Ruth and Chloe’s gazes met.
Even as a casual remark, it wasn’t a friendly look; rather, it was filled with animosity and wariness.
Honestly, if it were hatred or disgust, I could understand it. Perhaps something had collided between them that I didn’t know about.
But how should I put it?
“Feels like watching a budget allocation meeting?”
At that moment, the professors who took on the roles of fighting roosters hurled fierce words and accusations at each other, but that didn’t mean they actually hated each other emotionally.
They simply belonged to different fields, had different interests, and were just fulfilling their respective roles and benefits.
The sharp looks between Ruth and Chloe felt similar. Of course, not completely the same.
It felt more like there was a reason beyond just one-dimensional hostility.
As they glared at each other, Chloe suddenly flashed a sharp smile and turned to me.
“By the way, Finance Director, did you handle ‘yesterday’s’ matter well?”
“Eh? Yesterday?”
“Yes. You and I had something going on, remember?”
“………What?”
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with what she said, so why is she being so ambiguous?
After hesitating for a moment at her bragging, Ruth’s eyes flickered nervously toward me.
What now?
“……Finance Director, I’ll accept the secret proposal you just made to me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you called me over to make the suggestion. Obviously, I should reciprocate that effort, right?”
“Wait, just a second. A secret proposal? Finance Director, what the hell…?”
Hey, protagonist! Didn’t you just say you would do it earlier? Why are you accepting it again?
And what’s this secret proposal? If this gets out, you won’t be able to enter the student council.
What’s more, this time Chloe approached me, demanding clarification with her gaze.
“Finance Director.”
“Finance Director!”
“You two?”
Why are you both looking at me like that?
What’s with that tone that sounds so disappointed?
“I’m demanding clarification.”
“What on earth does that mean!”
“Ugh….”
One side is the protagonist of this world and Rank 6, while the other is the disciple of a great mage and Rank 5.
It seems like we’d keep meeting until they graduated, so I tried to avoid doing anything that would make us blush around each other.
Hey, students.
Am I your friend or something?
“Ruth student, Chloe student. What are you doing right now?”
“Uh, yes?”
“That…..”
“I did indeed work with Chloe yesterday, and I just gave Ruth a personal suggestion. So what’s the problem? At least I didn’t throw this out there to brag or accuse you.”
Well, I understand that as students, they might want to boast about their accomplishments.
Chloe spread her connections with my promise of compensation, while Ruth seized a great opportunity to join the student council.
What’s more, as the finance director… Hm, it’s a bit awkward to brag, but I do have connections with someone relatively important. If I knew the vice president back in college, it’s only natural I’d want to boast about such networking.
I mean, the age difference isn’t that much, but at the end of the day, they are students, so there’s that.
But they can’t scold me for that.
“And both of you, please don’t speak so ambiguously. Clear information is necessary to avoid misunderstandings. First of all, Chloe and I just finished the summoning ceremony in the magic field yesterday.”
“……Summoning ceremony?”
“Ruth may not know yet, but it will soon be announced. The Academy detected the magic power of summoning a few days ago, and the Guard Force captured a certain associate professor and a teaching assistant who orchestrated the incident. Chloe only went into the forest instead of me, who couldn’t enter.”
“………………..”
For some reason, it seemed like Ruth was staring alternately at Chloe and me with a greatly puzzled expression.
Experience taught me that asking what was going on would get me a definite non-answer, so I decided to brush it off.
What’s more, it’s your turn now, protagonist.
“And the ‘secret proposal’ Ruth mentioned is about joining the student council.”
“Th-the student council? This… Ruth Spero?”
“Is there a problem? Ruth is Rank 6 and has no deficiencies to become a member of the student council. What’s more, the authority to decide on the student council officers lies with the president. I was just asked to convey this message since I’m somewhat familiar with her.”
Anyway, it’s now like this. Knowing that my underclassman has this demeanor, she’s likely to accept this explanation without any issue.
She’s the type to not really bother engaging.
Thinking back to how brazen my junior was back in college, I could genuinely suspect that she lacked a brain.
“Anyway, that’s it for both of you. All explanations have concluded, but do you still have something to say to me?”
“………………..”
“…………..”
“I’m the finance director, and I’m a staff member of Grandis Academy. Therefore, it’s only natural for me to care for and treat all students equally, but that doesn’t mean I give special treatment to any specific student. Please understand that.”
So to the protagonist or Chloe, just because you asked or suggested to me doesn’t mean it’s something special.
Of course, if I think about the Dark Kingdom, they are indeed special; they are the protagonist and a companion, and they just fit the criteria perfectly. If they didn’t meet my criteria, I would’ve chopped them off without hesitation.
Honestly, if the protagonist weren’t Rank 6, it wouldn’t have mattered, but I only give special treatment to students like Lisha, who are more like bribers. To be precise, they aren’t students but rather clients.
I might have sounded a bit harsh, but the conclusion is simple.
You all are students, and I’m staff – not your friend.
“Why do you keep acting like you’re so familiar in the first place?”
This is the third time I’ve met the protagonist, and with Chloe, we’ve only worked together for a day!
So why are you approaching me as if we’re close? Shouldn’t I be the one feeling friendly since I’ve seen them in the Dark Kingdom? Aren’t I a complete stranger to you from your perspective?
It’s super awkward to act as if we’ve known each other for a long time.
Honestly, I don’t even really want to get personally connected. If the protagonist were consistently at the bottom as in the game, I would have to raise him somehow, but he’s already Rank 6, and Chloe will do just fine on her own.
There’s no bribing like Lisha, or connecting a fool like Kaern, or an introduction to merchant connections like Beatrice.
“Tsk.”
Feeling an emotional surge must be another side effect of the military awakening agent. I need to ask for a detox when I get back to my office.
Anyway, I’ve said what I needed to say, and I should get back to work…
“……liar.”
“Ruth student?”
“Nothing. Anyway, how do we go about the student council?”
“You just need to meet with me once more after the president responds. The place will be….”
“Let’s make it my dormitory.”
“Eh? But…”
“Dormitory.”
“……Um, alright.”
It’s been a while, so I might as well look at that dormitory after all.
After sending Ruth, who wore a strangely dark gaze, away, I was left with only Chloe.
“………?”
What’s this?
Where’d she go?
*
Chloe Pisty was confused.
Had she met her future self and another version of herself yesterday?
Had she heard that Ruth Spero was a time-receiver?
Had she unexpectedly run into Ruth, the suspicious person from yesterday, while coming to see the finance director?
Had she just heard something incredibly candid from the finance director?
All of these were true, but at the same time, they weren’t.
To be precise, it wasn’t about Chloe herself but rather a problem concerning ‘the other Chloe.’
“Wait, why aren’t you coming out! I want to see you!”
“………I’m not ready yet.”
“What do you mean not ready! You just nagged me all morning about my hair and makeup before meeting the finance director!”
The mental adult version of Chloe shared sight and thought with her younger self even without being in a dream state.
Surely, her future self, who had seen her in a pitiful state yesterday, seemed very mature.
That calm adult Chloe completely froze when she said she was meeting the finance director today.
To put it precisely, she barricaded herself in a corner.
“Why are you being so timid! Didn’t you hang out with the finance director in the future!?”
“Y-yeah, that’s true. We spent years together.”
“Then why?!”
“……It’s just that I can’t help feeling nervous every time I see him.”
Is this really okay?
Even after spending years together, you feel nervous each time you see his face?
Could this nonsense be the same future me?
Feeling genuine disbelief, Chloe sighed as she tried to exit the alley.
Yet, she paused.
“No, let’s go out already!”
“Ah, no! Just a little more, let me finish fixing my clothes!”
“Fixing what! You just suddenly popped up while we were talking!”
As the finance director chatted with Ruth Spero, the adult Chloe, possessing only her legs, stubbornly pulled young Chloe back into the nearby alley.
She blabbered on about how she was too nervous to look directly at the finance director, saying she needed to fix her clothes and makeup a bit more.
Naturally, young Chloe felt incredibly frustrated.
“What do you think the finance director would think if he knew you suddenly vanished! We need to go now!”
“I’m still not mentally prepared….”
“Forget the mental preparation!”
Didn’t you ask me why I wouldn’t look back at you in the dream? If you actually looked back, wouldn’t you turn your head out of embarrassment?
As she struggled to move, Chloe glared at the receding back of Ruth Spero.
“Time-receiver, huh.”
Now that she had decided to trust her future self, she had to believe in this absurd notion of reincarnation too. It’s against the laws of magic she knows, but… anyway, there are many things in the world beyond magic.
Regardless, if Ruth Spero truly was a time-receiver and was the same person who threatened her in the forest yesterday…
“Just what am I doing in the future? Something that a time-receiver would want to eliminate?”
But even so, there were still many ambiguous parts. If hypothetically she were to become a villain in the future, there wouldn’t have been a need to act so vaguely back then.
That moment, the suspect known as Ruth Spero did indeed harbor real murderous intent. Ruth could truly kill Chloe.
Moreover, she had even permitted Chloe’s [Dancing Flames].
The most likely possibility was:
1. There’s a hidden backer behind the summoning ceremony that the academy has yet to discover.
2. Ruth Spero is tracking that backer and originally mistook Chloe, who shouldn’t have been there, as someone connected to that backer after seeing her emerge from the basement.
3. That’s why she tried to threaten me for a confirmation of that connection.
“But that misunderstanding has just been cleared up.”
Since the finance director had just explained that it was his request for Chloe to go to the basement.
If the guesses are correct and Ruth Spero was mistaken to think Chloe was associated with the backer, then there was no need to worry about being ambushed by Ruth anymore.
But why was that?
Chloe couldn’t shake off the strange foreboding.
“Still, there’s something more. Something I don’t know.”
And that was likely about why she was killed by Ruth Spero in the future.
Of course, her future self would know… but.
“……………”
“……Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“If I close my eyes, I won’t have to see Adam. Then I won’t need to feel so nervous.”
“I have to ask, how did you manage to be so… uh, shy while you were with the finance director?”
“Of course, I just acted desperately. If a person feels too excited and tense, their face gets stiff.”
This is honestly maddening.
Just yesterday, she had been so charismatic, but the moment the finance director was involved, she completely flipped.
Is this really me? How can such a disgraceful future version of me exist? What on earth happened to cause this level of infatuation with the finance director?
Chloe quickly abandoned her thoughts. Didn’t the adult Chloe say it? Until she met the finance director properly, Chloe is both herself and not herself.
She genuinely wanted to believe that. She didn’t want to be associated with such a disgraceful future version of herself.
In the situation where they both denied each other’s existence…
Chloe finally seized the opportunity to spring out of the alley while the adult Chloe was off guard.
Tap-tap!
“Hey, wait!”
“What do you mean wait! I can’t just watch this disgrace!”
While keeping her promise, Chloe needed to meet Adam and grow close to him. No, she couldn’t stand it; she had to act or she’d explode from all this frustration.
Earlier, the finance director had said that we were simply in a student-staff relationship, but for the sake of the adult Chloe’s objectives, that relationship needed to change immediately. Naturally, it would be far more efficient to engage him conversationally during this idling time.
As the adult Chloe cried out in despair, young Chloe dashed towards the finance director, who was scanning the area.
“Finance Director!”
“Uh, yes?”
Completely inexperienced in romance, Chloe, who had never even felt a flutter for the opposite sex before, was.
In fact, they say ignorance is bliss; not knowing anything about romance allowed Chloe to boldly go for it.
Just like right now.
“How about during the festival, just the two of us?”
“………?”
Stunned by the incredibly direct approach, the mental adult Chloe nearly fainted.
And though the guilty party Chloe felt a bit embarrassed, she stood there confidently with her arms crossed.
Honestly, objectively speaking, Chloe is beautiful, and while she may not compare to that princess, she’s still quite endowed and she is a disciple of a great mage, as well as a Rank 5 magician.
And if she throws in reasons related to being a staff member, she can find ways to push for patrol duties or brief breaks during the festival.
There’s absolutely no reason for a guy who’s just slightly better looking than a finance director to refuse this propose───
“I’ll have to decline.”
“………What? Why!?”
“I have work to do.”
“Ah.”
“How could a staff member be leisurely wandering around the festival? Besides, I’m the finance director. I likely won’t be able to leave my office for the entire festival.”
“S-sorry….”
“Understood.”
With no hesitation in his refusal and the entirely reasonable explanation, the excited Chloe fell silent.
Not to mention, since he was exhausted from working every day, being confronted with “I’m going to have fun since I’m a student. Want to join?” surely came as an annoyance to the finance director, who let out a sigh.
And the mental adult Chloe.
“………….”
In that moment, she quietly observed the image of Adam, the finance director.
With an almost rapturous gaze.
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