Chapter 87

First, I would revive the Student Council.

And I would appoint Iri as the Student Council President.

Even though such a goal had been set, there was no way the Student Council would just ‘ta-da’ and appear out of thin air.

No matter that I was in a position called the Crown Prince — it was the same for me.

There were limits to how much I could arbitrarily alter the Academy’s internal policies and create organizations.

Especially if I wanted to establish an organization like the “Student Council,” which was particularly vulnerable to the political influence between corporations, it would be difficult without gaining the consent of other corporations, the government, and the Academy’s leadership.

‘It would be strange for me to suddenly bring up the Student Council and host a meeting about it…….’

This kind of thing needed to be done without drawing attention.

I must not be the one to request a meeting for this proposal.

‘Let’s see here…….’

When I checked the schedule, luckily there was an appropriate event coming up soon.

‘This would be a good time.’

It was June.

Before I knew it, several weeks had passed since the midterm exams ended.

Around this time, a large regular meeting was usually held to ensure the smooth operation of the Academy.

Its official name was the “Trinity Academy Finance and Student Education Policy Conference.”

For short, it was called the “Academy Finance Conference.”

The three Deans representing the Academy.

Executives among the Academy faculty.

The Superintendent of the New Valhalla City Department of Education.

Several representatives from civic groups, including the Minjung Faction.

And high-ranking representatives from sponsoring corporations, including the Stingray Foundation.

Everyone who could sway the operation of the Academy gathered here.

In many cases, corporate representatives such as myself or Vladimir Kharitonov would attend directly instead of sending lower-level staff.

That alone showed the importance of this meeting.

“This way, sir.”

“Alright.”

The 100th-floor Grand Conference Room of the Academy.

So external guests could come and go without inconvenience, the nearest parking space for aerial vehicles was reserved.

However, since I had an office within the Academy, I didn’t need to bother with the parking lot.

I took an internal elevator and leisurely arrived at the meeting place right before it began.

When I opened the door and stepped in, the previously mentioned Academy-related figures had already taken their seats.

“Greetings, Chairman Stingray.”

“You’ve arrived, Chairman.”

People greeted me as if I were the main star of the meeting.

Some even got up from their chairs and bowed.

They must have been eager to get on my good side.

I was sorry to say, but I had absolutely no recollection of who they were.

Since Act 4 of Part 1, my murderous urge had completely disappeared, and my old memories no longer flashed back as often.

But that didn’t matter.

Aaron had always been an arrogant person from the start.

Even if I couldn’t remember the names of subordinates, they would naturally accept it.

And if someone important came along, Maria would support me by whispering their name.

“Pleasure to see you. Let’s start the meeting.”

“Of course. Since everyone’s here, let’s begin immediately. Now, proceed.”

The meeting moderator received the cue and began the basic presentations.

While the agenda for today’s meeting was being briefed—

“Tch.”

I heard a small tongue-click from somewhere.

When I turned toward the sound, unsurprisingly, Vladimir Kharitonov was glaring at me.

Come to think of it, at the last G20 Summit, I had forcibly removed his ridiculous Macaw Makeup.

I had dragged him to the restroom and practically shoved his face into a running sink.

Perhaps he still held a grudge, because his whole body was screaming “I’m mad!”

In terms of expressive ability, he was practically at the level of an artist.

From his facial expression to his posture, even the positioning of his eyebrows — it was the pinnacle of nonverbal communication created solely to pour all his dissatisfaction onto me.

But really, that was none of my concern.

Frankly, he should be grateful I didn’t make him wash that devil-worship makeup off in toilet water.

What? If I’d left him alone, I swear Diablo would have descended into his body.

In any case, I lightly ignored his display of displeasure, and Vladimir made an angry, ferret-like “Krrk!” sound before turning his head away.

Anyway, the meeting proceeded smoothly.

As could be guessed from the order in the title “Finance and Student Education Policy,” the top priority of this meeting was none other than “money.”

They compared the Academy’s budget proposal for this year to the budget already executed, examined each item, and then reviewed the second-half budget proposal.

After that, the government, civic groups, and corporations discussed how to allocate the remaining budget for the latter half of the year, and they also set some guidelines for next year’s budget.

Of course, the corporations wanted to cover costs using citizens’ taxes rather than their own money.

On the other hand, the civic side wanted the corporations to bear the costs.

The government played the role of mediating between them.

‘Well, that’s all ancient history now.’

The Academy had already become a place where corporations raised their private soldiers with tax money.

The government, which should have acted as a judge between corporations and citizens, had long since been reduced to a role that subtly tilted the scale toward corporations in exchange for sweet under-the-table money.

And that wasn’t all.

Even the so-called citizen representatives were already under our influence.

They were supposed to be the ones fighting to make the corporations shoulder more of the costs, but instead they just said, “Well, do whatever you want,” threw away the game, and it was game over.

‘In reality, it’s just a rigged card game played by corporations and those feeding off corporate money.’

Since the corporate side’s victory was guaranteed from the start, the meaningless, purely formal meeting had been repeated every year.

Once the budget discussions ended, only then did they move on to talking about students.

However, this wasn’t focused on “How can we draw out the students’ academic achievements?” or “How can we make classes enjoyable for them?” but on entirely different matters.

“Apparently, there have been quite a lot of complaints about the Academy’s student and staff cafeterias lately. It seems to be a problem with the quality of the ingredients, so perhaps we should consider a different supplier……”

“There were instances in this midterm exam where the old VR boxes for testing malfunctioned. In relation to that, perhaps we should acquire new VR boxes……”

“The content of the training chips used in the virtual training rooms seems rather lacking, so how about we bring in updated chips containing the revised data……”

The Academy was also a market.

It wasn’t enormously large, but since most of the products involved were high-priced, it was a place where one could make a decent profit.

At the same time, it was an opportunity to show off each company’s prestige to Academy students.

First, faculty members who had been influenced by corporate money would start talking, pretending to be concerned for the students.

Then, corporate representatives would chime in, riding the wave to secure convenient partnerships.

Since even competing companies had already reached a certain level of agreement among themselves before attending, the meeting proceeded at a rapid pace.

“……”

I simply listened quietly.

Scrambling among other corporations for pocket change did nothing for my dignity as a member of the Imperial Family.

After all, the supplier of the nanomachines “Adam” for producing Adaptees was none other than our Stingray Group, and the same went for other training combat modules.

So I stood one step back, watching their money feast, and quietly waited for the right moment.

When the timing felt right—

“I have a proposal.”

I spoke up.

It was just a simple sentence, but every person in the hall turned their attention to me.

I could feel just how great my influence was, and I was certain that what I was about to say would not be lightly ignored.

“How about creating a Student Council?”

The room stirred at my words.

Then someone spoke up on behalf of the others.

“A… Student Council?”

“An autonomous organization where students can express their opinions themselves. I’ve heard there used to be a Student Council at the Academy long ago.”

“But that was……”

“Shouldn’t we ask the students themselves what they want? Not the faculty?”

When I said this and looked toward the Academy’s side of the table, most of them avoided my gaze.

They must have felt ashamed.

After all, they were colluding with corporations to waste the budget on things completely unrelated to student welfare.

However…

‘Well, look at this.’

There was one person.

The Dean representing the citizens, Joy Bennet, did not look away.

They had an androgynous appearance and an androgynous name.

‘That one has connections to Ashita-kyo.’

I hadn’t been able to cleanly remove them because there was never solid evidence.

When I had read the reports, I was sure they would be sweating over the Ashita-kyo connection.

But strangely enough, they didn’t seem the least bit unsettled now.

Well, this wasn’t the time to worry about that.

Once this matter was over, they’d be swept away and taken down along with the rest.

“What do you think? In the spirit of democracy, the students could elect their own representatives by vote, and their opinions could be collected and reflected in regular meetings like this one.”

“What nonsense, Aaron Stingray.”

Before I could even finish speaking, a ferret-like voice cut in.

As expected, it was Vladimir Kharitonov.

“Do you think I wouldn’t see through your scheme? You’d give the Student Council power and then use it to generate exclusive profits for yourself!”

“That’s an amusing thing to say.”

I replied with a mocking tone.

“If that’s really the problem, then how is it any different from now? The only difference is that you’d be bribing faculty instead of students.”

“W-what are you talking about……”

“Of course, the Student Council in the past wasn’t a clean organization. There was even a time when the entire council was bought out by a corporation and swung its sword recklessly for a whole year. The elections for Student Council President sometimes degenerated into political battlegrounds for corporate interests. But isn’t that just an excuse?”

The real reason the Student Council disappeared was because they wanted to play their money games freely without worrying about the students watching.

Due to the nature of elections open to all students, independent student candidates tended to get more votes than corporate-sponsored scholarship students, who were strongly liked or disliked depending on their affiliations.

And among those independents were quite a few with grudges, and no matter how sweetly you waved credits in front of them, they wouldn’t take the bait.

“A few times, anti-corporate Student Councils became dominant, and people just started thinking of the whole organization as a nuisance.”

After all, if the unlucky winner that year happened to be anti-corporate, corporations would have headaches for a whole year or more.

They’d be obstructed in the things they had previously carried out smoothly for their own convenience.

So, rather than endure that risk every time a new council was elected, they thought it simpler to just abolish the council entirely.

“Am I wrong?”

“……”

I turned my head and asked the entire assembly with arrogance, but no one answered.

They were probably wondering.

Why was Aaron Stingray, a man more indifferent than anyone to student rights, suddenly acting like such a benevolent person?

Then I recited the line I had prepared.

“At the start of the semester, a student I had been keeping an eye on died during the Titan attack. Another student I personally selected continues to be discriminated against because of her background, and while I was away, she nearly lost her life. Not long ago, one of our students was stabbed and ended up in the hospital.”

“……”

“Frankly, I was displeased. It felt like having something precious stolen from me. If situations like this keep happening, even our group will take significant losses.”

“T-then…”

Someone asked.

“What is it that Chairman Stingray wishes for?”

“A system.”

“Pardon?”

“Trinity Academy must have a safe system. One that ensures no one dares to touch those who belong to me, or those who will belong to me.”

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