Was it because that sword was glaring at me, or was it because my future self was killed by that sword?
The ominous vibe of the Dark Sword that disguised Ruth was firmly etched in Chloe’s memory.
Every time she recalled it, an unsettling chill ran down her spine.
But why was it that even the faintest trace of that ominous magic could be felt from that girl?
‘Is it perhaps a similar case as mine?’
Adult Chloe had mentioned that those who had died by the Dark Sword, just like her, would be plagued by inexplicable recollections or dreams.
There, she came into contact with the Dark Sword and met her future self.
Had that girl experienced the same thing as Chloe? Had she died by the Dark Sword in the future and encountered her future self through contact with that Dark Sword?
Though it seemed like a somewhat plausible guess…
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘What? How are you so sure? For all we know, that Ruth kid could have been messing around with her to change the future!’
‘That’s true, but her case is a bit different. Just remember and ignore it.’
‘Does that even make sense? It looks like it’s related to the Dark Sword, and you want me to ignore it?’
‘Honestly, at your level right now, it’s not like it would do you any good to know about them. And more than that…’
Chuckle.
It was strange, but even after a month of various conversations, this was the first time Chloe had seen Adult Chloe crack a slight smile.
It wasn’t exactly friendly; it felt more like a mocking smile.
But why?
That smile carried the essence of:
‘Those guys are probably the most troubled ones on the continent right now.’
It was filled with a sense of vindication.
*
After an exceptionally early leave, I fainted as soon as I hit the dorm.
It had been a long time since I had fallen asleep without studying management, which I usually did. I had just briefly closed my eyes, so why was it already time to go to work?
Anyway, with just one day left until the festival, I could hear the loud voices of students and various construction sounds even from my dorm in the back alley.
‘I guess I have to… work.’
With a sigh, I finished preparing and left the dorm.
Normally, I would head straight to the office, but instead, I was heading somewhere else. I had someone to meet.
To be precise, that damn underclassman was so busy ignoring my messages that I had to go directly to him.
‘It took him a whole month just to send a single message.’
Grandis Academy is home to many huge buildings, but the one I was heading to was the tallest and largest of them all.
For reference, it wasn’t originally built that way. That damn underclassman expanded it at will after becoming the Student Council President.
At that time, I had just started my job at the academy, meaning I couldn’t stop him before becoming the Finance Director. Damn it.
That expansion was done in just a week, so I wouldn’t be able to demolish it now. If it were still under construction, I would have surely halted it.
Swallowing down the unwarranted irritation and sigh, I entered the massive building.
“Move that over there! To the Astronomy Club!”
“Hey, why is our festival allocation zone like this!? We’ve proven our results!”
“Results are evaluated relative, not absolutely. If you had a complaint, you should have said something earlier, not the day before the festival!”
“Damn it, you fire magic fanatics! Why do you always get the biggest space during the festival!?”
“Then should we blow up the narrow space?”
“…Isn’t there any thought that we shouldn’t blow it up?”
Inside the building, it was bustling like a place where faculty worked. Conversations flowed, various tasks were being handled, and many were moving busily.
However, the difference was that none of these people were faculty; they were all students.
This building was where all clubs of Grandis Academy gathered.
Of course, each club was assigned additional spaces or buildings, but the headquarters or essence of every club was located in this building.
And on the top floor of this place…
“I’m trying to head to the Student Council Room.”
“Ah, seeing your badge, you must be faculty? Even if you are, you can’t enter the Student Council Room without prior permission…”
“I failed to introduce myself. I’m Finance Director Adam Keynes.”
“Ah! You’re in a director position! Then you’re an exception. I’ll contact the President right away, so please head up!”
The Student Council.
According to the student, faculty cannot enter the Student Council Room without a prior appointment. However, directors are an exception.
Despite being a Finance Director, to that student, I was simply seen as a higher-up.
Considering that people like Risha and Beatrice knew my face, it made sense that this student wouldn’t recognize me. A student knowing the face of a finance director is quite unusual.
It was a peculiar sentiment that only the children of nobility or promising youngsters with social influence treat me with respect; ordinary students treat me like a regular staff member.
All of these thoughts and sentiments were merely an escape from reality.
As I approached the Student Council Room, my stress heightened with the decreasing distance. I was trying to ignore it in any way I could.
Clank.
As I hopped onto the magic platform, it immediately welcomed me with a massive, ornate door.
What a damn bothersome door.
“Hold on, we don’t have an appointment today, who are you… Oh? Adam senior!?”
“Allen, long time no see. That guy is inside, right?”
“If it’s the President, he is inside.”
There stood a familiar-faced underclassman at the door, a boy named Allen.
Among the underclassmen I knew, he was the most normal and was also the accountant of the Student Council.
While moving a pile of documents, upon noticing my face, Allen sighed and bowed slightly.
“First of all, I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“The President must have caused some trouble again. And he even made a busy senior come directly… ugh.”
“Tsk, you’re also dealing with a lot.”
“By the way, senior, thank you for what you did during the entrance ceremony. It really helped us supplement the budget considerably.”
“We help each other out.”
During the entrance ceremony, a fantasy monster attacked, and the response ended up being part of the exam. I had entrusted the distribution of that information to the Student Council.
There’s no way I could have efficiently sold information to over two thousand new students by myself. Moreover, faculty selling information to students would be a huge no-no, but a senior selling ‘inside info’ to a junior is something everyone would overlook.
The Student Council took care of the compensation in between, and I received the promised payment, making it a good deal for both sides.
Well, this was only possible because all the underclassmen I knew were part of the Student Council. Once they graduated, I wouldn’t be able to pull such tricks.
Anyway, while receiving Allen’s gratitude, I opened the door and entered.
[Silence]
Quick-witted Allen had hurriedly placed soundproof magic on the Student Council Room.
“Ha…”
I took a deep breath and───
“Kassandra!! Come out NOW!!!!”
──I strained my voice to shout.
A mix of rage, malice, stress, and annoyance merged into my voice.
The Student Council Room was indeed spacious, but it was still a room. Opening the door would reveal the Student Council President right there, so why did I shout?
The answer, of course, was simple: because I had to.
“Yes, yes, yes!”
Puff!
Contrary to the image one might think of a typical Student Council Room, what greeted me as I opened the door was a jungle filled with dense trees.
Something that ordinarily couldn’t exist. Despite being a room, the endless trees and sky looked absurd.
As I shouted without being flustered by the bizarre sight, a girl swooped down amidst the trees.
Yes, she swooped down.
“Waaah—!!”
Grabbing a vine with one hand, she held her mouth and pulled it away as she screamed.
Most importantly, what she was wearing was a leather outfit that was a bit embarrassing to call clothing.
“Ha!”
The girl who dramatically flipped midair as she landed gracefully in front of me was wearing a blindfold and grinning brightly.
“Adam senior! It’s been so long! How long has it been? Thirty years, maybe!?”
“A month, Cassandra.”
“Oh? Adam senior, you seem angry for some reason. What kind of guy made you so furious?”
“You, underclassman.”
“What? Me?”
“I’ve told you at least a month ago that we need to discuss Ruth Spero joining the Student Council.”
“Uh…”
“If you had just sent a reply saying you were fine, I would have taken care of it immediately. But you didn’t send a single response.”
The first week, I let it slide, thinking the President was busy due to the festival.
The next week, I got really pissed off and contacted the Student Council Room directly, only to find that all the council members had taken a week-long vacation.
During the following week, I tried visiting, but each time, they were mysteriously absent.
And then during the week after that, I was so swamped with overtime work that I couldn’t even make it.
Now, a month later, I finally had a chance to confront this damn underclassman.
“You took a month just to send a reply that would take mere minutes.”
“Wow! Is this what you call time magic!?”
“In that case, you shouldn’t get an excuse for delaying the reply, right?”
“Uh, well… I’m sorry, Adam senior.”
“Does saying sorry make your academy life end? What kind of nonsense was it? A vacation, absence, what was going on?”
“That’s obvious. You’ve guessed it already, right?”
Thud.
Before I knew it, amidst the jungle, an elegant table and plush leather chairs had appeared. Kassandra took her seat first, and I sat down as well.
In a blink, a teapot was in Kassandra’s hands. A teacup had appeared just as I turned my head.
No, to begin with…
What felt like hot heat and humidity in the jungle had transformed back into a normal room.
Similarly, Kassandra, who was originally just in leather, was now dressed in an elegant outfit.
“Hold on, I just went to do a fortune-telling!”
“Not again?”
“You seem quite uninterested. But, senior, once you hear the contents of the fortune, you’ll be shocked!”
“Just spill it.”
“Surprisingly! There are TWO regressors near you! One is legit, while the other is kinda ambiguous but regressed through loopholes! How about that? Isn’t it amazing?”
Regressors. Two people from the future in the past are by my side, huh.
At that shocking revelation, I responded:
“Is that it?”
“What?”
“I mean, is that all? So can I hit you now?”
“S-Senior! Aren’t you amazed!? We’re talking about regressors here!”
“Regressors, huh?”
Do you think I’ll fall for it again?
There’s a reason I keep calling this girl a damn underclassman. Ever since she joined the academy, she’s turned my life into hardcore mode.
“Do you remember when you first entered as a freshman?”
“At that time, you were a sophomore. Ah, I miss that senior.”
“You told me that you were a soothsayer capable of seeing the future. You predicted there’d be an earthquake during the entrance ceremony that would put everyone in danger. But since nobody would listen to a freshman, you asked me to help.”
Back then, I was sincere. I thought I had a mission to be in this [Dark Kingdom] or something.
Since I was trusted as an exemplary student, I desperately convinced the professors that it was for everyone’s sake, and we delayed the entrance ceremony by a day.
…Nothing happened at all.
I still can’t forget the glares the professors sent me back then.
“Is that all? After that, I believed you several times. You said a terror group would attack during the mid-exams, and that monsters would rampage during the outdoor practicals, and that there was poison in today’s food ingredients, and we needed to act.”
“Um, well…”
“I believed all that and acted accordingly, yet it all turned out to be lies. What did you say when you read my future?”
“…You are destined to destroy the world. You’ll plunge many into despair and death, and set the world ablaze.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
After getting played by that damn underclassman countless times, I finally realized she was a quack fortune teller.
Even now, she’s talking about regressors, but I’ve heard that same repertoire several times before. Once it was about reincarnators, and another time about possessing someone. The painful memory of hunting for regressors comes flooding back.
Ah, right, sometimes among those ‘prophecies’, one might occasionally get it right. And every time that happened, Kassandra would be so pompous that it ingrained in my mind.
Although, realistically speaking, wouldn’t one of those prophecies align correctly when giving out ten predictions daily?
All my dark history originated from this underclassman, yet I was keeping the relationship intact because aside from her pseudo-prophecies, she’s basically a good kid.
And more than anything…
“Calm down! Calm down!”
“…Huh.”
[Steel Heart]
Because Kassandra was a 6th-grade mage capable of using hallucination and mental stabilization magic. Yes, I had tolerated and endured to keep her close, thinking of future connections.
But now I had a job? Not only that, I’m the Finance Director? The 8th-grade Headmistress is my backing?
So now I could treat this underclassman however I wanted. I just had some grudges for two years, so I’m only letting some things slide.
Regardless…
Wham!
“Ouch! That hurts, senior…”
“Stop being so dramatic. My hand hurts more from hitting you.”
“You’re really weak, senior.”
“Shut up.”
I smacked her forehead, partly because I was annoyed about the month-long delay, but even after hitting her, even if she’s a mage, she’s still physically stronger than me as a 6th grader. My hand stings.
Though she complains about pain, it’s probably the sting of a mosquito bite for her. If I weren’t a Rank 1, she would have really taken me down.
Anyway, I hit her, and thanks to the mental stabilization magic, my stress was somewhat relieved.
“So, Ruth Spero is going to join the Student Council. She can take any position she likes.”
“Ruth Spero, that 6th-grade new student, right? She was quite a spectacle back then; such memories!”
“You were a 4th grader when you entered, weren’t you?”
Well, she did rise from 4th grade to 6th in three years, so that was a commotion. It’s just that she’s a half-baked 6th grader.
That said, alongside the main character, she was among the top students in the academy, so I let it slide. It would only tire me out to argue over trivialities.
“Anyway, I’ll handle your request! Leave Ruth and her situation to me!”
You’re entrusting her to the main character.
Honestly, if I say that out loud, she would respond with something ridiculous like, “Why so cold?” and that would lead to another series of nonsense, so it’s best to let things be.
“Alright, I’m off now.”
“Huh? You’re leaving already? Come play with me some more! That jungle princess game we were playing was fun, don’t you think?”
“That’s why I’m leaving. Please stop that nonsense.”
“Why? It’s the idea notebook you wrote yourself!”
“It’s not an idea notebook, it was my graduation thesis, you madwoman.”
I had submitted a thesis on “The History and Creative Works Possible in a Fictional World Without Magic” as my thesis for the administrative field, and after getting my grades, I burned it all. Where on earth did she see that?
Simply put, I had just scribbled about the history of Earth and some novels I knew, so while it had no academic value, it was said to have high creativity.
The absence of magic is akin to a world without air on Earth; it’s the same as living in a fictional universe. It was praised as having a rich imagination, much like a sci-fi novel.
Back then, I thought it was a solid topic, but why do I feel so embarrassed about it now?
“Anyway, I’m really going. Next time, respond quickly.”
“Senior!”
“What now?”
“Remember! You’re destined to burn the world! Flaming! Boom!”
This is truly maddening.
How do I shut this kid’s mouth?
“Hey, if I were genuinely destined to destroy and burn the world, shouldn’t you be stopping me right here? Huh?”
“That’s fine!”
“Why?”
“I checked my future and even in a world destroyed by you, I was still alive! As long as I’m safe, it’s all good!”
“Allen, did you hear that? I’m going to run away, so you take care of that underclassman for me.”
“Just tell him to die instead, senior. By the way, you have a message.”
“A message? For me? Why do you have it?”
“It looks like the Headmistress found out you were here and sent it. She said to show it to you without opening it…”
An urgent message from the Headmistress? But I’m headed straight to the office anyway, so what’s the point?
With skepticism, I took the well-sealed letter from Allen.
[Finance Director, I’ll just say this once.]
[The plan has gone awry. Right now, a hair loss agent is leaking from Professor Kirke’s research lab!]
“…Huh?”
Wait a second. A hair loss agent is leaking right now?
Wasn’t that supposed to blow up on the second day of the festival?
But now? Just a day before it begins?
What the hell?
What exactly went wrong…?
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