Chapter 157

Chapter 157

It's club time after all the morning classes and Julie came to the front door of the club, not the usual window.

"Hey, junior, the clubs supervisor wants to see you?"

"Looks like things went better than I thought."

Julie leaned back on the couch in my office, as if she was used to it by now.

"Oh, and congratulations."

"Yes?"

I look puzzled at her sudden congratulations, and she slides a briefcase from her arms onto the table.

"What's this?"

"Your club upgrade certificate. You're a silver club now."

She says with a giggle.

I open the envelope and check the contents to see that there is indeed a piece of paper and a certificate stating that we have been promoted to a Silver Club.

"......You guys are quick, I thought it would take a little longer."

Considering the twisted nature of the student council president, I was expecting to be rejected once or twice, but it seemed like it was easier than I thought.

Then Julie looked at me in disbelief.

"Junior, are you referring to the people you've brought into the academy recently?"

"Ah."

She was referring to the time when Kwak Chun-sik and Sword Saint had a falling out?

The latter went on to become an instructor at the academy, and even Han Yeo-eun came recently, right?

Surely, a club that was favored by such personalities couldn't be openly ignored.

"It's a good thing.........I was going to go straight to the elders if I still got rejected."

"What? You really have the audacity to talk about......snitching."

"That's because you don't do anything to be snitched on."

So why not just play fair?

"But......Anyway, I got my point across, and now we're back on topic. Tell the clubs supervisor to meet me at the cafe in a few minutes."

"What cafe are you talking about?"

"Are there any other cafes at the Academy besides this new one?"

"Oh."

Business must be really good.

* * *

The cafe was packed with students, even though it was the middle of an afternoon class.

Apparently, they came out during breaks or gathered for club activities.

Suddenly, I realized that something was different from yesterday.

No, wait. Hadn't the hamsters gotten a little bigger?

"Latte."

"Yes, sir, huh, Master?"

Latte, who was about to take my order, looked at me in surprise, as if she was completely acclimatized to the cafe.

"Latte, the hamsters seem to have gotten a little bigger, have you changed anything?"

No, they're not just a little bigger, they're several times bigger, and the hamsters are carrying the tray with their groggy bodies.

At this, Latte chuckled softly, as if it were no big deal.

"Well, we're getting a lot of people, so the hamsters can't carry as much at once, so I've hired some guinea pigs."

"......guinea pigs?"

Upon closer inspection, I could see that the hamsters were moving around the cafe, cleaning up.

"Well, they're definitely doing a good job, and they seem to be a little faster."

"Aren't they?"

I was glad I'd given Latte the discretion to run the business.

Hopefully, she'll come up with some good ideas to make the cafe more prosperous.

"By the way, what are you doing here at this hour? I've written down everything I think is important."

"No, no, not that. I was supposed to meet someone here. I'm just stopping by."

"Oh, is that so? I thought you were here to make sure I was doing a good job, hahahaha."

Latte smiles and scratches her head in amusement.

I wonder who I am in her head but I decided not to say anything.

Hmm. She certainly has reason to be scared.

"Have fun, then."

"Yes! Thank you!"

Leaving her behind, I headed upstairs to the second floor, where there were tons of people sitting and looking at the guinea pigs like they were cute.

And then that corner.

"There he is."

There was the person I was looking for.

A hamster was posing on a table and a woman eagerly was capturing it on her phone.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting so long."

She tucks her phone into her pocket, startled by the sound of my voice.

"You're here earlier than I thought."

She picks up her coffee cup and clears her throat as if nothing has happened.

"I told you I wanted to see you."

I say, taking a seat, and she looks at me sharply.

"I wish you'd tell me the reason."

The look on her face was not a good one, perhaps because I had just kicked out an auditor from the student council.

"If it's bullshit, I won't listen."

Her hand trembles as she grips her phone.

......Surely, she's not mad at me for interrupting her hamster video?

Still, I decided to cut to the chase.

"First of all, I'm glad you seem to like the cafe, and it makes me happy that so many people like it."

"......What does that mean?"

She gives me a puzzled look.

"Didn't you know? This café it's mine."

"What?"

She's surprised, as if she's never heard of it before.

"Didn't you hear anything else?"

"All I heard was that the Hanwol Group got the rights to the business......So you're part of the Hanwol Group."

She nods, as if it finally makes sense, and then looks at the hamster that's now perched on my shoulder.

"Your business items are groundbreaking, creating a café that doesn't exist in the Academy, and using rodents as labor to staff your Awakeners. I've heard rumors of similar things overseas, but I've never seen anything like this......so I'm quite surprised."

Overseas they were definitely using cats, right?

Cats aren't very good listeners, but I thought I'd heard somewhere that people were talking about it.

"So, why did you ask to see me?"

As she said that, she spooned a piece of cake on the table.

She must have liked the flavor somewhat, because she had already eaten most of what was supposed to be a very large piece of cake.

"I've been thinking about my next business venture, and I think I'll need your input and agreement."

"......Next business?"

"Ah. The cake you're eating, do you like it?"

She tilts her head at my sudden question, looks at the cake again, and then opens her mouth.

"Uh, yes, it's a good cake. The texture of the sponge is great, the basic ingredients are good, and the flavor itself is excellent. You could probably sell it commercially and still be successful."

"That cake was made by the pastry chef club."

"...... Huh? This?"

But it doesn't end there.

"The coffee you're drinking is also made from beans roasted by the barista club."

The beans themselves were picked and selected by me, but the end result was roasted through them.

"That means that the vast majority of the food you're selling down here was purchased wholesale through the clubs, not off the shelf, do you know what that means?"

"Well, it means that your business can coexist with the clubs at the academy, that's obvious."

"Kind of, but......no. What's really important is that the products made by the clubs are marketable."

The quality of the products and food produced by the academy's clubs is exceptional.

The Seoul Hero Academy has gathered some of the best students in the country.

It's clear that the basic idea of the academy is to train future warriors for combat.

However, that's not all it is.

There are those who give up because they get tired of fighting, and there are those whose talents or inclinations are not in combat but in crafting.

Above all, the society of the Awakened does not run on fighters alone.

They need a robust set of providers to sustain them. Like the plants and herbivores that support the bottom of the ecological pyramid.

But what about the current state of the academy?

"As you know, the current structure of the academy absolutely favors the combat clubs. They can fight, hunt, and even get outside commissions, while the production clubs can only participate in festivals and school events."

That's why the weaker clubs don't survive for long.

The recipe development club, which is recognized for creating amazing recipes, is an outlier.

They get funding from the academy, but it's literally the bare minimum to stay afloat.

To grow, you need to invest money, and to do that, you need to produce new results.

And those new results, in turn, require money.

It's a vicious cycle.

That's why many clubs become expendable.

Like the board game club that went into debt, since it's really just a hobby.

"That's why I'm going to use the business license I got from the academy to sell their products. I'm going to be a distributor of sorts."

I declared confidently, dropping the envelope of papers I'd been holding in my arms in front of her.

"This is the business plan I put together."

It was pretty straightforward.

Buying products from production clubs, selling them to the outside world, and returning the proceeds to the club.

After reading it, she let out a sigh.

"You think we don't know how to do this? We tried it last year, and the result was──."

"──It would have been a disaster."

"And you're going to do it knowing that?"

She was right, last year's student council had tried the same thing and the result was a complete and utter failure but the reason was simple.

"Failure to secure distribution and lack of promotion. It's not surprising since all they had to say in the first place was 'Seoul Hero Academy Production,' and isn't that the biggest reason for failure?"

The damn student council took a filthy lot of fees.

"We had to lower the retail price to make it accessible, and we cut our losses and cut our fees as much as we could, but what more were we supposed to do?"

"No. Not that much."

This is one of the downsides of the Academy's student council.

Their thinking is too rigid.

"I would have used a gentrification strategy. If it's too expensive for the market, they won't buy it. That's been around for a long time. People don't want cheap and nice, they want something special, something that not everyone can have."

On the so-called gentrification strategy.

"I'm going to sell the Academy's stuff out there very 'expensive,' and I'm going to capitalize on the illusion that the world has of the Academy, and."

──I have the power to distribute it and embellish it thoroughly.

She swallows hard at my words.

"Now, all you have to do is tell me that you reviewed and executed it, and......congratulations. This will be your accomplishment."

I said, slowly beginning to build up my voice.

[Talent:[Orator] is triggered]

"If this plan succeeds, the weaker clubs will have a chance to get out of the red, the accounting department will be spared a headache, and posterity will call it the first and best era in the Academy's history! How about it, I can make it a win-win for everyone."

I can see her eyes glaze over and tremble wildly.

Her reputation, her track record, her future, these are important things she can't give up.

But that's not all.

She probably understands perfectly what I'm saying.

Before she was a student council member, she was a member of a club that fell apart under the weight of money.

That's why I sought out the clubs supervisor.

"Please use your good judgment."

With those last words, I bowed my head and stood up.

She was still looking at the business plan with wobbly pupils.

She's probably thinking to herself right now. If only we had talked about this then.

If only, if only, if only.......

As I turned away, I heard her small voice behind me.

"If......goes according to plan. I'll give it a positive review."

"Yes. Please."

I was serious about this plan, too.

If it went through, it could really help a lot of people.

And──

──the clubs will start to rely on me, not the student council.