Chapter 14: After Dinner (Patreon)

Chapter 14: After Dinner

...

The convenience store run went smoothly.

Thanks to the school's efforts, the free-supply zone was well stocked with daily necessities.

After buying toothpaste, a cup, body wash, shampoo, a towel, and other daily essentials, Satoru Anjouin headed back to the dorm together with Ai Morishita.

Girls needed more things, so he ended up carrying bags all the way to Ai Morishita's dorm.

By the time he'd ridden the elevator back to his own room and set down his purchases, Anjouin noticed a shopping bag containing sanitary pads still sitting on the floor.

He quickly fired off a message to Ai Morishita.

Anjouin: Morishita, the stuff you bought this morning is still at my place.

A moment later, Ai Morishita replied.

Morishita: What did I buy this morning?

Anjouin: Uh... girl stuff...

Morishita: Oh, just keep it there for now — I just grabbed three more packs ♪(^∇^*)

Her reply came with a cute emoticon attached.

Anjouin's mood, however, was anything but cute.

Anjouin: ???

Anjouin: Why is it at my place?

Anjouin: I'm a guy — if a classmate drops by and sees this, how am I supposed to explain it?!

Anjouin: Come down here right now and take it back.

Anjouin pressed her for a response.

But though the chat window showed "read," Ai Morishita sent nothing back.

Anjouin: It's almost dinnertime. Want to eat?

Morishita: I'm already waiting downstairs~ o(*≧▽≦)ツ

Seeing that, Anjouin scratched his head, his mind full of question marks.

Earlier, with Ai Morishita right beside him, carrying the bag hadn't been a problem.

But if he rode the dorm elevator alone with a bag full of sanitary pads and someone spotted him... he might as well kiss his marriage prospects goodbye.

Even now that the school had turned into Jujutsu High, that particular worry's priority in his life had clearly dropped.

"Forget it. I'll just humor her nonsense."

After a moment's thought, Anjouin set the bag out on the desk.

Hiding it would only make him look guilty. Leaving it out in the open, he could always claim it was something Ai Morishita had left behind if anyone asked.

This wasn't like the dorm hallway, after all, where he might run into students from other classes — people who barely knew him and would surely suspect him of some strange fetish if they saw him carrying sanitary pads.

But in his own room, the only people likely to walk in were his own classmates.

And since they'd all already seen Ai Morishita tagging along as his little "tail," they wouldn't jump to the wrong conclusion...

After heading downstairs, Anjouin waited a while before Ai Morishita came down by elevator, and the two of them made their way to the cafeteria together.

On the way, they ran into a number of Class A students.

After an afternoon's work, the students had gathered quite a bit of intel. None of it was as significant as what Anjouin had already handed over, but it still let Class A quickly get a read on the current state of Advanced Nurturing High School.

For instance, the "school" had undergone its strange transformation during spring break.

The second- and third-years had also awakened their cursed energy and techniques around that same time.

Just one or two weeks ahead of the first-years, in other words.

That meant if the "school" still kept its class competitions, this year would likely see the whole grade pitted against each other, across every year.

Since the gap between the three grades wasn't pronounced right now, it made for a fairer contest — whereas next year's incoming freshmen, if they weren't already jujutsu sorcerers from the start, would be a full year behind.

Granted, a jujutsu sorcerer's growth didn't follow any fixed curve — some awakened and, within less than a month, grew strong enough to rival a first-grade sorcerer — but most sorcerers progressed slowly.

Time itself, in the end, would still confer an edge.

By then, pitting second-years against first-years would be entirely meaningless.

Anjouin made quick work of his own dinner, then tipped the diced carrots Ai Morishita had picked out and passed to him right back onto her plate.

ミ(ﾉ゜д゜)ﾉ

Ai Morishita once again wore the look of someone betrayed.

"Hm, are you two really not siblings?"

Ryoko Nishikawa, her voice bright and clear, eyed the two of them curiously.

"Grrmph~" Ai Morishita chomped furiously on the carrot cubes, as if imagining them as some villain.

"Morishita's cute and all, but I don't know if I could handle a little sister like her."

You could break up with a girlfriend, divorce a wife — but siblings were for life.

"Ho-ho~"

Ryoko Nishikawa looked like she'd found something amusing.

"Actually, Shiraishi and I found something out. I just don't know whether to post it in the class group chat."

The twin-braided girl went on, a smile still lingering at the corners of her mouth.

"So you want me to help you decide?"

"Naturally." The girl with the beauty mark by the right corner of her mouth watched him with those bright amber eyes.

"Go ahead. If there's something you want too, say it while you're at it."

Anjouin could tell at a glance that Ryoko Nishikawa was hiding some unease.

As Class A's students investigated the "school" and gathered all manner of intel, they came to understand more and more how extraordinary this school had originally been.

It had, after all, been a school built on the principle that strength ruled everything.

Conflict, betrayal, deception — none of it had ever been rare here.

Quite a few third-years had already dropped out.

The second-years were fewer still, since Nagumo had deliberately schemed to have students who opposed him expelled.

No one knew what lay ahead, and being a jujutsu sorcerer was a profession bound up with combat.

Perhaps it was an even more thorough form of strength-based rule — or rather, cursed-technique-based rule...

They'd originally chosen this school because of the 100% advancement-and-employment rate touted in its admissions pamphlet.

Anjouin's earlier warning — that even a strong swimmer can drown — grew more striking as time passed, and Class A's students were gradually waking up, as if from a dream, to their true situation.

But wanting to drop out was one thing; Advanced Nurturing High School was a state-backed project.

Going up against the state left you little hope of surviving the crackdown, short of fleeing the country entirely.

In contrast, not far off, a cluster of students who looked like they were from Class D were still noisily arguing about something.

"I'm betting on Sakura..."

"Idiot, Hasebe's the biggest."

"I'm voting Kushida. Odds are 2.5, right? I'm in!"

"What about Horikita?"

"All she's got is a pretty face — her personality's terrible. Going around saying she's not trash like the rest of Class D, and yet here she is, stuck in Class D right along with us."

"Right, right. If you ask me, Karuizawa looks pretty good too."

"Gyaru types are out — and she's not big enough anyway."

The way they discussed breasts without a care for who might overhear made their character and intelligence both seriously suspect.

The thing was, the code-of-conduct exam had already laid all this out in advance.

Surely they didn't imagine that talking about this sort of thing in a common area wouldn't violate public decency or the student code of conduct.

Ninety-eight percent odds they hadn't even cracked open the student handbook once.

So much had already been made clear on day one, and yet they didn't seem to sense any danger at all — they didn't even take becoming a jujutsu sorcerer seriously.

Or maybe, in their eyes, becoming a jujutsu sorcerer simply meant they had some special talent, and that was why the state was giving them special treatment.

Their behavior soured the mood in the cafeteria, and many students chose to keep their distance.

Meanwhile, on Class A's side, more and more students had begun to notice how off the "school" was, and the risks that came with becoming a jujutsu sorcerer.

A once-ordinary school had suddenly undergone so many mysterious changes.

At times like this, the sort of students in Class A prone to overthinking naturally found it a bit hard to bear.

They knew all too well what the island nation's Cabinet Secretariat was capable of, and they dreaded becoming the state's lab rats, only to die miserably in the end.

After all, they'd come here to study, not to serve as guinea pigs.

Except this country really was the type that could experiment on its own citizens.

Simply put, it had no credibility to speak of.

The terms mentioned in that impromptu interview might well have just been meant to keep them calm, given that they'd be cut off from the outside world for the next three years.

The more they thought about it, the more plausible it seemed — and the more afraid they grew.

"Nishikawa, I know a jujutsu sorcerer I trust pretty well. I'll have him look into things afterward — if there's anything you want passed on to your family, you can tell me..."

Before he could finish, Anjouin changed his mind.

"Actually, let's do it this way, Nishikawa — could you put a notice in the class group chat? Have anyone who wants to send word to their family sign up with you, and I'll ask him to handle it all at once."

Ryoko Nishikawa hadn't said anything yet, but Anjouin had already guessed what was worrying her.

Attending Jujutsu High was a fact they couldn't change — so what worried them most right now was the family they'd left behind.

In a way, that was a good thing too: at least Class A had come to terms with reality.

"Eh?!"

Ryoko Nishikawa's neck drew back slightly, as if she'd been seen straight through.

Her amused expression cracked, a flash of fear crossing her face.

"That's terrifying. Do you have some kind of mind-reading technique?"

"No, it's just the sort of worry anyone in this situation would normally have..."

After all, saddled with the island nation's Cabinet Secretariat, it wasn't hard to understand why.

The key thing was, in this world stitched together from so many pieces, a place like the "White Room" — an experimental cultivation facility — had already existed.

He didn't for a second believe that its so-called "cultivation" left out drugs, human experimentation, and other forbidden practices.

The island nation's bottom line was even lower than he'd first assumed.

"Thank you."

Ryoko Nishikawa said quietly.

Whatever the case, Anjouin's words had put her at ease.

"So, what did you and Shiraishi find out?"

Anjouin glanced over at Asuka Shiraishi as he spoke; she remained, as ever, perfectly composed.

Unlike Ryoko Nishikawa, whose unease only deepened the more she learned about the school and about jujutsu sorcerers.

"According to the student handbook and the admissions materials, Advanced Nurturing High School's grounds cover 600,000 square meters."

"Shiraishi and I went up to the rooftop to check it out, and after recalculating, the actual area of this artificial island comes out to 700,000 square meters."

Ryoko Nishikawa, skilled at math and academically sharp, had indeed handed Anjouin a modest but genuine surprise.

The actual area didn't match what the student handbook recorded.

This clearly wasn't some "image for reference only" situation like on instant-noodle packaging.

And in all likelihood, it wasn't the school deliberately concealing the land's size either.

After all, if there really were a discrepancy, it would show up easily on satellite maps — and getting caught by the Cabinet Secretariat over hiding a bit of acreage would cost far more than it was worth.

Anjouin thanked Ryoko Nishikawa.

"Thanks to you, Nishikawa. And sorry to trouble you, but please go ahead and collect what everyone in class wants to say..."

"It's — it's no trouble. Was it useful?"

"Very much so."

At being thanked so earnestly, a faint blush rose on Ryoko Nishikawa's cheeks.

Once dinner was over, Anjouin left with his little tail in tow.

He found himself wondering why Ai Morishita hadn't kept up her "Gluttony Series" this time.

After the Gluttony Monster, the Gluttony Little Fairy, and the Gluttony Great Fairy, Ryoko Nishikawa — with that bright, clear voice of hers — could well be cast as the Gluttony Siren.

The two of them took an after-dinner walk to settle their food.

After walking Ai Morishita back to her dorm, Anjouin found a stretch of coastline with little surveillance and called Kento Nanami directly.