7. Midterms on a Deserted Island, as Expected

Time flows fairly for everyone.

The protagonist finished his volunteer hours. Miraculously, Beatrice managed not to demolish any buildings. The professors had their pay cut.

And for a few days, the Chairwoman and I couldn't quite look each other in the eye.

I'm not some academy freshman, and the hours I spent as Finance Director actually slipped by rather quickly.

A whole month had already passed since the protagonist enrolled.

"Here's the financial status report for the past month."

"Mm.........."

"Excluding recurring monthly expenses, we have a few unusual costs: the auditorium destroyed by Student Rus Spero, five lecture halls demolished by Beatrice and Chloe, thirty-two practice swords shattered by the youngest knight... and so on."

"However, excluding our regular income, when we factor in the bribes from Risha, Beatrice, and various other bribe-offering students, the refund proceeds from the artifacts gifted by His Highness Aken Delminos, and the sales revenue from the measuring device negotiated from the dwarves..."

Tap.

I placed the final conclusion on the Chairwoman's desk with a satisfied grin.

"We are in surplus. An overwhelming surplus!"

"Hell—yes!!"

Since any limb that grazed the Chairwoman's ecstatic fist-pump might disintegrate, I swiftly stepped back a pace before continuing.

"Of course, the unplanned income—particularly the artifacts from His Highness—accounts for the largest slice, but starting next month, 40 percent of the investment money flowing into the Illusion Magic Department plus the savings from the faculty pay cuts will be added to the budget as a buffer."

"Salary day is next month too, isn't it?"

"Correct. The cuts take effect this year, so they'll all be crying tears of blood."

"Considering how badly they abused my goodwill, they're getting off cheap."

Since what happened on the rooftop, the Chairwoman seemed to carry herself a little lighter than before.

Not that a single moment like that could possibly dissolve every knot in her heart.

Still, well. 'It's better than watching her cry.'

Anyway.

When you consider she's celebrating a surplus not for the whole year, not even for the quarter, but for just this one month—honestly, it's a little sad. But doesn't this count as a major step forward? Maybe?

The Chairwoman was so overjoyed she nearly teared up again, but it's not as if everything was genuinely and completely fine.

"However, even if all the items I just mentioned are applied to next month's budget, they will only reduce the deficit. A surplus like this month's is impossible. This month was entirely thanks to those artifacts."

"That bastard Aken's artifacts turned out to be a real windfall. So now what?"

"We bought ourselves some time. Now we have to accomplish something more with it."

So this is what they mean by 'you cross a mountain only to find a taller mountain, and after that mountain you find the sea.'

I've pulled off several things, but it's still not enough. If this were a problem so easily solved, I wouldn't have had to struggle this hard in the first place.

We scraped through this month. To see a surplus next month as well—

"Please look at this."

"This is......?"

"We have midterm exams next month, do we not? Here is the plan."

"Pardon? But aren't midterms always done the same way?"

"I've thought of a rather innovative approach."

Originally, Grandis Academy's midterms were the same old cookie-cutter exams every other academy uses.

A common written test, and then different practical or specialization exams for each discipline.

Simple at a glance, but there's a snag.

'You have to set up completely different environments for every major.'

For example, Flame Magic majors in the Magic Department need a flame-resistant space for their practicals, while Monster Combat ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠majors in the Martial Arts field require the academy to purchase live monsters.

Worse still, there are hardly any fixed testing venues because they insist on maintaining some semblance of differentiation between students. The exam type and theme change every time, and that means costs every single time.

The Administration Department at least relies more heavily on written exams, but for something like the Construction major, the academy has to supply every last material for the practical in which students build specific structures.

These costs pile up across hundreds of majors, then across year levels, then across exam periods.

Like they say, many a mickle makes a muckle—lump it all together and the expense is staggering. I get that these are unavoidable costs, but if I'm honest, it feels like a colossal waste.

So I came prepared.

"Finance Director, this is......?"

"Couldn't the timing be more perfect? And it happens that you own it yourself, Chairwoman."

"That's true, but then we have issues like exam progress and score differentiation."

"The amount of money this plan saves is approximately this much.........."

"Now that I think about it, isn't that something for the professors to figure out, not me? If they're being paid, they should do the work to match."

Good. She's turning into a truly proper(?) Chairwoman.

Without further delay, she slammed her seal of approval down on the document.

"Leave the public announcement to me. I happen to have some excellent persuasive material."

"Oh? What's that?"

"An accident recently occurred at the Empire's Imperial Academy. That'll serve our purposes perfectly."

"......?"

"Look forward to it. I intend to appear at least a little helpful to my Finance Director."

Peaceful.

It was impossibly, profoundly peaceful.

"Rus? What's the matter, suddenly?"

"Ah, nothing.........it's nothing."

No, why was it so peaceful? For heaven's sake, why?

Rus Spero sat enjoying teatime with Mina at a coffeehouse, turning one question after another over in his mind.

Because she simply could not understand.

'Originally, Beatrice should have caused far more trouble by now.'

Nor was that all. Magic Department students should have been roused to agitation by someone's instigation, and certain professors should have shown signs of secretly plotting some kind of summoning ritual.

But nothing happened.

Of course, Rus had no way of knowing that Professor Kirke was confined—more or less forcibly—to her laboratory, unable to leave, or that the magic-department professors had received such devastating pay cuts that summoning rituals, for God's sake, took a back seat to simply pinching pennies on living expenses.

'Why in the world has Professor Kirke stayed quiet?'

Kirke. Her mortal enemy, a foe she absolutely had to destroy.

The woman had hidden her true nature here at the academy, but once the ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠academy collapsed and she relocated to the Holy Kingdom, the atrocities she committed were... even now, simply sickening to recall.

One of the incidents that should have already occurred—the magic students kicking up a commotion—had Kirke pulling the strings from behind.

So why was everything so quiet?

'Did I not... actually come back to the past?'

At first.

She had believed she was granted a second chance.

She had died in the final moments, and when she opened her eyes again, she found herself back in her child self. It could not possibly have been a dream, so she assumed some method had returned her to the past.

Since she knew what the future held, she prioritized growing stronger. Fortunately, the spiritual aspects—the method for manifesting sword aura, the path to enlightenment—remained intact, allowing her to reach 6th Rank in a remarkably short time.

She needed money, too. So she got involved with a rock salt mine she vaguely recalled and made a large sum. She paid no mind when the mine's value plummeted right after.

Then, pushing things a little unreasonably, she entered the academy.

She didn't need to grow any further, but she did need to meet her future comrades.

'But something's off.'

The broad strokes are certainly the same. Yet the details keep diverging.

Adam Caines showing up at the entrance exam venue—that had happened the first time around. But his response, his attitude, were different this time.

Is it simply because I've grown so much stronger than before?

'Could that really be enough to change everything?'

She had assumed gaining more strength than before would make everything that much easier. But if the current changes were all because of that... then what was she supposed to do?

On the other hand, she also couldn't help questioning whether a single factor like that could truly distort the future to this degree. At this point, she genuinely wasn't sure anymore whether she had really come to the past at all.

"Rus? Are you okay?"

"......I was just lost in thought for a moment. Don't worry about it."

"If you say so, that's a relief.........."

Even so, one thing anchored her certainty: Mina's presence.

Mina Glichen. The most reliable, most steadfast comrade she had ever known.

She remained exactly the Mina that Rus remembered—the bright figure who had been the first to approach him back when he was the permanent bottom-ranked student.

And that was why Rus could only feel a headache splitting his skull: was this the past, or a fully separate world, or, failing that, had he merely dreamed it all? His conviction had grown blurry, but some things remained constants.

Kirke was one. Mina was one.

And.

'.........Adam.'

He was one, too.

In truth, his existence was the most fundamental source of her headache.

She had to confirm whether she had truly returned to the past. She had to know whether the future was unfolding as she remembered it.

Because only then.

'The you of right now... are you still... intact?'

Only then could she clarify her stance toward Adam.

Perhaps the most crucial moment to meet Adam again was precisely now, in the midst of all this confusion. Rus recalled ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the contract he had signed with Adam after the entrance ceremony.

'It was clearly stipulated: if I again violated the restrictions and caused financial damages... I would be summoned for a disciplinary interview.'

In other words, it was an opportunity to meet the Finance Director, a man normally impossible to reach. That was why she had signed the contract immediately.

Unlike other faculty, the Finance Director didn't even accept requests for interviews. It was a position with no reason to interact with students in the first place, and it had, after all, only been created late last year.

Granted, one Fourth Princess had managed to meet him, but that was the result of aggressively leveraging her royal status—practically forcing the issue. What's more, Rus didn't even know that had happened.

Whatever the truth, it wasn't something she was keen to resort to. Seeing Adam under those kinds of circumstances might not lead to a proper conversation anyway, given what his personality was like 'right now.'

But if she truly had no other way——

"Oh? The princess?"

".........Hmm?"

"Over there—it's Princess Beatrice. I heard she always stays holed up in the practice rooms."

At Mina's words, Rus turned her head sharply. Just as she said, a familiar face was walking down the street.

Amatrius Delphia Beatrice. Originally, unable to control her own magic, she was supposed to grow increasingly irritable by this point and start causing all manner of incidents.

'Unlike before, this time Beatrice met Adam.'

In the future he knew, the one who met Adam during this period was Chloe Pisti. Of course, back then Rus himself had been the eternal bottom-ranker, so he'd only caught fragments of the rumors.

What she remembered was that after the academy later collapsed, Chloe had accompanied Adam on his travels.

She didn't know if they had been together from the very start, but at the very least, Chloe had followed Adam right until the end.

......Well, that made sense. Since it had been Rus himself who ended Chloe's life.

The woman who had followed Adam and committed every conceivable atrocity was an enemy of the world. She and Rus had been academy peers but had never once met, so Rus felt no particular sentiment over it.

But now, the one who had met Adam was not Chloe, but Beatrice. He didn't know the precise circumstances of their meeting, but Rus was certain of it.

".........I'll be back in a moment."

"Huh? Rus—Rus!?"

In a single motion, he vaulted over the coffeehouse terrace railing and headed straight for Beatrice.

Beatrice, who had traded her usual luxurious attire for plain, ordinary clothes.

And who ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was now gently caressing some sort of clock as though it were a treasure.

"Beatrice......Your Highness."

"Mm? Ah—Rus Spero, was it? The 6th Rank swordsman."

"That is correct."

"A pleasure. So, what brings you to me? We're in entirely different fields of study."

This was not the Beatrice from his memories. In this period, she was supposed to be terribly high-strung—snapping at anyone who approached, drowning in the frustration brought on by her chronic illness.

But the Beatrice before his eyes now seemed far more at ease. Her attire, too, was significantly different.

"Your Highness, forgive me, but your clothes......?"

"Ah, I sold them. I needed a bit of money."

"Money, you say?"

"I met someone—a person who, even though he needs help more than anyone, selflessly helps others. I've been gathering what little I can to help him in return. I even started a part-time job recently, can you believe it?"

Selfless. Someone who helps others even while needing help himself.

There was no room for doubt now. Beatrice had definitely met Adam. And what was more, she had built some kind of positive connection with him.

Would Beatrice, then, become the Chloe of this future?

The rumors that her chronic illness had been cured must also certainly be thanks to Adam. Rus narrowed her eyes.

"Your Highness, there is something I wished to ask——"

"Could it be you're concerned about the midterm exams as well? Even with restrictions, a 6th Rank swordsman is more than enough for any team."

".........Pardon?"

"Oh? You didn't know? The announcement was issued this morning. Here."

Flutter.

Beatrice drew a document from her pocket with something written on it.

Dazed, Rus looked it over.