5. Send Her Back Before She Becomes the Heroine
5. Send Her Back Before She Becomes the Heroine
A small side room off the main hall used for the entrance ceremony.
In a space barely large enough for two people and a single table, I sat across from Rus.
"Student Rus Spero, we saw each other at the entrance exam, and here we are again."
"......Yeah."
"It'll take a while for the ceremony to resume, anyway. Shouldn't be long—no need to be so tense."
".........Right."
Unlike me, wearing an easy smile, Rus looked distinctly uncomfortable.
A perfectly natural reaction to being stuck in a room with one of the academy's big shots. But still.
What I saw was Rus...... fidgeting. Just a little.
Not quite the same thing as simple nerves.
I set the observation aside for the moment and pulled out the paperwork I'd brought instead.
"In any case. You know why I'm here."
"......I do."
At my words, Rus shuddered faintly.
Then, as if coming to a decision, he drew a slow breath and lifted his head to meet my eyes.
What's with the sudden intensity?
"If this is about the restrictions—I remember them. Even so, I used my sword aura intentionally. It was because you and I——"
"I'm sorry—what?"
"......This isn't about me using my sword aura just now?"
"No? That would be a matter for the head of the Student Affairs Department—some gentleman who lives on overtime and permanent dark circles. As I'm sure you're aware, I'm the Finance Director."
"Wh— ...Huh?"
"The reasons and circumstances behind your use of sword aura can be explained in detail to the Student Affairs people when they come looking for you later. What brings me here is this."
The text on the document I produced was simple enough.
A tuition invoice.
"......Oh."
"At the exam site, you offered to pay five times the standard tuition. Do you recall me telling you I would personally prepare the paperwork?"
"Yes......."
"I've been swamped with the entrance ceremony these past few days, but the timing finally lined up, so here I am."
From a regulatory standpoint, offering to pay five times the tuition doesn't mean I can literally charge exactly five times the original amount. If we could do that, there'd be no point in ever setting a fixed tuition rate.
We can't exactly let every noble or merchant who wants to foist their child on us pay several times the fee and call it a day.
So why did I still accept the protagonist's five-times wager?
'Not only was there no reason to bar her from enrolling.......'
It was because I needed a situation—exactly like the one right now—where I could personally meddle with the tuition invoice.
"Here. This is the newly prepared breakdown of your tuition charges."
"......Something's been added."
"A bit of creative accounting."
If you can't simply take five times the tuition, what do you do? The answer is straightforward. You invent charges that weren't there before.
A donation to the academy. An academic operations support contribution (optional). A stationery proxy-purchasing fee. An extension-of-curfew fee. And so on, and so forth.
Line items that other students can technically select and pay alongside their tuition—but which no one in their right mind would actually opt into.
I applied them all. Every single one I could dig up, all the way down to the oldest regulatory handbooks. I put in a fair bit of effort.
And the total that emerged?
"Somewhere between five and six times the standard rate."
".........Mm."
"Would paying more than five times be a problem?"
"Ah—no. That's fine."
"Then no issues at all!"
That's a lie.
The explicitly stated amount is, yes, somewhere between five and six times the standard tuition. But you have to read a contract carefully.
The fine print clustered in tiny letters below the invoice—citations of kingdom law pertaining to tuition, other sundry provisions—
I slipped a few extra lines in there.
Because Rus—the protagonist—had already shown me how much trouble he was going to be.
'This kid's already responsible for two smashed walls.'
And not just any walls—one entire side of a fairly large building, completely obliterated.
Just thinking about the repair costs makes my chest constrict and my hands shake reflexively toward a cigarette. You know, when I saw this kid again earlier, my fists nearly launched themselves on pure reflex?
So I built in a safety net. Something that covers us even if the protagonist wrecks another wall.
"The pen is here. Just read through it at your leisure and sign."
"............."
Obviously, it's not a clause that simply charges her damages every time she breaks academy property.
My safety net only applies if the restrictions are violated and property—walls, facilities—is destroyed.
If I demanded compensation for every single incident, that would be an unfair contract. And frankly, watching the protagonist, I'd love to write an unfair contract—but things like this will come back to bite you and turn into an exhausting headache.
So I tied it strictly to a breach of the restrictions. That was the crucial part.
Even a 6th Rank swordswoman can't easily blow away an entire building wall or major facility without sword aura.
'The worst that could happen is a few cracks, right?'
That's manageable. We can just tack the repairs onto the training grounds' constant maintenance—no real problem.
Besides, the restrictions he agreed to with the academy are binding conditions the protagonist has to observe for all three years. Adding compensation provisions on top of that was perfectly sound.
Like writing a clause that says "Do not drink and drive"—and then still adding, "Should you drink and drive and crash into a wall, you owe damages." No issue at all.
I already thought it was necessary the moment the protagonist stopped being Dark Kingdom's bottom-tier entrant and turned into a 6th Rank monster. But when I tallied up everything he'd broken today, it became essential.
In the end, I accepted the five-times tuition offer precisely in order to tack on this provision.
But now.
'...Maybe I should've just gone for ten times.'
I genuinely regretted it, but I'd already made a promise.
So I waited for the protagonist to sign.
And waited.
"............."
Damn.
She's actually reading the invoice in detail. I told her to take her time, but isn't it normal for people your age to skim and skip?
Wait—she's not actually reading the kingdom-law citations and sundry provisions line by line, is she? There's even more densely packed text on the back?
'What if she spots it?'
Even if she does, it's not like it's a...... problem. She's going to keep the restrictions anyway, so what's the issue? You aren't planning to break the restrictions and smash walls like you did today, are you? I can just say that, and it'll be a perfect response.
So why is a bead of cold sweat tracing down my spine?
Rus, who'd been working through the invoice with the air of someone thoroughly accustomed to scrutinizing contracts, came to a halt.
".........!"
'He spotted it.'
Her gaze stopped precisely on the section where I'd embedded the safety net.
"............."
She seemed to ponder it for a moment.
Then—a soft scratch of the pen.
"Here. Signed."
"......Allow me to officially congratulate you on your admission to Grandis Academy."
"Thank you."
What? She clearly noticed the safety net—so why ignore it and move on without a word?
Was it just because she has no intention of breaking the restrictions from now on? Because of what happened earlier today?
'The exact wording of the safety net being.......'
—Clause 13, Section 6. In the event that Rus Spero (hereinafter "Party B") violates the restrictions agreed upon with the academy, should said violation result in property damage or facility destruction suffered by the academy, Party B shall compensate for the damages incurred. Provided, however, that in consideration of Party B's status as a student, Finance Director Adam Caines shall interview Party B each time such an incident occurs, and may, at his discretion, waive this clause should mitigating circumstances be found.
That's exactly as I wrote it. As I remember it.
Not only the compensation safety net, but also the interview provision—a back door for me to meddle later in the events the original game's plot would throw at the protagonist.
I'd half-worried she might have used some method I couldn't detect—she's 6th Rank, after all—to alter or distort the safety net. But the document looked completely undisturbed.
I'd still need to show it to the Chairwoman later and verify everything was clean, but for now—
"I look forward...... to working with you."
"Hm?"
"In many ways. For all three years."
That was the first time I saw Rus openly show any emotion.
A faint, almost sticky smile around the eyes—the kind you'd miss if you weren't watching closely. And at the same time, his gaze was oddly sunken, weighted.
I almost flinched——
No, what am I doing.
"Yeah."
"................"
"I look forward to working with you. Sincerely. Please."
Because honestly, the cost of the next broken wall scares me way more than some original-game protagonist who derailed the plot by showing up as a 6th Rank monster.
I doubt Rus felt anything from it, but I put real strength into my grip and shook his hand while praying with every fiber of my being.
Please, for the love of everything, stop breaking things.
If you're going to break something, break the restrictions first. I mean it.
You want to graduate before the academy goes bankrupt too, right?
Just as I was about to leave the room after that heartfelt handshake.
"......Be careful of Risha Claudia."
"Hm?"
"Even if she herself is a good person......."
"When she's holding a 'weapon,' she can become someone else entirely."
*
A few days passed after the uproarious entrance ceremony.
The illusory manticore's attack kept the new students and the distinguished guests buzzing long after the ceremony ended. The only difference was the flavor: among the students, it was all tales of derring-do; among the guests, it was all talk of investment and future prospects.
And the faculty and staff, who'd been briefed in advance but still found the illusion's scale beyond anything they'd imagined, were simply soaking in the post-ceremony energy.
This is one of the good parts of working at an academy. Unlike a normal workplace where you drown in the same tasks and see the same faces every day, every year brings a fresh wave of young blood.
Watching the new chicks chirp and bustle about, or sparring with one another, makes you feel like all the work you've done actually meant something. Like—because of me, young students can laugh and enjoy themselves like that. It's genuinely satisfying.
The reason Grandis Academy's staff turnover isn't particularly high...... well, that's obviously because the salary is several times the industry standard and the benefits are absurdly generous. But still—it does help with the mental fatigue. Allegedly.
Ah. Of course.
That had nothing to do with my world.
"Here is the total expenditure for the entrance ceremony and the illusion magic event."
"......I was braced for it, but the immediate outlay really is something."
"We did sell information around the event and obtained certain additional incentives and revenue, but not nearly enough to cover the costs of the illusion magic event itself. Still, I hear the Illusion Magic Department has managed to secure a substantial investment this time around."
"Ahem, I put in some work there."
"The problem is that it takes time for the actual funds to arrive. Given the scale of the investment, the shortest realistic timeline before the money is physically transferred would be next month. Using forty percent of that to plug the ceremony's costs means waiting at least two more months past that."
"Ngh......."
Two months. Judging by the one month needed for the principal investment to land, that means we'd clear the ceremony's total costs in just one month. Considering the entrance ceremony is the single most expensive event Grandis Academy holds, that's an enormous sum. Terrifying, honestly—that forty percent alone does this much.
But what had the Chairwoman and me worried wasn't whether the Illusion Magic Department's investment influx would continue at its current pace.
Investments aren't a monthly salary anyway, and once word spread that the heavy-hitter guests had put money in, investments would only increase, not drop. That wasn't the issue.
The issue was the gap until that money arrived.
That exact one-month void.
"And this—these are the expenses we anticipate will be necessary over the next month."
"......It's razor-thin."
"That is the problem."
Grandis Academy goes bankrupt in three years. That is the immutable proposition governing our current reality.
But there's a common misunderstanding. People hear "three years" and assume it means we're fine until then—that there's no operational danger before that deadline.
Obviously not.
'The three years was calculated on skin-of-our-teeth allocations of monthly fixed costs and reserves.'
Say this month's required operating expenses are one million won. An academy, an organization, doesn't prepare exactly one million won.
You can't predict how the world will turn, so you keep a certain buffer on top of the fixed costs. Or else your fundamental capital reserves are just so flush that it doesn't matter.
Grandis Academy used to be the latter. The Chairwoman's personal fortune was so vast that whenever we came up short, she'd just reach into her pocket.
The problem is we can't do that anymore.
And on top of that—a whole swarm of wild cards just enrolled.
"There are four subjects of particular concern."
"Among this year's new students?"
"Two in Martial Arts, two in Magic."
Thankfully, the Administration track was still boring and functional.
The other two—those were the problem.
"Rus Spero, 6th Rank swordsman. Violated his restrictions during the ceremony and deployed sword aura, resulting in the complete destruction of one side wall of the main hall. As the hall had to be restored immediately, we paid several times the standard rate for emergency repairs. He's been quiet since the ceremony, but in pure damage costs, he's our biggest exposure."
"Kaern Deste, youngest knight ever appointed. Possesses a strong sense of justice, but also a fierce competitive drive toward Rus Spero; his training intensity is so extreme that he alone has gone through over twenty practice swords."
"Amatrius Delphia Beatrice, Fourth Princess of the Delphia Kingdom. Her raw talent is assessed as Archmage-class, but she cannot control her own magic and has already blown up several lecture halls and other rooms."
"Chloe Pisti, disciple of the Magic Tower Lord and a rising prodigy. Aside from a personality of staggering arrogance, she is not otherwise a problem—except she is on such catastrophically bad terms with Princess Beatrice that she provokes her every time they meet. Beatrice, predictably, rises to the bait, and the result is two lecture halls already completely destroyed."
Are you four the Financial Destruction Four Heavenly Kings or something? Each and every one of you is pissing me off.
In Dark Kingdom, there were plenty of descriptions of academy buildings getting demolished on a daily basis. Just natural, they said—when you pack a bunch of hot-blooded students together. In fact, when I was playing the game myself, I'd feel a genuine thrum of catharsis smashing buildings to rubble.
But now that I'm the one who has to repair the wreckage and foot the bill, it's absolutely infuriating.
And even more so when I remember that a full twenty percent—twenty percent!—of Grandis Academy's entire annual budget goes to that godforsaken repair bill every single year!
'Every web novel I ever read—academies are always getting smashed up or terrorized on a daily basis.'
Is this just an academy's fate? But why does it have to be happening while I'm Finance Director?
Objectively speaking, every Finance Director before me was the Chairwoman herself, and buildings got wrecked constantly back then too. It isn't just happening on my watch.
That's the objective take, anyway. Right now I was just an ordinary working stiff cursing reality, same as everyone else, so it didn't much matter.
'If Professor Kirke hadn't pulled that stunt.'
I mean, in any sane world, does it make sense to take research funded by our money and donate the entire thing to the Church? If I'd caught wind of it ahead of time, I would've stopped her. But she went and wrote up the rights transfer certificate at the Church literally the same day the development succeeded—there was nothing to stop. And since the other party was the Church, we couldn't even push back hard.
Maybe she's holding off on a public announcement because she has some grasp of what it would do to her image inside the academy? Would be worse if she knew and did it anyway. In any case, I'd already booked an appointment regarding the hair-loss medicine research, and I was going to wring her out when the time came.
Students rampaging through buildings. Professors cheerfully gifting away their research or hounding me for more funding. Staff who actively despise me. And come to think of it, even the Chairwoman herself, who blew the single biggest chunk of money on a futures trade.
As I heaved a bottomless sigh, the Chairwoman—her expression having grown grave while she looked over my summary of the Four Heavenly Kings—spoke.
"So what you're saying is—you can't predict what these students will do in the one month before the investment funds arrive."
"Correct."
Do you know what the single most infuriating reason for a company's bankruptcy is? Money's on its way—incontrovertibly, imminently—but you run out of cash right now and go under.
The current academy was exactly that. Last year's repair costs were still somewhat manageable. But the Four Heavenly Kings? In less than a week since the ceremony, they've already gone through twenty training swords, one hall wall, five lecture rooms, and two research laboratories.
Compared to the repair costs this time last year, we've already more than doubled them. With those new repairs tacked onto the existing damage bill, our financial statements are practically screaming that they're dying.
......If this trend continued for a full month.
The academy wouldn't last a year, let alone three. And that's without even accounting for the possibility they might accelerate their demolition campaign.
To put it simply: the plan was to spend one million won a month for three years.
But if the monthly expenditure jumps to two million thanks to "variables," then the runway left is cut in half.
'You're supposed to be called the Golden Generation. So why are you doing this to me.'
This isn't the Golden Generation. It's the Demon Generation. Demonic brats who slurp up every scrap of bribe money and outside budget I manage to scrape together.
Which is why extraordinary measures are required.
Hence the grim expression I was wearing as I faced the Chairwoman.
"Each subject of concern requires countermeasures, but the most urgent is...... this student."
"......Princess Beatrice."
"I've already briefed you on the Fourth Princess Beatrice. Do you recall?"
"Indeed—we received a certain incentive in exchange for helping her return to the Delphia Kingdom."
"Exactly. She wants it desperately. Shouldn't we oblige her?"
Because if we don't, tomorrow she's going to blow up another lecture hall or lab. We have to send her back as fast as humanly possible.
Ah, the Building Destroyer. Never disappoints. Please—disappoint me. Just once.
"Conveniently, the month we promised her is nearly up. Let's send her back now."
Go, Beatrice.
For the love of everything, just go!