The Snowball Effect

The total number of flags gathered by the students in the Flag Competition was four hundred and ninety-eight.

With three hundred of them exposed as fakes, exactly one hundred and ninety-eight authentic flags remained.

Naturally, the majority of the students set their sights on the safest prize in the room: the flags belonging to Orknodi's team, whose authenticity had already been indisputably verified. Sixty-three genuine flags lay in that one spot. As long as someone grabbed a handful from that pile, their odds of walking away with real flags were overwhelmingly high.

"Grab whatever's ours and sprint for Orknodi's pile!"

"We'll secure our own confirmed flags! The rest of you, swarm Orknodi's team and steal as many as you can!"

Nearly every squad adopted the exact same tactic. While one or two members guarded their basket with the few marked flags they knew were genuine, the rest rushed to plunder as much of Orknodi's hoard as humanly possible.

"Orknodi," Hestia said grimly. "Jigoku is out of bullets, and Lotto's had half her hair torn out. Shameful as it is to admit, my stamina is running on fumes too. Defending our haul looks impossible."

"That's fine," I chirped. "We can just dump every last one of our flags."

"Dump our flags? All sixty-three of them?!"

"Are you insane?!" Lotto shrieked, tears welling in her eyes. "What do you think I got my scalp ripped to shreds for?! Don't you dare abandon the assignment!"

Whether she was crying over the thought of surrendering the flags, the lingering agony of having her hair yanked out by the roots, or a miserable cocktail of both, she looked like she was in absolute torment.

"Don't worry," I assured her with a grin. "I've got a plan."

"...You really do?"

"The truth is, I can tell the real flags apart from the fakes."

"Whaaaat?!"

"Shh! Huddle up, everyone. I'll teach you the trick."

Telling the real flags apart from the counterfeits was actually laughably simple.

"If you look closely at an authentic flag, its light transmittance is exactly ten percent. It's faint, but light definitely bleeds through the fabric."

"And the fakes?"

"The fakes are a complete mess, with light transmittance ranging anywhere from twenty to ninety percent. Whoever forged them managed to procure matching flagpoles, but they completely botched the fabric sourcing!"

Light transmittance!

"Where on earth did you learn something like that?" Lotto asked, flabbergasted.

"Huh?"

"Light transmittance! Measuring the exact ratio of light bleeding through woven fabric!"

"Uh... early childhood education?"

"Unbelievable," Lotto muttered. "What kind of household even thinks to teach that to a child? And what kind of monster actually masters it and applies it in live combat?!"

To Lotto, who had merely dabbled in noble martial arts and still ended up outmatched by someone half her size, this small girl was the very definition of a genuine prodigy.

"Wait," Lotto frowned, squinting down at the fabric. "How are we supposed to tell ten percent from twenty percent? They look identical to me."

"What? How could you possibly mix those up? It's literally the difference between ultra-opaque winter tights and semi-sheer stockings."

"Ugh... put that way, I kind of get it, but I also kind of don't..."

While she dithered in confusion, the countdown struck zero.

The free-for-all began. Students lunged recklessly into the massive pile, and Orknodi's squad dove straight into the fray alongside them. Naturally, the first person to effortlessly fish out real flags with surgical precision was our undisputed ace: me.

My experience points soared without pause.

This was the entire reason I had gambled on resetting the flags I had painstakingly hoarded myself. Once you knew how to pick out the real ones, re-looting the communal pool yielded the absolute maximum return on stat gains!

"Ngh... same opacity as stockings, same opacity as stockings..."

Beside me, Lotto had peeled off one of her stockings and was frantically holding it up against the flags to compare them against the light.

"Lotto," Hestia called out. "Could you take off the other one too?"

"Why are you asking for mine?! What about your own?!"

"As you can see, my legs are far too thick to ever wear stockings."

"...Fair point. With tree trunks like that, I doubt any shop carries your size."

Grudgingly, Lotto slipped off her remaining stocking and handed it over.

Neither she, nor Hestia, nor even I had the slightest inkling of the catastrophic chain reaction this innocent exchange was about to unleash.

The moment the surrounding students witnessed Lotto stripping off her hosiery, collective horror seized the hall.

"Lotto! Have you abandoned every shred of your noble dignity?!"

"To think she'd be coerced by a backwater brute into stripping off her stockings right in public!"

"Heavens above! This is sickening!"

To their eyes, it was an appalling spectacle of intimidation, hazing, and brazen harassment.

"Wait a minute. Doesn't that gorilla woman, Hestia, take orders directly from Orknodi?"

"Orknodi... what a terrifying child! She deliberately abandoned her own team just to torment Lotto for defying her before the entrance ceremony!"

"Ugh, that is genuinely vile... Are outskirt savages really this vindictive? That's crueler than anything an Imperial noble would pull."

As indignant whispers condemned Orknodi's supposed villainy, Mesgaki's sharp, bratty voice cut through the clamor.

"Are you all brain-dead idiots~? She's comparing the stocking fabric to the flags! That's the walkthrough guide, you morons♥ Take yours off too♥ Hurry up♥"

"Wait, of course! You can verify them with stockings!"

"Look! The Hero has already stripped hers off!"

Even as Mesgaki scolded her entourage, Hero Ishtar had already discarded her footwear and stockings, holding the sheer fabric up to the light to cross-reference the flags' transparency.

"Tch. This method is too slow," Ishtar muttered. "I can't build up any momentum like this."

"No, this works in our favor," Saintess Yupi murmured, smoothly peeling off her own stockings ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in tandem. "You're the only person here capable of picking out authentic flags purely by balancing their weight in your palms anyway, Ishtar."

Seeing the Saintess herself follow suit, the realization dawned on the rest of the female student body. One after another, girls hooked their fingertips beneath ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the bands of their thigh-highs, slowly rolling the silken fabric down their legs.

"Whoa."

"Dude... look over there."

"What kind of heaven is this...?"

The male students halted their desperate scavenging, blinking in dazed disbelief.

Across the entire training hall, girls were leaning back on the floor, sliding their hands up their thighs and hips, squirming and panting as they worked off their tight stockings to reveal smooth, porcelain legs. It was a breathtaking feast for the eyes—and not a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠single young man could tear his gaze away, whether they were the scions of the Empire's Three Founding Families, Grand Duke Andersen of the western frontiers, or the perpetually lecherous monkey beastman, Son Ocheon.

"I don't know who figured out this strat," someone breathed in reverent awe, "but may the heavens bless their soul!"

"I'd hate to sound like a pervert," another agreed solemnly, "but for once in my life, I wholeheartedly concur."

"Stop gawking and get over here and help me, Giselle!"

Isabelle waved him over, causing Giselle's squinty eyes to pop open to twice their normal size.

"H-Help you? With what?"

"What do you think?! I need to get these off fast, but they're completely stuck! I'm a leggings person, damn it! I don't know how to handle these flimsy things!"

Even if she was just an everyday comrade, being asked to strip a girl's stockings was enough to make any teenage boy's heart hammer against his ribs, regardless of the tactical justification.

Nearby, Rockfell cast an awkward, tentative glance toward his partner, prompting Dorothy to narrow her eyes into sharp triangles and snap defensively.

"Don't even dream about it! I will never, under any circumstances, allow your hands anywhere near my legs!"

"...I didn't even say a word."

"Just looking at me is sexual harassment!"

Judging by her prickly reaction, being invited to peel off a lady's stockings was clearly an extraordinary privilege not granted to just anyone.

An adventurer's legs are surprisingly smooth...

Giselle swallowed hard. From the firm, toned curve of Isabelle's thighs to the taut calf muscles resting perfectly in his palms, there was an inexplicable sweetness to the scent rising from her bare skin. Even after the stockings were rolled free, the lingering warmth against his fingers filled Giselle with profound, unadulterated reverence toward Orknodi.

Orknodi... thank you for granting me this blessed experience.

And Giselle was far from alone. From every corner of the room, heartfelt, tearfully grateful gazes converged upon Orknodi from boys who felt they had witnessed salvation itself.

— One minute remaining.

The Headmaster's indifferent, booming rumble finally snapped the enthralled boys back to reality.

Yet in the very instant their vigilance wavered, a figure surged forward from the shadows. It was the lethal Eastern swordsman, Sing, who had held his breath and bided his time for this exact opening.

"A swordsman's eye," Sing declared coldly, "is meant for discerning who must be slain."

Ignoring the unspoken truce to gather flags peacefully during the reset, Sing charged directly at me.

"Hah! Did you really think I'd let you catch me off guard?"

Because I had already tipped Hestia off about a possible sneak attack, she lunged into his path without hesitation.

"You won't touch a single hair on Orknodi!"

"Out of my way, wench."

"Kuh...! Of all the times for my arms to give out...!"

Exhausted from her earlier clashes, Hestia's grip faltered. With a sharp metallic crack, her massive battleaxe was deflected straight out of her grasp. Taking ruthless advantage of her momentary panic, Sing hooked a savage kick into her supporting leg, breaking her stance, and drove the pommel of his hilt violently into her chin.

Hestia crumpled.

Faster than her body could hit the stone floor, Sing blew right past her. His blade flashed like a streak of lightning, carving a deadly arc aimed straight for my arms.

If I don't let go of these flags, he's planning to slice my whole arm off!

Dropping the flags or drawing my sword, however, would completely ruin my harvesting pace and hand the victory to the Hero. Worse, Sing's footwork was terrifyingly fluid; there was zero chance I could outrun him in a sprint.

I needed a different card.

In this dire crisis, I fluttered my eyelashes furiously.

This was a deceitful, underhanded survival tactic only possible because I was currently inhabiting the body of a petite, 133-centimeter adorable girl instead of a 230-centimeter mountain of muscle. The codename: Would You Really Cut Down a Child This Cute?!

Sing stared down at my desperate, fluttering winks with completely dead eyes.

"Die."

The wink had zero effect.

...This cold-blooded bastard literally just said Die.

He wasn't just aiming for my arm—he was swinging straight for my neck!

"Protect Lady Orknodi!"

"You ungrateful mongrel! Do you dare call yourself a man?!"

"To think an Eastern peasant doesn't even know how to repay a debt of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠honor!"

Just as Sing's blade was about to sever my throat, three completely unexpected figures hurled themselves into the fray. The heirs of the Empire's Three Founding Families had evidently soaked up the splash damage of my desperate winks, forming an impassable wall of steel before me.

CLANG-CLANG-CRASH!!

A horrific screech of shearing metal erupted. In the blink of an eye, the heavy steel plating across Leff Iron-Plate Charcoal Galbi's chest split open, and the massive gauntlets encasing Cheddar Potato Pizza's hands fractured clean in two. Only Horner Fried Chicken, darting in last, managed to parry Sing three times with his spear shaft before leveraging all his weight to violently shove the assassin backward.

"This lunatic severed tempered plate with a plain sword?!"

"A hair deeper and my hands would've flown off!"

"I genuinely thought my spear shaft was going to snap..."

The three founding scions gasped in pale-faced horror.

Sing clicked his tongue in profound disgust, glaring at the interlopers.

"Worthless water buffaloes. You cost me a golden opportunity."

"What did you just call us?!"

Before the infuriated trio could draw steel to defend their honor, the Headmaster's thunderous decree echoed throughout the entire auditorium.

— Thirty minutes have elapsed.

— All squads, present your baskets.

Sing was an absolute monster, but thanks to the Water Buffalo Trio jumping in to simp at the final second, I survived with my head intact.

Thank you, Simp Brothers! Truly, thank you!