“Bwaaaaaah!!”
Yuridia rolled around on the ground, wailing at the top of her lungs.
I wanted to ditch her and leave right then and there, but I couldn’t.
‘I’d rather not get a bad ending.’
There was a special hidden piece where, if even one of these four characters—Alex, Raymon, Yuridia, or Victoria—got eliminated, you’d end up in a bad ending no matter how many headbands you secured.
‘Leaving Yuridia here like this would be suicide.’
Let’s summarize the situation.
One, I had to regroup with Luna and Rezé.
Two, Yuridia, with no mana left, was weak enough to lose to a rabbit.
Three, if Yuridia got eliminated from this exam, I’d be forced into a bad ending.
‘The best option would be to take Yuridia with me and regroup…’
But that wasn’t possible. Yuridia had a story line she needed to go through as a character.
And if the route she was supposed to follow never happened?
The story would end up full of holes, and that would lead straight to a bad ending.
“Bwaaaaaah!”
On top of that, she’d already burned through all her mana, which meant even the battles included in her story route were no longer possible.
It was a complete disaster.
Still, that didn’t mean there was no solution.
‘I just need to help Yuridia clear her story first, then regroup with the others afterward.’
Luna and Rezé were minor supporting characters with relatively little presence in the original story.
They didn’t have any mandatory story lines to clear in this episode, so joining up with them a little later shouldn’t cause any problems.
I quickly organized my thoughts.
Yuridia’s original route. The places she absolutely had to visit were…
‘There are two essential locations on the first day. In that case…’
As I untied the ropes binding Yuridia, I spoke.
“Follow me.”
“Bwa… huh?”
Maybe she hadn’t expected that at all. Yuridia stared blankly at my back as I headed into the forest, then suddenly sprang up.
“W-wait a second!”
Yuridia rummaged through her clothes and pulled something out.
A headband. Then she went around tying one onto each of the fallen students’ wrists.
When I looked at her as if asking what exactly she thought she was doing, Yuridia gave me a double thumbs-up and shouted,
“It’d be a shame for them to get eliminated like this. Pure love is the best!”
Hey, Miss Yuridia. How about you hurry up and follow me?
Why was I passing up the chance to collect four more headbands?
Because what Yuridia chose to do with her own headbands was none of my business.
‘Well, they were her former teammates too.’
Steve, Selin, Lance, and Fran.
I’d fought alongside those kids hundreds of times in the game.
They didn’t even have proper illustrations—just black silhouettes.
I may have used slightly more force than necessary because I was happy to see them, but that couldn’t be helped.
‘That’s just the kind of test this is.’
If they were unlucky, they’d be eliminated as they were. If they had the skill, they’d survive on their own.
Yuridia hurried over and asked,
“Where are we going?”
“To steal headbands. That’s the objective of this exam, isn’t it?”
“That’s obviously not what I meant, and you know it.”
What she really wanted to ask was why I hadn’t taken her headband, and why I was helping her.
That was the question.
“Keke, are you complaining even after being spared?”
“I don’t need pointless sympathy. It’d be different if there was something you wanted.”
Something I wanted… Well, there was something.
I gazed at Yuridia in silence. Immediately, she crossed both arms over herself and covered her body.
“No way! I may be beautiful, but even then… I’d rather die than betray Miss Luna!”
…Right. Honestly, I’d like to kill something too. If it weren’t for the bad ending, I’d have punched you a few times already.
“I need your help.”
“With what?”
With what kind of help? That would be…
“Keke, that’s a secret.”
“…”
I had no idea why she was glaring at me like that. Didn’t she know a man’s secrets were beyond reproach?
Right as Yuridia’s glare was about to kill me on the spot, I found my first target.
“…So let’s forget our bad blood for now and join hands.”
“You’re right. We’re wasted staying under a guy like Teron anyway.”
“Good. Let’s show them the power of the Go & Pa Alliance. In the end, we’ll be the ones to conquer the first-years! Let this be the place where our brilliant future begins!”
The two who had once been Teron’s right and left hands.
Godner and Zepa.
“You can handle them alone, right? I’m out of mana, thanks to someone.”
“Keke, whoever that was sounds like a terrible person.”
“…”
Yuridia threw a punch. A weasel’s tiny forepaw swipe!
It didn’t hurt in the slightest, but it did make noise.
“Who’s there?”
“Come out. We’ll go easy on you.”
“Don’t be too upset. You’ll go down in history as the first sacrifice of the Go & Pa Alliance.”
Godner and Zepa slowly approached our direction.
By the time they’d cut away three or four clumps of brush with their swords—
“Keke, good evening.”
“…”
I greeted them with a cheerful smile.
Godner and Zepa promptly turned around.
“Huh. Guess there’s nobody here. Must’ve been the wind.”
“Told you. You should really start taking some tonic. Since we just formed our alliance, I’ll even buy you some as a gift.”
“You really are the perfect man I chose as my comrade!”
The two of them slung their arms over each other’s shoulders and started walking away.
At the start of the semester, these were the same two who’d bickered endlessly to win Teron’s favor.
Seeing them get along so well now made me think…
“I kind of want to smash that.”
“Haa… That’s a very perverted thought. But… for once, I actually agree.”
I shot out at once and drove a kick into them.
The Go & Pa Alliance. Formed and dissolved in under a minute!
My part was done. From here on, it was Yuridia’s turn.
“So this is betrayal? How pathetic. You were the ones calling yourselves his right and left hands not long ago.”
“Ghk! It’s only natural to secure a way to survive.”
“Exactly! If that bastard Teron had done better in the first place, this never would’ve happened!”
“…Pathetic.”
Yuridia reached out and took their headbands.
I’d already confiscated every headband in their possession with my “If I search you and find even one, that’s a hundred punches each” martial art, so Godner and Zepa were guaranteed to be eliminated.
As Yuridia watched the two of them get dragged away by an instructor, she muttered,
“I almost feel bad for Teron. To think he once kept beasts like those at his side.”
“Maybe that’s why he was even lonelier.”
“Teron? Lonely? There’s no way that man would be.”
Yuridia probably didn’t realize she was wearing a melancholy smile right now.
‘This is the scene where she realizes she sees something of herself in him.’
There was no time to get sentimental. If we didn’t advance the next story line today, a bad ending was guaranteed.
Getting to the next location came first.
“Hey! Avoid the north.”
“Why?”
“Daike’s holding it down like some kind of gatekeeper. No idea why he’s camped out there, but there’s no point getting yourself eliminated fighting a monster like that, right?”
It was a conversation between students keeping their distance from one another by the riverside while exchanging information.
Yuridia, who had been listening in, murmured,
“So he’s not with Teron? What on earth is he thinking?”
And with that, the second condition was fulfilled.
But I couldn’t exactly say things were going well.
Because before I knew it, the sun had already set.
-Grrrr…
The cries of beasts echoed from all directions.
Even for me, wandering around at night was dangerous.
Not only did the beasts’ stats rise, but the miss rate on attacks increased sharply too.
Well, if you really wanted to argue it, it wasn’t impossible to push through.
‘But there’s no reason to take that risk.’
More than anything, I couldn’t leave Yuridia alone.
Originally, Yuridia was supposed to camp with several other students.
But now, the only one beside her was me.
At this point, there was no helping it. Tonight—
“We’ll have to spend it together.”
“W-what do you mean by that?! I see! So this was your plan all along—you were going to use me as bait!”
“…?”
“You’d even lay your hands on your girlfriend’s best friend… You’re trying to use me to make Miss Luna experience NTR, aren’t you? You golden-haired sleazeball! You absolute scoundrel!”
How did her brain even produce delusions that absurd?
Even I, standing with one foot in the abyss myself, could only stare in disbelief.
“Follow me. It’s dangerous here.”
“You think I’m just going to follow you? There’s nothing more foolish than listening to a golden-haired sleazebag.”
“Then stay here and get torn apart by wild beasts.”
At this point, even I didn’t care anymore. If I got a bad ending, I’d just accept it.
“L-let’s go together!”
Maybe the cries of the beasts had finally scared her. Yuridia hurried after me, sticking close behind.
The place where I stopped was a giant tree.
It was so massive that its circumference had to be at least five meters.
After fumbling around a bit, I found an entrance.
“Go inside.”
“This is…?”
The moment we stepped in, the magic stones embedded in the walls lit up.
A bed, a bookshelf, even camping gear. It was hard to believe this space was inside a tree.
“Keke, this is one of the hunters’ hidden shelters. Places like this are tucked away all throughout the forest.”
“I see. And where exactly did you get such high-level information?”
It was one of the pieces of information you could get from NPCs while progressing through the game.
Of course, I’d been bedridden from the aftermath of my fight with Duke Zeppelin, so I’d never had time to gather that sort of information in person.
‘But knowledge from the game can still be used even if I never went through the event myself.’
Naturally, the answer I gave Yuridia was—
“Trade secret.”
“Tch! What would it hurt to tell me? Why is everything a secret with you…?”
Despite the sulky tone, Yuridia looked to be in a much better mood.
Not only were we safe from the beasts, but we had a comfortable place to sleep and shelter from the night dew.
To her, it probably felt like an unexpected stroke of luck.
Originally, that good fortune was meant for Luna and Rezé…
‘They’ll manage on their own.’
I hadn’t raised them so weakly that they couldn’t survive a single night in the forest.
I forced myself to push away the image of the two of them lit by a campfire and tossed another log onto the flames.
For some reason, Yuridia was sitting a fair distance away.
“Come closer. Forest nights are cold.”
“The most dangerous thing here isn’t the cold. It’s you, Zero.”
“Is that so?”
“Uaaaaaah! I’m committing NTR! The idiot girl creating a situation that could totally be misunderstood is meeeee!!”
Was her imagination running wild again? Yuridia clawed at her hair and thrashed around.
I ignored her and took out the mushrooms and wild greens I’d gathered in the forest.
I’d long since learned how to tell edible plants and animals from dangerous ones, so there was no risk in eating them.
‘And around here…’
After searching beside the bed, I found what I was looking for.
Something wrapped in oil paper.
It was meat.
‘A hunter’s gift—and courtesy—for whoever came by next.’
It also happened to be a consumable item that temporarily raised all stats by 5.
I cut it neatly, skewered it, sprinkled pepper and spices over it, then stuck it near the campfire.
The grease dripped down as a rich, savory smell filled the air.
The moment I bit into the well-cooked meat, juices flooded my mouth.
It tasted like pork belly. But maybe because the quality was so good, it was at least ten times more delicious.
“You’re really going to eat that all by yourself?”
“Keke, so getting close to me is unacceptable, but eating the food is an exception? The aesthetics of pure love must be weeping.”
“Gourmet appreciation and pure love are completely different things, thank you very much.”
Making that rather shameless claim, Yuridia snatched one of the meat skewers.
Was it really worth that much? Yuridia’s face softened into a deeply satisfied smile.
–TL Notes–
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Damn…The Zero Yuridia ship have been revived! I’m so down for this!
Will Yuridia also awaken something?