A hearty disposition. Skills that were average even at an academy filled only with geniuses.
A scion of a family backed by the House of the Marquess of Calyps.
Gess Alep, the third son of the House of Baron Alep, was the undisputed leader of the Knight Department's second-years.
Of course, there were those more skilled than him, but most of them preferred acting alone to gathering together in a noisy crowd. That was why Gess had naturally become their leader.
- If you graduate from Calyps Academy with excellent grades, you will be able to join the knight order of the House of the Marquess of Calyps. Your eldest brother will inherit the barony, so establish a household of your own as a knight.
The reason he had taken on the role of leader, which brought more duties than rights, was because of his father's command.
There was no title or property to pass on to him, so he was to find his own way to make a living.
Of course, Gess dreamed of becoming an actor, but he knew that realistically, achieving that dream was impossible.
Unless he intended to join a wandering theater troupe that was half bandits, he would have to graduate from a proper theater academy... and that was beyond what he could accomplish on his own.
‘I don't have any gold.’
His family currently sent him tuition and a generous allowance, but would they also pay the tuition for a theater academy?
Even by his own reckoning, the answer was an emphatic no.
That was why Gess could not afford to let the top-grade mana stone the Chairman had offered as a reward slip away.
‘The Chairman said he would write me a recommendation letter if I did what he asked until graduation... but that means nothing if I don't have the tuition.’
Once he was admitted, he had to pay the admission fee.
To fulfill that obvious truth, he desperately needed the top-grade mana stone that he could sell for 100 million gold. He had done his utmost to hunt Orcs, but....
- Um... Student Alep?
- Oh, Professor Filoni?
- You, you can call me Professor Nia....
- Understood. But what brings you here...? Ah, has the examination time ended? I was just thinking that it felt as though quite a long time had passed....
- I, I'm sorry. Th-the examination time actually ended... four hours ago!
Even Gess, who prided himself on being a master of facial acting, could not hide his startled expression at the news that the examination time had ended more than four hours ago.
As it turned out, Emma, who had been taking the examination with him, had crossed into another sector because of a barrier malfunction, and the Chairman had said an accident occurred while trying to save her... but shouldn't they have told him much sooner?!
‘Come to think of it, I do remember hearing some noise in the middle, and it did feel as though a considerable amount of time had passed... Hah.’
Driven by his obsession with somehow earning 100 million gold, he had repeated nothing but resting, hunting, resting, and hunting. Before he knew it, more than seven hours had passed.
At any rate, he had learned, even if belatedly, that the examination had been called off. He told Professor Nia, who repeatedly apologized for forgetting, that it was all right, then returned to the Special Department and dwelled on the regret of losing out on 100 million gold.
However, there was still one more thing waiting to bewilder him.
“Pardon? Did I mishear you?”
“Then I shall say it again. Cancel the investigation into the secretary and the expelled students that I asked you to conduct last time.”
“Uh... um....”
Trying to pull his crumpled expression back together, Gess wondered whether he had made some mistake.
As the Chairman had ordered, he had hired people under his own name, and to be safe, he had gone one step further and commissioned a background investigation into the secretary.
He had also been investigating the expelled students, so the fact that all of it was being canceled at once made him fear that he had made some mistake and fallen out of the Chairman's favor.
However, the Chairman seemed to gaze into empty space for a moment before speaking in a voice that had softened ever so slightly.
“It is not being canceled because you did anything wrong, so do not concern yourself. It is simply that a suitable person has appeared.”
“......!”
It was a relief that he had not done anything wrong, but a new suitable person?!
‘If my duties keep getting taken away like this, won't the recommendation letter disappear too?’
Even if Gess himself were the Chairman, he did not think he would write a recommendation letter to a prestigious institution like Ludicher Theatre Academy for a problem student who did no work.
In the end, Gess decided to investigate the students he was currently monitoring even more thoroughly while demonstrating his usefulness to the Chairman. When the next question came, he began adding a little exaggeration to his answer.
“Come to think of it, how skilled are you?”
“Ah, I am around the average for a second-year in the Knight Department. Of course, skill can always fluctuate, so I cannot necessarily be considered average, and additional variables could cause it to change....”
“Is that so? Then you can become a Grade 4 Knight by the end of the break, correct?”
...?
Even though he knew he needed to manage his expression, Gess could not erase the look that said, ‘What kind of bullshit is this?’
It was the hardest moment of his life to keep his expression under control.
***
Had the break been too short after all?
Feeling regret linger in my mouth, I looked at the calendar in one corner of the Chairman's office.
Only a little over two months remained until the 459th Freshman Welcome Ceremony I had checked when I first possessed this body.
Now that the final examinations had been over for quite some time, Calyps Academy had entered its break.
Once this break ended, the Freshman Welcome Ceremony would begin, and with it, the original work's main story.
‘That is why I was going to raise the Special Department's strength as much as possible during the break... Hmm.’
There were two students who had heard me tell them to become Grade 4 Knights by the end of the break—yet they had given the same response.
- ...?
- ...???
Emma and Gess alike had gone speechless, their faces filled with question marks.
The two professors of the Special Department had not been much different.
If there was one small difference, it was that the two professors had tried to stop me.
- C-Chairman...? In my opinion, I believe this plan may have a very, very slight flaw. Could we increase the time, even a little... um... I mean... Damn it! This is impossible!
That was Professor Giltier, who had come to his senses somewhat lately.
- Sh-sh-shall I go get the Chancellor...?
That was Professor Nia, who for some reason wore a deeply frightened expression.
‘Both of them oppose it. By ordinary standards, it really must be impossible.’
I readily nodded.
Emma and Gess were both Grade 3 Knights officially recognized by the state, and quite a few Knight Department second-years had reached Grade 3.
However, unlike Grade 3, which was merely denoted by a number, beginning at Grade 4, titles started to be attached. Even if one searched the entire Academy, their numbers were very small.
There were not even twenty of them among the fourth-years alone.
Therefore, it was not strange for the Special Department's students and professors to reject my order with one mind. Still... I had no intention of giving up.
KNOCK, KNOCK.
Before I could even tell them to come in, the door burst open, and the secretary, her businesslike expression severely distorted, hurried over and poured out her words.
“Mast... no, Chairman. As ordered, I investigated every level of your warehouse. And in Storage Room 2 on Basement Level 3—”
“—you found a dungeon. Is that correct?”
I took a sip of tea as I calmly finished Persona's sentence.
Perhaps because she could not understand my calmness, Persona asked with an uncharacteristically startled expression.
“...How did you know?”
“I am the owner of the warehouse, and no one else. There is no way I would not know.”
I could not exactly answer the question of how I knew the dungeon's location truthfully, so I gave Persona a reply that sounded suitably meaningful and recalled what I knew about the dungeon in the warehouse.
A dungeon that had formed deep within the Chairman's warehouse, in Storage Room 2 on Basement Level 3, a place where only a very small number of authorized people could set foot.
Generally, a dungeon referred to a place where magic beasts had made their nest, but naturally, magic beasts could not possibly have made a nest in the Chairman's warehouse.
Therefore, this dungeon was a somewhat different type.
“What type of dungeon is it?”
“There was no space in the warehouse for magic beasts to hide, so it was a ruin-type dungeon. But if such ruins had existed, we should have discovered them when the warehouse was built... Should we not inquire with the Construction Guild?”
“No. There is no need to needlessly make a larger issue of it.”
A ruin-type dungeon.
They were called dungeons, but the vast majority were either the remnants of ancient kingdoms or the workshops of mad magicians.
And unlike magic beasts, which left behind only by-products, dungeons like these were bound to be of great help in one way or another.
The dungeon that had formed in the warehouse was no different.
‘Was it a training ground for nurturing warriors of an ancient kingdom?’
You know, the sort of episode where the protagonist is strong but struggles because he lacks technique.
The dungeon in the warehouse had been one of the original work's fortuitous encounters for no different reason.
A dungeon created to help Medio, who had gained final boss-level strength, handle that power more maturely and smoothly.
The reason such a dungeon was in the Chairman's warehouse was simple.
‘A dungeon is a kind of subspace, and the ancient relic that creates that subspace absorbed the mana of the nearby magical tools and activated on its own... Hmm, how contrived.’
It might have been an unavoidable choice to keep the story within the Academy, but as far as I was concerned, it was a dungeon born partly from contrivance.
Naturally, readers would not have liked it when this development appeared in the novel....
‘From my perspective, I could not be more grateful.’
I smiled where Persona could not see.
Medio had started with final boss-level strength and merely needed to learn technique, but it was different for students like Gess and Emma.
They could receive technique training and, while they were at it, strip the training ground of its mana.
‘And if I use the elixirs and mana stones in the warehouse... Grade 4 should be entirely possible before the break is over.’
The plan everyone had called impossible had become possible thanks to the fortuitous encounter left behind by the author.
At this rate, before the main story began and before Medio and the other leading characters enrolled in the Academy, I would be able to make Gess and Emma Grade 4 Knights.
If that happened, the perception of the Special Department—once regarded as a den of problem students and merely one part of a disciplinary punishment—would also be sufficiently resolved.
‘The parents from the duel incident may be a problem... but the House of the Marquess of Calyps is not so easily dealt with that they can keep worrying at an incident from months ago.’
Smiling at a plan that showed nothing but a rosy future, I gave Persona an order.
“Immediately conduct a complete inspection of the warehouse's contents, sort out the elixirs and mana stones that will aid growth, and summon the Special Department's students before Storage Room 2, where the dungeon is located.”
“Do you mean only the students, not the professors?”
“Of course. This is more important for the students than it is for the professors.”
“Understood...”
Persona left without being able to hide her confused expression to the end, but I did not mind.
[ Quest Created! ]
[ ◆ Train Grade 4 Knights before winter break ends. (0/2) ]
[ Reward : Trait Shop Access Ticket x1 ]
[ Failure Penalty : Trait - Appraiser’s Eye Level Decreased ]
I did not have a choice anyway.
‘You petty bastard.’
Glaring at the Quest that had nailed down the plan I had devised and made it impossible for me to run away, I picked up my pen.
The items in the warehouse might not be enough to ensure that Gess and Emma reached Grade 4.
‘I should raid the warehouse of the House of the Marquess of Calyps... and if that is not enough, I will have to draw on my private funds.’
Recalling the retainers of the House of the Marquess of Calyps that remained in the Chairman's memories, I pressed a hand to my throbbing forehead and wrote a letter to the House. Then, I pulled over a sheet of paper I had set aside.
The contents written in black ink upon the white paper were a growth plan using the training ground.
In that plan, made by recalling as much information from the original work as possible, one blank remained.
『 Gess Alep, Emma Novician - Training (support with mana stones and elixirs required)
Professor Nia Filoni - Secure Magic Department personnel (need to monitor them so they cannot approach the training ground)
Giltier - 』
...Hmm.
I scratched my cheek as though considering it, staring at the blank space.
Gess and Emma would naturally be busy training to become Grade 4 Knights, while Professor Nia would have to be kept out of matters concerning the training ground for the time being, in case information reached the Chancellor.
Then Professor Giltier was all that remained....
Was there anywhere I could use this guy?