The Voting Results

The irony was that Aozaki Touko, the person at the center of the matter, was off traveling somewhere. Word had been sent to her, but no reply had come.

That was because she was inside a ruin from the Age of Gods, cut off from the outside world. She could neither receive messages nor leave.

But she had found the last few pieces of the Primordial Rune puzzle there. With no danger in sight and something that fascinated her at hand, she had holed up to decipher them at her leisure.

With Touko herself absent, Yuan Shikai had to do the legwork. He got straight to it, speaking to everyone present one by one before voting began.

Lorelei had prepared a list for me: who supported blue, who supported orange, and who was on the fence—people who would either abstain or vote once they had something to gain.

That was Lorelei for you. She had already thought of everything I could think of and even done the groundwork.

Honestly, the situation did not look good. If the list held true, Touko would probably receive a majority of orange votes and return to the title of Red of Pain.

If Touko had been willing to join Barthomeloi after graduation, Lorelei would have paved the way for her. None of this would have been a concern.

Unfortunately, Touko was stubborn and would never submit to anyone. All I could do now was talk.

The approach was simple: find the fence-sitters, use my Fairy Eyes to get straight to the point and confirm where they stood, then win over anyone still wavering.

Never mind how many people had publicly declared, with righteous conviction, that they would vote orange. Offer them enough, and they could switch to blue at any moment.

I had to