The Academy is Doomed

Chapter 120

Late at night.

When the many crowds who had come to the Academy’s cultural festival were beginning to leave, Amon wore a peaceful smile.

Did he make a lot of money from people who came late to watch gold eating?

No!

He’s actually wearing a resigned smile because not a single person came.

‘That’s just like my life. I thought it was strange how things were going so smoothly.’

The cultural festival preparation, mastery of tasks, execution – everything proceeded more smoothly than one could believe possible for the usual Amonis Academy.

They say sudden personality changes are a sign of impending death, and he wondered if the academy might be about to collapse due to how unexpectedly smoothly things went.

‘But it turns out it wasn’t the academy that was going to collapse, but me.’

Conservation of energy! Equivalent exchange!

The cursed academy’s law that something must always fail has struck Amon this time.

“Brother, are you okay?”

Ami asked worriedly, seeing Amon staring into space with an empty face.

“…I’m fine. Ami, are you okay?”

Ami responded with a blank face to his concerned question, wondering if she might be disappointed about not making much money.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay? I just rested.”

True to her words, Ami hadn’t lost anything.

The visitors who came to watch often gave her food, apparently impressed by how she attracted customers.

“Rustianel, are you okay too?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“…Never mind.”

Rustianel hadn’t lost anything either.

Eating gold was just to fill her own stomach, and like Ami, she only ate food given by visitors.

But it was different for Amon.

‘Tsk tsk tsk, what’s a grown man doing with these kids?’

‘What a nasty fellow.’

‘I know a bit about reading faces, and that guy’s face shows he’ll fail from being too greedy for money.’

Amon only received a barrage of insults.

‘Well, at least I didn’t get hit with stones.’

Anyway, when the festival visitors had mostly left late at night, people from other successful booths approached with exhausted appearances.

“Ugh, uuugh…Finally it’s over.”

“Senior Marion.”

Marion, who usually lived with alcohol on his lips, had lost his alcohol-flushed face from being too busy to drink.

And Boris, who approached with Marion, had gained noticeable weight in just one day.

He had eaten too many potatoes to replenish mana, unable to rest due to the continuous encore requests from the countless crowds.

“I’m so full…”

“Boris, you need to brush your teeth first. The potato smell is strong.”

“Sob sob…”

Sloth and Chloe’s appearances were also terrible.

Sloth was walking half-slumped as if afflicted with a disease that would kill her if she couldn’t sleep, and Chloe had also lost her usual composed appearance, looking disheveled like Sloth.

And Amon frowned as he looked them over.

‘Ugh…! The smell…!’

When Amon stepped back due to the smell that had permeated their bodies from handling livestock all day, Chloe wore a deeply hurt expression!

‘But what about the headmaster…? Wasn’t she helping too?’

At that moment, Anar’el, who had collapsed from fatigue, was having her hair chewed on by a horse.

Soon after, Amon checked Raymond and Kai’s conditions.

‘Raymond looks fine. His face is glowing like he’s fulfilled his life’s dream after making dolls to his heart’s content. But what’s wrong with that Kai?’

Though he was the imperial crown prince skilled in both literary and martial arts, Kai had no experience with sewing, so his entire body was covered in blood from needle pricks.

It was understandable for his hands, but why his face was pricked remained a mystery!

‘Did Raymond stab him in anger?’

Anyway, as Amon silently observed them all exhausted from fatigue, he realized something.

Though they all looked terrible in different ways, they had one thing in common.

The plump pouches that each teacher and student was holding!

Their earnings from today.

Glance-

Amon looked inside his own clothes.

Both his clothes and hands were light.

Faced with this bitter fact, Amon forced a laugh and said:

“Ha.ha.ha. You all earned quite a fortune. How im~pressive.”

A voice dripping with envy and jealousy!

However, the teachers glared at Amon with envious eyes and said:

“Must be nice to have rested well?”

“Urk…”

“Ah, I wish I could have lazed around like someone.”

“Ugh…”

Clutching his chest from the fierce counterattack, Amon made a timid protest.

“I-I helped with work too…”

Kai said:

“You were just a hindrance. You tore up five dolls in a row at our doll booth.”

“Ack…!”

“Must have had too much energy from resting so well.”

“Indeed.”

Realizing he couldn’t win against the teachers, Amon changed his approach.

He hurriedly ran to the tired students and said:

“Children! Thank you all for working so hard today!”

The students forced bright smiles despite their exhaustion when Amon approached with a bright smile.

‘As expected of our students! If it were those devil-like teachers, they would have picked a fight saying how dare you smile alone when we’re dying from exhaustion!’

Having found peace of mind, Amon looked around at the students and said:

“You all look very tired, are you okay?”

Despite their obvious fatigue, the children nodded brightly at Amon’s caring question.

“Yes. It was really fun because lots of people came!”

It was natural for the students to look happy.

All the performances they did at today’s cultural festival were things they wanted to do.

Moreover, their efforts were greatly rewarded as numerous people enjoyed what they had planned and executed themselves.

Being rewarded for effort is special even for adults, but it’s even more special for young children and will be a great experience for their future lives.

Knowing this, Amon smiled contentedly.

“I’m glad you all had fun.”

“But…what about teacher?”

Even in their busy state, the students knew that the gold-eating performance led by Rustianel, Ami, and Amon had been a failure.

Though they asked with worried expressions, Amon instead replied with a bright face:

“Teacher had fun too. Although our performance didn’t have great results…Rustianel, did you have fun today?”

As mentioned, Rustianel hadn’t lost anything today.

“It was fun. And I ate lots of delicious things too.”

“That’s good. How about you, Ami?”

“Honestly, from partway through I was just going around sightseeing… hehe.”

Both Rustianel and Ami had completely forgotten about ‘gold eating’ at some point, busy touring other performances and eating food.

“Good. As long as you had fun, that’s what matters.”

“…Teacher.”

Amon roughly patted the heads of the children who approached seeming touched, and said:

“Haha, but do you have any thoughts after spending all day doing what you like?”

Boris said:

“Even things you like become something you don’t want to do when it becomes work.”

“…”

The other children nodded with tired faces, seeming to agree.

The children had realized too great a truth at their young age.

“Anyway, good work everyone today. The cultural festival runs for two days, but tomorrow will probably have fewer people than today, right?”

Though a commercial city, Amur didn’t have that many residents compared to its economic scale.

If the cultural festival had many things to enjoy, tomorrow would have been just as crowded, but since there were limits to the prepared attractions, tomorrow would inevitably be quieter.

“So get plenty of rest today, and let’s finish strong tomorrow too. Okay?”

“Yes! Teacher! Oh, that’s right.”

“Yes?”

Chloe said shyly:

“Since it’ll be quiet tomorrow, would you like to come watch our performance? You haven’t properly seen what we’re doing, teacher.”

“Hmm…”

True, Amon was too busy today, being called here and there with Fiora to fill in gaps.

So he was too preoccupied to properly watch the students’ performances.

But here’s the problem.

‘Chloe, are you saying I’ll have nothing to do tomorrow so I might as well watch?’

Sometimes pure goodwill can hurt more!

Amon nodded with a rotten smile.

“Sure. If I’m free.”

“Yes! You must, teacher.”

“Right. If I’m free.”

Emphasizing again, Amon looked at Ami with determined eyes.

‘Tomorrow will definitely be different.’

‘That’s right, brother.’

Word would definitely spread throughout Amur about how wonderful the Amonis Academy’s cultural festival was on the first day.

And since mainly commoners came on the first day, nobles and wealthy people who didn’t come to the cultural festival would surely become interested after hearing the rumors on the second day.

‘Yes, the nobles and rich people were probably just cautious about wasting time. But once word spreads, they’ll be interested no matter how cautious they are.’

Meaning tomorrow would be full of nobles instead of today’s visitors!

The gold-eating performance would also receive praise and run successfully!

Amon clenched his fist with a determined face.

‘Our performance starts tomorrow!’

* * *

Early in the morning, Reinbelt was deep in meditation.

‘Yesterday, not a single intruder was allowed.’

Reinbelt clenched his fist with a determined face.

“Today too, those with impure intentions shall not cross the academy’s threshold!”

* * *

Amon sensed it.

‘Hmm, today’s a failure too.’

Rustianel and Ami had already left their posts to play!

Amon kept watch alone and looked around.

‘Mostly people who came yesterday are here, and it seems they mainly came to eat at the food booths. Checking out things they missed yesterday while they’re at it.’

Though the crowds were far smaller than yesterday, the food booths were doing decent business.

And while watching the food booths with a vacant expression, his eyes met with Brestle who was helping the chef cook.

“Hah!”

Amon ground his teeth seeing Brestle mock him with shoulders raised almost to her head.

‘I guess you need to sell food to make money after all.’

Amon sighed and got up.

‘Sigh, there’s no one here anyway so I might as well go watch what the students are doing.’

Amon left the gold-eating booth, an extreme wilderness without a single person, and headed elsewhere.

And after some time passed several men stealthily approached the gold-eating booth.

“I heard they do something amazing here?”

“Surprisingly, some alchemist supposedly chomps down gold. But there’s no one here?”

One of them sighed regretfully.

“I was too busy with business to come yesterday, so I really wanted to see it today. What a shame.”

“Yeah. I even closed my shop and came early today to see that.”

“Tsk, nothing we can do about it. There’s lots of other things to see, let’s go check those out.”

The self-employed merchants of Amur headed elsewhere, jingling their money pouches full of gold coins.