Round 2

  Tanimoto-san bravely goes first. She takes out a bunch of onion rings and finishes it with no problem, with the approval of Kazuhiko-san right after.

  Takashi takes some crackers.

  Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

  Approved.

  While the next girl was focusing on the type of food to eat, we stare and nod at each other. We spot that Tanimoto-san had a water bottle next to her.

  Takashi stands up with his left hand hidden behind his back. Inside it was a brown packet.

  ...

  ..

  .

  Yesterday.

  5:39 PM

  I sigh.

  “Agh… what a pain this sure is,” I compin.

  “Sorry,” Masaru fervently apologizes.

  “Hmm… darn, if it has to be this way then I guess we have no choice, but to pn out the next challenges.”

  Their attention was caught by my words.

  “Listen carefully, there is a chance that our bad luck pys a part here, so we’re gonna have to do something against it. Cheating.”

  “Are you sure?” Madoka asks, “Can we really pull it off?”

  “We can, as long as it’s not you who does it,” I reply.

  “You didn’t have to say it out loud…”

  “Okay, so here’s the game pn. Let’s start with the eating competition. So technically, we want the girls out of the game. How do we do that?”

  No one answers as none of them knew how to.

  I continue, “Easy. We have three choices. One, we sabotage their food stock. Problem with this is that they can restock. Second, we start with the second loudest food we can get. Problem with this one is that this pn can very well backfire on us. Which is why I said second loudest, so you can have one chance to recover. Third, we silently put xatives in their drinks. That will make their stomach grumble and force them out of the challenge in few minutes time.”

  “Kibe… it terrifies me that you can think of such schemes with excruciating detail. How come you aren’t the top in css?” Masaru ponders.

  “Because the top people in our css are literal search engines.”

  “Oh, oh yeah.”

  “Where do you get xatives?” Katsuro queries.

  “Any medical store probably. I think it’s pretty common, so it shouldn’t be hard to get some,” I answer.

  “Um, what exactly do xatives do?” Katsuro asks.

  “Simply put, these are medications which are supposed to speed up the bowel process.”

  “Devious,” he comments.

  “Okay, let’s say we do get these. How are we supposed to let the girls take it? Surely, they wouldn’t just chug down a medicine out of nowhere,” Masaru mocks.

  “We put these in their drinks, don’t you remember what I said?”

  “No, no, I get it. But like, how do we even manage to put it in their drinks?”

  “Exactly. That’s where my pn comes in. Listen closely, this is what we will do… Firstly, approach a girl who has a water bottle.”

  ...

  ..

  .

  Present day.

  Takashi goes to Goda-san.

  “Hm?” she wonders.

  Kibe’s words echo through his mind.

  “Secondly, ask them for a drink and expin that you left your water bottle at home. It should be allowed as it does not help the challenge in any major way.”

  “I left my water bottle at home,” Takashi tells her.

  “Mhm… and?”

  “Can I drink some from yours?”

  She hesitates to answer.

  “A-Alright… but why didn’t you ask the other boys first?”

  “Uh… they forgot their water bottles too.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “No money to buy some from the vending machine?”

  “I also actually left my wallet at home…”

  She didn’t know what to say. As she was about to say something, he abruptly cuts her off.

  “They have adequate money for going home.”

  There was an awkward silence between them, but she gives out in the end.

  She sighs, “Fine, just give it back once you’ve taken your fill.”

  “Thank you.”

  Takashi snatches the water bottle and slyly turns around along with his hand holding the brown packet. He drinks a bit of the water and pces it on his desk. He opens the water bottle and then the brown pack and inside it was a packet of xatives.

  Rip.

  Opening it, its powdery contents pours into the water bottle. He shakes the bottle to make sure the solute properly dissolves. The mixture looked slightly cloudy, but to the untrained eye, it would seem like perfectly normal water.

  He closes the water bottle and hands it back to Rin.

  “Thanks.”

  She unsuspectedly opens the lid of the water bottle and drinks it herself.

  Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

  ...

  ..

  .

  Fshback~

  “Doesn’t that take a while?” Madoka wonders.

  “Yeah. But…”

  Realistically, it should take a few minutes before these take effect. However, because this is an anime world and in this case, in the shade of Slice-of-Life, effects of almost anything are instantaneous.”

  “…if it doesn’t take effect. I want you to stall by eating foods that aren’t allowed. You will then be forced to eat again,” I instruct them.

  ...

  ..

  .

  Round 3

  We take a close look at Tanimoto-san, observing slight changes and making sure she forms a face of discomfort. In any case, Madoka decides that he would be the one to stall, considering that most of the food he stocked was pretty much used already.

  He takes a bag of potato chips and eats them.

  Crunch. Crunch.

  Kazuhiko-san crosses her arms since this was a food already chosen beforehand. So, he takes a pack of crackers and opens them.

  Kazuhiko-san once more crosses her arms, but he ate the crackers anyway. Afterwards, he grabs another set of potato chips and eats them.

  She once again crosses her arms, but still eats them anyway.

  Grrr…

  We overhear a stomach grumble. It was Goda-san. The xatives were starting to take effect.

  “M-My stomach… hurts…” she mutters weakly as she holds her tummy.

  Tanimoto-san went to her.

  “What’s up? Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’d like to say yes but… my stomach hurts.”

  “I see… can you still go on or do you want to sit this one out?”

  “N-No… I c-can still…”

  Grr... Grr...

  Her stomach continuously grumbles loudly.

  “I think you should get yourself fixed.”

  “B-But…”

  “Now don’t you worry about us. Do you really think we’re gonna let ourselves be beaten by the boys? No way. Come on, you can pce your faith in us. We can pull through.”

  “The optimism in your words surely knows how to persuade.”

  “Hehe, now come. I’ll bring you to the Nurse’s Office.”

  While that was happening, Kazuhiko-san gives the thumbs-up for Madoka eating corn chips. For some reason, she considered that it was a different food entirely because of what was used to make it.

  Though rude in the conventional way, he eats his corn chips with his mouth open to produce a louder sound, since it wouldn’t really be any louder than potato chips in normal cases.

  After that success, Tanimoto-san calls out to Yano-sensei and reports Goda-san’s condition. She goes outside along with Goda-san and accompanies her.

  Kazuhiko-san raises her hand to signal a halt to the challenge.

  Kibe’s words resonate within us.

  “Tempting as it may be, do not use this technique again. You can’t expect to go near two girls and not have them be suspicious.”

  At the very least, this evens our standings. We are now back to our neutral stance. I’m not sure of Madoka though, he ate quite a lot just to stall.

  ...

  ..

  .

  Round 4

  Tanimoto-san returns to her seat.

  “As per agreement, Rin has been eliminated from this challenge,” Kazuhiko-san decres.

  “Is she alright, Ran?” Mari asks worriedly.

  “I-Is she f-feeling fine?” Yuka queries.

  “No worries girls, she just had a bad stomach, that’s all. Well, we shouldn’t let our rivals wait for too long. We shall continue and win in her stead!”

  They return back to their positions.

  Madoka leads by eating marshmallows.

  “Not bad,” Tanimoto-san compliments.

  But she had a bowl prepared full of…

  “K-KATSUDON RAMEN?!” we all thought in that moment.

  “Did she have it as her lunch?” Madoka wonders.

  That was what he guessed until he notices one important detail.

  “I-IT’S STEAMING HOT?! HOW?! WHEN DID SHE HAVE THE TIME?!” he ponders himself.

  The steaming hot katsudon ramen she had was served in a bowl. She takes a pair of chopsticks from behind. The delicious aroma of the dish fills the whole cssroom. However, for some reason, the teacher was oblivious.

  “Maybe Yano-sensei needs a hearing aid,” I mumble to myself.

  “He needs something to enhance his smelling too,” Madoka replies having overheard this.

  Note: It was the famous plot armor in py. Now that it was established that the girls had plot armor and the boys did not, it took another turn for the course.

  Thud.

  Madoka hears a raging noise from behind, like a thunderbolt nding behind him.

  “Wh-What… Why is it so hot?” he wonders, “Why am I sweating so hard?”

  He feels a radiating pulse from behind.

  “Ah… this heat. I know where this is from. I know all forms of heat from the torture I have to endure every day. I know the scorching heat from the sun. I know the torturing heat of an iron. I know the heat emanating on my cheek from a dy’s spank, and of course… I know…”

  He closes his eyes and breathed deeply. The rest of the students were staring at him.

  “… the radiation coming from an angry teacher.”

  “Care to repeat what you just said, Yoshida-kun?” Yano-sensei asks with a terrifyingly deep voice.

  “Bst. Such cursed luck.”

  These were Madoka’s final words.

  I bang his desk.

  Why’d you have to reply to my insult, you insolent fool!

  Just like that, the standings topples over to the girls’ favor.

  I face the expressions of the girls.

  “The girls are grinning like crazy. It’s like… fate was already set in stone,” he thought.

  Note: Madoka has been eliminated.

  …

  ..

  .

  The teacher continues with the lesson, now that the naughty student was taken care of.

  Takashi nudges my elbow and I turn to him.

  He whispers to my ear, “This is looking bad. Very bad.”

  “When it comes from you, it just adds another yer of ominous.”

  “Pn?”

  “I… I don’t know… I’m not really a thinker.”

  “Do we use the xatives again?”

  “D-Don’t! Let’s not rely too much on that. Hurts our pride as men.”

  “Ah.”

  Takashi returns to his floaty, airheaded, bnk state. This left me worried.

  Wh-What should I do? How am I supposed to deal with this in a rational way?! The competition is ridiculous! The situation is ridiculous! How am I supposed to process this information?

  I peer above.

  Will we lose our rightful pce in the rooftop? If we do, where would we spend our memories… This is so stressful… I can’t think straight!

  “I wish it was as simple as making girls fawn over me in the internet…” I mumble.

  We need his help. We need Kibe’s help.

  My phone rings.

  The ringtone was from a catchy anime that was airing this season. It was loud, and the noise was bothering the students nearby, so I pick it up before anyone could notice it came from mine. I look at the name of the caller and my eyes widen. I can’t believe who was calling right at this moment.

  “K-Kibe?!”

  “Yo,” he speaks.

  “Alright, we should start the next round!” Mari decres.

  “W-Wait!”

  “What?”

  “Can it wait for a bit? I have to make a call.”

  “Ah, was that where the ringtone came?”

  “Y-Yes, can I go?”

  “Nothing bad about that I suppose. Not like you can call a supply drop. Just hurry up, alrighty?”

  “Yes, yes, thank you.”

  I stand up and ask, “Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?”

  Yano-sensei replies, “Yes, you may go.”

  “Thank you.”

  I go to the door and slide it open. Rushing to the bathroom, I enter a stall, and then put the phone next to my ear.

  …

  ..

  .

  Right now, I’m at home, inside my room. I was at the computer browsing pirated sites where I could read my favorite manga for free.

  “Kibe, you still there?” he asks me.

  “Yeah,” I reply.

  “Did you hear everything?”

  “Yes, I did. You are in the bathroom, I assume.”

  “What made you call now?”

  “Why? Did I call in the wrong time?”

  “No, no, no! You made it in time in fact! Where are you now?”

  “At my home, duh. Where else would I go?”

  Interesting. That is too much of a mere coincidence. Perhaps, when I became a Slice-of-Life Protagonist, I gained an ability. I call it Perfect Timing. This is done, so the flow of the story and so that the viewers’ immersion is not broken. I define it as the ability to enter the story at the perfect ti-

  “Uh, Kibe?” Masaru’s voice floods in, interrupting my thoughts, “You still there? Are you daydreaming again?”

  “No, no, I am here. I called because my instinct told me that you were in trouble.”

  Actually, I was just bored and wanted to kill time.

  “Yes, yes, please! We need your help!”

  “Ah, I was right on the target. What’s the situation over there?”

  “Katsuro and Madoka have been eliminated. Things are looking real bad over here!”

  “You used the xatives?”

  “We got one off. Should we use it again?”

  “No, too risky.”

  Karma is a powerful thing. Best not to give it any fuel that would let it rage upon us right at this moment.

  “Tell us.”

  “You got any ideas?”

  “None! That’s why I’m asking you.”

  “I see…”

  What can they do at this situation? The girls are winning. How do we win when they are so clearly protected by plot armor. Plot armor… the measure of event convenience for a specific character for a specific time. I do believe Perfect Timing has some direct corretion with plot armor. If so, then how can I interrupt the winning chance of the girls? Making them lose is very inconvenient by following the current storyline. Comes off as nonsensical.

  I click on a site and finally enter a pirate site for manga.

  How do we wrap ourselves around plot armor, the strongest force in fiction?

  I casually read a manga from the site. I skim it all through without even savoring the content I just consumed.

  “Aha!”

  I had an idea.

  If the situation is following girls trying to overcome the boys, then surely the plot will follow that. But… what if I changed the focus of the plot? Plot armor is decided, of course, by the direction of the plot. If the situation is reversed, then the boys will receive plot armor.

  “Masaru!” I call out on the phone.

  “Y-Yes?”

  “Tell me the plotline of a Slice-of-Life story.”

  “Wh-What? What are you on about?”

  “Believe me.”

  “What does this have to do with the situation at hand?”

  “Why would you try to question my unorthodox methods now? Get to it!”

  “B-But there are too much Slice-of-Life anime! Please be a bit more specific!”

  “Tell me a reoccurring theme for most!”

  “W-Well, ch-character development, I guess?”

  I snap my fingers.

  That’s right! These kinds of stories focus on the character development of the characters! It is especially highlighted here because there is nothing else to the genre aside from occasional comedy gags or gap moe.

  Note: This is not true for all Slice-of-Life anime. Some do not have character development at all. This is Kibe’s statement only.

  I know the solution. I have found the way to emerge victorious in this battle!

  END OF EPISODE 35