Curious as she was, Yuuki Asuna swallowed her questions.
Although she had just survived a brutal instance alongside Asagiri, they had only met today.
Prying into his private matters right outside the school gates simply was not appropriate.
“Then…
shall we go in together?” she asked.
“Okay, let’s go in together.”
Asagiri did not hesitate in the slightest, stepping onto the pristine grounds of Shuchiin Academy with Asuna right beside him.
As they walked past the towering gates, he suddenly stopped, closed his eyes, and took a deep, dramatic breath.
“This refreshing and intoxicating scent,” Asagiri murmured with deep emotion.
“As expected, it is the scent of youth that permeates the air when high school begins in early spring.” He paused, opening his eyes to glance sideways at her.
“Oh wait, it seems to be coming from you.”
Asuna, who had been anxiously trying to figure out how to bring up the serious matter of the survival game, was completely caught off guard.
She subconsciously let out a confused, high-pitched sound.
A second later, the actual meaning of his words registered in her brain.
Her fair cheeks instantly flushed a brilliant shade of red.
Desperate to maintain her composure, she stammered out the first defense that came to mind.
“I…
I took a bath after that.
Didn’t you?”
Asagiri stopped walking.
He glanced at the surrounding crowd, then looked back at her with a perfectly flat expression.
“Yuuki-san.”
“Y-yes?”
“Your voice is too loud, and your phrasing is far too easily misunderstood.”
Hearing his deadpan warning, Asuna finally noticed her surroundings.
The students walking near them had frozen in their tracks, their faces painted with absolute shock.
She immediately realized how her words sounded to an outside observer.
Taking a bath after that.
In her panic to hide her embarrassment about her scent, she had subconsciously asked Asagiri if he had bathed as well.
To the surrounding high schoolers, it sounded exactly like the two of them had just finished doing something highly inappropriate that required them to wash off together.
“Um…
let’s walk a little faster.”
Her pretty face burned bright red.
She kept her head firmly lowered, practically speed-walking toward the main school building while Asagiri followed at a leisurely pace.
Along the way through the crowded courtyards, the two of them found zero opportunities to discuss the instance.
There were simply too many students swarming the area. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Both of them knew perfectly well that their identities as Players in a supernatural death game could never be exposed to the public.
“Let’s talk during lunch break,” Asagiri said quietly as they reached the hallways.
Asuna nodded in relief, splitting off to enter the Year 1 Class B classroom.
Asagiri’s assigned room, Year 1 Class A, was right next door.
He walked in with absolute confidence, entirely ignoring the curious gazes of the students who had already claimed their desks.
He charted a direct path to the window seat in the innermost back corner of the classroom—the undisputed King’s Throne of any high school—pulled out the chair, and sat down.
The attention on the new arrival did not last long.
A few minutes later, a rising wave of noisy commotion echoed from the corridor outside, only to be abruptly cut off by a suffocating, absolute silence.
Through the doorway stepped a breathtakingly beautiful girl.
She wore the standard Shuchiin Academy uniform, black knee-high socks, and exquisite leather shoes that clicked softly against the floorboards.
With her long, perfectly straight black hair, delicate features, and slender figure, she looked like a masterpiece of aristocratic elegance.
Every student in the classroom subconsciously turned to look at her.
The moment they recognized her face, they violently snapped their heads away, their expressions a conflicted mix of intense curiosity and deep-seated fear.
Noticing the synchronized reaction of her peers, Kaguya Shinomiya’s expression remained completely unchanged.
Her cold, crimson eyes swept over the room without a single ripple of emotion.
She had long expected this exact situation.
It had been like this since she was a child.
As the eldest daughter of the monolithic Shinomiya Family, she existed as an exquisite yet chilling Japanese doll.
Her very presence radiated a freezing aura that forced everyone around her to unconsciously keep their distance.
Shuchiin Academy possessed a junior high division, and Kaguya had simply moved up the ranks.
It only took her a brief, sweeping glance to confirm that this classroom was filled with familiar faces.
She even recognized a few individuals who had shared her homeroom in middle school.
But no one stepped forward to greet her.
Everyone’s eyes avoided her like a plague.
It was exactly the same as junior high.
Just as Kaguya finalized that thought, she noticed a boy sitting in the far corner of the classroom.
He was looking directly at her.
Unlike the trembling masses filling the other desks, his gaze was completely undisguised and analytical.
Even when she turned her head and met his eyes, he did not flinch or look away like an ordinary person would.
She had no memory of this handsome boy.
That meant he was an external enrollment, someone who had not come up through the Shuchiin junior high system.
While analyzing the situation internally, she maintained the flawless etiquette required of the Shinomiya Family’s eldest daughter.
She offered a slight, measured nod toward Asagiri.
There was not a single hint of the shyness or awkwardness an ordinary teenage girl might show, only the graceful, untouchable demeanor of high society royalty.
However, that was the absolute limit of her interaction.
As a Shinomiya, it was fundamentally impossible for Kaguya to take the initiative to verbally greet a strange boy on the first day of school.
Watching Kaguya take her seat in the dead center of the classroom, Asagiri turned his head to look out the window, his mind churning over a single, highly pragmatic question.
Is Kaguya Shinomiya a Player?
He had to seriously consider the possibility.
Kaguya’s baseline abilities and personal lore were simply too outrageous for a normal human.
She possessed a genius-level intellect, the ability to use psychological suggestion to force herself into a state of absolute calm, and national-champion-level skills in both traditional archery and kendo.
Compared to the vast majority of people living normal slice-of-life existences, she was practically a combat-ready superhuman.
And the more pressing issue remained.
She was sitting right in the middle of his classroom.
If she was an active Player in the survival game, he would have to treat her with extreme caution.
During the previous instance, Asagiri had confiscated the phones of the deceased Players, Noguchi and Kawa.
He had learned that new Players could be forcibly registered into the system simply by having an ordinary person click the cursed app icon.
He had actually spent a few seconds considering whether he should trick Kaguya into clicking it.
With her ridiculous stat spread, she would undoubtedly make an incredibly lethal asset for future death games.
However, he dismissed the idea almost as quickly as it surfaced.
Turn Kaguya Shinomiya into an obedient asset?
That was a completely unrealistic pipe dream.
The current Kaguya was firmly entrenched in her infamous Ice Kaguya phase.
Her mind was dominated by cold, imperialistic logic.
She viewed other human beings strictly as tools to be used and discarded, and she possessed an arrogant, obsessive pride born from her status as a Shinomiya.
Asagiri knew for a fact that she would never willingly submit to his orders, even if he dragged her into a life-or-death scenario.
, he had absolutely no intention of revealing his identity as a Player to someone he shared zero trust with.
So, did that mean Kaguya had already been chosen by the system, just like him and Asuna?
Asagiri leaned his chin against his hand, staring out at the cherry blossoms.
He wasn’t entirely sure, but a very specific detail from his memory suddenly surfaced.
Kaguya Shinomiya…
didn’t even own a smartphone.
[Inorin’s Note:
Hey guys, hope you’re enjoying the novel!
Hate waiting for updates and cliffhangers?