The Demon Prince goes to the Academy

Chapter 223

As a club president, I had to attend those small events.

There were a total of 120 people in Royal Class. Because the amount of students was low, the number of clubs wasn’t that large either.

Attending the club meeting were the Royal Class Student Council President Ceres van Owan and the Vice President.

Oliva Lanze, the club president of ‘Grace’, was also there.

Also, Layton Zabry, the president of “Monthly Royal Class”, who’d caused a certain incident and gotten severely scolded by Charlotte for it.

Then there were five more seniors who seemed to be the presidents of other clubs.

That made me realize that the size of the Royal Class was certainly small. However, there was still a lot of budget meant to support clubs left, and since a club with such a huge focus like the Magic Research Research Society had been created by us, we received quite the budget as well.

Magic research was bound to cost a lot of money.

Five thousand gold coins…

Five billion won…

That was far too much for a high school club’s budget. Other clubs didn’t really need that much money to spend, so they didn’t take much.

However, magic research was rather special in many ways. For one, it was like a money-eating black hole

But it was only natural for the president’s expression to twist when I asked her to triple our club’s budget.

“What’s the problem? It’s not like they’ll use it to play around, they need it to study, so if you still have some left, then it should be given to them~”

Olivia Lanze, who was overwhelmingly on my side, simply smiled softly as she looked at Ceres.

Ah, she was usually a bit silly, but she was definitely on my side at times like those.

-……

Of course, those who seemed rather dissatisfied with Olivia’s tremendous affection towards me looked like they were just put in a bad mood by her words.

Was it really such a good thing that she was on my side…?

Who are you? Who the hell do you think you are?

I really didn’t know what to do when people looked at me as if they were asking, “Who are you? Who the hell do you think you are?” It wasn’t like they were saying anything to me directly.

Of course, the student council president couldn’t do anything but sigh.

“Reinhardt, there are limits to everything, even the Royal Class. I allocated the highest budget to your club that I could. Did you know that a faculty meeting was held over that? Not just on the student council level.”

“…You did?”

“Of course. It wasn’t easy to provide adequate facilities and research funds. Well, if you were in a Graduate school club or a club with a lot of achievements, it wouldn’t be so impossible to get an additional budget, but you are neither.”

At my reckless request, Ceres provided me with a calm explanation.

“I know that there were a lot of participants of the faculty meeting who had quite the negative opinion about all this as well. Still, Mr. Epinhauser and Mr. Mustrang strongly insisted on it, which is why you were allowed to receive so much support.”

That was another thing I didn’t know.

Those two first-year teachers were so enthusiastic about giving us as much support as possible, so it seemed things turned out the way they did because of that.

I couldn’t imagine that Mr. Epinhauser had actually voiced his enthusiasm like that.

“Of course, I know that magic research requires an uncountable amount of money as long as you are set on doing it, but the only thing I can tell you is that the support you received is already considerable, Reinhardt. Asking me to triple it is basically impossible.”

“Ah, Why~ We’re a special class, special class. They should just do whatever we ask them to do~”

“Senior, please be quiet for a bit.”

Ceres, who didn’t really care about what she said, glared at Olivia Lanze in my stead, to which she flinched.

That girl only ever got scared when someone got serious. No, but even though I didn’t actually look up her physical data, it seemed like that she not only was talented in her use of divine powers but also had wide knowledge of close combat as well.

I did think that it was true that she was good at fighting, and yet she was such a coward.

It wasn’t like I simply wanted to cause trouble by suddenly asking for an increase in the amount of support we received in a club meeting where my only job should have been to simply show my face.

‘Money.’

‘Get some money.’

It was because Harriet had issued that strict order.

The three things I’d ordered them to develop were, of course, impossible to even start to research without anything.

Dimensional Magic was a high-ranked type of magic that wasn’t actually a field of magic yet, and as for the Power Cartridges, we had to gather various types of mana stones to research them properly, and Moonshine also needed numerous reagents to experiment properly.

It was unclear at that point whether they would be able to succeed or not, but their research was sure to consume a lot of money.

I mean, no matter how much money we had, it would never be enough, so Harriet had ordered me to get us more money if I wanted them to develop such ridiculous things.

Damn it.

Why did that feel so much like a wife begging her husband to raise more money for their starving kids cowering in the corner of their home?

Harriet wasn’t my wife, and the wizard students weren’t my kids! But why did that situation feel like it?

Anyway, Harriet had told me to “Go and get money!” so I went to that place to do something about it.

I was originally going to go and ask Harriet, who had a lot of money, why she didn’t just use her own money for the club.

But then I thought that that would very much cross the line.

So, anyway.

I was in the middle of getting some more money.

I didn’t just simply go to that rigorous place for the sake of it—it was where they did the budgeting. It was actually true that we had already received a huge budget for our activities, but it was more than clear that it would be insufficient in the end.

That sure was weird.

If it was my money, I’d just say “Oh, that’s great!” and that would be the end.

As I simply received that money from other people under the name of receiving a budget, it simply didn’t really feel like my own money, and it actually wasn’t just my money, either.

That was why it seemed not sufficient enough.

Ceres had told me that it was practically impossible for her to provide any more support at that point.

“Is it really impossible? Can you really not do anything about this?”

“I want to give you more, but I simply can’t. That’s it, Reinhardt.”

Ceres seemed troubled by my stubbornness.

“Ceres, this isn’t the only place from where one can get money, right?”

“…What?”

Olivia Lanze tilted her head and pointed to some place. I didn’t know what she was pointing at.

“Oh, maybe… the Temple Student Council?”

“Yes.”

Olivia smiled brightly.

“If we got some money from them, wouldn’t it be possible to actually triple our budget?”

Seeing Olivia proudly declaring that we should take money from somewhere else because we didn’t have enough…

How should I put it?

I was kind of a delinquent as well, but even I thought that she was just as strange as me.

* * *

* * *

The Temple Student Council.

There were student councils for each school, and then there was a general student council that presided over all the others.

Temple’s secondary education began at the age of 17 and ended at 22. That meant that the Temple Student Council presided over all other ones over the course of six years.

Of course, there was a lot of budget allocated to them, so it was possible to request more from them.

The money they had rolling around was bound to be different from the Royal Class’s.

Ceres van Owen, the president of the Royal Class student council, also had some sway in the Temple Student Council, but in the end, she was outnumbered.

The Temple Student Council itself was already a huge power within Temple.

The level of support we could receive from the Royal Class had its limitations. Of course, they could always ask for more, but they had already held a faculty meeting in which the teachers had decided how much was to be given to us. It was highly unlikely that we could ask for any more.

I wasn’t sure what would happen later, but usually, if a new club asked for more money, they would be told that they were spouting weird nonsense.

So the only way for me to get more money was by getting it from the Student Council.

After our club meeting, I went down to the dormitory.

“The Student Council?”

“Yeah, the money we got is already the most they could give us, so they are the only ones who could give us more.”

“Hmmm…”

Harriet was the one who’d recklessly told me to get more money, but when she confirmed that the reaction I received wasn’t that good, she seemed troubled, her mouth twisting slightly.

But I’d also made them do something weird all of a sudden, so I wanted to get them a generous budget from somewhere.

“Will the Student Council increase our budget that easily?”

“I doubt it.”

‘Ceres needs more money? Why?’

It seemed like the Student Council President didn’t have much of a reaction to our request.

Harriet seemed to feel a little sorry, thinking that she had asked too much of me.

“Still, we’ll be able to use more money than our actual budget.”

“Why?”

“We… We decided to use all the funds we receive as the club’s budget.”

Magic major students received more research funding than other students, and on request, would receive a lot more than the standard amount.

It seemed like the members had already agreed to spend all their research funds they’d received as the club’s budget. Separate from my coercion, it looked like they were interested in those research projects.

“Then how much do we have in total?”

“Uhm… It varies slightly from field to field. Adelia and I receive the most, which is 1,000 gold coins a semester. I know that Christina gets 700 and Anna 500. Maybe if we try to request a bit more… We would have more than 3,000 gold coins in total.”

Adelia, whose magic talent was rather money-consuming, and Harriet, who held a talent in all fields of magic, received about 500 million won as funds every semester.

Magic majors really received support beyond any imagination.

In any case, it could be estimated that our budget would approximately amount to 8 billion won.

“Why are you suddenly talking about money?”

Liana de Grantz stopped by and sat on the sofa near us after hearing us talk as she passed by.

“Is it about that Magic Research Society?”

“Yes.”

Liana nodded, knowing about the Magic Research Society, she seemed to understand what we were talking about.

“What do you even need so much money for?”

“We’re going to develop various things, but we don’t know how to make them yet, so we feel like we’ll need a lot more money than our current budget.”

We had no way of knowing how much money we would have to spend to get the results we wanted.

We had a huge budget and the members’ funds, but we still didn’t know if the research would bear any fruits with that.

If all amounted to nothing, we would have literally blown all the budget we had into the wind.

“We have already received as much support as we could get from the Royal Class, they even went all the way to the Student Council to knock on some doors.”

At Harriet’s words, Liana simply tilted her head.

“Do you really have to only get money from inside of Temple?”

My eyes lit up at Liana’s words.

“Why? Will you give us money then?”

Don’t you have a lot of money?

“…Seriously. I hate to say this, but sometimes, you’re simply too much of a beggar. Man, it’s just… ugly.”

I didn’t even say that much, but when I started talking about her giving us money, it seemed like Liana’s evaluation of me dropped quite a bit.

“I don’t know what you’re going to make, but if you succeed, will you be able to make money off of it?”

Harriet tilted her head at Liana’s words, but the answer came out rather fast.

“It’s not just on the level of being able to make money off of it, it would be a historical moment.”

Moonshine and Power Cartridges…

I wasn’t so sure about Dimensional Magic, but we could definitely turn those two things into money.

“Hmm, then, wouldn’t it be fine to sign a business contract with an outsider to receive research funding?”

Why did we only want to get money from Temple?

We should just find some place that would invest in us.

After Liana pointed it out, I finally realized that, while I came up with that plan for the Rotary Gang’s business, I haven’t even considered it for our club.

“Are you a genius?”

“Anyway, if you can draw up a business plan or research plan, you should. You know that much, right?”

Liana crossed her arms and smiled confidently.

“Money, that’s something my family has a lot of.”

Objects that might change the course of history if they got developed…

The Duke of Grantz could afford to invest in such items however much he wanted.

“Huh? Then, should I ask my dad as well?”

Harriet de Saint-Owan also nodded her head.

If it was an investment, and not just simply giving away one’s own money, that wasn’t too much to ask.

The Grand Duke of Saint-Owan…

The Duke of Grantz…

If we received the support of those two families, our budget would be limitless.

* * *

A few days later…

“I was scolded by my father.”

When Liana returned to Temple, she shrugged her shoulders and said as much.

“…You got scolded?”

Liana seemed a little embarrassed after hearing my question, so she scratched her cheek slightly.

“He told me not to talk any nonsense and that the research plan was too abstract and completely groundless.”

It was only natural if one thought about it a bit more.

‘We (some 17-year-olds) will make items that will change the world, so give us money.’

Who the hell would invest in some kids? Temple gave us money because it was Temple. Of course, external forces wouldn’t simply trust us.

Even if we handed it to Temple’s Graduate Research Center or the Magic Tower, they would call our plans unbelievable. Anyway, no matter how much money an organization or person had, they wouldn’t just invest their money into some research that was obviously going to fail.

Just because one had a lot of money didn’t mean one could just spend it on whatever one came across.

I mean, they obviously had no real reason to invest in us.

“Anyway, I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? I’m already happy enough that you even handed our proposal to the Duke.”

“…Oh, really? Then why don’t you start respecting this daughter of a duke more often?”

“When we graduate.”

“Okay. Let’s stop here.”

It was bound for her to clumsily mess up like that.

Whenever she did something really well, she would always slip up at the most crucial point.

Liana de Grantz, who always acted rather cold and cool, showed her charm when she slipped up and started to act all flustered.

Liana had failed.

Soon after…

Seeing Harriet come back with her head bright red, I felt like I already knew the result of her talk.

“I’ll never talk to my dad ever again!”

It seemed like they had gotten into a big fight.