5 Chapter - 4

"…What do you mean, Madam Chairman? M-Me, roommates with this pervert!?"

"That's exactly what I mean, Stella Vermillion. Is there a problem?"

"A huge one!"

Ikki frowned.

"I agree. Hagun Academy's dorms certainly do put two people in each room, but I've never heard of a boy and a girl sharing."

"That's been true up through last year, before I became chair of the board of directors. Kurogane, didn't I already tell you about my policy?"

"…To enforce a doctrine of pure merit, based completely on actual combat performance… wasn't it?"

"Right. Unlike the other six knight academies, Hagun produced no notable assets in the past year. We're on a losing streak even in the Seven Stars Sword-Art Festival, which the seven schools sponsor each year to select the strongest student knight. I was called by the board to reorganize this place, and that room assignment is the first step. It's not about how many people or what their genders are. I'm putting fellow knights with similar strengths together in the same room. After all, when equal fighters draw near one another, competition naturally sparks between them. This room assignment is a scheme to invoke that competition intentionally."

Kurono haughtily revealed her plans as if to say, "Isn't it great?" Ikki had an issue with that explanation, though.

"Then isn't what you're doing even weirder? Among the incoming students, isn't Stella-san number one by a large margin? Why would she be in the same room as me, the worst student who's even repeating a year?"

"Re-Repeating? You, you're repeating the same grade level?"

"It's embarrassing, but my overall rank is F."

"F…. Me and an F-Rank, calling us knights of similar strength! Wh-What do you mean by this!?"

"Haha, well… how do I say this. You guys are a special case. Frankly speaking, there's nobody as excellent as Vermillion, and nobody as deficient as Kurogane. In other words, you're both leftover students with no suitable partner, so I could only pair the two of you. Do you understand now?"

"Who could understand that!?"

*Bam!* Stella struck the chairman's office table with one palm and continued to protest.

"I-In the first place, it's absurd for boys and girls like us to share a room when we're the same age! What will you do if some mistake happened!?"

"Oh, Vermillion thinks that when boys and girls of the same age live together, a mistake will happen? I'd love to hear about it~"

"Th-That's… erm… uuu…."

Sympathizing with Stella who was already teary-eyed from shame, Ikki also protested to Kurono.

"Why are you playing like a drunken old man?"

Kurono just smiled as if she was joking, but didn't change her mind.

"At any rate, this decision has already been made. There are also boy-girl pairs besides you two, but you don't have to consider that to make your choice. Vermillion, I won't give you special treatment just because you're a princess. If you don't like this arrangement, all you have to do is drop out of school, you know?"

Drop out of school. Stella was visibly startled by that phrase. She had deliberately crossed continents and come to Japan for studying abroad, and while Ikki didn't know her goals or intentions for doing so, she definitely shouldn't be willing to drop out.

In the end, even Stella couldn't help but fold.

"…I understand."

Ikki looked at Stella's defeated face.

"Are you okay with it?"

"I-I don't really have a choice if that's the school policy, do I?"

Stella replied in a discouraged tone, then raised three fingers.

"But for us to live together, I'll have you follow three conditions!"

Ikki was also unsure about this new school system, so he had no obligation to heed her demands… but since he was a boy and one year her senior, he thought he'd cooperate at least this much.

"If they're not anything ridiculous like top academic marks, high income, or growing taller, then I can make the effort."

"I don't want those sorts of things. Even you can fulfill my conditions quite easily."

She had three.

"Don't speak to me, don't open your eyes, and don't breathe."

"If he did that, Kurogane would probably die, right?"

But Stella ignored Kurono's comment.

"If you can follow these three rules then I'm fine with you living in front of the room!"

"And in the end I'm still chased out!?"

"What, you can't do it?"

"I can't follow such messed up conditions! Won't you let me breathe at least!?"

"No way! You'll probably try to sniff me using that as an excuse, you pervert!"

"I'll breathe with my mouth! That way I can't smell you―"

"No good! You'll probably try to taste the air I exhale with your tongue, you pervert!"

"I'm not gonna do that! I don't have a princess's creativity!"

"Then drop out of school! If you do, I can live in the room alone!"

"That's so one-sided!"

Kurono, who had just been spectating, arrived at a solution.

"What a pain. At this rate, the argument won't end no matter how much you argue. Then let's do this. You two have a mock battle, and the winner gets to decide the rules. As knights who clear their destined path with their own blade, you should have no objections, right?"

In other words, the two would fight a straightforward mock battle, and whoever won would have his or her way―a very simple solution. It was common practice for knights to settle disputes among themselves.