“Ahaha♪ If it’s a ‘no,’ it’s a ‘no’ ♡”
The person adding fuel to the fire was her. The woman lounging in the “President’s chair” with her back to the window looked truly entertained.
Her name is Saiin Sakuya. Her mature features were very well-proportioned, and her glossy, straight black hair highlighted her extraordinary nature. Whether it was her chest, which looked cramped despite the blouse being the right size, or her long, slender legs wrapped in stockings—even though there was little skin exposed, she exuded a sense of bewitching allure.
To put it simply, she was a beauty, but the fact that she wasn’t just a beauty was told by the bizarre situation unfolding before her.
“Haan, the tail feathers of the Buster Eagle are sexy no matter when I look at them…”
Paying no mind to the men begging for forgiveness, she was looking at the fully painted plastic model in her hand—a bird-like form carrying a giant cannon—turning it 360 degrees and looking at it as if licking it with her eyes to admire the craftsmanship.
In a yakuza movie, this would be the scene where the boss is polishing a golf club. It was a modern yakuza-style production: being in stark contrast to the mob characters on the brink of life and death, showing absolutely no interest in their lives.
“What in the world is that person doing now…?”
In a corner of a perfectly ordinary college prep school, I wondered what sequence of events could possibly lead to a scene like this. Even I, who had developed a certain immunity to her eccentricities, was feeling a bit repulsed—so surely Shishihara must be beyond disgusted. Or so I thought.
“Whoa, look at all the guests we don’t know!”
She was operating at her usual frequency. Shishihara might actually be the most dangerous one here.
“Ah—hey, look. You’re getting cold stares from the other club members.”
Noticing our presence, Saku-senpai clapped her hands together to signal a dismissal.
“Stop licking the floor and go home already.”
While it was a metaphorical expression, thankfully not a single one of these “warriors” was actually licking the floorboards.
“We’re bowing because people are watching!” “If you tell us to lick, we’ll lick the soles of your shoes too!”
Their pathetic wailing was a pitiful sight.
If you took their dialogue out of context, it sounded like some very specific kind of adult roleplay. If they stayed here any longer, our already poor public image would only get worse.
“Um, sorry to butt in like this, but…”
I stepped in to settle the situation. That said, all I could offer was some simple advice.
- I don’t know what you did, nor do I care to hear about it.
- No matter how much you beg Senpai once she’s like that, it won’t work.
- It would be wise to back down quietly and never involve yourselves with that person again.
As a result of my polite explanation, I succeeded in getting them to leave, but…
“Ogre! Demon! Lip-bat!” “Pig-nosed bat!” “Your club president is a Succubus!”
They spat out genuine parting shots as they retreated.
“I don’t know who they were, but they sure knew a lot about the Chiroptera order…”
“You’re a lifesaver, Tsubasa-kun. Now I can finally get back to my real work.”
“Since when did admiring plastic models become your real work?”
“It’s not just a plastic model, it’s a Z○ids Block.”
“Please don’t split hairs.”
I really shouldn’t have come. I twisted my face into a grimace to show my regret, but Saku-senpai just gave me a beaming smile as if my misery was her fuel. Shishihara was also wearing a proud grin. I wondered why she was puffing out her flat chest so much, until she spoke:
“I captured the Bat-kun as ordered, Saku-senpai!”
“Well done, Maon-san. Tsubasa-kun has a habit of skipping club activities right after exams are over.”
“Yes! He was totally trying to go home!”
Apparently, a secret order had been issued via LINE behind the scenes. They were so close it was almost enviable.
“Why don’t the two of you just enjoy yourselves?”
“What are you saying? Whether it’s G○tter or Aquari○n, a combining robot needs three people!”
“Just pilot it by yourself…”
“Anyway, I’m relieved the ‘usual members’ are all here. It was lonely during the testing period because no one came to visit.”
She said this as if she had actually been coming to the clubroom during exams herself.
Shishihara must have felt the same discrepancy, as she suddenly leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“…Hey, hey. Does Saku-senpai actually live here?”
“I have that suspicion from time to time myself.”
I looked around the room skeptically. In this cramped space, besides the stacks of books, there were figures, a chessboard, a tea set, and even a portable gas stove that Saku-senpai had brought in. It was a space that smelled more like a living room than a clubroom.
“Surely she doesn’t actually reside here.”
“But doesn’t her range of movement seem so small it’s worrying?”
“She just doesn’t have friends to go to a family restaurant with after school like you do.”
“That’s worrying in its own way!”
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT gadgetizedpanda.net
Unaware that she was being lightly dissed by her junior, Saku-senpai was waving around a white eagle toy while making her own sound effects. “Eagle-chan is happy too—vroom, vroom!” The horror of a high school girl doing something that even a young boy might hesitate to do in public was palpable.
Even as her childhood friend, I couldn’t fully grasp her ecology, but one thing was certain: she was drowning in hobbies that were far from “high school girl-like.” Ten-ryan-pin, Jackpots, “the Nakayama straight is short”—even if the casino bill passed, there were many signs that she indulged in “unwholesome play” that would never be permitted for a minor. Just to be safe, I decided to check.
“By the way, who were those high-level masochistic guests from earlier?”
“Ah, those were the guys from the TCG Circle.”
“TCG?”
As Shishihara tilted her head in confusion, Senpai explained, “It’s short for Trading Card Game.”
“Magic: The Gathering, Duel Masters, Poke-ka, Yu-Gi… ahem, anyway, it’s a general term for competitive card games.”
“Heh~ You can even make a circle for something that’s basically just playing.”
“You say that as if we aren’t just ‘playing’ here too.”
Given that there are official tournaments, cards and e-sports are arguably much more like real club activities than what we do.
“Just the other day, I had a fun match with them using the regulations they specified, and I ended up winning a landslide victory. MirageGaogamon is so strong it’s almost a problem.”
“I have a bad feeling about this… and then?”
“As per our agreement, they voluntarily handed over several rare cards upon mutual consent.”
“No, no, no, no!”
“And yet, those guys started grumbling and complaining after the fact. It’s quite pathetic.”
“That’s just straight-up extortion!”
The days when “Winner takes all” was proudly written in rulebooks are ancient history. If you tried that in the modern era, you’d bypass the label of “bully” and go straight to being arrested in a mass sweep.
“Well, listen to me. This whole thing started because of a tip-off from a certain source.”
“A tip-off?”
“Wait! Did we get a new consultation while we were away?”
“Yes. Multiple requests to ‘get back the cards that were extorted by the TCG Circle.’”
“Are you… serious? So, what, they were the ones doing the stealing originally?”
“It seems they were using a pretty shady commission rate. Even if both parties agree, there’s a limit, right?”
Hearing that much, Saku-senpai sounded like a hero of justice who had punished evil.
“So you helped people! As expected of Senpai, I’m so impressed~”
Shishihara’s praise wasn’t necessarily off the mark—or it shouldn’t have been. But something just wouldn’t sit right with me.
“…You didn’t, by any chance, receive a reward, did you?”
“Of course it was pro bono. They just said, ‘You can keep the cards you win back.’”
“That’s exactly what a success fee is! If this gets out, things will get messy…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I bought this Buster Eagle with the money I got from selling them, so there’s no paper trail.”
“You’re doing malicious money laundering?!”
In other words, no matter how much they prostrated themselves, the cards were never coming back. I couldn’t tell who the villain was anymore. “Fighting poison with poison” sounded nice, but…
“That client really messed around with some dangerous medicine…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Weren’t there plenty of other ways? You could have snitched to a teacher, or if they were taken by force, you could have gone to the proper authorities—”
“Oh my, do you think you could go crying to a teacher saying, ‘I lost big time in a gambling match and they took my expensive cards, waaah, please help me’?”
“…Probably not. That’s halfway to a confession of a crime.”
Also check out my friend Localizermeerkat for more LN translations!
BUY THE SOURCE MATERIAL TO SUPPORT THE AUTHOR !!!
Kindly click on the green button above and contribute to filling the green bar if you’re interested in having another LN from the request page translated. Also, every donation is being used to purchase the source material and to fund more English translations.
Please consider joining my Ko-Fi membership. By becoming a member, you’ll also gain access to 2-10 additional chapters of all of the novels from this site translated into English. Last but not least your support will also assist me in upholding the translation quality and speed. For more information, please follow the link.
Donation for faster release is always welcome
Additionally, I am now accepting translation requests.
