Student council president. In an ordinary high school, it was just an unremarkable position for padding your academic record...

But in Japanese school stories or fantasy academy stories, a student council president was an incredible figure with virtually unlimited power. They were so strong and had so much authority that you started wondering, What even is a student council?

In fantasy, especially, they were usually royalty or from some high-ranking noble family, so even the professors couldn't touch them.

A classic feature of academies in novels and comics: supposedly, social status doesn't matter in a place of learning.

Never once seen a damn commoner become student council president.

... Well, anyway, even a terrifying student council president like that was a potential heroine if she was a pretty girl, just like a Demon King or a Heavenly Demon.

'Right. She's a romanceable heroine.'

I looked at Gremory, the pretty, brown-haired student council president smiling at me with her head tilted slightly.

With her standing in front of us, I played my assigned role of the rude older brother.

"Sion. Character info."

Sion quickly brought her emotions under control, opened her notebook, and searched for the information Yohan had requested.

"Yes. Her name is Gremory, and she's the academy's student council president. And..."

Although furious at the way they toyed with human lives, she seemed to have quickly decided that, with so little information, confronting the student council president—suspected to be the uncanny entity at the heart of this incident—was a bad idea.

She didn't bother with unnecessary remarks. Didn't waste time.

I subtly glanced down at her profile.

She was always suspecting me, sure... but working with her was convenient. She caught on fast.

Then her eyes hardened as she read the notebook.

"... There's no information."

"What?"

"You should see this for yourself, dear brother. Please look at Gremory and say 'Info Window.'"

With another student—Gremory—right in front of us, she had no choice.

... Still, I couldn't get used to hearing her call me dear brother.

Anyway, I followed her instructions, looking at Gremory and murmuring quietly.

"Info Window."

A holographic window opened, displaying a data sheet containing Gremory's information.

My eyes narrowed.

'This is...'

The only legible entries were her name, Gremory, and her title, student council president. All the remaining text was corrupted, filled with meaningless symbols.

[■※★$$#■☐☆♡■=/■♥...]

Gremory's soft laughter rang out as though she were mocking Sion and me.

"Haha~ Knowing everything from the start would be no fun."

She approached without a trace of wariness, clasped her hands behind her back, and leaned forward at an angle to look up into my face.

"If you want to know about me, come win me over yourself."

It was that pretty-girl pose you saw all the time in romantic comedies.

"Of course, you'll have to win over the other girls first."

Up close, her brown hair had sunset hues mixed into it, making it look red.

For a brief moment, Gremory and I stared each other down.

"..."

"I'll look forward to it."

Gremory straightened and walked past us without a backward glance.

"Oh, and some delinquents have been showing up near the old school building behind the academy's main building lately. You'd better be careful."

She left us with a pretty, mocking smile and a gentle yet condescending gaze.

CLICK. CLICK.

She walked away to the sound of her shoes, just as she had when she first appeared.

It was so absurd that I laughed inwardly.

'Look forward to it, my ass...'

Obviously, she wasn't genuinely looking forward to being won over. She was delighted at the prospect of watching her new toys suffer on the playing field she'd laid out.

... Anyway, putting that aside.

"... Delinquents in the old school building. Feels like she deliberately tossed us that information, doesn't it?"

Sion nodded in agreement.

"Yes. Her tone was almost telling us to go there if we were interested. Is she trying to steer us?"

"Could just be teasing us. We need information right now anyway, so we don't have much choice... Ah."

As I spoke, I realized I'd been addressing her casually and corrected myself.

"I'm sorry. I've been watching how I speak around the other students. Talking casually is easier."

"No, it's fine. My role is a younger sister who speaks politely, so my manner of speaking stays consistent. Yours doesn't, Yohan."

I'd wondered why she insisted on the formal 'dear brother' instead of just 'brother.' So that was her role.

"Why don't you simply use casual speech with me all the time?"

Apparently, she really didn't mind. She offered the suggestion herself.

"You're neither my subordinate nor a member of the Special Response Section. You're a civilian collaborator. Please feel free to speak comfortably."

... True. Even if I tried to watch my words, I could still slip up.

Keeping my speech consistent was better. It was logical.

I accepted her suggestion.

"Thank you. I'll do that, then."

We returned to discussing our plans and the current situation.

There was no point hiding it. Time to share information.

"Maybe it's because we're inside a game, but I can't summon <The Lesser Key of Solomon>. The other magical items I had are gone too."

"I see. My firearm and equipment have disappeared as well, so it seems this place only draws in our bodies."

Sion nodded and continued.

"As you said earlier, Yohan, we have far too little information. Let's head to the old school building for now."

... Then she narrowed her eyes and brought a hand to her lips.

There was something about that look. It was the one she sometimes gave me.

"This might be a wild notion... but the academy's delinquents could be the missing Special Response Section operatives."

"Delinquents—people who disrupt academy life, huh? Pretty blatant."

Sion and I headed to the old school building to gather information.

And the people there were indeed the missing members of Special Response Section Team Six.

They were protecting the civilian victims. More precisely, they too were hiding from the psycho heroines.

I remembered Gremory's smile as she mocked us.

... And judging by the impression student council president Gremory had given me during our brief encounter, telling us about the Special Response Section hadn't been an act of kindness.

It was her roundabout way of saying that we wouldn't pose any threat even if we all gathered together.

Still, that gave me one more piece of information.

My eyes narrowed.

'She's seriously fucking underestimating me.'

That was fairly useful information.

* * *

While Sion talked to Team Six's operatives and gathered information, I examined the new menu functions that had unlocked after we'd watched the prologue opening.

"Hmm..."

The situation was obviously bad... but with these, I felt I might manage somehow.

The problem was that keeping even myself alive would be difficult.

I looked at the other people slumped around the old building's classroom, utterly dazed.

They had homes assigned to them according to their roles. Since they weren't going there, they were probably afraid to be alone.

Or they didn't have the energy or presence of mind.

... Well, I understood.

But staying in this dusty place for long would make proper rest impossible, so I intended to visit the house at my listed address.

In any case, I currently had neither the means nor a reason to look after all these people.

RATTLE.

The classroom door opened, and Sion came in. Mindful of the civilians caught up in this uncanny incident, she spoke to me.

"Yohan, could we talk in the hallway?"

The information the Special Response Section had collected about the game so far boiled down to this:

[Harem Academy] was a game played in repeated runs.

A new run began if you failed to win over every heroine within two weeks of game time.

I'd already figured this wasn't a proper game...

But even accounting for the repeated runs, requiring you to win over everyone within two weeks felt malicious.

And you only got one life, didn't you? What a genuinely shitty game.

Anyway, Sion compared the time the Special Response Section members had spent trapped inside the game with the time that had passed in reality.

Her calculations showed that roughly one hour in the real world equaled one week in this game world.

Two real-world hours meant two weeks here—one run. That made twelve runs a day.

The runs kept cycling, and the suffering kept going.

... No wonder people were breaking down.

"The operatives who arrived before us tried to win over the heroines while collecting information... but they say protecting the civilians is all they can manage now."

After finishing her explanation, Sion looked at me.

"I'm a helper character, so I can't attempt to romance them. I need your help to resolve this uncanny incident, Yohan."

"'Help' is an adorably mild way to put it... but what you're essentially saying is, 'Risk your life and solve the problem'—"

I returned to polite speech to put some distance between us again.

"—you do realize that, don't you?"

"That's...!"

Sion's eyes wavered. Of course, I knew that wasn't what she had meant.

But it didn't change the fact that I'd have to risk my life.

And naturally, my own life mattered most to me.

It was tragic that people were dying, but I couldn't endanger my life for someone else's.

I didn't want to lie needlessly in a situation like this.

"I said I'd cooperate. I never said I'd risk my life. And the pay the Special Response Section offered doesn't match how dangerous this entity is."

The Special Response Section had offered ten million won for this job.

That simply wasn't worth the risk involved.

You could ask if it all came down to money... but this was dangerous work even when you took precautions.

If the pay was low too, there was no point.

"..."

Then, just as Sion's lips parted to say something—

CRAAASH!!

A deafening sound rang out, and the old school building's door shattered.

A pretty character with blue hair in a ponytail appeared there, holding a katana.

"You wicked delinquents! What conspiracy are you plotting, occupying the old school building? I, Sado Satsuki, will not let you get away with this!"

I knew at a glance. She was one of the uncanny psycho heroines.

An out-of-nowhere delinquent-extermination event.

The problems were that 'not letting us get away with this' didn't mean merely giving us a few thumps, and that our opponent was an uncanny entity in human form.

She raced down the hallway in an instant at an absurd speed, swinging her sword.

"—!"

The moment Sion saw the door destroyed, she picked up a mop lying on the floor and thrust it like a spear, knocking aside the swinging katana.

CLANG!

She protected Yohan.

"What?!"

"Whew."

Startled, the blue-haired beauty Satsuki swung her blade even faster, trying to cut straight through the mop handle.

WHOOSH! CLANG!

But each time, Sion swept the end of the handle in a semicircle, striking the flat of the blade and pushing it away.

An utterly unexpected exchange.

As Satsuki staggered, Sion seized the opening.

Tools and weapons could be stolen.

But breathing methods, the techniques humans had built up—their martial skill—could not be taken away.

She stepped forward, and the pole shot out, bursting the air.

BANG!!

"Ghurk—?!"

Struck square in the chest by the end of the mop handle, Satsuki spat blood and literally flew through the air before collapsing.

... But after looking at the fallen Satsuki, Sion discarded the mop, which had broken with that last strike, and said to me,

"Let's run."

I immediately obeyed.

A killing machine who could take down an uncanny entity in an instant was telling me to run? That was something to follow without a single complaint.

CRACK. CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Grotesque sounds came from behind us, along with the sound of something getting back up.

Sion rounded a corner in the old building's hallway and took my hand.

"Excuse me."

Without warning, she pushed me into a large locker in the hallway.

Then she climbed in too.

An awkward silence filled the locker.

"..."

It could fit two people, but it wasn't spacious, so our bodies were pressed together.

Then, outside the locker—

SCREEECH...

I heard a blade scraping along the floor. Probably the psycho pretty-girl heroine Satsuki.

She passed straight by the locker.

Sion explained in a quiet whisper.

"According to the information the Special Response Section gathered, since this place follows a game's format, they can't find you if you hide in a locker like this when being chased. They installed a large number of lockers in the old school building so the civilians could hide."

... True, lockers were safe zones in dating sims and horror games.

Because of our height difference, Sion's head was below my chest, and she was tilting it back to look up at me.

I was looking down at her with my head bowed.

Personally, my heart was pounding. Not because our bodies were pressed together, of course.

If Sion said, while I had no way to escape—

'Hey, asshole. You think I'm a pushover because I keep calling you dear brother? You sure had plenty to say earlier. Repeat exactly what you just said, word for word.'

—I would have nothing to say.

Then Sion opened her mouth.

"... Yohan, I apologize for speaking without considering your circumstances first. So I'd like to hire you personally, not on behalf of the Special Response Section."

What followed was completely unexpected.

"I'll risk my life to protect you. Your fee will be ten million won per person rescued. There are twenty-five operatives and civilians here in total. I'll pay you two hundred and fifty million won."

She quickly added,

"Oh, I don't mean that I think a person's life is worth ten million won. ... It's simply the limit of what I can afford with the money I have."

I looked down at Sion's composed face as she gazed steadily up at me.

Her offer was surprisingly decent.

My life was in danger? She'd risk hers to protect me.

Not enough money? She'd dip into her own funds and pay me more.

... I had nothing to say, for a different reason this time.

A smile formed on my lips at the absurdity of it.

I returned to casual speech and whispered to her.

"This is out of nowhere, but can you go 'Gyaa~ Gyaa~' for me?"

"Pardon?"

Sion was flustered by the truly unexpected request.