Two months after Kurato entered fifth grade.

As the signs of summer grew a little stronger day by day, Momoyama Elementary School was about to hold an overnight learning program.

An overnight learning program is an event where children spend a few days away from their parents doing off-campus learning. In most cases it’s held at places like forest parks full of nature or seaside areas. Maybe you’d call it a “forest school” too.

Momoyama Elementary’s program was no exception, held at a place that seemed like a campsite for outdoor events called the Green Youth Nature Center.

The schedule was two nights and three days and the goal of the event was mainly to foster independence in daily life, so the children would cook dinner on their own and handle laundry and preparing bedding.

The location was outside the prefecture, traveling as far as the neighboring prefecture.

What worried Kurato was that it was close to the Special Zone. There wouldn’t be Special Zone students coming, of course, but private girls’ schools were common near the Special Zone, so his only worry was whether they might run into those students.

After the recent summer camp, Kurato had learned that people in the Special Zone had a strong elitist mindset, so he was worried that kids around that area might have similar ideas.

Early in the morning they gathered at school and rode in a large bus for several hours.

The kids, who normally didn’t go far, were super hyped at first but as that settled and more of them started dozing off, the group arrived on site.

He’d heard it was a campsite but it was more like a pension in the woods. He could see an old two-story building with white paint peeling in spots.

In front of it stretched a wide field and if the weather was good, they were planning a campfire there tomorrow night.

The kids were immediately gathered in that field and formed groups of six. Mixed boys and girls. Each group would handle cooking and orientation activities together.

Kurato’s group members were Kurato, Keita, Takeuchi-kun, Otera-kun, Saito-kun and Takeda-san. It was a lopsided group—five boys and one girl—but there were few girls to begin with, so it couldn’t be helped. And besides…

“You two, over there! You lot take that path!”

Takeda-san was firing off instructions to the boys one after another and she didn’t look even slightly like a lone girl who felt uneasy.

Kurato and the others carried out the orientation treasure hunt while being bossed around by Takeda-san.

‘It was like a queen ant and her worker ants.’

Watching Takeuchi-kun, Saito-kun and Keita and Otera-kun snap into motion exactly as Takeda-san ordered, Kurato found himself thinking.

Maybe because he was thinking that…

“Makishima-kun! You’re in charge of that area over there!”

The direction she pointed at was…

No, it wasn’t a path.

Takeda-san pointed straight at the thicket and barked the order.

“Why am I the only one bushwhacking?”

“With your shields, it’ll be easy, right?”

‘Maybe but…’

“First of all, what’s the point of going off-path?”

“Because there’s treasure there ‘maybe’.”

‘Hey, I feel like I just heard something I wasn’t supposed to. Why would you assume they’d hide things that wildly in an elementary school orientation?’

But Takeda-san’s finger didn’t waver, still indicating Kurato’s fate.

With no choice, Kurato put his shields out in front and plunged into the bushes.

* * *

In the end there was nothing in the thicket and after a few hours, Kurato’s wasted effort ended in a sigh.

The time was 5 p.m.

Now it was time for outdoor cooking.

At the edge of the field was a building for outdoor cooking, what you’d call an open site, where each group gathered and cooked dinner with only the kids.

Tonight’s menu was curry. A classic camping dish, but it was probably a classic because it was well suited to outdoor cooking.

Kurato’s group quickly got ready and set to work.

But…

“Hey, Takeuchi-kun! You can’t cut potatoes like that! You have to remove the sprouts!”

Otera-kun’s voice rang out.

Looking over, Kurato saw Otera-kun running around.

“Saito-kun! Don’t put the rice straight on the fire! You have to soak it! And wash it first!

Keita! The roux will mess up your stomach, so don’t eat it as-is! And stop stealing bites!”

“T-Takeda…san. Um, could you help a little…”

“I’m a girl, you know? Cooking is the boys’ job.”

In this world the gender roles were reversed, so it seemed like it was normal for boys to do housework.

Even so, this was an overnight learning program, so that kind of defeats the purpose.

After taking that fastball straight to the face, Otera-kun came over looking half-dead.

Since there was no helping it, Otera-kun handled the rice and Kurato handled the curry.

‘Alright, let’s go, you guys. Peel carrots or something with the peeler. And Takeda-san is… yeah, the taste tester, right.’

Thanks to Kurato and Otera-kun’s efforts, they somehow finished dinner curry. Takeda-san’s tasting also passed and they got to the tables before it fully got dark.

‘Alright, a moment of peace.’

Just as Kurato thought that, someone suddenly tapped his shoulder and immediately yanked his arm.

“Makishima! Over here. Come on!”

It was Iizuka-san.

‘Wait, at least let me take one bite… no, not allowed, huh.’

With Iizuka-san’s desperate face, Kurato was dragged—kidnapped—over to another group.

And what he saw there was… pots of curry in all sorts of colors.

“Okay, curry being colorful is already wrong.”

Kurato couldn’t help blurting it out but Iizuka-san and the others just lowered their heads.

Normally someone would snap back at him but it seemed like they were struggling too hard with cooking for that.

Along with the kids who kept their eyes down, Kurato started making curry.

Every now and then Iizuka-san would bring over some suspicious bottle and go, “What if we put this in too?” so Kurato dodged those.

‘So that’s what the colors were.’

They somehow produced a normal curry and then tasted it.

“Yeah, when you say curry, it’s this taste and this color.”

“The earlier one smelled kind of weird.”

“How does it smell weird when you’re using curry roux?”

It was too much but after eating a bowl with Iizuka’s group and then coming back and eating another bowl of cooled curry with Takeda’s group, Kurato calmed down a little.

“Counting on you tomorrow too~”

Iizuka-san added that on top.

So he was making food for two groups tomorrow too…

“Starting tomorrow ‘morning’, okay?”

“…Seriously?”

With Takeda-san’s take-no-arguments line, Kurato went speechless.

They were having fun in their shared living arrangements, but by the next day at noon, the situation changed.

A local private girls’ elementary school—meaning a fancy girls’ school near the Special Zone—arrived to do their camp at the same campsite.

They rolled in on an ultra-luxury bus and Kurato could even see a few adult men who looked like servants, so some of the girls must have come from fairly big families.

They entered a building even closer to the campsite than Kurato’s group… he’d assumed it was the administration building but it turned out to be a high-grade lodging facility prepared for a high-end school.

Then they came out to the campsite and started setting something up.

On a white sheet, several fine chairs were lined up. The log tables and chairs Kurato’s group had eaten dinner at yesterday were cleared away and in their place a big stage plopped down with a thud.

It was all installed in a flash by several women who seemed like psychokinesis users and the girls who came out of the lodging sat in those chairs like it was only natural, killing time.

‘Were they really students here for the same kind of overnight learning program?’

As Kurato eyed them skeptically, the teacher and even Takeda-san beside him seemed to think the same, both wearing bitter expressions. Takeda-san even snorted.

Kurato braced himself, thinking something was about to go down but…

Nothing happened.

Maybe it was lucky that they had almost no contact.

Kurato’s group was always walking around and running outside while the girls’ group just watched some kind of show on the special stage, so there was no clash.

Thanks to that, Kurato’s group got through to dinner without any trouble.

But when it came time to prepare dinner, contact happened.

The open site was shared.

So when Kurato’s group went to the cooking area, it was packed with the other group’s servants.

They couldn’t cook dinner like this.

The teachers went to negotiate with the other side’s lodging, but it looked like things were going badly over there.

Saying they were only getting hungrier, Otera-kun and for some reason a weirdly excited Takeuchi-kun went to support the teachers by heading toward the young ladies who were killing time at the stage…

“Yeah, no. We got chased off. They wouldn’t listen at all…”

“They looked at me like I was garbage… I can’t take it!”

Otera-kun shook his head sadly while Takeuchi-kun’s eyes sparkled for some reason.

‘Takeuchi-kun, come back while you still can.’

While Kurato was thinking what to do next, Kato-kun and Nishihama said they’d go.

‘Sure, those two had slick mouths and strong pressure, so maybe the girls would listen.’

Trusting that, Kurato sent them off…

* * *

They didn’t come back.

‘Why…’

Kurato couldn’t figure it out and since there were already victims, Kurato decided he’d go next.

For some reason, Takeuchi-kun came with him.

‘…You have zero intention of negotiating, right? If anything, you came here to get insulted, didn’t you?’

Well, better than going alone, Kurato told himself and headed to the young ladies.

Some of them were dancing on the special stage and the girls around them were chatting while they watched.

Kurato tried to talk to the ones chatting but…

“Back again, are you? Bottom-rank people.”

“Could you stop dirtying our stage?”

They glared him down and shut him out before he even spoke.

Kurato was left speechless by how one-sided it was and beside him, Takeuchi-kun started breathing hard.

“Huff, huff… good…”

‘No. It’s not good. Go home.’

Ignoring his growing headache, Kurato got on his acrylic skateboard and rolled forward.

This way they couldn’t say he was getting things dirty.

Takeuchi-kun? Kurato left him there.

If Takeuchi followed, it would be a hassle. Kurato should’ve realized this earlier.

As Kurato approached, the young ladies greeted him with harsh eyes.

“Hey, you! I said don’t come, you’ll get things dirty—”

A girl looked like she was about to activate her ability.

But before she could take a hardline approach, a calm voice rose and stopped her.

“Iwata-san, may I have a word?”

The voice came from behind the young ladies.

When the girls blocking Kurato changed color and opened a path, it made it pretty clear what kind of position the speaker held.

She was a Japanese-style beauty with long black hair falling softly to her shoulders. At her neck, a chrysanthemum crest with many petals gathered around it glinted gold.

“Nice to meet you. I am Hirohata Asahi. I belong to a bloodline that is a branch family of the Hirohata household.”

‘Hirohata…’

“Lady Hirohata. It is an honor to meet you. My name is Makishima Kurato. I hope you will remember me.”

The Hirohata family was a prestigious great zaibatsu going back to the Edo period. Even if she was from a branch family, they were surely far larger and more eminent than the Makishima family.

Kurato used the most proper etiquette he could remember, making sure to show no disrespect.

Around them, he heard the girls gasp in surprise.

From Lady Hirohata’s demeanor when Kurato raised his head, it didn’t seem like those gasps were outrage at his rudeness.

“So you are of the Makishima family. My girls have been rude to you.”

“Not at all. Rather, please forgive our rudeness for coming without notice.”

A conversation between nobles.

Kurato wasn’t actually nobility but since she seemed to be misunderstanding him, he let it continue.

Thanks to that, the other girls couldn’t butt into the conversation.

If it stayed one-on-one, Kurato might be able to negotiate from a favorable position.

“Lady Hirohata. Knowing this is a further rudeness, there is something I would like to ask.”

“It’s about the cooking area, isn’t it?”

Lady Hirohata smiled gently and accepted his words.

“The D-rank gentlemen who came earlier said the same.”

‘D-rank… Kato-kun and aniki.’

“…Where are they now?”

“In our building, we are entertaining them.”

As she said that, Lady Hirohata looked back toward the building behind them.

So she chased off E-ranks but kept the valuable D-ranks close.

Kato-kun was quite handsome and Nishihama-aniki had guts. That was probably part of why they were valued.

As Kurato fell into slightly dark thoughts, Lady Hirohata clapped her hands lightly as if to pull him back.

“Makishima-kun. Why not come with us as well? Since we have this connection, it would be a good opportunity for these girls to have an exchange with students from another school.”

“Does that mean you would provide a place for exchange with our school?”

Even knowing it wasn’t that, Kurato confirmed it.

As expected, Lady Hirohata slowly shook her head.

“I am inviting only you special people. Promising boys of D-rank or above. You are one as well, aren’t you?”

Lady Hirohata’s eyes glinted strangely as she looked down at Kurato’s feet.

At the shield lifting him.

Her words were phrased like a question but she had probably already finished assessing him.

D-rank or above… surely she hadn’t seen through that he was C-rank.

Kurato bowed deeply, as if to hide his unease.

“Lady Hirohata’s invitation is a great honor. However, we cannot be the only ones to benefit in this situation.”

Because his classmates were here. Securing cooking rights was non-negotiable.

“Oh? How kind of you, Makishima-kun, to care for commoners. Then let us do this. We will free the cooking area for you. In return, until our outdoor activities are finished, you will spend your time in our building.”

That was basically demanding Kurato hand himself over.

She was a noble. She wouldn’t concede in negotiations without expecting something back.

If she would give in for Kurato alone, that was cheap.

“Understood, Lady Hirohata. I will come—”

“No!”

Just as Kurato was about to agree, a voice rang from behind.

Takeuchi-kun.

“No! Kurato-kun! You can’t be the only one who goes!”

Even from far away, Takeuchi-kun’s face was red with tension as he protested.

Of course he would be. This place was full of D-rank and above and on top of that, it was all young ladies. To a boy like Takeuchi-kun who was E-rank, it probably looked like a den of demons.

Even so, he raised his voice. To protect Kurato.

‘How loyal a friend…’

“You can’t be the only one who goes over there ‘to paradise’. I can’t let you be the only one who gets to do something ‘that enviable’!”

‘Is it just me or can I hear his inner thoughts loud and clear?’

Kurato shrugged.