Chapter 49 – Club (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Ah, come to think of it, we should probably find an advisory professor to take charge of the club. Since the written exam is next week too, it wouldn’t hurt to prepare ahead of time.”

Now that we’d settled on a club name, Ryozo muttered that as if it had only just occurred to her before we each returned to our classes.

“That’s true. Right after the written exam, professors will probably be busy grading. There’s no harm in asking in advance. So, Saki, do you already have any professors in mind?”

“Hmm, not really. No one comes to mind. It’s been a while since I’ve actually paid proper attention in class, you know.”

Saki Ryozo shrugged calmly. Weapon looked at her as if he could not believe it. Ryozo took out some yokan and started chewing on it.

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of losing first place on this midterm written exam either.”

“……”

Weapon only moved his lips and couldn’t really say anything back. His pride was hurt, but he seemed to be acknowledging her words without protest. Chloe looked back and forth between the two of them as if it had nothing to do with her.

“Anyway, enough of that. If any of you can think of a professor, say so. Once we find a professor willing to serve as advisor, I’ll write up a simple draft of the proposal so we can submit it right away.”

Weapon continued while scratching his chin with a detached expression.

“For reference, club advisors have to be at least professor rank or above, so only mention people you can think of within that range.”

There was a clear hierarchy among the academy’s faculty and staff. To explain it in Korean terms, instructors who led and guided cadets and handled practical training were more like middle school or high school teachers.

The professors at Hoakin Academy were not much different from Korean university professors. They lectured cadets and also conducted harmonious research in their individual labs together with graduate students.

Because club creation was usually closer to a study group with a strong academic purpose, professors were the ones who served as advisors. Maybe that was how they selected future laborers.

“…As far as I know, Professor Gook Seiton from Ethics is already advising another club, so that’s out…. And Professor Ganma Yujiro from Humanities is always in his lab, so it’s hard to even see his face….”

Weapon muttered while rubbing his chin. Chloe, who had been listening, spoke in her nasal voice.

“Then what about the Blessing Studies professor? His lectures are popular, and he’s kind too.”

“Ah, Professor Demian. But he’s probably too busy. There really isn’t anyone better, though.”

Weapon smacked his lips regretfully.

Out of over five hundred faculty and staff, there were only around thirty professors. If you narrowed it down to the professors teaching first years, the number dropped to around ten.

Taking everything into account, there wasn’t really anyone suitable to take responsibility for founding a club.

As expected of the world’s best academy, the professors probably did more than just teach classes inside the school.

“…What kind of bullshit system is this if they say they encourage club activities.”

“That’s just how adults are.”

Ryozo only shrugged her shoulders.

“Geom-ma, do you know anyone?”

Someone I could think of….

I ran through the faces I knew in my head and crossed them out one by one. As I sorted through them for a moment, an exclamation point appeared above my head.

“It just has to be someone professor rank or above, right?”

When I asked that in passing, Weapon tilted his head and answered.

“Right. But there are basically almost no people above the professors in the academy, right?”

“It’s not that there are none, though. Right?”

Saying that, I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Ryozo, having just finished a piece of yokan, asked.

“Who are you calling?”

“The Headmaster’s office.”

* * *

“Bloody hell!”

Kladi von Beimhark, one of Hoakin Academy’s five elders, ground his molars and spat out a curse as though having a fit from the anger boiling up in him.

Kladi bit off the cap of a glass bottle with his teeth and poured it into a glass filled with ice. Before the glass was even halfway full, he tipped the cold liquid down his throat.

Gulp.

At the same moment his Adam’s apple bobbed.

Puh.

A transparent liquid burst out of his mouth like a fountain. In an instant, the scent of alcohol began drifting faintly through the office.

That liquid mixed with saliva and ran down from the corner of Kladi’s mouth. He stared blankly down at the glass.

“…Liquor?”

Judging by the taste, it wasn’t just any liquor either, but the Royal Scotch 28-Year Black Label Edition that Kladi himself had obtained with great difficulty through an auction half a year ago.

It was a supreme foreign liquor worth tens of billions per bottle. A drink that, by rights, should have been in his private wine rack. Why the hell was it in this glass bottle?

The faint question had only just surfaced when a thick vein stood out on Kladi’s wrinkled temple.

“You son of a bitch, who did this?!”

The savage fury in Kladi’s eyes deepened even further. He irritably wiped the liquid from his mouth with a handkerchief embroidered in gold thread.

Then, overcome by the wave of weakness, he buried himself deeply into the sofa and muttered blankly.

“…Father.”

Limon von Beimhark. Kladi’s own father, and a great man publicly known as the Mad Tiger, one of the Seven Heroes.

But his father had died forty years ago in the subjugation battle against the Sixth Legion Commander Basmon.

The public praised him as a noble hero, but the child Kladi’s heart twisted deeply in the opposite direction from those public accolades.

On top of that, immediately after his father’s death, there had been assassination plots against Kladi carried out as part of the struggle to seize House Beimhark. Those experiences accelerated the distortion in him.

He nurtured poison in his chest. He turned the assassination plots aimed at him back on his relatives and wiped them out, and he restored the discipline that had faltered after his father’s absence.

And in the end, at the strikingly young age of thirty, he managed to seize the honor of becoming an elder of Hoakin Academy.

But the heart that had already been dyed black in his youth had changed into an inhuman ideology. To enlighten foolish humanity and firmly preserve an absolute system of chosen superiority. Kladi accepted that as his destiny.

To control the ignorant masses and the lowly subjects, a common enemy was needed, and fortunately for humanity, there existed the great enemy of the demon race, which could be used to justify power.

But variables always came without warning.

Leon van Reinhardt.

The heaven-appointed next hero who had manifested Miracle’s Blessing, the only power capable of defeating the Demon King. Kladi felt a great sense of crisis at his appearance.

Of course, the gap in power between humans and demons was vast, so the possibility of Leon van Reinhardt actually defeating the Demon King would converge toward impossibility.

And yet there had once been Balor Hoakin, the Hero of Origin, who had single-handedly sealed the First Legion Commander Lycan, the worst and most fearsome of devils, despite being a mere human.

Because that legend was an actually existing precedent, Kladi had no choice but to be deeply shaken.

‘That can never be allowed to happen.’

And just when he had made up his mind that way, someone came to him with an offer he could not refuse.

–I could help you get rid of that so-called hero candidate, Elder.

A mere female instructor. Under normal circumstances, someone like that would never have dared speak to him. The difference in standing between himself, an elder, and a mere instructor was that obvious.

But the moment he met the coldly burning light in her eyes, the answer of who was high and who was low was carved into his bones.

Half-human, half-demon. A Villain.

A human who had personally made a contract with a legion-commander-class demon. A breed that had abandoned its humanity completely and chosen mana instead.

Kladi let out a long sigh. The moment the female instructor’s face came to mind, his stomach turned sour.

“Leon alone is already enough of a headache, and now that lowly special advancement brat is tangling everything up even further.”

He had commissioned an assassination through the elder council, but Auditore had stated that they would not proceed unless the reason was clear.

Even so, since it was a request from the academy’s elder council, they would at least go through the verification procedure, but it was bound to drag on.

Relying solely on that assassin family, which clung to formalities, took no bribes, and had no flexibility whatsoever, was not Kladi’s style.

At the same time, being endlessly jerked around by that villainous female instructor also offended his dignity. Thinking of the slap he’d taken from her before, even grinding her up and drinking her several times over wouldn’t have been enough.

‘That bitch.’

If he was going to crush her, he would do it properly. Kladi had more than enough power and wealth for that.

After rolling the ice around for a while, he threw the strong drink into his mouth.

“First, I should make sure that lowly bastard gets crushed for good.”

Kladi spun the rotary dial of the telephone with his finger. A short ringing sound came to his ear, and soon the person on the other end picked up.

–Yes, Elder Kladi von Beimhark.

“Summon the Undertakers.”

Moving only his wrist, Kladi let the other party hear the sound of ice rolling languidly in the glass.

* * *

On a muggy early-summer morning.

Before homeroom began, I opened the door to the academy’s administrative office early.

I still hadn’t filled the minimum five members required to create a club, but since the written exam was next week, I intended to at least submit the proposal first.

An interior with somewhat high ceilings for an office, decorated with antique wooden furniture. The staff were each sipping a cup of coffee.

‘Do office workers just live with coffee in their mouths?’

I raised my eyes slightly and checked the department placards.

…Faculty personnel, salary and pension management, accounting and bookkeeping, tax affairs, and so on… After scanning several placards as I passed.

“Found it.”

At the very back of the administrative office, I found the department in charge of clubs. I strode straight toward it.

Since not all the employees of that department seemed to have arrived yet, only one person was there guarding the place. A female employee with plump cheeks. Fatigue was thick on her face.

“I’m here about founding a club.”

At those words, the department employee quickly looked me up and down with half-lowered eyelids. Probably some kind of habit born from working at an academy attended by the children of high-ranking people.

In the middle of that, her gaze paused on my name tag for an instant before she let out a heavy sigh.

Then before I could even properly hand over the club founding papers, she coldly raised her eyes and moved her thick lips.

“Haah, excuse me, but applications for founding a club have to be submitted directly by the club president.”

“I am the president.”

“You are?”

The employee let out a snort from one side of her mouth as if I were ridiculous. Apparently it was because of my identity as a special advancement student.

‘But, fuck.’

How could someone who worked at an educational institution show such an obvious attitude based solely on a student’s standing? I felt something rise all the way to the tip of my throat, and a vein stood out at my temple.

“Look, if the procedure is right, then it gets established, doesn’t it? Just accept the application.”

When I said that in a cold voice, the employee flinched briefly. Then, after smoothing over her startled expression, she began snapping at me sharply.

“Excuse me, spe– no, first-year cadet. In order to apply to join a club, you need a supervising professor first, okay? Well… from the look of it, it doesn’t exactly seem like you have anyone who’d agree to be your club’s advisor.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You don’t understand what I mean? Honestly, do you think there’s even a single professor in this academy who’d agree to be the advisor of a club founded by a special advancement student? Honestly, if your birth is like that, then at least have the sense to read the room.”

As expected, you could say. People like this, soaked to the bone in superiority thinking, were enough to erase even the small amount of affection I’d developed for the academy.

If it were up to me, I would have pulled out the method of conversation I preferred most from inside my clothes, but if I acted without regard for the situation, I’d end up becoming a criminal.

Still, I spent nearly twenty years in the food-service industry.

I’d seen countless disgusting types of people, so I also knew the best way to deal with humans steeped in this kind of chosen-people mentality.

By saying as little as possible. Someone prattling away like that needed to be overwhelmed with heavy silence. Even so, my twitching hands still searched for the sashimi knife.

I forcibly shoved both hands deep into my pockets and looked down at the employee.

To cut, or not to cut, that was the question.

At that, the employee, who had been flapping her mouth carelessly, suddenly flinched and gave a slight shudder. Yet just as she was about to instead raise her voice even higher.

Rollin’ Rollin’ ♪ Rollin’ ♬ Hey–!!!

All at once, a ringtone went off. Since the administrative office had contained nothing but the employee’s shrill voice, the ringtone rang especially loudly.

I pulled out my phone. The employee’s face flushed as though she found this absurd. Ignoring her completely, I answered the call.

“Ah, hello. I’m currently at the administrative office because of the club founding–”

“My, my, look at this. This is ridiculous. Cadet, do you even know where you are, making phone calls here….”

The female employee sharply lifted her eyes and snapped away.

“–Ah, you’re already nearby and coming over? Well, I don’t mind.”

I looked at her coldly and continued.

“Yes, then I’ll see you shortly.”

After ending the call, I said in an icy tone.

“As long as the advisor is confirmed, let’s just follow the proper procedure. They happen to be coming here.”

“Hey! Who do you think you’ve got backing you up to act this rude?! Just how important is your backing, honestly? This is absurd. Hey, I am, huh? The cousin of a close acquaintance of the Headmaster herself! If I say the word to her, one special advancement student like you can–!”

When I let out a crooked laugh at those words, she began spewing at me with a twisted mouth. Her finger stabbed the air repeatedly. The surrounding gazes all turned in our direction.

That appearance, stripped of all pretense. Right, this was how you needed to act.

“Shh. Your voice is too loud.”

I whispered shortly in her ear. Speaking politely to someone like this was a waste.

“Wh-what?”

Bang.

At that moment, the office door flew open.

The gazes of everyone in the administrative office snapped toward it at once.

For a few seconds they stayed blank-faced, apparently unable to process what they were seeing, and then every last one of them shot to their feet. At that sight, I smiled faintly.

“About that club advisor.”

With a raised thumb pointing behind me, I said.

“Greet them. It’s that person.”

The refined sound of footsteps rang out low.