Chapter 46

“Um…… What do you mean?”

The club room after school .

Across the desk, I was facing my junior colleague, I-chan .

On the desk is a simple envelope with the words ‘club resignation notice’ written in I-chan’s distinctive round letters . …

“… No… Well… I’m thinking of quitting this club . ”

I-chan said in a buzzing voice and played with the tip of her hair with her index finger .

“No, no! It’s just you and me in this club! I managed to get the teacher to put the club on hold and put the cancellation on hold… and then we said we’ll do our best next year… …You know, that’s what we were talking about . Mainly in my mind . ”

You were determined, but you weren’t talking .

I was self-contained . It’s a bad habit of mine .

“To be honest, I didn’t expect it to be this stubborn, because… black magic research? It’s not like they’re just going to get together and talk, right? Senpai said something like that before I joined the club, didn’t you? This is now the realm of fraud . Cooling-Off will come . The Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare is on our side . ”

I-chan said, pointing to the bookcase in our club .

It’s chock full of questionable books that I and Mr . Mountain, had ordered in from overseas .

Incidentally, Mr . Mountain left the club two months ago to study for his exams .

“You’re not even serious . Because look, you didn’t appear at the national tournament . ”

For now, I’m going to make that talkative mouth shut up .

The persuasion comes after you get rid of the heavy air .

If the atmosphere is broken, you can fool them by saying, “Nah, Nah” .

“No, I’m serious . The black magic research department is a very dangerous place to be . It’s the source of bad religion . Normally, the school should take the initiative in destroying it . ”

Since I’ve done playing being fool, a certain typical club criticism has started .

It’s not working . She’s going to quit altogether .

“I’ve been slacking off for nearly a year now, but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do it again…

Unlike a magic addict like me, she’s a perfectly normal person .

At the time I was in high spirits drawing a magic circle, she looks at me with a very cold eye .

It’s a bit of a stretch to let them continue with the club after all .

But you shouldn’t give up easily .

Something, isn’t there some kind of clue .

Why did she suddenly decide to quit the club again?

Lately, the club tends to have a break, but we don’t have those .

Normally, if you want to quit, you will slowly stop showing your face .

It’s true that it does not fit to this girl’s skin but she is also rather flippant about some things at times .

At least, that’s what it looked like in my eyes .

There may be some decisive factor that led to her decision to quit the club .

If I only know that, I should be able to see room for persuasion .

”…… . . And Senpai, you were so kind when I first joined the club, but recently you said something like ‘I feel like I can do alchemy, I’m pretty serious’ and doing all these weird things, and you didn’t pay any attention to me at all… No, that has nothing to do with it, but… well, how should I put it… If you think about it too, we may not have to think about it either…… . . well…… . ”

She says this while muddling through her words .

Lately, I’ve been ignoring her when she speaks to me and concentrating on generating pure gold .

Just the other day, she was showing me the screen of her phone so much that I said, “Don’t distract me for a minute” when I said with a straight face, “Why don’t you do it alone already!” then was the time when she yelled at me .

I wondered if that might have been a bad idea so I apologized, but she denied it .

What, so it doesn’t matter .

If so, then I have no idea what the cause of the problem is .

There is one thing I can think of .

Come to think of it, Mr . Mountain just quit the club recently, didn’t he?

What, does she have feelings for Mr . Mountain?

“His right hand is his girlfriend, his left hand is his mistress, and I’m an adulterer,” is a very uninteresting and trivial thing to say . The springtime of life has finally arrived for Mr . Yama-san, who has been joking around a lot, I guess .

As I recall, I-chan had said things like “You’re going to be arrested one day” and “Sometimes I smell strange”, and “you have no thoughtfulness” “physiologically painful” and I thought that was an exaggeration, too . Part of it is true, and part of it is that I thought he should be encouraged to improve, but that was the opposite of love .

“Oh, that one! It’s Mr . Mountain, Mr . Mountain right! You were in love with Mr . Mountain, weren’t you! Okay, then I’ll take care of the middleman…”

I-chan slammed the desk with a bang and got up from her seat .

“Well then, I’m going home now . ”

Her eyes and voice are cold .

I-chan lifted her bag with a flourish and headed straight for the exit .

I knew it wasn’t Mr . Mountain . To be honest, I had a feeling that it was, too .

‘Well, wait! Um, look, who’s going to take care of Nobunaga!”

As I said it, I ran to the window and returned to I-chan’s front door with a flowerpot in my arms .

This was a plant seed that was sold online under the heading of ‘The World’s Strangest Talking Plant Seeds’ .

I left it to I-chan to take care of .

She named it “Nobunaga” because of her love of history .

“Hey, really! Oh, God, I got dirt on my skirt! Senpai, you idiot! There’s no way that things going to talk!”

Then, I-chan pushes me .

The momentum causes me to stumble and drop the flowerpot to the floor .

“Just ugh!”

With a crunch, the flowerpot breaks .

Nobunaga was burned to death . Damn you, Mitsuhide .

I-chan frowned a little apologetically, but quickly turned away and left the club room .

Hey, wait a minute!

I opened the fridge in the club room and took out a plastic bottle, dumped the contents, and washed it well before cutting it in half . Make some small holes in the bottom with a compass .

Then the dirt scattered on the floor was collected with a broom and a dustpan and put into the bottom half of the plastic bottle .

A simple plant pot was made . I repotted the knotweed in the pot and put it on the balcony .

Of course, I wiped the floor with a rag .

I carefully tucked the notice of withdrawal into a file, closed the window, turned off the lights, locked the door, and returned it to the staff room . Then I went after I-chan .

I was pointlessly methodical in my section .

Now that it’s over, I think I should have gone after her right away .

I ran after I-chan .

When I finally caught up with her, she was on the sidewalk in front of the school gates . It was pretty close .

For some reason, she stopped in front of the crosswalk, even though the light was green .

Maybe she hadn’t noticed the change in the signal . Did that girl forget to weak her contact?

“Hey, wait!”

“You’re late, aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to be bullied by the student council anymore for forgetting to lock the door . ”

A few months ago, there was a time the head of the student council, cited the mismanagement of the key as one of the reasons for destroying our black magic research club .

I struggled to get away with it in one way or another, but it added to the scale of the conflict to no avail . The whole school got involved in a barren fight, until they finally beat each other up, crying on the riverbank .

As a result, I and the student body president, both of us suffered no small (social) wounds, and eventually, it has been handed down without a winner but that’s not the point now, is it?

“In fact, you’re only stopping the club because you don’t want it to get destroyed, right, senpai? It doesn’t even have to be at our house! Is the club that important?”

“No, but… well… that’s… right? It’s important, but…”

We’ve been getting along for a year, so I’ll miss Iichan when she’s gone .

That’s what I thought, but the main reason I’m bowing down now is certainly that I don’t want the club to be destroyed, so It’s hard to deny it .

If I tell a lie here, maybe it would be a nice way to put it together, but it’s not sincere .

It is an irrevocable truth that the club is important .

I’m confident that I’ll quit high school if the black magic research club is gone .

In the worst-case scenario, I was thinking of asking them to leave their register, but with this atmosphere, it’s hard to say that too .

I-chan’s eyes narrowed when she saw that I was stagnant .

“Then, I’ve already given you the club resignation letter . Thank you for everything you’ve done . ”

“H-hey! Wait!”

“Hmph!”

Ignoring my call, I-chan quickens her feet .

She’s not aware of the signal .

“Wait! It’s really bad!”

I reach out and grab her by the shoulder, but she swiftly shakes me off .

I-chan went on and ran off into the crosswalk .

And then a loud horn sounds . I-chan turns her face to the right .

“Ah…… . ”

The big truck was closing in on I-chan .

The next thing I knew, I was jumping out of the way .

My body received a strong shock and my vision went dark .

It’s hot . My whole body is hot .

I manage to open my eyes, but my vision is severely blurred .

Rather than my eyes, it was more like my brain was failing .

The area starts to become noisy . It’s so annoying, I thought to myself, as if it were someone else’s business .

Someone is hugging me .

“Yaaaaaah! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! It’s my fault that…”

I can hear I-chan’s voice as it breaks off .

Oh, thank God . Did she make it?

It’s not cool if both of us jumped in and died .

With that thought as my last thought, I lost consciousness .