The Club Members Live There, the Advisor Goes Home - 2
There were six students I had to manage. Exactly half of them were imperial citizens; the other half were those foreign... no, foreign nationals.
When vacation rolled around, the imperial students could simply head back to their own homes. Luise had the Naiad baronial house, Erich had the Crassius count's house, and Ainter had the Imperial Palace as his foundation. As for the foreign students with no roots in the Empire, they could just return to their homelands.
Wouldn't it be better to be treated like royalty back home than to stay in this distant, unfamiliar Empire? Back there, underlings they could boss around with a single finger were everywhere for the taking.
So why.
Why weren't they going back? What were they planning to do by staying at the Academy over the break?
Of course, it wasn't as if no students ever stayed behind. The dorms remained open during vacation, and the city that had grown up around the Academy was decent enough. But the ones who did that were usually commoners whose entire lives hinged on their Academy grades, or people whose homes were ridiculously far away.
Did those three foreign bastards really care that much about Academy grades? They'd be better off doing something else with the time they spent attending. Homes too far? What, was a teleport mage just for show?
"How unexpected."
I barely managed to open my mouth, fighting the urge to smash the cookie tin beside me over all three of their heads. Endure it. I had to endure. Blow up here and it was straight to a diplomatic incident and a one-way ticket to the Ministry of Justice. Adding another line to my criminal record would be inconvenient.
"There's nothing to do even if you stay at the Academy, so wouldn't it be better to head back?"
What I really wanted to say was Cut the crap and get the hell out of here right now!, but I sanitized it as much as humanly possible. And truly, there was nothing to do if they stayed. Luise would be heading back to her territory...
No. Oh hell no. Don't tell me.
"Once I graduate from the Academy, when will I ever get another chance to come to the Empire? Times like these are when I need to travel around and broaden my horizons."
Ryutis's words lent weight to the suspicion I had been half-hoping was wrong. He said "travel the Empire," but it was painfully obvious where that damn fool would end up going.
"We're so busy during the term that vacation is the only free time we have."
Later piled on as well, arguing the legitimacy of remaining at the Academy. Did they really need to take turns saying things that one of them could have covered alone?
They planned this. These bastards had already coordinated. If only one of the three nations' dignitaries stayed behind, the justification wouldn't hold, but if all three stayed, the grounds for forcing them home suddenly became thin. Ryutis and Later had clearly colluded, and odds were Tanian was in on it too. This was no spontaneous decision.
Vicious little shits.
Thinking of Villar, who had been growing brighter by the day, made my teeth chatter at this nightmare of a situation. If Villar had known about this, he never could have looked that cheerful. He would have poured every last scrap of strength into persuading those three hopeless cases and drained himself dry.
And they had known that, which was why they had kept it under airtight secrecy until the last possible moment before break. If they had announced it earlier, Villar would have hounded them. Cruel bastards...
"You're all staying at the Academy?"
Luise, who had been huddled over a textbook with Irina, lifted her head slightly. Her eyes were on the page, but her ears had clearly been open in our direction.
"You can't go traveling every single day. Won't you get bored?"
"We'll be fine, sister. There are three of us, after all."
More precisely, three plus several dozen. Escort details were people too, you know.
In any case, the firm way they answered Luise made one thing crystal clear: their refusal to go home was a fixed constant. Ha. Damn it all.
"If everyone's going to be in the Empire, meeting up during the break shouldn't be a problem. We could even do a club trip."
After long deliberation, I forced the words out. The reaction was explosive. Luise didn't mind either way, and the club members were simply thrilled that I was giving them a proper justification. Watching them left a bitter taste in my mouth.
This is the best option.
Shockingly, it really was. If I couldn't stop the three of them from camping out in the Empire, it was far more convenient to gather the entire club. Managing them as a group was easier than letting them run individual "I just want to see Luise" campaigns all over the place.
"We'll have to decide where to meet for that."
"No rush. Let's take our time deciding."
"Irina, you coming too?"
"H-huh? Me?"
Every time the club members' conversation drifted over, I quietly clenched the cookie tin. It was getting a little crumpled, but that was fine. The term was over anyway.
The moment club time ended, I urgently summoned Villar. The second I said it was important, he arrived in under five minutes. The instant he sat down, I shared the nightmare situation.
Villar's reaction was neither lament, silence, nor rage—it was something transcendent. A smile lingered on his face as he quietly picked up his teacup.
He's smiling? In this situation?
Before my transmigration, there had been a saying: crying when things get hard is third-rate, enduring is second-rate. So what about first-rate people? They smile when things get hard. First-rate. Villar was first-rate. He had attained enlightenment and become first-rate in the face of this horrific reality.
But he hadn't quite reached perfect first-rate status. The hand holding the teacup was trembling violently. Still, out of solemn respect, I decided I had seen nothing.
"How surprising."
= Fuck.
The first words from smiling Villar. Both of us knew exactly what that opening line meant. Even setting aside the fact that he would still be in charge next term, his return home had been right around the corner. He had been on the verge of reuniting with his longed-for homeland and family, and now suddenly it was extended duty.
On top of that, he had planned to reorganize the new escort force during the break—and now he couldn't go home? His home country would start grilling him with "Why didn't you get His Highness the Prince to return?", while from the side the princes themselves would be whining "Why can't we go home?" At this point, if Villar spat curses at Enen, the god would have to accept them with humility.
"I never anticipated this."
With a hand trembling so badly it was almost solemn, Villar drank his tea and spoke with a sigh. So Villar hadn't known either. If he had known and kept his mouth shut this whole time, I would have lost all remaining faith in humanity.
"I found it unexpected myself. It's left me a little flustered."
I forced a smile as I spoke, but "a little flustered" didn't begin to cover it. If the three foreign dignitaries stayed at the Academy, it wasn't just the three nations' escort forces that would be stuck there. I would automatically be stuck as well.
Damn it.
Staying at the Academy through the entire break was impossible. If I were Academy faculty, maybe, but I had a real job as Audit Department Chief. Until now the deputy chief had been holding the fort as acting head, but that only worked under the assumption that I would return during the break.
I had to go home. If I couldn't return this vacation, the department would be without its chief for nearly a full year. And if this nonsense repeated every break, that would stretch to three years. A department without its highest decision-maker for years on end? Was everyone insane?
In the end, the meeting with Villar produced nothing but mutual sighs and ended. The problem was far too big for us to resolve on our own. We didn't exactly have the authority to forcibly repatriate princes and a saint candidate.
"What do we do?"
I contacted the minister the moment Villar left. The fact that my feet were nailed to the Academy wasn't something I could solve under my own power either. The minister was silent for a long time, clearly equally speechless. A prolonged state of "Audit Department (Chief: Vacant)" would wear him out too.
"They really said they're staying at the Academy?"
"I've never known them to lie about something like this."
"What a beautiful character, so fitting for such highborn personages."
Right? Even so, right now I almost wished they were the type who lied as easily as breathing.
The minister seemed to share the sentiment; he furrowed his brow and muttered something. Thankfully the communication sphere didn't transmit quiet sounds properly. He was probably spewing every curse he knew.
"For now, I think we can hold out this time."
"Yes, a year should be manageable. And after that? Can you guarantee this never happens again?"
"Well..."
No, I couldn't guarantee a damn thing.
These were the kinds of people who colluded among themselves and dropped the bomb with zero warning. Assuming "they'll only do it this once" would be dangerously naive. If anything, having done it once made them even more likely to do it again.
"The good news is there's nothing urgent on the docket."
At the rare sight of the minister sighing, I spun my thoughts quickly. The Audit Department had no emergency business that needed handling over the summer. Even expanding the window into the second half of the year, there was still nothing that required my direct command. At least, not yet.
"For the time being, handle approvals through the communication sphere."
"Excuse me?"
That grotesquely inefficient method?
"What choice do we have? You can't come to the capital, and the deputy can't exactly go to the Academy either."
"That's true, but..."
There was no real counterargument, so I nodded reluctantly. Compared to face-to-face it was obviously inefficient, but verbal approvals through the communication sphere still beat being completely cut off.
"Endure it that way until we find another solution."
At least the fire on my feet had been put out.
The price for extinguishing that tiny fire on my feet was a meteor dropping straight onto my head. This time the catastrophe came through Tanian's mouth.
"I'd like to visit the Imperial Capital."
"...The capital?"
The day after the first emergency meeting with Villar and the second with the minister, during club time, a new bomb detonated.
"Is there really any need to go all the way to the capital?"
My outward reply was casual, but inside I was burning alive. No. You cannot go to the capital. That place is absolutely off-limits. Go to Boyar again if you have to. Just not the capital...!
"How can one claim to have seen the Empire without seeing the capital?"
"We might go there during the school trip."
"Haha, it's not even confirmed that the school trip will visit the capital, so we should go while we have the chance."
Faced with that already-decided firmness, I glanced around. The other club members were clearly on Tanian's side. Either they had already colluded to push for the capital, or they simply liked the idea of going there.
"The capital sounds wonderful!"
Luise, who seemed to fall into the latter category, was already overflowing with anticipation. Even Luise—the only possible brake who could stop these people—had locked onto the capital.
"It'll be crowded and chaotic with all the people."
"Haha, brother. Wouldn't it be stranger if a place people go to play had hardly anyone in it?"
It wasn't exactly wrong, so I opened and closed my mouth a few times and finally shut it.
And then, once club time ended and I was alone in the clubroom again—
"Those sons of bitches..."
I was gulping down water from the clubroom jug, trying to soothe my still-burning insides.
If they merely stayed at the Academy, the damage was limited to interference with my real job. If they traveled around the Empire, the escort details would just get tired. Even adding a bit more on top of that would only make the principal break out in a cold sweat.
But the Imperial Capital was a completely different dimension. When major foreign dignitaries visited the capital on personal business rather than as part of an Academy schedule, the scale spiraled out of control.
Fuck.
A lineup was about to appear that could treat people like the Audit Department Chief and the Academy principal as "mere department-head level" and dismiss them entirely.