The big day of club recruitments was over. On the following day, the Classmancers club gathered in the basement clubroom to go over the applications. Everybody was present, except for Vincent who went to fetch additional applications from the school secretary and Ben who was missing again for whatever reason.

Is Ben even really a part of the club? Yuel sighed. At this point, it felt like Ben was a part-time member at best. But, it got tiring to ask the same questions and get the same vague answers every time so whatever.

By the time everybody arrived, Kai was already there flipping through the application forms. She carefully went over them over and over but it was futile. She won’t find what she was searching for. Yuel knew that because he organized the papers yesterday.

"Huh," Kai sighed and slapped the papers on the table. Reality dawned on her: there wasn’t a single competent female candidate.

Surprisingly, five girls applied for the club. It was a small number but way higher than anybody expected. Alas, their experience with the game ranged from "I don't know what this is about" and all the way to the pro level of "I heard about it, I think" In other words, completely useless.

"Who even let these girls apply?" Kai asked with a frown. She had to blame somebody for raising her hopes like that only to let them crash and burn.

"A few gals gave me forms," Lars said.

"And, you didn't tell them we only want experienced players?"

"Nah, I said everybody is welcome, haha."

"You're really something..." Kai shook her head. "How did you even get so many girls to sign up anyway?"

"I dunno. They just came to me and asked questions and stuff."

I think they were hitting on you. Yuel rolled his eyes. It wasn’t just Julia, Lars was popular with girls in general. So, there was a good chance all these girls approached him and "signed up" just to start a conversation. They had no real intention of joining and they didn't care about Classmancers in the slightest. Alas, the goof was too thick-headed to notice any of that.

"So," Kai narrowed her eyes. "Why did you let them sign up if they clearly don’t know the first thing about Mancers?"

"Well, they all looked nice and interested so I thought I'd give them a chance."

Yeah, I'm sure. Yuel nodded. They looked interested in YOU, not in Mancers.

"Whatever. I bet you’re happy now?" Kai handed the stack of papers to Yuel. "Looks like we're picking our new member based on rank. You’ve even already ordered the applications in descending rank order so we know exactly who that is."

"Yeah," Yuel nodded and glanced at the top application on the stack. It was the current favorite, the Gold III player.

"Gotta say," Kai continued. "Good job sorting the applications. Made it very clear how far at the bottom all the girls were."

"That wasn’t my intention."

"No, it's fine, really," Kai glanced aside and smiled wryly. "Just goes to show how damn hard it is to find any decent female players our age. It's a good wake-up call. I really gotta stop dreaming about the impossible."

"There's still the applications Vincent will bring," Yuel tried to console.

"You really expect to see anything different there?"

"Who knows," Yuel dodged the question. In truth, he didn't expect anything. If even Lars, the girl magnet, could only draw get girls of this caliber, there was little hope.

This should've made Yuel rejoice. After all, it meant they'll pick the most promising candidate for the club and that’ll reinforce the club's skill level the most.

And yet, it was unfortunate. A part of him wished that the most competent player to apply was a girl. Or, at least, that one of the girls who applied was competent enough to compete with a Gold III. That would have worked out the best for both him and Kai.

A few minutes later, Vincent came in with more application forms he collected from the school secretary.

"Let me look," Kai snatched the papers right away and flipped through them one by one. Then, she slammed the papers on the table and walked away with her arms crossed. It wasn't hard to guess why.

Male. Male. Male. Male. Male. Yuel flipped through the papers and that's all he saw.

About what I expected. He put the papers down. There wasn't even anybody in Gold rank so none of these applicants added anything of note to the selection process.

"Sorry," Vincent apologized to Kai. "That's all they had. Even with my Information Blackhole, I was unable to draw in any additional applications. I shall commit seppuku to repent!"

"It’s not like it's your fault," Kai shrugged. "That's just the reality of things. I should've it’ll turn out like this."

So, this whole “gender selection” thing is over. Yuel glanced at the basement's door. No matter how much he stared at it, nobody was going to come and bring a new stack of applications. It was over. No competent girls ever applied so the highest rank player will be selected... wait.

Is it just me or there's somebody at the door? Yuel narrowed his eyes. He could swear he saw somebody peeking into the room from outside.

"Somebody there?" Yuel asked as he approached the door.

"...!" Something jumped near the door. There was somebody there after all! It looked like a big black hairball but it was actually a human.

Didn’t I see it somewhere before? Yuel could swear he saw that long messy spaghetti hair before but he couldn’t recall the specifics.

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"You came here to apply?" Yuel asked as he drew closer to the door. However, that only made the spaghetti hairball retreat.

"Wait!" Yuel instinctively broke into a run and the black critter did the same.

"Gone..." Yuel looked around but there was no trace of the wild creature he just saw. Was he hallucinating? Thinking of it, something like that happened yesterday...

Right! It must be that girl from yesterday! Yuel smacked his forehead. How could I forget? It was such a bizarre experience, too.

It was the same girl he saw in the crowd yesterday and failed to catch. Did she perhaps come to try applying again?

Shoot, I scared her away. Yuel pursed his lips. This was bad. Kai will definitely blame him for scaring off potential female candidates.

"Dude," Lars called out. "Whatcha doing over there?"

"Well," Yuel glanced nervously at Kai. "I thought there was somebody who came to apply..."

"Did you start hallucinating candidates?" Kai asked.

"Poor guy," Luke chuckled. "I bet he saw a young version of Maker, the legend himself, coming to apply, haha."

"That's quite the ability," Vincent nodded. "I shall dub it the Mystic Eyes of Candidate Perception!"

What's with these reactions? Yuel shuddered. It was like only he saw that black hairball spying on them. Thinking of it, he experienced something similar yesterday too. For some reason, only he saw that girl in the crowd. Frankly, it was getting rather unsettling. Brrr.

Just as he was about to write off this entire incident, he noticed a piece of paper on the floor. Did it belong to that spaghetti hair? Upon closer inspection, it was one of the flyers Vincent printed.

Wait, could it be...!? That girl's application form!? Yuel dashed like a madman and grabbed the paper. It was indeed an application form!

Gender: Female

Rank: Platinum V

"Y-You gotta be kidding me..." Yuel stuttered. He rubbed his eyes but the form didn't vanish and its contents didn't change. It was the real deal! A girl applied and she was competent enough to rival Platinum league!

"If I was just hallucinating, then explain this," Yuel smirked on his way back into the clubroom.

"What is it?" Kai took the flyer. Her expectations have been betrayed far too many times by now that she didn’t expect to see anything of note. However, the contents of this flyer almost made her eyeballs pop out of their sockets!

“Wha!?” Kai dashed toward the door and frantically checked the surrounding area. Alas, the mysterious spaghetti hair girl was gone for. “There was really somebody here? It’s not your idea of a prank or something, right?”

“Why would I bother,” Yuel said. “Besides, we’ll know for sure once we check her account.”

“Right! Let’s do it!” Kai took out her tablet and entered the player ID from the paper.

“Oh, there’s a result!” Kai’s jumped.

Never saw her express so much emotion before. Yuel smiled wryly. Though, admittedly, he was mad curious too.

Kai searched the player ID from the application form and found a user who went by “BlackFlower”. Unfortunately, some of the account’s profile info was set to private so they couldn’t see everything about BlackFlower. For example, it was impossible to see her match history.

However, they could still find out the important parts. BlackFlower was Lv.62, so she was qualified for Ranked. However, as for the actual rank...

『Qualifying』

“Huh?” Kai cocked her head. “Does that mean she hasn’t finished the qualifier?”

“So it seems,” Yuel frowned.

When a player entered Ranked for the first time, they had to play ten “qualifier” matches to help the system estimate their skill level. Based on these ten matches, the player’s initial rank would be anywhere between Bronze V and Gold V.

Back when Yuel and Lars started out, they were assigned Silver II and Gold V respectively. The system forbade players from doing the qualifier in parties, so each of them had to pull through on their own. Lars had an easy time carrying games with his skill but Yuel had to rely more on his teammates and that cost him games. The only matches that went well for him were the ones where he carried as Top.

It wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience but it was behind them now. However, it wasn’t behind BlackFlower. She was still stuck in the middle of the qualifier process.

“So, her Platinum rank is a sham,” Yuel concluded.

“That’s...” Kai bit her lip and kept scrolling through BlackFlower’s profile. “Wait, she IS Platinum! In Duel.”

“And she wrote that as her rank?” Yuel raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Thinking of it,” Vincent said. “We didn’t actually specify we’re asking for the rank of the MOBA mode.”

“Oh, I remember that stuff!” Lars nodded. “I also wanted to write I’m Diamond when I was applying to StormBlitz. It was my Duel rank.”

“Right,” Yuel recalled that silly exchange. “I had to stop you back then.”

“Yep, haha.”

“So,” Luke started. “Whatcha gonna make out of this? Duel rank doesn’t really say much but it’s something, I guess.”

“Platinum in Duel is decent for a freshman,” Kai argued. “I was around Platinum III in Duel when I joined. Besides, we already agreed we’re going to pick a female if she’s at least Lv.30.”

“We agreed to test a female who is at least Lv.30,” Yuel corrected. “But, I agree. Platinum in Duel shows at least some promise.”

With that said, the 『Qualifying』 status didn’t sit right with him. BlackFlower was already Lv.62. In other words, she hit Lv.50 a while ago and had enough time to climb all the way to Platinum V in Duel. And yet, she hasn’t finished the qualifier for the MOBA mode during all this time. Why?

“Can you check her play rate in each mode?” Yuel asked.

“Let’s see,” Kai switched tabs. “It’s... Err...”

BlackFlower was sporting an impressive 92% play rate in Duel. In other words, she has been exclusively playing Duel. The rest was split among the game’s other modes and only 4% was on the main MOBA mode. Needless to say, this was concerning.

“So,” Yuel concluded. “She got to Lv.62 almost entirely by playing Duel.”

“So it seems...” Kai clearly wanted to refute that but it was the cold truth.

The game awarded player exp regardless of which mode the player played so it was possible to get to Lv.62 by just playing Duel all the time. Apparently, that’s how BlackFlower did it.

“It’s like she has been playing a completely different game,” Yue said.

“But, that doesn’t mean she’ll be bad in the MOBA mode,” Kai argued.

“I never said that. I still think we should call her over and test how well she plays.”

“Agreed,” Kai nodded. “I’ll catch her tomorrow during lunch break.”

“Catch her?” Vincent chuckled. “You make her sound like a rare Pokemon.”

“She’s a shiny legendary,” Kai chuckled. “Good job spotting her, Yuel.”

“You guys really didn’t see her?” Yuel asked.

“No,” Kai shook her head. “I haven’t seen anybody.”

“Yep, me neither,” Lars said.

“Nope,” Luke shrugged.

“Kukuku,” Vincent cackled. “Actually, I believe my Information Blackhole picked something up back then! But, the signal was so faint I wasn’t sure whether I should bring it up.”

“In other words,” Yuel said. “You didn’t see squat.”

“... no, I didn’t,” Vincent admitted.

It was so weird. There were five people in this room, so how came Yuel was the only one who saw that spaghetti hair girl? It was a mystery.

Either way, it was decided: they’ll call the girl over and test her mettle. There was a lot of uncertainty surrounding this candidate, but they’ll learn her worth for sure tomorrow.

With that out of the way, the club spent a couple of hours grinding Ranked and adjourned for the day.