Don't Feed the Professor! - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The scarecrow—or rather, Freya—was still standing in the 2nd Floor Hallway.
Head bowed, hair hanging forward, she looked much as before, but no longer swayed, no longer responded to me.
Could this really be called alive?
“Hey, can you hear me?”
I hesitated for a moment, then stepped closer and looked up at her face.
Her half-open eyes stared blankly at the floor. I suppressed the urge to stumble backward and spoke.
“Well… the Student Council President said there’s a way to get you out of here. Not exactly, but… replaced, sort of… still…”
I extended my hand and grasped Freya’s limp fingers.
“If you don’t want to disappear… if you want to stay here as you are…”
I fell silent.
What good would any of this do?
This was just a guilty conscience at work. If I filed the complaint directly and Freya was ‘disposed of,’ it would all be on me anyway.
But still…
If there was even a shred of something left inside her…
—Click.
I lifted my head. Her caterpillar-like fingers squeezed my hand gently, then let go.
“Then…”
—Click.
“…I understand.”
Goodbye, Freya. The words escaped me in a soft but certain whisper.
One way or another, I’d made it safely back to the Reality World, and I couldn’t begin to count how fortunate that was.
Everyone else here flailed and struggled, and in the end hanged themselves from despair. Meanwhile, I—how fortunate was I?
〈Don’t be too sad about it.〉
“…”
Right. It was sudden, I suppose, but when you thought about it, it was just the timeline moved up a bit. So I shouldn’t waste time worrying—I should focus on getting out of here.
I let go and stepped back.
That was when it happened.
—Ding.
“…?”
[Emergency Alert: A black dog is appearing in the area. Please exercise caution.]
“What is this? Again…?”
—Ding.
[Emergency Alert: This message was never sent. Please open the door.]
—Ding.
[Emergency Alert: Eat.]
“Amelie!”
It was Momo, poking her head around the corner from the Stairs and calling out.
“No time, come quick!”
Time for what?
But I moved anyway.
Ding.
[Emergency Alert: Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat. Eat.]
Momo quickly grabbed my wrist and started bolting up the Stairs.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
—Bang. We burst into my room on the 3rd Floor and shut the door, and only then did Momo catch her breath.
“Sorry, scared you, didn’t I? Looks like I picked something up out there.”
Momo laughed apologetically.
“Is it okay now?”
“Just have to hold on for thirty minutes. Its focus span is short.”
That wasn’t so bad.
“Want to sit for a bit? Should I get you something to drink?”
“I don’t need anything to drink. Actually, I had something I wanted to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
Momo sat down in my chair. Her eyes were sparkling as if she had good news.
“I finally finished all my Credits. I’m graduating.”
Graduating?
The word sounded strangely unfamiliar. But I understood quickly enough.
Right, we were students here. If you completed all your Credits, you could leave the Fortress.
“That’s great.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
“Congratulations, Momo.”
Momo’s cheeks flushed for some reason.
“Actually, you’re the first person I’m telling. You know how it is—there aren’t many people in the Fortress who’d be happy to see someone else do well.”
“That’s true.”
“But I felt like you’d celebrate with me. Besides, this credit I earned is basically all thanks to you. That’s why I really wanted to tell you.”
“…Hey, obviously. So you were just going to disappear without saying a word?”
I said it, but truthfully, I hadn’t planned to tell Momo either.
That in two weeks I’d be leaving here as well. That my debt would be completely cleared, and after that there’d be no reason to return to the Fortress.
Because…
Honestly, I wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Momo or anything like that, but… even if we were friends, this wasn’t the kind of thing we shared.
We’d met in the Fortress, and once we left, we’d probably never see each other again.
“…So when are you planning to leave?”
“Well… I’ve pretty much wrapped up everything I was doing here. I’ve converted almost everything I had into cash…”
Momo fell silent, thinking hard for a moment, then let out a long sigh.
“Why?”
“There’s one thing I’m reluctant about.”
“What is it?”
Momo wavered for a long time, but when I pressed her, she finally spoke.
“I have something pawned to the Broker at the Sarim Hotel. It’s not very valuable, but it’s a heirloom from my grandmother…”
Momo’s voice trailed off. Now that I thought about it, she’d once mentioned that her parents passed away when she was young and she was raised by her grandmother.
“The Broker’s dead, though. They won’t say anything if you go collect what you left.”
When I said that, Momo’s expression grew complicated.
“That’s the thing… I told you, right? That there were a lot of grudges I had to settle there.”
“…What exactly did you do?”
“Well… there’s the Broker, right? The casino’s a perfect place to avoid The Agency’s surveillance, so he charges higher commissions than anywhere else… But you won’t be disappointed in me after hearing this, right?”
“I never expected much to begin with.”
“Geez, you’re harsh.”
“You remember the day we first met, right? You cursed me out immediately. So what did you actually do?”
Momo’s eyes rolled.
“Well… the Broker was so annoying and insufferable, so I got other Residents to join in on a rigged gambling game and dragged him into it.”
“…Huh?”
“At first I just meant to skin some marks, but this Broker caught the dopamine rush and got completely hooked!”
“Wow.”
“You know what they say—gambling is momentum, and momentum is money. He ended up sweeping the high rollers’ stakes, and then later he even doubled the transaction fees!”
The net result was that the Residents’ commissions skyrocketed, the Broker fell into gambling addiction, and thanks to all that, the Hotel Manager found it easy to ‘climb aboard.’
I stared at her, speechless. But Momo misinterpreted my reaction and protested indignantly.
“But you can’t blame all of that on me! How was I supposed to know it would turn out like that? We set it in motion together, and then everyone blames me…”
“It is your fault! More importantly, after you did all that, you’re the one who introduced me to the Broker?”
Momo blinked.
“Well, I thought it would be fine since you weren’t going there to trade anyway… Plus, the Sarim Hotel is the safest way to approach it…”
I found myself grabbing the back of my neck without thinking.
“Hey, Amelie, are you mad?”
I sighed.
Yeah, well, strictly speaking, I couldn’t blame it all on Momo. Just because someone’s sitting in a gambling game doesn’t mean everyone becomes a gambler.
But still.
“I actually had a rough time there, you know? Because of that Broker.”
“Wh-what happened? Should I bang my head?”
“What good would that do me?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right…”
“Anyway, it’s fine. You didn’t do it on purpose, and in the end it all worked out…”
Though I’d have to wait until Bibi secured the evidence.
Of course, none of it might matter by then. In two weeks, I probably wouldn’t be here anymore.
‘It’d be cowardly to keep my mouth shut alone…’
“Actually, Momo, I can’t say exactly, but I might also be heading back to the Reality World soon.”
“Really?!”
Momo gripped my hand tightly.
“That’s amazing! Then we could see each other outside too?!”
“Um… yeah…”
“Oh, I’m not trying to pressure you. But I never thought I’d make a friend while living in the Fortress.”
Friend.
My body wanted to twist up for no reason, but it wasn’t an unpleasant feeling.
Momo suddenly jumped up and started writing something with a pen and paper.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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