Hoshino and I were the first to arrive at the school.
As soon as we stepped into the clubroom, Hoshino yawned, sat down, and slumped over the desk to catch up on sleep.
"Sensei, this oji-san didn't sleep a wink last night. I gotta nap for a bit first. Just wake me up when everyone's here."
I gave a short reply of affirmation, then started working remotely through Schale's tablet.
Before long, the students of Abydos all began to trickle in. I put my work aside, Hoshino was woken up by Nonomi, and the meeting officially began.
Ayane, who served as treasurer, was the first to speak with determination. "Sensei, thank you once again for your help. Without you, we wouldn't even know what to do… Would you be willing to become the advisor for our club? This is what we all want!"
If this were an invitation from the student council of a large academy, I might hesitate. But Abydos, with only five students left and already one step away from closure, left no reason to refuse.
When they saw me readily accept, the girls all sighed in relief.
Except for one.
Serika bit her lip, frustration clear on her face. "The problems at our school are something we should handle ourselves, right? That's how it's always been. But now we're suddenly letting some adult we just met get involved…"
Nonomi tried to soothe her. "Serika-chan, Sensei already agreed to be our advisor. He's not an outsider anymore."
Shiroko nodded in agreement. "That's right. I think Sensei can be trusted."
"But still…"
Seeing Serika wasn't backing down, Hoshino spoke up. "Does it really matter? It's not like this is something we could keep hidden from Sensei anyway. Besides, Sensei is already part of the Foreclosure Task Force. He'll find out sooner or later."
Ayane added softly, "Serika, didn't we all agree yesterday? That as long as Sensei is willing to care about us, we'd tell him about the debt…"
Nonomi nodded repeatedly. "Exactly. Serika-chan, you agreed too."
"I… I just…"
Hoshino delivered the final push. "It's not like Sensei can magically fix everything for us. But right now, the only adult willing to listen to us is him.
"Brooding on your own won't solve anything or do you have some better idea?"
Overwhelmed, Serika dropped her gaze, her cat ears drooping weakly. She puffed up her cheeks in silent protest, offering no further objections.
I was a little taken aback myself.
I couldn't fully understand what they were talking about, but I could sense that besides the trouble with the delinquents, Abydos High was facing something far more serious.
Had I gotten myself tangled up in a real mess?
All because of Hanako, keeping me up in the middle of the night, sending her bad luck through the phone!
Still, things had come this far. I decided to hear them out first.
"Sorry, Sensei, you must be confused right now, huh? To put it simply, Abydos owes a bank some money… Of course, debt isn't unusual for schools. The problem is the amount…"
Hoshino gave a bitter smile. "It's about 900 million."
"…It's exactly 962.35 million," Ayane corrected. "This is an amount that Abydos… no, that our Foreclosure Task Force cannot possibly repay. If we can't pay it back, the bank will seize the school and begin the closure process."
Closure again. No wonder you'd have something in common with SRT Special Academy.
Ayane sighed. "The chance of repayment is practically zero… That's why most of the students left Abydos…"
Shiroko cut in quietly. "And now only we remain."
Ayane went on. "The school faces closure, the students leave one after another, the city falls into ruin. All of it because of this debt."
Nonomi added in a somber tone, "Even the companies that used to be here have moved away."
I asked them to explain why the debt was incurred.
And at this point, it finally matched the intel I had gathered.
"Several decades ago, a sandstorm swept across the desert on the outskirts of this district. Abydos was already prone to sandstorms, but that one was on a scale beyond imagination.
"The campus itself was buried under sand. And from that time on, the desert began to spread unnaturally. To fight this disaster, the school had no choice but to spend huge sums of money. But no bank was willing to lend to a small, remote school like ours.
"In the end, we had to turn to loan sharks.
"At first, we thought that with some money, we'd be able to fix everything. But every year since then, even bigger sandstorms have struck. All the school's efforts were wiped away, and the district's condition worsened beyond control.
"As a result, even now, more than half the city of Abydos remains buried in sand. And our debt only grew larger…
"Now, it's all we can do just to scrape together the interest payments every month. Ammunition and supplies are nearly gone. Serika is so sensitive about this because no one has ever cared about our situation before.
"Sensei, you're the first one willing to listen to us."
Serika muttered with a resigned pout, "Yeah, I'm just that sensitive, troublesome kind of girl."
Ayane panicked. "N-no, that's not what I meant at all…"
Hearing all this, my lingering questions were finally answered. No wonder this rundown place wasn't even on the digital maps.
At the same time, new thoughts were forming in my mind. But I decided to wait until the girls had finished before speaking.
"…Well, that's the whole boring story. Thanks to Sensei helping us deal with the Helmet Gang, we can finally focus on repaying the debt from now on."
Hoshino's smile carried a trace of bitterness. "Even if Sensei is our advisor now, don't worry about the debt. Just listening to us has already moved us a lot."
Shiroko nodded. "Mm, Sensei has already helped us so much. We couldn't trouble you any further."
At that moment, it struck me that this was the perfect chance to earn their trust.
The girls of Abydos' Foreclosure Task Force, while students at other academies enjoyed carefree school lives, were burdened with crushing debt, struggling desperately just to pay interest, all for the sake of protecting their school.
Did they really not want someone to help them escape this situation?
"I'll do everything I can to help. After all, I'm a member of the Foreclosure Task Force too."
At those words, the girls looked either astonished or moved.
And just as they were about to thank me...
I cut them off.
"But first, there's one question I need to ask."
Crossing my legs, I let my eyes sweep across the room, meeting each of their puzzled faces, and asked slowly,
"If you owe that much money, then…
"Shouldn't the ones who ought to be worried be the creditors?"