The atmosphere in the laboratory today was even more oppressive than usual.
The air was filled with the scent of carrots, potatoes, and a bit of onion—the materials needed for this class, to be cut open and placed under the microscope for observing cell structures.
The teacher was an old gnome in a white lab coat, hunched over, explaining today’s content in a completely flat tone.
She usually did not care much about classroom discipline, and many students chatted or scrolled on their phones during her lessons.
But right now, the entire classroom was enveloped in a strange silence.
Seats in the laboratory were not fixed. Students could freely choose their positions, so it was very clear that the classroom had been divided into two areas.
One side was the densely packed area where Yumiko and her underlings had gathered together. Their eyes occasionally glanced in a certain direction while their voices stayed very low, whispering and plotting something.
On the other side was the direction they kept peeking at.
The silver-haired girl sat there alone.
She seemed to be sitting inside an isolation zone. A large empty circle of seats surrounded her, and no one dared approach that area even half a step.
Mashiro, however, looked completely unbothered. She kept her head down flipping through the textbook.
Her long silver-white hair fell from the side of her shoulders, covering most of her face and making her expression impossible to read.
“…Tch. Does that guy think she’s so cool or something?”
A underling with long flaxen hair was the first to speak. Her nails tapped idly against the desk as she shot a sideways glance toward Mashiro.
“She nearly stabbed Boss Yumiko’s eye out earlier, yet she’s still sitting there attending class like nothing happened. Her face is thicker than city walls.”
“Exactly, exactly. She doesn’t even look at what grade of trash she is.”
“Bloodsuckers, huh. Their blood is probably cold, so of course their faces are thick.”
Several people chimed in one after another, voices kept low but full of disdain.
“Hmm hmm~♪”
Huacai crossed her legs. The vertical pupils of her snake eyes gleamed with a cold light in the dimness as she observed the surroundings with a smiling face.
She did not join that boring round of insults. Instead, she rested her chin on Yumiko’s shoulder and leaned close to her ear to whisper:
“Speaking of which… Boss Yumiko, when do you plan to make your move? That debt from earlier can’t just be left like this, right?”
Yumiko’s leopard tail unconsciously flicked once against the back of the chair.
She held her head high, arms crossed over her chest, maintaining that lofty posture. Yet when her gaze drifted toward Mashiro’s profile, her pupils still contracted for an instant.
“…What’s the rush.”
She paused.
“Revenge is something that values timing. When I make my move, she will naturally understand what true terror is.”
“Boss is so cool!”
“As expected of Boss Yumiko, she really has vision!”
Several underlings immediately began cheering.
“Oh~? So that means you’re not refusing to act, you’re just waiting for the right timing?”
Huacai’s smile deepened another layer. Her voice carried the faint hissing of a snake flicking its tongue.
“I knew it. There’s no way Boss Yumiko would be scared by trash like that. It’s just that…”
Her finger slid down along Yumiko’s shoulder, inch by inch, until it finally stopped on her wrist and tapped twice lightly with the fingertip.
“If you drag it out too long, I’m afraid someone might misunderstand… misunderstand that our Boss is actually… afraid.”
“Hey, Huacai.”
Lingsha frowned and reached out to grab Huacai by the back of the collar to pull her away, but it was already too late.
“Afraid? You’re saying I’m afraid?”
Yumiko let out a cold snort and stood up directly from her seat.
With words pushed this far, she believed that if she still did not act, she would no longer have the qualifications to remain the “Queen” of this class.
She smoothed her skirt hem, casually picked up a pen from the desk, reversed her grip on it in her palm, and strode toward Mashiro’s direction.
The whispering around her gradually faded. She passed behind several students. The sound of her heels striking the floor grew clearer and clearer until it finally landed at the edge of that isolation zone.
Mashiro seemed to have noticed something.
She slowly raised her head.
Blood-red eyes emerged from the gaps in her silver-white hair, the focus of her gaze solidifying on Yumiko.
And at this moment, Yumiko…
“Ah, this onion is really quite the onion.”
She stood on the other side of the lab table, one hand holding an onion and carefully observing it, the other hand hidden behind her back.
Her fingertips seemed to still be trembling slightly.
Mashiro looked at her for a few seconds, said nothing at all, then lowered her head and returned her attention to the textbook.
Thump thump.
Yumiko felt her heart pounding as if it were about to explode.
She hurriedly turned around. Her footsteps were twice as fast as when she had come, and she walked straight back to her own seat, setting the onion down on the desk with a thud.
What does that mean?
The entire little group fell silent. Everyone stared at the onion that had been brought back, their minds stuffed full of question marks.
“…Hmph.”
Yumiko raised a hand to smooth the golden waves cascading from her shoulder and lifted her chin slightly.
“The threat has already taken effect. Right now I can take her onion. Tomorrow I can pluck out her eyeball. That guy is probably already trembling in fear, right? This is called psychological pressure. You all should learn from this.”
“…S-so that’s how it is. Boss is mighty!”
“What high-level tactics. As expected of the bullying queen, so classy!”
“Learned, learned. Taking notes right now!”
The underlings suddenly understood and scrambled to heap on rainbow-colored praise.
Huacai was being covered by a hand over her mouth nearby, her shoulders shaking convulsively as she laughed so hard she nearly slid under the chair.
Lingsha, who was responsible for covering that mouth, looked at the innocent onion and lightly sighed.
Just then, the front door of the laboratory was pushed open a crack.
“…Reporting! We’re late! We’re very sorry!”
A light-blue head squeezed in through the gap. Tanuki ears twitched with apology.
It was Ningning. She pressed her palms together toward the teacher on the podium in a gesture of apology and even stuck out her tongue to act cute and beg forgiveness.
A few seconds later, another petite pink-and-white figure appeared from behind her, holding textbooks and breathing a little hard.
She raised a hand to wipe the thin layer of sweat that had seeped out under her bangs.
“It’s these two shorties.” Someone in the little group muttered under their breath.
“They actually said ‘reporting’ to the teacher? Are they elementary schoolers? So embarrassing.”
“One idiot and one mute. Tch tch. If they weren’t somewhat diligent with errands and didn’t have a bit of recognition value in their looks, who knows why Boss Yumiko even took them in.”
“How about we just expel them? They haven’t been hanging out with us much lately anyway, and they always drag us down during group activities.”
“Agreed. Expel them, expel them, demote them to slaves.”
Several underlings shifted their firepower onto the two small figures at the door, their tones full of disdain.
The gnome teacher pushed up her glasses, said nothing, and simply nodded, indicating for them to come in and attend class.
Ningning walked in a couple of steps and raised her head to start looking for seats.
Most of the seats inside were already taken. Aside from the empty circle around Mashiro, only two spots remained in the front corner.
Perfect.
She headed in that direction, turning her head as she walked to call Yukina to follow—yet she froze. That pink-haired loli was gone.
After looking around in every direction, Ningning finally found Yukina’s figure. But at this moment, it was not only her. The gazes of the entire laboratory focused on Yukina.
Tap.
The petite figure had already entered that isolation zone.
Yukina held her textbooks and walked through the empty chairs, finally stopping beside Mashiro’s seat.
Those underlings who had still been whispering, along with Yumiko who was studying the onion, all held their breath at this moment.
“Reizuki-san.”
Yukina leaned forward a little, blinked as if stealing a glance, and used the back of her finger to gently tuck a few slightly damp strands of pink-white hair that had fallen by her face behind her ear.
In those exposed sakura-colored eyes was a faint smile as she faced the blood-red eyes that, when seated, were almost level with her own.
“May I… sit beside you?”
Her voice was very light.
Light enough that it seemed to carry some kind of magic that could pull a person in.