What a Sight
After that, we traded a few brief parting words and went our separate ways just like that. I'd called them all to the café to clear up a misunderstanding, but the moment the incident was resolved, there was nothing left to say between us. The next class looming right around the corner didn't help matters either.
Eva and Marin still had a gap before their scheduled lessons, but Chloe and I enjoyed no such luxury.
"Ugh, annoying, annoying, ANNOYING!"
Chloe vented complaint after complaint at my side. She made such a racket that the repeating syllables rang in my ear like tinnitus.
"Aaah, why on earth did I end up in the same class as this creature? Should I have borrowed the family's influence to have her thrown out of the Academy after all?"
"Like that'd fly. This is Dilmun, remember? At the edge of the world, on Principal Palad's turf, your daddy's pull is worth squat."
The two of us sat through class together after that, and it was only once the sun had sunk and evening had settled in that we finally left the Academy grounds.
Right now, the pair of us were walking home together. Her lodging and mine sat in the same residential complex, and since we'd be seeing plenty of each other from here on out, we figured we might as well stick together and get used to the arrangement.
"My father happens to be close with the Principal! He'd sooner listen to me than waste a thought on the likes of you!"
"Ah. Sure."
God, how childish. That coming out of a full-grown adult's mouth? If I were her, I'd have died of embarrassment, buried my head in the mattress, and never crawled back out from under the blankets.
"If my being stationed at the Academy bothers you so much, go whine to your father right this second. Even I'm curious how that would play out."
"Hmph, that's precisely my point. I would never do anything to put a stain on my father's honor."
Trivial chitchat. She vented, I volleyed back — that was the pattern. No matter where a topic started, it always ended up veering straight into trash-talk about me.
"So what is it you actually want from me?"
"I'm asking you to leave the Academy of your own accord. What's the point of having eyes if you can't read a room?"
"I'm not missing the hints — I'm ignoring them on purpose, you empty-headed bitch."
"What did you just say, you piece of trash?"
Look at this one, glaring daggers at me. Not that I had any intention of getting chummy with her, but judging by this display, even the goodwill we never had was packing its bags. She, for her part, made it abundantly clear she had zero desire to mix words with a man like me. Oil and water — I couldn't think of a better phrase to describe the two of us.
And yet both of us kept making the effort to talk, if only to grow accustomed to each other.
"Forget it. Why would I waste another word on you here?"
"Ditto. If we weren't both Academy students, I'd have floored you right here and now."
With that parting shot, Chloe brushed past me and was gone into the distance.
Her back receded without so much as a glance over her shoulder. Only after she had vanished completely from my field of vision did I finally let out a sigh.
"Keeping that woman happy is a fucking grind."
"I was simply returning fire against her endless tantrums. What, you don't know what happens when I actually get serious?"
"Ha. Fine, then. I'll explain, so listen up. This one time, back in elementary school—"
"Tsk. How heartless."
If the person on the receiving end objected that vehemently, better not to bring it up at all. A one-man show was no fun anyway.
"If it hadn't, do you really think I'd be forcing myself to talk to that girl?"
I fished my phone out of my pocket and tapped the app sitting on my home screen.
Looks like a cozy atmosphere in here.
Watching the chat window scroll by at a lively pace, I felt a quiet satisfaction. Lime — the most heavily used messenger app in this world. I'd finished registering my account at the café, swapped contact info with the girls, and opened a group chat. And this was the result: I could now exchange messages with the novel's heroines in real time.
I immediately punched the keys and sent a message of my own.
Chloe, as ever, was picking a fight with me. Eva, who communicated through text rather than face to face, didn't stumble over a single syllable. And Marin, true to form, was keeping her messages clipped and short.
"Smoothly? No — they went too smoothly. That's the problem."
Long story short: after much deliberation at the café, we had decided to form a party. When I'd first brought it up, I'd expected Chloe to oppose it tooth and nail — but to my surprise, she showed active enthusiasm for letting me in.
"You people would do nothing but get in our party's way."
That was what Chloe had murmured when the other girls tried to squeeze into our remaining spots. Reading the web novel, I'd assumed she said it to keep potential rivals at bay — turns out she'd genuinely rejected them for falling short of her standards.
"And with that, the heroines' party is officially formed."
"This lineup feels almost too good to be allowed."
In game terms, it was broken balance. Eva and Chloe alone had carried Part 1 with barely a whiff of danger, endgame excluded. And now Marin — the powerhouse of Part 3 — and I, a mid-boss, were joining the roster? This was shaping up to be a total rout in our favor.
"Tell me about it. I figured Chloe would be the hardest hurdle, but we cleared her without a scratch."
True, I'd only gotten in on the condition that she kept the party-leader privileges — but I'd never wanted that seat anyway, so I handed it over gladly. My goal was to pry Chloe away from Eva, nothing more.
Things had gone beyond smooth and into boring territory. It felt as though the whole world had become my blind, rabid fanboy.
"Fair enough. Better to stay sharp, just like you say."
Take the Hojil that had appeared right in front of Marin — the Academy had allowed a monster incursion. A development utterly different from the original, twisted clean off its rails. Guardian though it was called, it had at best been a small-dungeon monster, so we'd dispatched it easily enough. But if the ruler of a large dungeon, or any of its brood, ever forced its way inside, the result would be pandemonium. Maybe I ought to take out a little insurance against the worst case, just in case?
"Welp, there goes any hope of going home tonight."
"Exactly what it sounds like. It means I won't have time to rest at home."
My house stood right in front of me, and I deliberately walked straight past it.
"Tonight, we're bedding down in the cave on the eastern shore."
Understanding what I meant, she sent back a message laced with a spoonful of emotion.
"Hearing that somehow wounds me, you brat. Am I really that untrustworthy?"
"Well, now I have a fair idea what you think of me."
To call a man like me unreliable. She really had no eye for people.
Anyway — tonight was special training. Special training.
With the heavy tread of a worn-out office worker — and, at the same time, the purposeful stride of a man shouldering his duty — I set off.
January 9th
A week had passed since we shook hands on the party at the café. To condense everything that had happened in the meantime: days so peaceful that the seasoning called special was never added even once.
Attend class, come home, enjoy some downtime, then drift into sleep staring at my phone — the same routine on endless loop. Aside from the daily squabbling with Chloe, it was a passable life.
Every now and then, regret would creep in — maybe I should have chosen the Magic Division's Class E, where Eva was — but this was the road I'd picked. I had to see it through to the end.
Besides, now that I had a party as my official pretext, trailing around at her heels like a duckling was perfectly legal. Whenever Eva tried to slip off with her, I'd pipe up with "Hey, I'm coming too!" and labor tirelessly to gum up their sticky-sweet bond.
My mission was to drive the two of them as far apart as possible, and I'd been working hard at it — but today, just for today, I decided to shelve that duty for a while.
"Everyone's here, right?"
"Y-yeah!"
"Arrived."
"All set."
Chloe, our newly minted party leader, ran a headcount one more time despite the fact that she was looking straight at all of us already gathered. A procedure that was apparently essential.
"Good, all confirmed. The only thing left is entering the dungeon."
"The… the-the-the-the dungeon!"
"Dungeon."
"Mm. Dungeon."
"W-we'll be okay… right? Right? Like, nobody's going to attack us or anything…?"
"Monsters live there, so yes, we'll get attacked."
"Eeek!"
Eva, fresh to the whole heart-pounding dungeon experience, trembled like an aspen, visibly wound up with nerves. Through any ordinary person's eyes, there was something insane about voluntarily setting foot in a place like this. All around us, students who'd formed their own parties just like ours flitted about in high spirits, for all the world as if they were off on a picnic — from where she stood, she probably doubted these could really be her fellow dungeon divers. Everyone else had known what they were signing up for from day one; Eva had been hauled here against her will by her mother. It wasn't as if I couldn't understand how she felt.
"It's okay, Eva. Where we're going is nothing more than a corner of dungeon with the environment custom-built by the Academy. It's practical training, plain and simple."
"R-really?"
"So rein in that worry. Abso-lute-ly nothing is going to go wrong."
"I'm pretty sure we're fucked."
That little shit Chloe, sitting there planting death flags. Lines that never existed in the original made it all the more chilling. That long, drawn-out emphasis was dragging my suspicion right up to the border of certainty. Maybe this wasn't supposed to go off without a hitch after all?
"And if anything unexpected does happen, the instructors will be right there with us. There's absolutely nothing to worry about."
Custom-built by the Academy or not, the fact remained that monsters lived there — dangerous was dangerous either way. The original novel did mention that instructors accompanied students on their dives, granted.
"So here's where everyone was."
"Instructor Yupi!"
She's here.
The familiar voice drifting over from behind us turned my head on pure reflex. With us about to enter the dungeon together, I was all set to greet her warmly—
"Instructor… Yupi?"
Her outfit had changed drastically since the last time I'd seen her. Same leotard, same bikini armor — the curse kept her from ever taking them off, so I'd grudgingly made my peace with that much.
But what in the world was that?
The problem was what she'd attached to her clothes. She'd arrived festooned head to toe in feather ornaments that belonged at a Brazilian samba carnival, and the ensemble went straight past absurd into grotesque. I found myself at a complete loss for words.
Want to know what was even more ridiculous than that?
"Student Solis!"
She hollered my name at the top of her lungs. Bright and bouncy, like she was begging me to look at her.
Wink!
"..."
Complete with a wink, fired off the instant our eyes met.
Seriously, why are you like this?!
I couldn't bring myself to face her, so I covered my face with my hand.