Returning to the Academy and an Impossible Request
I headed straight back to the dormitory the moment I returned to the Academy. My schedule with Hestia had wrapped up sooner than expected, letting me slip in while the campus was still quiet. I walked down the empty paths, glancing around at the silence. With the students gone, most of the restaurants and shops that catered to them had shut their doors. The few that remained open had no customers at all. It was only natural—vacation meant no student foot traffic. On top of that, the professors who should have been around had all been dragged off together for some kind of group reprimand, so the emptiness was inevitable.
I found myself wondering if I should have become a shop owner instead of a student. I would have had a lot more free time that way. The thought only lasted a moment. The truth was, enrolling as a student remained the best way to stay close and watch over them. Getting tangled up with people for all sorts of reasons was a headache, but it couldn’t be helped.
Back at the dormitory, I ripped down the headmaster’s notice that had been taped to the door and stepped inside. Even though I had only been away a short while, the room greeted me with a nostalgic warmth, as if I had been gone for years. I tossed my luggage aside and collapsed onto the bed. I wasn’t particularly tired, but the situation with Hestia had left me with far too many thoughts to sort through.
Walking the path to transcendence together… Did she truly understand how cruel a request that was for a talentless mortal? Her obsession with me seemed to be growing stronger by the day, and the worry it caused me was no small thing. Still… I had already made the promise. I intended to keep it. All I needed to do was stand beside her at the same height, in one form or another.
The truth was, I carried a secret I had never told anyone. …Well, if I’m being honest, I had more than just one or two secrets, but let’s talk about one of them. There are several forms of transcendence. First is the Transcendent, who reaches that realm by attaining enlightenment through rigorous training, discipline, or a fortuitous encounter, thereby surpassing a certain threshold of power. Then there is the Transcendent Spirit, born when countless grudges or wills converge into a single point and their density exceeds the limits of mortality. Finally, the Transcendent Body—one who is born with a fundamentally superior vessel and attains transcendence through pure physical capability alone. Roughly speaking, those are the three types.
What countless individuals—including Elisha, Hestia, and Arie—aimed for was the first type: the Transcendent. Becoming a Transcendent Spirit or Transcendent Body wasn’t something one could simply choose, so for most beings who sought transcendence, there was only one realistic path. But I was different. Strictly speaking, I was not an ordinary Transcendent. Nor was I a Transcendent Spirit or a Transcendent Body. I belonged to none of those categories, yet the result was the same—I had already stepped beyond transcendence.
For people with ordinary talent, breaking through that realm was difficult. But there was no way I would fail to pierce a boundary that even dogs and cows could reach. Therefore, Hestia’s request for me to walk the path to transcendence alongside her was already as good as fulfilled. When the time was right, I could simply drop a casual hint that I had already ascended…
…Or so I wanted to believe. No way in hell!
Hestia might be fine with it, but the problem was Elisha. In none of the previous rounds had I ever shown her the sight of me reaching transcendence. The two of them were already close—close enough that they might talk about me. If Hestia accidentally let something slip, it would become incredibly troublesome.
Elisha must never learn of my existence until she discovers the truth of the regression.
To prevent a collision that could trigger a catastrophe, I needed to show Elisha a form of transcendence she could accept without question. I rolled around on the bed, sinking deeper into thought. A few ideas came to mind. The cleanest option was to awaken right in front of her. If I reached transcendence in the middle of a brutal life-or-death battle, even Elisha would have no choice but to accept it. The problem was that she—and a few others—would never allow me to be pushed into such a desperate situation in the first place.
…Hm. Let’s put that idea on hold. It might end up robbing them of their own chance to grow. I was nothing more than a supporting character. Their development came first. I could not become an obstacle.
After searching for a better method and finding none, I eventually wiped the worries from my mind. Well, the right opportunity would present itself eventually. Thinking about it now wasn’t going to make one appear out of thin air. With that, I surrendered myself to laziness and closed my eyes for a short rest.
After my not-quite-farewell with Hestia and my return to the Academy, time passed. The temporary closure had long since ended, and vacation was nearly over. That was when an unexpected visitor came looking for me.
“Huhu, it’s been a while.”
“…Why the hell did this woman come so fast…?”
“Pardon?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
That familiar yet still suspicious tone… Sure enough, it was Arie. The woman I hadn’t seen in some time greeted me with the exact same playful attitude as before. It seemed she had completely let go of the brief suspicion that had surfaced last time.
“By the way, what brings you here?”
“Hmm, does your boss need a special reason to visit her cute little assistant?”
“Well, no, but…”
You’re a Saintess, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be swamped with work right now? I glanced around, searching for the person who should have been glued to her side.
Arie noticed my gaze and let out a small laugh before whispering,
“Huhu, my adorable little Yulia didn’t come with me this time.”
“That… Even if it’s only in name, isn’t Miss Yulia your escort, Boss?”
“She is. But she kept nagging me, so I snuck out alone.”
I gave her a slightly dumbfounded look.
“At this rate, you’re going to get yourself fired…”
“Unfortunately for you, Yulia is my one and only little sister, so that will never happen.”
“…I never said I found that unfortunate.”
I had assumed she possessed some actual skill, but… was Yulia just a nepotism hire? I could only shake my head at the unfairness of reality, though I couldn’t exactly say I didn’t understand. When the highest authority in the church—the Saintess herself—threw a tantrum, who could possibly stop her? The fact that Yulia was the only one who could soothe her was probably why she had been placed at Arie’s side. At this point, the church should be thanking its lucky stars that Arie hadn’t thrown her sister out.
Setting the church’s pitiful circumstances aside, I focused on our conversation.
“Assistant, did you know?”
“Know what?”
“The Academy is currently more defenseless than it has ever been.”
“…Is that really true?”
Defenseless? The headmaster had repaired every last barrier the moment she recovered. The invaders who had attacked when it truly was defenseless had seen all their plans crumble into failure. There were plenty of rebuttals I wanted to throw at her, but I held my tongue and decided to hear the rest of her nonsense.
“The headmaster leaves her post more often than you might think. She’s a busy woman, just like the Pope.”
“Yes, well… She is a Transcendent, after all…”
“And there are rumors that the professors have all left their positions this time as well.”
“That part is true. I stayed at the Academy throughout the entire vacation and never once saw any of them.”
Of course, a few professors had remained behind. They were stuck handling every single task on campus, probably not even getting any sleep. They were also splitting the workload of the professors the headmaster had dragged away, which meant they were drowning in a murderous amount of work that far exceeded their usual duties. Perhaps this was the headmaster’s way of doling out punishment… The thought suddenly crossed my mind.
“Huhu, as I thought… Then there would be nothing anyone could do even if an unprecedented disaster struck the Academy right now.”
“If you actually caused a major incident, the headmaster would probably come running.”
“……I at least have enough common sense to avoid that.”
That’s a relief, then.
“Ahem… Assistant! Did our organization look so weak that it would kneel before such trivial obstacles?!”
“…No.”
“Excellent! That’s the spirit…!”
“So what exactly are you trying to say?”
She kept dragging things out, so my tone had grown a little sharp, but Arie paid it no mind. She simply smiled with that sinister curve of her lips and said,
“Since we are an evil organization, we must commit evil deeds.”
“Well… Should we start by stealing from the girls’ dormitory or something?”
“As expected of my assistant! You figured out the correct answer right away!”
Huh?
“It may begin with simple theft, but in the end we will grow into a colossal organization that rules the entire Academy in grand fashion.”
“Wait, that last part was a joke…”
“Huhu, of course I know that.”
I had spoken in a panic, but Arie simply laughed and nodded. The moment I let out a sigh of relief and lowered my guard—
—she opened her mouth again.
“With my assistant’s courage, raiding the girls’ dormitory would be no more challenging than playing on a children’s playground.”
“…Come again?”
“Therefore, let us take our first real steps somewhere far grander.”
“Hold on, Boss…?”
“The place we will be raiding this time is…!”
And then the most ridiculous words imaginable flowed from Arie’s lips.
“The headmaster’s office!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”