Group Composition

Two months had passed since the start of the semester. With exams right around the corner, not a single proper announcement had been made. The academy, once completely unfamiliar, had gradually transformed into a space I was reasonably comfortable with. Naturally, things I hadn't known before were starting to reveal themselves one by one.

When I say "things I hadn't known," I don't mean the bad kind. I mean the good kind. It's not like there weren't any bad points, but thinking about those just made me feel sorry for myself, so I tried not to dwell on them.

Anyway, there were a lot of things I hadn't known and couldn't have predicted. For example, academy students could ride taxis for free twice a day. We got priority access to events held in Puerto Rico. Showing a student ID when buying daily necessities often got us 1+1 deals. And if you played your cards right, the academy would even provide living expenses.

"Oh, it's a voucher for a British cuisine specialty restaurant."

Among them, the most impressive was the special privilege given to those who diligently completed requests. Honestly, I didn't feel like we'd been particularly diligent, yet all three of us who had been hanging out together received one.

"That's weird. How many requests did we complete in March?"

"Twenty-five in total."

"That's fewer than I expected. Why the hell did we get this?"

We had only done requests on weekends. On weekdays, we just enjoyed our daily lives, and even on weekends, we'd take several requests, knock them out quickly, and then enjoy ourselves again. So I hadn't expected to receive anything significant. In fact, I'd given up on it entirely.

After all, Palaestra Academy was where all the talented, flying-high prodigies gathered. Assuming there wouldn't be many people completing over twenty-five requests in a month was both arrogant and delusional.

"Maybe it's not based on quantity but on the quality of the requests or how we completed them?"

"Weren't most of the requests we took pretty easy?"

Things like clearing out a group of orcs in some corner of the Shareltea campus. Eliminating gates and monsters that had appeared underground. Helping with confidential academy retrieval operations. Rescuing students ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠who had gotten isolated while completing a faraway request. Or that time some idiot staff member brought a high-end graphics card to the Shareltea campus office, lost it during a terrorist attack, and we had to go around recovering it.

"W-was that how it was?"

"Honestly, compared to the academy's level, the requests were mostly pretty boring."

The reason it all felt so light was probably because we mainly operated in green and yellow zones. Compared to the lawless red and black zones, those areas were overwhelmingly safe.

"Um... I wouldn't know. Just wandering around the orange zones was hard enough for me..."

"Come on, Miss Shannon, you were flying around like it was nothing once you actually got into the orange zones."

A scene of mutual humility. But that didn't really resolve our questions.

While heading to the restaurant with our vouchers, I searched for information on this. If diligent people had posted about it on the community forums, we might be able to guess the conditions for receiving the reward.

I immediately turned my head to the side and saw Cheon Mari giggling while staring at her phone. It looked like she'd posted on the community in that short amount of time.

"Sigh."

Anyway, it seemed like the cutoff was around eighteen requests. It was a much lower number than I'd expected, which meant I'd completed far more requests than the average person. That was a pretty nice truth.

If I wanted to keep getting vouchers in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠future, it seemed like I just needed to maintain this level. And the British food we got to eat thanks to the voucher was even better than expected.

I'd assumed I'd be eating fish and chips in exchange for high grades, but reality was a bit different.

"What is this?"

"Huh? This is..."

"It's not the kind of food I was expecting?"

They were perfectly normal dishes. The taste was also quite ordinary in many ways.

"It's better than I thought?"

"I didn't expect the food to be this decent."

"Well, if they sold weird food, their ratings would drop and customers would disappear... So filling the menu with decent dishes makes sense."

Either way, we avoided terrible food, so that was a relief.

I chewed on my food moderately while discussing the upcoming exams. By the time we had almost finished eating, my phone rang with a notification.

What a horrifying title. It was late, but the thing we'd been waiting for had finally arrived. I'd wanted to ignore it, but it was already the end of April. This was unmistakably the period when midterms were approaching or taking place.

I frowned and clicked on the notification details. Soon, part of the long message posted by the professor caught my eye at a glance.

"Group project... Gather food in the wild, prepare it, and then cook it yourself in the classroom on exam day?"

We're fucked.

Out of all the many possible exam formats, it just had to be a group project. That was the worst.

There was still room to scroll, so I continued downward out of curiosity. That's when I saw an attached data table.

The table labeled 'Group Composition' listed two people's names along with basic personal information. It seemed groups were formed based on who got paired here.

With a bit of anticipation, I scrolled down to see who my teammate would be.

"Whoa!"

And there it was. It was none other than—

"Whoa— fuck!"

The most horrific situation had appeared.