The Villain’s POV in the Academy

Chapter 346: The Villain’s POV in the Academy

“Why is everyone acting like that? It’s as though I ruined the mood. It seemed like things were quite amicable until just a moment ago.”

“…….”

“Are you all going to keep saying nothing?”

Aaron Stingray.

The atmosphere in the conference room turned icy with his arrival. The corporate heads attending the meeting merely watched him nervously while breaking out in cold sweats, unable to carelessly open their mouths.

Before the war, they hadn’t feared the man named Aaron Stingray to this extent.

They were, after all, the heads of the city’s top megacorps, and they possessed enough power to control the lives of even renowned high-level Adapters with money.

In fact, that remained true even now.

With the enormous imperial house known as the Stingray Group having collapsed, there was no longer anyone in the corporate world who could touch them. A new era had dawned, and as the rulers of this new century, they possessed the power to manipulate this city however they pleased.

But at this moment, they couldn’t do that.

That he had slain a dragon, or how many monsters he had wiped out by himself…… Those facts weren’t why they trembled in fear. The aura radiating from the man named Aaron Stingray was stimulating their instincts.

An absolute powerhouse.

To survive, they must never oppose him…… Their animalistic, primal instincts relentlessly warned them of that.

They themselves couldn’t tell what exactly was different between Aaron before the war and Aaron now.

But there was something about the man standing before them, wearing a mocking smile as he looked them up and down, that made it impossible to think of him as the same kind of human being as themselves.

“…….”

“…….”

As the silence continued, Aaron, who had quietly watched them, snorted and opened his mouth.

“How utterly pathetic. You were happily surrounding one woman and mocking her, yet now that I’m here, none of you can say a word? For corporate heads, you’re remarkably cowardly. Then again, I suppose that’s why even before the war, all you could think about was picking up scraps beneath the Stingray Group.”

“……!”

Several corporate heads whose companies had been affiliates of the Stingray Group flinched.

They had expanded their businesses by fawning over the Stingray Group, only to reverse their attitudes the instant the Group collapsed.

Naturally, their guilty consciences stung all the more.

Then.

“……Chairman Aaron Stingray.”

As expected of the only great noble who had stood shoulder to shoulder with Stingray.

Chairman Kharitonov of Milletech opened his mouth, attempting to settle the atmosphere.

“Contrary to what I heard, you appear quite healthy, which is truly fortunate. I was worried we might lose one of our heroes.”

“Thank you for saying so, Chairman.”

Aaron also showed Chairman Kharitonov a certain degree of courtesy. Unlike the others, he wasn’t an easy opponent, and in a way, he was also the parent of a friend.

“……Yes. It is good to see your face after so long, but I wonder whether suddenly appearing at a gathering to which you were not invited is proper conduct. And since this is an official occasion, perhaps you should also be somewhat more careful with the way you speak.”

“Proper conduct?”

Aaron repeated the words mockingly.

“Ah. If you mean that I failed to show courtesy toward a group throwing vulgar jokes at my younger sister, then I apologize. The standards had fallen so far compared to last year that I didn’t realize this was a gathering of the G20 corporate heads.”

“B-Brother……!”

“…….”

Kalia’s eyes trembled at Aaron’s remark.

Meanwhile, a crease formed between Chairman Kharitonov’s brows. His gaze turned toward some of the members who had newly joined the G20 this year, and they merely reddened in embarrassment and cleared their throats.

“……Ahem.”

“Th-That wasn’t what I meant…….”

Kharitonov frowned, but soon opened his mouth with a sigh to settle the atmosphere.

“……Well, wasting time endlessly arguing over who was right or wrong will accomplish nothing. I believe it would be best to return to the main issue.”

“Let’s do that.”

Aaron nodded at Chairman Kharitonov’s words and continued.

“We were discussing Stingray Corporation’s breach of contract, correct? That matter has already been resolved, so let’s consider the issue nonexistent.”

“Brother…… What do you mean, it’s been resolved……?”

Kalia asked Aaron in a quiet voice. The reactions of the other meeting attendees weren’t much different.

“Resolved? What are you talking about?”

“I received the latest information twenty minutes ago before coming here. It’s certainly true that Stingray exterminated a considerable portion of the Mystery forces in advance, but a substantial number still remain. If they’re left alone, it will only be a matter of time before a Monster Wave occurs.”

“According to the revised contract, if the risk factors for a Monster Wave were not completely eliminated within one week from last week…… in other words, by noon today, we would be entitled to terminate our contract with Stingray Corporation and claim damages.”

The attendees each threw in a remark as though they had finally found something they could use against him.

Yet Aaron still asked with a completely relaxed expression.

“Would you check the current time?”

“It’s 12:13.”

“Then I wasn’t late.”

“……What exactly have you been talking about this entire time? Even if you deployed right now and wiped out the monsters near the city, you would still be in breach of contract.”

“Your information seems rather slow.”

Aaron cut them off.

“Why don’t you check again?”

“What kind of incomprehensible nonsense…….”

Their reactions lasted only a moment before, as though someone had been waiting for precisely this moment, new information reached them through their respective information channels.

Some received phone calls, while others received emails, but every person who received the information went pale at once.

“Wh-What? That’s impossible……!”

“D-Did you confirm it properly?”

Before long, the conference room began buzzing with commotion, while Kalia blankly watched the other G20 members floundering in confusion.

She glanced at Aaron, silently asking him to explain, but Aaron merely gestured lightly with his chin as though telling her to wait.

And not long afterward, a new message arrived for Kalia as well.

The sender was Maria, and its contents were……

“All Mystery signatures vanished thirteen minutes ago!?”

Just before the meeting began.

In other words, immediately before the contractual time limit expired, every Mystery signature within an approximately 500-kilometer radius of the city had disappeared.

That meant tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of monsters that posed a risk of triggering a Monster Wave had been annihilated in the span of only a few minutes.

“B-Brother, you did this!?”

“Who else do you think did it?”

Well, of course.

Who else in this city besides Aaron Stingray possessed the ability to wipe out that many monsters all at once?

But even knowing that, this was just too…… too…….

“St-Statistically, that makes no sense……?”

“What are the odds of an Adapter with a 95% Replacement Rate regaining consciousness? Things like this happen in the world.”

With that, Aaron lightly patted Kalia on the back. He had probably restrained his strength in his own way, but to Kalia it felt like being struck with an iron club.

“Ahk!?”

“Now, you handle the rest from here.”

“……H-Handle it?”

“I’ll overlook the fact that you tried to put a chip in my head while I was asleep. I’ll also forgive you for using my name everywhere without consulting me. In exchange…….”

“In exchange for what?”

“Do as much as you can here.”

Aaron then stepped slightly behind Kalia’s right side.

His position almost made it seem as though he had appointed himself her bodyguard.

Kalia wasn’t so foolish that she failed to understand what his action meant.

Of course, until before the war, they had been trying to kill each other over the position of the next Emperor, but now they were both members of the imperial family of a ruined empire. With the throne they had fought over gone, all they ultimately had left to rely upon was each other, bound by blood.

Well, strictly speaking, they had been born in a laboratory, so calling it a blood relationship was somewhat ambiguous…… but anyway.

“……Understood.”

Let’s try this together.

Kalia nodded with that meaning and turned forward again. The conference room was still in an uproar from the storm Aaron had caused.

“Now, everyone.”

At her voice, the attendees all turned toward her.

Dozens of gazes poured upon her, but unlike before, Kalia didn’t feel even the slightest anxiety.

It felt as though she had gained an army of thousands.

In fact, couldn’t Aaron alone demonstrate that level of power? He could probably wipe out the security teams of several companies attending this meeting with nothing more than a flick of his finger.

The power her brother possessed frightened her that much, but Kalia was prepared to join hands even with a demon for the sake of her own interests.

She opened her mouth with a triumphant expression.

“Then shall we discuss the contract again?”

The meeting continued for a long time afterward.

Thinking about it now, Kalia really was an extraordinary one.

In this conference room, where the average age was nearly one hundred thanks to anti-aging procedures, Kalia, who was only in her early to mid-twenties, was practically an infant in terms of age.

She might have accumulated experience in high positions earlier than most, but she was still nothing more than a fledgling. Yet watching her secure benefits without yielding even slightly to those Old Monsters in eloquence, information, or any other field made her look like a battle-hardened veteran.

‘If Chairman Stingray’s ultimate objective was to defeat the Sky Dragon and obtain freedom…… did Kalia intend to make the Sky Dragon surrender through sheer negotiation?’

Then again, Chairman Stingray himself had secured humanity’s safety through negotiation, so perhaps he had expected Kalia to similarly draw out an agreement favorable to humanity.

In any case, Kalia steered the meeting increasingly in her favor by invoking the name ‘Aaron Stingray’ even more aggressively.

When necessary, she didn’t hesitate to make outright unreasonable demands, and through them, she created a foundation that would allow the Stingray Group to recover its influence in one stroke.

Of course…….

“You’re openly planning to work me to the bone.”

“W-We don’t have a choice…….”

The problem, if there was one, was that many of those terms relied far too heavily on me.

Until the company could properly establish itself, she had created a situation where I would have no choice but to run around everywhere dealing with monsters and people.

“Do you have any idea how much it costs just to maintain your mansion in Elysium, Brother? Even if only to keep that place running, you’re going to have to push yourself a little.”

Kalia seemed to have regained her confidence, as she shot back without backing down.

Even so, she watched my expression apologetically and asked.

“You really are all right, aren’t you? Until yesterday…….”

“I’ll need to undergo a detailed examination first.”

I didn’t know my exact condition either.

I had been lucky enough to wake up, but there was no guarantee that my body and soul wouldn’t separate like that again.

Still, for some reason, I felt as though I would be fine.

There wasn’t even the slightest basis for that feeling, though.

“……Then hurry and go. You’ll have to start operating in earnest tomorrow, so you should prepare in advance to make sure there aren’t any problems. Besides, those students were worrying about you so much. Now that you’re awake, you should hurry and show them your face.”

“I suppose I should.”

“I’ll tell Maria myself.”

“Come to think of it, what happened to the Foundation?”

“You want to remain Chairman, don’t you?”

Kalia smiled brightly.

“Honestly, we’re not exactly in a position to operate an educational foundation right now…… but I’ll figure something out.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Not at all. I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

Kalia looked much more at ease as she said that.

Though the form was different, in a way, she had taken the position at the head of Stingray, and above all, the pressure from Chairman Stingray was gone. It was only natural.

Perhaps this was Kalia’s true self.

“Anyway, hurry and go.”

“Yeah.”

She was right.

It was time to show those guys my face.