How to Survive at the Academy - Chapter 38: The Occupation of Ophelis Hall (8)

Chapter 38: The Occupation of Ophelis Hall (8)

The Occupation of Ophelis Hall (8)

Goodwill and trust were always accompanied by motive.

Slogg, one of the six major merchants of Elte, joined forces with Lortel because he wished to be the next chairman.

The Melburak Company’s head, Seton, also joined in on Lortel’s plan. He believed that an internal disruption within Elte Company would bring new change to the power structure of the commercial city of Oldek.

The reason that Sharo, a receptionist with the Elte Company, flirted with Lortel was the hope of making money by having her leak information.

Kadan, a trade worker, kept approaching Lortel because she often gave him tips.

Teeny, a pet dog raised by the school, stuck to Lortel because the food she gave him was of the highest class.

Attached to every favor was a motive. At least, that was the case in Lortel’s world.

In most cases, if that reason became clear then you could see through other people’s intentions and psychology at a glance. 

There was no blood related family, lover who made promises, or allies that she spent a long time with. Paradoxically, she could maintain a cynical attitude towards all those human relationships because, for Lortel, a person who would do a favor for another without a reason didn’t exist.

“It doesn’t look like there’s time to discuss the details. But anyway, did Elris betray you?”

Even though she knew all of that, she still decided to trust Elris. What a stupid, idiotic mistake to make.

Her attitude towards life, one of never completely trusting another person, had become less important.

The person that came to mind was Yennekar Palerover…

Growing up receiving kindness and love, she was like a princess in a fairytale that treated the world with only that same kindness and love. If you looked at her warm eyes as they stared at Ed Rothstaylor… She couldn’t help realize that this was the love of a beautiful girl who had not been negatively influenced by the world. 

Seeing such a thing, she couldn’t forget just how dirty she was herself.

She shouldn’t have gotten drunk off of the romantic scenery of Silvenia Academy, or allowed it to cause her to mistake herself as one of those beautiful, romantic people. 

“I saw Shaney meet up with Elte. Wasn’t she a maid loyal to Elris?”

Ed Rothstaylor kept talking as they ran down the first floor hallway.

“But even then, neither Elris nor Elte would report you to the school. The Golden King Elte obviously wouldn’t want the school to find out that the Elte Company is connected to this incident.”

Five people were bribed by Lortel for the occupation of Ophelis Hall.

Head Maid Elris, the twin maids Shaney and Kelly, the lower student representative Willain, and the fallen aristocrat Ed.

Elris, Shaney, and Kelly all went over to Elte’s side.

Ed should have been tempted to join Elte, as well.

She suddenly stopped walking. Ed, who was running ahead, quickly looked back with a puzzle expression marring his face.

He called back to her. 

“There’s no time to waste. What are you doing?”

Lortel finally calmed down and pulled herself together, forcing a foxlike smile… She ended up saying something, unsure as to why she said it.

 “I’m sorry, Ed. I can’t guarantee the twenty gold coins I had promised you before. As you can see, the current situation has become quite precarious.”

After being betrayed by Elris, her emotions felt strange to her.

Lortel hated to admit it. She was now in a psychologically weakened state.

If she weren’t in such a state, she wouldn’t be making such a foolish mistake. 

She didn’t know why Ed Rothstaylor sided with her, rather than with Elte.

With that in mind, it was best for her to quickly figure out his intentions and take advantage of him.

But she was a fool to make such a confession.

‘Just what kind of stupid mistake am I making?’ 

She couldn’t believe that she was willing to turn herself in just because there wasn’t a reason for him to be on her side.

“Who asked? You’re going to die, so what are you standing around for like this?”

However, Ed’s way of shutting down Lortel’s words removed her worry.

“If you get caught by Elte now, your life will be over. No matter what you are planning to do in the future, you should run away, first.”

Ed was dripping blood as he kept on scolding her, standing across the hallway.

It must have been her request that he block the first floor that led to Ed being hurt so badly.

Nevertheless, he didn’t complain that it was all too much. If it had been her, she would have complained ten times over about how the work was out of her paygrade.

“Or do you have a better plan?” 

“……”

“If you have one, let’s go with it.”

There was no hint of doubt in his voice. He was prepared to follow Lortel to the end.

He was so certain of her that he was willing to follow along with anything that she decided.

As she had repeatedly said, goodwill and trust were bound to be accompanied by a motive.

But that man’s goodwill and trust… There was no such motive.

No matter how rationally she considered it, he definitely should have fallen for Elte’s offer. If he were to ask the same thing of one hundred other people, every single one of them would have taken it.

If you couldn’t determine their motive, you shouldn’t believe in them. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her, not fully understanding what he was thinking yet.

Just before, she had believed in Elris in the same way. Ultimately, it caused her to make a crucial mistake, resulting in the current situation. She couldn’t repeat the same mistake.

However, her mouth began to move on its own. Her inner voice was crying out, trying to stop her, but her heart was a complete wreck at that point. She was unable to hold out any longer.

Flying out of her mouth was a confession about the internal affairs of the Elte Company, and the fight for power that was happening inside of it.

“… There was a plan that was being developed at the company’s headquarters to control the market price. It was probably my father who came up with the plan.”

“Explain it to me.”

“The market price of equipment plunged after a massive conquest of monsters in the eastern mountains last summer. After buying and monopolizing all the remaining equipment, they repeatedly made internal transactions…”

“Ahh… Illegal transactions. You can just briefly explain the rest.”

Ed calmly cut her off in the middle of her explanation.

After monopolizing the equipment in the area, mainly in the base of the subjugation forces, they would repeatedly buy and sell the goods at the market.

The key was insider trading.

The merchants, who were secretly bought out by the Elte Company, had continuously repeated transactions between themselves.

If you brought in three merchants—A, B, and C—and had A sell the equipment to B for one gold coin, B would then sell it to C for two gold coins. C would proceed to sell it to A for three, slowly raising the market price.

Eventually, the gold coins and equipment would circulate in the hands of the Elte Company as the market price steadily rose.

In doing so, the market price could be maintained until the demand rose during the next monster subjugation. Then, they could sell the equipment off for a ridiculous profit.

Manipulating the market price by using such a hit-or-miss strategy made sense, and it was a surprisingly classic technique. However, it was an unrealistic method because of the huge amount of capital that it required.

“For the plan, my father took out bonds from Duke Aldogar and Countess Opel. However, by the time the date to pay them back had arrived, the plan for the monster subjugation had been pushed back. It was a situation in which they needed money urgently.”

“Was the solution to this problem the Sage’s Seal?”

“Yes.”

Ed was very quick to understand, even though she hadn’t explained much. It felt as if he had studied this beforehand. 

“My father… He told me that he had found someone who would buy the Sage’s Seal for a high price… So he ordered me to enter Silvenia as a 1st year student and figure out a way to obtain it.”

“Alright, I got it. You don’t have to explain any further.”

“Huh? You’re fine with just that much?”

Ed grabbed Lortel by the wrist. He told her it wasn’t the time to be standing still as they began to quickly run through the hallway again. 

“What’s the point of talking about all of this after the fact? In order to put the school’s finances in a tight spot, you wanted to increase the scale of the occupation in Ophelis Hall. Then the negotiations for the purchase of the Sage’s Seal would become a reality, so he would take it as bait. He would come all the way here, leaving Elte’s headquarters empty. You thought about selling off the equipment during that time.”

While he was running down the hall, he explained the gist of the situation with a surprising amount of accuracy. The speed at which he was able to understand the situation wasn’t normal. 

Lortel looked at Ed, completely stunned by his remarks. He didn’t seem to care at all.

In the end, mutual trust was the key to manipulating the market price through illegal transactions.

The act between the three merchants—A, B, and C—was meant to artificially raise the market price by exchanging money and goods among each other.

However, it was a business structure that would never be able to be established if even one of the three merchants betrayed the others. It was a situation in which, if one of them ran off with the stock, the other two would get screwed over.

A, B, and C were examples, but… Considering the size of the business and the market, there would be more than a few dozen middle-class merchants involved.

Over the previous six months, about a third of them had been placated so that—if the timing was right—a large-scale sale of the equipment could induce a plunge in the market price all at once.

It would not be difficult to plunge the price, as it was an artificially created price in the first place. Prices were difficult to raise, but as long as you started selling competitively, they would drop in an instant. 

For the Elte Company, which had a lot of equipment in stock, the plunge in prices would be recorded as a huge loss.

From a very broad perspective, it would only have narrowed the surplus, but in the immediate short term there would be a huge deficit in the trading books.

The important thing was the immediate moment. The big picture, which couldn’t be immediately seen, wasn’t what was important.

Due to the various damages he had caused, Elte—who was already starting to lose his position within the Elte Company—would finally lose his seat.

In addition to that, when the allegations about the account book manipulation were added in and the demand for liability over the losses was made, there would be sufficient grounds for his dismissal. 

Was it possible for Ed Rothstaylor’s to picture all of this in his head, with her saying only that much?

No matter how fast the gears in his head might turn, there was a limit to a person’s processing speed. There was no way that he should have been able to picture everything with only Lortel’s brief explanation.

“Then there’s only one thing that you have to do.”

But Ed’s words were spot on, like always.

“You just have to send a message back to headquarters, telling them to start selling the equipment right away. Right?”

In order to repair the internal assets on such a scale, approval from the shareholders was required.

However, when the head left his office, the six major merchants under his command took over the rights for the immediate handling of the business.

Slogg, one of the six greats of Elte. An old fox that joined Lortel after being promised a position as the next head of the business.

He would happily put a stamp of confirmation on the sale of the equipment, all while keeping a straight face… and then would be sorry to say that the responsibility all belonged to Elte.

Even if Elte angrily tried to punish Slogg, his defeat would already be certain, as the cause of his dismissal was already established.

Originally, those plans were supposed to take place during the ‘The Battle for the Sage’s Seal’ event. 

The event would end with Lortel smirking under a robe, sitting in the corner of a wobbly wagon as an enraged Elte screamed her name.

After that, Act 2 would end after they chased after and took down Professor Glast, who stole the seal and fled to a secret laboratory. That was the main event of the act, on a scale that was much larger.

* * *

* * *

“If we go to my room, there is a homing pigeon. It’s a direct link to the internal forces at headquarters.”

“If we send the homing pigeon off and hide until the sales plan is implemented at headquarters, we’ll win.”

“However, I’m sure that my father has predicted this to some extent. He’s going to try and capture me tonight, to make me confess to my plans and the names of the traitors that I have on the inside.”

The moment he left his seat, nobody knew what would happen. Even though Elte realized that, he came to Silvenia anyway. At that moment, he wasn’t able to tell who his true allies and who his enemies were.

It would have taken place on a smaller scale, without anyone finding out, but the news would have reached the company’s ears in an instant.

They had bet everything on each other. The final battle was a chase between father and daughter.

“Let’s go out the back door, walk along the outer wall, and go through the window into your room.”

“I was going to say that, too.”

“Alright, we’re on the same page.”

They really communicated well. It was a gentle exchange of opinions that meshed well together.

Quick to understand, active in coordination, and not easily swayed by emotions.

Lortel gasped as she watched Ed running down the hall, holding onto her wrist.

They could see the back door of Ophelis Hall. Although it was not as magnificent as the main entrance, the luxurious patterns and paintings represented the dignity of the building.

“Listen carefully, Lortel. Since they have already discovered your position, you’re in a tight spot. The best thing for you to do now is to keep hidden and make sure nobody finds you.”

“There’s a separate villa in the Mine region. If I can just catch a carriage up there…”

“If I was Elte, I would have already put people on standby at both bridges out of Acken Island. He’ll absolutely catch you that way.”

Ed was right.

The coachman that drove Lortel’s carriage was a reliable person, but the appearance of the carriage itself was already quite eye-catching.

If she passed over the bridge, she would surely be followed.

“Talk to the coachman waiting in the commercial district and tell him to send an empty carriage out of Acken Island. Instruct them to abandon the carriage and escape to a safe area. That way, they’ll think that you’re outside of Acken Island for sure.”

“Then what about me…?”

“There’s a cabin I built in the north forest. You’ll just have to deal with living there for three days.”

It was always in the last place you would look. The forest right next to Silvenia. Nobody would think that she would be there.

“I’ll go to your room and send the homing pigeon. As long as we write a message telling them to ‘sell it right away’, headquarters will be able to handle the rest of the more complicated issues, right?”

“… Yes, that’s right.”

Like a merchant who had been working with her for a long time, Ed’s movements and actions didn’t waste a single step.

When she looked at Ed, who was able to solve every issue, she felt that it would be okay to trust in him and leave everything to him.

Even though she knew that such a romantic relationship couldn’t be, her broken heart whispered in her ear once more.

‘This time, it might really work out.’

As she had repeatedly stated, obsession was not an emotion that resembled a flower blooming on a distant cliff.

It’s something that bloomed at the tip of your fingertips, just out of reach.

“……”

Ed slowly opened the back door and looked out through the crack, then quietly closed it again.

“Listen, Lortel. There’s someone watching the back gate.”

Ed quickly explained the situation in a quiet voice.

“There’s nothing good that will come out of them discovering your location or what you’re planning. So I’ll go out and run towards your room, taking care of it myself. In the meantime, if there’s nobody in sight, run straight to the commercial district. Got it?”

Lortel hesitated, before nodding her head. Ed furrowed his eyebrows in discontent as he scolded Lortel.

“Are you sure your head is in the right place? Why are you so distracted?”

“Y-Yes… I understand.”

Ed grabbed Lortel by her shoulders and pulled her straight against the wall next to them. Lortel’s lip began to tremble for a moment, but when she thought about it, she realized that he only did it to keep her out of sight.

“Once you get to the north forest, they won’t be able to keep pursuing you. After that, it’s up to you.”

Ed opened the back door and turned to leave.

“Ed.”

It was not until she called out his name that Lortel realized she was flustered.

She couldn’t stand the idea of not asking him.

“Just why, to this extent… Why are you helping me…?”

Every favor had a motive. Once you figured out that motive, you could see through someone’s psychology and principles at just a glance.

But asking someone what they were hiding in a straightforward way… that was a mistake that not even a beginner merchant would make. And yet, those very words came out of Lortel’s mouth.

That was because she couldn’t figure it out using common sense. Regardless of what others said, it was only right for Ed Rothstaylor to unconditionally take Elte’s side.

Whether it was financial gain, the chances of winning, or for leverage, Lortel was currently inferior in every way.

Nevertheless, Ed was on Lortel’s side.

Ed frowned for a moment, as if he was wondering how to answer that question.

“… Just because? I just kind of feel like I should, I guess?”

He responded in a vague tone, and then… He stormed out the back door.

Shwaaaaaaaaaa.

Boom, Clang!

The sound of rain coming in from the open door and the sounds of a battle resonated throughout Ophelis Hall.

The noise seemed to be coming from the battle on the fifth floor, between Head Maid Elris and Taylee’s party.

Boom, Boom, Boom!

The noise from the fierce battle marked the final battle in Ophelis Hall. Lortel had a hunch that Taylee and his party would win. Regardless of the fact their opponent was the head maid of Ophelis Hall, the moment Taylee started using his Swordsmaster skill he would be able to overpower her.

After being pushed against the wall, Lortel stayed still for a while longer.

She couldn’t figure out what Ed Rothstaylor was thinking at all. There had to be a motive behind every favor and attempts to gain someone’s trust, but she couldn’t see it.

There was no financial gain, no ideological reasoning, and he wasn’t the type of person to be swayed by emotions. Just what other reason did he have?

‘Were you, perhaps, bewitched by that child’s beautiful appearance?’

Suddenly, she remembered the interrogation that Elte had given him earlier. However, she quickly shook her head. As she has said before, Ed Rothstaylor wasn’t the type of person who would be driven by his emotions.

In the first place, Ed Rothstaylor always had Yennekar Palerover next to him.

However, the feeling of unease stemmed from the fact that those two weren’t dating.

It was obvious from a glance that Yennekar was always staring passionately at Ed. But… That feeling of affection seemed to be one-sided.

Boom, Boom, Boom!

In the background, the sound of the fierce battle continued to echo throughout Ophelis Hall. Lortel slid down the wall and sat down. She was already tired from running, but also from the fact that she was in trouble. Her legs had become weak.

‘It’s just that. I wanted to help you, so I helped you.’

Why did that sentence get so stuck in her heart that she couldn’t breathe?

Suddenly, she realized that something was wrong. The building they were in wasn’t shaking at all.

Considering the sounds coming from the fight in Ophelis Hall, shouldn’t the building be shaking from the vibrations? Or parts of the building flying off?

But looking out the window at the rain pouring down peacefully, Lortel realized the true reason for her sense of unease.

Boom, Boom, Boom!

She couldn’t believe it, but that sound was actually Lortel’s own heart.

* * *

Shwaaaaaaa!

The rain had begun to slow, which made me think that it would soon come to an end.

On the top floor, there was the ongoing final battle between Taylee’s party and the head maid, Elris.

On the first floor, Ziggs and Yennekar were probably showcasing their skills as they continued to block Elte.

The back gate was far from that sort of flashy battle. Through the dark night air, I could see a maid standing in the rain.

How long has she been standing there? Probably in hopes of preventing Lortel from escaping through the back gate, she was just waiting there. She was ready to capture Lortel for the sake of the person she was most loyal to, Elris.

The maid’s outfit was completely soaked from the rain and her lavender hair was loose.

Slowly looking back to see who it was, it turned out to be Shaney, one of the twin maids that should have blocked Taylee’s path as the third floor bosses. She quietly raised her head as she made eye contact with me.

“I didn’t expect to see young master Ed out here. How unexpected.”

She had come out there after hearing Elte’s orders to guard the back gate and block Lortel’s escape route.

Without getting rid of her usual cold expression, she pulled out a rapier.

Unfortunately for her, I knew Shaney’s abilities and attack patterns like the back of my hand. She was even the type of boss that could only really show off her abilities when she was teaming up with her sister, Kelly. Being separated from her, she could only show off less than half of her actual skill level.

Wasn’t it a bit lame for the last hurdle?

I confronted Shaney in the pouring rain.

The painful occupation incident was finally coming to an end.