Students who spend their lunch break doing something other than studying are exceedingly rare.
And so the woman sitting alone in the student council president’s office, looking over documents, was one of those exceedingly rare students.
There were students sitting in chairs with the cool breeze blowing past them, chatting with friends, and students enjoying soccer with their friends on the field.
There were those who soothed the fatigue of class with sleep, and those who relieved it with snacks from the school store.
At lunchtime, in a school where most were enjoying their youth that would never return, the red-haired woman looking through the students’ personal records seemed far removed from such students—but in truth, until just a few days ago, she had been one of those students enjoying that very youth.
A student who had enjoyed simple happiness with her lover. But there was only one reason the woman had to leave youth behind and keep looking through papers filled with personal information.
Because to fulfill the promise she had been forced to make with someone in order to protect the one she loved, she had to search through the students’ personal records.
In an ordinary school, even the student council president would not be able to view personal records, but in this school where the superpowered individuals of the region were gathered, it was one of the authorities granted to a student council president who wielded tremendous power.
Skipping class was also one of those authorities.
After all, if there were students who abused their superpowers, it was the student council’s role to stop them beforehand or deal with them.
Of course, the police had far greater and stronger authority than the student council, but because children born in recent years tended to possess stronger superpowers than adults, such a system had been implemented.
She had not become president in order to exploit that system like this, but since this much would not cause any great harm to others, this was something she did with the desperate wish to keep her promise as quickly as possible and return to her lover.
However, even after dedicating class time and even lunch breaks to the search, she still could not identify the person she had promised to find. Pressing her fingers against her throbbing temples after overusing her power, the woman let out a sigh.
The superpower she possessed was not the ability to create something from nothing. Even if the information was scattered, she needed to have at least a certain amount of it in order to find the answer with 100% certainty.
In other words, if she tried to derive a single answer using only incorrect information, the answer that came out could only be wrong.
[Erika 9%]
In exchange for saving Erika from bullying, she had agreed to find a girl who played a certain role, but no matter how much she ran her power, the only name that came up was that of the girl the woman still loved.
It was not as though there were no other candidates besides Erika, but the probability that they held that role did not even reach 1 percent.
The woman had been about to rest for a moment without using her power in order to recover from the aftereffects of overusing it, but soon there came a knock, and a boy calmly stepped inside.
“What, were you taking a break? I bought coffee, so drink it and take your time.”
Instead of coming empty-handed, the boy had brought two coffees. He approached the woman without hesitation and carefully placed one of them on the desk, which was cluttered with papers containing personal information.
He was the boy who had protected the girl she loved by making a promise with her, and also the wicked loan shark who, as the price of that promise, had forced her to separate from the girl she loved for a while.
“Judging by the look of things, you still haven’t found any leads.”
“Don’t you think the information was lacking?”
Thinking of the information the boy had given her, she frowned.
A target hostile to the boy, and a girl who would not love men. Lastly, the fact that she possessed an unidentified role.
Perhaps because there were few people who were hostile toward the boy, whom others were reluctant to touch, the first condition was deemed highly significant, and the woman’s power had continuously brought up only Erika, the sole girl hostile to the boy.
Even though she and Erika were lovers who hid nothing from each other, she had never heard anything about Erika having an unidentified role,
and the boy, who was essentially the client behind this promise, also insisted that it was not Erika, so there was absolutely no possibility that Erika was the owner of that role.
From the woman’s perspective, who had no choice but to find the target the boy before her had mentioned in order to end the promise, she could not help but be dissatisfied with this sluggish situation.
“Erika keeps coming up, and no one else has ever shown a meaningful probability. Unless you provide more special information, it’s impossible for me to find that target with my power.”
No matter how many times she reviewed the information the boy had given her and the students’ personal records, the protagonist of the role the boy was searching for did not appear.
No matter how hard she tried to free herself from the “promise,” the only answer that returned was one containing the possibility that her own lover might be the person the boy had been looking for.
Hearing the woman’s complaint, the boy shrugged, picked up one of the coffees, and lightly hopped onto the guest chair, sitting down there.
“But even I really don’t know. Since this is a world where superpowers are natural, that girl will probably have a superpower comparable to mine. And she’ll be carrying problems she can never solve on her own, and she’ll need the help of others to resolve them. She’ll be a female student at this school, and she won’t easily open her heart to others—things like that. I can roughly tell you the traits that the girl with that role will have. But all of these include the possibility that they might not be true, and if you apply all these factors, you might end up with the wrong conclusion. That’s why I only told you the factors I could be more or less certain of. And that’s why I said it, didn’t I? The other girls besides Erika who were included among the possibilities for that role. For now, you can just give me their names.”
Telling him that list would not free her from the “promise.” What she had promised was to find the protagonist of a certain role, not to find candidates.
However, even when the boy said that if she just told him the candidates, he would personally go and search for them, the red-haired woman was faintly frowning.
The boy, who had a rough idea why the woman was dissatisfied despite his statement that he would take on the troublesome process of checking whether the candidates were real, smiled slightly and said,
“It’s because the school trip is coming up soon, right? Don’t worry. For you and me to talk like this, we have to maintain our status as lovers, so I can’t release our relationship even then. But I have no intention of interfering with you dating that girl. As long as you two don’t get caught directly kissing or doing something like that, I do feel sorry toward you, so I’ll cover for minor rumors on my end. Don’t worry. I have no intention of getting in the way of lovers who love each other, so even if you have a passionate relationship in your room, I won’t bring up our meaningless lover status and say anything about it. We’re just in a contractual relationship.”
Perhaps because he had spoken at length, the boy felt a scratchiness in his throat and took a sip of the coffee he had bought for himself.
Unlike the student council president’s, which he had deliberately made slightly sweet by adding syrup several times, his was bitter enough to jolt him awake.
“...No. I trust you on that point, at least. What I’m worried about is the Queen who’s trying to torment Erika. She’s the sort who gains pleasure from abusing people. If I keep staying here, there will be no one who can stop her actions for Erika’s sake.”
The boy, who had been quietly listening to the woman while performing a kind of ritual—consuming something painful on purpose so he would not forget what he had to do—opened his mouth.
“You want me to protect her, right? When I saw her this morning, it seemed like quite a few heroines were trying to protect her, so it didn’t look like my help was needed, but as the person who made a promise with you, if you go that far, I have to keep it. Don’t worry. Like what happened this morning, the Queen directly bullying her won’t happen anymore.”
A being called the Queen in a school where superpowered individuals existed. It was an arrogant declaration that he would stop the bullying led by her from this moment onward.
But the woman, who knew what the boy before her had done during their first year, set aside her worries for the girl she loved for a moment after hearing those words.
Because if it was this boy, who perceived this world as a single game and easily resolved the various incidents that occurred in their first year, he would never fail at something he had spoken aloud.
“Going to the café ate up a lot of lunch break. I should get going soon.”
The boy drained his coffee in one gulp and stretched. Looking at the back of the boy who seemed ready to disappear as swiftly as he had come, the woman held in words she had not intended to say.
“Is there really no possibility that Erika is the true heroine?”
The true heroine.
In manga, novels, and anime, the girl whom the protagonist chooses in the end and ends up with.
She was helping that boy keep his promise to find his true heroine, but because her own power showed Erika as having the highest probability, she could not help but feel uneasy.
“Are you worried because I said I’d find her and win her over? Don’t worry too much. After trying once, I found that she’s absolutely not on that side.”
“What exactly did you try?”
The woman asked the boy as he opened the door and was about to leave, but the boy waved his hand and closed the door.
—I told her a few of my secrets. Secrets a true heroine would have no choice but to react to.
The boy disappeared, leaving behind only a single sentence. If he told someone his secrets, would the role of true heroine reveal itself?
A boy with many secrets.
Since she did not want to know that boy’s secrets anyway, she only had to keep the contract called a “promise” that they had sworn to uphold.
‘Since he’s that certain, there’s no need to tell him this.’
The woman quietly swallowed the words that had appeared above the head of the girl she loved this morning.
Awakening Rate 0.01%.
An unidentified phrase that might or might not be a clue about the true heroine.
She did not know why something like that had suddenly appeared above Erika, but since that boy was certain it was not her, she had no obligation whatsoever to tell him.
Because the only place her loyalty should be directed was toward one girl alone.
Ding. Dong. Dang. Dong.
With the sound announcing the end of lunch break, the woman once again resumed the work of combing through the papers.
In a situation where Erika was not the girl Kim Haneul was searching for. Because that situation was the best ending for everyone, and she wanted her own power to confirm that her guess was wrong.