The next day, Dianne and I met up and began making our way to class.

Now, before you ask, yes we still have classes. They just have a few alterations to them. For one, if you're competing in the Hunter Games, you don’t have to go to third period. This gives competitors a chance to fill out the day's list. However, if you feel like you should be fine, you can still go to third period if you want.

As for Dianne and I, we didn’t really have much of a choice but to skip.

Since there wouldn’t be much spare time to look for things like a see stone, we decided to focus solely on items that would be easy to collect.

First, we went and grabbed a trimphant to cover for the one that vanished, then continued going down the list.

By the time night came, we ended up recovering almost the entire list from yesterday as well as the entirety of today’s list which only contained items that were simple to get.

Still, this whole ordeal would make things quite difficult. And it wasn’t helped when we were visited by the teacher who once again reported that several items from our list on the second day had gone missing. Dammit. This was really starting to grind on my gears.

The rest of the week went a similar way. First, Dianne and I would skip class to try and track down items to replace the missing ones, then struggle to collect the other items on the list. Then, they find out they were stolen before anything could be counted. We had tried to ask the teachers about looking into it, but they just didn’t seem interested in doing so. Meaning we were stuck. And before we knew it, Saturday had finally arrived. As crazy and rushed as it sounds, this was the last day of the event. And with such a long list on our hands, we knew it’d be impossible to collect everything we needed. Thankfully, the teachers allowed us to camp out on Friday which kept the day's items safe and guaranteed us enough points to at least make it into the top fifty. But as I mentioned before, we have a pretty low chance of collecting the rest of the items on our list. The odds of us getting first were also pretty slim. The only way we’d even be able to pull it off was if we managed to collect every single item on our list. In short, there wasn’t any way we could win. And as I got up on Saturday morning, I let out a yawn as Sirin appeared next to me.

“Master. The preparations are complete.”

“That so? Good to hear.”

Getting up, I slipped on my school uniform and looked in the mirror…then let out a sigh.

“This outfit really doesn't look good on me.”

The school uniform I was wearing contained a dark blue coat and grey pants, a belt, as well as a long-sleeved white shirt and a red tie. And while I had looked at myself wearing it multiple times before, I personally thought it didn’t look very good on me. But as it was the school dress code, I didn’t really have a choice. They got pretty angry the last time I tried loosening it up. And getting kicked out of school because of my uniform really didn’t sound like a cool way to go.

“On the contrary, Master, I think it fits you quite well.”

“Really?”

“Nah. She just doesn’t have a sense of taste.”

I rolled my eyes at Nia’s comment. I’ll be sure to knock some sense into her later.

“Moving past that, I should get going.”

Leaving Vey to sleep, I left my room with the grimoire on my belt.

Arriving on school grounds, I found Dianne talking with Ella and Roy.

I walked over to them and Roy scratched the back of his head.

“Hey. I heard what’s going on with you guys. Sorry to hear that dude. I’d offer some help if I could, but…”

Roy stared at the ground looking quite frustrated. It's still kinda crazy how literally a few weeks ago this guy didn’t even give me the time of day.

In an attempt to ease his concern, I shrugged and patted him on the shoulder.

“It’s fine. You have your own list of things to take care of. We’ll be fine.”

Still a little concerned, Roy sighed.

“If you’re sure.”

I wasn’t. But since I didn’t want to worry him, I gave him a smile before turning to Dianne.

“You ready to do this?”

Dianne nodded. She looked like she was filled with determination.

“Even if the odds are against us, I’m sure we can win!”

She seemed quite confident in those words.

Scratching the back of my head, a person's voice rang over the crowd of people standing at the school gate.

“Hello everyone! As you all know, today is the last day of the event! That being the case, we hope you all still do your best and aim for the top spot! With that said, let the final day of the Hunter Games commence!”

As those words were uttered, students began swarming into the school one after the other to make it to their classrooms and grab the last list before the event was over.

“Guess we should get in there,” I muttered.

Slipping my hands into my pockets, I began walking towards the school building.

As Axel began to leave, Dianne followed close behind him.

“Please wait for me, Axel!”

She quickly ran after him as Roy and Ella watched them depart.

Ella glanced at Axel.

“Say…doesn’t he seem a bit calm for the type of situation he and his teammate are in?”

Roy looked over at Axel and noticed his rather calm attitude.

“Actually, now that you mention it, you’re right.”

Roy thought about it for a moment before shrugging.

“Well, that’s not important right now. After all, we have our own list to take care of. Come on.”

Roy grabbed hold of Ella’s hand.

She seemed flustered for a moment before collecting herself and letting Roy guide her towards the school building.

Receiving the list, I scrolled through it before handing it over to Dianne.

As it was the last day, it appeared we were getting fewer items than usual. However, while there weren’t as many, the items we were giving were a lot harder to obtain than what we’d been collecting up to this point. Here’s the list:

1: A School Flag

2: A Ruby Garden Staff

3: A Set of Twin Rocks

Geez. This wasn’t going to be easy. Now before you think some of these sound simple enough, let me confirm these aren't even close to simple. Since the school rarely makes any school flags, getting one required you to either borrow one from one of the few teachers who had a flag or use some kind of picture-taking spell to show to the officials running the event. And since photo magic is a pretty hard spell to master for so little payoff, most royalty don’t bother to learn it.

As for the ruby garden staff, that one isn’t much easier. Out of all the items on this list, it’s the only item I’ve never even heard of. So unless Dianne knows where to find one, we’re screwed. As for the set of twin rocks, that one is probably the easiest. At least in terms of difficulty. They’re still pretty hard to find. The only reason they’re the easiest is because they were one of the items you find as the player during this event in the game. Using this to my advantage, I already knew where to find them. However, it wasn’t going to be easy to get there.

Moving past that for now, I turned to Dianne.

“Alright. Let’s focus on collecting these items for now. We can worry about gathering the items from previous days later.”

When Dianne heard me say that, she gave me a look of confusion. Not understanding why I’d take this approach.

“Just trust me on this one. Let’s cover today’s stuff for now.”

Dianne still didn’t get what I was doing, but she let out a sigh of resignation.

“Alright. I’ll trust you. Let’s get started.”

With that, she handed the list to me and we began preparing our plan to seek out the day's items.

Once we were done planning, we stepped out of the classroom and began searching for our first item.

“So first, we need to make our way to Mrs. Firuni. She’s the only teacher at school who has a large collection of staff's and other magic-related items,” said Dianne

I’d never heard of this Mrs. Firuni before, but in all fairness, the game never really went into detail on the education system and its teachers.

I mean, even though my teacher has a name, I still just call him my teacher so I guess I’m just not really thinking too hard about this world and its people.

Before long, we arrived at Mrs. Firuni's classroom and we opened the door.

“Ah…”

And standing inside was none other than Xara and the MC.

I stared at the two of them in silence for a moment and they did the same. Not a single word was uttered between the three of us. In the end, it was Dianne who broke the ice by clearing her throat and walking into the room.

“Mrs. Firuni? Do you have a moment?”

Calling out into the classroom, Dianne waited for a moment when a voice filled our ears.

“Just a moment Dianne. I’m just taking care of something. I’ll be right with you.”

A moment later, a door on the other side of the room opened and a woman with long curly orange hair stepped out to approach us.

Dianne went off to explain things to the woman I assumed was Mrs. Firuni as I stood there awkwardly with Xara and Riko.

“Um…Hey there Xara. I didn’t think we’d find you and the M-I mean Riko here.”

“Oh…Yeah.”

Not sure what to say next, I just turned to Riko.

“Hey there Riko. How’ve you been?”

Riko, who didn’t really know anything about the drama between me and Xara, shrugged with an annoyed look on his face.

“I would like to say I’ve been doing well, but after whatever you did to me during our duel, I’ve found myself being picked on quite a bit.”

“Oh yeah? I completely forgot about that.”

After Riko saw me unintentionally do something that looked like I was putting the moves on Xara, he challenged me to a duel and lost miserably.

“Is that so? Glad to see the whole duel meant so little to you.”

Wait…was that sarcasm? From Riko?

I gave him an awkward chuckle before walking over to Dianne who was still talking with Mrs. Firuni.

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As I did so, I glanced back at Xara and Riko once more. The two of them seemed to be whispering something to each other.

Y’know, now that I think about it, I don’t believe either of our teams had run into each other before today. In fact, I don’t remember seeing them all week even during school hours. Either that or we just never crossed paths, or maybe…

“Axel. Mrs. Firuni says she is okay with us borrowing one of her ruby garden staff's for our checklist.”

“That so? Glad to hear it.”

Mrs. Firuni vanished back into the room she’d walked out of earlier before coming back with a sparkling ruby-colored staff and handed it over to Dianne who held it tightly.

Having obtained what we needed, we were about to depart when a voice called out to us.

“Um…Dianne?”

Dianne turned around to see Xara walking up to her.

“This might sound a bit out of nowhere, but what would you say about teaming up?”

“Hm?”

I gave Xara a confused look before bringing my attention over to Riko who was staring at the ground with a look of resignation on his face.

In response to Xara’s question, Dianne decided to ask one of her own.

“If I may, why is it you want to team up with us?”

Not even hesitating for a second, Xara pulled out her team's list. There were a lot of extra things on the list which meant she and Riko had apparently struggled to collect a lot of the items they were looking for.

“On our first day of hunting, we were given an item that was incredibly hard to locate. And because we've been looking for so long, we still have a lot of things on our list. And since we haven’t found that item yet, we figured it’d be best to just track down the rest of the items instead. But we don’t know where even half this stuff is so it’ll be hard to make much progress. That’s why I was hoping you could help us.”

Hearing Xara out, Dianne thought about her words.

Noticing the look on her face, I could tell what Dianne's response would be. But before she could answer, I stepped forward.

“So we help you find your items. What do we get in exchange?”

“Huh?”

“You’re requesting a partnership. In a partnership, both parties have to benefit. If we help you, what do we get in return?”

Hearing that, Xara thought about it for a moment.

“Could we see you’re list?”

“No.”

Riko glared at me.

“How dare you refuse her! We already showed you our list!”

“So? That doesn’t mean I’m obligated to show you ours.”

Considering we didn’t know who the poachers of our items were, it wasn’t safe to give an enemy team any sort of edge. Even if we formed a partnership.

Clenching his fists, Riko looked like he was about to burst as he started moving toward me.

Just then, Xara used her hand to block Riko.

“Riko it’s fine!”

“But…”

Riko looked like he was about to say something else, but after seeing Xara’s face, he backed down.

I wonder. Was he ever this easily angered in the game? I remember him being really calm and collected. Guess this is what they mean when they say reality can differ from fiction.

Xara turned back to me.

“If you won’t show us your list, does that mean you have another idea of how you can benefit from working with us?”

I smiled.

“Of course.”

I explained what I wanted to Xara who listened to me the entire time while Riko and Dianne listened without saying a word.

Once I was done, Xara considered my offer and then nodded.

“That seems like a reasonable agreement. Alright then. You have a deal.”

“Perfect.”

We shook hands before Xara realized what she was doing and pulled her hand back with her cheeks shining a light pink.

“Ahem. Well then, shall we get to work?” Xara asked.

I shrugged.

“Lead the way.”

With that, the four of us had officially teamed up.

Looking over their list, I recognized some of the items since they were part of our lists earlier in the event.

“Okay. So you guys still haven’t found a trimphant. That should be easy enough to get.”

With it being the last day, more than likely a majority of the students had already taken care of this item if it was on their list.

Because of that, there should be plenty of trimphants left to grab.

After about twenty minutes of walking, we arrived at the room we were looking for.

Sure enough, there were plenty just lying around.

Riko grabbed one and left to go drop it off at his and Xara’s classroom while we went off to search for the next item.

“Um…Axel?”

“Hm?”

“Are you sure I shouldn’t bring the staff back to our classroom? What if someone tries to steal it from me?”

In order to keep whoever’s been stealing our stuff from striking, I asked Dianne to hold onto the staff rather than bring it back to the classroom.

It may be risky, but it’s safer than the alternative.

I explained as much to Dianne who nodded her head in understanding.

“Right. Then I’ll protect this staff to the best of my abilities!”

It was nice seeing how determined she was.

But moving past that, we started walking toward our next destination. And as I walked next to Xara, I glanced at the list in her hand.

Apparently, the next thing we needed to get was a sports ball. However, it was some kind of ball that was used for a sport the school didn’t have as a program for anymore. Meaning it was a rare thing to find. The exact opposite of what I’d want to be searching for.

I scratched the back of my head while trying to think of what to do when I noticed Xara in the corner of my eye.

Without realizing it, my face had gotten quite close to hers. So close in fact, that I could hear her breathing in my ear.

Not sure what else to do, I lifted up my head and continued walking. Trying to hide my burning ears.

Without much in the way of guidance, we started looking through some of the school’s storage sheds. There weren’t many. However, with how big they were, it wouldn’t be easy to search through them for the ball we were looking for.

We ended up taking so long, that Riko had enough time to catch up and the four of us continued the search.

Two hours later, we finally found one. It looked similar to a baseball, but only in shape and design. The part of the ball that would normally be pure white was instead a dark purple with green stripes replacing where the red stripes would be.

“It kinda looks like a baseball,” Riko stated.

Apparently, he agreed with me on the way it looked…wait a minute.

Before I had time to think about something that dawned on me, Xara, who had found the ball, tossed it up in the air before catching it back in her palm.

“What an interesting ball. What do you suppose they used it to play?”

Riko thought for a moment.

“If I recall, they called it Speedball. Though I can’t remember how it was played.”

Dianne looked at the ball in fascination.

“Well, we’ve got it. Come on guys. We don’t want to waste more time than needed,” I said.

My words seemed to bring everyone back to reality and we left to drop off the item right in time for lunch.

Since we were already together, the four of us decided to eat as a group.

Stopping by the cafeteria, we all ordered our meals before sitting down at a table and eating our food.

While doing so, we went over the list once more.

“Okay. So with those two things out of the way, how much does that leave?” I asked.

“A lot. Not including today’s stuff, we still need at least six more items. Even if we somehow came back and got everything on our list by some miracle, we still wouldn’t have enough points. Not with how poorly things went yesterday,” Xara said.

“I see.”

Trying to think of a plan, I pulled out our own list from my pocket and looked it over.

Nothing they had was similar to what we were hunting for. The lists really were completely different from one another. There were almost none of the same things. How did this school have so much stuff?

Finishing off the rest of my meal, I was the first to get up.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Throwing my empty tray in the trash, I left the others to their own devices.

As Axel left the room, me, Xara, and this boy called Riko ate in silence.

However, since I didn’t want things to be awkward between us, I decided to start a conversation.

“So you’re Riko, correct? I’ve heard about you from Xara.”

“Really!? What did she say about me!?”

Riko instantly rose from his seat with excitement in his voice.

“Relax. I just told her about how you’re a good friend. Nothing more.”

Riko slumped down into his seat after hearing that.

“Um…It seems like you two have some…interesting chemistry.”

“Really? I don’t think it’s any different from how other friends treat each other.”

Hearing Xara say that, Riko’s face made it look like he was just punched in the gut by those words.

“Hm…If you say so.”

It didn’t take a genius to see how this boy felt. Honestly, it kind of hurt seeing how poorly Xara was treating him. Were they really friends?

I may not be a connoisseur of friendship, but even I could tell there was some tension between these two. It wasn’t anything romantic, but I had a feeling that the two of them had things they needed to say to one another.

With that being said, would it be good for me to intervene in their affairs? After all, I’m not familiar enough with both of them to make a judgment on their behalf.

I may have gotten to know Xara recently, but I still know nothing about Riko. So it might be best for me to stay out of it. Otherwise, I might end up making things worse between the two of them. Still, I wish I could help in some way.

We continued eating for a few more minutes. But for some reason, Axel wasn’t back yet.

“I wonder what’s taking Axel so long?” I said aloud.

Xara, who had already finished her food and thrown away her tray, got up.

“I’ll go check. Be right back.”

Without another word, Xara left the table to follow after Axel.

This left just me and Riko… completely alone.

“Um…May I ask you something?”

“Hm? Go ahead.”

“This may be out of my boundaries, but is it safe to assume you’re in love with Miss Xara?”

Riko nearly spit out his food and his face went as red as a tomato.

“Wha-! N..No! What could possibly make you think that!?”

“Is that so? But to me it looked like you were quite bothered when she called you just a friend.”

Hearing that, Riko looked down to the floor. As if he had just been caught in a lie.

“...In truth, yes. I do like her.”

My eyes went wide in surprise for a moment. I hadn’t expected him to actually admit it.

“What’s with that look of surprise!?”

“I just…wasn’t expecting you to actually say it.”

Hearing that appeared to only make him more embarrassed as he immediately hid his head in his hands.

“Er…I’m sorry. That was rude of me. Please pretend I didn’t say anything," I said.

With his face still red, Riko lifted his head up and looked at me.

“So you do like her?”

Riko nodded.

“Yes. For a while now.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded again.

“It all started after the two of us met that commoner.”

I didn’t like him referring to Axel as that Commoner but since this was all pretty hard for him to say, I decided to let it slide just this once.

“After we met him, he kept trying to tease Xara over and over again. When he did, I felt a strange sense of frustration. I didn’t understand at the time, but I think those were when my feelings for her started to grow.”

Riko clasped his hands together.

“At first I just tried to blow his teasing off and simply separate him from Xara. But then I stumbled upon him making a move on her. When he did that, I couldn’t think of anything else but wanting to hit him.”

That…escalated quickly.

“That was when the duel happened. After that, I continued treating Xara the same way I always did. But then, the school trip came along. We ended up finishing around the same time as Xara’s group and when I saw her, she was being weirdly close with that commoner.”

I noticed his hands starting to shake. Like he was trying to contain his anger.

“I tried separating them, but instead, she got mad at me and began keeping her distance.”

With a sigh, Riko scratched the back of his head.

“After she began ignoring me, I felt a strange pain in my chest. And the longer she ignored me, the more my chest hurt. That was when I finally realized it. That I’d fallen for Xara.”

Having finished his story, the two of us sat in silence for a bit before he went back to eating his lunch.

As I processed what he said, I thought about it all for a moment.

“This may not seem right for someone like me who’s a complete outsider to say, but what if you tried confessing to her? Maybe then you can at least get your feelings out to her.”

Finishing the last of his food, Riko looked at his feet.

“I don’t know. With how things are now, I’m worried she’ll reject me. If I did it before all this crazy stuff, I wouldn’t be scared of something like that happening. But with the way things are now, I don’t think it’ll go that well.”

That was quite a negative way to look at it.

Knowing my words didn’t carry much weight, all I could do was encourage him.

“Well my words may not mean much, but I was always taught that taking risks is far better than not. So even if you risk rejection, it’s still better to at least give it a shot rather than never trying at all.”

Riko looked me in the eyes before returning his gaze to the floor.

“I’ll think about it.”

I smiled.

“I wish you the best of luck.”

With that, I brought my tray over to the trash bin before returning to Riko.

“I must say, those two are taking a really long time to come back. Do you think they’re okay?”

Riko walked over to the trash and dumped in his own tray.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should go take a look.”

Having made our decision, the two of us walked out of the cafeteria and went to find our friends.

I just hope the two of them were okay.