Vol 1 Chapter 1 (2/2)

“No, I took the normal entrance exams. Though I did consider that option too.”

Homura let loose another sigh.

“You’re quite smart, aren’t you…?”

“What are you saying, that goes for you too, right?”

“Gefuh.”

Homura choked as Touya whacked her back.

It was true that she had taken the normal entrance exams, but…

Homura hung her head and sat down while hugging her knees.

“Seems like it’s a different than I thought.”

“You see… that was like a one-time limited edition [Hinooka Homura-exclusive Spring Jumbo]…”

“What the heck’s that?”

“Basically just a fluke. A coincidence.”

“You pa.s.sed on a fluke?”

Touya froze for just an instant.

“No, that’s impossible. It’s unusual for a public inst.i.tution to have a mark sheet, but there’s no way you could get in by coincidence.”

“……”

“Eh, seriously?”

“Seriously,” Homura mumbled, facing the floor.

“Then, how’d you do on the tests the other day?”

Her results on the midterm exams a few days ago had, of course, been terrible, and her blood had run cold in the face of her homeroom teacher and her parents.

Luckily, marks weren’t publicly posted in the cla.s.sroom here, but it was only a matter of time before her terrible grades became well-known within her cla.s.s.

Afraid to speak it aloud, she traced out her average test results on the wall, causing Touya to freeze once more. This time, the pause lasted a short yet long three seconds.

“…Well, who cares? It’s good that you got accepted here, at least.”

“It’s not good!”

Homura stood up in a swift motion to head-b.u.t.t him, but Touya agilely dodged.

“In other words, I don’t have the time for any club! It’s taking all I have just to deal with the lessons here!”

“Ah, then there is merit in it for you.”

“What?”

“You’ll be all right if you join the Exploration Club.”

“Why?”

“Based on your behavior, you didn’t read the pamphlet I gave you yesterday, did you? Well, I also apologize for not properly explaining, then.”

Touya crossed his arms in a confident manner.

“It’s all right. If you become a Mage, something like studying will be easy for you.”

“Are you trying to trick me here? Doesn’t it sound like you’re saying something like ‘If you become a pro wrestler, a hundred squats will be a piece of cake’?”

“Yeah, wrestling really is great.”

“Spare me.”

Touya laughed in a carefree manner.

For some reason, I’m able to talk familiarly with him, thought Homura with a small sigh.

Was it because his height wasn’t so different from hers? All of Homura’s former boyfriends had been tall; or rather, that was the minimum condition for her to go out with someone.

“What do you do in the Exploration Club, Touya-kun?”

“Me? I’m still a fifth-ranked investigator, so I mostly follow senpai’s lead. I’ve still only gone on two expeditions so far. There are a lot of things I have to remember.”

“Hmm… Is your senpai strict?”

A two-person combo with a gla.s.ses-wearing b.u.mpkin junior, in a certain sense, made the perfect picture.

She couldn’t imagine adding herself to that group at all, though.

“She’s kind.”

But his voice matured at that moment, and he made a slightly sad expression.

Homura slightly revised her image of him as a b.u.mpkin.

“I’ve yet to see her get angry.”

“…You’re the only junior in her club, after all. Maybe she’s treating you preciously?”

“If you enter the club, there’ll be two junior members and our activities will become more club-like, though.”

“What should I do…?”

Homura laced her arms behind her neck and dropped against the wall.

“Were you also invited to join by that senpai, Touya-kun? Or did you just want to debut in the Exploration Club when you reached high school? I heard about how you did kendo before.”

“You’re quite knowledgeable, aren’t you? I did enter the club on my own initiative. The reason I joined was…”

“Yeah?”

“……”

Touya froze with his mouth still partly open.

“Yeah?”

“…I’ll tell you if you join.”

“Hey, isn’t that unfair? Are you really trying to invite someone to join here?”

Touya turned away from her and adjusted his gla.s.ses. Homura circled around to face him again and pressed him further.

“It can’t be that you intend to suddenly drop out of the club if I join, can it?”

“Idiot, as if I’d do something like that.”

“Idiot? You’re calling the important person you’re trying to invite an idiot?”

“I mean, you are an idiot, right?”

“Guh.”

Touya spoke while scratching his head.

“I get it. If it’s about your studies, I’ll teach you. I’m not so good at teaching, but put up with it for now.”

Homura was startled.

She knew it wasn’t just her ears playing tricks on her due to the school bell ringing just now.

Homura recalled the words of her younger sister yesterday.

“…Is that all right?”

Touya closed his eyes as if resigned and nodded.

“I’m the one making a request of you here, after all.”

“It’s not a bother for you?”

“Not at all. Compared to club activities, that is.”

Since Homura had yet to give a definite answer, the negotiations were put on hold for the time being. The two of them agreed to meet again after cla.s.ses ended for the day and then returned to their respective cla.s.ses.

But then, Touya, who had started walking away cheerfully, had his neck strangled.

“Ooff.”

Turning around with teary eyes, Touya found Homura standing there holding the collar of his s.h.i.+rt.

“…That hurt as much as being stabbed, you know.”

“I just wanted to ask one last thing.”

Indifferent to the disastrous scene she had brought about, Homura asked him.

“What’s a Mage?”

“Read the pamphlet.”

“We have an experiment next cla.s.s, so I can’t.”

“…The truth is, I don’t know either. Senpai just said that our club lacked someone with the position of Mage.”

“That so? Then what about you, Touya-kun? You said something about being an investigator.”

“Fifth-ranked investigator. My cla.s.s is light-weight warrior.”

Homura burst into laughter.

“Warrior? Ahaha, that’s just like a game.”

“Like I said, it isn’t a game.”

“Hurry back to cla.s.s,” Touya told her as he shooed Homura away.

It seems Homura-san is thinking of something drawn out like an attacker or setter or coat Mage. This is going to be hard going.

After school.

The two of them headed to the staff room together.

Compared to the refreshed Homura, Touya wore a long face for some reason.

“A personal inspection… huh…”

“Let me at least have a trial members.h.i.+p first. It’s such a mysterious club, after all.”

Completely shelving her studying deficiency, Homura spoke as if it were only natural.

“I wonder about that. Is that really all right…?”

“You really aren’t flexible, are you?”

“Flexible, you say… Well, we can only try consulting with Mori-chan about it.”

“Mori-chan?”

“The Exploration Club’s advisor. —Pardon us!”

Touya politely and deeply bowed his head before he entered the staff room. Homura imitated him and followed him inside.

Within the staff room, which was one of the places she currently disliked the most, Homura felt as if all the teachers were staring at her, so she ducked her head as much as possible as she pa.s.sed through.

Touya led her to a familiar-looking female teacher who was facing a pile of doc.u.ments on her desk with a bitter expression.

“Sensei. It’s Touya.”

“Hmm~, hey there.”

Even after being addressed, the teacher fiddled with her bundled hair at the back of her neck with the back end of her pen while continuing to scowl at the doc.u.ments.

“So Mori-chan is Fujimori-sensei,” Homura softly muttered.

She was Fujimori, the one who was teaching Modern j.a.panese in Homura’s cla.s.s.

Even here in the staff room, her manners were so bad you wouldn’t think she was a teacher, and the top of her desk looked to be the messiest in the room as well.

“Sensei, I’ve brought a new club member.”

“I said I’d do a trial members.h.i.+p, remember?”

Suddenly looking up, the teacher’s expression was filled with joyous expectation at those words.

But, the instant she saw Homura, her happiness faded away in the blink of an eye, and she returned to her original frown as if she were suffering from a toothache.

“…By club, you mean the Exploration Club?”

“Is there anyone else besides you who’s the advisor of our club?”

Of course there wasn’t.

“………”

After pressing the fingers of both her hands against her forehead for a while, Fujimori pointed at the staff roof’s exit and got up from her chair.

Homura’s eyes accidentally caught sight of a small framed picture that had been buried beneath the stacks of doc.u.ments at that moment.

It was a black-and-white photo—and on it were neither her family, nor her lover, but Fujimori’s younger self and a group of friends surrounding her.

As Homura pulled back her hair to get a better look, Touya pulled her away.

Fujimori led the two of them to the reception office next to the princ.i.p.al’s office. She was definitely using the room without permission.

“Shouldn’t we talk in a cla.s.sroom? Like, there’s the matter of confidentiality and all that—”

“This place is fine. This won’t take long.”

Though Touya remained dubious, Fujimori urged them both to hurry up and sit.

The female teacher leaned back against a long sofa in the room, and then circled her arms sloppily around the back of a chair and crossed her legs, directly facing Homura. The atmosphere around her was more like a last boss in a game than a priest advising a pupil.

Fujimori stared at Homura, who remained meek and quiet like a borrowed cat.

“…?”

Suddenly, Homura was. .h.i.t by a sense of déjà vu. Naturally, this was a teacher who had stared at her countless times in cla.s.s before. But still, she had quite a roundabout att.i.tude. And her bad manners were the same as always.

“Hinooka Homura, from Otowa Middle School. Of all the places, to think you chose to enroll here at Seiran High School.”

“Sensei, is that the kind of att.i.tude to take when greeting a new club member?”

When Touya admonished her with an amazed expression, Fujimori nodded as if to grouchily say she understood.

“…Huh…?”

Homura tilted her head slightly in confusion.

“I bring it up because that’s where Mount Atatara is.”

“…Guh… Don’t talk about that…”

As Homura blushed in embarra.s.sment, a sense of recollection rose up within her.

She slowly pulled up the faint memory.

“Umm… could it be that… we’ve met before, sensei?”

“I believe we have.”

Fujimori boldly nodded.

“Were you her homeroom teacher? Or an acquaintance?”

Ignoring the puzzled Touya, Homura continued speaking.

“Err… Probably in middle school… during my second year’s… physical… measurement…”

Fujimori gazed at Homura with half-lidded eyes.

While puzzled by the strange situation, Touya gave Homura a helping hand.

“Maybe you’re referring to the apt.i.tude test?”

“Was that it? Yeah, I think that’s what it was called.”

“That test isn’t mandatory. Why didn’t you remember it?”

“I’m in charge of the apt.i.tude tests at Otowa Middle School.”

“Yeah! I remember you there, sensei.”

Homura clapped her hands happily.

However, Fujimori reclined back in her seat in an even more slovenly posture.

“That’s not all.”

“Eh?”

“After the test, I detained you and gave you a fiery speech. Ah, that’s right. We were in a reception office like this after school back then as well.”

“Sorry. I don’t remember it well.”

“Fufufufu.”

Fujimori looked up at the ceiling as she became even sulkier.

Touya questioned her worriedly.

“Did she do something back then?”

“Touya. You just took the IE apt.i.tude test the other day, right?”

“Ah, yeah. I enrolled through the entrance exams, after all.”

“What was your score? Ah, don’t worry about confidentiality and all that.”

“Is that really all right?” Touya wondered with a little hesitation, but ultimately answered.

“My overall score was [45-C].”

“Hinooka Homura was [80-B]. Though that was from the first term of her second year of middle school.”

“8…80!?”

Touya raised his voice in shock, and the person in question beside him completely misunderstood as she was immersed in excitement.

“Like I thought, I did meet sensei before~. I must not have noticed because I’m also nervous in cla.s.s.”

Fujimori stuck out her tongue in amazement and collapsed tiredly on the sofa.

It was certainly true that she couldn’t show such a disgraceful att.i.tude in the staff room.

In contrast to the groggy teacher, Touya become somewhat agitated.

“The IE apt.i.tude test score is calculated through a quadratic curve. The difference between 50 and 70 is in fact two-fold.”

“Haah. I see. There’s that much of a difference between me and Touya-kun, huh?”

“45 and 80 are each squared individually… so the difference between us is more than three-fold! Do you get it?”

Puzzled, Homura compared herself and Touya with a glance.

“Well, you know. Touya-kun is a boy, after all.”

“I’m not talking about chest measurement! What are you acting so triumphant about!?”

Touya stood up from the sofa and approached Fujimori.

“In that case, that makes things easier to explain. This girl seems to have completely forgotten, but there’s nothing to criticize about her apt.i.tude as a precious new member of the Seiran High Exploration Club, right?”

“Noooooo—” One of Fujimori’s jean-covered knees and boot heels appeared from the edge of the reception table.

“Waaaaaa—” The table gradually began to rise. The gla.s.s sculpture on top slipped off along with the lace mat cover.

“—aaaaay!”

Homura hurriedly backed away as she was pulled back by Touya.

The reception table was kicked up and soundlessly danced through the air, before landing on the carpet after rotating five hundred and forty degrees.

The table splendidly landed face-up in an obedient manner. It would have been a disaster if there were any cups of tea on it.

“…Ah, that shocked me, really shocked me.”

Homura’s eyes shrunk to dots as she held the gla.s.s sculpture in her hands.

After confirming that Homura was all right with a glance, Touya agilely lifted up the table.

“Sensei, aren’t you being childish here?”

The sight of him setting the lace cover on the table made him look strangely domestic-oriented.

“In other words, it’s like that? You have a grudge towards her for giving the cold shoulder when you invited her to the Exploration Club in the past?”

“Yeah, got a problem with that?”

The way Fujimori put her chin on her knees as she hugged them on the sofa was just like that of a spoiled brat.

“Rather than a problem, it’s…”

“Most likely, I was with my friends at the time, so my impression of what you said back then was weak…”

“And I tried to dodge the conversation,” Homura said as an attempted excuse.

But that pretty much stirred up a hornets’ nest.

“The Exploration Club isn’t a group of model scouts like you see in Harajuku. As if we’d ever do such a carefree kind of exploration.”

“That’s the impression it gives off, though.”

“Ah, no, that’s…” Touya said nervously while scratching his head, as Fujimori glared at him.

“Well, searching for qualified candidates among the enrolled students is mostly done under the guidance of the club president, but it’s still supposed to be a state secret. It isn’t information that students can pa.s.s around.”

“State secret!?”

Homura widened her eyes.

Watching Homura’s shocked reaction suspiciously with narrowed eyes, Fujimori then slid her accusing gaze towards Touya.

“Did you properly explain everything to Hinooka?”

“Sorry, not yet.”

Touya began to explain from square one.

Touya himself hadn’t known about Homura’s outstanding score, and had merely been told by a certain person that Hinooka Homura had the necessary qualifications to join the Exploration Club.

Even if it was impossible to do a trial members.h.i.+p like Homura wanted, Touya had proposed they go consult with the advisor on whether there was some program that would allow her to gradually grow accustomed to the club activities.

Having not even glanced at a single page of the pamphlet, let alone given it a skim read, Homura had shamefully followed Touya’s idea.

After quietly listening to all this with her chin resting on her fists, Fujimori spoke up.

“Okay, listen up. The major reason why I can’t accept Hinooka’s admission into the club is because I reeeeeally can’t stand the thought of it, but—”

“So childish.”

“—That aside! There are also other reasons. Two of them, to be precise.”

“Those are?”

“First, Touya, your request to join the club went through because the result of your apt.i.tude test, your IE Response, was just barely within permissible limits—”

“IE Response… what’s that?”

“You really don’t know anything.” “Don’t you even check news sites?”

Daunted by the scolding from the other two, Homura timidly said, “Please continue.”

“The presence or absence of an IE Response is a precondition to joining the club. The issue is Touya’s techniques. For surviving.”

“Surviving, as in ‘survival’4, right?”

Homura acted a bit proud at her deduction. She was finally becoming more like a member of the Exploration club.

“For instance, our current club president has been receiving Ranger training at Iriomote Island since her first year of middle school.”

“R-Ranger training…”

Homura’s mental image of the club president levelled up even further. She evolved from a giant to a mountain gorilla.

“…Touya-kun seems to have done kendo, though.”

“That’s right. His basic stamina is nothing to criticize. His sword techniques can also serve as a fighting a.s.set for the Exploration Club. In fact, I confirmed it after facing him myself. He still lacks knowledge, but he has extraordinary talent when it comes to his physical senses. Our club was lucky to get a hold of him.”

Touya nodded without displaying any modesty.

Homura went pale.

“W-W-W-W-Wait just a minute.”

Homura stood up, while the other two looked at her oddly.

“How is kendo useful in the Exploration Club’s activities?”

“It’s a state secret.” “Yeah.”

“No, no, no. T-Then, does the club president also do some martial arts?”

“Senpai is stronger than me, naturally.”

Fujimori also agreed with that a.s.sessment.

Homura paled even further.

“In other words, what’s your signature finis.h.i.+ng move, Hinooka Homura?”

“I never learned any martial arts like that.”

Perhaps they were going to send her to Iriomote Island—!?

“The Exploration Club doesn’t bring in anyone that can’t protect themselves.”

“Sensei, what do you think I’m here for? I’ll protect Hinooka. An expedition fundamentally consists of two people working together, right?”

“……Haah.”

Fujimori scowled with narrowed eyes at Touya who was playing the role of a knight and snorted.

“I told you we don’t need mere luggage dragging us down.”

“Also, Hinooka!”

Still obstinate, Touya questioned Homura while tapping the table like a keyboard.

“Did you ever play the piano? Or maybe the taishougoto5?”

“Piano? Taishougoto?”

Homura was surprised by the sudden change in topic.

“Playing music is also a necessary role, right, sensei?”

Fujimori reluctantly nodded.

“Like the Exploration Club president at Hiyos.h.i.+zaka High School in the neighbouring district, Koma-senpai—”

“Don’t speak of Hiyos.h.i.+.”

Fujimori cut him off in a displeased tone. Touya shrugged as he continued on.

Homura was left confused by all the variations in accomplishments and martial arts he had mentioned.

Blinking, Touya asked her a question.

“What do you do when you go home after school?”

“When I… go home…”

Glancing away nervously where she stood, Homura confessed the truth.

“I go to sleep…”

A heavy silence descended upon the reception office.

Touya hung his head in a crestfallen manner, and Fujimori could only look away while stretching out her legs.

Homura plopped back down on the sofa.

“……”

There was the sound of the door closing behind Homura.

It appeared the school princ.i.p.al had been peeking into the room.

But no one had noticed.

In order to get out of this unendurable silence, Homura timidly spoke up.

“—Come on, there’s the story of the heavy-eating champion sleeping princess dreaming for a thousand years, right?”

Fujimori raised her head with misty eyes.

“Sorry, what?”

“Like, my skill is storing up on sleep and food.”

“Do you plan on storing up a lifetime’s worth of sleep?”

Suddenly, Touya held up two fingers with his hand to Fujimori.

“What’s with that?”

“Sensei, you said there were two reasons.”

“Ah, right,” Fujimori said while scratching her head and correcting her sitting posture, though she was still sitting cross-legged.

“The second reason is simple.”

Fujimori looked into both of their eyes.

“You two are still minors. The agreement of your legal guardians is absolutely necessary to join.”

Chapter 1 END

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) Tsutaya is a video rental and book store chain in j.a.pan. “Behind-the-curtain” refers to the 18+ adult section within the store.

(2) From the poem “あどけない話” (Innocent Tale) by Takamura Kotaro, part of a collection of poems about his wife Chieko written in 1941.

(3) Secom: A security company based in j.a.pan.

(4) Here, Homura translates the j.a.panese word into the English word “survival” to demonstrate her understanding.

(5) Taishougoto: Otherwise known as the Nagoya harp, a j.a.panese musical instrument with two to five strings.

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