Choices (4)

“Why are you like this, Ares? Answer quickly. First period is starting, you brat.”

“……”

When I stayed silent, the teacher pressed me again. The rest of the class simply stared at me without a single question.

‘Jumping off the rooftop… and holding hands with a girl during class…’

The options were absurd. The balance was completely broken. I might have considered the rooftop jump if they had thrown in a few million Cocoon as a reward, but there was nothing like that this time.

‘The hallway sprint actually paid out.’

One million Cocoon deposited under a false name. That confirmed one thing—if I picked a choice in this ghost story, it would definitely come true.

“…Teacher.”

“Oh, good. What are you picking?”

“May I ask one question first?”

“Hm?”

While I was thinking, I asked something important.

“……What happens if I don’t pick either?”

“Then I’ll pick for you. Maybe flip a coin.”

“……”

Apparently, refusing to choose wasn’t an option. I had to pick one, and whatever I picked, I had to actually do.

At first glance it looked like a vicious ghost story that would screw you over with high probability, but the choices were way too lopsided.

‘No matter how I look at it, this feels like a trap…’

I couldn’t help being suspicious. Still—

“……I’ll go with holding hands with a girl during class.”

“Oh, is that so? Everyone, give him a round of applause!”

““Waaah!””

Clap clap clap clap clap!

If I had to choose, I had to pick the safer one. ‘I can’t use the puppet doll right now… If I force myself to jump off the rooftop, that’s a dead end.’

It was suspicious, but no matter how I thought about it, simply holding hands with a girl during class didn’t seem like it would cause any real problems. Maybe there was just an easy escape route in this ghost story after all? Or was the difficulty lower than expected?

Following the hikikomori’s words, maybe if I kept picking these easy choices and cleared a certain number of missions, the ghost story would resolve itself.

“Alright, everyone. Pay attention in first period and study hard for the exams. That’s all.”

“Rock paper scissors!”

“Scissors!”

“Rock paper scissors!”

“Scissors!”

“Scissors!”

“Scissors!”

“Yes! Victory scissors!”

“Aah…!”

Lana raised her scissors with a bright smile. She turned it into a peace sign and grinned at me playfully. The look on her face said, “See? I did it.”

“Uuu…”

Ellie, on the other hand, stared gloomily at her open palm. She glanced at me with a disappointed expression.

The girl who would hold my hand during class had been decided—Lana.

Scrape.

Thud.

After winning the game, Lana swapped seats with the student next to me and pulled her desk over.

“Take good care of me for the next hour, Ares.”

“Mmm…”

I could feel Ellie’s prickly gaze from behind. From the side, Lana looked at me with a teasing, seductive smile.

After that, I held hands with Lana and class began.

“Ares, is it uncomfortable writing like this?”

“It’s… manageable.”

“But your left hand must be inconvenient, right?”

“…You just want me to say it’s uncomfortable, don’t you?”

While we were in class, Lana spoke in a voice too quiet for anyone else to hear. Then she suddenly leaned in close and placed her pen on my notebook.

“I’ll write for you.”

“What…? No, you don’t have to—”

“Why not? It’s inconvenient~. Look, your handwriting is a mess!”

“I don’t really care—”

“I’ll write it pretty. Watch carefully.”

For some reason Lana seemed excited. Still holding my hand, she started taking notes on the page with her right hand.

‘Mmm…’

It was obviously not a comfortable position. She was pressed right up against me, stretching her right arm out to write. But…

Squish.

Thanks to that, a lot of things were touching…

‘O-oh…’

The soft sensation of Lana’s hand against my right hand. The warm, soft skin of her shoulder and arm. The pleasant scent, and the way she smiled at me after finishing the notes, as if asking for praise.

‘This ghost story… maybe it’s not such a bad one after all?’

Yeah. Maybe the rooftop jump was just there to maintain the ghost story’s identity, and the real point was to encourage a heart-pounding school romance between a boy and a girl?

Holding hands with Lana during class made me think that.

“How is it? I did a good job, right?”

“Mmm… yeah. Pretty good…”

“It’s kind of gotten familiar now, so it doesn’t feel that inconvenient. …Maybe we should try holding hands during class like this sometimes? …Next time, secretly.”

“Uuu… that’s a bit much…”

“Why not~? You like it.”

I did like it. But you’re a supernatural being…

—Crack.

“……”

At that moment, I heard something break behind me with a chilling sound. It came from where Ellie was sitting.

I probably shouldn’t do this kind of thing twice.

After the sudden mission in the morning, no more choices appeared. According to Ellie, Noel only acted strangely about once a day. Of course, that was only at school—there was no telling what happened in the dormitory. Ghost stories didn’t exactly follow rules like “one choice per day.”

Still, since the choices weren’t flying at me constantly, I was able to spend the day relatively relaxed.

“Popopo, come here for a moment, little friend.”

“…Yes!”

After school, I went to see Teacher Rapori as planned.

“You want me to cast magic on two things today—the diary and the doll?”

“Yes, please.”

“Hmm…”

Sitting on Teacher Rapori’s lap, I took the diary and puppet doll out of my bag and placed them on the desk. She held me against her chest and gently stroked my hair while thinking.

“Popo, it should be fine.”

“Huh? What do you mean…?”

“Didn’t I tell you before? Casting magic twice in one day is dangerous.”

Huh? Had she said that? …Maybe she had. My memory was fuzzy.

“Is it difficult…?”

“I thought it might be, but two should be alright. It seems your abilities have grown, little friend.”

Pat pat.

Teacher Rapori stroked my head as if praising me. …Was I supposed to be happy about that?

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with the spirits and raising your affinity, haven’t you? Your body is more accustomed to mana than before, little friend.”

“Well… I guess I have been hanging around them a lot.”

They weren’t spirits, they were ghosts and ghost stories, but apparently they were similar enough.

‘Does going through ghost stories raise my magic stats?’

…Well, considering how many students died during magic training, it made sense that it was comparable to facing ghost stories.

Without realizing it, my abilities had leveled up after experiencing so many ghost stories and supernatural beings. At least it was a good thing.

“Then please do it!”

“Alright, let’s begin.”

Swish, swish.

Teacher Rapori stopped ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stroking my hair and began casting the spell using the Spirit of Strength.

Sssssss.

“Ugh, heh, uhehe.”

My head swayed back and forth. The back of my head felt squishy. It was an indescribable mix of pleasant and strange.

“Huu, ugh…”

“All done. Would you like to rest a bit before leaving?”

Swish.

After restoring the diary and doll, Teacher Rapori gently hugged me and asked if I wanted to rest. …I wanted to rest in her arms. But right now, checking the diary was more important.

I declined her offer and stood up from her lap.

“No, I’ll head out right away. Thank you for the magic, Teacher…!”

“…You can rest here sometimes. Come visit when you have time, little friend.”

“Yes! I’ll see you tomorrow, Teacher!”

“Popopo.”

With that, I left her room, waving goodbye to Teacher Rapori.

‘Now… the diary…’

I immediately opened the diary. Confirming whether I would survive the next six days was the top priority right now.

I turned to the very last page.

“Ha…?”

Six days from now. After reading what was written on the final page, my mind was flooded with questions.

…Why my arm? Me?

‘Does this even make sense…?’

No matter how I thought about it, cutting off my arm had to be because of one of the choices. Probably one of the options was to cut off my own arm. But that raised another question.

—Why did I cut off my arm?

There was only one possibility. I must have judged that the other choice was even more dangerous.

‘Don’t tell me the choices gradually get harder…?’

I immediately flipped to another page. Since tomorrow was the weekend, I checked Monday instead. I wanted to see what strange behavior I would exhibit on Monday.

“Ooh…”

Let’s keep this ghost story going until at least Monday. No, wait, that’s not the point.

‘Right now, what matters is figuring out when the ghost story starts getting serious…’

I calmed my excited heart and continued reading the diary. The result was…

‘Until right before cutting off my arm, I didn’t do anything particularly strange…’

The only day I picked a serious choice was Thursday, when I cut off my arm. Before that, the actions were weird but relatively simple to perform. After groping Ellie’s chest, the frequency seemed to increase, but the actions themselves weren’t much different from today’s hand-holding during class.

Wearing shoes backwards. Talking to myself. Playing rock-paper-scissors with a mirror.

“What the hell…?”

One thing was certain—the choices didn’t gradually become harder just because time passed. I had apparently kept choosing the easy options right up until I cut off my arm. Then on Thursday, for some reason, I ended up picking the hard choice. Almost as if I was deliberately avoiding the easy ones.