บท 17: Don't Fly Too Close To The Sun, Icarus
A day had passed since the end of the student council trial.
Classes had just finished for the day, students were free to do whatever they liked.
As I made my way back into my dorm room, I noticed an envelope dropped right in the middle of my floor.
They didn't even try to make it subtle this time.
I opened the envelope revealing what was inside.
"I guess getting you to join the student council was a bit of a stretch. I should've known that you wouldn't even try. Well, as your local quest master I'll give you an easier one this time, well, I wouldn't really call it easier per se...
I'll give you Trista this time to help you. I figured that you would realise that she wasn't the actual writer of these letters. Just to let you know, I delivered this letter myself~
Your mission is to stop me from becoming the student body leader
because if you don't, I have a surefire way of getting you and her expelled.
Anyways the game starts now, I'll be making my moves, so you better stop me before it's too late."
Huh?
A surefire way of getting me expelled... and why did they also include Trista in the threat?
At this moment I don't even know who is sending these letters.
Why are they so motivated to get me in particular to do things?
I wonder what they had to gain from all of this...
*
It was getting late into the night.
I was about to make my way into the bathroom to brush my teeth before I heard some knocking on my door.
"Oliver..." The voice wasn't Maia's.
I made my way over to the door and opened it.
"What's the matter."
I let them inside and took a seat on my bed.
"I don't want to be expelled..."
An anxious and unstable girl was sitting crossed-legged on the ground.
I guess she had also been informed of the consequences.
"Please do something this time... I really don't want to be expelled."
At first, I thought the perpetrator might have used her to emotionally trick me into acting, but after seeing her for a little while, I could tell that this girl was just another victim.
What am I meant to do in this situation...
I didn't want to dance around like a marionette doll in this perpetrators hands but also they didn't really leave me another choice.
I didn't have any evidence that she even had the capability of expelling us, nor the capability of being able to become the student body leader.
"Oliver." She suddenly called out my name. "I'm not sure why you were dragged into this..." She clenched her fists in determination.
"I don't want you to worry about this,
I'll fix it for both of us, then, we can start over."
We can start over.
We can start over.
As she exclaimed these words, her shaking breath at the end was enough to show her lack of confidence.
Something about her words struck me like a bolt of lightning.
"Trista... it'll be fine."
She looked up at me, unconvinced.
"B-but... Even I don't even know where to start, she never showed her face to me, and-"
"because I already know who it is."
*
Almost like it was routine, I was awoken by the sound of my phone.
"Student Council Alert - New rule passed!"
The perpetrator had dropped many clues within her letter and her actions in general.
Firstly, she called herself the 'quest master' meaning she was listening in on our conversation that day. Secondly, she stated that she delivered the most recent letter by hand. The alert also was conveniently timed right after she stated her intent to start 'making moves.'
She had likely wanted me to go on a cat and mouse chase for her enjoyment.
Unfortunately for her, I did not plan to play along.
"New rule - Reshuffling of ranks will now occur during the midterm exams as well as the end of year exams. Classes will not change but ranks and student council positions will.
Votes: Yes - 8, No - 5"
It was an expected development. The perpetrator really wanted to get things moving.
Despite knowing who the perpetrator was, I still needed to come up with a way to stop her from becoming her student body leader.
Although I had observed her a little bit in the past, I was still not completely sure what she was capable of, however, I did know that she was indeed talented.
Oh well.
I slowly got out of bed and packed my bags. There wasn't much I needed to bring as most of our textbooks were already in the lockers.
They really need to change the phone notification system, not only did it sound at six in the morning, there was also no way of turning it off or even making it quieter. Instead of going back to bed, I decided that I might as well get up early and go for a walk to the little exercise park for something to do.
I took my bag with me because I didn't want to make another trip back to my dorm.
The morning air was something quite refreshing. It was still a little bit chilly so I wrapped a scarf around my neck. The school didn't issue any scarves so you had to buy them yourself. As I walked on the slightly dewy grass I noticed Noah, making his way towards the library.
"Hey, Ollie!"
"Hey."
"Were you also woken up by the alert this morning?"
"Yeah."
"It's annoying isn't it."
"Yeah."
"You're as quiet as always."
After the brief interaction, we eventually parted ways.
"Anyways I'm going to go study in the library now, I want to get higher in the ranks, you should too, you know."
"I'll be fine."
"You really should, you're the lowest-ranked in class C, don't you have any aspirations to reach higher?"
Aspirations to reach higher?
I never really had any feelings like that.
After a while, I made my way onto the bark.
The exercise park at our school was quite well fitted-out, unlike conventional exercise parks which are generally for elderly people and included pretty low-intensity machines, the park at our school was fitted with exercise bikes, dumbells, pull up bars, bench presses and a punching bag. All of the equipment was covered with rubberised sealant in case of rain and still usable when wet.
Security cameras were placed around the area and there was no real good reason to steal any of the equipment anyways. Thus, the school was able to provide lots of equipment that would generally be stolen in any normal public facility.
The school also had a proper indoor gym, but I felt like being outside this morning.
As I rode on the exercise bike, I pondered my plan for dealing with the whole, student body leader situation. How pointless it all was.
Sayuri, all this flying near the sun is going to get you burnt, you know.
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