If Giselle wanted to truly be able to hold her own in caste one, she not only needed to simply take a spot there… but she needed to prove that she was a powerful force.

In theory, a lot of people might’ve been able to defeat the lower-ranked students of caste one in a {Rank Challenge}, and many do. However, there’s a reason why the bottom few positions are never stable and constantly change. They all inevitably struggle to keep their positions and end up getting bullied by those above them.

Because after all, everyone is classist at this school.

“This might all be a trap, but I’ll accept your duel.”

And that’s your biggest mistake, Kamura.

Accepting something knowing it’s a trap, it’s a thought process worse than a fool who doesn’t even realise it’s a trap in the first place.

Giselle smiled.

The two of them finalised the duel, before making their way toward the arena.

…

I was left alone with Sara.

She approached me.

“What is your goal? What are you trying to do?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Are you trying to hurt Kamura? Is that what’s going on here?”

“I’m actually doing nothing.”

That was literally true. Giselle hadn’t given me any instructions on what to do aside from simply observing from a distance. I assume the extra person, specifically another girl, standing beside her would make her claims seem a little more reliable, aside from that, I wasn’t interfering in any way.

Sara’s expression began to turn pained.

“Just so you know, Kamura is stronger than anyone. The only reason I called for him was because I know that he’s better than you all.”

“How confident are you in that?”

Her face scrunched a little. Even if Kamura actively tried to hide it from her, the truth was that he was falling out of power. To drop so many ranks in such a short amount of time can only be caused by several internal issues—and obvious incompetency.

I wonder how he got up to the top of the ranks in the first place.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Sara breathed heavily. It was clear that she didn’t have full confidence in him either.

Let’s see if I can push her.

“I wonder, Sara, why do you believe so much in him?”

“Because he’s smart, he’s strong and he’s the most perfect person I’ve met.”

Aha. How ironic.

“You know, I’ve been around people who love throwing around the word ‘perfect’, but what does that mean to you?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“He might be the perfect boy in your eyes, but in reality, he’s weak. You know that’s true.”

I could see her eyes swelling up ever-so-slightly. Still, her body was still tense with determination.

Slam.

She closed the door behind her and walked right up to my face.

Don’t look at me with those eyes~ I’ve seen them all before.

“Are you going to stand here insulting him all day? What’s your real goal?”

“I don’t have a real goal, Sara~”

She looked around.

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

“Don’t you love meeting new people? I’m Sumire, pleasure seeing you.”

“I’m going to tell you this one last time. Kamura won’t lose to you.”

“If you say so.”

With that, she turned around and went back into her room. Another loud thump echoed through the halls as the door closed behind her.

Ah, I’m all alone now, I guess I’ll go see what Akira’s doing.

Giselle would be wrapping this up soon enough.

[Sumire POV END]

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“Uh, so where do you want to have lunch, Erika?”

She laughed a little before looking up at me, her eyes still innocently bright.

“Why don’t you choose? What do you like to eat?”

“I don’t really have a preference, usually I just get food from the grocery store and cook it in my room.”

“Oh? So you’re the hands-on type?”

“I guess you could say that.”

It was more that I didn’t care much about what I ate most of the time. As long as it had all the necessary elements for a healthy lifestyle, nothing else mattered. It also saved money to cook my own food—as is usually the case.

Walking through the high-school student’s dreamland that was the 300th floor, Erika happily looked around, observing all the various stores.

“Don’t you get bored of looking at the same stores?”

It definitely wasn’t her first time here.

“Nope. You know, we girls can shop at the same mall for weeks and still be excited to go.”

“How come?”

“It’s deeper than just coming in and getting our groceries. There are things we want to buy but can’t afford. Sometimes there are sales and we just like to imagine what we’d do with them. It’s complicated, I suppose.”

She dragged me around and we did some window shopping at almost every single clothing store. I assume the school specifically chose brands which targeted our demographic, so it was expected that she’d be interested in all of them.

“Akira, you always wear the same thing, why don’t we get something new for you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Don’t worry! Let’s just have a look, okay? You can try on some stuff and we can put it back if you don’t like it~”

I wasn’t expecting this to become an entire shopping excursion, but I guess I was getting a little bored back in my room. Following behind her, Erika led the way into Paper®, which was a pretty interesting name for a clothing company—there wasn’t even any emphasis on being environmentally friendly or renewable—it was just its name.

She began to sift through the railings, carefully examining each of the different jackets which hung on it. After a short moment, she turned back to me.

“Maybe we should get you a new shirt first.”

Grabbing a white one with a Paper® logo printed on the top right, she dropped it into my hands.

“Here put this on, it’ll make it easier to layer things on you if you’ve got that.”

I guess I’ll do that then.