Please Feed Me
After finishing my meal with the insufficient balance, I headed to the auditorium with Camilla where the grade report was posted.
“It’s really crowded.”
“Well, it’s because all students from every grade are gathered here...”
“Now that I think about it, this event was for all grades.”
If there was a grade difference, obviously the upperclassmen would get better scores… but I guess the school took care of that somehow. While I was chattering away with Camilla, a loud shout from a male student came from the front.
“Hey! Isn’t that the report card the professor is holding?!”
At his cry, every student in the auditorium turned their gaze toward the professor he pointed at all at once, as if someone was controlling them.
“A-ahem!”
The professor, finding the stares burdensome, cleared his throat and quickly posted the notice on the wall.
“Ooh!”
Cheers came from the students in front for some reason. In contrast, the back area where I stood produced boos instead of cheers.
“Move over a little! We can’t see the report card from back here!”
“I can’t see it either!”
“Damn it… why is the report card so small!”
It was because the size of the report card the professor brought was far too small. For the hundreds of students packed into the auditorium, it was tiny.
As the boos from the back-row students poured down like hail, the professor who had brought the report card broke out in a cold sweat and spoke up.
“Q-quiet! Quiet everyone! I will now call out the ranks, so please listen carefully!”
The students who had been sending him murderous glares just moments ago softened their eyes noticeably.
“Oh, he’s calling them out?”
“The professor is so kind.”
Having regained everyone’s attention, the professor began calling the top-ranking students first.
“All right, here we go! First place is… first-year Siwoo!”
Oh, Siwoo got first? Well, the skills I’d seen from him before the event were already at the active hero level, so it wasn’t strange for him to take first in an academy event. Especially since I taught him. Even though it was only an event for first-years, seeing my disciple earn top marks felt surprisingly good.
“Second place is Camilla!”
“Heh, of course it’s me! I’m actually more upset that it isn’t first.”
The one called for second was Camilla. Well… since she was known as an early-game bully, her early-game performance was top-tier among the supporting cast, and her late-game growth potential wasn’t bad either. A natural outcome.
Camilla, knowing this fact, didn’t show the excited reaction a normal student would. Instead, her crumpled self-esteem seemed to recover; she straightened her back, twirled her hair, and laughed with a satisfied “huhu.”
“You look happy.”
“N-no… it’s not that big a deal…”
When I spoke up because she looked a bit arrogant, she instantly reverted to her usual self as if nothing had happened. Yep, the shrunken, nervous Camilla suited her much better. When she first enrolled she felt so different from the original character that it created a sense of disparity, but now the way she shriveled up and watched my mood felt more familiar. It was even cute.
I chuckled at the sight of her and listened to the announcement for third place. As expected, it was Aria. The same went for the rest of the top ten. The characters with high potential from the original story had cleanly divided the top ten spots among themselves.
Me? There was no way I could be in the top ranks for this event. I’d gotten zero points on the control test to begin with, and I’d skipped several others. If I somehow placed in the top tier, it would mean I scored 146 out of 100 on the remaining subjects. That was obviously cheating.
‘Still, I’m not in the lower ranks.’
I had as many perfect scores as I did zeros, so I should at least be mid-tier, right?
That thought was completely shattered five minutes later.
“301st, Aruma!”
“...”
My expression rotted in real time.
Looking at the total number of academy students, ranks 1–10 were top tier, 11–100 were upper tier, and so on. Mid-tier meant 201st to 300th.
But…
“I’m… in the lower ranks?”
Something was wrong. No, this was completely wrong! No matter how you looked at it, me in the lower ranks?! Sure, I had completely bombed some subjects, but I had more perfect scores! So why?!
“P-Plea… are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay…”
Sigh… I was screwed. If the final exams had gone badly I could have brushed it off, but the midterms and mid-evaluation were tests I absolutely had to ace. Why? Because a scholarship was on the line.
The academy was a true wilderness where you had to survive solely on the scholarships it provided! If you received a low rank in a place like that… it could lead to the worst-case scenario where my big, magnificent meals were replaced by tiny triangular gimbap and cup ramen.
I prayed desperately for my name to be called even a little earlier, but—
“402nd, Plea.”
“Ah.”
In the end, I had no choice but to finish with a lower-rank result.
“Um… well… c-cheer up?”
Camilla offered encouragement while sweating bullets and reading the room, but it only made things worse.
“Haa…”
Cheer up? Had I really fallen to a rank where I needed someone’s pity? My mood sank even lower.
Maybe she noticed my condition worsening, because Camilla’s eyes darted around before she suddenly said she had something urgent and bolted away. The old Camilla wouldn’t have even dreamed of running, but now she was starting to find me manageable… No. It was probably just that my aura had gotten scary. I should refrain from unnecessary speculation…
“Haa… life…”
By the time everyone had left, only a few people remained in the auditorium. I trudged over to the report card and checked my scholarship amount. For the first time in a while, I felt tears welling up.
Plea
Rank: 402nd
Scholarship: 1,500,000
Aaah, my beloved full scholarship… The life where I could eat whatever I wanted was over now too…
When I thought about the academy’s average monthly living expenses of three million, 1.5 million was… ugh… This damn academy had ridiculously high prices—what kind of place charged over ten thousand for a single gimbap? With 1.5 million I could just barely avoid starving.
“That mala rosé fenmo stir-fry… It was so good…”
It was a high-class dish loaded with cheese and sausage that cost a hundred thousand per bowl, but starting now I wouldn’t even be able to look at it during summer break.
“Haa…”
I wiped the tears from my eyes and trudged out of the auditorium.
“Delicious meals…”
After eating tasteless lab food and then coming to the academy where I could enjoy good food every single day, my obsession with eating seemed to have grown larger than I realized. My mood was seriously bad.
Maybe I should get someone to buy me food? The thought crossed my mind, but I shook my head and rejected it. In the academy, the act of buying something for another person was impossible.
The small scholarship was a kind of penalty. If a student receiving millions in scholarship money handed cash to a bottom-ranked student, the whole system lost its meaning. In extreme terms, if you just tightly controlled the full-scholarship students, even the lowest-ranked ones could live as well as the upper ranks… Looking at it now, it was a truly dog-like rule. The full-scholarship kids could at least share a little…
“Full scholarship?”
Now that I thought about it, I vaguely remembered that the student who took first in scholarship had one special privilege.
In my memory, it was definitely…
“They could share the scholarship, right?”
Yes! Among the first-place student’s privileges, there was one that let them share their scholarship! I had completely forgotten because I’d never used the feature, but it definitely existed!
“Hehehe…”
The corners of my mouth twitched upward.
I thought I’d have to survive on triangular gimbap and sliced bread, but a brilliant move like this had appeared. I quickly headed toward Siwoo’s dormitory.
-Ding dong
“Who is it?”
There shouldn’t be anyone visiting at this hour… Siwoo tilted his head in confusion, stood up, and walked to the front door.
“Who… Plea?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Can you open the door?”
Why was Plea suddenly here? At this time she would normally be wandering around snacking… Since the results were out, maybe she came to eat together? If so, he welcomed it. He had gotten first on the report card after all. He had been planning to play all day today, but he thought hanging out with a friend would be better.
“Come in.”
When he unlocked the door, Plea quietly said, “Excuse me…” and stepped inside the dormitory.
From her behavior, Siwoo sensed something off.
‘Was Plea… always this polite?’
Maybe toward professors, but when the two of them were alone she was usually so casual it sometimes felt crazy… Why was she being so careful?
Fortunately, that question didn’t last long.
“…You.”
“What?”
“H-how did you get in here? The boys’ dormitory is off-limits to female students?!”
That was right. The whole reason the boys’ and girls’ dorms were separated was to stop guys and girls from messing around together in one room. So what was this crazy person doing casually walking into the boys’ dormitory—and straight into his room?!
“Ah, there was a dorm supervisor so I sneaked in. Anyway, that’s not what’s important.”
“What do you mean it’s not important?! It’s extremely important!”
As he shouted in bewilderment, Plea quickly approached and pressed her index finger to his lips.
“Shh, just listen first.”
The sudden closeness and the sensation of her finger against his lips made Siwoo’s heart pound hard. He let out a sigh and nodded.
“Hah… Fine, I got it.”
“I came because I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor?”
What kind of favor could someone like Plea possibly want from him…? The fact that she had trespassed into the boys’ dormitory without permission suddenly flashed through his mind, and he slowly backed away from her.
“I’ll hear it first.”
When Siwoo nodded, Plea spoke in a tense voice.
“Feed me. Please.”
“…Huh?”