Chapter 20

White Gloves

Volume 1 Chapter 7 part1

It was only a mere matter of time until the school term would end.

The grade party has become an established custom, but these parties held within the academy were extravagant.

No words could describe the quality and quantity of the cuisine lined up on tables. The boys participated while wearing their school uniforms, but the girls pretty much wore dresses.

The boys ogled the dressed-up girls, who had demi-human slaves stand next to them.

My line of sight automatically locked onto the chests of the girls as well, and I found it hard to avert my gaze.

I cleared my throat and made a serious face.

“Was that chest just now an F cup? That’s not it, I meant to say that the food here is amazing.”

I returned my gaze to the table, where Daniel was eating a large meaty dish on a plate. Raymond was amazed at that sight.

“This is the first time I’ve been to such a large party. The academy is tremendous.”

“Daniel, don’t talk with your mouth full. Thinking about the scale of this party, and how it was held per grade, the royal capital really does seem tremendous. It’s a lot different from the poor barons in the countryside.”

Luxon had said something to me before.

The academy was doing this to show off the power of the royal capital to those from the countryside. Indeed, just this party alone showed how different their wealth was.

I think there’s also the chance that it’s to show off to the rich, spoiled young nobles.

Surrounding us were boys from the same environment.

Students from the regular class were also participating today, meaning that there were many people participating in the party.

Daniel surveyed our surroundings.

“There’s a lot girls from the regular class that are also wearing dresses. There are too few girls wearing the uniform.”

Raymond pushed up his glasses.

In front of him was a slender girl that he was taking a liking to.

This guy is a taciturn person.

“There’s a wide range of dresses ranging from pricey to cheap. It seems that are even ones that go for two thousand dia.”

That’s two hundred thousand yen for a suit of clothes! That’s when converted into Japanese currency, though.

Well, I don’t know what’s cheap or expensive, but the lowest cost seemed to be two hundred thousand.

Meanwhile, Marie, the current hot topic, had appeared in her uniform. The surrounding students created a commotion and noisily talked amongst each other.

With this situation at hand, the honor student who wore her uniform as well, Olivia, didn’t stand out at all.

All things considered, a girl from a viscount household should’ve been able to prepare a dress…and as I was thinking of such things, Marie went over to the prince and the others.

The prince’s group, the one that held the highest rank, welcomed Marie, but…

Julian was a bit surprised upon seeing Marie in her uniform.

“Marie, what happened to your dress?”

“U, umm, I couldn’t prepare one.”

Trying to appeal to her, the surrounding boys each said “We could have given you one if you said so,” to Marie.

Jilk smiled.

“This does feel more refreshing than a gorgeous dress, though. Marie, how about we head to a tailor for a dress next time? There’s a shop in the royal capital that I visit regularly.”

“I, I can’t do something rude like that.”

In response to her modest attitude, Julian started a conversation amongst five people while seeming a little excited. It seems that those five are fighting for Marie’s interest.

There’s more apart from that.

For boy mobs like us, this party was also a chance for glory. According to our upperclassmen, it seems that this is an opportunity for couples to form.

“Well then, are you two ready?”

Once I called out to the two, Daniel set down his plate.

“Yep, I’ve eaten enough.”

Raymond adjusted his glasses.

“We’ll have to do our best.”

The three of us immediately began to take action.

We went around inviting girls over.

With the kind of mood set in place here, it was possible that the girls may have become more lenient on letting us marry them. At this point, we were thinking that it would be fine even if our partner had a lover.

“Whoa! I found a trio of girls over there! Let’s hurry and try our luck!”

The other boys were making moves as well, so us three headed towards where girls were, but──

“Huh? Come back when you’ve looked at a mirror.”

“Countryside barons? I don’t need a hillbilly.”

“Bumpkins will be bumpkins, so just go find some bumpkin girls to call out to. We’re only aiming for viscount households at the very minimum. Furthermore, remote regions…are out of the question.”

“How sickening, you boys are desperate for marriage. You can just see how shallow the people at the bottom are.”

“A man isn’t good if they don’t have more assets.”

“There’s a big difference between you and people like his Highness the crown prince.”

The girls lightly brushed us off, and their exclusive servants, their demi-human lovers, looked down on us. Their masters were the girls, and not us. Due to that, there were a lot of slaves that took a dismissive attitude towards boys.

Furthermore, a slave getting attacked would lead to an intense investigation being done.

They knew that they’re in a position safe from assaults, so they looked down on us.

“W, well, we’re just chatting, so──”

One of the girls used her chin to signal a cue to her servant.

Upon which, the muscular, Daruma-like sub-race servant thrust us away. (TLN: Daruma’s are round, stout dolls)

When the surrounding people gathered their sight towards the three of us tumbling, the girls laughed and the boys either laughed along with them or looked at us with sympathy.

“Try again. No wait, it still won’t work out unless you pray to be born as better man in your next life. See ya, bumpkin hillbillies.”

The girls and slaves around looked at us and laughed.

◇

We were outside the party venue.

“Damn it! We carried away!”

Daniel spoke without trying to conceal his anger.

Raymond, who sat on the bench with his knees under his arms, looked up into the night sky.

“If only we could redo our lives…I suppose that’s all I need to say.”

…This being my second life, I felt a bit mixed.

We heard happy-sounding music and laughter coming from the party venue.

We couldn’t bear with the mood inside the venue, so we went outside to escape. There were girls who laughed upon seeing us in that situation.

The ones who were laughing were the girls in the advanced class and the slaves.

Perhaps pitying us, the girls in the regular class had averted their gazes.

How miserable.

“…I’m kind of fed up with it all.”

Daniel was about to say something towards what I had said, but closed his mouth and looked down.

Raymond was also silent.

As the head of a baron household, I had to marry a noble lady no matter what.

When one owns a household…their legal wife has to be a noble lady. Otherwise, surrounding people will go “Isn’t that unbecoming of the household?” and become cold.

My father married Zola because the drawbacks of not doing so were not to be taken lightly. It sometimes becomes the excuse for starting a war. There would be people saying that our actions don’t match our rank, and that we’re a vile house.

Due to that, boys turn frantic and the position of the girls strengthen…leading to the current situation of the academy.

Us three fellows sat on the bench, and blankly stared into the sky.

“Those girls gave me an unpleasant feeling.”

Danial agreed with what Raymond said.

“I know, right? Boys are scrambling to marry since the world will turn cold towards them if they don’t do so by graduation. The circumstances are way too different from girls, who have time to spare.”

Not all of the girls in the academy were particularly terrible, but the proportion of cruel girls was way too high.

Hence, there were many boys that didn’t find life at the academy pleasing.

I then remembered something detestable.

It was something the upperclassman Rukul said──

“It seems that in the academy, there were boys that got fed up with women, and started chasing after other boys…but they had been smiling before enrolling in the school. Now, they weren’t smiling.”

Daniel and Raymond nodded.

There were boys who left the academy disgusted with women while going for other boys.

It seemed that there were girls that liked romance between boys, like my little sister before I had reincarnated. There’s no saving this world.

Enroll in school→come to hate how cruel women are→go after boys→give fujoshis great joy. Rinse and repeat for each new school year.

Such a cycle happens.

It was pretty much a rotten spiral…I just called it that because it sounded cool. You see, when considering how these sad events repeat each year, I can’t really use the term rotten chain here. No wait, can’t I still use it? (TLN: Based on what I looked up, ‘rotten chain’ refers to the idea that a fujoshi’s children will also be fujoshis, creating a generational chain of them. My guess is that MC labeled the current situation as a spiral instead of chain, but backtracked when realizing that the idea behind calling it a chain still applies to the situation)

Time passed by in silence.

Thereupon, we could not longer hear the musical performance within the party venue.

There was a live musical performance in there. Taking out my pocket watch, I confirmed that it wasn’t time for the party to end.

I thought that the performance was taking a break, but when I strained my ears, I couldn’t hear any laughter in the venue either.

I could hear an occasional voice, as if someone was shouting.

“Hey, doesn’t something seem odd?”

Raymond turned his gaze towards the venue once I said that.

“Now that you mention it, there seems to be a strange commotion.”

Daniel got up.

“Should we take a look? We don’t need to go inside if we just peek through a window.”

Raymond stopped him.

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“I don’t want to be shamed even more than I already have. If we’re spotted, we’ll be the laughingstock. Though, I certainly am curious.”

The three of us showed signs of interest, but while we were talking about not going back into the venue, there was a girl that went outside.

The girl looked around, and then rushed over when she noticed us.

She was a girl in a uniform, Olivia.

“Leon! This is serious!”