A notebook decorated with gold leaf, yet otherwise utterly ordinary aside from looking a little expensive.
Sitting in the leather chair that had now been completely optimized for my posture, I lightly tapped the notebook’s cover.
‘...It is nothing special, yet I am nervous for no reason.’
What I needed to do now was open the notebook and look through its contents.
It was an extremely simple and natural thing to do, yet for some reason, that easy action did not come easily.
That was likely because I dreaded what was contained inside the notebook.
‘A trace of the chairman that did not exist anywhere in the chairman’s office. If this was offered as a reward, it must at least contain something about his past, or perhaps content that did not appear in the original work.’
Not much was known about the chairman’s past or background in the original work.
That was because he behaved like the archetypal disposable extra villain.
Despite that, his status was high, so he survived for quite a long time. Still, no reader would have been curious about the chairman.
Why would a villain who unconditionally bullied and criticized the protagonist need a deep past?
The chairman’s role was only to stuff readers full of sweet-potato frustration, then, at the moment their throats felt most clogged, burn away his life to give them the refreshing release of cider.
‘Even I thought that way....’
The final scene of I Became the Academy’s Final Boss that I had read was the chairman dying after Medio’s sword tore his limbs apart.
The chairman’s death, the only climax in an otherwise dull novel, had been so satisfying that I naturally had no curiosity about the past of a chairman who was already dead.
However, now that I thought about it... it was a little strange.
‘Was there a reason for the chairman to survive that long? If he was a chairman who did nothing but torment students, getting rid of him early would have helped the novel more....’
Why had the author of the original work deliberately kept the chairman alive?
From the moment Medio enrolled until he became a third-year, why was there any reason to keep a chairman who was like a disposable extra villain alive for several hundred episodes...?
...Tsk.
I stopped the thoughts that were spawning more thoughts.
Knowing my personality, if I stayed still like this, I would be worrying over a problem with no answer for dozens of hours again.
I quickly reached for the notebook. I thought that once I read it, I would not even have the leisure to entertain such trivial concerns.
However, the moment I opened the notebook, I found myself faced with an even greater concern.
“It is... blank.”
The inside of the notebook I had opened so ambitiously was completely empty.
From the first page to the last, there was not a single line of writing.
It was so clean that I could have made a bet that the notebook’s owner had never used it even once.
CRUNCH.
Heat rising in an instant, I clenched the hand holding the notebook with all my strength, but soon had to relax it.
“Be patient... Hoo... Let us try to be patient....”
My anger would only last for a moment anyway.
Before long, the Possessor's Composure would activate on its own and cool my mind. Since the outcome was predetermined, I wanted to avoid the useless cold-water scrubbing as much as possible.
Above all, I believed that the notebook the Quest had offered as a reward could not be this futile.
After repeating several deep breaths, I returned the notebook, which I had flipped to the end, back to its first page.
‘If the contents that should be here are not visible, it means I cannot read them.’
I thought with the belief that the Quest would not give me blank paper as a reward.
‘Then how about assuming that the contents are hidden through a special method, and that this notebook is some kind of magical tool?’
I frowned and turned the notebook this way and that, then shook my head.
Sita Calyps’s Notebook did not even have the faintest flow of mana, like the one I felt from crystal balls. It could not be called a magical tool.
‘It is not an ordinary notebook, but it is not a magical tool either. Still, its owner has to check its contents, so it must have been made so that they can read it somehow... Wait, its owner?’
The owner of Sita Calyps’s Notebook was, naturally, the chairman, Sita Calyps.
And the chairman had one ability that no one else possessed, an ability only he had in this world.
The moment I realized that, I immediately blinked.
[ Trait - Appraiser’s Eye activates. ]
Shimmer....
I had merely blinked once and used the ability, yet many things about the notebook had changed when I looked at it again.
Its once-clean exterior was worn as though people’s hands had touched it dozens, perhaps hundreds of times. Most importantly, the crooked signature “Sita Calyps” was written on its cover.
I looked down at the messy signature, as though written by a child, then turned a page of the notebook. I eagerly anticipated what truth would be hidden beyond it.
And, as it always had, the status window blocked me at the perfect moment.
[ Do you wish to read ‘Sita Calyps’s Notebook’? ]
[ Currently available chapters 【1/4】 ]
[ Yes / No ]
The thought that this was truly too much wrapped around my entire body.
It was the natural reaction to learning that the reward I had gained after completing a Quest with an extreme penalty and no proper explanation was, in fact, only a quarter of a reward.
However, at this point, annoyance gave way to the stubborn urge to see how far this would go. Before the Possessor's Composure even had time to activate, I touched [Yes].
[ Reading ‘Sita Calyps’s Notebook’. ]
[ The chapter currently being read is Chapter 4. ]
Without even a chance to resist, I fell asleep.
“...Hm?”
For some reason, he felt an unpleasant gaze, as though someone were looking down at him.
The man unconsciously raised his head and looked at the sky.
However, the night sky he looked upon held only a brutally brilliant Milky Way. There seemed to be nowhere for a gaze looking down at him to linger.
“Master, what is the matter?”
Just then, the voice of a subordinate he considered “somewhat trustworthy” reached him, and he lowered his head from the sky.
What entered his lowered field of view was a girl with golden hair like his own, hanging down past her shoulders, and a garden decorated with flowers and trees of every color.
He looked at the table set in the middle of the garden, then slowly shook his head.
“It is nothing.”
Yes, it was truly nothing.
Calyps Academy’s security was airtight, and this garden, built in its deepest area, was a space where neither magic nor Talent could intrude.
Therefore, the gaze he had felt was likely caused by the regret and despair swirling around his entire body.
“Persona, do you think this choice is right?”
His dry voice sounded, even to himself, like that of a patient about to die.
Perhaps that was why his subordinate’s answer was exactly what he expected.
“Yes, Master cannot be wrong. Even if you step into a filthy puddle, I firmly believe that you will never lose yourself, Master.”
“...Is that so.”
It was an answer filled with absolute faith and fanatical trust, like that of a knight who had sworn loyalty to their lord. At the same time, it was the answer he had wanted.
He wanted someone to tell him that this choice was not wrong, that he was now walking the right path.
His subordinate’s next answer did not betray his expectations either.
“I have known since ten years ago, when you took in someone like me, dying in a back alley.”
His subordinate continued, eyes shining with trust.
“Even if the path before us is filthy and ugly, if it is the path you walk, Master, then it must be a path leading to heaven.”
There was a proverb that said the road to hell was paved with good intentions.
Then, would not the road to heaven be stained with the most wicked evil?
“I believe in you, Master.”
The subordinate he had assessed as “somewhat trustworthy” was, absurdly, someone who sincerely believed in him.
It was a fact that normally gave him little feeling, but today, it offered him considerable comfort.
That was why he could form a faint smile on his worried face.
However, it lasted only a moment.
Step. Step.
The sound of footsteps mercilessly trampling the beautifully maintained garden rang in his ears.
At a glance, the footsteps sounded light. Yet each step was stained with stubbornness and greed. If a knight capable of identifying someone by their footsteps had been present, they would have judged the person approaching now to be a villain.
“It has been a long time, Marquess of Calyps.”
Yes, the woman approaching him while waving her hand was a villain.
The Empire had swallowed the continent, and she had seized control over that Empire’s underworld.
A villain before whom even thugs roaming dirty alleys, knights who had abandoned honor and chivalry for illegality, and mages carrying out inhuman experiments too vile to utter all lowered their heads.
Knowing that well, he suppressed the nausea rising within him and spoke.
“It has been... a long time.”
He could not bring himself to say that he was glad to see her. Merely facing someone from the vile underworld was enough to make him feel that he was sinning against his great ancestors.
Enough that his ancestors, who had founded this academy 453 years ago, might draw their swords if they saw him now.
Of course, as though she did not care in the slightest, his opponent turned her head and looked over the garden he cherished, offering a comment.
“It is a beautiful garden. As expected, people of high station must have a sense of beauty flowing in their blood. If possible, I would like to give it a name.”
GRIND.
He had to grit his teeth to hold back the fist about to fly out.
He could overlook the remark about a sense of beauty as mere admiration. However, saying she wanted to name it crossed the line far too much.
This garden was a space he cherished enough to personally name <Dulcéo>, and the queen of the underworld, who supposedly knew all the information in the world, would certainly know that fact.
In other words, she was provoking him.
“Do not mock me needlessly.”
However, he did not seize on that point.
It was not because he lacked strength.
The power his ancient ancestors had left the House of the Marquess of Calyps was more than enough to bring down even the queen of the underworld.
Therefore, the problem was not his house, but himself.
‘For my goal.’
To accomplish the goal he had devoted his life to, he needed the power of the queen of the underworld and the Organization to which she belonged.
Even if he had to endure the humiliation of the head of House of the Marquess of Calyps becoming an executive of a mere Organization, he had a goal he needed to achieve.
And his opponent knew that well.
“I was not mocking you, but if that is how you see it, shall we move straight to the main point?”
The woman smiled and reached into her clothes, pulling out a rolled-up scroll.
Though the mana within him was only Grade 2, he prided himself on having knowledge equal to that of any other mage. He recognized that the scroll the woman had taken out was a Grade 6 spell called .
“...A safeguard?”
“Exactly. Rather than merely making a contract in words, this is far more convenient, simple, and has a streamlined process.”
It was not wrong.
However, the moment he used this scroll, he would become no different from the underworld scum he had disregarded his entire life.
That fact held him back until the very end, but he briefly closed his eyes, then took hold of the scroll.
“Shall we begin?”
With each of them holding one end of the scroll, the queen of the underworld began the oath in a light voice.
The oath, which had been coordinated countless times in advance, was simple.
【Sita Calyps and Amici shall devote themselves to the Organization.】
Devotion.
Neither he nor his opponent would know how far that category extended.
However, one thing was certain: they could no longer betray the Organization.
The clearest proof was Amici’s reaction.
“You made the right choice.”
Having discarded even the bare minimum of honorifics, her eyes now recognized him as an equal.
“Marquess of Calyps... No, I should call you Master Calyps now. This was the most rational path to achieve your goal, was it not? As I told you before, we were ultimately the same kind of people.”
It was a disparagement hiding a terribly ugly intention, but there was no way to deny that it was true.
Sita Calyps, who had taken office as the chairman of Calyps Academy a year ago, did not want to acknowledge that fact, so he quietly closed his eyes.
[ Reading of ‘Sita Calyps’s Notebook’ has completed successfully. ]
[ Currently available chapters 【1/4】 ]
“......”
Returning to reality from a memory of the not-too-distant past, I pressed my lips tightly together.
It was not that I had nothing to say. It was the opposite.
I had too much to say. So much that I did not know what I should say.
In the end, after a long silence, the words I spoke were an incantation I had failed to use once before.
“Persona.”
The chairman was not being threatened by the Organization.
The chairman was a member of the Organization, and because he had lost his memories, he was being targeted by Master Amici.
The facts I had learned through the memories constantly warned my instincts.
Right now, I needed to make the most trustworthy person possible into someone on my side.
So, even as I bit my lip, I called the name of the subordinate the chairman had judged “somewhat trustworthy” once more.
“Persona Calyps.”
The person the chairman had personally taken in and shared his own surname with.
The moment I said that name, someone knocked on the chairman’s office door as if by magic.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
It was not the usual knock-knock.
That fact alone told me that the person beyond the door was someone I had never met.
I sent the response fitting for three knocks, which was contained in the chairman’s memories floating through my mind.
“I was waiting.”
......
I had clearly answered as required, yet the other person did not open the door.
Because the chairman’s memories had been forcibly injected into me, I had less patience than usual. I immediately spoke again.
“You said you trusted me. How long do you intend to keep me waiting?”
Click.
The person who finally entered was not the young man with the businesslike impression.
She was a girl fundamentally different from him, with neatly arranged golden hair that reached her waist.
Her blue eyes trembled pitifully as she asked me:
“Mas...ter?”