‘Are your parents well?’
‘Did you rest well over the weekend?’
Questions so ordinary that an ordinary person could answer them without difficulty.
However, to her, those questions were harder than the seven great unsolved problems of mathematics.
She did not know her parents. She did not know her hometown or even her name.
Until she was eight years old, those were things Persona had no need for. What she needed instead was something to eat for the day and a route that would let her avoid thugs.
The day that changed her life had not been very different.
“This is... remarkable.”
A young man had appeared on an ordinary day, when she had stolen bread and run away to find food that would keep her alive.
Even to a child who knew nothing, the young man did not belong in such a filthy back alley.
Naturally, young Persona took several steps backward, watching him warily.
Until he spoke in a voice that sounded as though he were impressed.
“You have Talent.”
You have Talent.
The young Persona froze the moment she heard those words.
The name Billis, which people called her back then, had been given by adults who clicked their tongues at yet another orphan.
It was a name that meant she was of no use anywhere.
To have Talent meant to have use. To the child called Billis, it was praise she had never heard before.
“If you want, I will help you awaken your Talent.”
However, the moment she heard the young man’s proposal, she became wary of him again.
The first thing one learned in a filthy back alley was that there was no favor without a price.
Fortunately, the young man knew that fact as well. When she heard his next words, she felt rather relieved.
“Of course, you must use that Talent only for me. Will you accept?”
She was not foolish enough to accept blindly just because the other person had told her the price.
However, what happened that day was enough for her to swear loyalty to the young man, Sita Calyps.
“Persona.”
“Persona Calyps.”
Therefore, when the Master, who should have lost his memories, called her, she moved without hesitation.
If he had called to her in the same voice as before, as though testing her, she would not have reacted.
However, the Master’s voice, after he had been lost in thought for so long, was filled with unshakable certainty. Persona could not help but move.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
When she was the secretary, two knocks. When she was Persona, three.
It was a small but certain rule known only to the Master and her, and the response she received was the same.
I was waiting.
...!
The moment she heard “I was waiting” instead of the usual “Come in,” Persona quickly reached for the doorknob.
The Master whom she thought had lost his memories had returned to normal, so she had to renew her oath of loyalty as quickly as possible.
However, the hand holding the doorknob froze.
‘What if this is a trap?’
The worst possibility suddenly entered her mind.
What if the plan she and her colleague had made—to pretend to cooperate with Master Amici while protecting Master Calyps—had been exposed?
What if the queen of the underworld, who projected her influence across the entire continent to the point that she could learn of events at its farthest reaches within a day, had discovered their plan and prepared a trap in return?
Then what if the voice calling to her now was not the Master’s, but that of an assassin disguised as the Master?
“......”
In less than a second, Persona, a superhuman who had unofficially defeated a Grade 6 Knight in a duel, divided the time given to her as finely as possible and considered whether this call was a trap.
However, all of it lost meaning at a single short call.
“You said you trusted me. How long do you intend to keep me waiting?”
Click.
The day the Master became Master Calyps.
Even Master Amici could not know the conversation the two of them had shared alone in the empty garden.
Knowing that, Persona opened the door and asked in a trembling voice.
“Mas...ter?”
She had never believed in a god.
However, in this moment, she prayed desperately.
Please, please, let him regain his memories and guide her.
Persona prayed that he would guide her, who had lost her way, and tell her once more which path she should take.
“Persona, is what you said about believing in me still the same?”
“Of course, of course it is...!”
“Then let me tell you. I have lost my memories.”
“?”
Her prayer had only been granted halfway.
“Then let me tell you. I have lost my memories.”
The moment I finished speaking, I tightly gripped the demonic sword Palakia that I had kept in the drawer.
If Persona did not believe those words, I would have to survive even if it meant using Palakia again.
‘If I had not said I lost my memories in the first place, I would not have to take such a risk... but there is no choice.’
When I gained the chairman’s memories, my first thought had been, in a refined way, I am doomed.
In a cruder way, I am fucked.
The chairman had entered the Organization with a grand goal, even accepting the humiliation of serving beneath someone else. Up to that point, I could accept it.
It was a setting that had never appeared in the original work, but even if the chairman had been a member of a criminal organization, nothing would change about his already-trashy image.
The problem was Master Amici, the woman the chairman had considered the queen of the underworld.
‘Barriers manipulated without an official notice. Gerbera Daisy Powder, which only unlicensed mages hiding in the underworld would use....’
Those things had been only suspicious elements until now. Once the chairman’s memories were added to them, they led to a startling conclusion.
‘...Master Amici. That woman is targeting me.’
Only someone at least as influential as one of Master Amici’s subordinates could infiltrate the academy or manipulate its barriers.
It could even explain why she had targeted the students instead of me.
‘If the students I personally led were injured or killed, my position would weaken.’
The Special Department had only just been established, and it had begun with my own forceful demands.
From the moment Master Amici sensed that something was strange with me, she had begun keeping me in check.
I wanted to say, Were fellow executives really supposed to do this to one another? But there had never been any sense of camaraderie between us, so what could I do?
‘Now that I think about it, the oath was shoddy too. It said we would devote ourselves to the Organization, but it never said we would not touch one another.’
If tearing each other down helped the Organization, we would do it willingly.
I furrowed my brow at the bitterness lingering in my mouth, then looked up at Persona.
The subordinate the chairman had assessed as “somewhat trustworthy.”
Considering that the chairman’s personality was eccentric, bizarre, and emotionally about thirty years removed from an ordinary person, “somewhat trustworthy” was no different from saying she was the person he trusted most.
‘Therefore, I have to make Persona unconditionally take my side. If I want to stop Master Amici’s schemes.’
I prayed.
I prayed that the convenient and artificial lie about losing my memories would work.
And that prayer was granted.
“I will believe you.”
“!”
“I do not know why you lost your memories, Master, or why you have pretended not to know me until now... But I believe in you, Master.”
“I believe in you, Master.”
For a moment, the girl who had sworn an oath to the chairman in his memories overlapped with Persona standing before me.
The reason she trusted me was likely because she had received grace from the chairman of the past.
Then I wondered whether I had the right to use that trust, so even in a situation where I should have been purely happy, I could not form a complete smile.
“First, please tell me how much you remember, Master. I will try to fill in the missing parts.”
To Persona, whose face held the resolve of someone who had made up her mind, I gave the excuse I had prepared in advance.
“I remember some things from after becoming the chairman, but I am uncertain about my memories from before then.”
Then, before she could feel something was strange, I quickly seized the initiative.
“If even that much had not remained, I would not have realized that I had lost my memories. Therefore... let us begin with my memories of the Organization.”
I had come a long way around, but thinking about it, this had also been one of my plans.
Ever since the second Quest had appeared, I had intended to hear about the chairman’s past from the secretary.
As I watched Persona bring over a chair, a familiar hologram appeared.
[ Trait - Appraiser’s Eye reveals the target’s information. ]
[ Persona Calyps ]
[ Traits / ■■■ ■■, Prepared Office Worker, ■■■ ■■, ■■■ ]
[ Special Notes / Recalling memories with the chairman. ]
[ Potential Trait / ■■■■ ]
[ The target has hidden information using Trait - ■■■ ■■. ]
It revealed several times more information than before, but seeing the status window still shrouded in darkness, I let out a sigh.
‘It still is not perfect.’
It seemed my plan to act like the chairman would continue for quite a long time.
Click.
Only after an entire day had passed could Persona leave the chairman’s office. The moment the door closed, she used her Talent to change her appearance into that of the secretary.
Before she could even blink once, Persona had become a young man with a businesslike impression. She walked through the halls with an expression no different from usual, but inside, she was deeply tangled.
‘He has lost his memories.’
The Master had lost his memories.
That proposition had existed from the moment the Master’s strange behavior began, but hearing it directly from the Master’s mouth was different.
‘He remembers some things from after becoming the chairman, but knows nothing from before then....’
Was that possible?
She was wholly unfamiliar with magic. The Disguise Arts she used were only an inborn Talent, and her abilities were more specialized toward swordsmanship and physical combat than magic.
Even so, Persona had never heard of a case in which someone’s memories were fragmented like the Master’s.
‘Should I ask Professor Nia...? No, the president may learn about the Master’s condition. I should instead seek an illusion mage from outside....’
However, Persona did not doubt the Master’s identity.
A knight of her level naturally remembered everything perfectly: another person’s gait and breathing, even minor habits visible when they held a pen or when their work did not go as planned.
Above all, there was no room for doubt that the Master was real, given that he remembered the conversation from that day.
Therefore, the only reason she wanted to seek an illusion mage was for the Master’s health.
‘It is unbelievable, but if he has lost his memories, that means he was caught in someone’s trap or attack without my knowledge. He must be treated as soon as possible.’
Now that Master Amici had begun keeping him in check, the Master regaining his senses was a good thing. However, having incomplete memories was worse than when he had lost them completely.
If he made even one mistake because of his incomplete memories, Master Amici would devour him whole.
That was why Persona gladly accepted the Master’s orders.
“For the time being, I do not intend to leave the chairman’s office. Master Amici has already crossed the academy’s walls once, so it would not be strange if the same thing happened twice.”
“Therefore, while I remain here, you must become both my guard and my proxy.”
The role of guard and proxy was already familiar to Persona, so at first, she found it puzzling.
Even now, she was the one handling the chairman’s work as his proxy. Because he considered the money required to hire guards wasteful, she was effectively serving as his guard as well.
However, the chairman shook his head at her question.
“From now on, I intend to personally handle the work that must be dealt with as the chairman of Calyps Academy. However, when documents need to be delivered or urgent decisions must be made in the field, you must become the chairman.”
It was certainly different from before.
Until now, Persona’s handling of work had, at best, maintained the status quo. At worst, it had gradually declined.
That was partly because someone from an orphan background could not perfectly handle the chairman’s work, and partly because she had no particular ambition herself.
However, now she had to recognize that she herself was the chairman and make responsible choices whenever the Master was absent.
“And there is the matter of guarding. At the regular meeting that will be held soon, I intend to raise strengthening the academy’s security as an agenda item. Therefore, there will be no problem inside, but outside is different.”
“Master Amici will have more opportunities than I do outside the academy. Of course, things would be different if I used my power as a marquess....”
“Since your memories are not complete, Master, I think moving House of the Marquess of Calyps too deeply would be difficult. The members of your family I have seen... are not people who would tolerate mistakes.”
“Yes, that is why I am asking you.”
The matter of guarding was a bigger problem than Persona had thought.
It was not simply a matter of remaining beside the Master. Outside the academy, she had to become both the Master’s shield and sword.
Master Amici’s subordinates specialized in vile and ugly assassinations.
Persona did not know whether she could completely protect the Master from them, but one thing was certain.
“I have to do it.”
Persona had sworn loyalty to Sita Calyps, so she had to do it.
Even if she had to offer her own life, she would ensure that nothing strange ever happened to the Master again.
‘Certainly....’
With a resolute expression, Persona headed toward the building completed a few days ago.
The building, which elemental mages in the construction field had completed in a week in exchange for enormous bonuses, would become the base used by the Special Department.
The reason Persona had come here was the Master’s final order.
“Ah, on the way, tell everyone in the Special Department to come to the chairman’s office.”
“Why are you calling them?”
“Originally, I intended to delay it as much as possible, but I need a Grade 4 superhuman immediately.”
‘He needs a Grade 4 superhuman... I understand the situation, but what does that have to do with the Special Department?’
Persona rarely questioned the Master’s orders.
There were elixirs in the storage of House of the Marquess of Calyps and the chairman’s storage that could raise a knight’s Grade.
However, those only worked for knights who had reached a wall.
The abilities of Emma and Gess, whom Persona had assessed, had only just entered Grade 3 even when judged generously....
Why was the Master talking about Grade 4?
Persona tilted her head.