Was it the right answer? Or was it not?
Once again faced with a forced choice between two options, I felt troubled.
“What do you mean?”
The secretary, whose eyes had been dull with fatigue, blinked once. For that instant, a dangerous light flashed in them.
When he blinked again, he had returned to being the exhausted secretary.
It was a change that passed in the blink of an eye. It had happened so quickly that it was difficult to judge whether what I saw had been real.
‘If he is pretending not to know, poking at him one more time will bring the same reaction. If he truly does not know, he will react the same way.’
However, amidst all that uncertainty, one thing was certain.
It would be impossible to draw any further reaction from him on the same subject.
The only choice left to me was to take back what I had said.
“...It was nonsense. Do not concern yourself with it.”
“Understood. Then may I ask why you summoned me?”
Originally, I had planned to tell him to speak about everything he knew regarding the Chairman’s past.
But after seeing the status window covered in black squares, there was no way I could ask such a naive question.
Swallowing the sigh billowing up from deep in my chest, I barely opened my mouth.
“I have changed my mind. Return today... We will speak again another time.”
It was an extremely rude thing to do, but perhaps because he had already suffered all he could at the hands of the original Chairman, the secretary readily nodded.
“Yes, I will come to see you again tomorrow.”
The secretary turned around and left the room.
The chairman’s office was empty once more.
Staring at the spot where he—or perhaps she—had stood, I muttered helplessly.
“This really was not in the original story....”
Swish... Click.
The door slid shut smoothly, as though boasting of the room owner’s wealth.
The secretary silently watched the door, now completely closed and hiding the view within, before turning toward the long corridor.
Step. Step.
“Good morning, Secretary.”
“Parti. You are working hard today as well.”
“Secretary, the Calyps Trading Company will visit tomorrow at noon for the regular contract renewal, but....”
“I will relay that matter to the Chairman. For now, it would be best for the administration office to prepare for negotiations on the premise of renewal while accounting for rising prices.”
“Secretary! The projected number of new students for next year has decreased significantly. The Chancellor said she would hold a meeting on that subject. Will the Chairman attend?”
“Ah, I am sorry, but please tell the Chancellor that the Chairman is unlikely to attend the meeting. The Chairman has been busy lately.”
Though he was merely walking down a corridor, countless people spoke to him, asked questions, and demanded answers.
All because he was the Chairman’s secretary.
One of the academy’s leaders, who should have run the academy alongside the Chancellor, was wasting his time committing petty corruption and bullying students.
Someone had to handle the Chairman’s work. Naturally, all sorts of tasks gathered around the secretary, who appeared far more normal than the wastrel.
Still, despite his exhausted face, the secretary listened to every person who came to him without showing the slightest sign of impatience or irritation.
It was not as though he could not become tired, but all of this had gone exactly as planned from the beginning.
Click.
It had been morning when the secretary left the chairman’s office, but by the time he arrived at his own room and closed the door, the sun was already directly overhead.
The secretary walked around the room for a moment, confirming that no one was there and that no device or magic was watching, before slowly sitting in a chair.
Then, he reached toward the crystal ball placed in the center of the table, an item as essential to a mage as anything else, and poured his mana into it.
BZZT—
An unpleasant burst of static passed through the air, and the blue crystal ball shone brightly.
At the same time, someone’s voice began to flow from the orb.
Ah, can you hear me?
The question came in a voice as soft as silk.
The secretary answered in an exhausted, weary voice, with a deep sigh mixed into it.
“...I hear you well.”
I understand that it is bothersome, but the crystal balls we use have too many layers of magic to prevent eavesdropping. Naturally, there is always a high chance of an error occurring....
“...You repeat the same words every time merely to confirm that. I know.”
......
As the other party fell silent for a moment, the secretary waited for a reply and felt a slight sense of satisfaction and irritation at once.
‘I decided to cooperate, but Master Amici still talks far too much.’
Master Amici.
Persona did not even know her true name, but just as Sita Calyps was called Master Calyps, it was certain that her surname was Amici.
Persona cursed the fact that the organization had only two Masters, who oversaw everything in the organization below the boss, and that every one of them was missing a screw.
‘At times like this, the boss should be holding things together, but I do not even know where he is....’
Fortunately, the person beyond the crystal ball did not seem to want to argue. As casually as her kind voice, she continued.
So... How did the favor go, Persona?
Persona.
It was a name never heard within the academy, and even less likely to be heard outside it.
A name known solely by the ‘organization’ to which she belonged flowed from the other person’s vocal cords.
Persona had already returned from the male form of the businesslike secretary to the form of a girl. At last, she relaxed and replied with a loose posture.
“I delivered the letter safely. I also confirmed his reaction.”
The blood-red letter the Chairman had received just yesterday.
She revealed that she was the person who had delivered it, and the person beyond the crystal ball continued without the slightest agitation, as though she had already known.
I am only grateful that you acted as I asked. No matter what anyone says, you are Master Calyps’s confidante. Of course, that must be because you are wise enough to grasp the prevailing situation.
Persona fell into thought for a moment.
Was this a jab at her for carrying out the request despite being Master Calyps’s confidante?
Or was the other person truly praising her for fulfilling the order?
I think I know the answer without hearing it, but I still cannot avoid confirming it.
The other person’s voice remained calm throughout the conversation.
Like ramparts that had stood for a thousand years, it did not waver. It carried the absolute confidence that she could control the situation.
How did our arrogant Master Calyps react?
That was why Persona could answer more comfortably.
“It is strange. He is not doing what he used to do, and he is doing things he never used to do.”
The Chairman had changed.
As though he had become an entirely different person, he was doing things he had never done in his life.
For a moment, the image of the Chairman acting as though he were testing Persona came to mind. But Persona did not mention it.
That, too, belonged to the category of the Chairman becoming strange.
Is that so? Just as I expected.
“You sound calm. Are you not worried?”
Worry is what one does when a prediction is wrong. I observed Master Calyps’s change, predicted the reaction that would follow, and that prediction was correct. There is no need to worry.
Persona’s stomach churned at the answer, which did not contain even a speck of affection for the other person.
It was proof that although they called each other comrades and served one boss, nobody in the organization sincerely cared for one another.
Still, Persona swallowed that nausea and spoke calmly.
“That sounds as though you have a contingency plan.”
Hmm.
Master Amici closed her mouth.
The silence continued for so long that it seemed deliberate. Just as Persona was about to become irritated, the other person’s words came at the perfect moment.
It would be best to watch.
“After we have even delivered the letter?”
It took the form of an invitation, but in the end, we only tested him. Whether he remembered the time, the place, and the person. Did the Master Calyps you saw seem to have intact memories?
Flinch.
Persona trembled at Master Amici’s question in that feminine voice.
She felt certain that she would one day look back on this question as an important branching point.
After a very brief silence, she answered.
“...Of course.”
It was an obvious lie.
Persona tensed, wondering whether she would be caught, but that was all.
Really? Even if that arrogant man has become strange, there is no way his memories would become strange as well. It would be best to wait for Master Calyps’s reaction rather than do anything.
The other person appeared not to have noticed her lie and continued casually.
If Master Calyps is acting strangely because he is planning something, there is no need to scratch at it and make a sore. And if some mishap occurred and an impostor took his place, there is no way you would fail to notice.
Unaware that her words had struck the truth, Master Amici calmly asked.
Persona, was the Master Calyps you faced an impostor?
“...No. He was the same. His appearance, his breathing, his gait, even his smallest habits. Though he does seem to have become a little more generous.”
Since you are so certain, I feel even more strongly that there is no need to make a fuss. Ah, something urgent has come up, so I must contact you again later. Please continue working hard for the organization.
BZZT—
Static sounded again, just as it had when the conversation began. Before Persona could even reply, the connection was cut off.
She stared at the crystal ball in disbelief.
But when she belatedly pulled her back away from the chair, she felt the backrest damp with cold sweat. Persona forgot her disbelief and could only let out a quiet groan.
Mmm....
The two Masters who had cooperated under the boss’s command turned their blades on one another the moment the boss vanished.
Persona herself served Master Calyps—Sita Calyps, also called the Chairman—and was his confidante who had inherited his surname, but....
“A double agent... What a ridiculous state I have ended up in.”
She had falsely accepted Master Amici’s offer to switch sides.
With the organization’s boss gone, Master Amici had attempted to recruit Persona in order to learn the Chairman’s weaknesses, and believed she had succeeded.
But Persona, who had no intention of betraying the Chairman, was deceiving Master Amici by mixing a small lie into the truth.
“That bastard needs to come back soon....”
In the blink of an eye, Persona disguised herself once more, changing from a girl back into the secretary’s form, and let out a deep sigh.
She missed the one colleague who had inherited the Chairman’s surname as she had.
The chairman’s office, whose normally tidy appearance was nowhere to be found, had become a complete mess.
I frowned at the dust drifting through the room and sighed deeply.
‘...I only made more work for myself.’
After the secretary I had thought might be trustworthy turned out to be someone I could not trust, I began investigating the Chairman’s information myself.
Of course, an investigation that did not attract others’ notice was nothing more than searching through the chairman’s office.
And that meant that I was the one who had made this mess.
But the real issue was not how long it would take to clean up this mess. It was that I had found nothing despite making it.
I had checked everything: picture frames, notes, scribbles, even work documents.
‘Can it really be this empty?’
I searched for every element that might have held traces of the Chairman, but the only thing I discovered was that the chairman’s office was a library in all but name.
The bookshelves were packed with books, but there was not a single belonging of the room’s owner. If that was not a library, how could it be the chairman’s office?
Sigh....
I roughly dusted off a chair and collapsed into it with a sigh.
I had even taken apart the underside of the chair. If I found nothing there, there was nothing else I could do.
Still, the fact that I had not gained absolutely nothing was my only comfort.
Someone might ask what I could possibly have found in a chairman’s office that held nothing....
‘If it is this tidy, someone must have cleaned it out before I did.’
That ‘chairman’s office with nothing in it’ was practically the one remaining trace.
CRASH!
Ignoring the sound of books tumbling down, which I had stacked carelessly on the floor while checking behind the bookshelf, I became certain of my situation.
‘Someone has noticed my existence.’
A letter in the form of an invitation. A secretary hiding their identity. A chairman’s office that had been thoroughly cleaned.
All of it told me the same thing.
Someone suspected me.
Naturally, the person who suspected me would not be the secretary. The one pulling the strings always put forward a stand-in.
Nor would the nature of that suspicion be something as absurd as, ‘Someone has possessed the Chairman.’
It would be something more realistic....
For example, ‘The Chairman has gone mad,’ or ‘Someone is disguising themselves as the Chairman.’
Mental instability could occur just as easily in the modern world, and in a world where magic existed, disguising oneself as another person would not be beyond imagination.
‘But I am the Chairman.’
Yes, the troubling part was that, despite all of that, I was still the Chairman.
I had the Chairman’s golden eyes and golden hair, and I was neither mad nor insane.
Aside from the contents, the shell was a perfect Chairman: Sita Calyps.
[ ◆ Evade the First Danger. (20%) ]
The quest remained at twenty percent.
I realized that the danger it spoke of was the suspicion harbored by an unknown person.
And the time that danger would arrive, the moment when the quest would be sealed as a failure, would be when suspicion toward me turned into certainty.
It would be when I repeatedly did things the Chairman would not do and crossed the line.
If that was the case, what I had to do from now on was clear.
‘So that I can avoid suspicion. Just as I did with Professor Tuvan yesterday... Hmm.’
Even as I groaned, I accepted the solution that I had naturally come to realize.
There was only one way to avoid the suspicions of someone unknown and succeed at the quest.
“I have to act like the Chairman.”
More real than the real thing.