“I have a question for you, Princess Alfina. What is it that ties the archduke’s daughter and the prime minister’s grandson together?”
“Sir!”
“Hey!”
Mia stomped on my foot and Lilka turned pale. Alfina also looked troubled.
“Oh, I guess I picked the wrong person to ask. Umm, could you answer me then, Miss Claudia?”
I heard Lilka mutter, “It’s not just the person you chose that’s wrong,” as I redirected my question.
“...”
“Please tell him, Clau. An assessment can’t be made without any information. Ricardo taught me so.”
“What on earth have you been... Very well. The daughter of the Archduke of the East, President Hilda, is Second Prince Delnicius’s fiancée, and the prince happens to be a member of the prime minister’s office.”
So the daughter of the archduke was tied to the second prince by engagement, the second prince was connected to the prime minister by his workplace, and here we had the grandson of the prime minister with her. In other words, they were all a part of the second prince’s faction.
“In short... How do I put it...? There’s a sort of connection being built between Lady Hilda and Princess Alfina. At least, to the masses...” Claudia added.
“It seems like the person in question harbors a whole lot of ill-will towards the princess, though.”
Claudia became sullen as I mentioned that.
“In any case, that’s the situation.”
“...Thank you very much.”
Seriously, this academy really is a microcosm of the Kingdom. It’s quite ironic that it was all related to something I perpetrated, indirect as it was. I definitely wasn’t part of the third prince’s faction, though. Furthermore, it was quite likely that even the Empire was involved. Information that I didn’t want to know, but still had to know, just kept piling up.
Actually, I did want to know this. Intel on the relation between the Kingdom’s east and west, as well as anything regarding the Empire, that is. I needed an enormous economic bloc to establish the general trading company-like entity I was hoping to create in the future. However, at the current stage, I needed to quietly gather information without sticking out.
“Sir.”
Mia sent me a warning with her gaze. “Focus on the problem at hand,” or, more specifically, “Determine the problem to focus on,” I guess.
I’ve gotten a grasp of a fairly unpleasant reality. So, what extent of freedom do we have to act within? What resources do we have at hand? The amount of influence we have is quite small in reality. That’s because everyone here is still a student.
“I suppose that, for now, we should focus on how to make our shop succeed at the Academy Festival.”
This situation I found myself in came up from cutting in on a conversation about how an educational institution should have been behaving itself. As such, it was best to limit the information we were digging for to what we could hope to gather as students.
“Was there ever another choice?” Lilka quipped.
“The range of assumptions Ricardo makes is quite strange. This time around, we’re still on track. For now, at least.” Mia added.
“I won’t expand the scope any further this time. Anyway, I want to know about the currently allocated classrooms, as well as the spots that will likely be part of the next round of bidding.”
“Wait a sec. Before you worry about me, what do you and Princess Alfina plan to do about getting thrown out into the courtyard?”
“That’s what I need this information for. I want to judge whether the ‘shop’ I have in mind can be established here.”
The image that came to mind while we discussed this in the hallway would be an exorbitant form of business here. There were all sorts of problems in realizing its implementation.
“As if something so convenient actually exists... Whatever. Look at this.” Lilka spread out a roughly drawn map of the school on the table. “The ones labeled with numbers are the classrooms that have already been bid on. The cloakroom and waiting rooms for guests and such are here. All that’s left are small rooms like this one, or this one. So rooms like the preparation rooms for special classes, and the storerooms.”
Lilka pointed at rooms one after the other, all of which weren’t even half the size of the classrooms. There were even those less than a third of the size of the classrooms. The largest space was the auditorium, which the Carlests and Kendalls occupied the majority of. They were surely going to put on something quite extravagant there.
“Huh? The auditorium’s only being used on the last day?”
“What’s the point of having the golds compete directly with silvers?”
Lilka looked like she still had something she wanted to say. Oh yeah, I guess there was a copper who directly confronted a gold, huh? It really was quite reckless. We ended up in this situation because of that.
“How many participants seem like they’ll be left out?”
“Considering the numbers during the second round of bidding last year, there should be more than ten. With rooms this small, it’ll be over if we try to use any space for cooking. So it’ll be especially hard on those in the food business. Do you get it now?”
“On top of needing the work room in the back, the customers are all nobles, so the tables in the hall have to be properly spaced out, right?”
“Exactly. Last year we got a proper classroom, but still barely had enough room. The interior design is also a major problem.”
This academy was originally meant exclusively for the children of nobility. The classrooms themselves were one thing, but even the chairs and desks were all suitably luxurious. However, that wasn’t the case for other rooms. Even if the Academy was a gathering of the upper echelon of society, a storeroom was still a storeroom.
“What about cooking the food elsewhere and bringing it in like that?”
“That’s prohibited. The rules state that we have to present goods that have gone through the minimum amount of outside work to create, using only the space allocated to us.”
“Oh, but we can’t kindle fires in the classrooms, right?”
“There are ovens that use heated stones. We use those.”
“So you can cook?”
“We bring along cooks, duh. Being able to manage the process from beginning to end is where the students show their skills. However, there are some unclear bits as to how this is done among the independent groups. Especially those who deal in goods that require sophisticated techniques that they keep hidden, like confectioneries.”
There was a feeling that these students were being bullied by a large amount of capital, but all the participants for the festival are rich boys and girls. Incidentally, the artisan guilds were considered beneath the merchant guilds. Cooks fell under the former group.
“Okay, I’m starting to see the picture. You’ve been a big help, Lilka.”
“Wha—?! You’re far too ignorant, Weinder. S-So? What do you plan on doing? We’re able to secure rooms now, thanks to you, but it’ll still be really difficult for us. And you don’t even have a room. When you exclude the gazebos, the courtyard is just a dirt path between the school building and the gazebos. What are you going to do without having a roof over your head?”
“You’ve been showing nothing but concern for Ricardo all this time, haven’t you, Lilka?” Alfina commented.
“Y-You’re wrong. The one I’m worried about is the one Weinder is abusing, Mia. Right?”
“I believed in my friendship with you up until now, Lilka, but my confidence is starting to fade.” Mia replied.