A Battle of Wits

Hoshikawa Yukina was waiting to hear from Max.

On the day she'd gone to the District 14 mercenary office with Ryuji, she'd expected Max to take on a job he couldn't easily discuss with others.

As the wait dragged on, anxiety gnawed at her.

She kept clutching her smartphone, wondering when he'd contact her, and even got to experience the strange feeling that time had stopped.

So she tried to distract herself. She kept herself as busy as possible.

‘Max will be fine.’

As always, she trained to keep from getting rusty, looked after Ryuji, and even took short jobs as Usagi.

On top of that, today was the day of Ryuji's admissions consultation at the educational institution.

She spoke with the institution's representative for a long time and even settled on an enrollment date. Just as she finished and checked the time, she saw that Max had messaged her.

“!!!”...