Chapter 88: Chapter 87 - Festival Hell Begins

The festival of Seiran Academy has begun! Bright & sunny morning, beautifully decorated with lots of colorful banners, and a deadly amount of enthusiasm from the students.

To most students, this is the most exciting day of the year.

For Kuro Kurogane, this is the start of a living nightmare.

How does Kuro know this? Seventeen texts already from his phone vibrating as early as 8:00 am!

Seventeen.

And the festival hasn’t even opened to the public yet.

Standing at the main entrance of the festival, Kuro is at a sea of students, bringing their decorations, supplies, and equipment from every end of campus to create a magnificent festival.

The school has changed overnight.

The hallways are covered with decorations.

The courtyard is lined with food!

Every club has a sign advertising their event.

There is movement everywhere.

And there are problems.

Problems everywhere.

Just as Kuro is taking it all in, he hears.

"Kuro!"

He turns and, coming toward him carrying a clipboard is Minami Asakura.

From where he stands, he can see that she has the look of exhaustion that could only be described as that of someone who just experienced a week-long war!

"Good morning, sensei."

"It isn’t."

"..."

"..."

"It’s 6 minutes until opening."

"And three clubs have already reported issues."

Kuro just nods his head.

What else can he do?

That sounds about right.

Minami is now adjusting her glasses.

"Okay, the football club lost half their equipment."

"Already?"

"Yes, already."

"The gaming club didn’t have their Extension cords. They can’t have them?"

"They can’t have them."

"The Science Club has advised not creating explosions, and apparently the Science Club thought that was a suggestion."

Kuro stared blankly.

"So they thought not to?"

"Apparently they were under the impression that it was a suggestion."

Kuro sighed.

Today was going to take an unbelievably extended time to finish.

A very long time.

At exactly 9 AM on the dot, the school festival formally began.

And the students yelled and cheered.

And the festival attendees began arriving.

And the parents began to arrive.

And the children began running around in excitement.

And the principal gave a speech that no one actually listened to.

And as soon as that first note was read, there was an unbelievable amount of action.

The very first place Kuro visited was the Manga Research Club.

Or to be exact...

Rika’s Butler Café is another very dangerous place.

Possibly the most dangerous attraction in the entire school.

Kuro regretted entering the café as soon as he opened the door.

He opened the door to a jammed, wall to wall café.

All of the seats inside the café were filled with students and school festival participants.

And when fully extended the line of people waiting to get inside the classroom was out of the hallway and possibly out of the Fakultät’s building.

At the center of everything was Rika Saionji.

Rika was smiling, and holding a pen, pencil, or whatever it is that girls like to use next to their big bouncing breasts.

Rika’s smile got way bigger.

This was not a good thing!

"Good Morning Kuro."

Rika smiled even bigger and even wider.

This just got incredibly more serious!

"W-what are you writing?"

"Research."

Kuro had no desire to know!

Not all answers provide safety.

Suddenly, Kuro noticed the café was full. And it was instantly clear to him why, the two sisters, Akari and Aoi. The two women were in butler uniforms and standing amongst the tables at the café.

They wore black jackets, white gloves, and their hair was styled very neatly.

Kuro found the two to be surprisingly good-looking in their outfits; though he has to admit that he sometimes has feelings for the women because of their thick thighs.

Sadly, Akari was a little too drunk on the attention.

"Welcome to our café, we are the butlers here," Akari said by dramatically bowing and feigning a shake in her breasts at the same time. By the time she finished, a few of the students sitting nearby almost dropped from shock.

In contrast to her sister, Aoi served drinks with grace and elegance but did not have an ample breast line like Akari nor did she have sexy curves which is a good thing since she appeared to take no notice of the fact that half of the restaurant was watching her.

( FUCKING LOLICONS )

Rika was busy drawing pictures at a speed that most people would consider impossible to do in such a short time.

However, Kuro decided not to investigate Rika’s work.

Unfortunately, his phone vibrated and indicated that there was an emergency.

Emergency number one was from the Football Club.

Kuro arrived at the field about five minutes later; the club president immediately greeted him upon his arrival.

"We have an issue."

"Really?"

"There is a missing target."

"What’s the target?"

"Giant target." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

"A giant target?"

"A three-meter target, and it’s missing."

"How can a club lose a giant target?"

At this point, it was clear from the president’s body language and tight lipped expressions that he had no clue why they had lost their target.

After searching for approximately 15 minutes, it was discovered that the target had been taken by one of the other clubs that were practicing on the same field.

It appears that the Science Club had borrowed the power cord without asking for its use during their experiment.

As Kuro arrived, he saw that there was a great deal of smoke coming from the Science Club building.

It was not dangerous, but certainly enough smoke that everyone was concerned.

When Kuro arrived, several students were running about with fire extinguishers.

Minami stood next to Kuro, with her hand on her forehead.

Kuro asked Minami, "What happened?"

She replied, "We had a chemical reaction."

Kuro then asked, "Was it bad?"

Minami answered, "No!"

She paused, then said, "It was just noisy!"

And with that, there was another small explosion from inside the building.

Next, a student walked out of the building proudly yelling, "We did it!!!"

Minami’s eye began to twitch.

Kuro quietly slipped away before he exploded as well.

Kuro’s phone vibrated again.

This was his second emergency call.

This time from the Music Club.

The outdoor stage was full of students getting ready to perform.

However, there was a problem.

They had no music.

The sound system was dead and a panicked student ran to Kuro saying, "Kuro, help!"

Kuro replied, "I know."

"What do you mean, you don’t even know what the problem is?"

Kuro simply answered, "The speakers?"

The student, now confused, asked, "How did you know?".

Kuro simply pointed towards the stage which was still silent.

The student quickly ran to check the sound system and found that someone had unplugged the main power cord.

The perpetrator?

A member of the Gaming Club.

Why did the Gaming Club member unplug the cord?

He needed a power outlet for his gaming tournament.

Kuro stared at the student.

The student stared back at Kuro.

Kuro said nothing.

Then, the Gaming Club student said, "I thought nobody was using it".

Kuro realized the reason for Minami’s tiredness all of a sudden.

Regarding Minami

Twenty minutes later, he found her still exhausted by the admin building with her clipboard in hand along with three different report forms.

"Let’s do a status update".

She handed him one of the forms.

Three complaints.

1) A child got lost near the courtyard.

2) An unsuspecting soccer ball made its way through one of the classroom windows.

3) One of the gaming club members was trying to charge admission with virtual currency.

After Kuro read through, he gave the document back to her.

"I need a raise."

"You don’t get paid."

"Exactly."

"That’s a fair point", Minami thought.

Another teacher arrived.

"Asakura-Sensei!"

Minami visibly cringed.

"What now?"

"We lost 2 volunteers."

"How?"

"They walked away."

"Why?"

"They were looking for food."

The teacher continued.

"We still can’t find them."

Minami looked up to the sky.

As if she were waiting for either answers, or some patience or perhaps both.

Kuro volunteered to search. He knew that unless he did it, nobody would.

The two missing volunteers were found and they were eating takoyaki.

The two of them looked dazed when told that they were supposed to be working.

Kuro was too drained to be angry about the entire situation.

By noon on the day of the festival, things were organized chaos

Somebody was getting food at the Butler Café, and the football team was experiencing somewhat of a function.

The Science Club kept terrifying everyone!

The Music Club fixed their sound system!

The Gaming Club somehow started three separate tournaments.

Students laughed.

Visitors had a great time.

Parents took pictures.

Children were running around with excitement.

It all looked wonderful on the outside.

Only Kuro and Minami knew what was really going on.

The festival was being held together by a combination of determination, duct tape, and pure luck.

Mostly, luck.

Kuro finally found a moment to catch his breath as the afternoon approached.

A mistake.

Because his phone rang immediately after he finally found a moment to catch his breath.

Again.

He looked down at the screen.

Another problem.

Of course.

Minami was sitting on a bench nearby.

She looked completely defeated.

The festival wasn’t even halfway over yet.

And she already looked ready to turn in a resignation letter.

Kuro sat down next to her for a moment.

"Tired?"

"Very."

"Want good news?"

"Is there good news?"

"The school hasn’t blown up yet."

Minami thought about that for a second.

And then nodded.

"That is technically good news."

A couple of seconds passed.

Then the Science Club building exploded with an extremely loud bang!

There was a huge cloud of smoke rising into the air.

They both stared forward in silence.

"Technically was the key word."

Finally, Minami laughed for the first time that day.

Just a small little laugh!

Just a tired little laugh!

But it was real!

And then her phone rang!

She looked down at the screen.

She immediately jumped up from her seat.

"What is going on?" Kuro asked.

Minami read the message.

Minami took a deep breath.

"The Principal has gone missing".

Complete silence.

Kuro finally got back up from the chair.

The festival had just gotten started a couple of hours ago.

Once again more than a few more hours were still remaining, and yet somehow...

Things were about to be getting started again soon.