/
「So dull
.」
「You do look listless first thing in the morning. Do you have low blood pressure?」
Seiichi asks, holding a pack of tomato juice in his hand.
Due to realizing just how rusty my body has grown as we do dungeon dive, I decided to resume my early-morning practice after a long while.
With the increase in muscle strength due to levelling up, I had a hard time finding just the right standing tree.
The academy is surrounded by a forest, so I think it wouldn’t be noticeable even if I smash a tree or two.
Load is indispensable for training, but
 I wonder if there’s anything I can do about this quirk of when I try to rouse my whole power, my SP and
 GP, which I don’t quite get what it is, end up being automatically consumed, switching my state to superhuman strength mode.
I tried using the hexagonal sox-foot metal rod to do some striking, but the trees were smashed and even the rocks were crushed.
「Ah, berserk mode, right? The one that makes you scream like a madman and charge through like a truck.」
「That’s Jiken-ryu’s (Self-revelation-style) monkey scream.」
「Jigen-ryu (Manifestation-style), a school of kenjutsu from Kyushu, was it? Where did you learn such a minor style of kenjutsu?」
「The Internet.」
「Not again.」
No, it’s exactly because I personally picked it up on the internet that it’s called Jiken-ryu.
It’s a simple school that doesn’t involve any spiritual training or performance.
If I have to interpret the kenjutsu known as Jiken-ryu in Me-style, then it would be a kenjutsu that 『If you move faster than your opponent, and make your attack power more powerful that your opponent’s defensive power, you’ll absolutely never lose, right?』.
If you move faster than your opponent, there’s no instance where you receive an attack from your opponent, so there are no defensive techniques either.
The training method is rational, or rather very stylish in my opinion, like standing tree-smashing for instance.
Its best merit is that you can train it by yourself.
Even in my childish mind, I thought that as expected I would get arrested if I were to wield a weapon, so I mainly used my bare hands.
「That’s no longer a kenjutsu
.」
「Damn straight.」
In the end, it’s just a loner make-believe training, so having him retort about it is troubling.
I’m fundamentally a clumsy person, so I think I won’t be able to learn any dexterous technique.
Besides, rather than randomly learning technique, for a while I think we’ll get stronger faster by raising our level in the dungeon.
「You have a point.」
*Slurp*making an obscene sound, Seiichi throws away the item that has served its dues to the trash can.
「Rather than just every other day, I think dungeon diving everyday may be a sound idea.」
「I’m fine with that, but Mai and the others
.」
The day for general subject lessons is a lecture in the classroom.
Now that the first period is over, the classroom is moderately abuzz.
Shizuka is nodding off, bobbing her head while still seated at her desk, while Mai is in deep slumber, wheezing while lying on her desk.
I see, it looks like the fatigue is piling up.
They are back to their energetic selves at night, so it’s not like I have no doubt that perhaps it’s more like the exhaustion from having sex.
「Let’s get more members and start a club at once.」
「
 yeah, a club it is. It’s important, a club, I mean.」
「No, if you don’t know it, you don’t have to force yourself to play along.」
I fully get it even without him mentioning it, but if he wants to explain it then I don’t mind lending him an ear, as reluctant as I may be.
In Toyoashihara Academy, the term 『club』 seems to refer to a voluntary mutual aid group of students.
Of course I knew that.
Unlike normal school club activities and societies, the main goal of a club is dungeon conquest.
In terms of image, it seems to fall under the category of circle activities at universities, or guilds and clans in MMO games.
It seems that if you meet the requirements, submit an application to the academy and have it approved, you will be recognized as an official club and given a club room.
There seems to even be an interclub tournament that is held several times a year, with an award and various privileges granted to the top ranked clubs.
It’s said to be a very lively event where the whole academy is engulfed in revelry.
There are no grade restrictions for clubs, so we younger students will probably be stuck on the spectator side.
At the moment, the maximum number of people in the party is six, but there seems to be class effectiveness difference depending on the stratum you are conquering, so I guess the purpose is for us to strive in joint conquest under the framework known as club.
With the non-combatant classes, who have a hard time leveling up, working together to provide support, it’s getting more and more MMO game-like.
「There seems to be precedents where the prominent ones get scouted by the upperclassmen’s club, after all. If we don’t lay our claim as soon as possible, we may be left with nothing to choose from in the end.」
We need to secure them while they are still green.
At present, we are conquering the dungeon with a power play, namely through brute force, but putting the future into consideration, I think gathering various types of classes may be a good idea.
There seems to be a requirement for the members for the club to be ten in number for it to be officially approved, so let’s just adequately pick them up.
I’ve always longed to hang out in the club room after school.
「Very well. Time for scouting then.」
「Yeah, actually I’ve already asked a number of people out, but
.」
I try taking another look around the classroom, but for some reason it’s turned quiet.
It is still recess time and the hallways are bustling with activity.
There seems to be a lot of diligent students in our class, and they don’t raise their faces from their textbooks spread out on their desks.
Speaking of the classmates seated around us, they are perusing their textbooks so intently that cold sweats are profusely dripping down their foreheads.
It’s kinda hard to call out to them, but I guess I should try giving them a shoulder pat in a friendly manner and taking them outside one by one here.
They seem to harbor some misunderstandings about me, but worry not, I bet they’ll come to understand it once we talk it out face to face.
「
 Don’t do anything that will make them anymore pitiable. The girls seem like about to cry, after all.」
「I don’t mind even if it’s a guy, though.」
「The guys also seem about to get anemia, so stop it. And Shizuka, go back to sleep.」
「No, go ahead, please continue.」
These slanders are too bothersome.
For the sake of the club room, I have to come up with some kind of measure.
◇ ◇ ◇
I’m going to put the battle freak guidance plan of my party members on a temporary halt.
If we increase our member list, we will naturally be able to switch members and indulge ourselves in the dungeon on a daily basis.
After finishing our lunch and dispersing, each of us are on the move to scout new members.
I had high hopes for Saki, who is in a different class, but it seems that she’s kind of isolated in her class.
I tried taking a peek at her class for a change before, and it was an unusually quiet one, just like the third group.
For a good ten minutes while remain standing on the entrance, I wondered if I should stage some performance if she was being bullied, but had another thought since I found it not quite right making the student of the class outside requesting to pass.
No one was moving, and it really was one quiet class.
But that’s a problem for me.
My circle of friends are nonexistent beyond my current party members.
Speaking of those who don’t run away when they come face to face with me
. Come to think of it, there’s also Saki’s roommate, Yuki-chan.
And speaking of how close we are, it’s not that I don’t feel like I have no recollection of having exchanged even a single word with her.
It may be a good idea to have Saki do the approaching, but I guess I’ll try to do some scouting too.
That would surely be more worthwhile than sitting on a bench in the garden by myself like this.
I don’t think she was present in Saki’s class, but as I’m in a wonder on where it is that I should look for her, Yuki-chan takes a seat next to me.
I don’t think she understands what I’m talking about, but so do I.
It looks like she has appeared out of nowhere, but I wonder if she has been tailing me as she has some business with me.
「Muu.」
「
..」
I end up involuntarily letting out a strange voice, but remain silent with a cushion in hand, Yuki-chan is sitting on the bench and swaying her legs.
She’s petite, or rather compact, or rather on a level that makes me wonder if she’s really of the same grade as me.
Burying half of her face in the cushion, she’s glancing at me with fixed-ish eyes.
Perhaps her bobbed-style hair is bleached, it’s white just as her name suggests.
Her eyes are also beautiful red, like that of a rabbit’s.
My memory is a little hazy, but I have a feeling that her slender, boyish body is also fair-skinned.
Burying her face in the cushion with a pomf, Yuki-chan curls up on the bench.
I wonder if that cushion is some sort of optional equipment.
Now then, I have got a chance, so let’s try to coax her.
But no words are occurring to me at all.
Me talking in a roundabout manner and ending up being misunderstood is already a true and tested pattern, so I think throwing a direct, straight ball is the wisest choice here.
We don’t have enough people to establish a club, so can you come with me?
If I say it like that, there’s a possibility of her thinking that she’s getting hit on.
As expected, I should just state my demand in the simplest manner.
「—Feel free to come with me.」
I wonder if I didn’t use enough words.
I have a feeling that Yuki-chan, who is glancing at me with her red eyes from the cushion again, nods
 bobbing her head ever so slightly.
Alright, you don’t have to do anything, or rather, don’t do anything, or so Seiichi had told me, but I have properly succeeded in recruiting a member.