I thought it wouldn't hurt to play a joke on Allyssa who was so strung up about something only 1% of the whole population was worrying about, but it seemed that saying that I had a couple thousand credits on my ID didn't match Cass' reaction.
But yeah, since Ron conveniently flicked my ID back to me, all izz well and I still had the means to have the upper hand in this conversation if I so desired to.
Though Allyssa didn't want to be kept in the dark.
"Y-You two are hiding something! Tell me! How much—"
I cut her off as I chuckled, "Who fucking cares? I still haven't—"
"I do! It's really important to me! I'll—"
"Hah! You went from refusing any help to downright demanding it as if I owe you, huh?"
"That's—" Allyssa stopped herself momentarily before taking a deep breath, "I... I apologize... It's just that this matter is that important to me and knowing that I'll be able to catch a little break for once got the better of my emotions..."
Kaley remarked after a short bit, "You're horribly self-aware, you know that?"
Allyssa was startled by that statement, "Ah— I-I guess so... It's that bad, huh?"
"Not exactly. There are good and bad points being that way though it mostly aligns itself with the good points. Tell me, why do you want to be a department head so bad, you're willing to put yourself under this much stress to yourself and— yeah, let's just talk about yourself first. Why do you wanna do it?"
"U-U-Umm... This question is, u-umm..."
Kaley looked at Allyssa solemnly, "I'm sorry but you have to be able to answer a question like this if you wanna impress and most importantly, convince, your colleagues at your next quarterly meeting. We're basically nobodies in front of you so that much should be nothing, right? I'm not trying to be mean, I just—"
"I-I... First, all of you are trying to help me so you're not nobodies but my benefactors... A-And if we're talking about the reason why I wanted to do this... It's... It's umm... It's to save this school from crumbling by itself because everyone's pretending that there's nothing wrong and continuing as is even though what's happening right now is just the beginning of the end times."
"Pretending? What do you mean?"
"I mean... It's a show of strength to continue as is... continuing classes, the worships, etc. but that doesn't mean we ignore everything that's happening outside.
But yeah, Allyssa was definitely dead set on her decision to stay and fight it out to the bitter end, and what better way to support my friend and milk this place for whatever it was worth was to give her something that could make waves and somehow disrupt the flow of things or even break the place's economy which was also completely useless anywhere else.
To be completely honest, the credit stored on my ID was just a bonus aside from discovering that all my friends who were here were still alive and we'll see what she could do with that after we're gone.
I eventually let out a short exhale as I stood up and looked at Allyssa who looked like she had more weight on her shoulders, "Look, we'll do it this way: I promise you that we'll just go shopping for a bit and whatever's left in this ID will be yours but do know that my offer for you and Ron still stands until we get back.
We don't have a prestigious university like this in our control but my people will be more accepting of you and we most definitely need someone of your level if we were to keep everyone well-educated for, you know, if we're talking about university standards because back home, our teachings are more of the practical side than the philosophical or even the theological side."
"You mean—"
"Sure, we trickle a bit here and there but the overall structure is not present. In this place, you're gonna struggle hard—harder than everyone else to be noticed by the head of the dragon while in my place... You could well possibly be the head of a Koi—wait, no, that's too bad a comparison... How about we use dragons in the Western setting?"
"..."
"Yep! Let's do that. This place is like an ancient dragon and you're at the very end of it, not even sure if it's going to budge but in my place, it'll be like in between an actual fully fledged dragon and a wyvern and you could be the one leading the pack to full evolution. I know I'm mixing up lore and fantasy mechanics and shit but you do get where I'm getting at, right?"
Allyssa let out a dry chuckle, "Unfortunately, yes..."
"Good enough! So yeah, before we leave, I'll transfer what's left of the twenty-thousand—"
Andy straight up lost his mind, "WHAT?! TWENTY— YOU SAID, TWENTY... AND THOUSAND?! TWENTY-THOUSAND?! BRO! CAN YOU GIVE A THOUSAND— NO, FIVE HUNDRED WILL BE REAL NICE AND I'LL MAKE SURE TO MAKE IT WORTH YOUR WHILE WHEN YOU TAKE ME IN!"
I replied with a straight face, "Oh? Really? Then you don't want one of our spare guns? Alright—"
Then Andy just straight-up fainted on the spot while foaming in the mouth and having a seizure or an epileptic episode before springing back to life in a few seconds like nothing happened.
It was a bizarre sight as any but looking back at Allyssa, she looked like the other option I gave her was another ton of worries to consider because it's as good an option as any and those two choices were life-altering.
Everyone who knew her knew that she'd commit to anything she set her sights on 100% but she was also a realist in the sense that she was able to step back and think about things more thoroughly and had the courage to stop completely or find other ways about the objectives she was working on.
But it's just that before we came in, she only had one path to take and it's life-or-death and now, her confidence and convictions were wavering and she was completely aware of that going on in real time.
'Now, what will you do?'