SPO 25

Chapter 25

“…….”

When I didn’t answer, Aven broke into a gentle smile.

“I heard today was your first day at work, so I came by.”

“Oh. Is that so?”

Ding—.

The bell rang, its sound unusually clear. Right after, the manager’s voice followed.

“Boss!”

As if to prove Aven’s words true, the manager walked straight toward us.

“Did you come to see Miss Archel today?”

Smiling warmly, the manager remarked that since the two of us worked together in the student council, we must be close.

I couldn’t bring myself to smile.

“Miss Archel? Your face is red—are you feeling unwell? Is it because it’s your first day? You must be nervous.”

She said it didn’t show on my face at all, and apologized for possibly overworking me. I shook my head.

“It’s just a bit hot. I’ll go do the closing work you told me about earlier, so please go ahead and talk.”

After politely stopping her from offering help, I hurried away.

The moment I slipped into the small kitchen behind the counter, I leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor.

“So embarrassing…”

Even burying my face between my knees didn’t make the embarrassment fade.

I’d kept a calm expression and casually responded as if nothing was wrong, but honestly, I wanted to disappear on the spot.

“I shouldn’t have said I’d buy it for him… If I’d just told him shamelessly to pay for it himself, this wouldn’t have been so awkward.”

Trying to show off in front of an expert—my cheeks burned with shame.

I’ll be embarrassed for exactly three minutes, then forget it.

I slowly got up, cooled myself down while finishing the remaining dishes, and blamed Aven for no reason at all.

“So, you’re Student Archel. What brings you here?”

Professor Lily removed her round glasses, placed them on the desk, and turned her chair to face me.

“I’m here to check penalty points.”

“Penalty points?”

Apparently surprised, Professor Lily turned her body fully toward me.

“I entered a restricted flower bed.”

“What?”

She asked again, sounding incredulous.

“You did?”

“Yes.”

Professor Lily, who had paused midway through opening a file, scanned me up and down.

“How did that happen?”

She slid the file she was about to take out back into the shelf and listened quietly as I explained.

At some point, I found myself sitting on a small stool she had brought over. When I finished, silence lingered in the air.

Is this too trivial?

But I had already checked the school rules—entering restricted areas clearly resulted in penalty points.

I didn’t want to assign penalty points to some unidentified student and just let myself off quietly either.

If I weren’t wearing this stupid badge, I’d have just closed my eyes and let it go.

Being student council president really had no perks at all.

“Miss Archel.”

When I lifted my downcast gaze, Professor Lily firmly grasped both my shoulders.

“The place you mentioned doesn’t count as a penalty zone. And even if it did, it would still be fine.”

Faced with her forceful demeanor, all I could do was nod.

“It wasn’t intentional. Of course, not everything can be excused just because it wasn’t deliberate, but I’ll show some flexibility this time.”

She nodded resolutely with an unreadable look in her eyes, then brought out a drink from somewhere.

“Would you like this?”

She rummaged through her pocket and pressed a small chocolate and some candy into my hand.

“And eat this too.”

“Thank you.”

“And this one too.”

Before I knew it, my pockets were stuffed full of snacks.

Seeing my now-bulging uniform pockets, she smiled with satisfaction.

“How is student council life? Is it manageable?”

“I’m not sure yet, but the professors have been helping me a lot, so it’s fine.”

I lied smoothly, having already lived through real workplace life once before.

“Is that so? I guess Professor Wid isn’t spouting nonsense, then?”

At her unexpectedly harsh wording, I once again thought of Professor Wid Tylenol.

“He always seems tired. What kind of nonsense do you mean…?”

“Saying things like Yudea is rotten, or soaked in authoritarianism.”

Wait, he wasn’t wrong?

Seeing my lukewarm reaction, Professor Lily frowned deeply, as if she’d expected it.

“Hah, honestly. He’s a very tired man, so don’t take him too seriously. Of course, Yudea does need some reform, and it is full of authority and a bit corrupt—but that’s not something to say to a student.”

So in the end, everything Professor Wid said was true?

While I tried to read between her lines, she sighed and continued.

“I’m telling you this so you don’t misunderstand. The student council being made up only of first-years isn’t because Yudea is obsessed with superiority. It’s to prevent nobles from forming factions.”

Her explanation was the complete opposite of Professor Wid’s.

Once students already knew each other well, it became easy to form factions within the student council.

At an academy filled with the empire’s most prominent noble families, such factions would inevitably influence future noble society.

So, to prevent the student council—meant to serve the academy—from devolving into a mere social club, they chose to limit it to first-years only.

“If we selected second-years based on grades, the high-achieving students would want to focus solely on their studies. So in the end, we placed our hopes on fresh, clueless newcomers.”

In short: make them do it while they don’t know any better.

That’s definitely more convincing than Professor Wid’s explanation.

As I accepted it and took a sip of the drink, a bright orange flavor filled my mouth.

“He’s capable, but always gloomy from exhaustion… Could you pass this along to him?”

With no penalty points gained, I left the faculty office holding the coffee Professor Lily had handed me.

“Two Americanos.”

I set the coffee down in front of Aven, who had visited the café yet again today.

“Want to sit in front? There aren’t many people, so you can rest for a bit.”

Aven rested his flower-like face in his hands and smiled brightly.

I’d wondered why he ordered two cups when he came alone.

When I glanced over, the manager was waving, clearly telling me to go sit.

If the boss tells you to sit, you sit.

I pulled out a chair and sat down, feeling oddly pleased—as if I were slacking off legally during work hours.

I slowly took a sip of coffee.

“Ugh, bitter.”

I stuck my tongue out and discreetly licked my lips.

Strangely enough, in my past life, I’d worked so much I died of overwork, yet coffee never agreed with me.

Everyone said you couldn’t live without it.

But whenever I drank it, my stomach hurt, so unless it was an emergency, I avoided it entirely.

This body didn’t get stomachaches from coffee, but maybe because of my past memories, I still didn’t buy it for myself.

“Archel, we’re discussing the charity event at tomorrow’s meeting, right?”

“That’s right. Have you thought of anything?”

I’d heard that last year, Yudea students held a charity performance themselves.

Students prepared performances—instrumentals, singing, dancing—and the audience donated money to each performance they attended.

Basically an auction-style performance.

Parents or acquaintances would pay huge sums to raise the value of performances involving their own children.

And if a child from a noble family they wanted to get closer to performed, they’d pay generously then too.

What was unique was that all donation details were kept confidential.

A charity performance carried the noble meaning of helping those in need, so it couldn’t be assigned a price.

For that reason, the previous student council didn’t disclose who donated how much to which performance.

Only those who wanted receipts could request them.

As a result, the most popular “gift” that season was a receipt showing how much one had paid for someone else’s child’s performance.

How on earth did they come up with something that innovative?

Thanks to that, my own worries only deepened.

As I racked my brain over what format to use this time, a cheerful voice suddenly chimed in.

“I’m 고민이야. How to rake in mountains of money.”

Aven crunched on ice, then tapped his pale cheek with his palm, wincing from the cold.

“As long as I’m involved, I want it to be the best charity event ever. The one that raises the most money in history.”

Do rich people get competitive even about donations?

I gave him a thumbs-up, saying it was a great idea. Aven beamed and continued shyly.

“We pile up gold coins into a waterfall. Watching people struggle in it, trying to stuff even one more coin into their pockets—it’d be hilarious.”

“……?”

I imagined the scene he described.

Hmm.

That’s kind of terrifying.

Maybe it was just me.

When I fell silent, an excited Aven leaned forward.

“If the newspapers take pictures and spread them across the empire, perverted nobles who find it interesting will flock in. Watching people flounder in gold while tossing in more coins out of superiority—wouldn’t the money never stop?”

“That sounds… exactly like alms-giving.”

I suddenly felt like I understood how he planned to imprison Rena in a mountain of gold.

Is Rena really okay with this? Is this truly the best option?

If not Aven, then the answer had to be Johan.

A sudden sense of crisis welled up, and I resolved never to skip dawn prayers again.

But Aven wasn’t done.

“Of course, that would just be the latter half of the event. We’d need something else for the fundraising itself. Shady nobles like刺激적인 things, so I’m thinking along those lines.”

I didn’t particularly want to know what “those kinds of events” meant.

A shiver ran through me.

“We’ll sweep it all up.”

The way Aven whispered that with a smile felt… unhinged.

The madness of someone obsessed with money.

At this rate, unless we came up with a proper alternative, Yudea’s charity event would fall completely into the hands of darkness.

“I’ve talked enough. Do you have any ideas, Archel?”

The deep, rippling gaze vanished, replaced by eyes as clear as a blue lake, fixed on me.

For no reason, I gulped down more coffee I didn’t even like.

“I…”

I tapped the nearly empty glass a couple of times.

The truth was, I cared a lot about charity events. Life hadn’t been easy for me either.

Still, I was one of the lucky ones. With memories of a past life and clear goals for the future, I’d made it this far.

But most people weren’t like that. In fact—was there anyone else like me at all?

Even I had only reached this place with someone else’s help.

There were so many people in the world who needed help, and through this opportunity, I wanted to fill what they lacked in a meaningful way.

“I want to prepare an event where people who need help can feel the warmth of the world. Something sustainable, not just a one-time thing.”

Like Hail and Lady Stea had done.

Once I said it out loud, embarrassment flooded in, and I fidgeted with the glass.

But what came back was a low hum.

“Hmmm.”

Aven brushed away the water droplets running down the glass and flicked his hand dry.

“Boring.”

……You little—