10. The Only Good Festival Is a Dead Festival
10. The Only Good Festival Is a Dead Festival
BOOM! CRACK-BOOM!!
Fireworks burst across the night sky, casting shadows on the two figures on the rooftop that appeared and vanished with each flash.
The Finance Director and Chloe.
Sitting side by side, the space between them was close. Uncomfortably so.
'... ... ...'
Chloe had a question. Why wasn't Adult Chloe possessing her body right now?
Getting closer to the Finance Director was the whole reason Adult Chloe was making demands in the first place. She'd possessed her a month ago in Professor Kirke's lab without hesitation, so why was she staying quiet now?
If it were up to her, Adult Chloe would have seized control the second the chance appeared. It was only natural. This was everything she'd kept dreaming about.
'... ... ...Adam.'
She was only a mental construct, but as someone on the verge of 8th Rank, Adult Chloe could leave Chloe's head and move freely around the vicinity.
Chloe didn't know that. Adult Chloe had kept it a deliberate secret.
Someday, this information gap could become the sharpest of daggers. A bit of insurance, that was all.
Not that she could go far. She was a consciousness parasitizing Chloe's dreams — the farther she strayed, the more her ego blurred. Go too far, and she'd simply dissolve.
And right now, Adult Chloe had slipped out and stood on a nearby rooftop.
A spot with a clear view of Chloe and the Finance Director, but a poor place to watch the fireworks.
... ... ... A familiar place.
'It was here back then, too.'
The academy life Adult Chloe remembered was a stretch of days both dazzlingly joyful and utterly miserable.
She'd been happy just to be at Adam's side — beside the Finance Director. But she'd also known she could never claim the one place she truly wanted.
'I was here back then, too... ... ...'
Just like now. Watching Adam from a distance.
Chloe had asked her once — how do you know about a place like this? How did you know the Finance Director would be here?
The answer was obvious. Because it had all happened in the past.
She'd spotted Adam walking by and meant to catch up and ask him to spend time together, but she'd hesitated, embarrassed.
In that moment of hesitation, Adam climbed up onto the roof of some out-of-the-way building. At the time, Adult Chloe couldn't figure out why he'd come to a spot like this.
But she'd thought it was her chance. She'd just been trying to think of a natural way to approach him, sitting up there on the rooftop all alone.
And then someone else appeared.
'... ... ... The Chairwoman.'
Infuriatingly, the Chairwoman had shown up dressed far more nicely than usual, looking bashful as she sat down beside Adam. It was absurd.
The Chairwoman was so old that even her own teacher, the Archmage, called her a hero from a generation past. And she was setting her sights on Adam?
But Adult Chloe couldn't bring herself to step forward.
Because she was afraid of the Chairwoman? No.
Because Adam was smiling.
Brighter, warmer, happier than he ever looked when he was with her. A face he'd never once shown Adult Chloe.
CRACK-BOOM!!
She could hear the fireworks. The sound was exactly the same — now and in the memories of that past.
All Adult Chloe could do was stare vacantly at Adam and the Chairwoman. Even while the two of them laughed and teased each other, she hid on a nearby rooftop and stole glances.
And then, at last, when the fireworks hit their peak.
The Chairwoman. That woman.
She turned to Adam———
'... ... ... But.'
That future would never come to pass. Adult Chloe herself had changed it.
The future of this world had already diverged from everything she knew. Adam had chosen Beatrice instead of Chloe, and for reasons she could only guess at, he was far more haggard and worn than the easygoing figure in her memories.
An inexplicable shift. A puzzle for someone else — but for Adult Chloe, it was a miracle.
Right now was proof.
Because she'd managed to avert one of the worst futures she knew.
'You just stay right there and do nothing.'
Adult Chloe sneered as she looked at one of the tallest buildings on campus — the one where the Chairwoman's office was located.
The Chairwoman was inside. The woman who, in the original timeline, would have arrived long before now and done that disgusting, sickening thing.
But the Chairwoman wouldn't be able to come here. Not tonight.
Adult Chloe was only a mental fragment, but being Chloe right now gave her certain advantages.
... ... ... After the Chairwoman died, she'd done everything she could to dig up dirt on her, hoping it might turn Adam's heart. A bitter set of memories.
Among all the information she'd gathered, one piece was useful now.
'I didn't lie.'
A mage on the cusp of 8th Rank. Technically not alive. And a code phrase that nobody in this timeline could possibly know.
That was how Adult Chloe deceived the Chairwoman.
BOOM!!
Amid the bursting fireworks, Adult Chloe smiled — but her eyes were sharp as they fixed on someone.
She'd taken measures against the Chairwoman, but she still had to stay here just in case. If she sat beside Adam right now, her head would fill with so much happiness she wouldn't be able to think of anything else.
So the person she was glaring at was naturally not Adam. It wasn't. And yet.
'... ... ...'
Chloe Pisti of this world.
Her own past self, the one who'd insisted she would never, ever like Adam.
Adult Chloe watched her in silence.
Her gaze was dangerous.
And flickering.
*
The budget-exploding event was over. Or was it the magic-exploding event?
Either way, blowing up the academy budget was the point, so it didn't much matter.
At first I'd thought it was a decent spectacle, but when I reminded myself just how much budget and material went into the thing, it started to grate.
Why hold an event that does nothing but detonate spells into the sky — zero productivity, zero educational value?
Still, I'd managed to trim costs by restricting who could shoot off spells under the pretext of safety. Every little bit helped.
'If I tally it all up... ... ... it's manageable.'
A lot of the surplus profit we'd scraped together vanished, but we could at least get through this year.
Yeah. This year, anyway.
'Come next year, I'm killing it for good.'
Even if some miracle normalized the academy's finances in the next twelve months, I was canceling this thing. Period.
And since I'm the one expected to produce that miracle, if anyone's got a problem with it, they can go earn the festival budget themselves.
In that sense, not everything was bad news.
"As always, my thanks, Lady Risha."
"Think nothing of it. Maintaining a good relationship with you, Finance Director — this much is hardly a waste. Oh, and these are... ..."
"... ... ... High-purity gold and gemstones. This is far more than your usual contributions."
"Grandfather made a point of sending extra. These will be delivered packaged as an 'apology crate' as well."
"My deepest gratitude for the Claudia family's generosity!"
"The gratitude is ours. We look forward to our continued relationship."
First: the bribes from my bribe students, spearheaded by Risha, had gotten bigger.
It had been three months since the midterms, three months since the festival, three months since I'd begun maintaining ties with this lot. From their perspective, it seemed they'd decided three months was enough to prove the arrangement was stable.
Three whole months without the Chairwoman — who is famously merciless about shutting down bribery — catching on? That signaled a certain degree of safety, and it built a small measure of trust. As a result, the inflow of bribes had swelled nicely.
I'd also picked up some useful intel on the side.
'This might be an unofficial setting, but a mere noble daughter calling a Margrave "Grandfather" — that's telling.'
It meant Margrave Claudia and Risha were closer than I'd assumed. Worth remembering.
The bigger bribes meant a bump in fixed income, but that wasn't the only silver lining.
'I've got my justification.'
I keep saying this, but this academy is not normal. Forget the finances for a second — the faculty mindset alone proves it.
What kind of academy treats explosion accidents as a daily occurrence?
It's a custom so deeply entrenched over decades that it doesn't change even when there are casualties every year. Sure, the injuries pile up, but nobody's ever actually died. So it continues.
And of course, all the building collapses and repairs from those explosions are pummeling Grandis Academy's finances.
I'm confident this godforsaken academy is the only place in the world that lists building repairs as a fixed expense.
'I've been waiting for my chance.'
This kind of culture is supposed to be changed slowly. Push too hard too fast, and all you get is backlash and infighting.
Not that I particularly care. Backlash and infighting don't cause the academy to go bankrupt.
But we also don't have the luxury of changing things slowly, which meant I needed a catalyst — something shocking and drastic.
'This hair-loss inducer leak will give me enough of a pretext.'
A routine faculty explosion nearly got the festival canceled, and, more critically, if the initial response had failed, we could've socially killed the VIP guests visiting the academy.
Right now, only Dean Villend and a handful of magic professors know the details, but I can wield it however I like when the time comes.
Still.
'I need a finishing blow.'
The hair-loss inducer leak? Sure, it's a big incident. But it's also the kind of thing people can push back on — call it custom, point out that nothing went wrong all those other times.
Obviously, I could trot out the Chairwoman and stomp all over that pushback, but the explosions are caused by the professors. No matter how heavy-handed I get, if the professors themselves don't change, the effect will be limited.
Using the Chairwoman stays on the back burner. What matters is securing a truly decisive justification first.
A perfect justification that no professor could argue against.
And that justification.
'... ... ... Finally. It's time.'
I'd already drawn it up. I'd made a plan but shelved it because the timing wasn't right. Now, at last, seemed like the moment to put it to use.
Granted, the plan I'd drafted was a little... ... ... no. Even I think it crosses a lot of lines.
But normal methods won't fix the faculty's attitude about explosions, and they won't fix this academy's finances.
When you're on the brink of bankruptcy, you have to use methods just as ruthless as the situation.
With a resolute expression, I pulled out the carefully stored plan and entered the Chairwoman's office.
"Chairwoman, it's me."
"Fi-Finance Director?!"
"You've worked hard because of the festival, and I'd hoped to give you at least a day's rest, but this is important."
Shnk.
The moment I walked in, the Chairwoman hurriedly shoved whatever she'd been intently studying into her desk.
Naturally, that's her private business and I wasn't particularly curious, so I ignored it.
"This is the plan."
"Ah, yes... ..."
"More importantly, Chairwoman, are you feeling better?"
"Pardon? My health?"
"You said you'd suddenly come down with a bad cold yesterday and couldn't make it. I'm relieved you look well now."
"R-right... ..."
In the end, the Chairwoman never came to the rooftop last night. I just watched the fireworks with Chloe the whole time.
Wondering what happened, I'd gone back to the Chairwoman's office and knocked, only for her to call out —
——I, I've come down with a fever! I might be contagious, so don't come in!
... ... ... That was what she'd said.
If an 8th Rank transcendent catches a cold bad enough to knock her out, it's the kind of disease that would probably one-shot a 1st Rank like me. The second I heard her say it, I wisely fled straight to the dormitory.
I'd been worried she might still be unwell today, but the plan was too sensitive to hand off to someone else, and the matter was important enough that I couldn't put it off.
I'd told myself that if I did catch it, the Chairwoman would find a way to cure me. Fortunately, she looked fully recovered.
Well. An 8th Rank coming down with a cold is ridiculous anyway, isn't it? She'd probably just been worn out from working late too many nights in a row.
I didn't mention that I'd watched the fireworks with Chloe. She'd been looking forward to it and couldn't come because she was sick — rubbing it in would've been a dick move.
At any rate, I placed the carefully drafted plan on her desk.
"Please take a look at this."
"... ... ..."
"Chairwoman?"
"S-sorry. My mind wandered for a second... ... ... I'll read it."
She was obviously still hung up on whatever she'd shoved into the desk, sneaking glances at it. Then she opened the plan and began to read.
From her initial manner, she'd seemed ready to skim it, declare she'd review it later, and shoo me out for a bit.
But as she slowly read through the plan, her expression changed in real time.
First, agitation. Then confusion. Then disbelief. Finally, outright shock.
The Chairwoman, who'd forgotten all about the thing in her desk, looked at me with bewildered eyes.
"A-are you serious?"
"I am always serious, Chairwoman."
"But this is... ... !!"
"I understand the risks are significant, but if it succeeds, we catch two birds with one stone in a single move."
"This isn't just 'significant risk'!"
Flutter.
In a rare display, the Chairwoman raised her voice at me and thrust out the plan's title page.
<Academy Terror Plan for Securing Donation Justification and Reducing Fixed Repair Expenditure>
Yes.
I was.
"Let's stage a terror attack. On Grandis Academy."
To save the academy.
I was planning to terrorize it.