On the way to the dormitory.
"Kouya, you really are mischievous."
The white-haired girl walked slowly, leaning on her cane. A faint smile played on her pretty, cute face. "You even said it was your first time playing chess."
"Were you trying to humiliate me?"
Sakayanagi Arisu wasn't bragging. She had never lost a chess match to anyone.
Yet during their match just now, Dokuho Kouya had claimed he was a beginner and that today was his first time playing chess.
Who did he think he was fooling?
Dokuho Kouya shook his head. "I wasn't trying to humiliate you. I was just telling the truth."
Before this, he hadn't even known how to play chess.
If he hadn't obtained the skill "God on the Chessboard" through the system, he probably wouldn't even have known which piece to move first.
"Kouya really does like to lie." Sakayanagi Arisu smiled brightly. "I wonder how many girls have been fooled by your lies."
Dokuho Kouya sighed helplessly. "Sigh, no one believes me even when I tell the truth. This really is a sad era."
"Heh." Sakayanagi Arisu gave a cold laugh.
She wouldn't believe a single word the boy said.
"Kouya, you're in such a hurry to collect points. You must have noticed that something's strange about the school, too, right?"
Sakayanagi Arisu's beautiful eyes calmly gazed at him. "Shall we exchange information?"
From the very beginning, this school had been hiding things and misleading its students.
It was like a magician's performance.
To conceal what they were really doing, magicians used words, gestures, and other methods to divert their audience's attention.
The school's actions were naturally the same.
They had deliberately used the promise of one hundred thousand points to draw everyone's attention, concealing what they really needed to notice.
Sakayanagi Arisu had naturally seen through this clumsy deception. So, on the first day of school, she had used her advantage of already having one hundred thousand points to challenge some upperclassmen.
She had earned more than a million points, enough to live comfortably for the entire school year.
But then, in the blink of an eye, she had lost eight hundred thousand points to the boy.
In her eyes, Dokuho Kouya was undoubtedly a student with formidable ability.
If it was Kouya, he must have noticed that something was strange about the school, too.
Perhaps he might even have noticed something that Sakayanagi Arisu herself had missed.
"There's no need." Dokuho Kouya spoke confidently. "Working with a friend can certainly make things more efficient, but exploring on my own is more interesting."
"Kouya really is confident." Sakayanagi Arisu narrowed her eyes as she watched the boy beside her.
"Someone who wasn't confident wouldn't have wagered all his points against someone else."
"That's true."
The two chatted amiably as they made their way to the dormitory.
At Advanced Nurturing, the male and female students lived in the same dormitory building.
The boys lived on the lower floors, while the girls lived on the upper floors, so the building had an elevator.
Dokuho Kouya and the others stepped into the elevator, ready to head up to the floors where the girls stayed.
Just then, a girl's urgent voice rang out from outside.
"Wait, please!"
A tall girl hurried over.
Seeing her, Dokuho Kouya held the elevator door open to give her time to reach them.
"Huff... I made it."
The short-haired girl panted, sweat beading on her forehead.
"You didn't have to run. I would have waited for you, Sayo." Dokuho Kouya smiled.
"Huh?" Sayo Ando blinked, her small face full of surprise. "I thought the person just looked a little like you from behind, but it really is you, Kouya."
She had been walking just behind Dokuho Kouya and the others.
When she saw someone with a similar silhouette to Dokuho Kouya, she'd thought about going over to greet him.
But when she saw the petite white-haired girl beside him, she'd changed her mind.
"I figured Kouya had only just come to school today, so he couldn't have made friends so quickly. I thought it was just someone who looked a little like him from behind." Sayo Ando smiled awkwardly.
"You've got the wrong idea, Sayo." Sakayanagi Arisu smiled faintly. "Kouya and I really are friends."
As someone Dokuho Kouya had beaten at chess, she considered him worthy of being her friend.
Perhaps Dokuho Kouya would surprise her even more in the future.
"So you knew each other before?"
"We only met today."
"Huh?"
Sayo Ando's eyes widened in surprise.
Kouya was so impressive that he'd already made friends with such a cute girl on the first day of school?
"Come to think of it, we haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Sakayanagi Arisu from Class A of the First Year. Kouya and I played chess at the chess club in the Club Activity Building just now, and that's how we became friends." Sakayanagi Arisu spoke politely.
"I'm Sayo Ando from Class 1-B." The girl smiled in response, then looked at Dokuho Kouya admiringly. "I didn't know you could play chess, Kouya. That's impressive."
To Sayo Ando, chess was a high-level game played by experts.
She couldn't even understand the rules.
"Weren't you going to karaoke with your classmates, Sayo?" Dokuho Kouya asked curiously.
"We've finished singing." Sayo Ando smiled. "We thought we might have to buy a lot of daily necessities later, so we each only sang two songs before coming over to the dormitory."
"There shouldn't be that many people around now," Dokuho Kouya said.
The new students from the other classes had probably returned to their dorms soon after the opening ceremony, then headed back out to shop for daily necessities.
Once they were done shopping, those students might go relax at karaoke or other entertainment venues.
Class B's students had done the opposite: they'd gone to have fun first, then shop for daily necessities.
They'd successfully avoided the rush.
"Kouya, Sakayanagi, would you like to come to a nearby convenience store with me later?" Sayo Ando invited them.
She seemed outgoing, too, and had no trouble inviting classmates she'd only just met.
"Sorry. I'd like to go back to the dorm and rest first." Sakayanagi Arisu lowered her head slightly, as if apologizing.
"I don't mind."
Dokuho Kouya had decided to be a lone wolf in Class B.
But a high-level lone wolf didn't have to oppose the other person in everything.
"Then let's add each other as friends." Sayo Ando took out her Student Terminal.
After he added the girl as a friend, Dokuho Kouya felt someone's gaze on him.
Dokuho Kouya lowered his head and saw the white-haired girl looking at him.
"Do you want to add me, too?" Dokuho Kouya asked with amusement, finding Sakayanagi Arisu rather cute like this.
"Then I'll leave it to you, Kouya." Sakayanagi Arisu's lips curled up slightly.
Before you continue