When Superiors Point, Subordinates Roll - 5
As always, I was alone in the club room that morning. Honestly, I'd rather have sorted my thoughts back at the dorm, but for how little time I'd spent at the Academy, I'd already gotten used to reporting to the club room for work. Civil servants only feel at ease when they have somewhere to clock in every morning.
Of course, that only settled my heart. My head was still a complete mess.
Easy for him to say, that bastard.
In a fit of frustration, I sank into the chairback as if burying myself in it and tipped my head toward the ceiling. So that's what the pattern up there looked like. First time noticing.
I forced down the sigh that rose on its own and clutched my head. I'd suspected this the moment Ainter joined the club, but the moment I'd hoped would never come had arrived all the same—the kind of moment I, from my position, simply could not refuse.
Through the Minister of Palace Affairs, the Crown Prince's instructions had come down. It wasn't an official order, of course, but when the Crown Prince—already locked in as the next Emperor—made his wishes that blatant, how was anyone supposed to ignore them? I was technically in the Crown Prince's faction myself, so even if the demand was pure garbage, I at least had to make a show of complying.
Even so, ordering me to dispose of a prince in an emergency was going too far. He obviously didn't mean for me to cut him down in broad daylight, so it'd have to be staged as an accident—and I'd already done more than enough of that kind of suffering with the Second Prince. The moment a prince dropped dead out of nowhere, no matter how carefully you dressed it up, everyone would know it was the Crown Prince's doing. They'd all known when I took care of the Second Prince, too.
Thankfully, he doesn't seem fully committed.
If the Crown Prince had been serious, he would have told me to handle it immediately, not "in an emergency." But Ainter's silence so far, the unshakable succession rights that showed no sign of wavering, and the insurance of having me available for emergencies had all combined to make the Crown Prince choose mercy. Honestly, it was astonishing. Mercy—from that maniac?
Still, it was a relief. I already felt guilty enough toward Ainter; the last thing I wanted was to send him the three-piece carriage-wine-terrace set. The Crown Prince's rampage button hadn't been pressed yet, so all I could do was keep defending Ainter as hard as I could and ride it out.
That son of a bitch.
No amount of cursing the Crown Prince ever felt like enough, but I couldn't say I didn't understand where he was coming from.
If you suddenly heard that Ainter—who'd been living with his head down and out of sight—had joined the same club as a foreign prince and a saint candidate, of course you'd freak out. The past must have flashed before his eyes: him and the Second Prince grabbing each other by the collar, kicking each other in the balls at the same time, and both getting stun-locked in the process.
But from my perspective, knowing the truth, it was a hard no. Kill Ainter and all I'd get was the title of "the guy who went out of his way to murder a prince who wasn't even in the line of succession." All downside, no upside—something to avoid at all costs.
And if Ainter suddenly dropped dead, anyone with eyes would assume I'd done it while I was at the Academy. The aggro that would draw would be unreal.
"I'll take this as settling the old debt."
In the end, I muttered it under my breath along with the sigh I couldn't hold back any longer.
The hard pressure I'd put on Ainter two years ago—we'd call it even with this. Me, the man who might have to kill him if things went wrong, standing up for him instead? That was more than enough to pay the debt. Hell, it was an extraordinary show of consideration. Ainter really ought to know about the invisible effort I was putting in.
As if the main quest of "Luise and the kids" weren't hard enough, I now had to run the side quest of "Deciding Ainter's Treatment" at the same time. But what choice did I have? The higher-up wanted it, so the underling had to roll in the direction he pointed. At least I still got to decide how I rolled—small mercies.
It didn't feel like a mercy at all, but it was a mercy all the same. If I didn't think of it that way, I wouldn't last.
When club time arrived, my mood soured for a different reason. It was better than yesterday, but the five's stares were still sharp. So they were the type to hold a grudge for a while. I hadn't realized...
The fact that Erich was among those five made it even more painful. Had he already forgotten the advice his big brother gave him—the kind that builds character and strength? The phrase "black-haired beast" flickered through my mind, but I forced myself to ignore it. I believed my little brother was not a beast.
"Brother, here. I tried making something new."
Actually, Luise's tireless efforts to keep talking to me were probably why the five's stares hadn't let up. Luise herself seemed to have realized belatedly how embarrassing yesterday's prank had been; her cheeks were faintly pink. Well, whose fault was that? It had turned into a free-for-all with no winners.
Anyway, she'd made something new, so I had to try it.
Fruit?
Cookies studded with little pieces of fruit sat on the plate. I'd heard of cookies like that, but this was my first time seeing them. Luise really did have a gift for baking. More than enough skill to justify starting a Baking Club.
I took a bite, and once again it was excellent. When I nodded in approval at the always-reliable Luise cookies, she lit up with a shy little smile.
"Mind if I try one too?"
Oh?
To my genuine surprise, Ryutis volunteered to try Luise's cookies. Luise's eyes went round at the unexpected taste-tester, but she seemed delighted that the guy who'd been avoiding her until now had stepped up first. She beamed and held the plate out to him.
"Here! Enjoy!"
See? Just offering to eat the cookies she'd worked hard on was enough to make Luise that happy. The five idiots had been taking the long way around an easy road this whole time, but at last one of them had seen the light.
The fact that said enlightenment had been born out of wariness toward me was a little annoying, but results were what mattered, right? Ryutis's mouth, which until now had done nothing but spew useless flags, had finally found a role that actually suited a romance fantasy. It was a moving moment.
"Mmm..."
My celebration was premature. The second Ryutis started chewing, the way his face twisted was obvious enough that Luise's shoulders visibly slumped. He wasn't even trying to hide that he couldn't eat it anymore.
"Putting fruit in cookies isn't that common. It's the kind of thing that splits people."
With that, I took the entire plate. It wasn't even surprising anymore—this was just how it always went. Whatever happened in the middle, I always ended up collecting Luise's cookies and handling them myself.
Suddenly deprived of her plate, Luise stared at me blankly before turning her head away in embarrassment. Having someone flat-out unable to eat something you'd made with confidence would do that. I casually shifted my gaze toward Ryutis.
He acted so confident, too.
Ryutis was just an idiot who let his body move before his brain. Still, the fact that he'd tried earned him some partial credit. The problem was that his base score was infinitely negative.
I found myself looking at him with open pity, but Ryutis was looking back at me with a completely different expression from before. Not wariness this time—awe? Who feels awe watching someone eat a cookie? Was he unhinged?
I frowned slightly and looked away, only to spot the other four standing awkwardly behind him. When Ryutis had charged ahead earlier, they'd probably considered volunteering to eat cookies themselves—then saw his reaction and wisely stood down. Pathetic. At least Ryutis had the guts to actually do it.
I quietly bit into another fruit cookie from the plate. The sugar settled my nerves.
After that, baking club activities continued as usual. The only notable difference was how quiet Ryutis had become after charging in on a whim and getting shot down. Knowing the difference between confidence and recklessness is important, kid. Then again, talking about "recklessness" over eating a cookie was pretty funny on its own.
While I silently paid my respects to Ryutis—who had gone from sole first place to sole last—I felt a few vibrations from the communication orb in my coat. A quick check showed it wasn't glowing. Someone must have sent a document. For a second I thought it was another message from Palace Affairs and nearly jumped.
It could be important, so I stood to step outside and check. My eyes met Luise's. When I showed her the communication orb I'd pulled from my coat, she gave a small nod and turned her attention back to the oven. Lately it felt like I was locking eyes with Luise an awful lot.
Anyway, I left the club room and walked an empty corridor while operating the orb. What document could possibly be important enough to send all the way to me on assignment?
My body locked up the second the stored message hit my eyes. Checking again, I was relieved to see it was from several weeks ago, not now. I must have forgotten to delete it after reading.
I thought he'd finally lost his mind.
Telling someone at the Academy to report to the minister's office—he'd either gone mad or senile. Fortunately, the Minister was neither. I scrolled past the old messages, including that particular summoning spell, until I found the most recent one.
Ah. This one.
He already sent it?
Right after my Academy assignment was decided, while making various preparations, I'd also made an impassioned request to the Intelligence Director. The Audit Department had its own information-gathering capacity, sure, but comparing it to a department that specialized in intelligence for a living was just embarrassing.
Fortunately, my passionate pleading must have moved him, because even though I'd asked for a considerable volume of information, he'd already compiled and sent it. All those years of civil servants helping each other out had come back around. Not bad...
I opened the lengthy document that had arrived ahead of the "please review" message. The title confirmed it was exactly the information I'd requested.
So these are the ones that came after them in the original story.
It was enough to make my head spin. If I hadn't gone looking and just sat still, I would have gotten beaten senseless.
I skimmed the Intelligence Director's report quickly. The moment I'd heard that the original male leads were gathering at the Academy under the cursed destiny of the source material, this was the first information I'd gone after.
"There are this many lunatics itching to tear the Academy down?"
I'd scraped together every group that looked like they might have contributed to putting the protagonists in crisis in the original story.