Want to Make a Bet? (2)
K-Charles de Lumiere.
Better known as Kim Chul-soo.
The folksy nickname the readers had hung on him might make him look like a gag character at first glance.
"Last warning."
In reality, he was anything but.
Just look at him. All he'd done was harden his expression.
"Do you believe in a fallen god?"
And press down on me with the barest trickle of aura.
"......"
"......"
"......"
And yet every last one of those gutless bastards had clamped their mouths shut, watching Chul-soo's face for cues.
Which is why I said:
"To have a disciple this strong — as your master, I couldn't be prouder."
Only then did Chul-soo's expression ease.
"...You're not a cult spy, are you?"
You really had to bring that up right now?
I shrank back, playing scared, and whispered just loud enough for Chul-soo to hear.
"When you're about to croak, you'll say anything."
"What?!"
Chul-soo's brow crumpled. But I didn't have a choice.
"How would you know where those bastards are hiding, or how? You can't just go running your mouth."
The word cultist that Chul-soo had just dropped couldn't be allowed to surface. Not yet.
"I get what you're misunderstanding. It's not that. Let's sort the situation out first."
I drove the point home, and Chul-soo's expression loosened, just a little.
"So I had it wrong?"
"You think I smashed that scarecrow for fun?"
Of course, luring Vivian out to snag a skill had been part of it — but I'd also wanted to catch the cult's eye. They almost never showed themselves. The one exception was when they were recruiting talent.
Chul-soo seemed to finally get it.
"...You were trying to draw them out?"
"Seeing you figure it out even this late, I can rest easy knowing you're at least as smart as a dolphin."
"...You're definitely Eugene."
That seemed to be enough. Chul-soo nodded and stepped back.
"As of today, the retest is over. Rank assessments will be conducted separately at a later date. You'll have a week to prepare. We gathered here now to ask whether you intend to enroll."
"Understood."
"You will say you absolutely intend to enroll."
"Goes without saying."
Chul-soo withdrew the aura that had been rippling around him and bowed his head toward the faculty.
"I got a bit heated while explaining the situation. I apologize for the disturbance."
"That's enough. Finish what you were saying."
The oldest-looking professor among the clustered faculty approached me.
"Eldora Florence."
A name I knew. A professor in the Magic Department, and the head of the Flora Foundation — the largest scholarship foundation in the Empire. She had a keen eye for people, and she was one of the good ones: she helped students who couldn't afford tuition.
Then why is she standing over there?
She'd appeared among the group that wanted me thrown out.
No. Put out the fire in front of me first.
Whatever her reasons, the priority right now was swaying public opinion and getting enrolled. I stood up, making a show of how hard it was, and offered a greeting.
"Eugene. No surname."
"...Right. I suppose I should start with an apology."
She reached out with both wrinkled hands and gently wrapped them around mine.
"I'm sorry. We were too weak to protect you from that child."
How many people in the world could call Vivian "that child"?
"Beyond whatever compensation the Academy has already calculated, I will repay you as far as my own power allows."
The hands holding mine trembled. Not mine — hers. She wore an expression of genuine guilt, forcing out each word as if it cost her.
"I'm... truly, truly sorry."
Just how enormous was the guilt Eldora was carrying?
I'm sorry, son. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I left our ■■ all alone.
......
For the first time since I'd possessed this body, I felt sorry toward someone.
Which is exactly why I couldn't back down.
"It's all right. So long as you let me enroll at Zion."
I couldn't retreat.
"......"
The truth was, the moment they'd stormed in—
◆ A Happy Ending
Please bring a true happy ending to the novel Protect the Academy!
◆ On Success
The world of PtA! will endure.
◆ On Failure
The world of PtA! will be destroyed.
The system window rose before my eyes once more.
It's a warning. Has to be.
A warning that if I drifted away from Zion, the odds of reaching a happy ending would plummet. So no matter how this situation played out, I had to enroll at Zion. No exceptions.
The silver lining was that Eldora seemed to be the leader of the opposition. Which meant:
If I can just persuade Eldora, I'm in.
The Eldora described in the original was a kindhearted old woman with an upright heart.
She's bound to be a lot easier to talk around than those brain-dead idiots standing there with their mouths hanging open.
I opened my mouth again.
"I destroyed the scarecrow. Isn't that qualification enough to enroll on its own?"
Who'd have thought all that noise I made to lure out the cult would come in this handy. The words had barely left my mouth before Chul-soo piled on.
"You all heard him. Eugene has declared his intention to enroll."
He'd already laid some of the groundwork, apparently — because the mere statement of intent was enough to get most of the faculty nodding.
"But—!"
"I'll say it once more. Eugene has just expressed his wish to enroll. From this point forward, I suggest you choose your words carefully."
He even closed it out clean.
"...Understood."
"Well, rules are rules..."
"Ahem. Hold on, all of you. It seems Lady Eldora still has something to say."
In the end, the anti-enrollment faction could only stare at Eldora, like dogs that had just watched their chicken get away.
Come to think of it — why?
I was just starting to feel uneasy about why Eldora was taking their side when—
"I'm sorry. But I am still opposed."
That was not what I'd expected.
"Wh-wh-whuh—"
My mouth slammed shut. I needed time to process.
"What on earth is that supposed to mean?!"
Fortunately, Chul-soo bought me that time.
"We ask Eugene his opinion, and we honor his decision! Was that not what every person in this room agreed to before we even came here?!"
"...I have no excuse. But I am opposed."
"Lady Eldora!!"
Her stance was unshakable.
What the hell is her reason?
I wanted nothing more than to slowly recall the original and sort my thoughts, but—
"...Lady Eldora is opposed?"
The opposition was starting to boil over, so I had no choice but to speak again.
"What's the reason?"
And I went at it completely honestly.
"Zion failed to protect me, and I lost everything. But I didn't even have time to despair, so I chose to enroll again."
I played the part of the tragic student who'd lost a lifetime of accumulated aura and been reduced to F-Rank.
And then, for the finish:
"Don't tell me you think I've become trash, and you're trying to throw me out of Zion?"
A fabricated resentment, designed to needle her guilt.
"Don't be absurd!"
Only then did Eldora speak.
"The only reason we oppose your enrollment is because we don't want you to get hurt any further!!"
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You... don't have a shred of aura left."
I glanced at Chul-soo, wondering if she knew about the cult. He quietly shook his head.
Then what exactly is she saying is dangerous?
I was about to sink into thought when Eldora muttered, in a voice no one else could possibly have heard:
"Elling... that child, too..."
Hearing that, I finally understood. Right now, she was looking at me and seeing her own daughter.
Hold on. If I play this right...
I might be able to finish every last preparation I need to save the villainess Yuria.
Elling Florence.
Eldora's first child.
The days she had spent with Elling were still as vivid as if they had been yesterday.
"Mom! I'm going to be a great mage!"
She would wave a tiny stick around, chattering in a voice like a sparrow's. She had been so painfully precious. Even now, Eldora woke every morning to the sound of sparrows and whispered Elling's name.
Elling achieved her dream.
"They say I'm a real mage now."
She became a fine mage, and went to war against the Demon King.
"Don't go."
"It's for the world."
The moment their eyes met, Eldora understood. No matter how hard she tried to stop her, all she would do was become a hesitation on the battlefield — a weight around her child's ankles.
So Eldora let her world walk away.
"Be careful... come back carefully."
"Don't worry, Mom."
A few months later.
"Knock knock. I'm not too late, am I?"
"Elling!"
Elling came home in one piece. With just one catch.
"I'm not a mage anymore?"
She had lost every last drop of the 7th-circle mana she had spent a lifetime accumulating. But what did that matter?
"It's all right. You came back alive. That's enough."
"Right? That's what I think too."
Coming back alive was enough. Elling dreamed of becoming a professor, and Eldora stayed by her side and helped with everything she had. The morning they walked to work together after Elling became a professor, the tears would not stop. Eldora thought a lifetime's worth of happiness had come crashing down on her all at once.
She never should have thought that.
"...I have to go, Mom."
The letter Eldora handed Elling was a summons from the front lines.
"People have been captured, and they say I'm the only one left who knows the terrain."
"Why would you go there?! Why would they drag a child with no mana onto a battlefield?!"
Elling did not give her a reason.
"It's not mandatory, Mom."
She just said that, and smiled.
"Then don't go!"
"...I'm sorry, Mom."
"Elling! Please!!"
Elling left for the front lines anyway. What came back was a single letter.
Operation: Successful
Civilians Rescued: 162
Killed in Action: Elling Florence
Others: 0
In the end, she lost her world.
"Ah... ahhh...!!"
She collapsed and wept for a long, long time.
If she hadn't delivered the letter. If she'd stopped her from going to war. If from the very beginning—
...I had never let her dream of becoming a mage.
In a regret that only grew deeper the more she dwelt on it, Eldora realized one thing.
The moment you think it is too late — if you stop it even then, the worst will not come to pass.
That was why Eldora had stood in the way.
She hadn't been able to stop the Tyrant Vivian, and as a faculty member she was ashamed and had no face left to show. Because of that, Eugene had lost his aura, and once again she blamed her own incompetence. But she could not let Zion's brutal curriculum cost him his life as well.
"...I absolutely cannot allow him to enroll."
That was why she was blocking Eugene.
There was, however, one variable she hadn't accounted for.
That's what she's thinking, anyway.
Eugene had seen straight through every last one of her thoughts.
A brief silence settled.
Eugene opened his mouth with a bright, sunny smile.
"I hear the Rank Assessment Exam has been postponed a week. Before that exam, I'll form an F-Rank aura."
"...What?"
"You're worried because I have neither aura nor mana, aren't you? F-Rank is the minimum enrollment standard, so I'll at least achieve that."
Eldora doubted her own ears.
Achieving F-Rank aura. It might sound easy, but it was, in practice, nearly impossible.
They said his aura organ appeared to have been destroyed.
Nahan might have been a recovery mage famous throughout the Empire, but you couldn't make a shattered heart beat again — and you couldn't re-form aura that had vanished.
...It was the same with Elling.
She'd poured a fortune into research trying to restore the mana organ, and it had failed in the end.
No. This is actually an opportunity.
It would be easier for him to give up after tasting failure himself than after being talked out of it by someone else.
When all of this is our fault.
She only felt guilty, as if she were dumping everything onto Eugene.
But it's still better than him dying.
Eldora nodded at last.
"Very well."
"If I win, though, you'll grant me three things I want."
"Only three? I'll grant you anything, for the rest of my life, as far as my power reaches."
"Oh? That's a promise?"
"...Yes."
Ah...
To plant even a false hope. How cruel, to do this to a child who could barely even stand.
She was thinking that, chewing her lip, when—
"YEEHAW I'M SO EXCITED I'M GONNA LOSE MY MIND!"
Whoosh.
"...?"
Eugene shot up from his seat, grabbed a pen and paper, and strode over to Eldora.
"First I'll have her buy me a house... ah, or should I just ask for the house she lives in now? Hssss... I'd like there to be plenty to squeeze out of her. The second I get the signature, I'll go save Yuria..."
He muttered darkly to himself, scribbling away for a good while, then held the paper out to Eldora.
"Sign here."
Eldora Florence.
For the first time in her life.
"...What in the world is this."
She learned that a contract, by itself, could send a chill down her spine.