2nd Part 1. Late News - 13

The academy has been in disarray lately.

It's been a bit strange since the events at Abydos ended.

 

 

In the past, it was clear that the girls formed their own factions or groups and only hung out with each other. Talking to other groups felt like it was to build relationships, keep each other in check, or exchange information. But recently, there have been no groups or factions. It feels like they're talking to anyone they have a connection with and checking rumors.

I'm saying this in advance in case you ask how I noticed that. It's absolutely not because I was observing the girls to see if I was being ostracized or not. It's just that I happened to see girls who usually talked among themselves talking to girls from other groups... It's a coincidence. It's just that I happened to find a girl who was good at understanding relationships, and I happened to be talking to someone who was good at understanding relationships. That's all...

 

 

"Well, no one has talked to me though..."

 

 

Besides, recently I've been spending all my time in the library instead of being with Hifumi, and Hanako just keeps spouting nonsensical sex jokes, so I haven't heard any rumors or news.

 

 

I looked at MomoTalk. Hifumi, Nagisa, Hanako, and Mika are saved there.

If I ask them through MomoTalk now, would they answer me? I don't know about Hifumi and Hanako, but Nagisa and Mika from Tea Party must have already figured out what's going on in the academy.

At least, I won't get a "I dunno" when I ask them.

I hesitated for a moment, but then gave up and turned off my phone.

 

 

I was so curious about why Trinity was in such a mess, but it's already been three days since the academy was turned upside down. The reason for the mess must have come out even longer ago. If I ask now, "What's going on?" it would sound too pathetic. I'm not a pathetic person. I just have deep and narrow relationships with people.

The self-hypnosis and escapist sentence that came to my mind a while ago was very effective.

 

 

It's not like they'd call me a pathetic person for being late to the party... well, Mika might tease me... Hanako might tease me too...! And Hanako would probably tease me with sex jokes... Those dirty pink-faced girls...

Anyway, I was afraid to ask because I knew they would look at me with pity if I asked such a question.

 

 

"Haa... I can't focus on studying..."

 

 

But there's no way I wouldn't be bothered by it if I gave up like this.

Humans are curious animals, and once a question is raised, I feel uneasy if I don't solve it.

 

 

I feel like an old man who's been left behind in this era.

Old men have the wisdom of age, but I'm only 5-7 years older than these kids...

I'm dying to know what's going on.

 

 

"Ugh... what the heck is going on outside..."

 

 

"Um... you've been muttering to yourself, please be quiet in the library..."

 

 

Endou Shimiko, a member of the library committee, pointed out to me.

Come to think of it, I've become quite close to Shimiko while going to the library.

Not that we're very close, but we can talk to each other casually. Still, in Trinity where no one talks to me, this is quite a blessing.

Shimiko also only likes books and doesn't really make connections with other people, so she doesn't seem to have any negative views of me.

Ah, maybe Shimiko knows about the current situation?

 

 

Shimiko not only likes to read books, but she also likes to read things in general. So she might have found and read newspapers about recent events.

 

 

"Endou, could you come outside with me for a moment?"

 

 

"Y-Yes? Wh-What are you going to say! You, you blasphemer!"

 

 

-Thwack

 

 

I was hit on the head with the corner of a book.

Since my body can take bullets without any problems, it didn't hurt much, but I felt a little wrong that I had to get hit like this for no reason. No matter how much I think about it, I can't think of anything I did wrong in my statement to Shimiko just now.

 

 

Besides, I'm burdened because my actions just now have attracted the attention of the library students.

 

 

"No, I was just going to ask you something because I was curious..."

 

 

"Ah, is that so... I'll help you if I can. Let's go outside since it'll be noisy if we talk here."

 

 

"That's why I asked you to go outside with me..."

 

 

I felt a little wrong, but I couldn't let go of a possible lifeline, so I just muttered my complaints in a small voice and followed Shimiko outside.

 

 

"So, what are you curious about?"

 

 

"You know I don't have many friends, right?"

 

 

"Yes. It seems so."

 

 

That hurts. It hurts so much.

It wasn't intentional, but Shimiko's words stabbed me in the heart.

I received a mysterious damage, but I pretended to be calm and continued to speak.

 

 

"So, Trinity has been a bit noisy lately, right? I'm curious about what's going on, but no one talks to me, so I can't hear any news... Could you tell me what's been happening recently?"

 

 

"Haa. I can answer that much. By the way, I can't believe there's someone who hasn't heard the news... and that it's our school's top student..."

 

 

Shimiko sighed, rubbing her head as if she was waking up, and then explained to me what had happened recently.

Each of Shimiko's words flew at me like a dagger, but I endured it to the end.

 

 

"You know that Sensei from Schale returned after finishing the work at Abydos, right?"

 

 

"Yes. I heard that much."

 

 

"After that, a file was sent to Sensei's tablet from the missing Student Council President. It's called the assistant teacher system..."

 

 

"Huh...?"

 

 

"So, they're selecting five representatives from each academy, and then they're going to choose one person among them. An assistant teacher. So, they're recruiting participants to select the five representatives of Trinity. The deadline is... in two days."

 

 

Assistant teacher system?

It was an unfamiliar term even to me, who was once a Sensei of Schale.

Could it be that I don't remember? Was there an assistant teacher system in Blue Archive? I quietly went through my memories.

I was wrong. There is no system related to assistant teachers in Blue Archive. The closest thing would be the duty system... that is, the five students we put in the lobby, but the meaning of duty and assistant teacher are too different. Besides, there were five duty students, but this time they were only choosing one.

 

 

The meaning of an assistant teacher is not just about being with Sensei.

It's a job where they go around with Sensei, take care of students that Sensei can't reach, and literally assist Sensei's work.

In the real world, they taught students with the teacher and supplemented the parts that the teacher didn't know, but what is the meaning of an assistant teacher in this world where kids study with BDs?

 

 

 

Someone who can command students in crisis situations with Sensei?

Or just a position where they can stick closer to Sensei?

I don't know about the former, but the latter was pretty certain. If they're an assistant teacher, they'll be stuck with Sensei. The female students of Kivotos would love that. So that's why Trinity has been in this mess since before.

 

 

I have a rough idea of what the female students were talking about.

This was a check on the entire school.

 

 

'Are you going to apply for assistant teacher?'

'Of course. If someone like me doesn't become an assistant teacher, who will?'

'Heh... you, a dimwit like you, are going to be an assistant teacher? I hope you don't tarnish the school's reputation?'

'Hmph, do you think a moron like you can assist Sensei?'

 

 

Among them, I was treated as an outsider, so no one approached me...

Since I had no intention of sticking with Sensei in the first place, I had no intention of applying for this strange system that I didn't even know about, but I'm quite scratched in my pride for being ignored to this extent.

But well... what can I do even if my pride is scratched...

 

 

Hey Lim Han-ja. What can pathetic people like us do right now?

I don't know, Kanshi. Shut up and study.

 

 

Anyway, what's important to me is the grades I need to get in the midterm exams, not the assistant teacher or whatever. Assistant teachers don't help my grades.

My interest has waned. I was nervous that I might have to care about the unheard-of story of the assistant teacher, but it's a story that has nothing to do with me. I'm not a girl who screams when she sees a handsome teacher like the female students in Trinity. At first, there was a strange flutter, but after the last Black Market incident, that's gone too. In other words, there's nothing I can gain by applying for assistant teacher. In the first place, we agreed to call being corrupted by Sensei a 'loss'... no, I personally agreed to it.

 

 

Ah, a thought flashed through my mind for a moment.

Should I apply to be one of the five representatives of Trinity?

If I'm selected, I can drop one of the guys who was supposed to be there.

I'm not interested in the assistant teacher position, but I'd like to see someone who was supposed to be in the top 5 of Trinity despair.

Isn't it said that other people's misfortune is my happiness?

I think I'd feel a little better if I saw the misfortune of someone who was deprived of their position by me and didn't even get a chance to challenge for the position of assistant teacher.

 

 

But I'm too afraid of the aftermath to do it.

If you're a person, you should act while calculating your future.

If I frag someone who was pushed out of the top 5 by a small margin, I'll have to feel like I'm in hell alone in the paradise that is Trinity.

It's an act worth trying if my backing was a little safer, but it's ambiguous whether I have any backing right now.

 

 

It's absurd from the start to assume that someone like me can be in the top 5 of Trinity. I don't even know what the criteria for selecting the 5 people are, but I'm ashamed of myself for drinking the kimchi soup after fighting a few times.

Yeah. What kind of school representative am I? It's a blessing if I don't become a laughing stock for the kids after being dropped.

I shouldn't give the kids a reason to make fun of me. Yeah.

 

 

"Thank you for telling me, Endou."

 

 

It wasn't very useful information for me, but it did satisfy my curiosity.

Now that I can study in peace, I should express my gratitude for that.

 

 

"It's nothing. It's natural for friends to do this much."

 

 

"Friends...? Friends. Yes, that's right. Thank you."

 

 

I don't know when I became friends with Shimiko, but since she called me a friend first, I accepted it properly, even though I was a little flustered.

That's unexpected. I thought we were just acquaintances who greeted each other when we saw each other in the library, but she thought of me as a friend first.

If I had said, "When did we become friends?" here, it would have been awkward for both of us. I did well to hold back what I was about to say.

 

 

"So, are you going to apply for assistant teacher, Hayashi?"

 

 

"No. What kind of assistant teacher would someone like me be? I'm just satisfied with studying alone in the library."

 

 

Would I do something that would get me involved with Sensei?

Especially if I take that job that sounds like I have to assist Sensei, it's no different from creating the plausibility for me to get involved in the story with my own hands.

I keep saying this, but I want to live a quiet Trinity life with a narrow and deep network like Hifumi and Hanako.

 

 

"Ah... is that so..."

 

 

If Hayashi is 'someone like that', then there are almost no people in our school who can be selected as a representative of Trinity...

Shimiko muttered quietly. She was so good at muttering quietly while living in the library that I couldn't hear her even when I was listening closely.

 

 

"What did you say?"

 

 

"It's nothing. Study hard."

 

 

Yeah. Thanks for the support.

I'll study hard without doing anything else and make sure to keep my top spot.

I sat down to study.

 

 

So, who is most likely to become the assistant teacher?

If they're chosen by combat power, it would be Neru from Millennium, Tsurugi or Mika from Trinity, Hina from Gehenna, and Hoshino from Abydos.

Regardless of their performance in the game, they're the strongest characters in the story.

If they're chosen by intellectual level... I don't know. There aren't many characters who are described as smart in the story.

In the case of Millennium, there are too many, and in Gehenna, Ako and Kayoko are considered smart, and in Trinity, it's Hanako, but she's cosplaying as a stupid pervert right now, so I don't think she'd break her concept to do it.

 

 

I flipped through the notebook page I was organizing my studies on and listed the students who would be likely to come out of each school based on each criterion.

 

 

In the end, I wasted the whole day thinking about who the representatives of each school would be and couldn't study.

The assistant teacher is of no help in life.

Anyway, it's all the assistant teacher's fault.