Clubs

After training ended, Rael ordered me out of the classroom.

I walked out on my own two feet, but it was no different from being dragged away.

I had no idea what he wanted to talk about, but it definitely wasn't going to be a normal order.

"Do you know why I called you here?"

"No."

"That's a pretty short answer. And there's something else you should say after that."

"....I don't know, Master."

That's more like my maid. Now I'll give you an order.

What kind of order was he planning to give me that he had to draw it out like this?

Was he seriously about to order me to assassinate someone?

I could put up with anything, but I really wanted him to stop making me call him Master.

At this rate, my mouth was practically going to start smelling like shit.

"At the next club sign-up, apply to the club I tell you to."

"Sorry, what?"

"I said to apply to the club I tell you to."

"Understood, Master..."

"If you disobey, you'll suffer more than death."

Watching the piece of trash walk away after saying his piece and giving me that bizarre order, I raised both middle fingers, crossed over each other.

I kept my middle fingers raised until the piece of trash was out of sight, then stood there and carefully considered the order he'd given me.

The time to choose a club began as soon as the day's classes were over.

Joining wasn't mandatory, so only those who wanted to had to sign up, but hardly any cadets chose not to join a club.

You could make connections with nobles or people tied to guilds, or broaden the limits of your talent through a wider range of experiences.

More importantly, some clubs hunted monsters and sold the magic stones they collected for a little spending money, so they were almost always full as soon as recruitment opened.

I absolutely had to join the protagonist's club so I could intervene, which meant I had to join the same club as him.

There was a good chance the club Rael meant wasn't the same one as the protagonist's, which put me in a very difficult position.

If I disobeyed, the compulsion might activate, and the stronger it became, the more control I would lose over my body. My options were far too limited.

"This is a problem."

Without a cigarette, it was hard to relieve the stress after something this infuriating.

I'll go out for a drink later.

Cadets weren't allowed to drink, but as long as I didn't get caught, it was fine.

While I was lost in thought, I turned a corner to hurry to the bathroom and collided hard with someone.

"Watch where you're going!"

"Oh, sorry."

"Next time, I won't let you off so easily, so keep that in mind."

The person I'd collided with was none other than Agnes.

The moment we bumped into each other, she launched into a barrage of complaints, then ignored my apology and walked off.

Agnes wasn't normally like this, so I wondered what had gotten into her.

And I found the reason sooner and closer than I expected.

'A notebook?'

I took a step toward the classroom and felt something beneath my foot.

A blue notebook lay on the floor, with my footprint on it. I knew at once whose it was.

Agnes was the only person who'd been here just now.

'But... now I'm curious about what's in this notebook.'

A notebook belonging to Agnes, a character in the novel and one of its main heroines.

I was so curious about what it contained that I couldn't possibly resist opening it.

'Just a little. I'll only open it a tiny bit.'

The moment I opened the notebook and looked inside. From that moment on, I have no memory.

No, I don't. Let's just say I don't.

Whatever I saw or whatever I realized...

Right now, I'm no different from an idiot who saw nothing at all and knows nothing whatsoever.

"Hmm. There's nothing here after all. Let's go back."

"You. Put down what you're holding right now."

A breathless, icy voice sounded from behind me, and I felt a chill cold enough to freeze me solid.

The chill soon turned into actual ice and began spreading through the hallway. People passing by gathered until a crowd had surrounded us.

I'd clearly done something terribly wrong, so I decided to put the notebook down first.

"You saw it, didn't you?"

"Saw what?"

"That. You saw it?"

"No. I didn't see anything."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really."

"That's good, then. If you'd opened that notebook, you wouldn't have escaped death."

Agnes slowly approached me, picked up the notebook I'd set on the floor, tucked it against her chest, and disappeared.

At an incredible speed.

"Is something going on?"

"Looks like that commoner did something wrong."

"They've got some nerve, messing with Agnes."

At the same time, a completely pointless misunderstanding seemed to be building up around me.

I really shouldn't have opened that notebook.

That terrifying notebook filled with nothing but the protagonist's name.

I hadn't seen all of it, but from the first page to the last, it was packed with the protagonist's name and information about him.

It recorded in detail where he'd gone and when, who he'd met, what time he'd left, and even how many times he'd met her so far.

That alone was enough to make the notebook feel terrifying, but there was more.

She'd even written down Roben's food preferences and the things he liked, how he exercised, where and when and how he trained, what his schedule was, and just how much she loved him.

The side of a main character I'd never once seen in the original was far more terrifying than I'd expected—and something I should never have known about.

Even after we returned to the classroom, Agnes's demeanor didn't change at all. She continued radiating cold from the center of the room.

When Roben started trying to calm her down, the classroom temperature thankfully began to rise again before long.

I nearly froze to death in this warm, springlike season.

"What? Why is it so cold?"

"Who are you?"

"Who do you think? I'm the professor here to announce the club selection."

"But those ears..."

'What? Do you have a problem with my ears?"

The person who opened the classroom door and walked in wasn't human. The professor was a beastkin.

Long, pure-white ears grew from the professor's head, and the professor's eyes were shaped like an animal's.

I knew the Academy had beastkin and elves, but I never expected a beastkin to hold a professorship.

A professor did appear at this point in the original, but there was no mention of them being beastkin, so how could I have known?

I wasn't the only one amazed to see a beastkin in person for the first time in my life.

Everyone else was staring at the professor, too.

The professor's ears kept twitching without pause, and a pure-white tail swayed below.

It was so enticing that I felt tempted to touch those ears and that tail, as if they were trying to lure me in.

"From now on, choose whichever club you want on the paper I'll hand out. I'll give you about an hour."

"Professor, is there any other information?"

"Just choose for yourselves. Don't ask me."

"At least tell us your name."

"Didn't I tell you? My name is Karena. I'll be handling your afternoon classes from now on, so I look forward to working with you."

With a playful way of speaking and an aura that said it was far too much trouble to talk to anyone, Professor Karena soon started dozing off at the desk.

The professor kept nodding off, then eventually slumped over the desk and fell asleep.

Judging by the ears, the professor seemed like a cat. Was this just typical cat behavior?

"Are beastkin usually like that?"

"No, more importantly, how did a beastkin become a professor?"

"Are we sure that's even a professor?"

The professor seemed not to hear the voices around them at all and slept with a blissful expression.

But if I did it now, maybe I could touch those ears.

....No. After what just happened with Agnes, people are already looking at me unfavorably. I can't afford to earn the title of pervert, too.

For now, I should choose a club.

There were all sorts of clubs, but I'd already decided which one to choose.

I absolutely had to join the club Agnes and the protagonist were in.

That was the only way to get directly involved in the events. Trouble always broke out wherever the protagonist was, and Cecilia was always near those incidents, so I had to join the same club.

But because of Rael's order, I had no choice but to pick the club he told me to.

I thought about what I could do, but nothing came to mind.

With no other choice, I had to choose the club he'd decided on. But which club had that piece of trash told me to write down?

No matter how hard I tried to remember, nothing came to mind. Then my hand moved on its own and wrote down the name of a club.

I tried to stop it, but my hand wouldn't obey, and the name of a club ended up on the application form.

But what is this?

***

Annoying.

That guy annoyed me to no end. He'd beaten me in the freshman sparring matches, and now he had those two paying attention to him, too.

The difference between first and second place was proof that there was a gap between me and that guy that I could never bridge.

But that didn't mean I could openly push the top student aside.

I couldn't get my own hands dirty. There'd be no point.

No matter what it took, I had to think of a way to get rid of this guy so he would naturally disappear from my sight.

If I didn't want to act with my own hands, using a slave would be the quickest option.

Acting directly inside the Academy was impossible.

There were too many watchful eyes, and the space was too restricted.

Then it would be better to get rid of him outside the Academy.

The time had finally come to put a slave to use for the right purpose, in the right place.

"Let's see how long that smile lasts."