You're Terrible at This - 1
A few days after I first noticed the signs that this year's Class Tournament was going to be an absolute spectacle—
"Please! Help us!"
Olivia, the Head of Discipline—our purple retriever who no longer had to scrape by on a diet of turnips—burst into the clubroom.
The situation was so unexpected that my brain locked up for a second. A sudden visitor, I could understand. Urgent business happened; people dropped by. That much was fine.
But a student walking in of their own free will—not a faculty member, not one of the three kingdoms' escort details—was something I had never imagined. From a student's point of view, there was neither reason nor occasion to come looking for me. Unless I went to them first with a letter of recommendation, that was simply how it worked.
"…What?"
Which was why my answer came a full beat late.
Olivia might have been cheerful and sweet-natured, but a good temperament was not the same thing as a soft head. She always greeted me politely when we crossed paths, yet she never approached me first. She knew perfectly well what happened when someone wandered up to me without a good reason.
And ever since her older sister Amelia had come under my command, she had been even more careful. She was a perfectly normal kid who understood the value of not needlessly irritating her sister's superior.
That same Olivia had stormed into the clubroom out of nowhere—complete with a desperate plea for help.
"Sit down first. Looking at a guest hunched over like that is making me uncomfortable."
I gave her shoulder a light pat while I sorted my thoughts. She was practically folded in half at the waist.
I still had no idea what was going on, but if Olivia had come this far, she had her reasons. She wasn't some stranger—she was one of the people I had planted in the Student Council. If a kid like that was in genuine distress, I could at least hear her out.
Besides, the current Student Council was the one Mar had passed down to her juniors. If the Head of Discipline was here, this was almost certainly a Student Council problem—and that gave me more than enough of a sentimental excuse to help.
"Do you like tea? We've got coffee and juice too."
"Ah—um, juice, please."
"Sure."
Olivia staggered into a chair and answered in a slightly dazed voice, as if she had poured every last scrap of energy into that heartrending SOS.
At this point, it was starting to get scary. What kind of ordeal did it take to leave even our lively retriever completely drained?
Is the Class Tournament atmosphere really that bad?
The only thing I could think of was the sole big event of the second semester: the Class Tournament.
Damn it. Why could nothing ever just pass by quietly?
Hopeful daydreams always missed the mark. Ominous premonitions always landed dead-on.
"The Discipline Committee can't control it on our own! We expanded our ranks compared to last year, and we even pushed through an emergency budget right after the semester started, but even accounting for all of that—this year it's impossible!"
Apparently the juice had restored some of her strength. Olivia, who had been half out of her mind a moment ago, launched into a fierce explanation of the situation. If I said she looked like a large dog growling, would that be rude to her?
In any case, the picture she painted of the Discipline Committee's condition was not a pretty one. The Student Council's manpower and budget were always limited, and when limited resources had to be split among multiple departments, dreams of "ample funding and leisurely staffing" became pure fantasy. Even the Audit Department, back when I was still under the Ministry of Finance, had never been free of budget and personnel problems.
Still, the Student Council and Discipline Committee were more competent than not, so they had distributed those limited resources as rationally and thriftily as possible. They had even taken the past two years of Class Tournaments into account—and, considering that this would be the final Class Tournament for the foreign royalty, they had shoveled even more resources toward the Discipline Committee.
But no matter how hard you worked inside a ceiling of one hundred, you could never break past one hundred. Unfortunately, Ryutis and Later's enthusiasm had blown far past that mark.
"S-so, um… I'm really sorry, but… we need your help, Minister…"
Having poured out her woes in one long rush, Olivia stole a nervous glance at my face.
She was embarrassed—of course she was. Variable or not, they were asking an outsider to handle work that should have been theirs. And not just any outsider: the man who had come here as an auditor.
"Does adding just me actually help?"
I looked at her with a pitying expression and tossed the question out casually. If they had simply barged in demanding help for no plan at all, I wouldn't have been able to nod along so readily—
"Yes! You just have to stand in the arena with your arms crossed! As long as people can see there's a possibility you might intervene, the chance of an incident drops way down!"
Oh.
Thankfully, she had come prepared with a plan of her own.
People really do think alike.
It was exactly the same approach I had already settled on.
I felt a little bad for Olivia, who was so desperately trying to persuade me—but the truth was, I had already intended to move for the sake of Class Tournament security even without this visit. If I dumped everything on the Student Council and something went wrong, I would only be lining myself up for a thorough tongue-lashing from the Emperor.
And looking at the current Student Council kids… they seemed to be under the delusion that the only reason I had helped with Academy business the past two years was because of Mar. I had just been trying to keep my club members from getting hurt.
They came because they thought I was only going to sit back and watch.
A wry smile rose on its own. Mar already knew I was running myself ragged managing the Baking Club members, so no special communication had ever been necessary—but the other Student Council officers were different. They had concluded that with Mar graduated, I would no longer involve myself in Academy affairs. That was why they were trembling and bowing their heads like this.
I felt a twinge of guilt. I had kept my distance precisely because I thought a visit from me would put pressure on the Student Council—and that choice had only thrown them into confusion.
I should have practiced coordinating with kids this far below me.
When you worked with people who were only a little junior, or roughly your own level, some things went without saying. But the Student Council was made up of children whose gap with me was enormous. Expecting them to understand without being told was the mindset of a man without a conscience.
"If that's all it takes, I can help. Don't worry about it."
So I nodded promptly and accepted Olivia's request.
"Th-thank you so much!"
Watching her beam and bow over and over again made the guilt stir again.
I should start dropping by the Student Council about once every two weeks…
"You don't have to go yourself, Karl. Leave it to me."
When I told Mar about today's retriever raid, she gently shook her head and spoke up.
"Keeping your distance from the Student Council was the right call. They only got desperate because of the Class Tournament variable—there aren't any special events after the tournament, are there?"
"That's true."
"If anything comes up that requires talking to the Student Council, just tell me. I still keep in touch with the current president now and then."
Mar was on fairly good terms with the current Student Council president. She had personally trained her successor, after all—which was also how we had learned in advance that this year's school trip destination would be the Cervez Grand Duchy. Going through Mar would be better for everyone than me showing up in person.
"Besides, there are still juniors in the Student Council who aren't even engaged yet. It would be a problem if they fell for you for no reason."
I snorted at Mar's playfully smiling face. Even as a joke, that worry was ridiculous.
"What noble young lady is going to fall for a married man?"
"There's the Golden Duke, you know."
"Ah."
The Golden Duke—practically a universal keyword whenever romance was involved—left me with nothing to say. Unlike me, who had met all of my partners while still single, the Golden Duke had sometimes met new lovers while already married. There was quite an age gap in some of those cases, too, from what I'd heard.
Of course, this was a world where polygamy and polyandry were both possible, so as long as it wasn't adultery, the form of the marriage didn't really matter. What mattered was the prosperity of the house.
But twelve wives… just how much prosperity was he aiming for?
It's not like he's the Habsburgs.
Honestly, if House Ociden had been in the eastern continent, people would already be calling it the Ociden Royal Family. It was only because the nation they belonged to had been an empire for generations that they hadn't been swallowed up already. If it had been a kingdom, they would have eaten it long ago.
I was about to settle my head onto Mar's lap while thinking that—then I saw First Snow, who had grown so much, and gave up. I couldn't exactly shove my own child aside and claim the knee for myself.
"Karl. Over here."
Mar, watching a father's sacrifice for his child, laughed softly and patted her own shoulder.
A shoulder pillow was something I could never refuse.
Lately, my sparring sessions with Ryutis had been increasing. Judging by how he had even set aside his beloved chess, he was clearly grinding his teeth for the Class Tournament.
The chill around Later had grown denser too. The reason Ryutis had started avoiding chess in the first place was that his challenger, Later, had pulled away. It wasn't that he wanted to stop—he simply couldn't play even if he wanted to. The two of them probably wouldn't sit across a chessboard again until after the Class Tournament.
The pride duel between Ryutis, prince of a knightly kingdom, and Later, prince of a great magical power. Watching that fierce rivalry for three years straight until I was thoroughly sick of it, I suddenly grasped a single truth.
Why am I supposed to just let those two take the championship?
This was the Imperial Academy. Shouldn't an imperial student be the one to win?
It was a thought that had simply popped into my head—but it was also an obvious one. Seriously, what sense did it make for a foreign student to win at an imperial educational institution?
Before I realized it, I hadn't thought much of it. Once my eyes were opened to the truth, though, irritation came flooding in. I was a member of House Crassius, an Imperial Count family, and a titled noble in my own right—Erich Crassius of Hardiner. I had a duty to serve the honor of the Empire willingly.
The championship… should I go for it?
I looked over at Ainter, who was quietly training off in a corner.
If I put Ainter—imperial royalty and a marquis—front and center, the imperial students would rally. We could stand tall without flinching even in front of foreign royalty.
Until last year, Ainter had avoided physical activity, so the method hadn't been available. This year, it was.
All right.
Might as well give it a shot.
If we were going to graduate anyway, we might as well leave behind a dazzling, magnificent memory.