Volume 2-5 Chapter 1
TL: botman
TLC/Proofread: PuddingTC
Chapter 1: The Footsteps of Chaos
Intro
The summer break has ended, and the second semester of our 2nd year started today. Considering the 3 years of school we will have in total, this was undoubtedly a time of transition. I tied my tie and slipped my arm through my sleeve. I looked in the mirror, fixed my hair, and ensured my appearance was fine before leaving. On my way out, I bumped into Sudou, yawning heavily, and greeted him as we walked out of the dormitory together.
“Suzune warned me that the 2nd-semester exams might come earlier, so I ended up pulling an all-nighter.”
“Were you seriously studying on the last day of summer?”
“Thank god she’s already helped me work out an academic program for my needs. Even I can obtain high scores on the exams and maintain a B or higher in my Academic ability in the OAA.”
A B or higher in Academic ability was a bit far. But that being said, maybe it wasn’t that far from reality.
I wouldn’t be surprised if his academics improved even more if he really had been studying hard during the summer. He had developed into a person who was in tune with the idiom, “Brains and brawn”.
The minor behavioral issues, like tardiness and sleeping in class had also been decreasing drastically.
Although there were still times where he showed his hot-headedness, it was just one of Sudou’s characteristics.
“This is a strange question, but do you think Ike and Shinohara have kissed yet?”
“Eh?”
“I’ll give him props for getting a girlfriend. But if he’s too much ahead of me, I can’t say I’m too pleased. I feel like there’s a sort of barrier between us lately because of this.”
“Can’t you just ask him yourself? It’s Ike; he’ll definitely tell you.”
“…How can I ask him something like that. If they haven’t held hands yet, then that’s fine, but if I hear from him that they’ve gone further than that… Let’s just say that my right hand will get a bit restless.”
So that was the situation. That itch might cause big problems.
“If something that makes him happy happens to Ike, he’ll blurt it out at the first opportunity. Since that didn’t happen yet, doesn’t that mean they haven’t progressed to that stage yet?”
“True. But you never know, he’s a man in love. I don’t know myself, because I don’t have any experience. By the way, have you ever had a girlfriend before, Ayanokouji? …What does it feel like?”
Shifting from Ike, the subject of the conversation changed into something I didn’t expect.
As if asking, “what does it feel like”, Sudou’s intense, trusting eyes were impossible to ignore.
“There’s no point in lying, so I’ll tell you. I’ve had a girlfriend, my first, for some time now.”
“…Really? Are you serious?”
Even if I avoided the question here, the news would soon spread from Kei’s side, so hiding it wasn’t the best idea.
After answering honestly, Sudou held his head and sighed.
Then, suddenly, he grabbed my shoulders urgently.
“Is, is it is it is it is it is it her!?”
“Calm down. It’s not who you think it is.”
“Really!? I, I can trust that it isn’t Suzune, right?”
“Yeah. It’s not her.”
“I, I see. It’s all good then… I thought for a moment there, my heart almost stopped…”
As if he was sweating, Sudou wiped his forehead roughly with his left hand.
To express his anxiety, he showed me the sweat on his palm.
“Who is it then?”
“It’s—”
“Ah! Found you!”
Sudou had just regained his composure, as the sound of footsteps came up from behind him. After those footsteps caught up with us, an angry face looked up at me.
“I wanted to ask you to walk with me to class, but I didn’t know you left already!”
Kei puffed out her cheeks to show her displeasure.
“No, I didn’t know we were going together.”
“That’s… Well, it’s because I was too nervous…”
Sudou looked at us with a surprised expression as we suddenly started to talk to each other strangely.
“Stop squeezing in, Karuizawa. We’re having a very important conversation between men, so don’t interrupt.”
He didn’t seem to notice anything off about the contents of our conversation.
He just seemed to be puzzled by her sudden appearance here.
Come to think of it, these two people didn’t interact much in the past.
Their relationship was neither good nor bad… No, if I had to say, it was bad.
“Kei, are you planning to reveal our relationship today?”
“Eh? Yeah, yeah. I was considering the timing… It feels wrong to announce as soon as school starts… It’s actually unexpectedly hard to reveal it. Announcing with ‘Hey everyone, listen up~’ doesn’t feel quite right either.”
“You announced it quickly with Yosuke, though.”
“That, that’s one thing. The situation is completely different.”
“Hey, hey, what are you guys… On… About… Eh!?”
Sudou was a bit slow, but considering I referred to her by her first name, and with him keeping up with our conversation, he stopped walking with a stunned look on his face.
“What… Eh, hey, what’s going on here, Ayanokouji?”
Nonetheless, it was still uncertain whether that combination of clues was enough for him to establish a connection. But in a sense, it might be a good thing that Sudou was the first person in our class to learn about our relationship.
“We’re dating.”
Kei smiled and elbowed me a few times.
She was probably happy that I said it aloud.
“Ha…ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!? You, you’re kidding!?”
Surprised, Sudou reacted even more exaggeratedly than I would have guessed, as he loudly yelled.
Although there weren’t any students in our class around us, other students who didn’t know the situation turned their faces to see what was going on.”
“Too loud.”
“So, sorry. But, no, eh!? Wh, why is it Karuizawa?”
“What do you mean? Is there anything wrong with me?”
“No, it’s… it’s not nothing, but… Eh…?”
Sudou, who was expressing his confusion due to this surprise, shook his head, as if he couldn’t accept it.
“What’s wrong? Would you rather me go out with Horikita?”
“I would never agree with that! … No, it’s not that… Wait.”
Sudou grabbed my shoulder and whispered into my ear.
“It’s not nice but… Karuizawa’s dated Hirata, and also fooled around during her middle school years or something, right? Don’t you feel dissatisfied, or uncomfortable? Your first girlfriend being like that, isn’t that too high of a difficulty?”
That was the impression of Karuizawa Kei that my classmates had.
In fact, that was exactly what I thought of her before I found out about her past.
“What are you guys whispering about?”
“No, nothing.”
Sudou slinked away under her glare. I guess he felt bad for basically bad-mouthing her.
“Ayanokouji and Karuizawa dating…? Nah, I can’t wrap my head around it. My head’s all cleared from the drowsiness now. What an unbelievable start to the 2nd semester…” I heard him say.
Part 1
We arrived at school, passing by other 3rd years coming to school from their dormitories, but Sudou didn’t seem to notice any of them, even though they were still staring at me, just like on the cruise.
Although these stares have followed me throughout the summer whenever I went out, I still hadn’t completely gotten used to them yet. Being watched brought such a strong sense of oppression and suppression. As long as these stares continued, this feeling would subsist.
Kei soon got into a big conversation with the girls about the summer, and Sudou started gossiping with Ike and Hondou, his close friends. I, too, chatted casually with the members of the Ayanokouji group as we waited for the bell.
Chabashira arrived soon after, and said something similar to what she said in the 1st semester.
“In this 2nd semester, there will be several large events awaiting you. The first of these will be the sports festival, like the one that was held last year. That’ll probably act as October’s physical ability exam. Though the rules will be different from last year’s, the skills required will stay the same.”
This strong emphasis on physical abilities mentioned by Chabashira meant that this upcoming challenge could be a source of anxiety for the students who were only good with academics. Such students, like my close friends Keisei and Airi, listened to these words with a worried expression, naturally. These new rules would also be of great concern.
“In November, we’ll hold our first cultural festival ever at Advanced Nurturing High School. The details of this will be announced at another time as with the sports festival, but planning will start in September.”
The month of September would primarily be spent preparing for the sports festival. PE class time will increase by a few hours every week.
There would also be an hour a week to discuss the cultural festival. It seemed that official preparation would start after the sports festival ended in October, and then it would officially start in November.
In addition, although it wasn’t clear whether it would be a special exam or not, our school trip would also start soon.
“In addition to this, midterms and finals will also occur in between these events.”
Basically, this 2nd semester would inevitably be busy.
“I’ll explain the sports festival in more depth later, and start with the cultural festival.”
Even though the sports festival came first, Chabashira started to detail the cultural festival first.
“There’ll be a lot of guests at the cultural festival. You’ll have to compete with all the other classes in all years for total sales at the festival. You can hold however many events you want, but there’s a budget. Please refer to the screen for more details.”
Cultural Festival Summary
-The number of private points that each 2nd year class can use to prepare for the festival is 5,000 points per person. These funds can be used freely.
(5500 points for 1st years, 4500 points for 3rd years)
-Additional funds are available in exchange for social contributions through voluntary work in student councils, etc., and contributions from active participation in club activities, etc.
(Details will be reiterated in each class when they are finalized)
-Unused funds will be taken away in order to prevent initial costs and additional funds from being reflected in final sales.
-Classes in 1st-4th place will receive 100 class points
-Classes in 5th-8th place will receive 50 class points
-Classes in 9th through 12th place will not have a change in class points.
This meant that many classes would be rewarded, with no penalty for classes that finish in the lower ranks. 8th or above would be a good result. As for the rules, they seemed straightforward, with nothing confusing. It was also simple and clear now why the details of the cultural festival were made public ahead of the sports festival. If you didn’t know the rules beforehand, preparation was impossible. As for the sports festival, you could develop a strategy simply by improving your physical ability.
“It, it seems like your typical cultural festival.”
Shinohara seemed to be kind of relieved, but I could understand why she felt that way.
There was no risk of losing class points, or expulsion. However, we were so deeply affected by how this school worked that we would subconsciously wonder if there might be more to it.
“In addition, it’s important that you make sure you occupy the right area in the event space. For example, if you want to set up a store near the main entrance, where visitors are sure to pass, you’re going to have to pay the school for the area.”
Receiving new information, all the students, myself included, watched the screen.
The screen showed a map and list of “places where you could set up a stall” marked with a code combining the place name and numbers. The location closest to the main gate, mentioned by Chabashira, was marked with “Main Gate 1,” and the venue fee was 10,000 points. Some places far from the main gate, where guests wouldn’t often pass, seemed to be free. The budget was about 200,000 points, without considering additional funds. 10,000 points were definitely not cheap.
But there was no doubt that this was a first-class location that would expect to see a lot of customers.
“Your choice of location may overlap with other classes and grades, but each location can only be used by one class. If there’s an overlap, there will be an auctioning process, where the class with the highest bid will get the right to use that space.”
In other words, if you were forced to pay a large number of points to secure a good location, your budget for the event would be drastically reduced. From now on, there were about 2 months to consider how best to use the limited budget to maximize efficiency.
“What events each class puts on, and where they will set up stalls will not be made public until the day of the cultural festival. There will be no leaks from the school, but you’ll still have to be careful of potential leaks from students. Be prepared to be attacked mercilessly if information is leaked.”
Even the perfect event was planned, there was a possibility that the other classes would copy, or target you.
“During the planning process, the need for something might pop up at any time. If you need something that isn’t available at the event site, you may apply to gain permission to bring it from the outside. You are free to use the budget in any way you like, as long as it is within the bounds of the rules.”
Some aspects seemed to need a more detailed investigation, including this one.
“Above is the description and rules for the cultural festival. Preparation and setup will occur after the sports festival, but from today onwards, please use your own time to negotiate what events you want to hold, and how you will allocate your budget.
The more time allocated to planning the cultural festival, the more meticulous the plan would be.
Part 2
After classes ended, most students stayed in the classroom, with the rest going to club activities.
This was, of course, for the first discussions for the cultural festival in November.
Some of my classmates should have had experience with cultural festivals during their middle school years.
I didn’t have much information to share, so I’ll just listen along, as usual.
“First off, let’s make a quick list of what events we can hold.”
Yousuke, who gained permission to use the classroom’s display, began typing things in.
“Speaking of cultural festivals, it’s usually all about food, haunted houses, and that sort of thing.”
Food, haunted houses, mazes, cafes, live performances, plays, etc. These obvious choices were listed one after another.
“The event will be held from 10:00am to 3:00pm. If we do something related to food, I bet the adult guests will visit it more. However, our competition in this area would also increase…”
“And we’ve got to juggle a budget. It’s going to be more expensive than something like a haunted house or a maze with just a one time controlled cost.”
Apparently, musical equipment and other things like that could be rented for a fee, but that type of equipment was limited so it was first come, first served. And there was also the question of how many students had profit-making skills.
“We have 39 students in our class. That means our current budget at the moment is 195,000 points. That’s not a very large amount. Even with all this talk about doing something related to food, we can’t easily confirm that decision now.”
“I have a proposal. May I?”
“I’m very open to suggestions, Horikita-san.”
“As Hirata-kun said, we have quite a limited budget for this cultural festival. But there are a lot of things that can’t be fully understood just by theorizing about them. Suppose we open a takoyaki stall; what ingredients, skills, and other things are necessary? In that case, shouldn’t we decide on a plan first and then experiment a little more using our private points?”
Many students agreed and understood this proposal.
Indeed, it was important to try out what we wanted to do, whether it was food-related or something else like a theatre performance.
Of course, there was a risk for us to pay out of our pockets, but if we could earn those points back later as class points, that could be considered a necessary investment.
“But… Well, I’m not saying that this is a bad proposal, but there will be some people who will just be passive and refuse to contribute if they have to pay out of their own pockets, right?”
Matsushita was afraid that there would be students who wouldn’t contribute to the cultural festival preparation at all.
“Ignore them. I don’t want to waste time that could be used for proposals and planning. Though, we can’t let those who want to contribute down. If you think it’s a good idea, you can actively vouch for it. And if the idea is chosen, those people will be rewarded. How is that?”
“Well, that’s a good idea. It’s a good idea to give back to those people who contribute.”
“We can discuss the details of the rewards later, but let’s say we get 100 class points from the cultural festival. The class will gain 390,000 extra points each month in total. We’ll distribute these to the proposers as rewards. Everyone should be fine with this format.”
Suppose that we held 5 events. That would be 78,000 points per person. If the number of proposers and collaborators were so much that there would be no profit after dividing up the amount, we could divide up the points from the next couple months as well. This way, students who actively participated in the cultural festival could benefit, and students who didn’t would eventually gain from this as well. Most importantly, with the potential increase in class points, nobody would argue against this plan.
“Moreover, to prevent our ideas from being stolen by other classes, we have to shield our information completely. Please keep in mind to be very careful in what you say around school, your dorms, and at Keyaki mall.”
Keep everything completely secret. This was extremely important during these next two months of preparation.
Discussions continued on, starting with a proposal to Horikita or Yousuke to conduct an event.
Then, if there was a possibility of formally adopting the proposal, we moved to conduct further discussions.
Part 3
For about 2 weeks after that, our school life went on as usual.
Preparations for the cultural festival and sports festival occurred simultaneously, while also refining our academics. I can safely say that every day was valuable time spent, no different from a regular school. Surprisingly, our relationship didn’t seem to spread from Sudou, and there was no sign of any new people knowing about this.
Then in mid-September, after school on the Wednesday of the 3rd week. Sitting in the back row, I caught sight of an unexpected someone who approached Horikita, who was sitting in the center of the front row.
“Hey, Horikita-san. Can I take up some of your time later, if you’re available?”
That person who just spoke to Horikita with a little hesitation was Satou. One of those girls who hadn’t really crossed paths with her.
“I have to go to the student council in an hour, but as long as I don’t miss that, it’s alright. What’s wrong?”
Although she didn’t show any surprise, I didn’t think that Satou had initiated many conversations with Horikita. After getting a surprise reply, Satou’s voice lowered a little, and she continued to speak.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about events for the cultural festival… You said that we can tell you if we’ve got any ideas, right?”
“Yes. I’d very much welcome any suggestions…”
“Well, let me explain. I have an idea for an event that will allow us to win this cultural festival.”
Although Satou appeared confident, Horikita wasn’t easily impressed.
This was natural; after all, in these past 10 days, many students have already approached Horikita with suggestions.
If your ideas were adopted, you would be rewarded. As such, both male and female students have repeatedly approached Horikita with suggestions.
The suggestions ranged from the typical, to some novel ones. However, the common denominator was that Horikita did not accept event suggestions that were merely just a name. On the day she made it clear that the proposers would be rewarded, Hondou immediately suggested selling fried chicken as they were delicious. But Horikita rejected it, on the grounds that it needed an actual plan, so she did not consider the plan at all. Hondou didn’t give up, and the next day, submitted a plan for making fried chicken, but it was only a recipe from the internet on how to make it, and a lot of talk about how well it would sell, and how delicious it would be.
After reading that low-quality plan, Horikita once again emphasized the importance of the plan proposal. If you wanted to set up a fried chicken store, you needed to consider the location, the manpower required, the prices, the number of potential customers and the justification for it. Horikita said that she would only accept proposals that addressed all those areas.
After that, I thought that the number of people who would make hasty proposals to Horikita would decrease. To my surprise, even more came with increasingly sophisticated plans to present.
A few proposals even made it onto Horikita’s shortlist for further discussion.
However, those proposals all lacked something conclusive, so they weren’t ready to be officially adopted.
“So, have you prepared a proposal?”
“Ah, yeah. ‘Course I’m prepared… But it’s a little inconvenient here. Can you give me a little time later, if that’s okay?”
“Really? So be it then. Where shall we meet?”
“Let’s see, let’s meet at the empty classroom in the special building in 30 minutes. I’ve already gotten permission from the teacher.”
“Empty classroom?”
Satou whispered “thanks, see you then” to Horikita, who was a bit surprised, and then turned around, meeting my watchful eyes, and quickly came over.
“Hey, Ayanokouji-kun. Do you have time later as well?”
“Me? I’ve got nothing special going on.”
“You heard what I just said, right? Can you come with Horikita-san in 30 minutes as well?”
“Why do I have to come too?”
“It’s a secret for now. You’ll find out when you come over.”
Satou’s face was just as confident as her tone towards Horikita earlier.
“Then I’ll be waiting for you two!”
Satou, who had taken out her phone to check the time, rushed out of the classroom.
“What’s up with her? She looks confident, though.”
“Maybe she did come up with a big idea for an event.”
“Even so, did she need to call us out like this?”
I didn’t know what her real intentions were, but that would be revealed in 30 minutes.
Horikita and I spent some time in the classroom, and then left for the special building.
Part 4
Since we were going to the same place anyway, I walked with Horikita to the special building.
When we arrived at the door of the classroom, I saw Maezono there for some reason.
“Oh, I was in charge of guarding the place. I didn’t think anyone would come to the special building after school, but better safe than sorry.”
“Guarding? … You’re more secretive than I would expect.”
Although the idea was to keep any ideas of the events secret until the day of the cultural festival, Horikita was still a little surprised to see a guard.
I was the same. Not only did they request the teacher to make use of a classroom in the special building, but they also arranged for someone to stand guard to prevent a 3rd party’s intervention. To prevent anybody from looking inside, they even covered up the window cracks.
“So, can I take a look inside?”
“Ah, wait a minute. We’re in simulation mode from now on, so Horikita-san, Ayankouji-kun; Please experience this from the perspective of a customer.”
“I see. Alright, compared to reading a low-quality proposal, this way certainly makes it easier.”
Seeing such a rigorous procedure, Horikita’s expectations had to be raised.
Whether or not this would actually be adopted is another question, but at least it was clear that they were making a serious effort to win this cultural festival. So, from Horikita’s perspective, this was already something to be happy about.
Horikita and I slowly opened the door, after reconfirming that nobody was around us.
The first thing that came into view was an unexpected array of bright colors.
The classroom, originally bland and monotonous, had been transformed, and brightened up with decorations.
“This is…”
“Welcome～. This is Maimai, the maid cafe!”
The three girls greeted us at once, each dressed in their own unique costumes.
Satou, who called us out here, and Matsushita, who was by her side, were both wearing maid outfits.
Mii-chan, who seemed embarrassed, her eyes darting all over the place, was wearing a Chinese-style outfit.
By the way, although classrooms usually used monitors, it seemed that the special building, which was used less frequently, still had a blackboard. The name of the cafe was written on it.
After being directed to a seat, I was handed a handwritten menu.
“What would you like? Master.”
“Wait. Can I ask you a question before I place an order?”
“Hmm? What?”
“This took a lot of time and money to prepare, right?”
Indeed, if you were asked if all this could be prepared within a day, it would be pretty difficult. You might be able to get the decorations done, but there were also the costumes to consider.
“Matsushita-san, how much time did you spend on this?”
“It took around 4 days to prepare. The cost was surprisingly reasonable, I’d say. We used a total of 13,200 points. Us three in here, and Maezono-san split the cost, which came out to be 3,300 points per person. We rented out 3 sets of outfits, and bought origami paper and pens for decorations at the store. It’s our tableware, so we didn’t use any points on that.”
So that was the reason for the mismatched tableware. Though, since we were still in the proposal review stage, this wasn’t a problem against them. In fact, it was impressive, seeing the amount of effort that went into preparation, all the while keeping cost to a minimum.
“In terms of impact, it’s perfect. It’s better than any proposal for an event I’ve seen so far. But—”
Horikita praised the project, calling it impeccable in terms of appeal. She, however, wasn’t someone who would make a rash decision to approve of the proposal just because of that.
“The most crucial component, the budget. Is it done? I’d like to see the process in detail.”
In response, Satou turned her eyes to Mii-chan, unpanicked.
“I’ve put together as much of the plan as possible.”
Mii-chan took out a transparent folder from her bag, and gave it to Horikita. She probably wrote it out herself, with 3 detailed sheets of paper covered in beautiful script. Although the costumes were rented, they were chosen from 3 different companies at different price points. Comparisons were made separately for price and quality, as well as the variety for each category. The differences in cost between cheaper and more expensive tableware to be used on the day had also been examined. The minimum number of manpower, as well as how many visitors that would bring, etc, had all been considered.
“It’s a cut above anything I’ve seen yet. This is great.”
As Horikita showered them with praise, Satou and Matsushita poked Mii-chan in the side, as if to tell her that she had been complimented. But Mii-chan, shy as ever, lowered her head, as if she was nodding gently.
So far, I would give Satou’s proposal a perfect score.
But—.
“It’s an interesting event. It may not be unique, but I can see its potential if done well. But there are some issues. The rental fee is 4,000 points per costume set. If you rent 10 sets, as planned, you’ll need 40,000 points. In addition, the cost of preparing the food and drinks is around 50,000. That alone adds up to 90,000 points… The decorations will cost 5,000 points, and adding the venue fee onto that… This definitely isn’t an event we can be stingy about.”
Even if we didn’t have to pay wages to secure staffing, we would still have to spend nearly half of the entire class’s budget on this one event.
“Well, that’s true… But I think we can afford to raise prices, though!”
On the menu that Satou and the girls have created, a cup of black tea was 800 points. This pricing was higher than that of the cafe at Keyaki mall. Of course, this price could be lowered depending on the situation in the future, but they seemed to think that it would still sell at this price.
Horikita looked serious, as she flipped back and forth through the 3 page proposal.
But the outfits of Satou and the others was something out of a fairy tale, so there was a sort of unrealistic and incongruous, yet wonderful, atmosphere about it.
Soon, Horikita seemed to have reached a conclusion, and raised her head.
“Let me confirm once more. This project… Nobody else has seen it, I presume?”
“Yes, there’s no doubt about it.”
Matsushita said confidently. Satou and Mii-chan echoed her words.
“That’s good. I’ll handle this maid cafe proposal accordingly. Could you please refine the plan more, and include a cost-cutting section?”
“Really? That’s great!”
The three of them high-fived each other excitedly.
“It’s a bit early to celebrate. Don’t forget, this has just made the future discussion stage.”
Even though she said that, it would be a big reward to get a promise from Horikita saying that she’d handle it accordingly.
As Horikita and I stepped out into the hallway, Maezono, who was in charge of guarding the place, waved at us happily.
She probably heard what had been said in the classroom.
“You actually bought into the idea. I didn’t expect you to say that you’d handle it accordingly.”
“If I didn’t think it could win, I just wouldn’t have endorsed it. You know, most proposals brought to me I rejected on the spot. At best, I’ve set aside one or two. That’s how powerful their idea is.”
A maid cafe project wasn’t that unusual.
But, it seemed like Horikita went out of her way to help them because she found a way to best utilize the strengths of our class to appeal to potential customers.
“You mean we have an advantage, even if the other classes do the same thing with maid cafes?”
“Yeah. You don’t agree?”
“No, I do.”
Even if we opened a lousy food stall, we would still have to compete with several others. On the other hand, even if there were one or two other maid cafes, we might have the upper hand with our strengths as a class. Even apart from those 3 girls in the costumes from just now, there were even more powerful talents hidden in our class.
“So. To make sure their plan is carried out accordingly, you’ll have to help out.”
“Help out? You mean, you want me to cosplay?”
“What are you talking about? If we’re going to do it, we need to give it our all. So it’s necessary to assign you to something that would maximize your talents, right? That’s something I think you should do, as a guy.”
“No… Well, I understand where you are coming from… But there are more suitable candidates.”
“Yes. I think Ike-kun and Hondou-kun might be more discerning with this sort of thing. But if I tell them, they might leak it. Their mouths aren’t tight enough.”
“…That I can’t deny.”
Those students wouldn’t intentionally reveal information, but they could do it by accident.
“I don’t hope to have more people in the know about this. You understand, right?”
“So that’s the case.”
I was called here by Satou because I was unlucky, and this was now my fate.
“So first of all, I’ll leave you to recruit people. Of course, you can tell them what it’s about, but don’t forget that you have to strictly maintain this secret. If this ever leaks out, the plan will be cancelled.”
So this was how important it was to protect our secrets.
“By the way… adding onto this, I want the number of people that you tell to be kept to a minimum. Can I leave it all to you? We’ll determine the official budget later, so I’m counting on you for everything, from recruitment, management and total expenditure.”
“Wait, wait wait. You’re really throwing all this at me all at once. You’re seriously going to leave it all to me alone?”
“We’re not going to do only one event for this festival. We will open up several stalls, to balance up the genders, as well as talents. Trying to increase sales with a lower budget is also pretty hard, so I’d rather focus on that.”
As much as I wanted her to focus her attention on that, I still wondered why she handed this all to me.
“I will assume that you accepted this position, yes?”
Although I didn’t recall showing any signs of acceptance, she still came to a decision without a word.
“I can’t believe you really got me to agree to this…”
Getting me to run the perfect maid cafe. Was that even possible? I wasn’t confident.
Satou, Matsushita, and Mii-chan were already decided upon… But how many others should I get to be servers?
Although there was still a lot of time, it seemed to be necessary to decide on this soon.
“Then I’ll go to the student council room now. See you later.”
“Ah, alright…”
I saw Chabashira as I was walking across the special building on my way back after taking this headache-inducing responsibility. It didn’t seem like this was a coincidence, since we were here.
“Did you go see Satou and the others? I heard about the event proposal. They probably wanted to show you something. It sounds like a good idea.”
“That’s true. Satou and the others will have to confirm that the event meets the application requirements before they can start preparing.”
It would be bad if they didn’t get permission for this after seriously preparing for it.
“I’m also curious about it, so I’m going to check it out. What’s the situation?”
“Horikita is positive about the idea. She probably thinks that it’s got a chance. They’re consolidating the details now.”
“Really? If so, I don’t think there’s a need for me to check it out.”
“I’m getting involved in it though, so it’s a bit of a problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“Horikita ordered me to become the manager for that event.”
“You? That’s really…”
Chabashira, who was looking at me with both sympathetic, and pitying eyes, laughed as though something was funny.
“It’s a good thing. Horikita has made a very interesting move.”
“Though, I feel as if someone like Ike or the Professor would be much more suitable for the role.”
Although I was going to run a maid cafe, I didn’t know anything about it.
“That may be true, in terms of the understanding of Otaku culture. But sales are more important in a cultural festival. Even if those two can improve the quality of the event itself, they wouldn’t be able to do thorough calculations on those benefits. That’s why it makes sense to ask you to manage. If it’s necessary, ask them for their opinions, and that may be able to solve your problems.”
Easy for her to say. In order to be able to learn from other people’s advice, I had to have a bare minimum of understanding myself. If I didn’t know anything, I couldn’t guarantee that I would arrive at the right answer, even with other people’s advice. Besides, it would be hard for me to point out any areas of concern.
“You better come to an understanding that you now have the opportunity to learn other things besides schoolwork. Mr. Maid Cafe Manager.”
“…Sure.”
I was about to go back, but Chabashira called me from behind.
“Ayanokouji… Can I have a bit of your time later?”
“Later? When is that?”
“I’ll send you a message soon. Is that fine?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll clear my schedule out, if I have anything planned.”
I could have refused, but after sensing the seriousness in Chabashira’s eyes, I agreed.
TLG Translations 