If you went out for counseling, there was bound to be a predetermined place to go. Since evening was approaching, it was either a restaurant or a café.
It was a given that people relax when eating delicious food, so conducting counseling on a person in a relaxed state was one of the ancient secrets passed down through the ages.
But if one of the students with you is a celebrity, you cannot use that secret. No matter where you go, attention will be drawn, so even if you went somewhere so remote that students or teachers couldn’t find you, all eyes would inevitably be focused there.
And with people’s attention drawn to them, the counseling could hardly proceed properly. Therefore, the places the owner of the car trying to counsel me could go were limited. The student’s house or the teacher’s own house.
And since there was no case of going to a student’s house without asking the student, there was nowhere the homeroom teacher could be headed but her own house.
‘A brilliant deduction.’
I nodded in acknowledgment of my extraordinary reasoning ability that remained unchanged even though my body had changed.
I had thought this body was stupid because I couldn’t understand the class content, but the one who could understand everything after not studying for several years was the abnormal one.
I had been a person who could be called a genius across my previous world, but since I wasn’t born with a superpower like perfect memory, being unable to understand the lessons had been unavoidable from the start.
Though this body may have been lacking, the suffocating feeling I had felt since hearing it had once been first in the entire school subsided slightly.
If both of us possessed intelligence that reached the heavens, then it wasn’t that the older of us two had the flaw of being stupid; rather, today’s lessons had been incomprehensible due to the trivial problem of not having studied for far too long!
Of course, just because I was the older one didn’t mean my previous self was truly old.
Having resolved one question I had harbored since attending class, I wanted to familiarize myself with the geography as well and wished to look out the window, but I only looked straight ahead.
The girls flanking either side would interfere by mercilessly poking my sides with their fingers if I showed even the slightest sign of turning my head toward one direction, so prioritizing the front was the best option. Learning the geography while looking out the window would have to be postponed for later.
Though there was no guarantee that the homeroom teacher would give me a ride then, either…
I wanted to punish those who dared to ruin my plans and poke my sides by using the white lightning phenomenon that had occurred this morning, but the morning’s phenomenon didn’t reoccur simply because I wanted it to…
Supernatural abilities usually had conditions, so I would have to find the conditions required to activate the ability in order to possess the power to perfectly protect my body, as the student council president—my ex-lover—had said.
Given that the physical abilities of women with superpowers were superior to those of the women I knew, I should probably recover the ability presumed to be a protective ability in order to protect my body from a possible attack by a yandere heroine.
Already feeling a stinging pain in both sides from the two girls who mercilessly poked me the moment I showed signs of turning my head, I harbored a curiosity.
Honestly, I could understand the childhood friend being overprotective, since there had been a suicide attempt even if there had been bad blood between us.
But what about the woman with the voice ability? I couldn’t understand at all why she had suddenly butted in here.
I had deliberately refused to accept the money she was going to give. So while I understood her trying to ease her mind by giving me money, at least in part, that debt was a terrifying plan to make me pay it back through non-material means.
Naturally, I didn’t want to let this debt be paid off in one go and be done with it. Since I intended to use it at the most critical moment, I didn’t even rush her.
And yet, was the reason that woman stubbornly followed me because she had a personality so righteous that she couldn’t stand being in debt, or because of the devilish charm that could captivate even an idol?
But if it were the latter, it was strange because I hadn’t even checked my own appearance in a mirror yet.
Of course, if we assumed that my outstanding appearance and the heroine who couldn’t possibly be anything but pretty were a given, then being pretty was only natural, but there were many different kinds of pretty appearances.
There was something lacking to be certain that I possessed an appearance that could captivate even the same sex. If they had been mesmerized by seeing the vast light emanating from my soul with their discerning eyes, then there would be nothing to say!
“Kids, we’re here, so get out now.”
No sooner had the car come to a stop than I heard a clicking sound accompanied by the locks disengaging. I had been planning to get out on the same side as whichever of them got out first, but…
“Aren’t you getting out?”
“If you get out first, then I’ll get out.”
…A battle of nerves even after arriving here. Since neither of them seemed to have any intention of getting out, I stayed still, and the homeroom teacher sighed as she watched this scene in the rearview mirror.
“Kids, please listen to me once we’re inside the house.”
Everyone present must have realized that the words spoken by the timid homeroom teacher were an impossible wish.
*
Had she planned this from the beginning?
After entering the house and looking at the refrigerator, the homeroom teacher handed her card to the two excluding me and told them to buy groceries slowly while eating whatever they wanted.
It was practically a situation no different from kicking the two out for my counseling. In contrast to how they had fought without tact in the car, those two retreated obediently, as if they already knew this proposal could not be refused.
‘…Could it be they were pretending to be oblivious from the start?’
The woman who was an active idol despite being a student, and the girl who was well-liked by many students—it was impossible that they were completely oblivious, so why had I thought they were clueless?
The reason they had acted cluelessly was probably not because they disliked the homeroom teacher or liked me, but rather… it was related to my still-aching sides.
For example, wanting to mercilessly poke my sides, so they had deliberately pretended to like me—these sorts of things.
When my thoughts reached that point, I gritted my teeth. Evil things. To think they would act just because they wanted to strike me…
I would definitely settle this debt after escaping from this place.
Even while I was lost in anger replaying their actions, the homeroom teacher busily prepared for the counseling. She poured orange juice from the refrigerator, placed it at her seat, and laid out cushions to sit on.
The counseling preparations were quickly finished. If there was anything absolutely necessary for counseling, it was only the two of them: the counselor and the counselee.
There hadn’t been much to prepare from the start.
“Then I’ll ask again what I asked earlier. Is there anything difficult these days?”
Her counseling began by repeating the question from before.
Earlier, I had said I couldn’t speak of it here, but now I could speak honestly.
“Honestly, there isn’t anything.”
Yes, honestly saying there was none.
“Hmm?”
I had thought she was a novice teacher who was going to make me receive counseling together with Yuinna when she told me to bring her, but seeing how naturally she had chased the two out, she already seemed to know what was most important during counseling.
What was important during counseling was that its contents were not revealed to others.
But if the homeroom teacher kept to that principle, I wouldn’t be able to speak of what I had experienced. Naturally, I didn’t yet know for certain what this body had been through.
It seemed that the information I didn’t know was hidden with Yuinna, but since not much time had passed since I fell into this place, without Yuinna I had no idea what to say to the homeroom teacher.
But it was then. A window glowing blue filled my vision.
[The Counseling Event begins now. The very meaning of an event heroine’s existence is to open events for characters with specific roles. Gang Yujin’s event is counseling.]
[During the Counseling Event, you are provided with the same choices as the protagonist.]
[You are currently under the Beginner Protection Period. Regardless of how this counseling turns out, the probability of it leaking to others is extremely low.]
[During the Counseling Event, you can obtain information you do not know. Additionally, depending on the counseling results, you may obtain special rewards, so please participate as diligently as possible.]
Beginner Protection Period?
The feeling that word gave off was singular.
They call the period that protects one until they adapt if they are unfamiliar with games the Beginner Protection Period, but such periods are usually granted in games where other people can attack you, rather than in RPGs.
In other words, it meant there could be others from the world I had been in, besides me, in this world.
‘It can’t be.’
A dating sim game whose name I didn’t even know.
An unfavorable period assumed to have already started a year ago.
To think there were players—or ‘players’—who had been playing this dating sim game on top of that?
If the one who brought me here had any conscience, this kind of unfairness shouldn’t happen.
If this dating sim world contained competitive content, then naturally the reward obtainable at the end of competition in this world would be predetermined.
The authority to escape from this world.
“Uh… then how is school life?”
While I kept silent, the teacher restlessly asked a different question. She knew I was being bullied, so she must have been bewildered that I said there was no problem.
After thinking, ‘The system said choices would appear earlier, so aren’t they appearing?’ choices immediately began to appear before my eyes.
[As long as things like receiving physical violence or having water dumped on me while in the bathroom don’t happen, I’m fine. In other words, it means such things haven’t happened.]
[Really, nothing is wrong. I just wanted to take a short break.]
[If you answer my question first, I’ll answer properly.]
The choices that appeared for me. However, unlike when I had seen the protagonist’s choices, the world did not stop.
Was having sufficient time to choose a privilege reserved only for the protagonist?
Though time had not stopped, the homeroom teacher’s pupils contained only me, as if she intended to wait until I answered.
The first choice’s core was that though I was being bullied, I was unaffected.
If the homeroom teacher said one should be angry about such things, a route naturally came to mind leading toward reporting school violence.
The second was a way to end the counseling completely. Since it would be strange to continue counseling if I said I had no problems.
The last choice was a deal. A method of extracting information from the homeroom teacher in exchange for giving information about my situation.
Each had its own pros and cons, but if I wasn’t the only one who had fallen into this world, and others had fallen here as well—
“If you answer my question, I’ll tell you properly.”
“Huh? Is there something you want to ask?”
“If you could tell me everything Kim Haneul has done from first year until now.”
That others might interfere?
Then all I had to do was finish it swiftly and decisively before any players who might exist in this world could interfere.
…Of course, if she told me Kim Haneul’s information, I would have no choice but to roughly fabricate lies about what I had promised to tell her.
A person of the homeroom teacher’s stature wouldn’t get angry or spitefully inflict penalties just because I told a few lies.
Believing so, I continued to look at the homeroom teacher with sparkling eyes, and after hesitating for a moment…
“It’s all just things you already know?”
That was what she said when she opened her mouth.