Ch.349349 – Organizational Struggle 2

Camella felt truly wronged.

If she had at least succeeded in stealing Oknodie’s assignment, she wouldn’t feel so unjustified.

In reality, she hadn’t managed to steal anything.

“WAAAAAAH!”

“KYAAAAH! My head feels like it’s going to explode!!!”

“Someone shut that crying baby up!!”

“F-fire magic… ugh. My head hurts too much to gather mana puzzles!”

“Ouch! This thing is raising thorns on its vines!”

The baby mandrake screamed insanely as soon as anyone entered, wailing loud enough to burst eardrums.

When they tried to steal something while wearing earplugs, rapidly growing vines slapped their limbs mercilessly, causing everyone to scream and rush toward the exit.

When a pheasant isn’t available, a chicken will do—they did manage to raid the rooms of other students associated with Oknodie’s group.

From Hestia’s room, they took a mini-golem crawling on the desk; from Isabelle’s room, a golden ladle hanging on the wall; from Dorothy’s room, a gleaming white mushroom.

[Automatic Defense Formula Activated]

[Damage Rate 89%]

“Eek!”

…From Zhang’s room, they obtained a throwing dagger that had nearly pierced their head after breaking through the barrier.

*Hissss!*

“Ahhh! My hand is stuck to the door!”

“It’s an ice trap! Use fire magic to raise your body temperature and melt the ice! If you stay like that, you’ll get frostbite and have to cut off your hand to take to the infirmary!”

In Irene’s room, they got a taste of cold magic that made intruders stick to surfaces, but overall, their results weren’t bad.

“Make sure you gather everything in the bag and follow—”

“Thieves?”

“H-Hero!?”

Of all things, they ran into Ishtar in the hallway just as they were finishing their crime.

“You didn’t touch our people, did you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“That room… must be Oknodie’s side.”

Ishtar just clicked her tongue and walked past.

“Don’t overdo your night games. You’ll probably get crushed badly anyway.”

One clueless organization member was about to brag that they had accomplished what even the hero couldn’t when Camella’s contract seal began to glow.

[Don’t say a word]

While the organization member flinched at the voice echoing in their head, the hero returned to her room.

“Um, Camella? I think I just heard your voice in my head…”

“Must be your imagination. Come on, let’s go back. When Oknodie’s gang realizes their rooms were robbed, they’ll come for revenge. Let’s request protection from the dorm supervisor and instructors, and switch rooms with roommates to gather in several group rooms tonight.”

Breaking the four-person-per-room rule would result in a fine, but the value of the items they stole today would leave them with enormous profit even after paying for protection services and fines.

Not only did she lead the raid on senior class student rooms, but the action team leader also raided junior class student rooms, yielding good results.

All they needed to do was use what they could from today’s haul and dispose of the problematic items through their seniors.

‘Just need to get through one night.’

A third-year senior from the club had already expressed interest in buying after hearing about their plan.

After tonight, she would be rich in points.

Her hopeful expectations were mercilessly crushed when Oknodie and Hestia barged in through the main entrance, not even the window, in the middle of the night.

“Attack! There are eight of us!”

“Wait, these idiots…!”

Before she could stop them, several female students charged forward.

Camella witnessed it.

The sight of people flying in all directions.

Students who came out to the hallway, startled by the sudden noise, flinched when they saw students being flung out of the group room and collapsing.

Oknodie walked into the hallway with a bright smile, dragging a fallen student by the leg.

“It’s a pillow fight! You’ll pretend you didn’t see anything, right?”

“We heard an explosion-level noise, how is that a pillow fight…?”

“You’ll pretend you didn’t see anything, right?”

The sound of junior class students in the group room hurriedly closing and locking their doors could be heard.

It’s over.

Oknodie returned, closing the door behind her.

In that brief moment, all the female students had been beaten down by one angry Hestia.

“Give me back my baby golem.”

The baby golem, taken out of the bag and placed on the floor, looked up at Hestia and rolled across the floor to her feet.

Hestia carefully picked up the golem with her large hands and put it in her pocket with a relieved expression.

“Return all the stolen items!”

“Alright…”

“Including those stolen from the junior class!”

“…Fine.”

“You stole from the boys’ dormitory too, didn’t you?”

“I’ll give everything back. Isn’t that enough…?”

“I’ll be sending you a receipt for compensation including dormitory repair costs, bribes for the dorm supervisor and instructors, and compensation for psychological damage!”

Camella trembled but managed to nod with great difficulty.

The law is distant, but fists are near.

This was a time to nod to whatever was said, no matter what.

“But why isn’t my assignment here?”

“What?”

“How could a baby mandrake protect my assignment? Pretending won’t help, so hand it over quickly!”

Tears welled up in Camella’s eyes from the injustice.

Now she understood.

Oknodie was planning to blame her assignment on us out of spite!

“Oknodie. Let me say this again—we didn’t touch your assignment. We’ll return all the stolen items and pay compensation. But not the assignment. That crosses the line.”

This wasn’t just any credit assignment, but one worth 38 credits.

Moreover, it belonged to a senior class student, specifically Oknodie, who was known for taking courses as difficult as Andersen Pretzel, the duke’s son.

Even if they put their heads together, they couldn’t guarantee they could complete it with their skills.

If they failed the assignment.

If they couldn’t produce satisfactory results.

Oknodie would use this as an excuse to demand even greater compensation, potentially ruining their academy life completely.

She was at a crossroads where she couldn’t yield even with a knife to her throat.

“Step back, Oknodie. Words won’t work with her. Negotiations need to be done with strength.”

When Hestia pounded her fists together, the entire room shook.

There was no choice.

Now she had to use her trump card.

Even a cornered rat will bite a cat.

Camella had teeth that hurt more than a rat’s.

[Protect me]

The most brilliant light emanated from the contract seal on the back of her hand with compelling force.

Oknodie’s eyes showed surprise as she heard someone approaching, noticing with remarkable quickness that matched Camella’s own surprise, but awareness came too late.

*Slam!*

The person who appeared through the opened door was the one who had retreated from the hallway with the dorm supervisor—an “Academy student on leave and instructor” controlled by Camella’s contract.

* * *

Camella’s contract had a gimmick.

The pet contracts she granted increased the pet’s debt according to the kindness bestowed by the owner, and decreased it according to the pet’s obedience.

However, regardless of the owner-pet relationship, the contract holder incurs a separate debt to Camella based on the total amount of debt exchanged over the contract.

“Strength-all-in-one-hit-character-lover. Today is the day your cruel antics come to an end.”

“You deserved this even without Camella’s orders. Pay for your crime of lifting someone else’s experiment table to increase your strength through weight training and vertically cutting it in half!”

“I won’t forgive your atrocity of throwing innocent students as part of your ‘advanced training’ to raise your title! Even with protective magic, I didn’t want such a terrible experience!!”

There were students with grudges independent of Camella’s contract, but there were also those who had no grudges yet had no choice but to follow orders against their will.

“Jewel, I never wanted to make you do things like this. Really. This is because of Camella…!”

“Stop. I’m tired now. I don’t even want to distinguish between what you, May, want and what Camella is ordering. I… I can’t trust you anymore.”

Camella had manipulated pet contract users through subtle pressure until her second year.

In the original route, those controlled by her ended up forcing each other to perform dangerous acts neither party wanted.

When suspicion arises that love is merely an emotion created for the effectiveness of the contract, the warmth of couples engaging in intimate play using the contract disappears.

When they can’t trust each other and only the contract binds their relationship, the level and difficulty of obedience they demand to maintain the relationship increases.

Naturally, human patience has limits.

Male students who initially entered the contracts half-willingly eventually had their minds broken by the abuse, or their affection disappeared, replaced by humiliation and hatred.

“If I just kill him, I’ll move up one rank… So Jewel, kill him. For the sake of my acceptance, please!”

When debt accumulates to the point of requesting murder, the relationship reaches complete catastrophe.

Even if the player prevents and resolves the incident, the couples end up breaking up completely.

If not prevented, it becomes a major incident requiring student council intervention, and the lives of everyone involved begin to take a dark turn.

“Wow. This is amazing. So there was a route for targeting seniors, not just classmates!”

Just as there was an early bad ending event with Chapter 1 boss Hestia, Camella originally had an early bad ending event too.

In this case, the original bad ending event was “Being controlled by one of the senior class students!”

However, with my intervention as the player making it impossible to target senior students, it seems a more daring route of targeting an instructor has opened up.

“Don’t touch Camella. If you leave now, I’ll overlook today’s incident.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You’ll learn firsthand how strong a student on leave who has qualified as an instructor can be.”

This confrontation would have been challenging in a normal playthrough.

But now, after boosting my stats at Papa’s mansion…

‘I can handle this.’