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High School Hack and Slash Chapter 1 Part 2

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Pasifista

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　It wasn’t as if I’d ever lacked the necessities of life in my livelihood up until now.

　The living expenses my father transferred to my account were not as insignificant as a child’s allowance, so I’d never really had any trouble with the necessities of life ever since I started junior high school.

　It was just that I had to prepare meals, purchase clothes, and arrange the housework all on my own.

　It was because I always thought that way was only natural and normal, that I perhaps never found it hard or lonely.

　When I realized that my life, which I thought to be that was just how it was, was actually perhaps a little not common, I wound up thinking that somehow I didn’t want to stay there anymore.

　That was why the boarding system was actually a plus point, and excitement welled up in me.

　I was told by my classmates that I was being independent or something, but in reality, this was just how it was.

　Moreover, my homeroom teacher had assured me that Toyoashihara Academy, which I thought to be new and unknown, let alone prestigious and famous, was a school with proper traditions.

　I did find it fishy, but since even sensei managed to get himself into university’s educational program, it ought to have a certain extent of connections.

　My homeroom teacher, who showed a somewhat subtle face, boasted that it was a school with almost 100% college admission and employment rate, but as expected it was still fishy.

『You might be surprised at first, but knowing you, I’m sure you’ll be fine.』

　I recalled such a half-hearted encouragement of his.

　When I stepped out of 『Nakano』 Station, a station that seemed to exist anywhere in Japan, a shopping district spread out in front of the station.

　I tried asking the stationmaster-san, who numbered no more than one, for directions, but he merely gave me an elegant smile and shook his head.

　There were no other new students beside me on the rattling train, but the man must have received the same question from numerous new students up until now.

　Passing through the station entrance, I could see the main gate of Toyoashihara Academy awaiting me beyond the shopping district.

　It was a school that was so vast that it blended in with the surrounding greenery, and was so large that it was impossible to see its entire facility.

　I sure was surprised because I had expected a small, worn-out school building in the countryside.

　It was certainly old, I didn’t really get it, but maybe it was the so-called Taisho Roman architectural style or something.

　Rather than a school, it looks more like a hotel; rather than a hotel, more like a ryokan; rather than a ryokan, more like a historical building that usually existed in ryotei.

　Well, true enough, I could now understand why stationmaster-san found it unnecessary to answer and simply smiled.

　What surprised me more, however, was the shopping district in front of the station, or should I say the student street’s shopping district, where all kinds of stores were lining up between the station and the school.

　Starting from nationwide clothing chain stores to chic boutiques, family restaurants that I had seen in my hometown to restaurants that seemed to be privately owned, coffee shops to convenience stores, and bookstores to drugstores.

　There was nothing that looked like a residential area around, so I couldn’t help but worry whether they were able to earn profit simply by having students as their market target or not.

　And then, blending incongruously amidst those usually seen stores, there were blacksmith and antique stores.

　I personally had never seen a blacksmith’s before, but based on the clanking sound of hard objects being hammered echoing from the back of the store as well as the smoke rising from its chimney, there was no room for doubt.

　The show windows of this blacksmith-like store were decorated with metal plate full-body armor and what looked like a two-handed sword.

　I wondered if this was the so-called cosplay store.

　The figure of my homeroom teacher, who looked somewhat macho, occurred to my mind.

　I never would have dreamed that sensei used to be a cosplayer.

　I bet one of the seven wonders of the school, a cross dressing macho man dancing in the dead of night, must have been my homeroom teacher.

　『Just a little bit unusual school.』

　I see, talk about a profound metaphor.

　It was no wonder that its name didn’t turn up in any Internet searches.

　A concealed flower, an underground where minority like-minded people gathered.

　A school where cosplayers gathered, moreover a national one at that.

　Should I describe it in such a soft and theatrical remark, I wonder?

　You might be surprised at first, true enough this was a surprise.

　But knowing you, I’m sure you’ll be fine, in other words, he saw me as one of their kinds, huh.

　For arguments sake, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested at all.

　Getting a fresh start, let’s face everything positively from now on.

　If I looked closely, besides the western-style full plate mail, there were also Japanese-style armor helmets that looked straight out of a historical drama.

　It seemed that the blacksmith was divided into Western and Japanese styles.

　Two-handed swords, bastard swords, crossbows and halberds.

　Oodachi, kodachi, naginata and jumonji spears.

　I bet all boys could relate, but simply looking at those weapons made me irresistibly excited.

　On the way home from school after a rainstorm, we held our umbrellas in our hands and shouted, 「Zero Form!」 or something, everyone must have done that.

　Rather, I bet everyone must have ruined at least 10 umbrellas.

　Reaffirming the shoulder bag on my shoulder, as if to look away from the slowly sinking tension, I stepped forward to the main gate of the school.

 

◇ ◇ ◇

 

　The third men’s dormitory of Toyoashihara academy, known as 『Kurou-sou(Black Cormorant Manor)』, was somewhat boisterous as it was in the middle of welcoming new students.

　For new residents, it was normal to have their bulky belongings sent through express delivery ahead.

　As the grounds were off-limits to outsiders, the duty of transporting the luggage fell to the senior boarding students.

　The upperclassmen – carrying heavy cardboard boxes that appeared to clearly contain comic books – even as they cluck their tongues, checked the names and rooms while making arrangements to confiscate them at a later date.

　The modern structure of the three-story wooden building seemed to have received occasional maintenance, but it was without a doubt an old-generation building.

　The strength of the building itself, however, was strong enough to have survived numerous earthquakes in the past without any problems, partly due to the circumstances of the facility from which it was diverted.

　The lamps hanging from the ceiling of the corridor were antique, but the light source had been replaced with LEDs.

　Of course there was no elevator, and the floor creaked as you walked down the corridor.

　The rooms for new students were naturally on the third floor.

　The room inside the bulky wooden doors, which were lining up at a regular interval, was quite spacious, equipped with two beds and desks each.

　It was the basic for the rooms assigned to new students to be shared rooms.

　Once they became second year, the students with the highest grades would be eligible to move to private rooms, and they would also be allowed to make use of the first floor.

　The rules differed slightly depending on the dormitory, but fundamentally it was based on meritocracy.

　Even the academy, which was in the position of administrators, encouraged it in some respects.

　The traits of the school were leaning toward favoring the strong.

　And the student dormitory itself had been an autonomous area independently governed by the students since its inception.

　Since it was located within the school grounds, keeping an eye on it was easy, and it being a place to learn and cultivate group behavior and independence had been a tradition since its establishment.

　In one of the rooms on the third floor of such Kurou-sou, a new resident was playing with a tablet.

　Seated on one of the mahogany desks lined up near the window, he let out a sigh of resignation.

　As if waiting for that exact moment, the sounds of the door being knocked echoed.

「It’s occupied…. Heck, it’s no toilet.」

　As the door was opened with ease, a self-retort followed after.

「You’re supposed to retort ‘yer wrong’ there. Comeback retort is essential for seamless communication, you know?」

「That’s a tall order for me.」

　Touma, with a serious face, replied seriously.

　That was packed with the most damage, and Seiichi, who had become his dorm mate in the same room, had his smile stiffened.

　His first impression of Touma was that he was the type of a serious guy who couldn’t take dark jokes.

「But if that is how normal communication is, then I have no objection.」

「No, no, no, just what kind of samurai coming out of a period drama are you?」

　Touma was the type of a man of few words to begin with, so he had no experience in having casual conversation with a friend.

　Tracing further back than that, though, he had no friends.

　He himself was aware that he was not a good talker, he was aware of it, and that was also exactly why he was on alert to make sure he didn’t make any mistakes.

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