The Chairman in the original story did not act alone.
Calling himself a noble, the Chairman used lackeys to bully students. Those ‘lackeys’ were mainly academy professors and employees.
Had that not been shown in the report I first saw when I accepted the reality of possessing this body?
An enchantment scroll was issued to Professor Tuvan, who claimed that Emma Novician had used a magical tool.
A 10 kg gold bar was issued to Professor Neone of the Magic Department’s Alchemy Department.
An admission voucher for the Solakium Healing Magic Tower was issued to the administrative employee Salome.
Just as I completed quests and obtained traits, the Chairman’s lackeys were rewarded whenever they cooperated in his evil deeds.
Yes, every committee member shouting that Emma should be punished was expecting something from me... no, from the Chairman.
If I imposed a heavy punishment on Emma, the student I had singled out, the Chairman would find them commendable and grant them a reward.
“Come to think of it, it is suspicious that she won all six duels! She may have used a magical tool during those duels as well!”
[ Trait - Appraiser’s Eye reveals the target’s information. ]
[ Giltier ]
[ Traits / Chicanery, Shameless Storyteller, Giltier Swordsmanship, Master of Reading the Room ]
[ Special Note / Expecting a reward. ]
The status window of one of the lackeys who was behaving especially wildly proved that my guess was true.
It was obvious that the other lackeys’ status windows would not be very different.
They were probably rationalizing that the Chairman’s sudden attendance at the Disciplinary Committee was also meant to ensure Emma’s complete ruin.
“Whether a magical tool was used in the duel has nothing to do with this agenda!”
“Nothing to do with it?! What could be more cowardly than using a magical tool in a sacred duel!”
“No, that is not what matters in the first place! We have gathered to discuss punishment for unauthorized duels!”
“You say the duel being insulted is not important?! Are you ignoring tradition and law?!”
‘This is damned tangled....’
I watched with an incredulous expression as a committee member who had stepped forward to stop the rampaging lackeys clutched the back of his neck and staggered.
The lackeys’ argument was a simplistic one that did not stray far from, ‘She did wrong before, so she must have done wrong this time too!’ Yet, absurdly enough, there were people being swayed by it.
“We are not saying that severe punishment should be imposed. We are only saying that an investigation is necessary. We cannot smooth over punishment merely because she was ‘a good student.’”
“That is exactly what I want to say! It seems everyone is too swayed by personal feelings to judge properly, but Emma Novician is a student who committed cheating and a criminal who accepted unauthorized duels!”
“Professor Giltier! Watch your word choice!”
“Fine, I will retract the word ‘criminal.’ But I still believe severe punishment is necessary!”
“I-I also agree to some extent... In truth, merely taking part in unauthorized duels is sufficient grounds for severe punishment....”
“To call a student who committed cheating perfectly normal is a little.... Still, the circumstances are suspicious....”
“Whose side are you on?!”
“Obviously, this side! I was moved by Giltier’s justice in saying that criminals should be punished!”
“Fix your word choice first—!”
A battlefield of Asuras. Dogs fighting in the mud. A quarrel on a snail’s horn.
Even if I attached every bad expression I could think of, none seemed capable of surpassing the current Disciplinary Committee.
The Chairman’s lackeys, blinded by rewards, ran wild as they demanded severe punishment. Those easily swayed argued that Emma was certainly a student who had cheated. Those with sense shouted that the cause needed to be investigated.
“E-Everyone! Please calm down first...!”
The words of the facilitator, who had at least formally led the meeting, had already lost their strength.
The only people who could resolve this situation were the Chairman—me—and Chancellor Pionia.
And I had no intention of handing an opportunity to my rival.
BANG—!
A roar loud enough to rupture eardrums. A table horrifically cracked.
The committee members, who had been on the verge of grabbing one another by the collars only seconds earlier, clammed their mouths shut at the strange phenomenon that occurred in the blink of an eye.
It was not because they were flustered by the sudden occurrence.
Everyone at the Disciplinary Committee, everyone at Calyps Academy, knew only too well.
“Everyone, shut up.”
They knew who owned the voice, so grave yet at the same time so irritated.
And they knew what upheaval occurred at the academy when the voice’s owner truly stepped forward.
“The Disciplinary Committee of Calyps Academy has not even a speck of the dignity it should show. It is not merely disappointing. It is contemptible.”
I spoke as I swept my fierce eyes, like a growling predator’s, over the committee members around me.
Fortunately, the fist I slammed down after drawing out every bit of mana I could use from head to toe cleanly swallowed the surrounding clamor, in proportion to the excruciating pain it caused.
For this brief moment, everyone’s attention was focused not on the Chancellor or the facilitator, but on me.
Before anyone could interrupt, I laid out what I wanted to say.
“Emma Novician and Gess Alep can be called the ringleaders of this incident. Gess Alep has already been punished through executive authority with unrestricted campus service. Thus, what the Disciplinary Committee must decide is Emma Novician’s punishment.”
That was something everyone already knew.
“However, imposing severe punishment on Emma Novician may seem appropriate at first glance, but there is clearly room for a reinvestigation when one examines the circumstances of the incident.”
Looking over the committee members who nodded, I brought up an extremely fundamental point.
“The Disciplinary Committee exists not to punish students, but to distinguish right from wrong and guide them onto the proper path. There must be no one treated unfairly.”
It was entirely correct.
There were too many suspicious points to impose severe punishment. It was right to conduct a reinvestigation so that no one was treated unfairly.
Even Chancellor Pionia and the Disciplinary Committee, who opposed the Chairman, had no choice but to accept such arguments.
But my plan began now.
I stared steadily at Chancellor Pionia, who seemed slightly relieved at the word ‘reinvestigation,’ and opened my mouth.
“Of course, I have no intention of permitting a reinvestigation.”
“...What?”
“To say that we will reinvestigate the incident means that we intend to change the punishment in some way. How do you think the 117 students who received disciplinary action for merely watching the duels will interpret the academy’s intent?”
Watching a duel was not illegal under imperial law.
If anything, it was closer to a meaningful act: ‘I stake my honor and good faith to serve as witness to this duel.’
Therefore, the 117 students who had just received disciplinary action were likely dissatisfied, thinking, ‘It is not as if I committed a crime.’
What would happen if the academy sent a signal that it intended to change the severity of the ringleaders’ punishment by saying that it would reinvestigate the matter or examine the circumstances?
“The 117 students questioning the fairness of it, along with the noble houses, guilds, and Mage Towers to which they belong.... Vice Chair, are you confident that you can withstand pressure from all of them?”
“Calyps Academy will not yield to external pressure. From the moment they enter the academy, students are not children of noble houses, successors to guilds, or talented Mage Tower disciples. They are only students.”
Chancellor Pionia firmly refuted me, but the answer to my question had already been decided.
“Idealistic. But the Chancellor and Chairman—at least you and I—must not think that way. Dedicating oneself to scholarship and educating students are the roles of professors, not administrators.”
There was something I had been maddeningly curious about while reading <I Became the Academy’s Final Boss>, the novel I had possessed.
“We must be contradictory. We must run the academy idealistically, but think realistically. Reinvestigating the incident is idealistically right because it prevents an unfairly treated student. But when one considers the cost that will follow, it is realistically impossible.”
Why did they act so complacently?
Did the Chancellor and professors not know what consequences their decisions would bring?
Geniuses gathered at prestigious academies. Geniuses became talents, and the groups to which they belonged protected them.
Then was it not only natural to consider what would happen afterward when making decisions related to students?
Sigh....
I sighed and stared at Pionia.
I imagined how furious she must have been to receive a lecture from her archenemy... no, from a wastrel she had never even considered a rival.
But the face that entered my sight was not the face of an angry person.
“You....”
Confusion, shock, suspicion, joy, disbelief.
Pionia wore an expression that could not be described, as though every kind of emotion had been melted together in a crucible.
Of course, it lasted only a moment. Pionia quickly composed her expression and spoke to me in a completely cold voice.
“...You have no right to say such things. If you truly thought that way, you would not have left Calyps Academy to become what it is now.”
Her resentful voice seemed to condemn me before soon giving up.
“No matter how much pressure comes, we cannot create an unfairly treated student. In the current situation, a reinvestigation is necessary.”
[ Trait - Appraiser’s Eye reveals the target’s information. ]
[ Pionia Ratio ]
[ Traits / Noble Bloodline, Ratio Brawling Arts, Bearer of the Boulder ]
[ Special Note / Empathizing. ]
“.........”
I fell silent for a moment as I read Pionia’s status window.
Pionia, whom I thought would surely reject my words, was instead empathizing with my intent.
The Chancellor holding up a collapsing academy was empathizing with the words of the very Chairman responsible for its decline.
Half of my mind, which had returned to normal from the shock, settled completely after I read Pionia’s trait.
[ Bearer of the Boulder ]
[ Responsibility is a duty and a boulder that can never be set down. ]
She would never abandon or set down what she had taken responsibility for.
The description was simple, but its implications were not. I admitted my mistake.
‘...She was not acting complacently. She had no choice but to act that way.’
Pionia had not been complacent in running the academy.
But while serving a superior who was practically a shackle—the wastrel Chairman—she simply had not been dealt many cards with which to resolve every problem.
This was an undeniable truth that had also appeared in the original story. I felt the sort of guilt any person would feel.
It felt like I had pushed around an employee suffering under a garbage boss at an exploitative company.
‘That does not mean I intend to yield.’
Even while feeling sorry for her, I maintained the Chairman’s stiff expression and opened my mouth.
“Neither as Chairman nor as Chair of the Disciplinary Committee can I permit a reinvestigation.”
“.........!”
“However, that does not mean I intend to leave the problem unattended. If the problem is that an unfairly treated student will be created, then regardless of the process, we only need to make everyone satisfied.”
“That is sophistry. Properly discovering the truth through a reinvestigation is the only way to resolve unfairness.”
Chancellor Pionia insisted until the end that reinvestigating was right.
It was the only method available to her, someone with an upright disposition who was supported by capable and purposeful professors.
But the circumstances between Pionia and me were one hundred and eighty degrees different.
As Chancellor Pionia glared at me as though she wanted to pierce through my eyes, I spoke the words I had prepared long ago.
“Do not be foolish. There is a way that does not require a reinvestigation.”
—!!
The moment my words ended, every kind of emotion crossed the faces of the seated committee members.
Some were flustered, some were shocked, and some were disappointed.
But in the end, not one of them failed to regain their composure.
That was because the Chairman was a wastrel. Unlike the Chancellor, who cared for students, he was a villain who did only what he wanted and refused to do what he did not.
Even if he attended a Disciplinary Committee he had never given a glance without notice, argued with the Chancellor, and spat out curses, people would simply accept it as part of the image of the ‘wastrel Chairman.’
Yes, even the professors who dealt with the Chairman more closely than anyone else were like this.
Then what would the ‘117 students and the groups to which they belonged,’ who had only heard stories of the Chairman through rumors twisted and tangled in every direction, think of me?
‘Was the article title that appeared in the original story <The Worst Tiger Father, Dog Son: The Fall of a Prestigious Academy>?’
Tiger father, dog son.
An exceptional father and an unworthy son.
Everyone in the empire feared the Chairman’s power and house. They did not fear the Chairman himself.
The Chairman was an icon of incompetence and a synonym for a lunatic, to the extent that even a farmer plowing a field in the countryside might look down on him.
But paradoxically, that chaotic image was why I could complete this plan.
I gave my answer to the committee members, who glared at me with heated eyes as though daring me to explain my grand method.
“As of today, I will establish a Special Department at Calyps Academy.”
“““?”””
Dozens of committee members stared with stupid expressions, question marks practically floating over their heads.
I slowly looked over them and continued in a voice with a hint of amusement.
“Among students who violate the academy regulations, those whose offenses are serious will be assigned to the Special Department and made to complete a separate curriculum. Naturally, they will not be able to attend the existing departments’ classes and will fall behind their classmates... but it must be that severe for it to be called discipline.”
What I was saying was simple in the end.
Unilaterally reinvestigating the incident would bring enormous letters of protest from parents. So I would create the barrier called the Special Department and pretend to punish Emma.
It was a method so insane that no one at Calyps Academy would ever think of it, but I could do it.
Whatever I did, people would only think, ‘The Chairman is being the Chairman.’
‘Of course, my real intention is hidden far deeper.’
Muttering only inwardly, I asked everyone in the meeting room, which had fallen silent, whether they opposed this method that would both block parental complaints and smooth over Emma’s punishment.
“Now, does anyone have an objection?”
Perhaps my question served as a detonator. The committee members who had worn stupid expressions began to explode soon afterward as though boiling water had been poured over them.
“What the fuck—!”
“This is an absurd meth—”
“Are you out of your mind—?!”
Dozens of shouts and cries filled the vast meeting room without leaving even an inch of empty space.
The meeting room became so noisy that no one seemed to know what they themselves were saying anymore.
Looking at it, I desperately stifled the laugh that wanted to burst out.
‘Making the Disciplinary Committee into a complete mess’ was a perfect success without the slightest shortcoming.