The small office of the Annex stable had survived heavy rainstorms, a flood of administrative paperwork, and the terrifying, cold presence of the Student Council President.
It was a sturdy, rustic space made of dark cedar wood, smelling of old paper, floor polish, and Kazuma’s bitter barley tea.
However, on a brisk Wednesday afternoon, the Annex office was exposed to a brand-new, unclassified category of lethal atmospheric threat.
It was not a fire.
It was not a gas leak.
It was a localized nuclear meltdown of absolute, concentrated, unchecked moe radiation.
“Look, Rice-chan!
Look!” Haru Urara cheered, sitting cross-legged on the blue braided rug in the center of the room.
She held up a small, freshly washed carrot that was shaped curiously like a clumsy pair of running shoes.
“It has toes!
The carrot has little toes!”
Beside her, Rice Shower was sitting neatly on her heels, her dark blue skirt folded under her knees.
She held a small, pink-ribboned box of sweet potato dumplings in her lap.
Her long, wavy dark hair swayed as her horse ears twitched with absolute, innocent wonder.
“Wah…
it really does look like a shoe, Urara-chan…” Rice Shower whispered softly, her blue eyes sparkling with genuine, tearful admiration.
She cupped her hands together, holding out a warm dumpling toward Urara with a gentle, trembling smile.
“Here…
I brought this from the dorm kitchen.
The cook said it was extra sweet today…
P-Please take it…”
“Eeeek!
Sweet potato!” Urara gasped, her pink twin tails springing straight up like excited antennas.
“Thank you, Rice-chan!
You’re the nicest, sweet-potatoest girl in the whole wide world!”
“N-No…
Rice isn’t nice at all…” Rice Shower blushed furiously, her dark ears pinning back in pure, overwhelming bashfulness as she buried her smiling face behind her small hands.
“Rice is just…
glad to be your friend…”
They giggled together.
It was a soft, harmonious, bell-like laughter—a sound so untainted by dark thoughts, world-weariness, or cynical ambition that the very air in the room seemed to sparkle with imaginary pink flowers and warm floating bubbles.
Three feet away, sitting behind his wooden desk, Satou Kazuma was dying.
His hands were trembling violently against his keyboard.
His face was a horrifying, ghostly shade of translucent white, his eyes wide, bloodshot, and completely unblinking as he stared at the two girls sitting on his rug.
*Too…
bright…* Kazuma’s mind whimpered, his internal voice sounding like a croaking, dying toad in a desert.
*The purity levels…
are off the charts…
It’s breaching my psychological containment barriers…*
In his previous life as a shut-in NEET, and in his current life as a cynical adventurer who had dealt with thieves, explosions, and greedy cultists, Kazuma’s brain had been hardwired to spot deception, malice, and ulterior motives.
His entire worldview was built on a foundation of healthy, sarcastic distrust.
He was totally, completely unprepared for an environment where two hyper-cute, completely innocent horse girls—who happened to be in the exact same class, sharing the same naive worldview—were placed in the same small room, sharing baked goods and admiring weirdly shaped vegetables.
*This is a biohazard,* Kazuma analyzed, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as his vision began to blur at the edges.
*A cynic’s brain cannot process this level of unadulterated sweetness without experiencing severe system failure!
It’s like pouring pure, liquid sugar directly into a rusty diesel engine!*
“Trainer!” Urara called out, turning around on the rug, holding up the shoe-shaped carrot while Rice Shower offered a dumpling beside her.
“Look!
Rice-chan and I made a carrot-dumpling sandwich for you!
Say *Ahhhh*!”
“T-Trainer…
please accept Rice’s small gift…” Rice Shower whimpered softly, tilting her head with an expression of such breathtaking, innocent hope that the surrounding space seemed to warp into pure anime watercolor.
*CRACK.*
A mental dam inside Kazuma’s soul violently shattered.
His heart gave a terrifying, erratic *THUMP-THUMP*, his stomach churned violently, and a sudden, violent wave of nausea rushed up his throat as his brain attempted to reject the overwhelming, sacred beauty of the scene before him.
“Guh…!” Kazuma gasped, clutching his throat with a trembling hand.
A bright crimson stream of blood exploded violently from both of his nostrils, shooting across his desk like a fountain, followed immediately by a harsh, rattling cough that sounded like a dry clutch dying in a truck.
*A-Ah…* Kazuma thought, his body growing ice-cold, his knees buckling under his desk as his soul began to physically slide out through his open mouth in a soft, glowing, pale blue mist.
*I get it now…
This is what the legendary anime protagonists felt…
When something is too cute…
the human body simply surrenders…
I am looking directly into the gates of heaven…
It’s so warm…
Aqua, you blue-haired idiot…
I’m coming to join you…*
With a final, soft *THUD*, Satou Kazuma’s head slammed face-down onto his wooden desk, his arms dangling limply at his sides, a faint, peaceful smirk frozen on his blood-stained face as his soul floated gently toward the ceiling fan.
The front door of the Annex office swung open with a dramatic *CLACK*.
Symboli Rudolf, Air Groove, and Special Week stepped onto the threshold, holding the revised afternoon training schedule and a box of sports drinks for the stable’s new two-runner setup.
“Satou-sensei, we have finalized the track reservation times for—” Rudolf started smoothly, taking a step inside.
She froze.
Air Groove stopped behind her, her dark eyes widening in utter, paralyzed horror.
Special Week dropped her box of sports drinks, the plastic bottles rolling loudly across the floorboards.
Sitting at his desk, draped in his signature green tracksuit, was Satou Kazuma.
His head was slumped sideways on his blotter.
A dark red puddle of blood was spreading across his Niigata race blueprints.
His eyes were wide open, staring blankly at the wall, completely motionless, while a tiny, ghostly pale phantom of his soul hovered inches above his brown hair, waving a lazy goodbye.
Silence held the room for one terrifying second.
“SATOU-SENSEI GA SHINDA!” Special Week shrieked at the top of her lungs, grabbing her own hair, her horse ears pinning flat against her head in pure, unadulterated panic.
“KONO HITO DENASHI!” Air Groove screamed in an unprecedented, completely un-Vice-President-like burst of hysteria, drawing her clipboard like a weapon as she rushed toward the desk.
“SENSEI!
HOLD ON!
WHO DID THIS TO YOU?!
WAS IT AN ASSASSIN FROM THE REGIONAL MEDIA?!
SENSEI!”
“MEDICAL TEAM!
CALL THE ACADEMY INFIRMARY IMMEDIATELY!” Symboli Rudolf ordered, her usual calm, regal composure completely collapsing into a storm of frantic command.
She bolted across the room, grabbing Kazuma by his green jacket lapels, shaking his limp, lifeless body back and forth with terrifying strength.
“SATOU-SENSEI!
OPEN YOUR EYES!
YOU CANNOT DIE HERE!
THE ANNEX BUDGET IS NOT YET SIGNED!
SENSEI!”
“SENSEI GA SHINDAAAA!” Special Week wept, falling to her knees beside the desk, frantically fanning his pale face with a piece of paper.
“DON’T DIE, SENSEI!
WE HAVEN’T EVEN EATEN THE CHIBA PEANUTS YET!”
The office was a scene of utter, chaotic, high-stakes emergency drama.
Rudolf was desperately checking his nonexistent pulse, Air Groove was frantically wiping the blood from his nose with her own silk handkerchief, and Special Week was shouting prayers to the sky.
Meanwhile, three feet away, on the blue braided rug…
the physical cause of the catastrophe remained completely, blissfully detached from reality.
“Urara-chan, look,” Rice Shower whispered softly, using a toothpick to neatly divide a sweet potato dumpling into two perfectly equal halves.
“If you chew it really slowly, the sugar tastes deeper…”
“Woah!
Rice-chan, you’re a genius!” Urara gasped, her eyes shining as she chewed her half.
“Mmmph!
It’s super squishy!
It tastes like a warm hug!”
“Hehehe…
I’m glad you like it…” Rice Shower giggled, her cheeks flushing a soft, lovely pink as she offered Urara a small sip of hot barley tea from her thermos.
“Careful, it’s a little bit warm…”
“Thank you, Rice-chan!
*Gulp, gulp, gulp!* Ahhh!
Refreshing!”
Beside them, the room was literally burning with panic.
“HIS HEART HAS STOPPED!” Air Groove cried out, her voice cracking as she pressed two fingers against Kazuma’s neck, her own face pale with dread.
“PRESIDENT, HE IS NOT BREATHING!
HIS SOUL IS VISIBLY LEAVING HIS BODY!”
“SENSEEEEEI!” Special Week wailed, grabbing Kazuma’s limp, dangling hand and hugging it against her cheek.
“DON’T GO TOWARD THE WHITE LIGHT!
THERE ARE NO STRAWBERRY ROLLS THERE!”
“SATOU-SENSEI!” Rudolf yelled, shaking his shoulders so hard his head flopped back and forth like a ragdoll’s.
“STAY WITH US!
WE NEED YOUR ALGORITHMS!
TRACEN NEEDS YOU!”
Above them, Kazuma’s floating soul looked down at the chaotic scene with a tired, disappointed expression.
*These idiots…* Kazuma’s ghost thought, crossing its ghostly arms in mid-air.
*They think I was assassinated…
They have no idea that I was murdered by pure, unadulterated moe…
Look at those two on the rug…
They haven’t even noticed the Student Council is having a collective nervous breakdown three feet away from them…*
Urara swallowed her dumpling, wiped her mouth with her sleeve, and finally blinked, noticing the noise.
She turned around on the rug, her short ears twitching as she looked at Rudolf, Air Groove, and Special Week crowding around the desk.
“Oh!
President-san!
Special-chan!” Urara waved happily with a carrot-stick.
“Are you guys playing the ‘Wake Up Trainer’ game?!
I love that game!
Usually, if you tickle his nose with a feather, he grumbles and calls everyone idiots!”
Rice Shower tilted her head, her blue eyes wide and innocent as she held up her box of pastries toward the panicking Student Council.
“U-Um…
do you…
do you want a sweet potato dumpling too…?
There’s still three left…”
Air Groove froze mid-panic, her hands still clutching Kazuma’s collar, her jaw hanging open as she looked back and forth between Kazuma’s blood-stained, motionless face and the two utterly peaceful, adorable girls sitting on the rug with their snacks.
The realization hit Symboli Rudolf like a cold bucket of ice water.
She looked at the blood on the desk.
She looked at Kazuma’s pale, peaceful, utterly defeated expression.
Then she looked at Urara and Rice Shower, who were currently radiating an invisible, blinding halo of pure, angelic, innocent charm.
Rudolf slowly let go of Kazuma’s jacket.
Her shoulders slumped.
A long, agonizing, soul-deep sigh escaped her lips.
“He…
he didn’t suffer an attack,” Rudolf whispered, holding a hand to her forehead, a look of profound, second-hand disbelief washing over her face.
“His nervous system…
simply overload from the sheer concentration of innocence in this room…”
“Eh?!” Special Week blinked, stopping her fanning.
“He…
he passed out from cuteness?!”
“He’s a weak-minded shut-in,” Air Groove gritted out, her face instantly turning bright red from embarrassment as she shoved Kazuma’s limp body back into his chair, furiously wiping her stained handkerchief.
“To think I actually feared for his life!
He is simply a hopeless, fragile fool who cannot handle managing two sweet children at once!”
Slowly, painfully, the pale blue soul hovering near the ceiling fan was dragged back down by gravity, re-entering Kazuma’s physical nostrils with a sharp, sputtering *GASP!*
Kazuma’s eyes snapped open.
He sat bolt upright, coughing violently, wiping his bloody nose with his green sleeve, his dark eyes glaring at Rudolf, Air Groove, and Special Week with pure, unadulterated, bitter resentment.
“I…
I almost made it to the afterlife…” Kazuma rasped, his voice sounding like gravel being crushed in a blender.
“I was halfway through the pearly gates…
Why did you drag me back to this hellish, high-sugar nightmare…?”
“TRAINER!
YOU’RE ALIVE!” Urara cheered, bouncing up from the rug and slapping a sweet potato dumpling directly into his mouth before he could protest.
“Rice-chan saved the biggest one for you!
Eat it so your nose stops leaking!”
Kazuma chewed mechanically, the warm, sugary sweetness hitting his tongue, his dark eyes staring blankly at the ceiling as Rice Shower offered him a clean napkin with a shy, adorable bow.
*Niigata is in twelve days,* Kazuma thought bitterly, his soul weeping in silent, tragic defeat as he swallowed the dumpling.
*I have two runners now.
I have a bleeding nose.
My posture is too straight.
And my stable is officially a biological hazard zone for my sanity…*
“Good morning, Trainer,” Rice Shower whispered softly, her eyes shining with pure, innocent affection.
Kazuma closed his eyes, letting his head hit his desk one more time with a soft, miserable *thud*.
“Someone bring me my barley tea…” Kazuma whimpered into the wood.
“And make sure it’s bitter…”