Chapter 45: Chapter 45

Many of the events held at the Academy Plaza during the start of the new school year were marketing activities for clubs or academic societies to recruit new members. The academy was not just a place to study in the narrow sense of simply reading textbooks and taking exams.

Of course, there were cases where the focus was on making money rather than marketing—such as thieves who kept showing up despite the student council’s efforts or those who sold low-quality items to freshmen who didn’t know much, claiming they were academy essentials.

There were also events like spinning a roulette or throwing daggers with the offer of a product as bait, just like now.

“Here, invest just one silver crown and you’ll get your money’s worth! This is a special event for freshmen! Even the fifth place prize is a Mana Storage Bead worth a whopping two silver crowns! These Mana Storage Beads are a must-have for storing magic power in advance and using it when needed!”

Kentner Dreife, a fifth-year finance major and host of the event, smiled inwardly as he watched the freshmen rushing to hand over their silver coins.

This year, too, was a bumper harvest of crowns.

Throwing daggers.

It looked really easy, but for beginners, it was difficult to simply throw and hit something.

The grip posture must be firm, and the timing of releasing the dagger was also important. Since the dagger was heavy, there were many cases where it was thrown but did not reach the target.

“Aww! What a shame! How about trying again?”

“One more time!”

Kentner chuckled to himself at the sight of the freshmen rushing in. He guessed it was because they were from noble families. They treated a few silver crowns as little more than dust in their pockets.

‘I’m going to earn a lot this year, too!’

It didn’t seem like it would be a problem to become rich if he just sucked up a lot of money like this every semester. There was almost no risk.

As he said, the goods were worth more than a silver crown, but throwing the dagger was extremely difficult.

‘My business will continue to prosper since it targets freshmen.’

Just as Kentner thought so…

“I think I’ll take on the challenge.”

A silver-haired boy approached with a rosy-haired girl. They looked strangely familiar. He’d never seen them before, so how could that be?

‘Silver hair… Where have I seen it? Or heard of it?’

Of course, that was not the important thing; the fact that these two freshmen were customers was.

Kentner greeted them with a salesman smile on his face.

“Oh, welcome! You’re a freshman, right? Here, you just have to pay a silver crown. Have you tried throwing daggers?”

“Yes.”

The silver-haired boy, Dane, gave a short answer, took the dagger from Kentner, and stood in front of the disc.

“Can I throw this multiple times?”

“Of course! As long as you have the silver!”

The corners of the host’s mouth went up.

He caught a big one. The rich young nobleman who kept trying until he got something was truly the best customer.

Brrrrrr.

A spinning disc seemed to have been waiting.

Kentner exclaimed excitedly, “Alright, get ready and throw!”

Kentner smiled happily as he looked at the long line of clueless freshmen behind him.

After repeating this for several years, word of mouth spread and now ordinary products couldn’t interest people. Because of that, he ended up losing all his capital by putting out some pretty good products.

In particular, the first prize, the ‘Treasure Map’, was the item that Kentner had invested the most money in. He was sure it was authentic because he bought it from the Arcaider Auction House, which guaranteed authenticity.

Even though it was a blind auction, it was still an Arcaider auction item.

In fact, it was thanks to this item that Kentner was able to hold this dagger-throwing event, thinking this would be the last time.

‘It has to be this much for people to come.’

In fact, everyone’s attention was focused on the so-called ‘Treasure Map’. However, there probably weren’t many who would even get the fifth place prize. So, if everyone just paid one silver crown, he would make a huge profit—not to mention getting back the initial investment.

‘Even if they tried, they’d just end up with the last prize.’

Dane stared at the spinning disc and took hold of the dagger he had been handed, holding the blade rather than the handle, and positioned himself so that the handle was facing out.

It was a completely different posture from the freshmen who used to just grab and throw the dagger.

At that moment, Kentner became uncertain一

Whoosh!

Pow!

The dagger flew at a speed he had never seen before and sank perfectly into the disc.

“Wow!”

“Did you just see that?”

Amidst the exclamations of admiration, the disc with the dagger embedded in it slowed down.

Kentner gulped.

‘No way. There’s no way.’

This sometimes happened. Should he call it a blind dagger? If you were lucky, you got something. However, even that didn’t go beyond the fifth place prize, which was the widest area on the disc.

It might be a bit of a loss, but whatever.

“Ooooh!”

Then the disc slowed down completely.

The place where the dagger was stuck was not fifth place.

In fact…

“Huh? Isn’t that first place?”

“First place? Really?”

“Over there, over there! The red dot!”

Unbelievable words rang out.

It was true.

Everyone could see the moment when the disc finally stopped.

“N-no way.”

Just one.

Only one, a red dot that Kentner had put there thinking no one would be able to hit it…

The dagger was stuck there quite precisely.

“It’s really the first place prize!”

“Wow! Oh my God!”

“Did he really get it? Really?”

“I didn’t even get near the disc…”

Everyone cheered.

It was understandable because the people there either didn’t get it, or if they did, they only got the consolation prize—assuming they even dared to try. But then someone came forward and didn’t just hit the target but hit a tiny dot on the spinning disc, leaving Kentner breathless.

‘My, my dream… My homework…’

By the way, this was not just a money-making venture.

Finance Department.

As an undergraduate studying economics and money, this was part of an assignment, and it was an activity that would soon become the subject of a great assignment for Kentner.

But it was ruined.

Was this the ‘surprise and variables in economy’ that the professor emphasized so much? No matter how perfect a plan was, variables were bound to come up.

Just like now…

“Wait a minute, isn’t that Dane Sogres?”

“Oh, you’re right. He has silver hair.”

“Then that girl next to him is Leila Thermion, isn’t she? She has rosy hair, right?”

That variable was called Dane Sogres.

‘Dane Sogres?’

Now that he thought about it, he’d heard about the other boy before.

This new year’s new top student.

He passed the autonomous major exam for the first time in 50 years.

The youngest son of the war hero Count Sogres.

Even so, it was too big of a variable.

“R-red dot. It’s first place…”

Kentner managed to shout in a trembling voice.

He still had to give him the item. That was the iron rule. Paying for the goods was the logic of economics.

“Thank you.”

Kentner handed over the case containing the treasure map with trembling hands, but the variables were just starting.

“Didn’t you say I could throw it as many times as I wanted?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll throw it again.”

Dane searched his pockets and took out several silver coins.

Kentner’s mouth fell open.

But this was not the end.

“Oh, you want to take it all by yourself? Don’t be so greedy!”

“Why, are you going throw, too?”

“Of course. I also have a Mana Core, so I guess I can hit it?”

Leila also stepped forward.

Drip.

A tear began to flow from Kentner’s heart.

Leila and I headed to the student cafeteria, very satisfied after gathering all the goods.

It took longer than I thought, but there should be enough time to have lunch. I tried to infuse magic into my ring along the way.

Objects contained in the subspace were projected by magic as if they were right before my eyes. Of course, I couldn’t really feel the actual weight, but it felt very heavy.

Leila looked at the ring my eldest sister had given me as a gift as if she were envious.

“…having an inventor sister must be great. Arabella seems really famous in the magical engineering field.”

“Really?”

“Don’t you know that your eldest sister is famous?”

I just didn’t know to what extent. My eldest sister and second sister didn’t really brag about themselves in front of me. So, it seemed like Leila knew more about their reputation and achievements than I did.

“Your eldest sister is incredibly famous. She’s almost a legend. A legend. It was your eldest sister who made the communication device the size of a person’s head smaller than a fist and made it portable. She also made the teleport magic, which had to be drawn every time, fixed into a device so that it could be used at each base!”

She knew it very well.

“Additionally, she created a magic mirror to help with skin care, and also drastically reduced the cost of producing subspace devices. I told you, Arabella is everyone’s idol.”

My eldest sister was such an amazing person.

I looked at the subspace ring my eldest sister had given me as a gift. It was like I could feel her love.

“You’re so lucky, you know that?”

“I know. Thanks to you, I know better.”

“I’m jealous, so jealous. My older brothers are also academy graduates, but I can’t even see them…”

Leila’s older brothers were also quite famous in the Academy. However, unlike my sisters, we couldn’t see them around as they both worked outside the Academy.

“Ugh, whatever. So how many prizes did we get?”

“Well, twenty magic storage stones, fifteen lunch tickets, five regular meal tickets, eight store tickets…”

We really got a lot. But wasn’t it so much fun? I guess it was because I didn’t usually have any reason to throw daggers.

“And a treasure map.”

“What do you think it actually is? A treasure map?”

“According to the finance department senior who was there, it was something that was bought in a blind auction at the Arcaider Auction House.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Arcaider Auction House?”

Leila’s eyes widened.

Arcaider Auction House.

I remembered my father often telling me stories about it.

It was a place where rare and beautiful items from all over the empire were gathered, and where the best appraisers in the empire thoroughly appraised and handled only genuine items. If it was true that he bought it there, then of course it was believable.

“Then we can be sure it’s authentic?”

“Yeah. The seal here is still intact.”

Judging from the fact that he had never opened it, it seemed like the senior hadn’t examined what was inside carefully. Unfortunately, it was in my hands now, so what could he do?

It just so happened to be a dagger-throwing event.

“An Academy Treasure Map, huh…? I heard that there are a lot of secret places and mysteries in the Academy.”

Leila’s eyes sparkled as she recalled what she had heard.

“So, what’s on that treasure map?”

“Well, we’ll have to open it to find out. Let’s open it together later.”

There was one more person who just came to mind.

Ernest Dylan.

I smiled as I thought of the person who would go crazy the moment he heard of the treasure map.

Grrrr.

The sound of my stomach demanding food rang out. Lunch seemed to have been delayed too much.

“Let’s eat first.”

“Alright. I’m really hungry.”

“We can use these meal tickets, right?”

“That’s right. We got meal tickets as a prize earlier, right? Let’s try using those.”

We hurried our steps toward the student cafeteria.

By the way, I thought I heard a scream coming from somewhere. Maybe I was mistaken?