If it had been Alina, maybe I wouldn't have lost. Alina, my Alina...
"So, what do we do now, Anna?"
Lumiere glanced at Orson, who had completely broken down after getting brutally humbled for being too arrogant, then asked Truth.
"Have you heard the fable about breaking three sticks?"
Truth adjusted her glasses, looking as though she had everything under control.
After that—
"Hm? It's Alan from before. Back to play again~?"
Gummy spotted Orson again and cheerfully greeted him.
"Why are you back again, you loser!"
Orson returned to the cooking classroom, his gaze resolute once more.
"Hmph. Maybe I can't defeat you all alone, but I have companions!"
Orson stepped back, and Truth and Lumiere entered the classroom as well.
"As long as we combine Anna's wisdom!"
Truth adjusted her glasses.
"Sonia's strength!"
Lumiere looked at Orson with a "Huh?"
"And my experience—we can defeat you!"
Orson made his declaration of victory.
"Fine! Then let's have another round. This time, we'll wager Peterheim Middle School's legendary cooking utensils!"
"I told you to stop adding all those random settings that won't be used!"
Thirty minutes later...
"Something feels... off?"
The three of them stood in the kitchen, surrounded by a group of Elite Ten of Tōtsuki members lying on the floor and foaming at the mouth.
"Anna, are you sure this step called for '20 grams of yeast'?"
"I think I flipped to the wrong page... But, but! Sonia, the way you removed the fish bones was kind of strange too."
"Fish bones? I just chopped them all up and gave them to Orson."
"..."
Orson clasped his hands before the Elite Ten of Tōtsuki, who had all dropped dead after eating the dark cuisine the three had made together, hoping they would be okay.
They lost the match but won their lives. That was the true essence of the dark cuisine world.
"Well... sorry, Rada. We caused you trouble."
Orson awkwardly apologized to Gummy, the survivor who had not participated in the competition.
"It's fine. And Rada was planning to join you too~"
"Really?!"
Orson curiously asked why Gummy wanted to join his club.
"Because without Rada, you'd probably get food poisoning~?"
"...""...""..."
The three fell silent, not knowing how to refute that.
Gummy joined the party!
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After Gummy joined the party, only Summer remained.
Just as Orson was thinking about how to approach Rosaline—Summer's real name—Summer herself came looking for Orson and the others.
"You're the transfer student General Winter confessed to in the hallway, right?! Sonia is mine! I absolutely won't let you interfere!"
"...?"
Unable to make sense of the situation, Orson looked at Lumiere with an expression that said, "There's a lesbian right beside me?"
"Y-you idiot...! I never confessed!"
Lumiere immediately bristled.
"Hm? Was my information wrong? Whatever, it doesn't matter. Since Sonia is here, I'm joining too!"
After thinking for a few seconds, Summer came to a conclusion.
"We already have Sonia as our combat specialist, so that means—hm?"
Truth was interrupted halfway through by Orson.
"You don't get it, Anna. The protagonist's party usually needs a second-strongest fighter too. When they encounter enemies, they serve as a stepping stone first. When they're pushed into a corner, they press the self-destruct button to inspire the protagonist to make a comeback."
"..."
Anna looked at Orson. She wanted to retort, but after thinking about it, she found herself unable to argue.
"Then welcome, General Summer!"
"Hm? Huh...? I don't know what's going on, but just you wait, Sonia!"
And so, Summer, who had no idea what was happening, somehow ended up joining Bear Squad as well.
Summer joined the party!
In the empty clubroom, Lumiere practiced the "mental training method" as Orson had instructed, Gummy cheerfully handed out cookies to everyone, Truth complained that she couldn't study properly in this environment at all, and Summer was still thinking up a cool club name.
"...This is nice."
Orson looked at the lively little room before him and unconsciously smiled.
Each of these children's melodies had some discordant notes, but when they gathered together, the music they played in ensemble was incredibly harmonious.
Still, one melody was missing from this ensemble.
Orson knew very well that, given the current situation, he could not let Lumen join. It might put Lumen and the others in unnecessary danger.
For now, this was fine.
It happened to be time for his once-every-five-minutes check-in. Orson checked Lumen's location, only to suddenly discover that the distant resonance showed Lumen was right beside him.
Bang—
The clubroom door opened, and the eldest daughter of the Rostov family appeared before the members of Bear Squad.
"So you're here, Or... Alan."
"M-Miss Natalia?"
Orson blinked, unable to understand what was going on.
The others were stunned as well. The person before them was the heir to the Rostov family, the most prestigious family in Chernobog—a noble figure they would normally never get to meet.
"Is something the matter?"
"Nothing. It's just..."
Lumen glanced at the newly established club, feeling strangely irritated for some reason.
"Come with me."
Lumen grabbed Orson's arm, intending to take him away, but Lumiere immediately stood up and grabbed his other arm.
"Hold it right there—"
"And you are?"
"Sonia, General Winter—pick whichever title you like. And what are you doing, young lady of the Rostov family?"
"Oh my, I came to find Alan... no, I came to find Orson. After all, he's my personal bodyguard now."
Lumen paused, then said that for some unknown reason.
"Ehh?!"
The Bear Squad members all cried out in surprise.
"P-personal bodyguard—"
Lumiere was obviously shocked by the job title, which sounded incredibly ostentatious at first hearing. But she gritted her teeth and refused to be outdone.
"So what?! I... I confessed to Orson!"
"Ehhhh?!"
This time, everyone—including Lumen and even Orson—let out cries of surprise.
Meanwhile, Gummy had already prepared a bag of sunflower seeds.
Joining this club was totally worth it!
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I'm Here to Take Your Life Again
Orson had been infiltrating Chernobog for five days.
Over those five days, Orson had almost every day secretly taken out mercenaries targeting Lumen, accompanied Lumen to school, dealt with Bear Squad's chaotic interpersonal relationships, and explained to Talula, FrostNova, and the others after school that he was really carrying out a mission, not setting up another base.
At a restaurant not far from the Rostov family estate, Orson sat at a table flipping through the menu. Across from him sat Isaac, the former engineer who had come to Chernobog with Orson.
"Sorry, Uncle Isaac... Something came up on my end, so I wasn't able to contact you regularly every day as we originally agreed."
Orson clasped his hands and apologized to the engineer across from him. Because he had suddenly been hired by the Rostov family and assigned to Peterheim Middle School, many of the plans they had previously settled on could not be carried out step by step.
"It's fine. Though the fact that you managed to immediately worm your way into the Rostov family as a bodyguard is impressive enough. So many people would kill for even the slightest connection to that family. So what are you doing now?"
Isaac could understand. After all, plans had never really been good for anything except getting delayed and docking people's pay.
"Mm... I serve as Miss Natalia's guard, attend Peterheim Middle School, occasionally teach my classmates some combat techniques, and accompany Miss Natalia home after school so she can rest."
As Orson considered his daily schedule, he realized that after becoming a Rostov family security guard, his life had become far more laid-back than it had been in the northern frontier. He even had to secretly undergo extra Originium Arts and combat training at night to keep himself from getting rusty.
"That sounds like the protagonist of some third-rate novel."
Isaac coldly mocked him, while Orson gave a bitter smile, saying that protagonists like that had it rough too.
Lumen and Lumiere were at each other's throats every day. Caught in the middle, Orson had to mediate without favoring either side while also ensuring the girls' safety.
"What about you, Uncle Isaac? How have you been lately?"
"Getting by. Nothing much happened. My family went somewhere, and I can't reach them at all. I'm staying at a friend's place now. His name is Freeman, and he's a physics PhD."
Isaac shrugged, while Orson wiped sweat from his brow and wondered whether the two of them together might blow up all of Ursus.
"And now for business."
After the small talk, Isaac lowered his voice and began exchanging intelligence about Chernobog.
"Chernobog hasn't felt right lately."
"Not right?"
"Yeah. There are rumors that the Third Army Group is going to be stationed near Chernobog, and plenty of people have said they've recently seen Sarkaz they've never seen before."
"An army group, Sarkaz... Perhaps Baikal's patience is nearly at its limit too." Orson frowned as he ran a hand through his hair.
"That's important information. Thanks, Uncle Isaac."
"Also, about that matter you asked me to look into before—sorry, there aren't many people on the repair crew who know anyone involved in experiments. All I could find out was that there really was a research institute, but it had long since been abandoned. No records were left behind."
Orson had previously asked Isaac to search for information on the research institute connected to Crownslayer and Skullshatter's family, but it seemed he had still arrived a little too late.
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