3. This Is a Bribe, Defeat the Finance Director
3. This Is a Bribe, Defeat the Finance Director
In Dark Kingdom, you could recruit several companions.
The academy arc had a little bit of everything: leveling the protagonist, beating enemies, farming gear, that sort of thing.
But the most important part was recruiting your party.
'There weren't many of them, and every last one had issues.'
Among the possible recruits was a princess of the Delphia Kingdom—a prodigy who ranked second in the magic department.
She showed up as one of the mid-bosses, which meant you had to slog through a whole event first before you could recruit her. Then her actual performance turned out to be so underwhelming that most players just dropped her.
Still, she was beautiful and stacked, so the community churned out an ocean of fan works.
I remember her vividly because I once went to a strategy board looking for a guide and came away having seen nothing but Beatrice fan art.
And now that very Beatrice was alive and breathing in front of me.
Face-to-face with a game heroine...
'What a pain.'
I honestly didn't feel much else.
Sure, she was pretty, but looking at the Chairwoman every day had rather raised my threshold for that sort of thing. Did I sympathize with her backstory, though?
A princess of a neighboring kingdom? Her hostage situation? The incompetent who couldn't control her own magic?
She looked a whole lot happier than the Finance Director of an academy three years from bankruptcy, didn't she? And a hell of a lot more comfortable than me, pulling all-nighters for days on end over paperwork. So what if she was a half-wit—wasn't that still a step up from being a talentless 1st Rank nobody?
People normally sympathize with and root for characters with tragic backstories. But my reality was more tragic, so I felt nothing. No pity, nothing.
While this hostage princess was resting comfortably in her dorm and only suffering mentally, I was suffering both physically and mentally. The more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off.
'Calm down. Calm down.'
Maybe it was the aftereffects of that Chairwoman's futures trade last week that had me working around the clock for over five days. Even after I'd gotten some decent rest, I still caught myself suddenly snapping and seething every so often.
At least I kept it to myself. I should only let things slip in front of the Chairwoman.
I took a breath to steady myself, and Beatrice, seated across from me, smiled and offered tea.
"You look tired. Have some, Finance Director."
"Thank you."
I lifted the cup the maid standing behind the princess had brought me and took a sip.
The warm tea going down my throat settled me a little, maybe.
I had the odd sense the maid was watching me, but that was to be expected—she was guarding the princess.
"Excellent tea. I appreciate the thoughtfulness."
"...It was only natural. Adam Caines, Finance Director—I very much wanted to meet you."
"I don't know why, but Your Highness is greatly overestimating me. There was no need to disguise yourself to seek me out. Had you summoned me, I would have come running at once."
"Even as empty words, I'm grateful."
If she'd actually called for me, I wouldn't have gone. It was purely a polite platitude, and Beatrice knew it, which was why she merely smiled wryly and let it pass.
Meeting a building-wrecker who could later deal a heavy blow to the academy's finances was necessary, but her status complicated matters.
Amatrius Delphia Beatrice.
She was an outright princess of a kingdom. Small though the Delphia Kingdom might be, as royalty even the Chairwoman was expected to treat her with respect.
Plenty of nobles from other kingdoms and the empire came to study at Grandis Academy, so studying abroad wasn't an issue in itself. But for a member of a royal family to do so was exceedingly rare—almost unheard of.
And that made sense. She hadn't come to study abroad; she'd come as a hostage.
Since the official pretext was study abroad, of course, there was nothing wrong with ordinary students or professors speaking with Beatrice.
But my meeting with Beatrice gave rise to complications. Not of a political nature.
I was Grandis Academy's Finance Director, and above that,
I was the Chairwoman's closest confidant.
"How fares the Chairwoman?"
"Very well. She is always so immersed in academy affairs that I worry."
"...I see."
The reason Beatrice was sent as a hostage? I understood it was due to a border dispute. The Delphia Kingdom, outmatched in raw power, had resolved it by handing Beatrice over.
To save face, the Delphia Kingdom merely announced it outwardly as studying abroad.
So how must Beatrice have felt, an unwilling hostage?
She couldn't take a single step outside Grandis Academy. She had no idea when this hostage arrangement disguised as study abroad would end, and there was even a chance she'd be detained indefinitely after graduating three years later.
In Dark Kingdom, Beatrice came up with a certain plan.
Negotiating with the Chairwoman.
'Right now, nobody's watching Beatrice yet.'
She couldn't leave the academy anyway, and honestly, she wasn't an important enough hostage to warrant constant surveillance—she was the fourth princess, far down the succession line in the Delphia Kingdom.
Moreover, planting watchers inside the academy could needlessly provoke the Chairwoman's ire. So the kingdom simply left Beatrice neglected within the academy grounds.
A responsible official visited her once every three days to receive a report on her wellbeing, and that was it.
But even that wouldn't last long.
"I've been at Grandis Academy less than a day, but I can already see how deeply the Chairwoman loves this place. It's astonishing that a mere academy could rival a small town."
"I share that sentiment."
"What sort of person is the Chairwoman? Finance Director, could you tell me a little about her?"
"My apologies, but I've only been her close aide for two years..."
"Even so, I'd like to hear. Please."
"As a subordinate, I'm not comfortable speaking about my superior behind her back. Forgive my rudeness."
During the first year of the academy arc, Beatrice would top the magic department and meet the Chairwoman at the year-end commendation. Princess or not, that was the only time a student could have a private audience with the Chairwoman.
There, she would secretly make an offer.
'If you return me to the Delphia Kingdom,'
—she would arrange for Grandis Academy to establish a branch campus in the Delphia Kingdom.
It was a gambit that exploited the Chairwoman's attachment to the academy and her altruistic desire to spread educational opportunities as widely as possible.
Never mind how a fourth princess could actually make that happen; it was undoubtedly an appealing proposal to the Chairwoman.
But the Chairwoman would refuse, for reasons unknown, and once the kingdom learned of it, they would later ask for the Chairwoman's understanding and place Beatrice under watch.
At the time, the game played that refusal as something significant, as if hinting at something deeper...
'The main campus is about to go bankrupt, and she's talking about a branch campus?'
Beatrice's mistake was failing to grasp Grandis Academy's catastrophic financial state. And it was natural that she didn't know.
To cut a long story short, the purpose of Beatrice—still unsupervised—seeking me out directly now was obvious.
To meet the Chairwoman.
"I've heard the Chairwoman wishes to extend the opportunity to learn to as many students as possible. She is truly a remarkable person."
"I think so as well. She's someone who always draws grand ideals."
"As a student who came here to study, I would almost like to express my gratitude to her."
"Rest assured. The Chairwoman would only wish for Your Highness to study diligently here at Grandis Academy."
"...Hm."
Originally, by hiding her true intentions and focusing on her studies, she could have taken first place in the magic department during the first year and met the Chairwoman that way.
Unlike in the game, however, I was here now—a closest aide whom the Chairwoman inexplicably favored, someone who hadn't originally existed.
From Beatrice's perspective, the sooner she met the Chairwoman, the better, so she had probably contacted me the moment the entrance exam ended.
......
......
An awkward silence stretched on.
She'd been mentioning the Chairwoman constantly, trying to steer the conversation that way, but I'd been cutting off any talk about the Chairwoman like a knife.
Just as I'd figured out Beatrice's objective, Beatrice had no doubt figured out my thoughts.
I had no intention of letting Beatrice meet the Chairwoman.
More precisely, I opposed having them meet right now.
'Let's leave things as they are for now.'
That didn't mean I was going to leave this building-wrecker alone, however. As in the game, I'd have to find a way to treat her chronic condition—her inability to control her own magic.
Originally, the protagonist would 'save' her and recruit Beatrice as a companion, but who gave a damn? The repair costs for the buildings she'd destroy until then didn't materialize out of thin air.
The treatment from the game was rather extreme, so for now I'd deliberately refuse and let her stew. Until she grew desperate enough to follow my lead.
And once I cured her condition then...
"Adam Caines, Finance Director."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"I understand your position well, Finance Director. You are indeed the Chairwoman's loyal retainer."
"I will take that as a compliment."
"It seems I cannot persuade you with words. In that case... I shall have to use another method."
"Pardon?"
Huh?
Another method?
"Susanne, bring it."
"Yes, Your Highness."
The maid called Susanne, who had been standing behind Beatrice, took a small box from a nearby display cabinet.
Why a box all of a sudden—
A soft click.
"...This is."
"From ancient times, the way to persuade a loyal retainer has been neither principle nor logic... but pragmatism."
Inside the small box were jewels and gold of every description.
Different from the imperial gold coins circulating on the continent—smaller in size, but far greater in value.
Items frequently employed as bribes across many lands.
As I stood there speechless, Beatrice, looking perfectly composed, continued.
"Of course, you must have received plenty of such things, Finance Director. This is merely an advance payment—a gesture of goodwill."
......
Right. She was a foreigner, after all.
People from our kingdom knew that the Chairwoman utterly detested bribes, but how much could a princess from a completely different country—the Delphia Kingdom—know about the Chairwoman and the academy?
In the game, she would gauge the Chairwoman's temperament and attempt a deal, but only after a year of study at the academy, once she'd gathered considerable information.
Now, she had been abruptly designated a hostage and sent to a neighboring country's academy under the pretext of studying abroad. And she'd been at the academy for less than a day.
It would be strange if she already knew the Chairwoman well.
'She had the basics, so she asked me to act as her intermediary...'
At most, she probably only knew the Chairwoman as an 8th Rank powerhouse even her kingdom had to tread lightly around—and a generous figure who had poured her entire fortune into founding an academy.
No, truly, that was all the public knew. After founding the academy, she had remained there almost exclusively and engaged in little outside activity.
So, ignorant of the Chairwoman and the academy, this present version of Beatrice was resorting to bribery.
"You called it an advance payment."
"You know my objective, no doubt. I wish to have a private audience with the Chairwoman."
"As a student, or as a princess?"
"As expected, you deserve your post as Finance Director despite your youth. To shut that mouth and make it nod—how many more such boxes would it take?"
From Princess Beatrice's perspective, this was probably standard procedure. Bribery was blocked only here at the academy; in our kingdom and the Delphia Kingdom alike, it was routine.
She was acting on common sense.
But of all places, Beatrice had come to Grandis Academy.
And of all people, the one she tried to bribe was me—that was the problem.
"Hmm, well..."
"Unfortunately, as a student studying abroad, I could not bring much with me. But I believe it is sufficient to persuade you. Am I being arrogant?"
"Not at all."
A bribe, huh.
That's good. Very good.
After a moment's contemplation, I shifted my expression and met Beatrice with a bright smile.
"However, you cannot meet the Chairwoman immediately."
"I know that. How long will it take?"
"I think about a month should suffice."
"Is that so?"
A month. That was rather a long time just to arrange a meeting with one person.
But Beatrice seemed to think it was acceptable as long as she could eventually meet the Chairwoman.
Well, compared to her original plan of spending an entire year solely on her studies, a month was nothing.
I took the box Beatrice offered and rose from my seat, wearing a bright smile.
"It has been a most productive meeting, Your Highness."
"And I am pleased to have met such a capable Finance Director."
Since she'd called it an advance payment, I'd be meeting Beatrice in secret a few more times to receive further bribes, and in return I'd have to report on how things were progressing.
Of course, there was no problem. I could simply fabricate the Chairwoman's circumstances.
I could have arranged a meeting for today if I'd wanted to, but I deliberately said a month.
'I'll accept every bribe Beatrice gives me.'
I'd squeeze out as much as possible, use the bribes to shore up our finances, and at the same time...
'In a month, when that incident occurs, I'll use the chaos to send her straight back home.'
Mid-boss? Cure her chronic condition? Save her? The protagonist's companion?
Fuck all of that.
I'll just send her packing before she becomes a heroine.
That was the best choice for me.