Chapter 377: Evelyn’s Choice [II / Bonus - ]

Chapter 377: Evelyn’s Choice [II / Bonus Chapter]

His older sister, Evelyn, had shouldered every single expense since they were orphaned.

She was a Lord who spent weeks at a time in the hellish combat sectors of the Sovereign Realm, risking her life to haul back ancient artifacts and rare monster cores all the while battling other Lords.

He never had to work a job.

He never had to haggle for second-hand textbooks. He had the freedom to sit in clean, air-conditioned lecture halls and pursue his academic ambitions without a care in the world.

Elmi reached for a tray of unrefined silver ingots, ready to demonstrate the imbuement sequence.

"Now, observe the calibration sequence on the primary—"

BZZZZ-CLICK!

A grating burst of static violently tore through the high-end speakers mounted around the perimeter of the ceiling.

Professor Elmi frowned with his cybernetic hand halting in mid-air. The entire lecture hall fell dead silent as the PA system hummed to life.

"Attention, Lecture Hall B-4," a crisp emotionless female voice echoed over the intercom, carrying the authority of the administrative high council. "Will student Matthew Davis please report to the Chancellor’s Office immediately. Repeat: Matthew Davis, report to Chancellor Timothy’s executive suite on the top floor of the Central Administration Tower immediately."

BZZZZ-CHUNK!

The speaker cut off.

Fifty pairs of eyes instantly snapped in Matt’s direction as whispers erupted across the tiered rows like a swarm of angry hornets.

Being summoned over the general intercom was rare... being summoned directly to the Chancellor’s private office was practically unheard of, usually reserved for severe disciplinary tribunals or massive scholarship awards.

Matt blinked, his mind completely blanking out. He sat frozen in his seat with the blue light from the array flickering across his pale face.

’The Chancellor’s office?’ Matt thought with a cold bead of sweat suddenly forming at his hairline. ’What the hell did I do? I haven’t missed a single lecture. My laboratory safety record is pristine. Did one of my distillation reports flag an error? No, that wouldn’t go to the Chancellor...’

Professor Elmi let out an irritated sigh, adjusting his lab coat as he looked up into the third row.

"Well, Davis? You heard the directive. Don’t keep the administration waiting. Hurry up so you can return before we conclude the imbuement demonstration."

"Y-yes, Professor. Right away," Matt stammered.

He hurriedly packed his glass tablet and stylus into his sleek leather satchel, pushed himself up from his chair, and navigated the narrow stairs down to the exit under the intensely curious stares of his classmates.

Stepping out into the grand marble-paved corridors of the engineering wing, Matt adjusted his glasses with a trembling finger.

"Haah..."

His boots clicked rapidly against the polished floors as he made his way toward the sky-bridge connecting the academic facilities to the monolithic Central Administration Tower.

The tower was a towering spire of obsidian and reflective mirrored glass, radiating the immense wealth of an institution backed by the planetary elite.

High-speed mana-lifts carried him silently to the eighty-fifth floor.

When the lift doors chimed open, the bustling noise of the campus below was gone, replaced by the plush soundproofed serenity of the executive suite.

Thick velvet carpets swallowed his footsteps as he approached a set of towering double doors forged from lacquered dark oak and trimmed with solid gold filigree.

Behind a curved glass desk sat the Chancellor’s executive secretary, an immaculate woman in a tailored charcoal suit.

"Matthew Davis," Matt said, his voice cracking slightly before he cleared his throat. "I was called up from Lecture Hall B-4."

The secretary glanced up from her holographic interface with her expression completely neutral.

"Chancellor Timothy is expecting you... You may enter."

She tapped a hidden rune beneath her desk. With a soft hiss, the heavy oak doors unlocked and swung silently inward.

"Thank you," Matt murmured, swallowing the heavy lump in his throat as he stepped through the threshold.

The secretary stood up, followed him inside just long enough to close the heavy doors firmly behind him, and stepped back out, sealing the young man inside the massive private office.

The room was vast and imposing.

Floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows offered a dizzying view of the sprawling Valoria City skyline, where high-speed mag-trains wove between gleaming skyscrapers.

Sitting behind a massive, semi-circular desk carved from a single slab of petrified Ironwood was Chancellor Timothy.

The man was an intimidating figure... completely bald, with a broad thick-set frame that spoke of decades spent in military service before transitioning to academia.

Two deep scars cut diagonally across his weathered left cheek, ending just above a graying neatly trimmed goatee.

He was reviewing a series of floating red holographic ledgers and his dark eyes narrow and severe.

Seeing Matt enter, Timothy slowly dismissed the floating interfaces with a casual flick of his thick fingers.

He gestured toward a plush leather-bound armchair positioned directly opposite the massive desk.

"Sit, Davis," Timothy commanded.

Matt didn’t dare hesitate.

He moved quickly, perching himself nervously on the edge of the leather chair with his satchel clutched tightly against his knees.

"Chancellor Timothy, sir," Matt began, his voice laced with anxious deference. "Did something happen with my practical submissions? If there was an issue with my laboratory safety clearance or my research metrics, I can immediately—"

"This is not an academic inquiry, Davis," Timothy interrupted smoothly, leaning back in his heavy chair and interlacing his thick scarred fingers over his chest.

The older man fell completely silent for several agonizing seconds with his piercing gaze studying the young student with an unreadable detachment.

The silence in the vaulted office was suffocating, broken only by the distant sound of the city outside.

"Tell me," Timothy finally broke the silence, his tone entirely flat. "Have you spoken with your primary guarantor recently?"

Matt blinked with his brow furrowing in confusion.

"My... my primary guarantor? You mean my sister, Evelyn? No, sir. Not since yesterday afternoon. She was deployed in the Sovereign Realm for the past week, and we had a brief... disagreement when she returned. Why? Is she alright?"

"Lord Evelyn Davis is in perfect physical health as far as the Institute is concerned," Timothy stated calmly. He reached forward, tapping a node on his desk.

A glowing red parchment materialized between them, displaying the official digital seal of the Imperial Bursar’s Office.

"However," Timothy continued, his eyes locking onto Matt’s widening gaze, "less than a few minutes ago, Lord Davis officially invoked the Institute’s Guarantor Withdrawal Clause... She has forcefully reclaimed every single payment credited to your matriculation account."

The words hung in the air like a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure.

Matt stared at the red document.

His brain refused to parse the meaning of the words.

"I... I’m sorry, sir? What do you mean, reclaimed? She paid for my entire five-year program during my freshman orientation and the entire balance was locked into the trust fund."

"The trust fund was established under standard Lord Association sponsorship protocols," Timothy explained with a sigh. "Which explicitly grants the funding Lord total authority to liquidate and withdraw unspent capital via the semester refund policy at any point prior to the final academic audit of each cycle."

Timothy tapped the holographic ledger, causing the lines of financial data to scroll downward.

"She has completely cleared out your tuition trust for the remaining three years. Furthermore, while she left the maintenance fee for the current semester untouched... meaning you will not be physically escorted off the campus premises today... she specifically and deliberately executed a total clawback of your End-of-Year Practical Examination Fund."

Matt’s mouth parted in absolute horror.

"The... the examination fund?"

"Correct," Timothy said, his face entirely devoid of pity. "Which means that if you wish to sit for your practical imbuement assessments next month, you will be required to settle that balance out of your personal accounts. Otherwise, you will receive an automatic zero, your matriculation will be terminated, and your academic profile will be blacklisted across all premier manufacturing guilds."

Matt felt the blood instantly drain from his face.

The room seemed to tilt sideways as a high-pitched ringing buzzing violently inside his ears.

Evelyn... had taken the money back?

All of it?

Why? Because of what had happened in Shogitown yesterday?!

His thoughts spiraled backward in a frantic defensive panic.

He had just been trying to enjoy a normal day! He had finally secured a date with his beautiful girlfriend from his department... a girl whose family held influence in the inner districts.

And right in the middle of their date, Evelyn had showed up like an overbearing embarrassing phantom, watching him from across the street in her mask like a pathetic stalker!

He had been furious.

What else was he supposed to say?! She was suffocating! She was constantly hovering over him, treating him like a fragile child who needed to be shielded from the world!

Was she really this petty? Was she really going to throw away his entire future, destroy his scientific career, and drag him into the dirt just because he wanted some basic boundaries?!

"H-How..." Matt’s voice hitched with a violent stutter seizing his throat as his knuckles turned white against his satchel. "How much... is the practical examination fee, sir?"

Chancellor Timothy cleared his throat, leaning forward and resting his forearms against the petrified wood.

"The Assessment requires specialized Tier 2 raw mythril, high power mana crystals, and dedicated safety oversight from certified Guild Masters. The mandatory testing fee is exactly three million Spirit Credits."

"Three... three million?!" Matt gasped, his eyes bulging behind his glasses.

Three million Spirit Credits was a staggering fortune.

That was the price of a luxury hover-car or a high-end apartment in the lower sectors.

He frantically ran the mental calculations of his personal banking app. Over the past few years, he had saved bits and pieces of his generous monthly allowances, hoarding roughly three point two million in his private account.

If he emptied his entire life savings... every single credit he had to his name... he could barely scrape together enough to pay for the exams.

He would be left completely broke, without a single credit to buy food, passes, or coffee.

"And..." Matt choked with a cold terrifying dread gripping his chest as he looked at the older man. "What about... what about the upcoming semester, Chancellor? In the spring?"

Timothy’s expression hardened slightly, his scarred cheek twitching with a bit of sympathy.

"The Valoria Imperial Institute is a cream-of-the-crop elite institution, Davis. We maintain a flawless one-hundred percent post-graduation corporate employment rate because our tuition filters out those who cannot secure financial backing... The standard tuition for your third-year curriculum is exactly twenty-five million Spirit Credits. Due on the first of February."

Twenty-five million?

The number hit Matt with the physical force of a sledgehammer.

The plush office seemed to violently cave in around him with the walls pressing against his ribs until he couldn’t breathe.

Twenty-five million credits wasn’t an academic fee... it was an insurmountable mountain!

An unawakened commoner working a standard nine-to-five corporate shift in the Lower Ward earned barely forty thousand credits a year.

Even if he worked until he was ninety years old, he would never see twenty-five million credits in his entire life.

Without Evelyn’s Sovereign Realm expeditions... without her... he was nothing. He was just another broke useless peasant destined to sweep factory floors and assemble mundane scrap for forty credits an hour.

Chancellor Timothy watched the young man’s complete psychological collapse with a cold piercing gaze.

The scarred veteran let out a soft, dismissive breath, shaking his bald head.

"I do not know what transpired between you and your sister, Davis," Timothy said as he offered a rare piece of blunt advice. "And frankly, the administration does not care about domestic disputes but you would do well to remember that in this world, an unawakened commoner’s only true asset is the patron willing to invest in them. Whatever offense you caused Lord Evelyn... I strongly suggest you rectify it immediately. In fact, you may use my executive console to call he—"

Matt didn’t wait for the Chancellor to finish his sentence.

The terror, the shame, and the frantic, boiling anger inside him completely overrode his academic decorum.

He violently shoved himself out of the leather chair, nearly knocking his satchel to the floor.

"Excuse me, sir," Matt spat out in a ragged breath.