Club
By the time the short club orientation ended, most of the students training in the stadium were already fretting over which club they should join.
Club, they called it, but in practical terms it was hardly any different from taking another class.
Besides, they also taught things the regular curriculum never covered.
If you didn’t want to fall behind everyone else, joining one was basically mandatory.
Of course, I had already made up my mind before I even came to the academy.
Minho’s club was the obvious choice.
He was one of the targets I had to keep chasing, both for fan reasons and for my own plans.
Sure, I also had to keep an eye on the other game protagonists.
But unlike the main character, they didn’t have any cheat-like advantages, so they grew the proper way—in other words, slowly.
...Though I suppose I should say they were just born with talent to begin with.
The thought made irritation surge through me all over again.
“Jinhyun, have you decided what club you want to join?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t say there’s anything that really grabs me…”
“Ehh, but you’re going to join one, right? I mean, everybody else is doing it. It’d be weird to be the only one not doing anything. Just pick one for now.”
Or maybe I was just hearing her toss around those easy, carefree remarks that got on my nerves.
Maybe it was because she was a special type and didn’t really have a club that suited her, but if that was the case, she could at least stop making it everyone else’s problem.
Even Im Changwon—whose abilities were practically complete already—was putting in the effort at the magic club.
I really couldn’t understand what gave her the right to be that oblivious.
It was honestly amazing how every single thing she said managed to sound annoying.
We hadn’t even known each other a full week, and already she’d filled a small notebook with nothing but things I didn’t like.
You think I was being unfairly biased?
Not a chance.
Put it on my pinky if you don’t want to use my fingers, but I’m telling you, even if the others weren’t as irritated as I was, they had to find her a little grating too.
“...More importantly, Yeonhwa. What club are you going to join?”
“Me? The magic club, obviously! They said I can get one-on-one lessons from upperclassmen with similar abilities, right?”
“I-I’m... going there too...! I mean, learning from Mom or Dad, or Grandma, is great and all... but I thought maybe it’d be nice to hear someone else’s advice, too...”
“Lapis, you too?! Nice!”
As Yeonhwa came at her like an overexcited dog that had found its owner, Lapis fled in a fluster, searching desperately for someplace to hide—then, the moment she saw me, she darted straight into my arms and buried her face against me.
“Hii, hii... I’m saved...”
I wondered how a girl that timid was ever planning to become a hero. As I absentmindedly imagined how much she’d suffer during workplace training later, I put a hand on her shoulder and gently eased her away.
“Hey, Lapis. Your horn is stabbing me in the chest. Could you maybe back up a little?”
It hurt. It hurt like hell.
The curved, blunt end of it felt like someone was jabbing me with a needle over and over again.
“Ah—s-sorry! I wasn’t trying to...!”
Lapis went so pale her brown skin seemed to drain white for a second, then she practically dove into Yeonhwa’s arms.
Yeonhwa, who had been bouncing around like a happy retriever until a moment ago, now looked oddly downcast as she stared at Lapis—as if she’d turned into a tired retriever instead.
Was Yeonhwa in pain because of Lapis’s horn too?
It didn’t look like she’d been stabbed, though.
I was just about to ask if something had happened when the always-bright Yeonhwa suddenly changed expressions so fast it felt unnatural.
“...Well, if it worked out, it worked out! So where are you going to join, Blanca?”
She quickly recovered her energy and asked me the question.
“I’m thinking it over a little too. Hand-to-hand combat, magic, weapon techniques... honestly, all of them sound tempting. I can’t exactly join three clubs at once, can I?”
So I gave her a suitably vague answer.
Even though I already knew which club I was going to join, I was pretending to hesitate because of Minho.
He kept sneaking looks this way while talking to Seolhwa, so it was obvious he was paying attention to me.
If I said I’d go wherever he went here...
Well. Then he’d probably end up choosing a different club from the original story.
That would be a disaster, so for now I was laying down smoke cover.
“Mm, yeah, I guess Blanca would fit into just about anything.”
Yeonhwa said she had to go submit her application and headed out of the stadium with Lapis still in her arms.
Jinhyun only watched her go.
Come to think of it, I’d never really said anything to him directly.
Up until now, I’d only spoken to Yeonhwa, or to Yeonhwa with him in earshot.
I’d never singled him out before.
...I didn’t like him anyway. Maybe I should give him a sharp reminder while I had the chance.
“You should probably think about it too. If you don’t take this seriously, you’ll never become a hero.”
If you’re going to mess around like that, then quit trying to be a hero and just drop out already.
...I couldn’t say that, so I softened it a bit, but it was still what I meant.
I wanted to tell him not to stand around with his hands behind his back, going la-di-da while everyone else was working themselves to the bone.
If he was really the protagonist, then he should at least act like he was trying.
“Got it, Blanca. I’ll do my best.”
“Not I’ll do my best. It should be I will do my best, you hopeless idiot. Haa, forget it. Do what you want.”
He was the kind of guy whose club affiliation didn’t even get mentioned in the story.
Let him waste his time somewhere that suited him.
With that thought in mind, I turned on my heel and was about to follow Minho out of the stadium when a sudden idea flashed through my head.
If he hadn’t decided where to go, wouldn’t it be simpler for me to decide for him?
The thought came out of nowhere, and even as I had it, I was baffled by the fact that I was considering helping this guy at all.
And yet, thinking it through, it actually seemed like a pretty good proposal.
Sure, the best outcome would be for him to join no club at all and waste his talent into the ground, but that didn’t seem likely.
So instead, I’d keep him near me and keep him under control.
That was the first reason. I didn’t want him wandering off somewhere strange, stumbling into some lucky encounter, and rocketing upward in power.
The second was that having him around might help with keeping tabs on the original protagonist.
Depending on which club the protagonist joined, the bigger the number of members, the harder it would be for him to milk the place dry for all it was worth.
Even if it were just me and this guy, that alone would already be a hundred percent more people than the original roster.
“Unless... there’s a club I’ve already got my eye on. If nothing’s really calling to you, want to come with me?”
“With you... to the same club?”
“Yeah. If you hate it, you can always come back.”
Jinhyun was still tilting his head in confusion, but when I told him it wouldn’t hurt to at least give it a try, he obediently followed behind me.
I hated everything else about him, but if there was one thing I did like, it was how easy he was to use.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
This time, I’d been secretly worried that Blanca might follow me too, but thankfully, that didn’t seem to be the case.
She was already the type to drag trouble around with her and wear down my heart before the first week was even over.
She hadn’t caused anything major yet, but the fact that she’d already fought Yamaguchi and was acting close with Lapis made a nasty sense of foreboding well up inside me.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how that was going to come back to bite us later.
I didn’t understand the logic behind her behavior. At this point, I didn’t even know what her goal was anymore.
After stomping all over someone that thoroughly, she’d be the first to apologize and say sorry.
It made me deeply unsure of what, exactly, I was supposed to make of her.
And on top of that, Lapis was a real problem.
If Blanca formed a bond with her first, honestly, I had no idea how I was supposed to approach Lapis after that.
But since I had no reason I could use to split Lapis and Blanca apart...
There was nothing I could do but watch and suffer in silence.
And the fact that there were students named Jinhyun and Yeonhwa here—people I’d never once seen in the original story—made me wonder if this world was really the same one I knew.
Maybe it was some kind of parallel world where only our class had changed.
Maybe everything else was the same, and only those three existed here.
“Ah, sorry, sorry... Here I am, an upperclassman, showing my juniors such a sorry sight. Ehehe. Cut me some slack. Honestly, this is the first time I’ve ever had club members...”
The girl in front of us scratched the back of her head awkwardly and pushed her glasses up.
She looked smaller than a first-year, but she was still an academy third-year all the same.
And one of the many hidden lucky breaks buried inside this academy, too.
“Anyway, welcome to the Ability Research Club! My name is Meirin, and I’m the club president! I hope you’ll all turn in good results as members—no, as experiment subje... I mean, members!”
“Did you just say experiment subjects a second ago...”
The girl beside her, Lucia, mercilessly dug up the senior’s mistake.
“N-no! How could I possibly call our precious experi—no, our treasured members experiment subjects?! Absolutely not!”
“...All right. If you say so.”
Lucia seemed normal enough. Thank goodness.
At least the heroines seemed to be the same as I remembered them, if I set Blanca aside.
...If I set Blanca aside.
For now, she was apparently being treated as a heroine too, so I’d probably have to stay on good terms with her.
But I honestly had no desire to do that.
It felt like sticking my head straight into the open jaws of a tiger.
This wasn’t a matter of liking or disliking her. My instincts were screaming that she was dangerous.
Still, if I wanted to figure out who she was, what she wanted, and what her true identity was, I’d have to talk to her eventually.
“Well, we can do some light experiments, sure, but that’s not what matters! Today’s our first day, so instead of that, let’s start by filling out profiles!”
I supposed I’d have to do this at least once before the next event came around.
Meirin smiled brightly and handed us a sheet of paper with an absurd number of sections on it.
“I have to... fill all of this out...?”
“Of course you do~ If we’re going to analyze your abilities in detail, profiles are essential! Come on, come on. Don’t hold anything back—write everything down!”
“...I wonder if this is really going to help.”
With Lucia’s muttered complaint in the background, I started filling in the endless fields as best I could.
Then, from outside, I heard a voice that was familiar—and absolutely should not have been here.
So it’s definitely somewhere around here... where is it...?
It was Blanca’s voice.