“It’s nothing serious...”
“Right. It is nothing you need to concern yourself with, Your Highness.”
“But, could you at least tell me why...?”
The two land sharks were trying to regain control, but it had the opposite effect. This walking field of flowers is a bit of an airhead, but she’s still relatively easy to fire up. Actually, I guess it’s not all that relative.
“What are you all doing blocking the hallway? Is something the matter?”
Another voice called out to us from the opposite direction that Alfina came from.
“Lady Hilda,” Zeldia said in a pleading voice.
I turned around, and spotted a boy and girl who were clearly beyond the norm. They had jewels on their neckties and embroidery on their uniform cuffs. It was the attire of the very top class within the Academy. The girl had curled blonde hair and large breasts, while the boy was a slender hunk with glasses. Both of them were fourth years. That must make this guy Leonardo.
“Lord Leonardo as well? You’ve come at just the right time.”
Theodore verified my guess for me. Wonderful. The number of people has multiplied, but there aren’t more names to remember.
“Even Alfina is here? What exactly is going on?”
The upperclassman called Hilda looked at Alfina with a cold gaze. Even if she’s an upperclassman, and even if Alfina was adopted into the royal family, dropping all forms of royal address is something else. Or maybe not. She’s the fiancée of the second prince. So is she trying to act like she’s already part of the royal family? Being the daughter of an archduke is already a big deal, isn’t it? She’s basically got all the titles to be a full-on storybook villainess.
Quasi-royalty, a grand noble, and a gold company. It’s an awfully fishy looking lineup. And on our side, we’ve got a silver company, a copper company, and a princess. The Academy truly is a microcosm of the Kingdom.
“These underclassmen, of all people, were raising objections towards the decision of the student council. So we were simply providing them with guidance.”
Now fortified by his two reinforcements, Theodore was the first to speak, even though he was acting all reserved in front of Alfina earlier. How easy to understand. He skillfully pointed the blame entirely on me and Lilka. I can sympathize with him as an advocate of self-preservation.
“Well, that cannot be allowed to pass.” The four-eyes... Leonardo looked at me while I was still trying to organize all their names in my head. “So, what’s this about?”
“There seems to be a misunderstanding here. All I did was request my senior to inform me of the new structure of the Academy Festival. I see now that it was a decision made by the student council. I would simply like to ask for future reference, but could you inform me as to the reason for the change in the rules this year?”
There had to be a reason for any manner of drastic reform, considering the Academy was a microcosm of the nation which respected precedence.
“It just means that a valuable opportunity should require a suitable compensation. Besides, all fees for use of the rooms are donated to the Academy. This year we managed to gather double last year’s amount. I do think this is something you commoners should be delighted about.”
My upperclassman in glasses continued to patronize me. The big companies paying those venue fees were all commoners too, though. It didn’t seem like there was any merit to this for the nobles. But I guess these two can claim it as an accomplishment of the student council? Oh, I get it. This is like practice for the nobles to use commoners as their agents for levying taxes.
Roughly speaking, this was appropriate for an educational institution. But surely there were conditions that still ought to have been fulfilled for educational purposes.
“Thank you very much. I understand now what the rules bring us. However, umm...”
I put on a bewildered expression, and Leonardo looked to Hilda. Her blonde hair moved ever so slightly as she nodded.
“Go ahead and speak your mind. The student council is here to lend an ear to the students’ opinions.”
“Thank you. I fundamentally don’t have any doubts or dissatisfaction regarding this ruling. Even from the position of a small company, having funds carries great meaning when doing business. The new rule adapts to the reality of the world; it’s surely important for the students to be able to experience the difference in financial strength, especially here at the Academy where one can still recover from a failure. I think this makes perfect sense.”
There are important things that can’t be taught by having everyone join hands in harmony. You could even say, this is simply the default setting to life. You can’t experience failure once forced into the situation.
Thinking of it from the perspective of the ultimate goal in life — survival — the main point is to be able to take one’s abilities and apply them depending on the situation. Competition itself essentially has no meaning. Even if you were to complain after you died, “The environment was too strict, and I would have survived under normal circumstances,” nothing can be done to recover. That’s reality.
“Precisely. The reform of the rules can also be explained from that perspective.”
Leonardo seemed to have found my comment unexpected, but immediately nodded in a haughty manner. This had me chuckling. So the revision of the rules really is no more than an “educational goal” to conform to reality. This public stance is powerful precisely because this is an educational facility. Moreover, this vice-president is acting just like a bureaucrat’s grandson. He seems to love the concept of order.
“However, what of its practical application? As long as this is meant for education, there is little point to it if one cannot participate at all. Excluding the students with less financial strength lacks the presence of education itself. Is this not different from the intention of the changes to the rules?”
Leonardo’s elite smirk vanished. Incidentally, the president’s attitude seemed to be saying, “What on earth is this pest talking about?”
“There are students who wish to participate but are unable to?”
And Alfina joined in on the conversation. We successfully managed to overturn frank business logic into business logic which was meant as a means for education. Now then, how will the grandson of the one at the summit of all bureaucrats respond?
“...I see. Your point stands to reason. It seems that the passion our participants showed in wanting to secure the best locations for their shops has yielded a somewhat extreme situation. We may have left too much to the participants’ discretion.”
Leonardo took on a truly neutral attitude. He’s quick on his feet, I see.
“However, changing the rules once more will have an even more adverse effect.”
“You’re right. Changing the rules arbitrarily will serve poorly as education.”
I made a show of affirming his stance. Of course, I implicitly criticized them for suddenly changing the rules anyway. It was basically an appeal that I wouldn’t back down so easily.
“...Then how about this? The classrooms that have already been allocated remain as they are. However, there are more rooms in the Academy than just classrooms. We can open the bidding once more for those rooms and restrict it to participants who failed to win a bid, so we can host a second round of bidding just as has been done in previous years. What do you think of this, Miss President?”