The Final Exam Celebration
The finest educational institution in the world — acknowledged as such by every nation on the planet.
Victoria Academy.
Gifted students from every country poured into this place, and the competition to even set foot through the gates was ferocious. The cadets who clawed their way in arrived overflowing with confidence, bristling with pride, and burning with youthful fire.
Where talent gathers, trouble naturally follows. And the ones tasked with keeping those cadets in line were the Student Council.
Having your name on the Victoria Academy Student Council roster was an extraordinary line on any résumé. Simply belonging was enough to have your pick of guilds after graduation.
Click. Tap-tap. Click.
And the leader of that elite circle, Mun Su-rin, was organizing documents again today.
"…"
The truth was, she liked the work. She liked earning the approval of her grandfather, the Chairman. Filling the void her father had left behind wasn't something she resented, either.
She had a talent for this. The Student Council needed her, and before she knew it she was handling not just council business but most of Victoria Academy's affairs herself. She never complained. Or rather — even when she did complain, she finished everything anyway. Because she considered it her responsibility.
But today, her pace had dropped off noticeably. And it wasn't just her speed. Mun Su-rin's entire atmosphere had shifted — enough that the other council officers had started to notice.
Lately she'd been zoning out during meetings far too often. She'd suddenly stopped wearing her glasses and switched to contacts. The same person who used to insist on her cadet uniform no matter where she went, declaring that she was the Student Council President wherever she happened to be… had started showing up in casual clothes.
Her paparazzi had gone into a frenzy over it for a while. Fortunately, she didn't care.
In any case. When it was the Student Council President herself displaying these strange symptoms, something was clearly off. Everyone had already jumped to the conclusion that some kind of incident was brewing.
"Haa…"
Mun Su-rin closed her eyes for a moment, then let out a long breath.
The memory of that day kept surfacing. The Demon who had raided Lee Ho-yeon's house. Thankfully everything had been handled, but… she couldn't forget the lewd cosplay outfit that had come out from under the bed.
What on earth had that been?
"Haa…"
She'd lost count of how many times she'd sighed. The other officers sitting in the meeting kept exchanging nervous glances, and then every pair of eyes in the room converged on a single person.
Hey. You talk to her.
What am I supposed to say…
You're the closest to the President, though.
I-I'm not— well, I mean, I guess I am, but—
The Student Council secretary. She handled something like Mun Su-rin's assistant work, and the two of them were on friendly terms even outside of official business.
"Ahem. Ahem. Um, Madam President?"
Prodded into standing, the secretary approached while watching Mun Su-rin's face carefully, holding out a sheaf of papers.
"Th-this is the compiled handout of the Student Council Final Exam Celebration Plan."
"Ah… I'll take a look."
Mun Su-rin's voice was the same as always. Benevolent and gentle — the kind of warm tone that felt healing just to hear.
She flipped through the pages, examining them with care. The final review was always her job, so she had to be thorough.
Something caught her eye as she worked through the document.
"What's this? Public Relations Department: Elise. Lee Ho-yeon."
"The underclassmen are technically Student Council too, so I included them for now…"
"Did you even ask them?"
"W-well, Cadet Lee Ho-yeon has field training today, so I left the documents in front of his dorm. I was planning to go see Miss Elise in person later."
"Hmm… alright."
Lee Ho-yeon. The moment she heard that name, the lewd cosplay outfit flashed through Mun Su-rin's mind. The concentration she'd been barely holding onto shattered.
I'm so tired.
Exhaustion crashed over her all at once. A wave of disillusionment followed — why did she even have to do this work? If she just had the time, she could at least grab a meal with Ho-yeon and actually talk.
She clicked her tongue and went back to reviewing the documents. But she was in no mood for work. And maybe because she was in a foul mood, she started noticing things she normally would have let slide.
"…Why is the line spacing different here?"
"Y-yes? Ah, I'm sorry…"
"And this. On page five…"
"Ah, yes…"
After a few more pointed remarks, the secretary's face crumpled into a near-tearful expression, and the officers watching from behind started pretending to work furiously so they wouldn't have to meet Mun Su-rin's eyes.
The secretary's smartwatch chimed. It was a spell that sent a notification whenever a document was signed. She seized the opportunity at once.
"…C-Cadet Ho-yeon must have signed. I'll go pick it up myself, Madam President."
"No need. I can just call him."
She meant there was no reason to go to the trouble — but the secretary shook her head hard.
"No, no. Please rest, Madam President. I'll be right back!"
"Uh… alright."
Overwhelmed by the secretary's intensity, Mun Su-rin nodded, and the secretary fled the conference room like she was making a prison break.
Mun Su-rin looked around at the officers still pretending to work while watching her out of the corners of their eyes, and let out a deep sigh.
"…Haa. Let's wrap the meeting here. I'm just not in good form today. Sorry."
After the meeting ended and all the officers had filed out, Mun Su-rin felt a pang of guilt. What she'd just done was taking her frustration out on other people.
"I made a spectacle of myself."
She resolved to apologize to each of them personally later, and turned on her smartwatch.
Everyday — the community forum she used to gauge cadet opinion. Nothing spread faster when an issue cropped up, so she checked it often. And photos of Lee Ho-yeon got posted there a lot, too.
Come to think of it, he said he'd send them if I just messaged him.
If he'd signed, that meant he was home… maybe she should just send a message.
She was scrolling through the recommended posts, lost in thought, when she frowned.
A title that told you everything you needed to know about the person who wrote it.
Normally she wouldn't have clicked. But today, she felt like pressing it. Everyone has days like that — days when you know it's bait and you click anyway.
Today was that kind of day for Mun Su-rin.
And then she found an outfit that was far, far too familiar.
"…Huh?"
That outfit. The one that had come out of Lee Ho-yeon's room.
No. It's just a cosplay. Obviously.
Any ordinary person would think that first. But the reason this sexy succubus was an issue in the first place wasn't the outfit — it was that she was a Victoria Academy cadet.
It had even come up as a Student Council meeting topic before. There was a female cadet streaming in revealing clothes from the dorms. There'd been talk of a full search of the women's dormitory, but it never happened because of privacy concerns. Plus there'd been a mysterious wave of opposition on Everyday.
"…This is weird."
For a cosplay outfit, it was identical. The finishing on the seams, the slightly sagging fabric around the chest — every tiny detail. Her eyes, which could catch even the finest discrepancies, saw it with certainty.
"…"
But brooding wasn't going to produce any answers. Mun Su-rin started to send Ho-yeon a message, then shut off her smartwatch.
If he'd signed the documents, they'd be seeing each other plenty from now on… she'd have a chance to ask.
"Student Council Final Exam Celebration… wow, that looks like a genuine pain in the ass."
Put simply, it was a party to commemorate the end of finals, plus a chance for cadets to socialize. The kind of event that was fun for the people enjoying it and absolute hell for the people putting it together. The number of things you had to account for was not small.
"…Did I mess up really badly?"
Liliana tugged cautiously at the hem of my clothes. The way she looked up at me, she could have been a rain-soaked puppy.
"It's not like that. Tch — no, it's fine. I would've ended up doing it anyway."
She always pulled that face, and it always made me go soft. Besides, the Mun Su-rin route had been stalling hard enough as it was. If they'd called me in, Elise would show up too, so it wasn't all bad.
The real problem was whether it would overlap with the window when Rebecca brought in the intel on Centaur… but I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. Pushing things back a few more days wasn't going to start a war.
"Oh. So it was nothing, then."
The instant I said it was fine, Liliana shook off every last scrap of guilt without a second thought. It was almost impressive. I'd have been more annoyed if this weren't a daily occurrence — by now, I was used to it.
"Yeah, yeah. Come to think of it, where's Scarlet?"
Scarlet was supposed to be living with us now, but she was nowhere in sight.
"Scarlet — wait, Scout… no, Scarlet went to look at houses."
"Pick one, would you? You're going to confuse me too."
What was the deal with Scarlet and Scout, anyway? Other than the first syllable, they had nothing in common.
"Hmm, I like Scout better, but if she's gonna be out in the world a lot, Scarlet might be more right…"
Liliana didn't answer me. She just squeezed her eyes shut and sank into deep thought. I'd been dying to know why she called Scarlet "Scout," but she was concentrating so hard I decided not to interrupt.
"We need to move soon."
Money for a house wasn't the problem. I'd made a decent amount from Elise's massages, and rescuing Nam Da-eun had netted me thirty billion won on top of that. At that price, I could pick just about anything I wanted.
"Anywhere you want to live?"
I'd told her to get opinions from the Nam sisters and Liliana, but I wasn't entirely at ease about the results.
"Dunno. As long as I can stream, I'm good. Oh — I did tell Scout to find a place with lots of delivery options."
"That's reasonable enough."
As long as Liliana hadn't said anything truly unhinged, I wasn't worried. Even an expensive house wouldn't be an issue. I'd handed Scarlet the entire thirty billion I'd squeezed out of the Buyer Guild. All of it was dirty money that needed laundering anyway, and Scarlet was the only one in our group who could handle that kind of work.
She'll find us somewhere good.
Scarlet had never once failed at a job.
"Hey, gimme some of those snacks too."
I reached toward the pile of snacks Liliana had been organizing.
"Ah — you said you weren't eating any!"
"I'm not gonna eat a lot. Just one."
"You crazy thief! Kyaaah!"
I set the house-hunting aside for the moment and started teasing Liliana as she scrambled to gather up her snacks.
"Well now, a young lady with some real capability."
Land around Victoria Academy was expensive and rarely changed hands. Everyone knew the prices would only go up, so owners didn't sell unless they absolutely had to. But life being what it was, there was always going to be a landowner who suddenly needed cash.
Just once. One deal, and you'd make several years' income in a single afternoon. That was the mindset the real estate agent had been running his office on — and today, he'd received a very valuable client.
"If we sign right now, when could we move in?"
"A week would do it. I'll contact you personally the moment it's ready."
Delighted at landing such a massive deal, the agent brought out tea and looked Scarlet over.
"You know this is prime real estate, right? Buy it and it only goes up. The world could end and this neighborhood still wouldn't drop."
"Of course I know."
Scarlet gave his pitch a perfunctory acknowledgment and checked over the documents.
Plenty of delivery options, per Liliana's request. Close to the Academy, per Nam Da-eun's. The so-called wealthy neighborhood clustered around the Academy's commercial district. A listing had happened to come up in exactly that area, and Scarlet signed on the spot.
"You said your family attends the Academy, right? Who was it again — there's a famous cadet from overseas living in that neighborhood…"
The agent sucked his teeth and tapped his empty forehead, trying to remember. Scarlet's mouth curved in a faint smile.
"Cadet Elise?"
The agent slapped his knee as the name finally clicked.
"Ah, yes, yes! Cadet Elise lives there too. It's a perfect location for attending the Academy."
"Yes, yes. Thank you."
Scarlet pictured Lee Ho-yeon's face.
That playboy needs to get his act together.
Just how many women was he planning to add? And honestly, she felt a little sorry for Elise, her former workplace superior. Knowing the man she liked was rolling around in bed with other women and still doing nothing about it — Scarlet couldn't understand it. She herself lived with him, so opportunities were plentiful… but Elise barely got any. And she was a more timid young lady than she looked. At this rate, she was going to get left behind for certain.
So, as a courtesy to her former boss, Scarlet had decided to give her a little help.
A small smile touched her lips as she wondered just what kind of face Ho-yeon would make when he saw the house.