Chapter 83
“A–A relationship!? We’re dating!?”
In front of the love declaration from a naless female student, Donovan von Delay’s gang and Iri Elisbell froze.
It took a mont to even understand what this girl was talking about.
“……”
“……”
“...Uh. R–Right.”
Maybe the shock was too great.
Donovan stepped back weakly, moving aside so Iri could pass.
His reaction startled Iri, making her shout.
“W–W–What are you saying?!”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“‘Honey’? What the hell! I don’t even know your na! Who are you!?”
Thud!
The girl’s expression turned into that of a cat abandoned by its owner.
Seeing that look, I felt my heart soften… Like hell it did.
Getting randomly chosen as a “pet” just by passing by would only be a headache.
Regardless, Donovan’s group seed quite shocked.
They muttered suspicious lines to each other like, “G–Girls with girls? Oh wow….” and “Even she’s dating such a pretty girl, so why am I still….” as they left, clearly having completely misunderstood.
In any case, I didn’t have many close acquaintances in the Academy—just enough to count on one hand—so I didn’t really care what other students said about .
But this was different.
The weird rumor that Iri Elisbell liked won would definitely make its rounds and reach Aaron Stingray’s ears.
And if that happened, Aaron Stingray would surely get the wrong idea too…
Hmm? Would that even matter?
He was just my sponsor—would he even care about my dating life?
A corner of my brain, flushed with embarrassnt, produced that bit of cool logic, but it quickly faded.
No, I hated it.
I didn’t want that man to misunderstand.
“Hey! Hey! It’s a misunderstanding!”
“Ah, don’t worry. Whoever likes who, gender doesn’t matter. I have a broad enough mind to understand that…”
“What the hell are you saying?!”
Yeah, you lunatic! If you’re so broad-minded, then why are you always itching to pick a fight with people from Fallen Sector?
“You said you had sothing to say! Hey!”
“Uh… Let’s postpone it.”
“Hey! Wait! Heeey!!”
Without even bothering to clear the misunderstanding, Donovan walked off with so strange show of “consideration.”
Instead of resolving things, it felt like the lesbian image had been carved in stone.
Gaaah!!
Anger finally exploded out of , and I grabbed the girl by her collar.
I had been trying to behave myself lately, but the sudden storm had brought out my old habits.
“What the hell are you!? Why would you tell such a lie!?”
“I–I just wanted to help you…”
“That help wasn’t needed! You just made weird rumors spread! If this gets to our Chairman’s ears, what will he think of …!”
“Sob…”
As I shouted fiercely, the naless girl’s eyes suddenly welled with tears.
In the past—when I used to work between Fallen Sector and Sector E—I wouldn’t have cared.
I would’ve started with a punch to the face, asking what the hell she was whining about.
But since entering the Academy and spending ti with Miyu, I had llowed a lot.
No matter what, she had tried to help .
Making a girl like that cry didn’t sit right with .
“W–Why are you crying…”
Sigh.
The urge to hit her faded, and I quickly let go of her collar.
Turning my body slightly, I glanced at her from the side, scanning her from head to toe.
The most noticeable thing was her reddish-brown hair tied to one side.
Her brown skin looked healthy.
Her teary eyes had a slightly redder hue than her hair.
She was in the high 170 cm range, about half a head taller than .
Like with Aaron Stingray, I had to look up slightly to et her gaze.
Although we were in the sa class and had seen each other almost every day for over a month, we had never tead up or spoken before.
‘What was her na again… That…’
“My na’s Raina Alton.”
Right, that was it.
Now I rembered.
During basic physical training, she had collapsed before even finishing a few laps around the field.
Even though she should have been an Adaptee, her results barely surpassed that of a trained normal human, which had surprised a little.
‘Not suited for a combatant.’
That had been my evaluation of Raina Alton.
I had even wondered how soone like her managed to pass the Academy’s entrance cut-off.
Of course, since I wasn’t interested, I had quickly erased that question from my mind.
Hmm.
Folding my arms, I looked up at Raina and asked,
“So what do you want?”
“Huh?”
“You ca here because you had business with , right? Just say it and be on your way.”
I had no intention of thanking her for “saving” .
Dealing with Donovan von Delay and his lackeys was sothing I could’ve easily handled on my own, but thanks to Raina barging in, now there was a suspicious rumor ready to spread.
Honestly, it was just trouble.
Of course, my ‘gut’ told Raina hadn’t approached with bad intentions, but that was a separate issue.
“Hurry up and talk.”
“……”
When I pressed her, Raina hesitated, then pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket.
In this day and age, it was the rare sight of actual paper.
The mont I saw it, I knew.
These days, most work and communication happened through digital mail and ssages, or on tablet PCs and electronic paper.
If soone went so far as to use sothing rare like real paper, it was either because they had a serious love for a classic style… or because they wanted to attach a special aning.
Well, even without that—
One glance at the cute little red heart stuck on the outside of the stationery, and I couldn’t not know.
“...Please take it!”
“W–Wait! I can’t accept this!”
“T–Then give your answer later!”
I turned pale, trying to refuse the letter, but Raina shoved it into my arms anyway and hurried off.
Left alone in the hallway, I slowly opened the envelope with a dazed expression.
And with each line I read, my face grew paler.
“Ughhh, this is real…!”
Wh–What do I even do with this?
For a mont, I forgot about the next class entirely, lost in confusion.
“Raina Alton, you say?”
“Yes. She said she gave that student a love letter. Since it was her first ti being confessed to by soone of the sa sex, she seed flustered and ca to consult .”
“Hah…”
Raina Alton.
The na made let out an involuntary, dry laugh.
“You know her?”
“Well. No, I don’t.”
Of course I did.
Raina Alton.
The embodint of ‘falling in love at first sight.’
In the original work, she suddenly appeared like a cot, putting the heroines on edge and raising readers’ expectations.
But she wasn’t a heroine.
She was just an extra character inserted to stir up catfights between Iri, Miyu, and Ciel.
‘With the arrival of the powerful rival Raina, the girls who had only thought of the protagonist as a comrade or benefactor start to change their hearts.’
If I had to compare her to sothing…
She was like an invasive species that suddenly appeared and disrupted the ecosystem when our Shade Team heroines were peacefully getting along like princesses in a tiny fairy-tale village.
—Co on, he’s just a comrade!
—What’s that supposed to an between friends?
Then the embodint of love-at-first-sight, Raina Alton, showed up before the carefree heroines and boldly declared war.
—Is that so? Then it wouldn’t matter if I started dating Shade, right?
The heroines, completely inexperienced in romance, were thrown into chaos by Raina’s sudden initiating move.
While our heroines—practically national treasures—still hadn’t realized their own romantic feelings, Raina pressed forward at lightning speed.
You only realize what’s precious after you’ve lost it, they say.
Thanks to Raina’s arrival, the heroines began to recognize their feelings and each tried to appeal to the protagonist in their own way.
In other words, Raina was the one who lit the fuse on the “Heroine Power” arms race.
‘That episode was the turning point where the romantic cody elent suddenly shot up.’
And how did that episode end?
Sowhat absurdly—Raina ended up in danger, and Iri rescued her, leading to a completely unexpected result.
Raina beca a follower trailing after Iri instead of Shade.
Calling her a “follower” was being generous—she was a Cra-psy-les.
A Crazy Psycho Lesbian.
‘After that, she was often depicted as a hungry beast chasing the fleeing Iri…’
So when I heard the na “Raina,” I was actually a little relieved.
At least the one who sent Iri a love letter wasn’t so shady guy from who-knows-where, but the sa comic-relief character who had played that role in the original.
“What should we do?”
“…Just leave it.”
Of course, I didn’t know why she skipped over the “I like Shade” phase and went straight for Iri.
She hadn’t been that important in the original, so even I couldn’t fully grasp her psychology like a main character’s.
But if I had to guess—
It was probably because Iri right now was following Shade’s original route to so extent.
‘It was my decision to try raising Iri as the team’s leader.’
Since I stood in a completely different position, I couldn’t perfectly replace the protagonist’s absence, which was why I made that decision.
By having Iri fill the gap left by the protagonist, I calculated that we could get through the various incidents bound to hit the Academy more smoothly in the future.
Of course, Iri was still clumsy.
The first-arc episodes, which should’ve naturally taken about a year to unfold, had all wrapped up in just a few months—like beans roasted over a lightning fire.
Because of that, she hadn’t had enough ti to grow, ntally or in ability.
‘Well, that’s sothing ti will fix, so it doesn’t matter.’
Anyway.
The point was that Raina should have originally been drawn to the “protagonist,” but since Iri had taken over that role, the target naturally shifted.
‘Will this affect future events?’
I thought about it for a bit.
My answer was NO.
Unless Raina was a Transmigrator, she had been a limited-role extra even in the original, so there was no way she could suddenly have major influence now.
‘I already confird back at the start of the sester that Raina wasn’t a Transmigrator.’
After careful investigation since the term began, I was certain there were no more Transmigrators in this Academy.
So even if Raina started following Iri around earlier than in the original, nothing much would change.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah. I don’t intend to strictly forbid dating between students.”
I had far more important things to deal with than so Cra-psy-les.
The Minjung Faction’s academy head issue and the Ashita-kyo problem still weren’t completely resolved.
“Iri ca to you for advice, so give her an appropriate answer.”
“Understood.”
That was the end of handling that matter.
But I still didn’t know—
Just how crazy an extra-level Cra-psy-les, who wasn’t even a Transmigrator, could make the butterfly effect.
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