Did That Sound a Bit Strange?

The payout from this hidden lecture was noticeably smaller than the last one.

Then again, to be fair, the first lecture really had been much tougher! A shepherd flaying the skins off sheep just to stuff human corpses inside. A human troll drugging a monstrous troll to subjugate and exploit it. The thematic thread was similar, but the difficulty this time had been on the lighter side.

Suspicion toward humanity. Distrust had already been firmly planted during that very first lecture. It was only natural that uncovering a crime committed by someone you had suspected from the start was leagues easier than suspecting someone who seemed completely blameless.

Still, there’s a distinct difference in tone here.

If the accidents and incidents within the Academy stemmed purely from gameplay difficulty, Professor Destroyer's adventure chronicles were born from the rawest depths of human desire and malice. The Academy had its fair share of evil-aligned characters, but people quite that thoroughly depraved were genuinely rare.

Just what kind of adventures did Professor Destroyer even go through starting fifteen years ago in this playthrough?

A faint knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach. If I failed to graduate from the Academy with top-tier marks, it meant I would eventually be forced out into that savage, unforgiving world to survive on my own. Hearing just two of those adventure tales had already ground every pastoral fantasy of peaceful country living into fine dust. If I ever decided to retire to the countryside to take up farming, the baseline civil morality was so appalling that I would have to worry about local villagers ambushing an outsider and turning me into crop fertilizer.

And watching out for sketchy villagers was hardly the end of it. Some stray dark mage passing through on a whim could obliterate the entire village overnight.

If I wanted a comfortable life in this alternate world, I needed to hoard enough wealth, fame, and authority to weather the crushing cost of living in a major metropolis for the rest of my days, even after graduating from the Academy.

Which means I need to diligently grind Points.

The immediate fruit of that resolution was currently laid out across an unrolled cloth bundle inside the Headmaster's lecture hall: a vibrant spread of colored flags.

"Flags for sale!"

The Upper Class students could only smack their dry lips with gloomy expressions as they stared at the display.

"Holy crap. Just how many does she have?"

"She really is playing life on single-player ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mode."

"The reality check is hitting me so hard it hurts."

It was all well and good that they had gathered around to gawk, but couldn't someone actually buy one?

"Buy some flags!"

"Whoa. There was a purple flag too?"

"Buy some flags, please!"

"Ugh, I seriously want one."

"Flags for sale!"

"The accordion pork belly served at lunch today was amazing, wasn't it? Though charging ten Points per slice as an extra side was pure extortion."

Literally nobody was buying.

As tears welled up in my eyes from sheer sorrow, the students who had been casually chatting froze and panicked in a fluster.

"W-Wait, don't misunderstand! We're not trying to tease you!"

"Then why isn't anybody buying?"

"Because our Points have all been cleaned out!"

"Huh? Was the accordion pork belly really that delicious?"

"It was good, sure, but that's not where we spent it all. We already dumped our Points into buying flags!"

"None of the others have this many flags, though!"

"There is one guy who did."

Right on cue, a single figure strode into the lecture hall. His face shone so brightly that one could practically see golden rays beaming from his pores. It was Giselle, carrying a bundle that was completely, utterly empty.

"Lady Orknodi. You arrived somewhat late."

"Hmph. Uncle Giselle. Everyone says they're totally broke. Just how many flags did you sell to cause this?"

"A complete sellout. I stripped our inventory bare, right down to the very last counterfeit flag."

Had I known this would happen, I would have dumped all my remaining flags onto Uncle Giselle! Thanks to his aggressive sales pitch, our team's total flag count had bloated dramatically.

However, this had spawned an utterly absurd predicament. The sheer volume of fake flags Giselle had unleashed upon the market was staggering. Who knew how many he had peddled, but every Upper Class team now had an baseline count sitting comfortably in the thirties or forties.

"Our team has a hundred and twelve flags, nya!"

"Fufu. Never underestimate the boundless wealth of the maritime power Florence. For a team led by Arcadia, purchasing a hundred flags is child's play!"

"Do not dare underestimate the Imperial treasury! Our Fried Chicken faction has secured an astonishing one hundred and twenty-two flags!"

"Even a hundred and twelve is considered low, nya?!"

It was true. Across the board, flag counts had exploded. It was pure hyperinflation.

"How are you going to deal with the fallout after dumping that many onto the market?"

"I merely sold goods according to the exact probability rates disclosed in advance. Is there a problem?"

Watching Giselle smile with the warmth of a benign philanthropist served as a stark reminder that he was, at his core, an underground merchant. Over half the flags held by the other teams were fakes. The statistical probability of anyone assembling a batch containing purely genuine flags was virtually nonexistent.

"Excuse me, Orknodi. Did you say you were selling flags just now?"

"Oh? You buying?"

"If possible, I'd like to purchase three."

"Then at a hundred Points each, that'll be three hundred Poin—mph!"

"My, my. It seems Lady Orknodi made a slip of the tongue. One thousand Points per piece. A total of three thousand Points."

Giselle clamped a hand over my mouth, smoothly spouting an outrageous number in my stead. The student seeking to buy furrowed her brows in naked irritation.

"The one I'm negotiating with is Orknodi, not you, Giselle. Don't butt in uninvited and arbitrarily jack up the price."

"Miss Vanilla, the value of an item inevitably fluctuates depending on the circumstance. Furthermore, these are guaranteed authentic flags, entirely free from the whims of probability. It is only natural that their value commands a premium."

"Would you mind not addressing me so familiarly by my first name? I have zero obligation to listen to your lectures. And who are you to Orknodi anyway, meddling in her business?"

He's my comrade, of course!

Before I could shout out my answer, Giselle clamped his hand over my mouth a second time.

"Lady Orknodi remains a tender-hearted child. It is difficult to say she has fully grasped the harsh realities of commerce. As her humble advisor, I am merely aiding her in realizing a proper profit."

Even so, a thousand Points per flag was excessive. Giselle was hardly someone ignorant of the purchasing power of Points, so what on earth was he scheming?

"One thousand Points is highway robbery."

"Then regrettably, these flags shall remain without an owner."

"Ugh... Fine! I'll buy them! Three thousand Points it is, happy?!"

She was actually buying them?! The flags weren't worth anywhere near that much!

"Heh. I anticipated Lady Orknodi would show such a reaction." Giselle chuckled softly under his breath before turning back toward Vanilla. "Might I request a brief moment to speak with Lady Orknodi in private before we finalize the transaction?"

"Whatever it is, make ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it quick. Class is about to start any second, and there's no telling when the Headmaster will drop in."

Though she grumbled, Vanilla obediently stepped back to wait. Putting a small distance between us and her, Giselle lowered his voice into a quiet, deliberate murmur.

"Lady Orknodi, you mentioned earlier that the value of a flag was a hundred Points, correct?"

"Yep."

"That figure was likely derived from a meticulous assessment of the benefits the flags grant, balanced against their total available supply. In truth, the intrinsic value of a single flag is indeed close to a hundred Points."

"Exactly!"

"That is precisely the issue. For reasons known only to yourself, Lady Orknodi, you possess precise knowledge of their true worth and hold absolute conviction in it. The others, however, do not."

Only then did Giselle's intention click into place.

"Because everyone else doesn't know how expensive they really are, they'll buy them even if we hike the price into the stratosphere!"

Gather the flags. That was all the Headmaster had commanded. What reward would be granted for gathering the most, or how precious that reward might be? What penalty would fall upon those who gathered the fewest, or how catastrophic that penalty might prove? The students had been handed zero information on any of it.

Unlike the objective market value of a hundred Points per flag, the perceived value could morph infinitely based on each student's personal imagination and terror.

"Even taking that into account, isn't three thousand Points still way too absurd? Especially when Uncle Giselle was the one who threw everyone's flag counts into total chaos in the first place."

"Purchasing merely three flags sounds odd when no one knows who holds how many genuine articles. Yet Miss Vanilla surely possesses calculations of her own."

The team Vanilla belonged to was the Third Imperial Princess's team—widely dismissed as an irrelevant, outcast clique even within the Upper Class Imperial faction.

"You mean Yayoi's team?"

"...Are you addressing the Third Imperial Princess by her personal name?"

"What's the big deal? We're classmates in the Academy."

"Regardless of how powerless she may be among royalty, you possess remarkable audacity. At times, I truly envy your sheer nerve, Lady Orknodi."

"If you take the Adventurer's Nocturnal Operations course, your nerve might improve too. Want to sit in together?"

"Tempting, but I shall pass. I have already finalized all the lectures I desire to attend."

Unlike the Second Imperial Princess, Mesgaki, who dragged a loyal horde of sycophants in her wake, the Third Princess, Yayoi, had no followers, no friends, and no external backing factions. The students assigned to her team had only raised their hands reluctantly because they despised the idea of partnering with fringe provincials, not because they respected Yayoi's character or authority.

Of course, she was an official playable character who fell strictly under the 'Late Bloomer' archetype. She was a quintessential late-game asset—someone struggling hard in the early stages, but guaranteed to skyrocket in value like a prime blue-chip tech stock if you just diamond-handed her long enough.

Still, they're hardly a tight-knit team that would burn three thousand Points just to win a group assignment, right?

If three flags shifted hands from our team, the group that stood to gain wasn't Yayoi's team—it was Ishtar's team, the party led by the female Hero. If our team lost three flags, we dropped to sixty. If the Hero's team gained three flags, they rose to sixty-one. It would completely ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flip the rankings between us.

Wait...?

That math only held up under the assumption that none of the flags involved were counterfeits. Was it even possible for another team to amass that kind of tally without buying fake flags like we had?

"Orknodi! Make up your mind already, will you? Are you selling or not? I already said I'd give you three thousand Points! Let me warn you, I'm not paying a single copper more even if you try to raise the price again!"

"I'm sorry. I've decided not to sell the flags."

"Why?! Even when I'm offering three thousand whole Points?!"

"You offered three thousand Points because you desperately needed guaranteed, authentic flags, right? Because any team besides mine might have bought counterfeits, meaning their tallies are inflated with fake numbers."

"If you already know that, then hurry up and sell them to me!"

"Except, Vanilla, you aren't buying these flags to use for your own team. You're buying them to hand over to the Hero, aren't you? All to win her favor."

"...!"

"I have no intention of feeding flags to the runner-up team."

Vanilla gasped so violently she broke into hiccups, staring at me in sheer shock.

"H-H-How... How on earth did you know I was going to give the flags to the Hero?!"

"Because every single lecture you registered for is an exact carbon copy of the Hero's schedule."

Every student in the 981st Upper Class was fundamentally a playable character. Each character had their own explicit objective within the Academy. Among them, Vanilla's personal quest line was to surpass Saintess Yupi—who clung to the Hero like an inseparable shadow—and become Ishtar's supreme, undisputed best ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠friend.

What kind of character she was. What thoughts drove her. What behavioral algorithms dictated her movements. If I cared to recall them, I could pull up every single parameter at will.

"...Lady Orknodi, however did you come to know that Miss Vanilla's course enrollment mirrors the Hero's in its entirety?"

"Mmm... It's a secret!"

A mixture of profound awe and deepening suspicion flickered across Giselle's narrowed eyes, while Vanilla's gaze darkened with raw terror and wary paranoia.

Wait... Did what I just said sound a bit weird to NPCs...?