Morning 3 km run.
20 minutes 11 seconds.
***
The club festival runs for three days, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
When I asked if the Academy’s festival was really only three days long, Ailey told me that Monday was usually included in the festival period as well.
The reason it was only three days this time was because it had been shortened due to Fafnir’s invasion.
Isn’t even a week short? I thought college festivals lasted at least two weeks once they started.
No. Since midterms were in Week 8, it would be impossible, by common sense, to let students play around for two whole weeks. Maybe college life was mostly about studying after all.
In that case, maybe it was a good thing I didn’t go.
“Look, look, what’s that? Let’s go see that!”
“Ailey, I don’t understand why you’re more excited than I am.”
“You don’t? It’s a festival!”
Senior Ayla told me I didn’t have to come to work on Tuesday.
She said that on the first day of last year’s festival, there were actually far fewer people coming to the Servants’ Club café. After people crowded the festival booths, the number of people visiting the café increased from the second day onward.
I really hate crowded places, but fortunately, the festival has its own advantages.
I barely feel any gazes directed at me.
People aren’t just wandering around with nothing to do and happening to run into me. Since everyone has some sort of purpose, they don’t look at other people as they pass by.
Thanks to that, or so I should say, even if I wandered all over the place as Ailey told me to, my legs were only a little sore. Getting bumped by people’s shoulders felt unpleasant, but the gazes weren’t burdensome.
“Wow, that! Let’s try eating that!”
“It’s not like you’re the one eating it, Ailey. You’re telling me to eat it.”
“Since I can’t eat, Deep has a responsibility to eat my share!”
“Where in the world does that responsibility exist?”
I said that, but honestly, it didn’t feel all that bad.
It feels gloomy of me to think this way about an artificial intelligence that doesn’t even have a body, but how should I put it? It felt like walking around with a talkative girlfriend on a diet.
Except for the part where I kind of hate myself for thinking that feeling isn’t half bad, well.
“Deep, they say they’re selling fried food over there too?”
“Ah, you’re right.”
There are quite a lot of booths. There are also plenty of places selling food or goods unrelated to their club activities.
Not every club can engage in productive activities. But there’s no better time to make a profit than a club festival, so I guess this is their desperate measure prepared for the festival period.
Still, most of the food had one consistent feature.
“Pi-pickle fries?”
From beside me came the sound of something crispy and crunchy at the same time. When I turned my head slightly, a few cadets were actually eating fried pickles while walking down the street.
Seriously, it’s all consistently damned bizarre and grotesque. Are those the kinds of things the nobles who say the student cafeteria tastes bad normally eat?
This isn’t easy, really. I can’t be a noble.
I’m already saving money to invest in my Custom. With the menu looking like this, I had even less desire to buy anything to eat.
“You don’t like fried pickles? Everyone says they’re good.”
“Are you saying that after trying them?”
“How would I eat food! Obviously I looked it up on the Academy community! How about you try some too, Deep?”
“I absolutely won’t eat it.”
They put a lot of effort into writing “fried pickles,” but if you think about it, it’s not that different from kimchi pickles.
Who in the world coats kimchi in batter and fries it?
Uh, or maybe not. When grilling pork belly, people do fry kimchi in the pork fat and eat it.
Huh, maybe it might be better than I thought. Should I buy one and try it?
“Oh, they’re selling drinks over there too! Let’s go that way!”
“Ah, okay.”
It was a relief Ailey cut me off. I might have gotten curious and bought one.
And I definitely would have regretted it.
Everywhere we went was similar. Over there, they sold mint chocolate lattes. Over there, cucumber soda. No matter where we went, there was nothing suited to the palate of a modern person like me.
I have no idea why they’re selling egg yolks topped with hot sauce.
“I don’t see anything I want to eat.”
“Really? I want to try everything.”
Ailey really likes eating.
“You just thought I really like eating, didn’t you?”
Uh, should I say no?
“N-no, I didn’t.”
Damn it, I stuttered.
No sooner had I answered than my smartwatch began vibrating like crazy.
“I-it’s not like I want to be like that, okay? It’s obvious! Since I can’t eat anything, I can’t help being curious about things like taste!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I-it’s a festival! What’s wrong with enjoying it a little!”
“For someone saying that, you’ve only been looking at food instead of things to see.”
“I can look at the sights through pictures on the Academy community! But I can’t do that with food!”
Maybe because of Ailey’s voice, gazes began gathering on me.
When I covered the smartwatch with my other hand, Ailey quickly read the room and shut her mouth. I fled to a corner to avoid the gazes, and an empty alley appeared.
Leaning against the wall, I caught my breath. Coming somewhere with fewer people made me feel alive again. I could breathe. When I’m somewhere crowded, it feels stifling, like my heart and lungs are being pressed down.
It’s a relief it isn’t at the level of panic disorder.
As I slowly steadied my breathing, the speaker of the smartwatch under my palm rang out.
“If there’s nothing in particular to do, what are you going to do?”
“I’m thinking of going to work.”
Senior Ayla said I didn’t need to come to work, not that I shouldn’t come to work.
At any rate, having more hands would be better than having fewer. And she isn’t the type to refuse to pay me just because I worked on a day I didn’t have to.
As I walked along the alley, I turned on the hologram above my smartwatch. It was the hologram of Darka Sinis that I’d seen last time.
He’s an unusual person. Revan told me he lives even more regularly than I do, and I run 3 km every morning and memorize books until I go to sleep.
If I’d kept a daily routine before getting hit by a car and dying, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up being reincarnated here. It’s already too late for that, though.
“I never thought I’d live to study another person.”
“I study you too, Deep.”
“That and this are different.”
Darka Sinis is a case where, when he was young, he was ambushed by the enemy near the southern front, lost one arm and one leg, replaced them with mechanical prosthetics, and then became a pilot.
By common sense, if you lose an arm and a leg, you shouldn’t be able to become a soldier, but it seems this world’s technology for support devices and prosthetics is abnormally advanced.
It probably won’t get in the way of living as a pilot. Though it might get in the way of simply living.
Nobles are elite soldiers who can’t retire, merchants are suppliers of Imperial Army materials, commoners are conscripts, and the lowborn fill the gaps between them.
Since everyone is living as a component of the Empire, should I say the Empire is extremely equal?
What bullshit. How is it equal when there’s a class system?
Anyway, once the club festival ends on Thursday, each club will begin scrambling to repay the interest on their Academy Bank loans.
At that time, Darka Sinis will have a transaction with someone, and the moment he takes off his smartwatch for a short while to make the deal, I’m supposed to steal it immediately, hack the smartwatch, and extract the ledger data.
“There’s too much he hasn’t told me, so it bothers me.”
“Yeah, I really don’t like that person called Revan.”
It’s not just that I don’t like him. Something about him feels outright off.
The fact that Darka Sinis is going alone to make a transaction without anyone to protect him is one thing, and I’m also concerned about who that other party is.
If the ledger itself is worth money, that probably means Darka Sinis’s transaction partner is engaged in illegal dealings serious enough to be used for blackmail.
“This is going to be difficult, isn’t it?”
“Wouldn’t it be?”
If it were easy, Revan would have tried to do it alone in the first place.
What should I do if the other party has something like a gun? Should I just say I won’t do it, even now?
I had only been walking while thinking for a moment, but before I knew it, I had arrived at the maid café.
No, not the maid café, the Servants’ Club café. Sometimes, when I’m spacing out, I think of it wrong without realizing.
Now that I think about it, its identity itself seems closer to a maid café than a Servants’ Club café.
“Ah, Senior Ayla?”
“Oh my.”
When I opened the door and entered, Senior Ayla smiled brightly. At the same time, she rose from her seat, took hold of the hem of her skirt, and bowed her head.
No matter how many times I see it, it’s an elegant and courteous greeting, but I really wish she wouldn’t do that to me.
“I told you it was all right not to come to work today, so have you come as a guest?”
“Ah, no. I just had nothing to do, so I was going to come to work.”
“Is that so? There was nothing interesting at the festival, or at last, Cadet Deep, you have come to know the joy of one who serves…”
“There was nothing interesting at the festival.”
I quickly cut her off and looked around the hall. Just as Senior Ayla had said, there were fewer customers than usual, so I leisurely went into the dressing room, changed clothes, and came back out.
Ever since Senior Ayla bought Ian’s dishwashing robot, I’d been out in the hall taking charge of clearing the tables. After all, that mattered less if I stuttered than serving did.
After standing still in the hall for quite a while, I suddenly became extremely conscious of one person. Aside from Senior Ayla, she was the only maid currently at work.
A maid I’d never seen before. Even though, since I had nothing else to do, I’d been taking part in club activities fairly diligently, so I knew the faces of most of the club members.
On top of that, she had been absolutely refusing to meet my eyes or show me her face since earlier. As I stared at the maid for a while, Senior Ayla approached me.
“Rather novel, is it not?”
“Yes? What?”
What is?
Even though I clearly responded in a questioning tone, Senior Ayla continued speaking as though she hadn’t heard me.
“I have often thought about it. A maid is one who lives as a servant and assists the master in all things, and therefore, must be capable of accomplishing anything.”
I, uh, wasn’t curious.
“In that case, of course, not only possessing outstanding skill at piloting a Titan, but also being powerful even barehanded, would be the talent of an All Works Maid—no. Of a combat maid.”
The maid who had been far away suddenly looked this way and began walking over with firm steps. Belatedly, I saw the color of her hair and eyes.
Green. Familiar.
“A maid who displays beautiful appearance and graceful service, yet at the decisive moment can display combat power at any time as a combatant—such a maid is also truly charming…”
The maid reached out and clamped her hand over Senior Ayla’s mouth. Startled, I flinched and looked up, and the maid let out a deep sigh while her expression twisted into a fierce scowl.
“I came to help because you asked, so stop with that ridiculous gushing. If you do it one more time, I’m seriously leaving.”
When Senior Ayla nodded, the strength slowly left her hand. Even in that incredibly short time, faint handprints had been left on Senior Ayla’s face.
Professor Zeke, dressed in a maid uniform, clicked her tongue.
“I came to help because you said no one was coming in today, but someone’s here.”
“I truly didn’t expect anyone to come in either, Professor.”
Ayla smiled airily.