After parting ways with Asuka Shiraishi, Hikaru Naruse checked the time and decided to head back to the dorm first.
The first-year student dormitory building stood on the northern side of the campus, a high-rise standing apart from the cluster of academic buildings.
From a distance, its exterior looked thoroughly modern, but it was only after drawing closer that Naruse truly grasped the grandeur of the structure.
It actually had a full twenty floors!
Twenty entire stories of single-occupancy dorm rooms, all prepared for just the 160 first-year students.
Such an arrangement would be unthinkable at any ordinary high school.
Twenty floors, eight rooms per floor, one hundred and sixty rooms in total.
The boys lived on the lower ten floors and the girls on the upper ten, and each room was assigned at random—students from the same class wouldn’t necessarily live on the same floor.
This randomized system was, of course, something the school had deliberately put in place.
Stepping through the main entrance, Naruse noticed a small reception desk tucked into a corner of the first-floor lobby.
The staff member on duty sat there, looking fairly young.
Naruse swiped his phone at the front desk, completing the registration of his student ID.
“Naruse, your room is 905.”
“Got it, thank you.”
After offering his thanks, Naruse took the elevator up to the ninth floor.
When he finally found his room, he was slightly taken aback.
This single room was around thirty-plus square meters, cleverly partitioned into several functional zones.
Just inside the door was a small entryway; to its left stood a separate walk-in closet, and to its right were the bathroom and toilet.
Past the entryway was a spacious living room, furnished with a set of off-white fabric sofas and a simple coffee table, and beside the living room sat a small open kitchen.
Aside from the kitchen, the bedroom, bathroom, toilet, and balcony were all fully equipped.
A single room like this, if put up for rent, would fetch at least seventy or eighty thousand yen a month in Tokyo—yet here it was provided to the students free of charge.
Naruse set his shopping bags down on the living room coffee table, then sank into the sofa.
His body sank into the soft fabric cushions, a warm and comfortable sensation enveloping him from every direction, drawing an involuntary sigh from his lips.
“This is way too luxurious.”
After resting for a while, Naruse took some time to tidy up his room, then opened his phone to check his spending for the day.
Personal account: 587,625 pr
Looking at the number on the screen, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
For a freshman on his very first day of school, this was already a rather considerable asset—enough for him to live quite comfortably over the coming months, with even some to spare for investments or trades.
But Naruse understood full well that this school was no ordinary high school.
Ahead of him lay all manner of extremely high-intensity Special Exams.
He still had to keep working hard, no matter what.
He pulled up the system panel.
After completing Honami Ichinose’s quest today, it seemed no new quest had descended yet.
“You’d better give me some body-strengthening quests already…
there are way too many athletic types at this school.”
Like a certain handsome fellow, and Ayanokōji Kiyotaka.
Lying on the bed, Naruse muttered to himself.
Just then, his phone gave off a faint vibration.
Naruse opened his eyes, fished the phone out of his pocket, and saw a new message displayed on the screen.
Sender: Ai Morishita.
“Naruse, the leader results are going to be announced tomorrow.
Do you have any thoughts on who should become the leader?”
Anticipation?
Honestly, he was more hopeful that Katsuragi would win—at the very least, then he wouldn’t have to worry about Sakayanagi selling out the class.
Naruse quickly typed out a few words on the screen.
“Who do you want to win?”
After the message was sent, the other end fell silent for about half a minute before a reply came through.
“I have no preference on that.”
Looking at that line, a faint smile surfaced at the corners of Naruse’s mouth.
Ai Morishita may have had an eccentric, one-of-a-kind personality, but she wasn’t someone completely without a stance.
From what he’d observed today, her contact with Arisu Sakayanagi was noticeably more frequent than with Kohei Katsuragi.
Hmm…
deep down, she probably leaned toward Arisu Sakayanagi.
That was no problem, though.
Once she’d been through more of what lay ahead, Naruse was confident she’d change her mind.
“It’ll be announced tomorrow anyway, so there’s no need to overthink it.
Let’s turn in early.”
“Mm.”
After setting his phone down, Naruse noticed that Ai Morishita had sent another message.
“Naruse, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“?”
Reading the text, Naruse was left a little baffled.
What kind of riddle was this girl playing at now?
“Between friends, you’re supposed to say goodnight before going to sleep, right?”
“Is this some new knowledge you just learned?”
“…Of course not.”
“Alright then.”
Naruse gave a slight smile.
Ai Morishita’s personality really was quite interesting—he found it rather amusing.
“Goodnight, Morishita.”
After this message was sent, the reply arrived almost instantly.
“Goodnight, Naruse.”
Once he’d finished replying, Naruse set his phone down beside his pillow and closed his eyes again.
But what he didn’t know was that at the very moment he put down his phone, Ai Morishita—holed up in her own dorm—was sitting at her desk, the glow of her phone screen illuminating her delicate face.
She hadn’t gone to sleep.
Instead, she had opened the browser on her phone and was still scrolling through a certain thread.
“What should you do once you have a friend?”
All sorts of posts were laid out beneath it, their content wildly varied—some said you should eat together often, some said you should share each other’s secrets, some said you should take part in activities together, an endless assortment of suggestions.
Ai Morishita read through them with great relish.
Naruse had no idea that Ai Morishita was doing any of this.
A full day of information bombardment and psychological maneuvering had drained his mind enormously, and the soft mattress and warm covers were like a gentle trap, dragging his consciousness step by step into the abyss of sleep.
Just as his awareness was about to sink completely into darkness, a familiar light suddenly lit up within his field of vision.
The system panel.
In an instant, all of Naruse’s drowsiness vanished.
[At 36 years old, your physical condition has already declined greatly—you’ve even developed a bit of a paunch.]
[If you wish to reclaim your former glory and rekindle things with the girls of your past, then you must possess a strong and powerful body.]
[Body Comeback Quest has been issued: Run for one hour every morning and one hour every night, for a cumulative total of 30 hours.
Reward: Body Remodeling (Basic).]
[Body Remodeling (Basic): Shake off fatigue faster, perform all kinds of light exercise with no drain, Stamina +2.]
“Hell yeah!”
Naruse’s spirits instantly surged.
PS: Please keep reading along—the numbers during a new book’s launch period are really important.
Don’t stockpile chapters, everyone; check out the latest ones more often.
I’m counting on you!!!
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan ;)🔥👻
🔥 New history: COTE: Counterattack System
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