Among the clumsily scattered fragments of truth, I had to find the truth known as the school’s queen.
It wasn’t as if the genre had suddenly, out of nowhere, changed from a dating sim to a mystery, and I did wonder why I had to find this so-called school queen. But that didn’t mean I could just not look for her at all.
Character scenarios were usually resolved by the protagonist gathering the strength of the people around him.
There were scenarios that seemed to pass by without incident even if you didn’t clear them, but there were also quite a lot of dating sims where failing to clear one led to an extreme ending for the character.
And that ending wasn’t limited to something the character did to themselves; there were also plenty where other people forcibly imposed that ending on the character.
So, since there was a chance I’d be forced into a bad ending and my life here would be ruined, it was better to obediently clear it for now. The problem was—
‘Where do I even look?’
The system told me to ask the people around me, but with a body whose reputation was visibly in tatters, finding the real school queen was close to impossible.
Even if I asked, there was no guarantee I’d get any proper information.
Asking Yu Inna, whom I’d just been suspecting of being the school queen, would be insane. And the girl who had brought me all the way here felt awfully suspicious too.
An ability called Lies. Aside from the main heroine, I hadn’t seen anyone use what was called an ability properly, but I couldn’t help feeling uneasy about it.
Just as I was approaching the classroom while thinking of a way to find the school queen, who wouldn’t come to mind no matter how hard I thought, I heard something like cheering from Class 1 of the second year—our class.
Since we were going in late, and it was currently morning homeroom, it was strange, but there was madness in their voices.
“Ahahaha~. It’s good to see you, classmates. I’ve been too busy with work to come often, so I’m happy you’re welcoming me like this.”
“Sing for us! Sing!”
“If I sing now, the teacher will scold me. Do you want to make me get scolded by the teacher...?”
“We’ll get scolded with you!”
When I entered, wondering what was going on, I saw that, except for a few people, everyone was gathered around one desk.
From what I heard, had an idol come or something? Thinking that one more person I could suspect as a candidate for the school queen had appeared, I first went to my seat in order to switch desks.
...My desk was clean, as if it had been exchanged with someone else’s. Considering the possibility that I’d mistaken my seat, I looked all around, but aside from the seat of the person presumed to be the idol, hidden by the crowd, no matter how much I searched, my dirty desk was nowhere to be found.
“Then there’s no need to switch seats with anyone else, right?”
When Yu Inna asked without returning to her own seat, I couldn’t help but find it strange.
Even if the students who liked Inna had moved immediately after she contacted them upon hearing that we were going to switch seats, could they really have made a new desk this quickly? Or had someone else done it, not Inna?
As I was wondering, the crowd parted, and a woman who seemed to be a celebrity emerged. A woman with smooth blond hair and jewel-like eyes that held an indescribable light.
“So we were in the same class. I don’t come to school often, so I didn’t recognize you right away. No wonder they said I’d find out when I came to school—you already knew we were classmates.”
It was someone I’d never seen before. And yet she was acting like she knew me. Was she someone who had known me from before, like Inna? For now, in order to at least learn her name, I looked above her head, and in that instant, I froze.
[Han Yeseul]
[Ability: Voice]
The person who had hit me yesterday like a hit-and-run car and left. And a woman like that was an idol-like existence? This dating sim world clearly needed to be destroyed.
I thought it as a joke, but the fact that I was actually shocked was no lie.
Her voice didn’t seem particularly outstanding, so for students to beg her to sing like that—just how excellent must her technique be to make that possible? It was enough to make me want to buy a CD and listen for myself later. Assuming I had money to spare, that is.
I didn’t know how she interpreted my gaze, but she looked at the desk I was sitting at and let out an “Ah—” of realization.
“I didn’t know it was your seat, but if people said bullying happened in the class I was in, they might suspect me first, so I cleaned up the desk that was here. Like this.”
Along with her words, knife marks appeared on my desk, and ten seconds later, those marks vanished as if erased with an eraser.
It was a sight that, to anyone else, might have looked like an optical illusion.
But that sight not only informed me that the “abilities” I had thought were just strange words definitely existed, it also served as clear proof that the ability called Voice was not an error.
Since it said Voice, I thought it was the kind that bewitched people, but if it was a word-spirit type, then the fact that her voice wasn’t all that charming made sense in its own way.
If it was an ability where anything she said would come true according to the owner’s will, then for balance to be right, it had to have nothing to do with charm at all.
Just as I was about to say something to her, who was waiting only for my answer, the woman with hair tinged with green light suddenly stepped forward beside me.
“Um, do you two know each other?”
“Yes, we met last time and formed a friendship.”
At Yu Inna’s question, which showed an unusual amount of interest in my friendships, Han Yeseul readily agreed.
Even though she must have noticed that I was being bullied, the way she boldly claimed she had formed a friendship with me made it seem as though she didn’t care whether others ostracized me or not.
“So we decided to become friends. The friend fee this time too...”
What friend fee? It was medicine money she had agreed to give me as compensation for my knee still aching slightly. I stopped thinking any further about her attitude and hurriedly covered her mouth with my hand.
If she used that supernatural power she had used just now, she could surely remove my hand with ease, but she didn’t push it away and simply stayed still.
Yu Inna’s scarlet eyes stared at my hand blocking her mouth as if they would burn it to ash.
But if I let go here, the next part about the friend fee might come out, so I couldn’t remove my hand, and in that situation—
The world stopped.
My body wouldn’t move.
Yu Inna’s body, still fixed with that burning gaze, no longer moved, and Han Yeseul’s body, which had restored the desk with unrelated words, was frozen in place as well.
In a world where everything had hardened and become unable to move, I saw four sentences.
[Inna, if you made a promise, you have to keep it. Do I really have to say that much?]
[Miss Han Yeseul, aren’t you curious who solved that stalker incident last time?]
[Erika, if you keep acting like this, I’ll do something bad to my current girlfriend.]
[The teacher is troubled too, so why don’t we all stop here and go back to our seats?]
As if someone were choosing what to say to us, the four sentences slowly lit up one after another, and the one that shone last was the very last sentence.
Then I could breathe again. My fingers began to twitch. When I began to feel Yu Inna and Han Yeseul’s breaths again—
“The teacher is troubled too, so why don’t we all stop here and go back to our seats?”
The person who stepped between us and said that was a boy with black hair. Though his eyes were an ordinary black, they somehow seemed especially sparkling, and he had a face that looked quite gentle, even cute.
A boy who seemed to have something special hidden within his ordinariness. Why his skin wasn’t completely dyed black like the extras’ was obvious at a glance even without looking above his head.
Because I already knew what a person who recited exactly the sentence I had seen during the phenomenon I’d just experienced was called in a dating sim.
[Checking security level.]
[Highest level security.]
[Confirmed that the other party has released their own security state.]
[Viewing the other party’s profile.]
[Kim Haneul]
[Role: Protagonist (Not Hidden)]
[Ability: The World’s Love]
[Current favorability toward target: -100]
That boy was the very protagonist of this dating sim world, the one who had stolen the person known as my ex-girlfriend and apparently made some promise with her.
...Though for some reason, a whole bunch of words I didn’t understand had popped up just to confirm that he was the protagonist.
Did the fact that he had released his security state himself mean that even my eyes, which could normally see roles, wouldn’t have been able to confirm he was the protagonist?
I wanted to think about it more, but for now, I looked toward where his gaze had turned.
Just as he had said, off to one side, a woman wearing glasses was looking over at us while fidgeting slightly.
As for me, I seemed to have become famous because of the suicide commotion; Inna was someone liked by everyone, teachers and students alike; and Han Yeseul seemed to be an outright celebrity, so even if she was the teacher, they were people she would have to be a little cautious about casually interfering with.
“Tell me later when you met Han Yeseul.”
“I’ll give you what I promised back then during break.”
Everyone listened to him and returned to their seats. If this could be called the protagonist’s ability, then it was an ability.
After watching all the heroines return to their respective seats, the boy was about to return to his own when I grabbed his wrist.
And regardless of my own will, my foot sprang up like a coil to kick him in the shin.
Even I only realized what I’d done after kicking, but even with his wrist held, he easily dealt with it by taking one step back.
A considerable level of athletic ability.
It was the kind of speed that seemed fully capable of executing events where he suddenly blocked a ball flying toward a heroine or pulled a heroine out of the path of an oncoming car.
As expected, the role of protagonist wasn’t given for free. Since he also had something called the World’s Love as his ability, physically harming him might be nearly impossible.
“I think you have plenty of reason to hate me, and whether you kick at me or swing your hand at me, I don’t really mind. But right now, it’ll disrupt class, so I’ll take it later.”
From his words, which treated me like a child, I felt the leisure of someone above bestowing tolerance upon someone below.
As expected of the protagonist.
They called him an ordinary student, but it was a role only special kids could take. However, unlike my reason, which admired how protagonist-like he was, my emotions somehow welled up just from hearing his words.
Was it the influence of -100? I didn’t think I would fall in love with him, but merely hearing his words made my body move reflexively. And the fact that I was slipping out of control like that irritated me, making me continue to be hostile toward him.
“I really hate you.”
If I didn’t want situations like this to keep happening, the correct answer was to push the protagonist away completely.
Aided by the hostility naturally rising within my body and the situation in which I had no choice but to push him away, I glared at him, and he smiled refreshingly.
“I know. But please endure it and wait just a little longer. I’ll end it soon.”
...End what?
Could he possibly have meant he would quickly finish conquering me? If that was the case, he could take a lot more time with it!
A chill ran sharply down my spine, but he said nothing more, simply patted my shoulder and sat down in his seat.
When I also sat back down, the teacher, perhaps thinking the situation was finally over, stood in front of the blackboard after having been crouched in the corner.
[Gang Yujin]
[Role: Event Heroine]
[Ability: Advice]
“Er—there was a bit of a commotion, but we’ll begin morning homeroom now.”
Second year.
My second-year youth, which had already passed, began once again inside a dating sim world depicting other people’s stories of youth.
...But where was my former lover, the student council president?
Was she in another class?