The Shipping-Obsessed Chairwoman and the Regent
While Karl stepped out with Line to clean up, Elina, left alone, leaned deep into the sofa and hummed a tune.
Twitching her ears as she gently swirled her cup of warm black tea, she looked every bit the young girl enjoying a peaceful moment.
However, in the peaceful chairwoman's office, there was one more guest.
The acrid stench of cheap leaf tobacco instantly overpowered the room's pleasant aroma.
Leaning askew against the ornate railing of the office terrace, a man exhaled a long stream of gray smoke.
Clad in a shabby, worn gray military coat with the collar turned up, the man taking a deep drag from his cigarette was Georgi Yosifovich von Stalheim.
He was the man known as the Regent of the Empire, ruling the entire realm with fear and an iron fist.
"Why are you here?"
The Regent sighed, flicking the cigarette ash into the air.
"Must I ask permission just to visit you now, Elina?"
"You know very well that Your Excellency and I aren't close enough to drop by unannounced and exchange warm pleasantries."
"I wish to sit down and reconcile with you comfortably one day. Rosen Academy is your achievement, but it is also one of the few sources of pride in my life as I lead this hellish Empire."
As Georgi drifted closer, Elina shrank back into the corner of the sofa, keeping her guard up.
"Pride, my foot. Reconcile? In your dreams."
"If not reconciliation, then let us call it atonement."
Keeping the cigarette between his lips, the Regent swept his hair back with his fingers.
Through the strands of gray hair, ears that were slightly pointier than those of an ordinary human were revealed.
Yet, he was a pure, one-hundred-percent human.
A pure human who had merely consumed a tiny amount of the World Tree's sap.
As a result, even after eighty years, the Regent remained physically fit, without having lost a single tooth.
"Because of that damned sap, I cannot even die of old age. I want to retire, but my successors are so incompetent that I cannot leave. I am getting sick of carrying this country on my back while listening to everyone's endless grumbling."
Perching himself on the terrace railing, the Regent let out a heavy sigh.
"Whether it is those bastards from the Gaia Republic or the Holy Kingdom, those motherfuckers never learn. Lately, they keep showing suspicious mana reactions near the border. And the monsters from the Nyland Treaty Territory are constantly trying to invade imperial territory. It is giving me a massive headache."
"...Should I help you out?"
In an instant, the Regent's face hardened so terrifyingly that it felt as if the temperature inside the office had plummeted below freezing.
"Do not."
"..."
"Never. No matter what happens, you are not to interfere."
Annoyed by his overprotectiveness, Elina puffed out her cheeks and grumbled.
"If you were going to be this overprotective, why did you throw me into the jaws of death during the war?! Back then, you grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and threw me right into the middle of the Demon King's front lines!"
"...I do not wish to speak of that anymore."
The Regent stubbed out his burning cigarette in the ashtray, walked over slowly, and stood before the sofa.
"...Is it still too difficult for me to call you my daughter?"
Instead of answering, Elina sprang up from her seat and drove a straight punch into the Regent's solar plexus.
Thud!
"Like hell you can!"
"Keheugh!"
The ruthless dictator and terrifying superhuman of the Empire clutched his stomach and collapsed miserably onto the floor from a single punch by a half-elf kid.
Groaning and rolling on the floor, the Regent looked utterly pathetic, devoid of any dignity.
Even so, the Regent pushed himself up from the dusty floor, rubbing his aching stomach with a smirk.
"...Your punches are as fierce as ever."
"So stop talking nonsense if you don't want to get beaten up, you old geezer."
"Fine, I understand. If not a daughter, then so be it. I shall call you my former subordinate."
The Regent stood up and brushed the dust off his worn military coat.
"The only subordinate from the 62nd Magic Infantry Division still alive on this earth after eighty years. I simply wanted to see if she was doing well."
Holding her teacup, Elina quietly averted her gaze.
"You old geezer. Do you have any idea how terrified my kids were by your sudden surprise visit?"
"For being terrified, they prepared an excellent reception. That sticky dessert made of egg yolks could be served to foreign dignitaries right away."
"Hmph, that's because the kids at our academy are talented! Not because they were scared of you!"
Elina snorted and turned her head away.
Instead of replying, Georgi looked out the window of the chairwoman's office, where the red glow of the sunset was settling.
Reflected in his deep-set eyes was the peaceful sight of the academy students laughing and chatting as they prepared for the festival on the vast campus.
"The children are playing at romance."
"...What about it? It's only natural for young men and women to fall for each other. It's a common sight here."
"I say this because time seems to have stopped only in this academy you built. Even though many years have passed since the war ended, the scent of blood has yet to fade from the Empire. The backs of the commoners are bent from rebuilding the ruins of war, and the guillotine never dries as we purge the rebels running rampant in the wake of the imperial family's absence."
"If you plan on bringing that scent of blood here, get out immediately. This is my territory."
Georgi remained unfazed by Elina's defensive warning.
He quietly rummaged through the pocket of his worn gray coat, pulled out a bluish glass bottle, and set it down on the table.
The imperial symbol, a golden double-headed eagle, was vividly engraved on the bottle's surface.
It was the legendary imperial vodka, which only the Emperor of the Empire was permitted to drink.
During the Great War against the demons, when the bloodthirsty demonic horde surged across the border, the Emperor, the imperial family, and the high nobility did not cowardly flee behind the defensive walls.
To buy even a few minutes for the citizens to safely evacuate to the rear, everyone who could hold a sword—from the Crown Prince to the aging Emperor—plunged into the flames of the front lines.
In return, not a single noble bloodline of the imperial family survived; they were wiped out, turning to dust on the battlefield.
Though the homeland and its people survived, the Empire had lost its head entirely.
In the midst of extreme chaos, under the pretext of waiting for an imperial heir who might miraculously return one day, the people of the Empire left the Emperor's throne vacant and created the position of 'Regent'.
And the stubborn man standing before her was the very Regent who had sat in that seat, staining his hands with all kinds of dirty blood, turning the tide of war with his iron-fisted rule, and rebuilding the Empire into the greatest power on the continent.
An old man who had never once lusted after personal luxury or wealth in his entire life, who remained the most powerful man in the Empire yet smoked cheap leaf tobacco and wore a tattered, worn-out coat.
Yet, he was a ruthless politician who would not blink an eye at sending tens of thousands of heads to the guillotine for the greater good of the Empire's survival and order.
Glancing at the imperial vodka on the table, Elina crossed her arms and snapped her head away.
"I'm abstaining from alcohol."
"An imperial citizen abstaining from alcohol? I would sooner believe the absurd claim that a dwarf is driving a carriage."
For reference, because dwarves drank alcohol like water as a racial trait and frequently caused drunk-driving accidents, imperial law strictly banned them from working as carriage drivers.
"I did not come to interfere, Elina. I simply wanted to see how the immature kid who once wept and bled on the battlefield, begging me to save her comrades, had turned into a meddlesome chairwoman playing matchmaker for children."
"..."
Georgi quietly turned around and walked toward the door.
"I am glad to see you look happy."
"...Bastard. If you were going to be like this, you should have treated me better back then."
"Because you were a child of my homeland, whom I pushed into hell."
The commander who had pushed the young Elina into only the most brutal and horrific battlefields for the sake of the Empire's survival.
Yet, after the war ended, the benefactor who had hurt for her wounds more than anyone else, creating the 'sanctuary' of Rosen Academy and guaranteeing her freedom.
Above all, a 'comrade-in-arms' who had survived alongside her, escaping death countless times on the battlefield.
"Your homeland, Georgi."
Georgi smiled bitterly at her response and grasped the heavy door of the office.
"Are you still not eating regular meals? Your complexion is still pale."
"...I'm not telling you."
"You will ruin your health. Just because elf blood flows in your veins does not mean your body is made of steel."
The corners of Georgi's eyes crinkled playfully.
"By the way, how are things going with that uptight knight who is always stuck to your side?"
"Huh? Karl? What about Karl?"
"Should I reserve the cathedral in the imperial capital for the wedding? With my authority, I am willing to rent out the entire cathedral for you."
"W-What on earth are you talking about, you old geezer!!! He and I are not like that?! Get out right now!!! Get out!!!"
Fuming with rage, Elina threw a cushion from the table at Georgi with terrifying force, but the battle-hardened Regent dodged out the door and escaped into the hallway with a chuckle.
Slam!
"T-That damn bastard, seriously!"
Elina shook her fists and huffed at the door through which Georgi had fled.
With her cheeks puffed out and even her pointed ears flushed red, the half-elf chairwoman looked exactly like a sulking child.
"Why would I book a wedding hall with Karl! He's a cheapskate, he's uptight, and he's like a bald eagle who nags all day if a ribbon isn't symmetrical! Not that he's actually bald, though!"
She was throwing a fit all by herself, pounding the cushion as if it were a punching bag, when—
Slam!
"Uwaaaah! Chairwoman! Please hide me! I don't care if it's the office basement, behind the trash can, or behind a flowerpot, just please hide meeee!"
Bursting in was Line, her face messy with tears and snot, holding her bag high over her head.
"L-Line? What's wrong? Did Rohan and Teresa actually commit murder in the dorm room next door? Or did Karl kick you in the shins for a typo in the paperwork?"
"No! Something a hundred times scarier than that happened!"
Line began sobbing against the desk, and so—
"I... I have to perform at this Victory Day event! They're forcing me to go on stage!"
"Huh? A performance? Geez, you scared me. You made all this fuss over a festival performance? I mean, the academy's founding festival is doubling as the Victory Day event, so it'll be quite grand. But Line, you're the top freshman. You're a classical Bard major, so you can just quietly play a song on the harp or lyre in the corner of the stage and leave. The upperclassmen treat you like a lunatic anyway, so no one will bother you. What's the problem?"
"No! The scale is completely different! It's not the academy festival stage!"
"How big of a performance is it?"
"...They say I have to go to the imperial capital."
"Huh?"
"They say I have to perform solo on the main opening stage of the official 'Victory Day' in the middle of the imperial capital square, watched by tens of thousands of imperial nobles, citizens, the Regent, and old man Gorky!!!"
Pfft!
"...Would you like some vodka?"