but she had returned holding only the intense conviction that she must not step forward.
That was Chairwoman Rina.
As I looked at her, silently recalling what I knew about her, Rina looked up at me and opened her mouth.
In person, she was even smaller. She barely reached around my solar plexus.
"So you are that Jin Yu-ha."
"Yes."
"I have wanted to meet you at least once."
"......Me?"
I asked back, my voice bewildered.
Because I had no idea why she knew who I was.
'There's no way this guy Jin Yu-ha had ties to the Chairwoman before, and surely she hasn't noticed that I'm a transmigrator......?'
I shot a wary look her way.
"I heard you are the one who got Seol-hee to open her swordsmanship class. She had refused every time someone asked her to hold a class, you see."
"......Ahem."
Baek Seol-hee let out an awkward cough beside me.
Ah.
The Chairwoman herself was such a secretive figure I hadn't realized it, but apparently she and Instructor Baek Seol-hee had a close relationship.
Rina looked me up and down with deeply interested eyes.
Then, stopping at my eyes, she furrowed her brow deeply.
"Anyway, you. Your gaze is quite insolent."
"......Excuse me?"
"D-don't tell me! You were thinking something like—This tiny little thing is the Chairwoman!?"
Rina flared up, prickling for no reason as if she'd hit the nail on the head herself.
"It's grown even more insolent! D-don't tell me you're thinking about how tall I am!? Even so, 140! 140 is— it is— enough!"
'......This thing is seriously the strongest in the universe?'
A tone with absolutely zero dignity, truly just like a Brat in every sense of the word.
They say she lost all her memories when she regressed, but I wonder if she didn't lose the things a human ought to at least keep, too.
This time, I genuinely couldn't help but look at her with an insolent gaze.
"W-why you—!"
Biting her lip, Rina seemed to notice and was about to leap into a rage.
Unable to watch any longer, Baek Seol-hee cut in from the side.
"Chairwoman. You must present the reward."
"I-I know. I will do it properly. So d-do not look at me like that! Seol-hee, when even your expression hardens, it is terrifying!"
Rina answered while gauging her mood.
Ahem.
Clearing her throat, she spoke again in a weightier voice.
"I could not witness your performance directly, but I heard you showed outstanding results. Quota student. That much, I will praise."
Pat! Pat!
Rina reached out her hand to pat my shoulder, but it barely reached my upper arm.
When I lowered my shoulder slightly, she flinched as if embarrassed and withdrew her hand.
"And so, originally, I had intended to present only a plaque and prize money....... This time, however, I intend to bestow a slightly more special reward."
A special reward?
Why me? No matter how close she is to Instructor Baek Seol-hee, isn't that a bit strange?
"Why go that far......?"
"Are you not from the quota system? Thanks to that, I was able to talk down to those old hags at the Management Bureau."
Rina spoke with a mischievous smile tugging at her lips.
Ah, now that I thought about it, Velvet Academy had been subtly—or not so subtly—under pressure from the Hunter Management Bureau about issues concerning the quota system all this time.
It seems that had been a pretty big deal to her.
"I shall engrave upon you a Subspace Tattoo."
My eyes went wide.
'A Subspace Tattoo!'
Among the items you could pull from the Gacha, it was one of those you absolutely, definitely had to pull.
Because having this on your characters freed up one slot in the party formation.
Normally, you had to recruit a separate Porter character, and those so-called Porters were incredibly annoying bastards.
Since they were supply carriers, you absolutely had to protect them, yet most of them had absolutely terrible stamina and combat ability.
'I'm getting the one thing I gave up on trying to pull because it just refused to show up even when I was rolling for Alice's gear!?'
As expected, the strongest in the world really was on another level.
As if she had read my surprised expression, the Chairwoman let out a pleased little giggle.
"You seem to understand its value. To put it bluntly, this is a bribe."
"A bribe?"
Rina nodded.
"A bribe to say I look forward to working with you from now on. The more a quota student like you performs well, the more troublesome work disappears for me. And you are also a child who will become Seol-hee's disciple, so I am taking care of you."
For the first time, the Male Quota System actually looked appealing.
And it seemed the Instructor's word had carried a good deal of weight in this.
Connections really are the best, after all.
"However, due to issues of fairness, I cannot currently grant you a large space."
She said in a firm voice.
But that didn't matter to me.
In the first place, just getting a Subspace Tattoo at all was the biggest hurdle,
and as long as I obtained it now, I could upgrade it later when the chance came.
I nodded.
"How large will the space be?"
"Large enough to carry five weapons."
Five weapons, huh.......
Not bad, but.
Ah, I wonder if that would work too?
Hearing her speak, the act of engraving the Subspace Tattoo itself didn't seem to be that difficult for her.
In a world without Gacha, I couldn't let an opportunity like this slip by.
I should at least ask.
"......One moment. Chairwoman Rina."
"Mm?"
"Would it be possible to reduce the size of the tattoo you'll engrave on me to the space of about one weapon, and engrave it on another student as well?"
What I had thought of was getting Subspace Tattoos engraved on others as well.
Since just obtaining this thing was a feat in itself, the more characters who held a small space, the better it was, compared to one character holding a large space.
"Ho-oh."
At that, Rina's eyes rounded, and the corners of her eyes crinkled as if she found it commendable.
"Hmm, indeed, if only you are taken care of, that could become a problem too. Though, in truth, it is a matter that exceeds the scope of the reward to be given......."
The Chairwoman slowly swept her gaze over the people who had accompanied me.
"Hmm....... That child, and that child—they would be possible. However, those two are not."
Pointing with her finger, she indicated that Kang Do-hee and Shin Se-hee were possible, but refused for the two quota students.
* * *
The engraving of the Subspace Tattoo required a few days of preparation.
With Rina's parting words that she would call for them when the time came, Jin Yu-ha's party left the Chairwoman's Office for the time being.
"W-we're fine! Don't worry about it! If they say our Mana can't handle receiving a Subspace Tattoo, there's nothing we can do!"
"R-right! We didn't even have one to begin with anyway! Thanks to you, we got the winner's prize money and plaque! That's enough! We can brag to our parents now!"
The two quota students were babbling in Jin Yu-ha's direction, insisting that they were fine.
Watching this, Shin Se-hee gave an inward sneer.
'Jin Yu-ha never actually intended to give those two a Subspace Tattoo from the start.......'
Since it was said they couldn't handle it with their Mana anyway, he seemed to be planning to just let them misunderstand and move on.
Most likely, the ones he truly intended to give the Subspace Tattoo to were Kang Do-hee and that strange Tank woman.
It would have been those two.
But since it was unacceptable to bestow a reward meant only for the winners onto someone who had lost, Kang Do-hee would receive it, and she herself had gotten lumped in as a bonus.
Jin Yu-ha was casually brushing off the quota students' thanks and heading over to Kang Do-hee.
'......It looks like he's about to make a party proposal to Kang Do-hee.'
Jin Yu-ha and Kang Do-hee shook hands with serious expressions.
'Why, only me....... Only I....... Was I never an option from the beginning?'
Shin Se-hee bit down hard on her lip.
Her pride was deeply wounded.
Right now, she wanted nothing more than to leave this uncomfortable place.
But there was something she still wanted to ask him, so she couldn't leave.
Before long, Kang Do-hee left.
Shin Se-hee took a long, deep breath.
Then she approached Jin Yu-ha.
Click—
"Jin Yu-ha."
"Ah, yeah."
His face turned toward her.
Truly, an absurdly beautiful face.
Her desires were ceaselessly stimulated, thirst springing up.
The possessive urge to have him surged up unbidden from inside her, but Shin Se-hee pressed her nails hard into her palm and barely held it back.
"......Why did you extend your goodwill even to me? In truth, shouldn't what you've given me have gone to that woman instead?"
At that, Jin Yu-ha looked at her intently.
"......Shin Se-hee."
"Yes."
"To be honest, I still don't know if what I'm doing is right, you know?"
He let out a heavy sigh and scratched at his forehead as if troubled.
"Tch, well. For now, let's just make one promise."
Out of nowhere, Jin Yu-ha asked her to make a promise.
'A promise......? What on earth.'
For now, Shin Se-hee intended to accept whatever proposal he made.
Since this was a situation where she now had to cut off her interest in him, she was already in his debt.
The Subspace Tattoo.
It wasn't something that even Shin Se-hee could obtain easily.
'I can't live while saddled with a debt to this person.'
One doesn't take on debts—one puts others into debt.
That was her ironclad rule.
"You, when you're in front of me, absolutely be honest. If you try to deceive me even once, it's over between us that day."
"What? Wh-what does that......."
Shin Se-hee's eyes rounded.
"No, let's include all of our party members too. With other people who aren't in our party, well, I won't interfere if you want to enjoy your twisted little hobby or whatever."
"......Huh?"
All of a sudden, what was he saying?
"You said you wanted to join my party."
"......A-are you really willing to accept me......?"
Shin Se-hee felt her voice shaking pathetically but couldn't help it.
"Of course, strictly speaking, you wouldn't be a party member exactly....... I want to put you in charge of the management window role for our party—can you do that?"