The Lahai-Roi Defense Line? No, It's Lahai-Roi Blocks!

"Mm."

"Do you know what that question was asking?"

"No."

Dania turned her head, her expression serious.

"But Zhou Yu said there were soup dumplings."

Sigelica's forehead hit the desk.

Outside the window, in the landscaped strip by the classroom building, Zhou Yu put away the Logistics Department's laser measuring pen, tucked it into his pocket, and walked off.

Sigelica hid her face behind a book, her shoulders shaking.

Beside her, Dania sat bolt upright, her eyes shining, her whole body in standby mode as she waited for the bell so she could go find the soup dumplings.

At the lectern, Professor Moning was still savoring the one teaching moment in this class that had satisfied her.

"Is there any hope for this class?"

Nobody answered her.

The bell rang.

Dania shot to her feet, her eyes fixed on the back door of the classroom.

"Wait!"

A hand reached out from behind and pressed down on her shoulder.

Linnai leaned in with a mysterious smile.

"Don't rush off to find your soup dumplings. We'll take you somewhere good."

Chisaki stood up too and pushed up her glasses, code scrolling rapidly across her tactical tablet.

Sigelica listlessly packed up her textbooks.

"What are you planning now? I'm warning you, don't lead Yaya astray again."

Ignoring her, Linnai pulled a few brass-colored metal tokens from her pocket and waved them in front of Dania.

The tokens bore the Flamebearers' Academy emblem, their edges worn smooth and shiny.

Dania: (o_O)?

"What are those?"

"Game tokens."

Linnai leaned close to her ear.

"The keys to Flamebearers' Academy's underground paradise, the Deep Dive Game Room. Want to go?"

"I'm not going!"

Sigelica slung her bag over her shoulder.

"I haven't finished writing my self-criticism!"

"Oh, come on. It's a group activity for everyone. How can you miss it?"

Linnai reached out, caught Sigelica in a headlock from behind, and dragged her toward the door.

"What kind of group activity is this?! Let me go! Professor Moning really is going to deduct all my credits!"

"Don't worry, we're splitting the bill. I'll cover your share for now."

Sigelica: (╯°Д°)╯︵ ┻━┻

"Is money what I'm short of? It's my life that's on the line!"

Chisaki followed beside them, her fingers moving swiftly across her tablet.

"Based on the changes in Sigelica's heart rate and vocal pitch, her current unwillingness to go is thirty-seven percent. The remaining sixty-three percent is verbal protest caused by the bandwagon effect."

"You even have to quantify that?!"

The group tugged and jostled their way to the stairs, where a head wearing a bright yellow hard hat poked out from behind the fire hydrant.

"Stop."

Zhou Yu slowly straightened up, a little notebook in his hand.

"We've received a report that there's a fire safety hazard on this floor. As a safety officer specially assigned by the Logistics Department, I need to accompany you and investigate."

Linnai's eyes lit up.

Linnai: (ゝ∀･)☆

"Mr. Zhou, are you skipping work too?"

"What do you mean, skipping work?"

Zhou Yu tapped his hard hat.

"This is called an immersive experience: going among the students to investigate the risk of overloaded electrical circuits in recreational facilities."

"Didn't you just use a measuring pen to project three characters onto Yaya's desk?"

Sigelica's muffled voice came from beneath Linnai's arm.

"That was a remote vision test. It falls under logistics care."

Zhou Yu didn't even blink.

Sigelica gave up struggling.

The Deep Dive Game Room was hidden in the basement storeroom of the third cafeteria.

Linnai patted the iron door with a freezer label stuck to it.

"Don't let appearances fool you."

When the door swung open, the caramelized smell of popcorn poured out, mingling with the hum of electricity. Neon tubes twisted into all sorts of shapes, swaying about in the dim space.

Dania froze in the doorway.

"Yaya, stay close to me."

Linnai led her inside, acting as their guide as they went.

"Look, that's a dance machine. You just have to step on the right arrows."

"Over there is the rice bowl catcher. You have to catch every bowl that falls from the sky."

Dania turned to glance at the bowl-catching machine. On its screen, bowls smashed to pieces, accompanied by exaggerated shattering sound effects.

"The bowls... broke."

"Broken ones don't count toward your score, so you have to catch them."

Linnai pointed to the oldest machine in the corner, its screen glowing a dim green.

"And there's this, the pride of the arcade. It's a kind of romance only hardcore players understand: Lahai-Roi Blocks."

Chisaki had already pulled out her data tablet, a cold light glinting on her lenses.

Chisaki: (￣-￣)

"Give me three minutes and I can derive the pseudorandom number generation algorithms for every machine. In theory, I can keep farming points indefinitely."

Linnai smacked her on the back of the head.

"The uncertainty is what makes games fun. Don't be such a bore."

Zhou Yu produced a cloth bag from somewhere and poured its contents onto the counter with a clatter. It was full of game tokens.

He lifted his chin at the young clerk.

"Put it on the principal's tab: the academy's special fund for cultural development."

The young clerk opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. In the end, he chose to keep quiet.

A big handful of tokens was pressed into Dania's hands, the heavy metal resting against her palms.

Dania looked down at the pile of shiny tokens, unsure how to curl her ten fingers around them.

"Zhou Yu, how do I... use these?"

"Put them in a machine, and you can play."

"What happens when I'm done?"

"Put more in."

Dania clenched the tokens tightly and nodded with a serious expression.

Sigelica leaned against the wall.

"My self-criticism..."

Screech.

The sound of tires scraping came from the entrance, followed by an engine cutting out.

Aimis took off her helmet, shook out her long pink hair, and strode in with the helmet in one hand.

"How could you leave me out of something this good!"

Her gaze swept around and landed on Dania, surrounded in the middle of the group. She came over in a few strides.

"Cutie, I'll teach you to play the motorcycle game. I can come in first with my eyes closed."

Dania looked up at her, then down at the tokens in her hands.

"Do you have to put tokens in too?"

"You bet! Put them all in! You deserve the joy of spending money."

Aimis snatched a handful of tokens from Zhou Yu and shook them in front of Dania with a clatter.

The Slacking Squad had assembled in full.

Zhou Yu finished handing out the remaining tokens, tucked his hands away, and strolled over to the oldest machine.

On the screen, geometric shapes made up of four blocks were slowly falling.

A line of pixelated text sat at the top.

[Lahai-Roi Blocks]

He reached out and tapped the screen lightly with his knuckle.

The glass was icy cold, reflecting his expressionless face.

He turned around and beckoned to Dania.

"Yaya, come here."

"Hm?"

Dania shuffled over, clutching her tokens, and tilted her head as she stared at the colored blocks falling steadily down the screen.

Zhou Yu pointed at the machine.

"Your beginner's tutorial starts with this."