As I reached the club room, all the first years except Mei-Yu Wang, or rather Mi-chan, her self-proclaimed nickname were already here.
Surprisingly, the room was locked and there was no sign of any seniors.
Among the first years, there was a small pale girl with sharp brown eyes, charcoal black hair up to her neck, and a bright small smile. Her demeanor somehow seemed ruthless and friendly at the same time.
Hana Akiko, class 1-A. Stamina, strength, and critical thinking at 89, 93, and 139, respectively; the remaining were unknown.
Beside her was another girl, with large crimson eyes, waist-long blonde hair, average height, and white, smooth skin. She seemed like someone who would love to keep talking about anyone and anything.
Yuna Fujiki of class 1-B. Stamina, strength, combat ability, and critical thinking at 49, 53, 5,7, and 106.
A few meters away, there was a brown haired guy, with a tinge of yellow in his eyes and tanned skin. He was quite tall and seemed like someone I wouldn't want to pick a fight with (though that applied to almost everyone), leaning against a wall with his arms folded. He seemed a bit uncomfortable, but a grin flashed on his face and he waved at me as if we had been friends for years.
Kaito Fujii, again, class 1-B. Academic ability, memorization power, and critical thinking at 84, 91, and 99.
He seemed clearly out of place here. You'd expect someone like him to be in a sports club, but here he was, learning to cook.
"Hey, are you all first years too?" I asked while waving back at Kaito.
"Yeah, it seems like the seniors aren't here yet," Kaito replied with a small nod.
"Late on the first day, huh… I think we should learn a few things from th-"
Words choked in my throat as I found a tall girl with raven black short hair, sharp black eyes, and a dangerous grin on her face right beside me, as if appearing out of thin air.
"Were you saying anything, shorty?"
Watching the giant… assets in front of me, I took a step back. Although I really wanted to step forward.
[Name: Mai Shiori
Class: 3-C
Physical stats:
Stamina - ??
Strength - ??
Combat technique - ??
Average physical stats - ??
Mental stats:
Academic ability - ??
Memorisation power - ??
Critical thinking - ??
Average mental stats - ??]
"Jeez, you never change, do you, president? I still remember how you jumped at me last year. Seriously, why do you hate first years so much?"
I looked behind to find a guy about average height, with silver-white hair up to his neck, and an unreadable expression. It was Nakamoto, standing with a hand on my shoulder.
There were others too, 6 third years and 4 second years. Along with them was Mii-chan, who likely met them on the way.
After a quick introduction, we were split into two groups, the first was for the ones who were already decent or better at cooking and only joined because of interest in learning new recipes. While the other one had newcomers like me who barely knew anything.
Mii-chan was the only first-year student to join the first group, while the rest of us were in the latter one.
Explaining to us a few rules, do's and don'ts unenthusiastically, Mai handed us the keys for the room. The rules were quite lax and any member could even use the club room after just asking for permission from the group.
After knowing that there were near to no limits, I regretted buying all that cooking stuff. But of course, it would be quite impractical to come here daily just to cook food, so I would still have to buy most of it later.
Surprisingly, the focus on health was much more than I had expected. It was nice to know that they didn't only focus on taste. Added sugar had a strict limit, which was one rare thing in this club.
Before we even realised, an hour was over and we were already closing up. Since we were already in the same group, it didn't take long to share contacts.
———
With nothing else to do, I spent the rest of my time meditating since I really wanted to get rid of [ADHD] as soon as I could. Tired and bored, I hit the bed around 10 PM.
The next few days passed with nothing eventful happening, and soon it was Saturday. By this time, I had managed to get rid of [ADHD], which really was a pleasant thing to experience. Now I was focusing on taking the mental skills to 100.
It was quite simple to get the additional points for 'exceeding' the tasks, as the system called it. But it wasn't easy. If I were to complete a task twice, I would get one additional point in that stat. And the limit was 6 times, giving me 5 additional points. Moreover, the tasks seemed to be getting harder the more points I gained.
Ike, whom I had started slowly distancing myself from, was in a really good mood today.
That was because he, Professor, and a few others had been 'planning' for today's swimming session from the very day we got the schedule itself. I was repeatedly invited, but shamelessly used my club as an excuse every time.
Soon, I was in the locker room with the pervert gang, unsurprisingly well-built Sudou, and Ayanokoji.
I was in no position to judge others' physique, though, since I was probably one of the most disappointing ones. Even though I had been completing my missions daily, I couldn't find the slightest change in my body. It was most likely because of the fact that I spent all my points on mental points.
Maybe I should focus on taking my physical stats to 100 once I am done with Academics and Memorisation Power, it'll make it easier to complete the daily missions, too.
"This school's really the best! It's even better than a city pool!" Ike shouted, bringing me out of my thoughts.
And indeed, he wasn't lying. The 50-meter pool was well-maintained, with crystal clear water. He and the rest of his pervert gang started talking about their plans, though me, Ayanokoji, and even Sudou maintained a clear distance from them.
Surprisingly, Ayanokoji seemed oddly interested in his group, but didn't go over there. I had better expectations from the guy…
It turned out that most of the girls didn't join the pool, thanks to Ike's stunt, and were at the observation deck. Well, he had been so obvious from the start that this was nearly impossible to avoid.
Though surprisingly, some girls were still here. It included Kushida, Horikita, Onodera, and a few others. After wasting around a few minutes talking, we heard a voice.
"Alright, everyone gather up!" Our PE teacher, with quite a well built body, and unused brain– literally, spoke. "26 people, only huh? I expected more, but that works."
Soon, everyone was placed in a group to start a 50-meter swim. Since a couple of students didn't know how to swim, they were allowed to touch the bottom of the pool with their feet. Once everyone had completed that, the teacher gave a small nod.
"Anyway, it seems almost everyone can swim. You guys can start competing against each other then. 50m freestyle, separate yourselves by gender." He said. "The first-place winner will get a bonus of 5,000 points. While the last place will get additional classes, so prepare yourselves."
Woah, giving away points? This is neat, although I don't have any chances of winning. They should've done this in studies too, at least some people will stop sleeping.
[Mission: 'Win the race.'
Description: Get rank 1 in the swimming competition.
Difficulty: S+
Rewards:
New ability - [(S- grade) Swimming Mastery]
+200 available points
Penalty: None]
My eyes widened looking at the rewards. But sadly, I knew that it was an impossible win. There were people with more than double of my strength and combat technique, leaving me no chances of winning unless some miracle happened. Disappointed, I commanded the screen to disappear and calmed down.
'What's even the point of giving me a mission like that, huh?! Are you just mocking me?' I lashed out at the system, calmly.
Only that was then did I realise that in the direction in which I was staring stood none other than Kushida, again. And of course, anyone would have a feeling if someone was staring with crazy wide eyes. The only thing that gave me some relief was that nearly everyone had their eyes locked in on her, unable to move them away, and she seemed to be enjoying the attention.
Since there were only 10 girls, their race was conducted in 2 groups of 5, the winner being the one with the least overall time. Kushida's popularity had skyrocketed during the short time she had been here at a scary rate. And she was already the most popular person in the whole class, to begin with.
In the first race, nearly every boy was cheering for Kushida, even though she wasn't even in this group. Here, Horikita defeated others with a huge margin with a score of 28 seconds.
While in the second group, the competition was tough. Even though Kushida got a solid score of 31 seconds, she was fourth. While Onodera had a score of only 26 seconds and easily won the first place, taking away 5000 points. In hindsight, it made sense since she was in the swimming club.
In boys, the first group included Sudou and Ayanokoji. I was quite interested in this one, but was shocked at the results. Sudou finished in mere 25 seconds, but Ayanokoji only placed third, taking around 36 seconds. While he shouldn't have had any reason to do so, I felt that he held back or was just specifically bad at swimming. Because his stats spoke a different story…
The second group included me, Hirata, and thankfully Sotomura. While I was clearly out of shape, I was confident I could at least defeat Sotomura and escape the extra classes. The result was just as expected. Hirata won, I got fourth place, taking around 40 seconds.
The third round shocked nearly everyone. Koenji casually won with a score of 23.22 seconds as if it were a walk in the park, outscoring Sudou. Moreover, he didn't even seem to be breathing heavily.
It was a facade, or he had simply no need to, I did not know. But even if it was, it was impressive in its own way.
"23 seconds?! That's close to professional level!" Someone shouted.
In the finals, the results were the same as the overall timings. Koenji beat everyone with a landslide, with Sudou managing to grab second spot while being nearly 5 meters away from him. Hirata was third.
———
With my crushing loss in the swimming race, I understood that none of the stats were useless and taking all the stats to at least 100 was more of a necessity than a wish. Though I still wouldn't be able to complete missions like the previous one with monsters like Koenji and Sudou in my class, my chances would indeed go up with my stats being a bit more balanced.
With that in mind, I decided to shift my focus from mental skills to physical skills, making getting rid of [Weakness] my priority since that would remove the 10 points penalty from my physical stats, making it the fastest way to grow, overall.
Thinking about that, I made my way into the club room. Although we only needed to come here 3 hours a week, all the first years came daily since we didn't have much to do. Mii-chan, with her cooking skills, had naturally taken the role of mentor and helped us all readily. If I had to describe her personality, it would be simply the female version of Hirata.
My relationship with all of them was already quite good, especially Kaito and Mii-chan. While Kaito was indeed interested in sports, he had developed an interest in cooking because of his mother and wanted to surprise her after three years. So he simply went to the gym during the morning. I learnt a lot about his class too, which sounded much more united and better than our class.
His face was really a sight to see when he learnt that my seatmate had started bunking the classes and only came a few minutes before the lunch time. Well at least Sudou focused on the basketball club, Ike was in an even worse condition.
When I finally finished making a plate of sushi, a screen appeared in front of me.
[Congratulations, you have gained a new ability!
Ability: [(D Grade) Basic Cooking] - User can easily learn to cook basic dishes with decent taste.]
Satisfied, I dismissed the screen and tasted the sushi myself. It was another advantage of the cooking club. I had already saved quite a few private points because the cost of ingredients was also paid by the school. Of course, only for the food made in the club, but it still saved me a meal per day.
Not to mention, I also got to taste a variety of dishes since everyone naturally shared them for review. All in all, joining the club turned out to be a really good idea.