How to Survive as the Academy Student Council President

“Noble Alliance?”
I tilted my head as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Meyer answered, face bright with excitement.
“Huh, are you unaware? The Noble Alliance is an organization made up of the time-honored houses of the Cassandra Empire, and it wields tremendous influence in deciding the academy’s major and minor affairs. Her Highness Beatrice must also be aware of it.”
When I silently looked at Beatrice, she replied with an unchanged, calm expression.
“Yes. The Noble Alliance is one of the student self-governing bodies that submit review proposals each month to the Eredor Student Council. They also sent several proposals this month regarding school rule revisions.”
“When was this organization formed?”
“I don’t know the exact time, but I’ve heard it began alongside the founding of the Four Great Academies.”
“Hm.”
I slowly nodded.
Just as Beatrice said, the Noble Alliance was a long-standing organization formed around the seven houses—founding contributors to the Cassandra Empire and shareholders of the Mage Towers.
You could call it a pillar of the Cassandra Empire’s social circles.
Of course, the “Noble Alliance” Meyer was talking about here was a club formed by Union students modeled after that organization.
‘…Even so, it’s not something you can dismiss as just a simple club.’
It was a venerable club that had continued from the very beginning of the Four Great Academies, and because the actual children of the “Noble Alliance” were all gathered there, its influence was not to be taken lightly.
The fact that it could exert some pressure even on Beatrice’s student council said enough.
Meyer continued.
“Our Noble Alliance has judged that we can no longer overlook your rampant behavior, and we’ve decided to completely crush you in this Competition Battle. And I was chosen to lead the way. That is the meaning of the challenge letter.”
Meyer finished with a smug smile.
I looked at that pathetic display and neatly summarized his words.
“In short, you guys are playing at being school bullies together, and now that something annoying has appeared, you’re going to get rid of it. That about right?”
“I don’t know what a ‘school bully’ is, but I can guess the general meaning. And that’s a rather hurtful way to put it. You’d be better off thinking of it as the result of the karmic debt you’ve piled up. I take it you don’t remember the things you did in social circles in the past?”
Of course I don’t remember. Because I didn’t do them.
I shrugged like it was the first I’d heard of it, and Meyer’s face twisted.
“…How convenient, to only forget what’s unfavorable to you. Well, that figures. With that kind of mindset, you could brazenly keep committing all sorts of evils until now.”
He glared at me, then pulled a letter from his breast pocket and tossed it at me.
“Take it. This is a petition compiled by various students after investigating and organizing your past conduct and the factual circumstances. You can consider it evidence supporting our Noble Alliance’s decision. Read it when you have time.”
I took the letter from him without comment.
No doubt its contents would be more or less the same as the letters piled up in the Student Council Office mailbox; there was no real need to spend time checking it.
But—
‘This stationery…’
My eye went more to the envelope than the letter itself.
I turned the envelope over in my hands and examined it closely.
An embossed seal engraved with a crest, and in addition, a faint flow of mana through the envelope.
It wasn’t the type of stationery that would trigger magic the moment you finished reading it, but it was that high in quality.
As I carefully examined the envelope, I soon reached a conclusion.
‘This confirms it.’
The ones who sent that letter to Dandol at the start of the semester, provoking him to come after me, were indeed this Noble Alliance.
They were probably in contact with Jeremy as well.
They would need his permission and cooperation for their activities to be guaranteed within Ishtal.
After finishing that line of thought, I glared at Meyer and pressed him.
“You guys were tied up with Ishtal’s Disciplinary Head too, weren’t you?”

“…!”
Startled as if I’d hit a sore spot, Meyer soon regained his composure and replied,
“Our Noble Alliance is in contact not only with Eredor, but with royalty from the other academies as well. Senior Jeremy is one of them. But why do you ask?”
“Nothing special. Just as I thought.”
I brushed off his answer and continued thinking.
They must have felt a sense of crisis at Loen becoming Student Council President and tried to use Dandol to knock him down a peg.
But that plan had failed.
Deciding that kind of half-baked measure wouldn’t work, they’d now changed strategies and were trying to come at me directly through the Competition Battle.
“I more or less get your intention. But for any of that to matter, don’t you first have to beat me in the Competition Battle?”
“Huh, do you actually think you can defeat me? Your dreams are big.”
Meyer let out a laugh and snapped his fingers.
Snap-.
At the same time—
Rrrumble-.
One wall of the office shifted, revealing a hidden space and a transparent display case inside.
Within the case stood a large, metal armor-shaped Magi-Engineering device.
Smooth-alloy full plate armor gleaming under the lights. And on top of that armor, complex magical circuits were engraved.
That was the Magic Armor. A form of magical armor that a person could actually wear.
“Oh.”
Seeing such an enormous piece of equipment for the first time, Bell’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, and even Yulina and Beatrice seemed somewhat surprised.
Seeing their reactions, Meyer spoke in a confident voice.
“Hehe, you all immediately recognize how outstanding this piece is, I see. This is my Elegance No. 2. It’s my proud masterpiece, refined and upgraded countless times over the winter break. It shows speed and strength on par with an Intermediate Sword Expert, and possesses magical resistance that repels all spells of 4th circle and below. This even surpasses the autonomous golems currently used in Union, so it’s not something a half-baked mage like you could possibly handle.”
“That thing surpasses the autonomous golems?”
At Yulina’s surprised question, Meyer flashed an oily smile.
“Of course, Lady Yulina. The previous model, No. 1, fell short of that, but the performance of No. 2 easily exceeds the autonomous golems. I expect there will be major upheaval in the Competition Battle rankings. Perhaps even that Freya will not be so difficult to handle.”
He then turned his shining eyes on me.
“In other words, there is not even the slightest chance I’ll lose to you. And even if I do lose, that will not be the end. I am merely the vanguard. My friends will continue to send you challenge letters.”
“It’s not as if I’ve actually said I’ll accept your challenge yet.”
“Well, if you insist on that, we can always use other methods.”
“For example?”
Meyer folded his fingers in one by one as he listed them.
“We could start applying the physical pressure we’ve restrained until now. Or we could wage a war of public opinion and push things back toward a student general vote. There’s also the option of pressuring the Board of Directors or cutting off your funding. Or we could have an imperial inspector dispatched to tear apart the Student Council. There are endless possibilities.”
Meyer smiled brightly.
“……”
Among the methods he listed, there were several that would be troublesome even for me to handle.
Physical pressure could be resolved by keeping Ciel with me. But a public opinion war would be heavily stacked against me.
The trick I used at the start… the 60 days during which the Student Council’s activity is guaranteed is almost over.
Right now, thanks to the Territory War and Sports Festival, public opinion wasn’t too bad, but if they deliberately spread nonsense and agitated people, public sentiment could quickly tilt in a bad direction.
If, by any chance, the tide of opinion shifted toward a Student Council impeachment vote, even I would have a hard time doing anything.
The other options were just as annoying. The Board of Directors would probably be handled by that old man, but the dispatch of an imperial inspector was a problem even he would struggle with.
If they started digging into the source of my funding, they might discover my dealings with the underworld, and if they nosed around about the Dark Magic Stone I fed to Kavelthar, that would become a headache as well.
“You’re really going all out.”
“You should have behaved yourself from the beginning.”
Meyer grinned triumphantly and shot me a slimy wink.
I ignored that disgusting gaze and abruptly stood up.
Step-.
Then I walked over toward Meyer’s desk and chair.
“W-what are you doing?”
Meyer flinched a little when I approached, though he tried his best not to show it.
I silently looked down at him and pointed at the Elegance No. 2 inside the display case.
“Don’t be so jumpy. Mind if I take a closer look at that thing?”
“Sure, go ahead. It’s not like staring at it will magically give you a way to deal with it.”
As soon as Meyer gave his permission, I walked up to the display case and examined the Magic Armor closely.
A helmet with a red plume, a solid-looking breastplate, spiky pauldrons, and vambraces and faulds protecting the arms and legs.
The alloy armor traced beautiful curves and looked flawless no matter how you examined it.
It was several times thicker than ordinary armor, yet there would be no problem moving in it.
I focused on the magic circles engraved over the surface of the armor.
‘It’s imbued with «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» a weight-reduction spell.’
Weight-reduction magic, plus cold and heat resistance, projectile-defense magic, and even anti-magic coating to deflect enemy spells.
He’d engraved every combat-useful spell he could think of.
But that would make it a mana-guzzling monster in the most literal sense.
With a puzzled expression, I asked,
“What about the power source? If the output surpasses that of an autonomous golem, it’ll be hard to handle with the cores currently in use.”
“Oh, that was easy enough. If the output is lacking, you just use more cores, right? I inserted cores into each joint to raise the output. Hahaha!”
'…He really threw money at it.'
Autonomous golem cores were items that cost at least tens of billions each.
“I’ve also completed the delicate mana-calibration work for each core in every part, so it can carry out even the most precise tasks without any trouble. At the same time, it can destroy enemies in a single blow with output twice that of an autonomous golem. Running precision control and overload operations simultaneously is incredibly difficult, but for a genius like me, it’s only natural…”
Meyer kept enthusiastically explaining, but I let his words go in one ear and out the other while I stared at the armor in front of me.
This piece was undoubtedly an excellent combat weapon.
Handled well, it could probably secure a place within the top 10 of the Competition Battle rankings.
However—
'It really isn’t my opponent.'
As I examined the armor, my confidence in winning only solidified further.
***
The next morning.
Ring ring-.
The alarm rang through the lab.
I hit the timer to shut it off, then looked into the cauldron at the blue liquid boiling inside.
It was the potion base in which the combined ingredients had been boiled at a constant temperature for 48 hours until their components completely dissolved.
At a single dose per use, this much volume should allow me to make at least fifty potions.
Scoop-.
‘The viscosity is good too.’
I ladled up a portion of the bluish base to check its viscosity.
The color and thickness were exactly as written in the book.
I had not only measured everything precisely and followed the order and timing of each addition, but also perfectly adjusted the ambient temperature, humidity, and mana concentration. With that much effort, a perfect result like this was only natural.
Once I finished producing the base, I laid out the various experimental tools I’d procured from the underworld.
The most important among them was the distillation column for fractional distillation.
It was the apparatus used to separate out different components distilled from the base, based on their differing relative volatilities.
Each component extracted through distillation would then be further processed and used in making various potions.
I had no idea why I had to go through such a complicated process, but for now, I’d just do as the book told me.
“Hoo.”
Letting out a breath and steadying my mind, I began full-scale [Alchemy].