The Academy Festival and the Secret Auction
The days passed, and before I knew it, the Academy's midterm evaluation... no, the festival day had arrived.
“It's pretty lively.”
“That's how it is. Even if it's a substitute for the midterm evaluation, a festival is still a festival.”
Well, that made sense. The whole point of the festival was to scream, 'We got attacked by demons, but our academy is standing strong!!!' If everyone was moping around instead of being rowdy, it wouldn't exactly scream “standing strong.” It'd just look like we were half-destroyed.
The academy seemed to understand that too, because the usual streets were packed with all sorts of street stalls and booths prepared by the students.
“Should we check out the student-run booths first?”
“Sure.”
I took Aria's hand and stepped into one of the booths the students had opened.
“This is...”
“Welcome! This is the Hero's Diner. What would you like to order?”
We'd just picked a random one, but it turned out to be a food stall.
“Looks like a restaurant. Perfect timing, I'm getting hungry. Let's grab something here.”
“Sounds good. I was actually getting a bit hungry myself. So, the menu...”
Most of the items listed were noodle dishes, so we ordered two bowls of the featured item: banquet noodles.
“Two orders of banquet noodles, got it.”
The student acting as a server took our order slip and left. I poured myself a cup of water from the bottle on the table and took a sip.
“Plea, how do you think the students are running these booths, anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
I set my cup down with a clink and tilted my head. Aria continued her explanation.
“Think about it. The academy couldn't possibly supply that much cooking ingredients, right? They might provide construction materials, but they wouldn't sell unprocessed food ingredients...”
“Obviously they'd have to buy those from outside.”
“But isn't the academy banned from using outside money?”
Did Aria not know the festival rules? Come to think of it, she was pretty diligent when it came to studying, but she tended to be completely indifferent to anything outside her interests. It made sense that she wouldn't know. Most students probably didn't, unless they were actually running a booth themselves.
“According to the rules, only students who set up booths are allowed to purchase goods from outside. Setting up a booth using only currency that circulates inside the academy is impossible for lower-ranked students.”
“Oh, now that you mention it, that makes sense. Students ranked around 90th only get less than a million won in living expenses... By the way, where did you hear about this, Aria?”
“I heard it from Camilla.”
It was sometime last week. I'd happened to chat with Camilla and learned about it. What was it again... She'd said she was opening a general store and asked me to stop by. She'd even given me some mysterious item that looked like a VIP card.
What the hell was a VIP at a student booth? This wasn't a department store... It had to be the catastrophic economic sense of a second-generation chaebol who'd lived the VIP life at department stores since childhood.
From what I remembered, Camilla's stall opened after lunchtime, so we could head over once we finished our noodles.
“Your two orders of banquet noodles are ready.”
Two bowls of banquet noodles have been served.
“That was delicious. For something students cooked, the quality was surprisingly high.”
“Yeah, that was good enough to sell at an actual restaurant.”
The noodles we'd eaten for lunch were incredibly satisfying. If I had to pick the best banquet noodles I'd had recently, those would easily take the top spot.
“Now that we've eaten, do you have anywhere specific you want to go?”
“Yeah. Camilla said she opened a general store, so I was thinking of checking it out.”
“Miss Camilla's general store? Now that sounds interesting.”
“Right?”
A general store run by a second-generation chaebol... I was already excited to see what kind of extravagant items would be on display. 'Maybe luxury bags or jewelry-encrusted accessories lined up on the shelves?'
But contrary to my expectations, Camilla's general store was surprisingly ordinary. If anything stood out, it was the exterior of the booth. Compared to the other stalls that were basically just fancy tents or temporary structures, Camilla's looked like it had undergone proper construction, with a clean and polished appearance.
“Welcome! This is Camilla's General Store!”
Camilla greeted us with a bright smile, while an air dancer flapped around promoting the store. Students walking down the street were drawn in by the beautiful-girl tactic and the advertising balloon, trickling into the booth one by one.
“Hey.”
“Hello... P-Plea, you're here early...”
“I came right after eating lunch like you suggested last time.”
Anyway, the moment I showed up, Camilla shriveled up again. She'd been confidently promoting her store just a second ago. Why did she still lose all her confidence whenever she saw me?
“That aside, the inside of the store looks pretty normal.”
The items visible through the glass windows were mostly ordinary. Instant foods that were easy to eat, materials for fairly expensive personal weapons, spiritual medicines, medical supplies, and so on. They were expensive and rare, but not impossible to obtain if you tried. Still, the truly rare items were rare enough that people kept coming in without pause.
“Oh, isn't that the product made to commemorate the launch of the Helion Satellite No. 3?”
“Look over there. Those are greaves from Elimaton... I thought they hadn't been released in Helion yet.”
...Maybe it wasn't so ordinary after all? I'd thought they were just things you could get if you looked hard enough, but it seemed she'd carefully selected items with higher rarity than I'd expected.
“I-I don't think they're exactly ordinary...”
“...Yeah, I guess I was mistaken.”
Even Camilla was saying that, and Aria, who'd come with me, was completely absorbed in the sponsor commemorative goods for Helion Satellite No. 3. There was no point in saying anything else.
As I stared at the scene in a daze, Camilla swallowed nervously and whispered carefully into my ear.
“D-Did you bring the VIP card by any chance?”
“The card? Oh, this?”
I rummaged through the pocket of my skirt and pulled out the golden VIP card Camilla had given me last time.
“Yes, that's the one... Then, could you please follow me, Miss Plea?”
“?”
It was a strange request, suddenly asking me to follow her, but it wasn't like it would hurt me, so I quietly followed behind Camilla. She glanced around to check if anyone was watching, then opened a door marked Authorized Personnel Only and secretly let me inside.
“...Camilla, is this what I think it is?”
What was inside wasn't a storage room. Well, it did serve as storage since there were items stacked up, but my eyes caught another door hidden behind the piles.
“A-As expected, your senses are sharp, Miss Plea...”
Camilla twitched the corner of her mouth, then boldly opened the hidden door. What appeared was...
“Are you kidding me? They're running an auction house at the academy?”
“It's not exactly prohibited...?”
Just like Camilla said, it wasn't technically forbidden. No one would have imagined that some crazy student would gather a bunch of wealthy cadets and open an auction house...!
“I-I didn't expect you to come this early... But it doesn't matter... Adding one more person to the morning auction won't cause any problems...”
Camilla hurriedly went outside and brought back an extra chair.
“Please sit here. The others said they'd step out for a bit, so they'll be back soon.”
Just as Camilla said, about ten minutes after I sat down, the hallway outside the storage room grew noisy. Several students opened the secret door and entered the auction area.
“So I was saying... Huh? Who are you?”
Judging by the color of their neckties, none of them were first-years like me. They were all second to fourth-year seniors. I was wondering if I should greet them first when one of the seniors recognized me and shouted.
“Hey! You're that girl, right? The one who used a minigun during the midterm evaluation.”
“She's the first-year who fired the minigun? I heard she took down a B-rank demon by herself.”
As the seniors began murmuring among themselves, Camilla suddenly appeared from somewhere and quickly took control of the situation.
“Alright, seniors! Welcome to the auction house hosted by yours truly, Camilla. The girl over there, Miss Plea, is a guest I personally invited, so please don't mind her.”
“Ah, a guest? I thought the student council sent her to monitor us or something.”
The murmuring died down. The seniors acted like they'd never been talking about me and took their seats on the chairs near me. Once the situation was settled, Camilla put on some strange mask-like thing and stepped up onto the platform.
“Ahaha, there was a bit of a commotion, but let's begin the first-ever Camilla Auction House!”
A senior whistled to hype up the atmosphere, and a few others clapped in response.
“Then, our first item!”
With Camilla's announcement, a translucent cube rose from the floor of the auction house. When I saw what was inside, I was stunned.
“The first item is the 'Improved Mana Activator' obtained from the Helion military!”
“She actually got her hands on that?!”
My outburst caused every eye in the auction house to turn toward me.
“Ah, sorry...”
I couldn't control my emotions for a second. That drug was the one that had carved trauma into me with pain so intense it felt like my mind would break. It was also a kind of military spiritual medicine produced by a subcontractor of the lab run by the director.
Did it make any sense for a mere student to be carrying around a military-grade spiritual medicine? I could understand the mana battery used in Camilla's rifle since it was scheduled for commercialization anyway, but this mana activator was a substance strictly controlled by the Helion government...
'This is some unexpected information.'
The fact that Camilla had this drug meant only one thing.
'Camilla's family has connections to the Helion government.'
Things had just gotten more complicated than I'd expected.