BOOM!
There was an explosion in the sky over the school.
“Wah!”
“What was that?!”
“...Fireworks?”
The sudden event startled several students nearby, drawing everyone’s eyes upward. Someone had said it was fireworks, and there certainly did seem to be smoke trails. Large ones, too.
“Was it to celebrate the start of the festival or something? I didn’t see anything like that on the schedule.”
“Who knows?”
Everyone commented on the unexpected noise, but then largely went about their business. Since no harm had been done, there wasn’t much resulting chaos even among the visitors.
“...!”
Not so with me, however. Since I’d been lending a hand to both the student council and the festival committee, I knew there were no plans for fireworks. President Momone could be arrogant at times, but she would never pull a stunt like this. Even if she were planning a surprise for the festival, she would have told the committee about it. That meant this was...
“The work of the culprit, huh?”
Fireworks were an art, but they were still giant balls of gunpowder. They were only one step away from being used as bombs, which would be a catastrophe. Thinking about it, I gulped. I picked up the note that had been blown out of my hands by the blast and was now plastered on the opposite wall of the hall. This bomb threat... It was the real deal.
“That means there’s only one thing for me to do.”
I folded the now dry piece of paper and stuffed it back in my pocket before heading down the hallway.
▽
“Find the four odd ones out.” That was all the note had really said in the way of what I was supposed to do. Too bad trying to find anything based on instructions that vague was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. I needed some direction before I started searching, but the only hint I had was...
“The note said I had to search alone, didn’t it?”
At a glance, that seemed like a restriction, but it also served as a potential clue. For example, whatever the odd things out were, they had to be perceivable by me. I wouldn’t be able to search for them by myself otherwise. That is, of course, assuming the culprit hadn’t put me in a game that was impossible to win in the first place.
Just as terrifying to consider was the thought that I might just run myself into the ground searching... Which was starting to feel like a very real possibility. At this rate, the bomb was going to go off without me having a single thing to show for myself. There were too many worst-case scenarios to consider. I had to put those thoughts out of my mind for now and get moving before the culprit decided to do anything hasty.
First things first, I needed to try and figure out if the culprit really had any intention of letting me clear this little challenge of theirs. Better yet would be figuring out who the culprit really was. And if I failed at all that, it would be time to prepare for the worst... Meaning I’d have to locate where the bomb was planted.
With that plan in mind, my feet carried me to a certain classroom.
“Oh? This is Tsumiki’s class. Are you going to start searching here?” asked R.
“Yeah. I’m going to go around to all of the events the people I know are participating in first.”
If I couldn’t find a single odd thing out between all those places, then I’d take that as a sign this really was an impossible challenge after all.
I took a deep breath. Before entering the classroom, I glanced over to the sign next to the door to see what kind of event they were holding. It read: “Nozo-mini: A Place to Rest Your Feet and Fill Your Tummy.”
“Nozo-mini, huh?”
So it was going to be like a little restaurant, then? I guess I was about to find out. I went through the curtain and entered the classroom.
“Welcome! Oh, it’s just you.”
As expected, the one to greet me so unpleasantly was Tsumiki. She was dressed in her usual Nozomiya uniform and holding the kind of metal spatula meant for making yakisoba and the like. When I got a look around the room, I could see the other students were all wearing Nozomiya aprons too, most likely brought in by Tsumiki. It really was like a mini Nozomiya in here. But as I was glancing around, I spotted two familiar faces.
“Hey, Tetra! You too, Lea! Fancy running into you two here.”
“Hey, good to see you!”
“It’s been some time, Rekka.”
Tetra and Lea both greeted me with smiles.
“Wait a sec... Why are you guys wearing aprons? Didn’t you come here as guests to enjoy the festival?” I asked.
“Oh, no. We came to help out with Nozo-mini,” said Tetra.
“At Tsumiki’s request, of course,” added Lea.
“I’m using their charms to attract more customers!” chimed in Tsumiki, giving me a big thumbs-up.
I could certainly imagine Lea and Tetra would rake in the customers, but...
“Isn’t asking outsiders for help against the rules?”
“They’re not outsiders! They’re both Nozomiya employees!” Tsumiki argued, puffing out her cheeks. Then she pointed her finger right in my face and declared, “I won’t lose to your class, got it?!”
Come to think of it, President Momone had mentioned something about a reward for the class that attracted the most customers during the opening ceremony...
“What is your class doing, Rekka?” asked Tetra.
“A maid cafe.”
When she heard those words, Lea’s ears perked up.
“Oh, so that’s why Satsuki and Iris have been coming by the cafe so much.”
By “the cafe,” Lea was probably referring to Linda Lovers, where she worked part-time. It wasn’t a full-on maid cafe, but the owner made sure it was full of cute girls in cute uniforms. Customer service was their specialty.
“The maid uniforms for our class were designed by Rosalind,” I explained. “Since she likes them so much and everything.”
“Does she?” asked Tetra.
“Well, she does make everyone living at her mansion work as her maids. I’ve never seen her so motivated over a school activity before...”
I was honestly pretty surprised when she raised her hand with such intense ferocity to volunteer for the job. I’d stepped in to stop her when I realized she was about to start using her charm on people to get her way, but I was otherwise happy to see her enjoying school activities for once.
“Actually, now that I think about it, it might be better to keep Rosalind away from here to make sure she doesn’t see what you guys are up to...”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, if she sees Tetra and Lea, she might feel compelled to go get her maids to compete.”
In other words, Suzuran, Ulaula, and Corona. It’d be chaos if the three of them showed up at school too. Especially Ulaula, who was a known troublemaker.
“Hmph... Are you saying I’d lose to those three in terms of charm, Rekka?” Lea huffed unhappily as she leaned in close to complain.
“No, of course not.”
“I won’t lose either!” declared Tetra, leaning in on my other side.
Between the two of them, I was starting to panic a little.
“N-Now hang on... It’s not that I’m saying the two of you aren’t charming...”
I was frantically searching for the right words when I felt several staring pairs of eyes fall on me. No, they weren’t staring; they were glaring. My male classmates in every direction looked like they were ready to kill me.
“Why are they so close with that guy?”
“That’s that Namidare guy, y’know?”
“I heard a girl who looked like his little sister delivered lunch to him in her pajamas... And now he’s got the older girls too...”
“Even the student council president’s taken an interest in him!”
“And he spends every afternoon in the old school building with some beautiful upperclasswoman...”
&n
bsp; Deep-seated grudges were roiling to the surface. The classroom restaurant was suddenly a very dark place.
“We’re not going to get any customers like this, Rekka.”
“Er... Um, well...”
Cold sweat began dripping down my spine when Tsumiki started glaring at me too.
“Th-Then I’ll leave as soon as I get something to eat.”
“Hahh... Fine. Just make sure you order something expensive.”
Honestly, I wanted to get out of here ASAP, but I had to hang in there. I had been looking around the classroom and watching the girls until now, but I hadn’t spotted anything that felt or seemed odd yet. Maybe none of the four things were here...
“Okay, then... I’ll take the Nozo-mini deluxe meat yakisoba.”
“That’ll be 1,000 yen.”
“That’s expensive!”
“Duh, it is deluxe.”
It was a painful blow to pocket an expense like that right at the start of the festival, so I had to tell myself it was just paying for the inconvenience I’d caused. I handed Tsumiki a thousand-yen bill and took the pile of yakisoba she handed me on a paper plate. I could only assume that the “deluxe meat” part was actually Lea’s Leviathan meat, which did look quite delicious when it was cooked like this. My mouth started watering when the smell of it hit my nose.
“Wow, this looks great,” I commented.
“Right? So hurry up and eat it already,” Tsumiki encouraged.
“Yeah, thanks for the food.” I snapped my wooden chopsticks in half and dug right in. “Wow, this really is good!”
The amount, the taste... It was well worth the thousand yen I’d paid for it, even if that was a bit much for a student’s budget. Tsumiki proudly stuck her hands on her hips when she heard my reaction.
“Of course it’s good! It’s our signature dish, after all! I busted my butt to make it, too! There’s no way it’d be anything other than delicious!”
“PHBBBBBT!”
I instantly spat it out on reflex when I heard that.
“Ew, gross! What’s wrong with you?”
I couldn’t even answer her. I was too busy pounding on my chest as I tried not to choke on what was left in my throat. I thought my heart was gonna stop.
“Are you okay, Rekka?”
“What’s the matter?”
Lea and Tetra came over with worried looks and started cleaning up the mess I’d made. I felt bad for making extra work for them, but... I really couldn’t help it.
“Tsumiki, since when could you cook?”
The last time I tested something for her the other day, it had blown my soul out of my body and sent it all the way to the far reaches of the universe where it remained for some time before it was willing to come back. She’d gotten better with simple dishes like rice balls, but yakisoba... Maybe her just grilling the meat would have been okay, but letting her season anything was a terrible idea. There was no way she wouldn’t mess it up. At least, not under normal circumstances. Something was weird here. Yeah, something was definitely odd. Wait, odd? That’s it!
Just as I put my finger on it...
Bang!
I heard what sounded like something small bursting.
“Hey, Tsumiki! What are you doing over there?! Who let you cook?!”
The next thing I knew, Tsumiki’s friend and classmate—I think her name was Sato—was giving her the third degree.
“We agreed to use the name Nozo-mini because you said you’d stay at the front of the house!”
“H-Huh?”
Being so scolded by Sato, Tsumiki looked up at her and blinked a few times with a blank expression. It was almost like she didn’t know what she was in trouble for.
“What’s going on here...?”
How come no one else had noticed until I pointed it out? I was sure that Sato, Lea, and Tetra all knew that Tsumiki was a terrible, no, dangerous chef. Yet not one of the three of them had said anything about her cooking just now.
Curious, I took the note out of my pocket and looked at it.
“Find the four odd ones out.”
Just who had written this? And how did they bring about this weird situation? What kind of methods were they using? At the very least...
“It definitely isn’t somebody normal.”
I mean, no normal person would send a bomb threat in the first place. But since they were threatening to use a bomb, I had just assumed they were a normal human being. That clearly wasn’t the case anymore. Maybe they were a mage, a psychic, or even some kind of supernatural being... Either way, there was no mistaking they had used some kind of special power that defied logic. Figuring this out would be tough without Satsuki’s help...
“For now, let’s move on.”
I said goodbye to Lea and Tetra, waved to Tsumiki who was still being fussed at by Sato, and then put Nozo-mini behind me.
▽
With one of the four oddities under my belt, I walked down the hallway to my next destination while quietly talking to R.
“That just now was strange, wasn’t it?”
“Sure was. Tsumiki’s cooking itself was strange, but the fact she and the others around her didn’t notice was even stranger.”
“Yet the moment I realized something felt odd, their perceptions went back to normal. What on earth is happening?”
All I’d done was notice something wasn’t right. I hadn’t done anything special, and it didn’t seem like anyone else had either. But poof. That was all it had taken for everything to go back to normal.
“Was it the realization itself that returned everything to normalcy, I wonder?”
“It could be because you said something about it out loud.”
“Either way, there’s something freaky going on here...”
I’d briefly considered that everyone was just hypnotized, but that wouldn’t explain how Tsumiki miraculously got better at cooking. I had no idea what kind of powers were at play here, but yeah... There was definitely something freaky going on.
“Hm? Oh, it’s you, problem child.”
As I was racking my brain over this, someone called out to me... and only one person in the whole school addressed me that way.
“Oh, hi, President Momone.”
President Momone was standing next to a door labeled “Haunted House” with a bamboo sword leaned against her shoulder instead of her usual wooden one.
“Perfect timing. Get in here.”
“Huh? Um, I’m kind of busy right now...”
“Just do it. I need you to inspect this place for issues before opening.”
“Issues?”
I wanted to know what was going on, but I was promptly kicked into the haunted house without any further discussion. The door slammed shut behind me, so with a sigh, I resigned myself to trudging the long way towards the exit.
The inside of the haunted house was, of course, quite dark, but there were black paper signs marking the way forward. The festival had only started an hour or so ago, but to think this place was only just now being inspected...
“This seems a little poorly executed for President Momone... Or maybe that’s just how thorough she’s been with it?”
Well, whatever it was, I started to make my way through the darkness. I doubted there would be any traps to trip someone, but there might be some jump scares that involved bumping into people or objects. That being the case, a thorough final check for safety’s sake made perfect sense.
“Are you sure you should be doing this?” R asked as she glanced around the haunted house.
I should be trying to handle the bomb threat right now... is what she was probably trying to say, but her words were strangely uncompelling when she was looking around at everything so curiously.
“Actually, I think this was the event Tokiwa’s class put together. Maybe we’ll run into her here.”
In the end, we hadn’t been able to decide on an event for the light literature club, so Tokiwa had said she’d help out with her class’s event
some. Considering the incident with Tsumiki earlier, I now had pretty decent evidence that the oddities would all be connected to people I knew somehow. While I had no idea where Tokiwa was in this room, I figured I’d find her eventually as long as I walked the whole thing. So to get to it, I stood up and dusted the dirt off my pants.
“This is actually pretty well set up...”
A straight path extended from the entrance—probably to the window on the other side of the classroom, which had been blacked out—and the spooks kicked off with will-o-wisps floating around. It was atmospheric and rather clever, since the ones near the ceiling seemed to double as the main source of light in the room.
“...Hm?”
The flames on the ghostly little balls of fire looked awfully realistic, actually. They were even flickering like genuine fire... No, that couldn’t be. It’d be way too dangerous. I walked forward doubting myself, but it seemed like the will-o-wisps were moving out of my way as I approached...
At any rate, I made my way to the first corner. The real fun would probably start here. There might even be a jump scare right off the bat, so I readied myself as I stepped forward. Yup, there was a severed head.
“WAAAH!”
“Urrrgh...”
I screamed at the groaning, severed head spinning circles in the air. I’d thought the fire before was convincing, but holy crap... This thing was frighteningly real. But after the initial scare, the severed head flew up and over the wall, disappearing from view.
“Phew... That really startled me.”
“Wow, what amazing craftsmanship...”
“Wait, why’d you say it in that tone of voice?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“?”
R was acting weird, but that was normal for her, so I didn’t let it get to me. Anyway, I’d fallen for the very first scare, so I had to pull myself together and press on. But it was just one thing...
“Boo!”
“WAAAH!”
After another...
“Rrrgh!”
“GYAAAH!”
After another...
“Mrow!”
“BWAAAH!”
What the heck?! This haunted house was actually scary! The paper umbrella monster, the fake wall monster, and the cat monster were all totally... Wait, a cat monster?
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 13 Page 5
