Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume16 Chapter1
Chapter 1: A New Life in the Girls Dorm – School_Life.[edit]
Part 1[edit]
He had actually moved into the girls dorm a few days earlier.
That was only natural because the move had happened when the third term began.
“Ohhh! Who could have predicted the boys who lost their home would get to set foot in the girls dorm? And I’m left out of this blessing because I rent a place at a bakery!?”
Aogami Pierce was causing a scene in the classroom, but that was no concern of Kamijou’s.
Yes, Kamijou Touma was in his classroom at school.
The third term really had begun.
(I was worried what would happen after my proof of life document went missing.)
“Okay, you silly students who still haven’t taken their seats after the bell rang, listen to teacher. It’s time for morning homeroom.”
Their 135cm teacher was in a dark mood this morning. It was a highly unusual situation. That smile meant a bird had probably pooped on her car in the parking lot or something. It was best not to defy Komoe-sensei when she had a dark smile on her face or when she was hungover. You know how it’s best not to mess with that famous teacher who has a weird mental switch? Like that.
“Mid January is when Academy City holds its first general entrance exam, which means this is entrance exam season for schools all across the city, from elementary all the way up to university. And don’t think that doesn’t affect you just because you’re first years. You need to support your upperclassmen in a spirit of mutual assistance.”
“Sensei, how exactly are we supposed to support them?” asked Aogami Pierce. “Snap photos of the reference books and send them to the older girls we like? In the middle of their exam?”
“That would look like cheating, so Anti-Skill would get after you and you wouldn’t be able to go home for a while, so I would not recommend it. According to Ms. Track Suit, you shouldn’t even be wandering around near school grounds with a phone in hand.”
Komoe-sensei was smiling.
How was that supposed to work when there were school just about everywhere in Academy City?
“To be more specific, our school will be one of the exam sites, so a lot of the classrooms will be off limits to us. The limited space will likely mess with the class schedules, so we’re going to have to play things by ear! Make sure to check your school app frequently.”
Part 2[edit]
Thanks to this, Kamijou’s reclaimed school life was an unusually busy one.
“The chemistry lab is being used for the exams, so next period we will be running chemical change simulations in the computer lab. Don’t even think about ‘forgetting’ and trying to spy on the fresh young middle school girls nervous about their exams, you silly boys!!”
“Where are we supposed to carry these desks?”
“The exam takers get priority in the cafeteria and school store. The trains are also running outside their usual schedule for the exam takers, so just shut up and deal with it. You’re going to be their upperclassmen, so you can put up with an empty stomach for now!!”
It felt unfair to the third year middle schoolers attempting the life-or-death challenge of the entrance exam, but the energy in the school felt a lot like during the cultural festival. …Although the occasional Anti-Skill or Judgment members rushing down the hallway suggested there was a fairly serious cat-and-mouse game over cheating attempts going on behind the scenes.
Kamijou sighed softly.
(Smart cheating using electronics and substitute exam-takers using forged passports, huh? I’d get it with one of the actual good schools, but why would you bother cheating to get into an average school like this?)
Kamijou had lost his bitter exam memories along with the rest of his memories, so these difficulties were a foreign thing to him. …The fear of his memory loss remained like an indelible scar deep in his mind, but maybe there were some things he was better off having forgotten?
“That concludes today’s lessons.”
During the final homeroom, Komoe-sensei had a big smile on her face.
This time, it wasn’t a dark one.
…That had to be the smile of someone who had had a rough day but was about to go drinking. Bird droppings would eat through a car’s waterproofing if they weren’t washed off, but surely she wasn’t just going to ignore it? The desperation radiating from her 135cm body made it very hard to ask for details.
“Keep in mind that clubs and committees are on a reduced schedule during the exam period. For details, check the schedule in the individual social media groups. And I will be using homework to make up for the shortened class schedule, so be warned. This trial is for your own good, so enjoy your studies, students!! Bye bye☆”
Now Kamijou was feeling blue.
He felt like he had been thrown outside while chained up.
With the tri-blade wind turbines spinning and the drum-shaped security robots trundling along, the way home was peaceful.
Kamijou found himself drawn to the 100-yen shops and drug stores on the way. The girls dorm had no kitchen, so any food that only needed hot water to cook was extremely attractive right now. His eyes shined each time he saw cup noodles or miso soup…but wait.
(I could buy a big value multipack, but I have Index in my room.)
He could easily imagine a paranormal phenomenon in which it all vanished in a single night.
Also, all the cup noodle lids had puns on them. Apparently everyone thought they could attract exam takers by hinting at exam success like that. The stock of energy drinks and health drinks seemed unusually plentiful. Instead of individual bottles in the refrigerated section like in a convenience store, they were being sold in big cardboard boxes. Apparently that too was pandering to exam takers. But was it really safe for elementary and middle schoolers to drink so many of those?
A loud voice spoke from the next aisle over.
“Hurry up, Uiharu. Get this and this and this too. We need to bring some supplies to the upperclassmen and we can show how much we care by how much we bring!”
“Eh? By the box!? D-do they really need this many energy drinks, Shirai-san?”
“Get it together. Entrance exams are a war. Better to buy these now than run into trouble during the exams and find out they’re already sold out. Even Judgment has to take this seriously. Okay, today we can buy these super expensive health drinks! The bright gold ones in the small brown bottles! Wait for us, weary Konori-senpai!!”
“Eek! I’m starting to think school committees are the worst kind of exploitative job, not governed by the Labor Standards Act or the National Public Service Act…”
…Apparently some Judgment members drank them, but Kamijou had a feeling that wasn’t a good example. Mimicking them would leave you rotten to the core.
(Is this like all those puns I saw at the other convenience store? Is this one a pentagon because pentagon sounds like the word for passing an exam in Japanese? Are they selling these floats because float sounds like the word for being accepted into a school?)
It seemed weird for products like that to sell in a city of science. Then again, maybe it was like how everyone celebrated Valentine’s Day without thinking much about the legend it was based on.
He ended up leaving without buying anything.
The entrance exam frenzy was in full swing outside too. Because eating fish was supposed to make you smarter – because of DHA? – a restaurant had so many banners out there was barely room to walk on the sidewalk. The unusual number of fliers being handed out were for a sketchy one-night cram school in a multi-tenant building. Were the small groups clustered together on their way to karaoke trying to blow off some steam, or were they hoping to study English with Western music? Even his phone kept giving him messages advertising “life hacks” for exams. Those were entirely wasted on Kamijou since he wasn’t an exam taker, but the poor targeting was actually a little reassuring because it meant they had gathered less data on him than he had thought.
Kamijou passed by some middle schoolers as he walked.
“Oh, ohhhh. Ohhhhhhh. Qu-Queen… Why must the world be so cruel and heartless?”
“Remind me who it was who happily gave into that Kotatsu Syndrome nonsense and failed to study at all during the lead-up to the January exams? You need to get back to the dorm and start demonstrating your cramming ability!!”
He heard a meow of surprise just before a black cat ran off. The Misaka Sister was left with an expressionless but somehow dazed looking face, crouched down with some katsuoboshi (probably a limited time product related to the brain-boosting powers of DHA) still held between her fingers.
For a city full of countless schools, this could be seen as the greatest battle of the year. …But as a first year high schooler, Kamijou Touma didn’t have to worry about it himself.
Habit set him down the usual path, so he had to quickly stop himself.
Returning to the collapsed boys dorm wouldn’t accomplish much.
“Oops.”
He made sure to check his phone’s map app for the best route before turning onto a different street.
It would have been faster to take the train to the next station, but a poor student was going to walk. Each ride cost 150 yen and he had to go there and back, so how much would that cost for a full month’s worth of weekdays? It barely felt like paying money when using your train card, but it wasn’t an expense he could just ignore.
The girls dorm was up ahead.
Kamijou looked up at the stylish building.
“Hard to believe… This place was built for the girls, but it’s already starting to feel like home to me.”
Saying you could get used to living anywhere would be rude to the dorm, but it was scary what you could grow acclimated to.
The glass door auto-locked, but when Kamijou nervously operated it, it opened for him just fine.
“Ohhh…”
He had gone in and out of this door a few times now, but he still voiced his amazement. This was the girls dorm. It was holy ground. Was he really allowed in here? He still couldn’t rid himself of that small anxiety. And the entrance auto-locked! The entrance to the former boys dorm in the same district was always open, so weird smoker priests could just walk in!!
A small crowd had formed near the elevator hall.
Mostly boys.
…He was truly thankful there were so many other boys here. He thought his heart would have given out if he had to exist as the only boy in a girls-only world.
He didn’t recognize most of them.
They had been shoved into whatever rooms were available, so the boys had been split into a few groups and then placed in areas spread out across the girls dorm. Those boys were apparently a group on a different floor from Kamijou.
Also, this building only housed first years.
That meant he couldn’t see some of his female friends like Kumokawa-senpai here, which made him a little sad.
Speaking of the elevator, he remembered it had big mirrors inside.
Apparently those weren’t meant for one last check of one’s appearance on the way out. They were to ensure there wasn’t anyone unwanted on the elevator. …The entire building was protected by the auto-locking entrance, so who did they think would be hiding inside the elevator?
And despite that, there were no security cameras in the hallways or elevator hall. Was that for privacy reasons? Anything that would leave a record appeared to be centered around the auto-locking entrance. For Kamijou, the weird balance of the girls dorm felt like something from another dimension.
As a school dorm, most everyone returned home at the same time. That meant the elevator was crowded. Not everyone could board when the elevator arrived on the first floor. Kamijou debated whether he would wait here or take the stairs, but he ended up moving away from the line.
He heard some excited voices.
There was a small rest area with a bench and a vending machine partway down the long hallway and a few girls in a combination of their school uniform and a track suit were laughing there holding cold drinks in plastic bottles. When they noticed Kamijou’s hesitant gaze from a distance, they shrieked and ran off somewhere. …Apparently that was a forbidden outfit boys weren’t supposed to see. Even though Misaka Mikoto, who was from a much fancier school, wore shorts below her uniform skirt year round.
(That happens sometimes here. Like stepping out at night and running across a girl who just took a bath so she’s walking down the hallway in only her underwear and holding a coffee milk.)
Maybe that had been normal in this girls only world, but he really wished they would do a better job of remembering that the emergency arrival of the boys had transformed it into a real-world environment. It seemed especially cruel that he was treated like the bad guy when it happened.
“Surprise! Time for an inspection!! Pets are against the rules, so I sure hope none of you are keeping any in your rooms!”
“Whoa, Sensei!?”
“Yomikawa-sensei, you just want an excuse to eat the cheap food in the dining hall here, don’t you!?”
Kamijou heard a commotion in the distance.
Apparently that busty track suit gym teacher did irregular patrols of the girls dorm.
The irregularity was the problem there.
They were hard to predict. Without a set routine, you couldn’t prepare in advance.
Index and Othinus (plus the calico cat) were staying in Kamijou’s room. Without paying rent. And either way, he was sure to get in trouble if the teachers found out he had snuck a nun and a god in through the auto-locking entrance by hiding them in the collapsible containers he had used when moving in. He had to make a mental note of this.
Anyway, the track suit teacher’s surprise inspection didn’t seem to be the only cause of commotion. Some athlete girls were using the emergency stairs for some after-practice training. He also heard some wind instruments playing from upstairs, but he didn’t know what the local rules were for how late you could do that. Maybe they were gathered on the roof practicing.
It felt like an extension of being at school after classes let out.
That was the best way of describing the mood.
That mood seemed to change again after dinner, though.
(It would probably be faster to just use the stairs.)
“Huh, did you just get back? How did it take you this long when you’re not in a club?”
A familiar face appeared in this strange world: his classmate Fukiyose Seiri. What was she, the student dorm leader?
“Seven o’clock. Don’t forget,” said Fukiyose like it wasn’t a big deal. “Be in the dining hall by then. All the popular foods are often sold out if you’re even ten minutes late. And complaining won’t make more food appear.”
Part 3[edit]
The dining hall.
That was a unique aspect of the girls dorm.
However, even with dinner at 7 PM, they had free time up until then.
So he still had plenty of time.
(The problem is that Index and Othinus can’t use the dining hall.)
“Kamijou-kun.”
He looked over curiously to find his classmate Himegami Aisa.
She must have gotten back before him because she was already in her casual clothing.
Apparently she still chose to wear a shrine maiden outfit for casual clothing.
“We were assigned a ton of homework. Can you handle it all on your own?”
“Ugh.”
“The esper development terminology changes all the time due to arguments among the academics, so you can’t just rely on what you memorized in the past.”
He couldn’t laugh this off as “just some homework.”
Komoe-sensei had said she was using homework to make up for the classes being shortened due to the first general whatever, so there might be some kind of penalty if he didn’t do a good job.
For a normal student that would probably amount to little more than a slap on the wrist, but Kamijou was in a tricky situation. He was struggling to avoid being held back. A single mistake during the third term might mean having to tragically repeat the first year.
Kamijou Touma trembled.
“I keep overcoming the risk of being held back, but it never goes away? Am I caught up in some kind of grand conspiracy? Could that tiny teacher be trying keep Kamijou-san in her class forever out of some twisted kind of love?”
“Want to do our homework together?”
“!? God yes!!”
And so it was time for a group study session with Himegami Aisa.
He had returned from the dead and gotten back in school, but the risk of repeating the year remained. He had to make sure he wasn’t crushed by this mountain of homework, leading to the red light flashing again.
So Kamijou first rushed to his room.
He figured there was no point in changing out of his uniform. He pulled out the textbooks, reference books, and notebooks he needed for his homework and then tossed his cumbersome school bag inside the room.
“Touma, I’m bored. Can’t you even say hello?”
“Maybe if you said ‘welcome back’ first, freeloader!! And sorry, but Kamijou-san has to deal with a towering mountain of homework. School may be out, but that doesn’t mean I have time to play! If I don’t do this, I really will get held back!”
“Ehhh? But I’m hungry…”
“You need to stop associating boredom with eating. That devastating thought process is hell on your health, Index.”
Othinus, however, was unusually quiet.
“…”
Kamijou rushed out of his room and ran down the emergency stairs. When he arrived on Himegami’s floor, he found someone else there.
It was Fukiyose Seiri.
She was in her school uniform.
“What the hell are you doing here, Kamijou?”
“Why is Fukiyose here?”
He looked to Himegami who sighed softly with a blank expression on her face.
Apparently she had been caught on the way here.
Fukiyose glared over at Kamijou.
“What, did you think you could barge into a girl’s room and be alone with her? Are you stupid?”
…
Did she have to ask that? Now he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He had only been interested in getting his homework done to avoid being held back. That was almost certain to happen if he didn’t mend his ways, so it was a pressing issue. Yet he had a feeling that statement had just badly derailed that attempt.
All the doors along the hallway were identical, yet he suddenly felt a strange pressure coming from this one.
He was terrified.
Could they maybe visit a nearby library instead?
And just as Manly Kamijou Touma trembled and prepared to tearfully chicken out…
“Come on. Just come on in,” said Himegami.
She said it with a fair amount of force.
And with the room’s owner opening the door herself, there was no more room for argument.
When he looked to Himegami, she looked the other way.
Dammit, was she getting bashful?
Please someone take charge of this situation!!
“C-coming in…”
Kamijou kind of felt like he had to say something or the pressure of the girl’s room would have beaten him.
He noted a faint sweet aroma.
This was Himegami Aisa’s room.
There wasn’t much inside. That impression may not have been entirely due to any lack of hobbies on Himegami’s part. The lack of a bed in the room made the space look bigger. Apparently she was the futon type.
Then Himegami asked a question.
It was hard to tell with her general lack of expression, but her face looked a bit red.
“What is it? Is there something weird about my room?”
Fukiyose silently elbowed him in the side.
And pushed forward. But you were the one who got me all nervous about this in the first place!
Himegami said she would go buy something to eat and left the room.
With no kitchen space, the room didn’t even ave the bare minimum of a microwave or a fridge. Even with food available in the dining hall, it seemed inconvenient.
Left alone, Kamijou and Fukiyose sat around the tea table and pulled out their textbooks and reference books. The thickness of the stack of homework assigned by Komoe-sensei was enough to drain his willpower. Couldn’t they fit it all on a phone or something?
Kamijou was already fed up with it all.
“I just flipped through it, but why are Komoe-sensei’s questions always phrased so confusingly? Are they trick questions?”
“I think it’s an anti-AI measure. A lot of it is ways of keeping it from being summarized accurately.”
The forehead girl had a more reasonable explanation.
The door opened and Himegami returned.
She had brought cookies, chocolates, and a few 500mL bottles of barley tea. Even though it was midwinter January.
And with that it was time to grab their mechanical pencils and start the battle!
“Express the transformation of Maxwell’s demon. Focus on the phenomenon of data information being directly converted into energy. Describe the energy conversion cycle. Use a diagram. …We have to hand draw a diagram? Is this another anti-AI thing?”
“Quantum theory is based on observation, but telepathy and clairvoyance can be used to allow a single person to make observations from multiple points of view simultaneously. Explain what happens with the margin of error in the exceptional phenomena expected to affect the wave function of Particle A when it is observed simultaneously from multiple angles. …Hey, hold on. Dammit, Kamijou, are you already asleep?”
No, he was trying his best to stay awake because he knew he would have a math nightmare if he fell asleep now…
Observations were a sensory thing of seeing or noticing something, so why did they turn into wave functions, the Shrödinger equation, and other jumbles of letters and numbers that felt like a space alien language once they appeared on paper for a test? There were even letters in there you wouldn’t find anywhere between A and Z.
That aside.
While he didn’t at all understand the dark vortex of homework he had been cast into by the demon named Tsukuyomi Komoe, Kamijou did feel a strange sense of accomplishment.
This was everyday life in Academy City.
This was a normal school life with nothing threatening his survival and nothing dooming the world to destruction.
Kamijou stared into the distance, relishing this feeling of being alive.
And just then…
“(Oh? So this is the kind of thing you returned from the grave to experience?)”
The pointy-haired boy’s shoulders jumped.
He heard a voice coming from within his jacket. There was someone in his clothes!?
Kamijou Touma suddenly began squirming.
“(What are you doing here, Othinus!?)”
“(Keeping myself safe. You are only a guest in the girls dorm. You boys were only given a place here out of the kindness of the girls’ hearts because you had nowhere else to go, so they could kick you out at any time. A single problem could mean the end of this temporary peace. Not to mention that my divine self, the grimoire library, and the cat aren’t supposed to be living in the girls dorm at all. If you get in trouble related to the girls, we will be kicked out right along with you. I must keep that from happening. So this isn’t me meddling in your life. It is a necessary self-defense measure.)”
“(Thanks for the long-winded explanation, but what are you so worried abou-) shfh!?”
The two girls turned their attention to him. Giving him extremely curious looks.
He had felt a sharp pain under his clothes.
From a tiny fist hitting him right in the armpit. Under his clothes.
A deadly low voice reached him.
“(You think a god like me is worried?)”
“(T-try to behave if you don’t want Himegami and Fukiyose to find out.)”
“(Hmph. That’s my line.)”
“(Also, trouble related to the girls? Like what, Othinus? Kamijou Touma is a possessor of world-famous misfortune. There is no way in hell some unexplainable stroke of luck will get me on good terms with a girl.)”
“(You are even stupider than I thought, understander. Yes, you are plagued by misfortune, but this is one area where not even I can trust you. When it comes to girls, you have a tendency to assume the worst, bet against yourself, and fail miserably for it. You are having a study session in a girl’s dorm room. Why don’t you realize that alone puts you in ultra dangerous territory? Look, human. See what I mean?)”
There was something white below the low table.
It was made of cloth.
It was rolled up like a donut.
Kamijou Touma snorted with laughter.
“(What are you so afraid of, Othinus-san? Ah ha ha. Just because I’m in a sweet-smelling girl’s room doesn’t mean I’m going to just find her underwear lying around. That’s probably no more than a sock or a scrunchie. I know how things work when Kamijou-san’s generational bad luck is at work.) Hey, Himegami. What’s thi-”
It was not a scrunchie.
The black-haired shrine maiden had no use for one.
The garment in his hand really was underwear.
Under his clothes, a tiny fist drove itself into his navel. He dropped the garment below the table.
“Amyahpanteeeee!!!”
“?”
Himegami gave him a puzzled look.
He couldn’t let her find out.
He couldn’t let these sweet-smelling classmates know that, during a group study session in a girl’s room, he was secretly writhing around while toying with the girl’s panties beneath the low table and hiding a 15cm figurine girl below his clothes! That combination would have deadly results!!
“(See, it’s already happening. If I don’t keep an eye on this dumbass, who knows how many girls he’ll end up impregnating.)”
“(You’re so mad it actually calmed me down a little, but you seem excessively upset over nothing more than some underwear, Othinus. It’s the body that wears the underwear that matters! And that fact that it’s here means she must change in here instead of using the changing room. Ah ha ha h-)”
“Ohh?”
There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else here.
Yet he still heard a busty glasses girl’s whispered voice.
“I didn’t realize you had such a vivid imagination that a single piece of cloth could bring a scene like that to mind. And in such detail.”
“(Kaza…kiri-san? What are you doing here? Hold on. Is this girls dorm some kind of haunted building where supernatural people lose control or something!?)”
On the other side of the low table, Himegami and Fukiyose both tilted their heads.
Apparently they hadn’t noticed the unseen apparition.
“Stare…”
The pressure was incredible for something he couldn’t see. All of a sudden, he found himself trapped between the human girls and the divine and angelic type.
Was the apocalypse about to break loose?
For that reason, he couldn’t let Himegami and Fukiyose find out about the god (whose 15cm height let her hide under his clothes) and the angel who was fading into the air nearby. This mission was getting more challenging by the minute.
Kamijou slowly hid the garment below the low table.
He felt more trapped all the time.
“(Ehhhh? Wait, since when does Kazakiri use such an icy voice and lay on the pressure like that? I feel like we’ve entered new territory here.)”
“(By the way, why are you getting all excited by this icy reception from a normally nervous busty glasses girl?)”
“(Othinus, are you trying to turn me into a saint? Or are you a Trojan horse plotting to break down my mental barriers from the inside?)”
The study session meant to keep him from being held back had entered a new phase.
Actually, what was even going on? Having something to hide made it so much more nerve wracking!
“Um, let’s see. The next problem… Related to Physicist Young, the pinhole camera greatly contributed to humanity’s understanding of the wave theory of light. These work simply by letting light pass through a pinhole, but what is the optimal diameter for the pinhole? Dammit, Komoe-sensei just loves phrasing these confusingly.”
“It looks like a math problem at first, but it’s actually a memorization problem, right?”
“The answer is 0.4mm. …But look. You don’t get any points unless you justify your answer using the formulas for interference and diffraction.”
These anti-AI measures were such a pain!! Of course, if they didn’t have to follow instructions not found in the problem itself, then the AI could just do it all on its own.
“By the way, Fukiyose, what’s that? Isn’t there as small hole in your uniform? Like from a pin?”
“…Have you been staring at my chest?”
“Maybe you’re a perfect role model, but some of us can’t help it! Sexy boob moles are going to draw our attention!!”
And once it drew his attention, he got scared what Othinus might do to him.
After his shout of tearful desperation, Fukiyose sighed in annoyance.
“I don’t remember pinning anything there…but it’s on my chest. I was probably wearing a name tag or something. Those are common when working on things like festival committees.”
Himegami tilted her head.
And spoke.
“A 0.4mm pinhole. In other words. Even if we can’t see it. The optical image is being projected out from within? Like the underwear below the clothing?”
A loud commotion followed.
Fukiyose covered herself with both hands. Kamijou understood that was necessary. But he really wished she would do it in a way that didn’t look like she was squeezing her boobs together!
“Damn you, Kamijou.”
“That wasn’t me! Really, it’s not fair you didn’t headbutt Himegami for that one!!”
“It might be invisible to the naked eye. But a high spec smartphone might be able to see something.”
“~ ~ ~!!!?”
Was the forehead girl reacting more than usual because it had been a surprise attack from someone who normally didn’t say these things? Fukiyose would have kept her cool more if it were only Kamijou here. She was the kind of person who was unfazed even when he stumbled in on her changing. Of course, if he said that out loud, it would be enough of a bombshell to get his front teeth broken by her forehead.
Then Kamijou’s phone rang.
“Oh, dear. It’s your mother, Touma-san. Are you getting into some kind of trouble? A mother needs to keep her son from misbehaving, so I felt the need to give you a call.”
“…”
Kamijou Touma felt utterly bewildered with phone in hand. Hold on. He had already accepted that this girls dorm was a mysterious dimension that had a negative effect on 15cm gods and shy busty glasses angels, but wait a second. Since when were moms as super holy and invincible as gods and angels!?
A high school boy was hopelessly outmatched when it came to moms (without question), so Kamijou silently hung up and faced reality.
“Okay, okay. Everything’s all right, Fukiyose, so have something to drink and calm down. Here’s some barley tea.”
“Thanks…”
“I added three sugars just the way you like it.”
“Bfff! What is wrong with you!? Y-you can’t pump a girl full of wasted calories just for some stupid joke!”
“I wouldn’t talk about ‘pumping a girl full of’ something if I were you. It sounds indecent.”
“Dbhhbfbhhhh!!?”
Was this like that fountain? You know, the one in Singapore that looks like a lion but isn’t one.
Kamijou stared into the distance, but he also felt movement inside his jacket.
It was the 15cm god.
“(…)”
“(Whoa!? Hey, Othinus, don’t pinch me there! That’s Kamijou-san’s right nipple! Stop it, god. If you make me twitch like this, Himegami’s rolled up cloth will slip out from under the table!!)”
Himegami and Fukiyose both tilted their heads.
Part 4[edit]
Time passed as all this went on.
“It’s almost seven,” said Fukiyose, calling the study session to an end.
It was dinner time.
Yes, the girls dorm had a dining hall on the first floor.
That may have been why the rooms, as comfortable as they were, didn’t have a kitchen. They looked more like hotel rooms because of it.
…How could Index and Othinus eat when they were stuck in his room?
That had been his big worry of late, but he couldn’t let anyone else know.
No one could find out he had a white nun, a calico cat, and a 15cm god living in his room!
And so (after dropping his study things and Othinus off at his room) Kamijou joined the crowd forming at the first floor dining hall.
The dining hall worked by buying a ticket at the machine and then receiving a tray of food at the counter, but the machine only had a single giant LCD screen. It didn’t use buttons.
“Ugh,” groaned Kamijou.
He didn’t like these very much.
(Ordering from a touchscreen like this is such a pain because you have to search through several layers of folders to find the dish you want. If you start down the wrong path, you can end up lost forever. Still, it’s better than a phone app that’s stealing who knows how much of your personal data.)
As a petty bourgeois who got scared of the line behind him whenever he took too long, his focus was immediately drawn to the “new items” tab prominently displayed on the top page.
It had been updated. The menu had changed since yesterday.
One item must have been really new because it didn’t even have a photo.
Egg curry.
“Wait. That’s too broad to even guess what it really is. What would I even be ordering? What’s the point of this huge screen?”
While Kamijou stood dumbfounded in front of the ticket machine, Himegami and Fukiyose joined the conversation directly behind him. They stood up on their toes and hopped to see the screen over his shoulders. All well and good for Himegami, but that was fairly dangerous for Fukiyose at such close range. …How could he tell how close she was when he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, you ask? Thanks to his other senses that could detect pressure, touch, and softness!
Othinus (who was still hiding inside his clothes) whispered to him.
“(She has her chest against your back, doesn’t she?)”
How could that god know when she couldn’t possibly see from inside his uniform?
The high school girls (who were too focused on the new menu item to realize what they had done) discussed the item.
“Maybe it’s normal curry rice. With a fried egg on top?”
“It might just be a spicier curry with a raw egg dropped inside. That would keep the flavor milder, which is a plus in my book. And the flavor ends up different from just ordering mild curry to begin with.”
…Now, Kamijou himself had been imagining curry rice with a thick rolled omelet on top. But maybe that would be called omelet curry instead?
The line behind him had grown long enough to make him nervous. He couldn’t wait any longer. He had a disease where his heart would explode if he had more than ten people waiting on him, so he went ahead and bought the egg curry currently displayed on the screen. The way you had to unlock your phone, bring up the right app, press it against the screen, and wait for the tone was an annoying amount of work! He understood technology was advancing, but was the earth really becoming a more convenient place!?
“Hmm. I guess I’ll get the egg curry.”
“I skipped lunch, so I’m fairly free to order whatever I want. I think I’ll try the egg curry too.”
Looking back, he saw Himegami, Fukiyose, and more of those behind him in line ordering the egg curry. Were they just easily influenced, or was the fear of a line behind you built into the system’s design for business purposes?
But what really was the egg curry anyway?
He couldn’t imagine the combo being anything bad, but it also didn’t sound like the heartiest of meals. It didn’t sound like as perfect a pairing as a fried egg on top of a hamburger steak. He still couldn’t come up with a solid mental image for the thing, so what was he actually going to find on his plate?
A young woman in an apron was working busily behind the counter.
Kamijou’s first time seeing her, he had nearly died on the spot from the “Gasp! Does the girls dorm have a dorm manager!?” effect, but it turned out she was a contractor. She apparently worked for a bento shop. Which wasn’t quite the same thing as a dorm manager. About as different as a kunoichi outfit from a Western-style Taisho-era waitress. Were there really no dorm managers in this world!?
“Here you go. Egg curry.”
That was fast.
He had his food immediately after handing in his ticket. Like 1.5 seconds after. Zero effort on her part.
Also, he had caught a glimpse of the apron woman’s hand beyond the counter just now. She appeared to wearing a knit sweater or a turtleneck, but he couldn’t see her face because of the barrier with only a small opening like from a pawn shop in a gun culture. The painted nails had the look of a grown woman, but the design had been more gyaru-ish than high society. They were shining with lamé and beads.
Curry made by a gyaru?
He had a bad feeling about this.
The curry rice had scrambled eggs on top. So much that the curry was completely obscured.
Every single person who had paid money for this had the same thought.
“This isn’t what I wanted!!”
Part 5[edit]
Nevertheless, the time had come to eat it.
(It’s not all that bad really. I mean, curry rice and scrambled eggs are both fine. So why does it feel like disappointing reheated leftovers?)
Kamijou munched on the egg curry that was maybe better called “curry rice topped with an omelet that has already been destroyed before you can spit it open with your own spoon”.
He still had a mission left to complete.
He could fill his own belly by eating the food here, but he still had to secure food for Index and Othinus waiting back in his room. However, it would be far too conspicuous if he bought a ticket and then brought the tray up to his room.
(I guess I’ll have to do what I did yesterday. I’m just afraid they’ll get tired of eating the same thing day after day.)
Humans had a tendency to go back to a solution that has worked once before. As long as Index and Othinus didn’t protest.
And so he focused on one corner of the dining hall.
Fortunately, they had breads and such for sale there separate from the meals meant to be eaten in the dining hall. Based on the handwritten display, they were meant as snacks for anyone studying late into the night.
Each item cost 100 yen.
There was a collection box like for a charity as well as a phone reader.
They all looked cheap piled up like that, but maybe you had to choose carefully to get your money’s worth.
Regardless, he was glad to have items you didn’t have to eat in the dining hall since he couldn’t bring Index and Othinus to the dining hall to eat. There were a wide variety of breads, but Kamijou selected the larger ones that looked like they had a lot of veggies inside. Like the stir fried meat and vegetables bread. …He didn’t think of stir fried meat and vegetables as something you ate with bread, but then yakisoba wasn’t really something you ate with bread either.
He felt a tug at his shirt inside his uniform.
Courtesy of Othinus.
“(Grab the whipped cream French bread. I want to eat that. Not the chocolate bread or the cream bread. It has to be the whipped cream French bread!)”
“(What are you planning to do with a bread about as big as you are, Othinus? Hold it like a body pillow while you eat it? Now that’s a form of divine entertainment mankind would never even dream of.)”
But whatever.
He also grabbed a croquette bread and a curry bread before noticing eyes on him.
And not just from one person.
“?”
He shouldn’t have turned around.
The girls were glaring at him.
He had noticed a lot of pressure on him, but was this why?
He looked down at the bag of breads he was holding. He knew Index’s gluttonous appetite well, so he had at least five in there…
Fukiyose Seiri kept her voice low, speaking on behalf of them all.
“Weight. Do you have any idea how much we have to deprive ourselves for that cursed word? And then this damn inconsiderate boy has to show up and start stuffing his face. And to make matters worse, he doesn’t even hesitate to go for the whipped cream French bread that all of us want to eat but can never actually let ourselves eat…”
(They have the wrong idea here, but I can’t exactly tell them these are for Index and Othinus in my room!!)
“Honestly, I force myself to take long baths every day to sweat off as much weight as I can and then this growing boy has to do this in front of me.”
“That’s just a sexy woman who loves bathing. Are you trying to take beauty so far you turn yourself into a dried shiitake? Besides, what’s the point of spending hours naked in the bath when drinking a single glass of water will cancel it all out?”
They started throwing things.
Part 6[edit]
While steadily losing some kind of points, Kamijou Touma returned to his room carrying several breads.
There was no reaction even as he opened the door.
Someone half-starved lay collapsed in the middle of the floor.
“Oh. Ohhh… T-Touma. I’m hungry…”
“Stop playing the victim when you’re the one who polished off three days’ worth of supplies in a single day. I’m the obvious victim here,” said an exasperated 15cm Magic God Othinus, wriggling on out from Kamijou’s clothes.
The god’s crossed arms and raised voice suggested Index really had eaten every last crumb. And apparently that god was still reluctant to eat cat food even at 15cm tall.
But Index ignored that entirely.
“That’s not fair, Touma! I want to crawl inside you too!”
“Let’s not make this more confusing than it already is!!”
The breads Kamijou had bought (under the immense pressure of the weight-conscious girls’ glares) vanished in record time.
It was a concerning speed because he had no real solution if this wasn’t enough.
The auto-locking entrance was the most obvious example, but this girls dorm was a lot more security-conscious than the boys dorm had been. It had a lot more strict rules.
That included managing everyone’s meals with the dining hall instead of letting them cook for themselves.
According to the rules, anyone who failed to get enough nutrients in the dining hall just had to put up with their empty stomach. Not getting enough or missing the meal weren’t taken into consideration. That meant night owls would have to battle their empty stomachs each night. Of course, the teachers would probably just say to get to bed earlier.
Then again…
(That’s the official story. But our school isn’t all that strict. Are they really enforcing those rules? I bet people who don’t get enough at dinner make convenience store runs all the time.)
But betting wasn’t the same as having proof.
And if he carelessly pondered this out loud, he knew Index or Othinus would demand he make one of those runs, so he kept his mouth shut!
(Buying all those breads stands out too much, so I need to find some other way of getting them food. What can I do?)
Or was the food even the real problem here?
Was there nothing he could do about the fact that any food in the room would be devoured by Index? Like storing chips and curry bread in a big safe? How expensive were safes exactly???
He had to come up with something.
“Touma. I feel like all I did today was take a bath and brush my teeth.”
“And what’s wrong with that? There’s always tomorrow.”
He might be a high school boy thrown into the foreign world of the girls dorm, but the daily routine continued unabated.
The clock continued to tick as he ate meals, bathed, and so on.
“Guess I should get some sleep,” muttered the pointy-haired boy as he prepared for bed.
First, he reached into his pajamas.
“Othinus.”
“How did you know?”
Why did she think he wouldn’t notice something inside his clothes?
“We already understand each other on such a deep level, so why shouldn’t we sleep in the same space? Besides, the bathroom is a lot safer for me when that feline carnivore named Calico still tries to eat me any time he can- ahhh!!”
He (literally) threw her out.
Also, Calico was not the cat’s name.
And yes, Kamijou Touma slept in the bathtub. Because the bathroom door locked! This was a rule he had followed even back in the boys dorm. So after giving Index the bed and drying out the used bathtub, he climbed in with a blanket in hand. Why was it the place still smelled like girls? Was it the shampoo and body soap provided in the girls dorm? He used the same stuff, but the end result was completely different for some reason.
But…
“I-I can’t sleep.”
This was a girls dorm, not a boys dorm.
That meant some things were different.
Such as…
“The tub is smaller. I can’t stretch out my legs!!”
He tossed and turned inside the cramped tub in the pitch black bathroom for a while.
He had nothing to do.
He was bored.
He felt like he was wasting his time like crazy.
He had read somewhere that your sense of time changed as you aged.
A high schooler’s limit had to be less than an hour.
“This isn’t working.”
Kamijou got up, but he couldn’t go and sleep in the same room as the girls. After some thought, he walked to the front door.
The dorm had a lot more security than the boys dorm had.
Maybe he could lie down and sleep on a bench next to a vending machine in the hallway.