CH 100

A/N: We finally got to the 100th chapter!

I give my thanks to everyone! I’ve written everything on the activity page if you want to look at it.

Once again, Thank you very much!

T/N: A bit of announcement, the editor’s gonna be busy for the rest of the week so there’ll be no new chaps for a while. I’m also feeling burned out myself so yeah. We hit the 100th mark, so I guess it’s a nice place to stop for a bit. Also if you haven’t checked the announcement on discord, the author made a revised version of the series. He said that there will be changes both minor and major, but so far there are only minor changes to the story. I’ll translate that version after I’m done with this one. Enjoy the chap and thanks for reading!

Chapter 100 – Homecoming Six Formation

“I’ve been waiting for you all.”

The members of the going-home club gathered at the old staff room. Including me and Arina, there were fourteen of us here.

They came over after seeing the date and place on the poster.

“You guys don’t belong to any of the clubs?”

All twelve of them nodded. Some of them were a little intimidated by my tone, but most of them didn’t even flinch.

The quality of this year’s recruit was excellent, it seemed.

“I give my sincere thanks to everyone who gathered here, but this isn’t enough to make me trust you guys.”

Because it was easy to enter the going-home club, all sorts of people were part of the club. I needed to make sure that there weren’t any imposters snucking in here.

Arina and I sat next to each other while the rest of them sat across from us.

There was a desk between us and them.

“Alright, the person on the far right, come over.”

I said, pointing to a chair right in front of us.

It was a skinny guy with a reptile-like face. I asked his name.

“Your name?”

“Ishibasi Yuki.”

“Nice to meet you, Yuki. I want you to answer a few questions. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

I slightly leaned forward and stared at him in the eye.

“You’re on your way home and you almost arrived at your home, then, you see a woman lying on the side of the road. What will you do?”

“…Help her?”

“Alright, next question. It’s currently after school and you leave the classroom with your bag on your back. As you go down the stairs, you hear voices from the top floor. You then decide to go up to check and see two boys hugging each other. What do you think of that scene?”

“Are you testing my legitimacy as a member or my sexuality?”

“Answer the question.”

“…I’ll just run away.”

That should be enough.

“We’re done here. Please leave the room.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You’re disqualified.”

“Eh? But why?”

“You’re a member of the computer club, aren’t you?”

“H-How–?”

“Do you think the going-home club is a joke?!”

Frightened by my tone, Yuki left the room while cursing loudly.

After that, Arina whispered something in my ear.

“How did you know that?”

“Instinct.”

“Then, what’s up with the questions?”

“Personality test. His answer for the first question means that he’s a serious person and the second one means that he’s not going to cross the lines.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry, just leave everything to me.”

So the audition began.

There were twelve of them so there were all kinds of people with different motivations here. Some were out for blood, trying to get a one up against people who had been mocking them, some wanted to try to get closer to Arina and so on.

I carefully selected the members based on their motivations and overall good qualities by looking into their eyes and probed into the depths of their souls.

In the end, only four of them remained. The rest of them were pretty much on the same level as dog sh*t, though some did come close to my standard. Sadly, there were only six slots for the relay, so I had to reject them because they were a little worse than the chosen four.

“Here is our roster. The chosen heroes.”

I’ll introduce them one by one.

First person.

Tanaka Masao.

A.k.a Berserker Masao.

He was a 185cm and 98kg powerhouse. In contrast to his physique, he was an extremely quiet person. The guy had been practicing judo for ten years but, during a practice session in the third year of his middle school, he got into an accident while doing an ukemi. His head was scraped and the area where it got scraped turned bald permanently. Ever since then, he had been styling his hair weirdly to hide that bald part. On top of that, his confidence suffered a blow and he became introverted overnight. (T/N: Ukemi is basically a falling technique in judo.)

He quitted judo because of this and remained clubless for his whole high school life so far.

He told me that his motivation to come here was to regain his confidence and change himself.

His favorite food was mango parfait.

He was the kind of person that I wanted to work with.

Second person.

Nakamura Takazou.

A.k.a Intelligent Takazo.

He was a genius comparable to Niwatari Tsuru. Although his appearance might be deceiving with how skinny he was and there were always bags under his eyes. Aside from that, there was nothing worth noting to his appearance and that was part of the reason why other students started to mock him by calling him names like ‘gloomy kid’. His motivation was to get a one up against people who mocked him.

His favorite quote was, ‘Everyone who goes to a cram school is an idiot. Stop wasting your parents’ money and study your textbook properly!’

His favorite food was Sanma’s liver.

He was a peculiar person.

Third person.

Shimano Eiji.

A.k.a Programmer Eiji.

He wore black-rimmed glasses and was a former member of the track team in middle school. During his eighth grade, he discovered the joy of FPS and got addicted to it. Both his eyesight and his passion for his club gradually deteriorated after that. In contrast, his gaming skill increased to the point that he got into the eighth on the global rank of the game he was playing. He even got sponsored by a big shot.

His motivation was because he kinda missed running. And also because he was sick of being called a NEET.

The food that he disliked was potato.

The person he looked up to was Simo Hayha.

He had this strange habit of randomly making finger guns.

The fourth person.

Hayasaka Rion.

A.k.a Heartbreak Rion.

She was a former member of the cheerleader club. She left the club back in the first year because she wanted to focus on her love life. However, reality wasn’t kind to her as she suffered heartbreak after heartbreak to the point that everyone started calling her a b*tch.

Thanks to a certain perverted girl, I thought that the cheerleader club was filled with deranged perverts, but it seemed like I was wrong. This girl was beautiful both in her body and soul.

She had wavy hair and was taller than average. She was a looker and she seemed to be popular too but, apparently, she held a grudge against the boys in the football, baseball, rugby, kendo, tennis, badminton, basketball and judo clubs because they dated her just to break up with her not long after.

She said that since she had enough getting her heart broken, she wanted to be the heartbreaker this time.

Her favorite foods were marshmallows, strawberries, crepes, cheesecakes, cream puffs and so on. I couldn’t bear it any longer so I made her shut her mouth midway.

To my surprise, all of them were third-years. It seemed like our year had more people with screw loose than I thought. Even Arina showed her concern about this.

“What are our odds?”

Asked Intelligent Takazo as he raised his hand.

“Well, the relay itself is simple, the faster you are, the more likely you are to win, but there are some intricacies in it. As long as we take them into account though, we can win the thing easily.”

“That’s true.”

Programmer Eiji interrupted as he lifted his glasses.

“No matter how fast you are, if you make a mistake when passing your baton, you’ll be nothing more than a nuisance. Relay is a team effort, so what we need isn’t individually strong runners, but a solid team. I know it sounds cheesy, but believe me, what I’m saying is the truth.”

As expected of the former track team member, he made a good point. If only he stopped doing his finger guns, he would look really cool there.

“Will I even be of any use to you?”

“You’ll be fine. A living weapon like you should have more confidence, dude.”

Berserker Masao shrank and expressed his anxiety. Seriously, he should have more confidence in himself. With a body like that, if a truck tried to send him to an isekai, the truck would be the one sent there instead of him.

“May I?’

“Go ahead.”

Heartbreak Rion crossed her arms and asked me for permission to speak.

“Can we actually win this? I mean, Eiji is one thing because he used to be in the track club, but can you do it?”

She directed her words at Intelligent Takazo.

“We literally just came to the conclusion that speed isn’t all there is to it. Is your brain filled with nothing but marshmallows?”

“That’s too much, isn’t it?! This is why you aren’t popular with girls!”

“That has nothing to do with our current situation. Besides, despite me looking like this, I can run, I’m not that weak. Stop trying to judge people based on their appearance, b*tch.”

“Y-You!”

We barely even started and two of them were already at each other’s throats. Looking at this scene, Arina let out a sigh while Masao started to panic, meanwhile Eiji was doing Eiji thing.

This was the first time for me to meet other members of the going-home club, but it seemed like the rumors were true, everyone had strong personalities. Each of them had their own opinions, but the way they were expressing it was off. If things went on like this, we wouldn’t get a strong and united team, but rather a civil war instead. The others would laugh at us behind our backs and we would be treated as laughingstocks for the rest of our school life.

Well, this was why I gathered them three weeks before D-Day.

“Calm down, Rion. Take a look at our lineup again. We got a monster, a prodigy, a pro-gamer, a heartbreaker, the joker and the poisonous rose. It’s a strong lineup, don’t you think? All of us are members of the going-home club and besides, do you know who’s the strongest member in our school?”

They unanimously pointed at me.

“So you know. I’m a–”

“Total freak.”

“Correct, Missy. As long as I’m around, they won’t be able to do anything. Let’s plunge the relay into chaos!”

Thus began our practice session for the sports festival.

*   *   *

We held our practice after school.

The one who coached the practice was Eiji, since he was a former member of the track club. We practiced not only to raise our stamina, but also techniques like how to hand off the baton properly, the proper running form and so on. The school grounds were used by everyone, so we rarely got the chance to use the lanes, but even like that, everyone put their hearts and souls into it.

“Haa… Haa… Well, logically, ethically, morally, philosophically speaking, this is an egregious exercise…”

Intelligent Takazo sweated buckets as he said that. His eyes were completely dead.

“Don’t say something like that, look at the soccer club, they’re still running.”

“What’s going on with their muscles? What kind of equation was involved to get the most out of their workouts?”

“You’re the only person in the universe who calculates shit like workout.”

“N-No way… You mean, you aren’t doing it, Sui?”

“I’m a human, not a computer.”

Sometimes rain fell, sometimes the wind blew, but we kept running.

“Masao, try to be more confident.”

“I can’t…”

During one of our breaks, I talked to Berserker Masao, who was trying to hide his presence. Too bad that his body was too big that his effort was futile.

“Everyone kept telling me I’m a big guy or a giant… I’m nothing but a dull guy…”

“I understand your feelings. They used to call me that back when in grade school. I always wished that I was born ordinary. But, now, I am grateful to my mother. It feels good to have people envying you.”

“That could only work because you are you, Sui… Me, on the other hand…”

His muscles bulged through his uniform every time he spoke. It looked so terrifying. The U.S military would probably try to recruit him.

I patted Masao on the back and encouraged him as he placed his chin on his knee. Oh wow, what the hell was his muscle? They were so thick, jeez.

“It’s fine, you’re quick enough, you won’t lose to those puny guys. Anyway, why not try to eat your favorite food before practicing? You should think about that rather than what other people think of you.”

“Right… I should do that, huh?”

“What was it again? Mango parfait?”

“Yes. I often eat it at my favorite shop. Whenever I eat it, it gives me the energy to do anything.”

Alright, I’m going to make him eat some of those before the relay. It’ll be the spinach to his Popeye.