Koharu Saegusa, a student from the far east, descended from a family of traditional magicians. She’d traveled all the way to the western edge of the continent to study here.
Cordelia was what you’d call a radiant beauty. If she were a flower, she’d be a sunflower: strong, bright, and full of life. Lilith, by contrast, had a more fragile, morbid charm, like a red spider lily, beautiful but touched with danger.
And Koharu… What flower could possibly describe her?
She wasn’t exactly beautiful in the traditional sense, not like Cordelia or Lilith. She was cute. Undeniably cute. But not just that. There was something else, something hard to pin down. Small and soft like a woodland creature? No, not quite. Plush and curvy? Closer, but still not it. She had an innocent sexiness that was totally overpowered by her adorableness.
What’s the term…?
Loli with big boobs.
Yes. That was it. That was exactly it. She was the personification of that paradoxical archetype: Loli Busty. A concept more than a category. Okay, maybe that’s not a flower, technically speaking, but damn, if it doesn’t fit better than anything else.
Wait. What the hell am I thinking?
While I was busy spiraling down that particular rabbit hole, Koharu had slipped between the other guy and me and was now gently prying us apart. Her tiny hands grasped my arm with surprising strength.
“N-No fighting! Fighting is bad!” she cried.
And then, without letting go, she clasped both hands around my right wrist, holding it like I was a misbehaving child on the verge of running off.
“Ryuto-kun! You can’t fight! It’s not allowed! You can’t!”
Which meant, mechanically speaking, that my right hand was now pinned between Koharu’s palms and also caught directly between… well, her shrine maiden outfit wasn’t exactly built for full-body restraint. The result? A very soft, very bouncy, very direct contact.
“Okay! I get it! I get it already. No fighting! Just let go!” I barked, flustered beyond measure.
But instead of releasing me, Koharu beamed. A full-faced, radiant, glowing smile as she bounced on the balls of her feet like an overjoyed puppy.
“I’m so glad! So glad! I’m so glad there’s no fighting!”
Still holding my hand. Still bouncing.
Which, of course, meant things were… also bouncing. With every hop, her chest made a gentle, devastating impact. I was under attack. Full-force, shrine maiden-style, bouncing attack. And there was nowhere to run.
“Just let go already!” I snapped, struggling to free my arm.
“Why?” Koharu blinked up at me, completely innocent.
Oh no. She’s serious. She’s actually serious.
“Because you’re… you’re pressing up against me!”
“Pressing… what?”
She’s a natural-born airhead, isn’t she?
There was no way around it. I’d have to spell it out.
“Your chest!” I barked. “It’s, uh… y’know… bouncing against me!”
“How exactly is it bouncing?” she asked, tilting her head.
“Poing poing… Damn it, don’t make me say it out loud!”
Finally, understanding dawned in her eyes, and her entire face turned crimson in an instant. She recoiled like she’d been scalded, yanking her hands away and stumbling a step back.
“Y-You perv—! R-Ryuto-kun… you big… big idiot!”
“I didn’t do anything!” I protested, but it was too late. She’d already turned tail, bolting into the forest in a flurry of flustered steps and trailing sleeves.
Or at least she tried to.
Before she could escape, the last member of our group, silent until now, reached out and calmly grabbed her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
“Are you stupid?” the newcomer said flatly.
“W-What? Stupid? What do you mean by that?” Koharu’s high-pitched voice rang out through the trees.
She wore a pristine white robe and a deep hood pulled low over her face, only a peek of pale blue hair visible beneath it, a short bob that framed her cheeks.
“I heard this training camp enforces strict mutual surveillance and group accountability. That’s why we’re split into squads like this. If you run off, we all suffer.”
And with that, she shoved Koharu back toward the path, toppling her over like a sack of rice.
“Okay, did she just speak for the first time?” I muttered. “Also, judging by the voice, she’s a girl?”
Arthur, the third son of the broke noble house, nodded. “Yeah. She didn’t respond to anything earlier, but now she’s talking?”
Brian, the silver-haired snob who had nearly picked a fight with me earlier, nodded as well. “Indeed. Not a single word until now.”
The hooded girl, apparently done with the lecture, trotted over to me with light, precise steps, then looked up from beneath her cowl.
“Flirting with Ryuto? You’re two million years too early.”
A faint headache was starting to creep in as I turned to the girl standing beside me.
“Lilith?”
“What?”
“Why are you even here? You’re in the elite class, right?”
“It’s an elective,” she replied flatly.
“Elective?”
“This program is optional,” she explained. “Class E students are forced to participate, but the upper classes get to choose, and no one with half a brain would voluntarily sign up for something like this.”
“So basically, this camp ends up being nothing but the bottom-of-the-barrel students.”
“Exactly.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then why are you here? I asked you to keep an eye on Cordelia, watch the area around her, and relay information back to me. That was the deal, wasn’t it?”
Lilith averted her gaze, lashes low, looking distinctly guilty.
“I did.”
“Did?”
“There was… a scent,” she muttered. “A female scent.”
And with that, she calmly glanced down at Koharu, still sitting on the ground, and shot her a casual middle finger.
I sighed. Great. This is the kind of group I’m stuck with for the next month.