5. Send Her Back Before She Becomes the Heroine
5. Send Her Back Before She Becomes the Heroine
How many days had it been since I last set foot in my own room?
Lately, the repair requests, budget approvals, entrance-ceremony fallout, and the Illusion Magic Department investment had kept me buried so deep that I'd eaten and slept in my office while still working.
Technically, I hadn't clocked out—but stepping back into my room still lifted my spirits in an odd way. Almost enough to convince me I'd actually gotten off work.
Savoring that peculiar sensation, I shifted the stacked files and books aside, dug the tea leaves out of a corner, and brewed a rough cup. I couldn't vouch for the taste, but it beat drinking nothing.
While the tea was steeping—
'Oh?'
I spotted a single cigarette lying on the floor. Luck. I'd already smoked through everything I'd had, so calling it "just one" was an understatement. Still, having one more to smoke was no small thing.
Slipping it into my front pocket left me inexplicably cheerful. I brought the tea to the table and sat down... but.
What are you doing here?
"Are you interested in those books?"
"Finance Director, these books and papers......?"
"They're for studying."
"Studying?"
"As Your Highness is no doubt aware, I... occupy the post of Finance Director without much experience or seniority. This is the minimum effort required to keep the position."
Let's be honest—this is a parachute appointment. It isn't for nothing that the academy staff talk behind my back.
To squash that gossip, and above all to perform the Finance Director's duties properly, studying was a necessity.
I didn't have a status window or any of those otherworldly perks. The ability to suddenly manage an academy on this scale wasn't going to sprout on its own.
"I'd heard you became Finance Director right after graduating from the academy...."
"The year I first became Finance Director was absolute chaos. The work itself made no sense to me, so I'd finish whatever I could and then come back and study nonstop."
There was no way a former exam-candidate like me could simply walk into a massive academy's Finance Director seat. So in the beginning, I leaned heavily on the Chairwoman.
Even though the Chairwoman was woefully deficient in economic sense and management ability, she'd been handling the finances all along, so she knew how to write financial statements and draft budgets. The problem was that she possessed the knowledge but her actual application of it was abysmal.
It remains a mystery how someone with such disastrous management skills became wealthy enough to single-handedly found an academy and cover nearly all its finances out of her own fortune—but regardless.
"Then you've studied all of these books? In only one year?"
"If you cut down on sleep, it's doable. I'm used to it by now; I can get by on four hours a day."
".........."
If I'd tried to learn finance from another faculty member while holding the Finance Director title, impeachment talk would have erupted immediately. So I had to self-study, and it was grueling.
Every day I poured roughly twelve hours into the Finance Director's work, then after leaving the office I'd spend another ten hours reading management books and the administration professors' papers.
Because of that, I could only sleep two hours a day, but the ki the Chairwoman shared with me and that bed artifact let me somehow endure. Thanks to that, I grew surprisingly proficient in just one year—so in the end, it was the right choice.
Beatrice, momentarily at a loss for words, scanned the books and papers that crammed my room, then pulled out a volume. Basics of Accounting.
Flutter.
".........You've worked incredibly hard."
"It's the same work anyone would put in."
She opened the book at random—it was so thick she had trouble holding it—and my study marks showed everywhere.
The explanations and notes I'd written to understand the material, problem-solving methods, error logs, even the practice problems I'd made for myself and solved.
Ah, it's only been a year, but it feels nostalgic.
"Surely you aren't still doing this?"
"You're asking a strange question. Of course I am."
Just a few days ago I'd been working through a paper by a management professor. I still struggle with the papers, but compared to the days when I agonized over just Basics of Accounting, things have certainly changed.
Anyway, enough small talk.
"We're short on time. Shouldn't we get to the point?"
"......Very well."
Beatrice, who'd been staring at the Basics of Accounting crammed with my annotations, set the book down and sat across from me. Was she interested in accounting?
I placed a teacup in front of her and urged her on.
"I'm listening."
"Alright. Ha... The reason I wanted to meet with the Chairwoman was──"
And what Beatrice told me was exactly the story I'd seen in the game.
She'd wanted to meet the Chairwoman in order to return to her home country. That was why she'd bribed me. In exchange, she could offer to establish a Grandis Academy branch in the Delphia Kingdom, and so on.
I acted as if I'd never heard any of it, then asked what I truly wanted to know.
"But why are you in such a hurry to return to the Delphia Kingdom? If I may speak candidly... you are the Fourth Princess, so I doubt it's about succession."
"This is the first time anyone's said that to my face. It's rude, but you're right. I simply... have someone I need to see."
"Who?"
"......My nurse, who raised me like a mother, is bedridden with an illness. She received a terminal prognosis some time ago, and she could close her eyes at any moment. That is why I am trying to return as quickly as possible."
"I was being far too insensitive. My apologies."
"No, it's fine."
I hadn't known that. The academy portion I'd played didn't develop the companions' stories very far, so this kind of backstory never came up.
Now that I think about it, that protagonist had said something similar.
──Be careful of Risha Claudia.
──Even if she herself is a good person, she may be different when she's armed.
"Armed" likely meant the Magic Spear. I'd seen it when I visited the royal-exclusive dormitory to receive her bribe.
Just as I hadn't known Beatrice's circumstances, I knew absolutely nothing about Risha's personal story. I probably would've seen it by continuing into Part 2 after the academy arc. Damn.
So what exactly was that protagonist, who'd known that and left me a warning?
Did he simply know her personally, or......
"Finance Director? Do you have further questions?"
"Ah, my apologies. I was lost in thought. Then, may I ask one more?"
"As many as you like."
"Why did you accept the duel with Chloe Pisti?"
"............."
"You said you had to 'get it back.' I presume you're referring to something demanded of you after the duel with Student Chloe, correct?"
"......You're sharp."
In Dark Kingdom's academy arc, the bad blood between Beatrice and Chloe was frequently noted. For example, recruiting one as a companion would preclude the other.
But the reason was never explained in detail. The only description we had was that Chloe nursed some sort of grudge against Beatrice.
Would it have killed them to possess me in the game after I'd at least cleared it? In web novels, only veterans get sucked in—why am I the exception?
Anyway, if Beatrice, who'd been planning to return home, had accepted the duel, there had to be a reason.
And it was probably—
"Did Student Chloe have something you wanted?"
"To be precise, it wasn't a 'thing,' but a 'right.'"
"Excuse me?"
"You know that Chloe Pisti is the sole disciple of the Archmage, the one and only Tower Master of the Empire?"
"Naturally."
The Empire's Magic Tower comes to consecrate important buildings like the auditorium and the entrance-exam hall with magic. Thanks to that, even though the auditorium walls collapsed three times during the entrance ceremony, the entire building didn't come down.
That was also a privilege the Chairwoman had secured from the Kingdom. The Empire's elite mages entering the Kingdom's territory—allowing that was no small thing. The fact that the Chairwoman and the Archmage knew each other played a part too.
I'd actually seen that Archmage person once, but anyway.
"And Chloe, as the Archmage's disciple, possesses a magic tool that lets her communicate directly with her master whenever she wishes."
"You demanded that magic tool?"
"Of course not. She'd never hand it over even if I did. What I demanded was the right to use that magic tool."
The right to use a magic tool capable of communicating with the Archmage. The picture was coming together now.
The reason she'd demanded it was obvious.
"Because of your chronic condition?"
"......You saw it during the duel, didn't you? That spectacle, so utterly unbefitting of my magic."
The Archmage is an 8th Rank Transcendent, just like the Chairwoman, and one of the Empire's greatest assets. The Empire being the continent's hegemon, a small kingdom's mere Fourth Princess like Beatrice had little hope of ever meeting the Archmage.
So Beatrice had targeted the right to use Chloe's magic tool—the one belonging to the Archmage's disciple.
In order to ask the Archmage how to cure her chronic condition: her inability to control her own magic.
"When I was a newborn, the Archmage was staying in the Delphia Kingdom while traveling the continent. At my father's earnest request, she examined baby me and evaluated my talent."
"............."
"There, I was judged to possess the talent to become a great mage, and my father was overjoyed and poured every kind of support into me. However...."
Beatrice had a chronic condition. Her magical talent itself was transcendent, but she had a fatal flaw: she couldn't control the magic she produced with that talent.
What use was it to cast high-level magic with outstanding talent? Uncontrollable magic was nothing but a bomb that could go off at any moment.
Because of that, Beatrice fell from the Kingdom's rising star to a problem child—so thoroughly that she became a hostage under the pretext of studying abroad.
"Surely the Archmage knows how to cure my condition. She must."
"Because if the Archmage—the pinnacle of all mages—doesn't know, then there is no cure."
"......Finance Director, has anyone ever told you that you are excessively direct?"
"People who manage money prefer direct statements over beating around the bush. Regardless—if what Your Highness demanded was the right to use the magic tool, what did Student Chloe demand?"
"............."
"Your Highness?"
"A pendant. The object I treasured most."
A pendant?
Was it something expensive?
"Is it an artifact, or set with precious metals?"
"No. It is merely a cheap pendant of little value in itself. But... it's a gift the Archmage gave me when I was a baby."
"The Archmage did?"
"I don't know why she gave it to me. Still, it was proof that I had been acknowledged—proof that I was not worthless—so I kept it preciously. Chloe wanted that."
"Why in the world would she want that...?"
"You may not fully understand, Finance Director, but Chloe Pisti takes immense pride in being the Archmage's disciple. When we met after the entrance ceremony, she kept provoking me about my condition, and in a fit of anger I shot back that the Archmage had given me a gift......."
"That was the cause, then."
"Well, Chloe probably never liked me from the start. She believes she alone should monopolize her revered master's attention. She would not have looked kindly on me, who was also acknowledged for my talent."
So that's what it was.
But in the original story, Beatrice never dueled Chloe. Nothing special happened until she claimed first place the following year and made her proposal to the Chairwoman at the awards ceremony.
What had changed?
"If it hadn't been for that Manticore... no, perhaps it was only a matter of time."
"Pardon? Did something happen at the entrance ceremony?"
"The Chairwoman was protecting the students, so I also used my magic once. Naturally, it went out of control, but in doing so it also interfered with Chloe's magic."
"Ah."
"It was purely an accident, but that seems to have caught Chloe's interest. After that, every time she saw me in the lecture hall, she would persistently bring up that incident."
──Quite the opposite of the entrance ceremony, isn't it?
So that's why Chloe had said that during the duel.
In the end, because Professor Alon proposed the phantom-monster attack during the entrance ceremony, the conflict between Beatrice and Chloe had deepened.
And thanks to that butterfly effect, I now had to keep Beatrice here—until she recovered that pendant—when I could have sent her back early.
'When I get back, I'll propose raising the investment ratio to fifty percent.'
As a well-founded malevolence descended upon Professor Alon, I faced Beatrice again.
She was anxious, her confidence shaken, unsteady—yet she absolutely refused to give up on that pendant.
It wasn't that her attitude moved me.
'I have to get that pendant back as fast as possible, or this building-destroyer won't leave the academy.'
Because only then could we cut building repair costs and normalize the academy's finances, even by a little.
Things had gotten complicated.
"Is there a chance you could retrieve the pendant through a personal deal?"
"Given Chloe's personality, she will never give it up. Even if you, rather than I, approached her, it would be the same. She is notoriously obsessive about anything related to her master."
What a pain. Since I'd chosen Beatrice over Chloe as a companion in the game, I hadn't realized her personality was that troublesome.
Well then—
"A duel seems to be the fastest answer."
"......I thought so too."
Just as the pendant was taken in a duel, reclaiming it through a duel is the fastest method, if not the most efficient one.
Above all, Chloe would never imagine she could lose, so she'd accept easily. In other words, I had to make it possible for Beatrice to beat her.
And that leaves only one thing to do.
"But how can I possibly win when I cannot even control my magic──"
"If I cure your condition, can you win?"
"───Excuse me?"
"I can't promise a permanent cure, but there's a way to treat it temporarily."
Besides, you wouldn't believe the permanent cure even if you heard it.
So I had no choice but to tell her, a little early, about the method she'd "self-discovered" in the game—the method used by her mid-boss version from the second-year arc.
Though the method was so distasteful in so many ways that I'd wanted to avoid telling her if I could...
The circumstances left me no choice. Getting Beatrice out of the academy was the top priority.
At my words, Beatrice's face went rigid.
".........I am in no mood for jokes right now. Even coming from you, Finance Director, that was a deeply offensive joke."
"It's not a joke."
"H-how... can I believe that?"
"Because it's a method I heard from the Chairwoman."
"......!!"
Ah, the all-purpose Chairwoman theory. Right up there with "a wizard did it," it conquers all plausibility. How wonderful not to waste time convincing anyone.
Of course, the Chairwoman had never said anything like that, but from now on she had. I'd just fill her in later.
Beatrice's eyes trembled as she drew close to me, her breathing roughening.
"Tr-truly...?"
"When your enrollment was confirmed, the Chairwoman once remarked, 'Though the Princess's chronic condition could be relieved for a little while if she used this method, it's a pity she can't.'"
"Ha, ha! Hahaha...!!!"
Beatrice burst into laughter—somewhere between hollow and maddened.
Then, with a desperately, wretchedly eager expression, she seized my shoulders.
"I'll do anything. Anything! If I can treat this damned condition for even a short while, I'll do anything!!"
"Your Highness?"
"Wh-whatever the Finance Director wants! Even if you tell me to prostrate myself and bark like a dog, I can do it!"
Why would I do that? It's not going to generate budget.
More importantly—she said she'd do anything, didn't she? With her own mouth?
"Those words you just spoke."
"............."
"You'd best not forget them."
Conveniently, the bed I needed for this was right here, so it worked out perfectly.
Now then, first of all—
"Shall we start with you lying down on the bed?"