The Silent War Over Budget
As soon as the morning Dark Mechanics lecture ended, a wild chase broke out across campus.
"Ah, just hold on a second, let's talk!"
"Our club's business presentation—!"
Simon and the Student Council members were sprinting for their lives, desperate to shake off the club students swarming behind them.
"What even IS this?!"
Mayrin shrieked, clutching at her streaming sky-blue hair. Camibarez panted hard, eyes locked straight ahead, while Simon pushed at their backs and kept glancing over his shoulder.
"Yahahaha! This way!"
Dick, leading the pack, shouted cheerfully and cut into an alley.
"They went between those buildings!"
"Get them!"
Get them? Seriously? Simon shook his head as he ran.
Tap-tap-tap—
TAP!
The Student Council members shot through the narrow alley in the blink of an eye, and the moment the club students followed them in—
'!'
Nothing. The alley between the buildings was completely empty, the Student Council members vanished without a trace.
"What? Where'd they go?"
"There's nowhere to run to..."
The students looked around in confusion, then glanced up. On the third floor of the building, a rope was being reeled in with a soft whir.
"There! They got into the next building!"
"Third floor! Get them!"
CRASH!
The entire horde of club students poured through the first-floor windows into the building.
And once the surroundings fell silent—
Shhffff.
The wall itself rippled and drooped like a blanket, revealing the four Student Council members pressed flat against it.
"KA-HAHA! You fell right into my trap!"
Dick rolled up the mat that blended perfectly into the wall and stuffed it into his subspace pocket. Simon let out a laugh.
"You actually prepared this in advance?"
"Of course! I mapped out an escape route knowing this would happen! I even brought the Student Council minions!"
From the noisy third floor, Mojo, leader of the Student Council's direct minions, snapped into a salute. Dick returned it with a playful flourish.
"...Hey. Are you kind of enjoying this?"
Mayrin grumbled as she brushed the dust off her clothes.
"That was amazing, Dick!"
When Camibarez beamed and praised him, Dick's chest puffed up with pride.
"Alright! Let's use this opening and slip into the Student Council Room."
The Student Council's workload is endless.
Major decisions for the school are handled by Kizen headquarters and the professors—the Council merely voices students' opinions on their behalf—but when it comes to anything directly tied to student welfare, the Student Council's authority swells to tremendous proportions.
The entrance ceremony and other school events, the school festival, Club Season, the general student assembly, external outreach events, department self-governance activities—all of it falls under the Council's jurisdiction.
This year's Club Season was exactly such a case. Even though it was lunchtime, strolling casually off to the school cafeteria was out of the question, so Simon and his friends took refuge in the Student Council Room instead.
"Sorry for dragging you on an errand like this," Mayrin said.
"Not at all. This is our job, after all."
The direct minions arrived carrying lunch boxes from the cafeteria.
The four of them gathered around the table, making do with a light meal as they launched into discussion.
"Club Season means everyone's trying to suck up to the Student Council. That's what all that was about," Dick said, waving his fork around. Simon knocked it with his own fork and asked, "Why do they want to look good to us?"
"Because we decide the budget."
"How much money are we talking?"
"Hmm. What came in this year is roughly 10,000 gold."
Simon's jaw dropped at the staggering figure.
"Th-they give us THAT much?"
"That's exactly why the competition gets so vicious. What did I tell you? It's a silent war."
Dick twirled his fork with a flourish and jabbed it forward for emphasis.
"With that much money flowing around during Club Season, it'd be stranger NOT to run a club. Everyone jumps in trying to grab a piece of the pie, and that's why all these sketchy clubs with no real purpose sprout up like weeds—then vanish the moment the season ends."
"Like,"
Mayrin said, elegantly twirling up a forkful of pasta, her voice like ice,
"that idiotic club you founded in first year? The 'Rochest Startup Support Society'?"
AhEM-ahem-ahem—
Dick coughed violently, flustered.
"W-what, this slander again! Our club members gained a real eye for business! It was genuinely educational!"
"And is that club still active? Hm, Dickey?"
Beaten down by Mayrin's relentless one-two, Dick turned his head away with a sour expression.
"H-how w-was I supposed to know I'd end up on the Student Council back then! You may hate our foolish past, but don't hate the person!"
"Then keep your mouth shut when you're being scolded, instead of puffing yourself up. Here comes the rod."
"Yes, ma'am."
Mayrin sighed—whew—and wiped her mouth with a napkin. Then she turned to Simon.
"That's roughly how it goes, Simon. A lot of these kids treat clubs as nothing but money-making vehicles."
"Hmm."
Simon folded his arms with a troubled expression, and Camibarez began writing up the meeting minutes.
"And what's worse, is it normal to blatantly lobby Student Council members like that?"
Mayrin pointed down at the window. Students had already begun to gather below.
"Everyone's lost their minds. We need to change the system."
Camibarez blinked up from her minutes.
"How would you change it, Mayrin?"
"We start with the budget distribution."
Mayrin stretched her arms out wide.
"A brand-new business club founded this year getting more money than an athletic club that's survived for over twenty years, just because its project is bigger? How does that make sense? We need strict standards for new clubs, with detailed review screenings on top."
Dick shook his head slowly.
"We're taking booth applications for Club Season this very evening. When exactly are we supposed to run full screenings..."
"We do it while taking the applications!"
"Then how do we split up the budget?"
Dick fired back. Caught off guard by the unexpected counterattack, Mayrin's eyes darted for a moment—but she answered right away.
"Right, the budget. Honestly, isn't Club Season the time of year the Student Council takes the most heat? All that noise—why does that club get so much and this one so little. So we make the club review process rigorous, select only a small number, then distribute funds equally so nobody has grounds to complain."
"I object!"
Dick raised his hand.
"And here we go—classic flaw of sheltered noble ladies raised in silk and satin!"
This time it was Mayrin's turn to turn red.
"Wh-what did I—!"
"If everyone gets the same amount, are you telling me a club with three members and a club with thirty get identical funds? The thirty-member club can't even afford one staff dinner."
"That's an absurdly extreme example, Dickey! Obviously nobody's saying give them EXACTLY the same—you make reasonable distinctions like that!"
"And you haven't even decided what the criteria for those distinctions are."
Simon turned his head toward Dick.
"Then what do you think, Dick?"
"As a man of the field daring to lecture on administration, let me share a saying from the world of bureaucracy."
Dick shrugged grandly and continued.
"Everything—just leave it all as it's always beeeen~"
"...You made that up just now, didn't you?"
"AHEM! Regardless, Kizen has done things this way for a reason. I say there's no need to go stirring things up for nothing."
Mayrin slammed her hand on the table.
"Hey! Are you saying that WE, the Student Council, should stay silent while we can see the flaws and side effects right in front of us?"
"If it were realistically fixable, it wouldn't have been left like this, would it? And—honestly! Speaking completely honestly here."
Dick rested his chin on his hand and grinned slyly.
"Having the entire student body trying to curry favor with us right now... doesn't that feel kind of nice?"
"...?"
The faces of the three others went stone dry.
Dick, utterly unprepared for this reaction, put on a flustered expression.
"Strangers clinging to us and striking up conversations, upperclassmen trying to strong-arm us into partnering with them, people shoving bribe-like things into our uniform jackets and running off, and now they won't even let us eat a proper lunch?"
Mayrin said sharply.
"It w-was a lot of pressure. People kept making unreasonable demands..."
Camibarez said, glancing sideways.
"Even the 3rd-year department representative sunbae called for me."
Simon scratched the back of his neck. Dick, looking sheepish, hastily changed the subject.
"Fine, fine, sorry I'm the only one enjoying the attention! Then let me put it a different way."
Dick raised his fingertip and pointed at the Student Council President's crest on Simon's uniform.
"Club Season is the time when our Student Council's power reaches its absolute peak!"
"..."
"Don't get the wrong idea, hear me out! Not that I'm saying we should ever do this! But it IS possible to funnel extra budget to friendly clubs and cut funding for hostile ones. The 3rd-years still seem to treat us like a bunch of errand runners—well, we could make them break out in a proper cold sweat! Honestly, our Student Council's position isn't exactly rock-solid right now, is it?"
Mayrin's face darkened.
"You want to leave countless problems unaddressed for THAT flimsy a reason? There are people who just want to focus on their club activities in good faith, and they're the ones getting hurt!"
"That's unfortunate, but it's called being realistic."
"That's not realism, that's turning a blind eye!"
Both their heads swiveled at the same time.
"What do you think, Simon?"
"..."
Camibarez's grip tightened on her meeting minutes, sensing the critical moment.
Simon laced his fingers together, pondered briefly, and then spoke.
"Both of your arguments have merit. We can't leave deep-rooted problems untouched, and it's true that Club Season is when our Council holds real power. But."
Simon looked at Dick.
"Power cuts both ways, doesn't it?"
If one club received a windfall and grew to support the Student Council, then another club would receive scraps and nurse a grudge against it. Becoming someone's ally was, in the end, no different from becoming someone else's enemy.
"If our position is as shaky as you say, then I think what matters more than gaining allies is not making any more enemies."
"Ahh, no, that's fair enough, but how? Keeping EVERYONE from holding a grudge is next to impossible."
Simon smiled at Dick's question.
"We set a clear, objective standard for budget distribution—and then we publish that standard to the entire student body."
The standard they settled on was the most objective one available: the number of members in each club.
When this Club Season ended, the clubs with the most members would walk away with the largest budgets. And, just as Mayrin had insisted, rather than screening new clubs—
"We collect reports instead," Simon said. "Instead of handing out the entire budget at once, we take a performance report from every club each month. Airtight, so nobody can found a club with the intent of grabbing a quick payday. The budget gets disbursed monthly, after we've received the reports."
Camibarez clapped her hands together.
"That sounds wonderful!"
Dick went "hmm" and folded his arms.
"Won't the clubs complain that we're just dumping extra work on them for nothing?"
"That's hilarious."
Mayrin snorted.
"Look at the effort they're putting into lobbying us right now. Writing one performance report a month is peanuts, no? Their money's on the line."
"...H-hmm. Fair point, when you put it that way."
"And! To make sure the performance reports are legit, the Student Council goes out and conducts random on-site evaluations!"
Dick recoiled in horror and crossed his arms into an X.
"Excuse me, Madam Vice President! As a fellow human being, please let's not volunteer to inflate our OWN workload!"
"Zip it! I'll do it myself if I have to!"
The plan was coming together.
Camibarez neatly consolidated everything and drafted the report.
"All done! If we want to have everything ready by tonight, shouldn't we get Professor Jane's approval right away?"
"Good point. Let's go together—"
"There's no need for that."
CLICK!
The Student Council Room door swung open. All four of them shot to their feet.
"Professor Jane!"
From her expression, it seemed she had already heard everything.
She stepped into the room, swept her eyes over the report on the desk, and smiled.
"I was planning to assign you that mission anyway. You're already better than most 3rd-year student councils."