Chapter 18: The Unstoppable Group Project

After the midterm exams ended, classes continued as usual with lectures, note-taking, and sparring, without any major changes—except for one. But that one class was enough to cause a stir among all the first-year students.

“Alright. In the second half of the semester, there will be a group project. Since there are 30 people in Class 1, we’ll form six groups of five. By now, you should all know each other well, so please form your groups and submit the list to me after class. If you can’t form a group, I’ll assign one for you, so no need to worry.”

Group project.

Honestly, a group project doesn’t sound particularly daunting.

Students with connections to upperclassmen seem to have heard stories and are reacting as if something big has finally arrived, but I don’t have an upperclassman to tell me such stories.

So, I don’t fully understand why the others are getting excited.

But just by the name “group project,” it sounds like it might be easier than expected.

No matter how difficult the project is, it will likely be at a first-year level. With five people, even if one person can’t figure something out, the other four can help. Just by simple calculation, five people should be able to complete the project five times faster. Surely, the project won’t be five times the usual workload, so it should finish faster than an individual assignment.

As for the five-member team… The members are pretty much set. Me, Celian, Anne, and Yuri.

The four of us have been together all semester and even prepared for the midterms together. There’s no reason to suddenly form a group with other students.

The only issue is finding one more member…

Anne’s mention of top students must refer to Celian, Yuri, and me. But why is Anne so proud as if she’s the one being praised?

I wonder if I should commend her for at least not including herself in the remark.

“What? I know I’ll just get held back because of you anyway! And besides, I already have a group~”

Ian rejects Anne’s invitation and heads toward a group of boys he’s usually with. As we stop Anne from lunging at Ian, who teased her, we ponder who our final member should be.

Most students have already formed groups of five. A few are wandering around, though.

We need to bring one of them over to complete our group of five. While considering the remaining students, someone speaks to us.

“Could you add me to your group if there’s still a spot?”

First, my gaze falls on her black-rimmed glasses, and then her purple hair tied to the left, resting over her shoulder.

Few students in our class wear glasses, and she’s also our class representative, with whom I have some connection.

Her name is…

“Huh? The class representative in our group? Isn’t that fine?”

Her name is…

“If it’s the class representative, we’d welcome her! Right, Celian?”

“Yes, of course.”

Her name is…

“With Celian, El, Yuri, and the class representative, our group is unstoppable!”

What was it again? I’ve called her “class rep” so often that I forgot her name.

“Okay! Let’s write down the list and submit it! The list… Oh! El is holding it. Just write down the class representative’s name! I’ll submit it.”

What was her name again!?

This is a problem! What was the class representative’s name? I smile at her, trying to stall for time, and slowly reach for my pen.

Come on, brain. Remember the class representative’s name.

I grip the pen and slowly move it to the blank space on the list. Even as I do, my brain is frantically searching my memory for her name.

Finally, the tip of the pen meets the paper. The lead leaves its mark.

However, I couldn’t move the pen. I still hadn’t remembered her name.

My eyes were shaking wildly. And after all that frantic movement, my eyes finally settled on something.

Lena.

Her name tag, which was attached to her chest, had her name written on it.

Although name tags are often ignored by professors, our class representative wore hers as a model for the other students.

She was a class representative who often showed a rigid, almost too diligent side, but now, I wanted to praise that personality. Hooray!

The neatly written list with Lena’s name was taken by Anne and submitted to the professor.

Although there were some obstacles along the way, we successfully formed our group. Celian, Anne, Yuri, Lena, and I. With these five, our group was surely unbeatable.

There was a time when I thought so, too.

“Hey, El?”

“Yeah? What’s up, Celian?”

“Isn’t there too much text on the screen? I think we should reduce the amount a bit.”

“But don’t we need to show everything we researched to explain to the others?”

“No, it’s better if I clean this up here.”

Saying that, Celian deleted the long content I had written, leaving only a few lines.

“El! Why did you put a dog here?!”

“But isn’t it cute? I thought it would grab everyone’s attention.”

“Wow~ It’ll definitely catch their attention! As expected of El!”

Anne clapped her hands, praising me. I still thought that using the picture of a dog sticking out its tongue as a background was a stroke of genius.

“Take it out right now!”

“El?”
“El…”
“El!”
*sigh*

For some reason, every time I touched something, not a single person failed to call me. Every time, the areas I touched disappeared.

Eventually, they stopped calling my name altogether and just sighed, reverting everything to its original state before I touched it.

Why!?

“Uh… El, how about you do the research? I’ll handle the video materials.”

I was even stripped of my original role. At this point, even the oblivious people could tell something was wrong.

In the end, I was kicked out of my original role of making video materials and went to the library to search for reference books for research.

While looking for the book I needed in the section with books on the labyrinth, someone suddenly came up beside me and pulled a book off the shelf.

Ah, it was the book I was looking for…

“Here. Is this the one you were looking for?”

The one who handed me the book was the class representative.

“Hey? Wasn’t the class representative supposed to make the video materials instead of me? Why are you here…”

“Well, researching was originally my job. I was just following to see if you might get lost, to help you find where the related materials are.”

Lena said that and started taking me around, showing me where all the necessary materials were gathered.

“This book might have this title, but it actually has a lot of content about labyrinths. It’s good to know about it.”

“Wow~ If it were me, I wouldn’t even touch this book. What kind of title is that? How did the class representative know about this?”

While I was receiving the handover for the research materials, I naturally asked the question that had been on my mind.

“By the way, why did you decide to join our group, Lena? I thought the others wouldn’t let you.”

“Well, that’s true. But your group seemed like it would get good grades. And—”

Lena, who had been standing close to me, suddenly hugged me tightly.

Before we became close, I hadn’t known, but Lena was surprisingly good at making friends.

I was worried about how she might feel joining our tightly-knit group of four, but to our surprise, she blended in smoothly.

“Ah, El! Here you are! And… Lena?”

Celian, who had found us in the hallway between the bookshelves, spoke up. I wondered what Celian was doing here.

“I’ve been looking for you two since you didn’t come back… What have you been doing?”

Celian’s voice was colder than usual. After all, they had been working hard on the group project, while we were supposed to be doing research.

Unlike me, who could sense the mood (at least with Celian), Lena didn’t seem to notice Celian’s state.

“Oh, Celian. We found all the materials we needed, so we were about to head back up… Huh?”

Lena, who had been hugging me, released me and was talking to Celian when she suddenly stopped, as if she had noticed something. She tilted her head for a moment, then—

Boom!

She hugged me again.

?

Lena quickly released her arms again.

“Class representative?”

But the class representative, as if not hearing me, silently hugged me again, only to let go quickly and step back. Lena repeated the process of hugging and releasing me several times.

“Hehe~ So, you two were like that?”

“Huh? Like what?”

“Th-That! What do you mean by that?!”

Unlike me, who didn’t understand what was going on, Celian shouted with her head lowered. Did Celian understand what Lena was talking about?

“Hm~? Was it one-sided?”

“I don’t have any particular prejudices, you know? How about it? How about it? I think I could help!”

Lena seemed to be offering to help Celian with something.

Celian either accepted Lena’s offer or simply leaned in, and they whispered softly to each other, not letting anyone else hear their conversation.

It seems like I’m being a bit left out, but… since the two of them have gotten closer, maybe it’s all for the best?