Morning sunlight slanted through the tall glass windows into the classroom, throwing bright blocks of light onto the blue-gray desks.
Overhead, several newly replaced ceiling fans rotated at an unhurried pace, producing a low, drowsy hmmm that stirred the tiny dust motes hanging in the air.
The shadows of the fan blades drifted slowly across desks and floor like a lazy pendulum. A near-stagnant quiet filled the room, broken only by the math teacher's rising-and-falling lecture—monotonous as a tide lapping against the shoreline of consciousness.
The screee of chalk on the blackboard, and the occasional rustle of turning pages, became insignificant variations in that hypnotic main melody.
Come to think of it… maybe it was exactly this mix of low natural noise and human voice that created New Eridu's strange classroom spectacle—ten minutes into class and half the room was already asleep. The "naturally occurring sleeper," so to speak.
Ellen thought that, then lifted a hand to hide her reflexive yawn.
Sorry, teacher. I've truly reached my limit.
She propped her heavy chin on her knuckles. Her ruby-red eyes drooped half-shut, long thick lashes casting a tired fan of shadow beneath them.
Her gaze unfocused. The formulas on the blackboard warped and blurred, melting like a maze dissolving into fog. Her consciousness was a little boat about to sink, bobbing up and down in the teacher's steady voice-waves.
Mm. I'll hand in my notes anyway. I'm sincere about it, so please… let me sleep properly…
With that self-comforting excuse, Ellen flicked a glance at Rin beside her—still listening attentively—and closed her eyes in relief, ready to sink into mud-deep sleep.
But maybe the teacher could no longer pretend not to see student laziness. Or maybe that sacred duty of teaching finally reminded him not to indulge them.
The math teacher pushed up his glasses, walked a few steps to the side… and pulled open the curtains.
In an instant—!
Blinding white light poured in like a burst dam, precisely converging on the top of his head, the edge of his lenses, and the smug curve of his grin—three beams of brilliance that exploded like tactical flashbangs.
Students wailed, like vampires whose coffins had been ripped open at noon, curling up in pain and scrambling to hide.
Ah… the scorching truth!!!
"Now then—suppose functions f1 and f2 share the same singular point at x = a, with k1 and k2 being arbitrary constants…"
The teacher's mood grew cheerful again.
Meanwhile, a certain round little shark-girl who'd been doing commissions all night forced herself up and screamed silently inside.
Ugh, there are still seven classes left… damn it, I really wish the broadcast would suddenly say, for some irrelevant reason, school is cancelled for seven days… three days… one day is fine too. Just give me a break…
This lonely morning—wrapped in the math teacher's voice and a shark's wordless howl—I can feel its sigh in the solitude of my heart.
—Ellen Joe, so says she.
"Ellen? Ellen!"
A call filled with obvious concern pierced the fragile barrier of sleepiness she was trying to rebuild.
"Huh?!" Ellen jolted like she'd been shocked, her muddled red eyes wide with startled blankness. It took a moment before she finally focused on the three enlarged faces in front of her.
"I'm here. What?" Her voice still carried thick sleepiness—and annoyed irritation at being interrupted.
"Oooh—!" Ruby, blonde hair held back with a striking red headband, clutched her chest as if pierced straight through, threw herself backward dramatically, and looked about ready to collapse on the spot.
"Ellen is so cold! That casual little 'what' is like an ice-dipped spike stabbed into my fragile heart! I'm wilting, wuu wuu wuu…"
She even covered her face with pale hands like two frost-killed leaves, letting an exaggerated sob leak through her fingers—as if that thin barrier could preserve the last shred of a maiden's dignity trembling in the wind.
"Ruby. Childish." Ellen sighed and fully opened her eyes.
Ruby immediately froze into "stone," dropped to her knees like she'd lost all structural support, and even her golden hair seemed to dim.
Ellen turned to the other two.
Rin stood like a spear—back straight, gaze sharp and composed behind her glasses.
Mona tilted her head slightly, big clear eyes filled with pure worry, a cute-wrapped fruit candy pinched between her fingers.
Ellen pursed her lips and softened her tone a little. "Rin, Mona… what's up—"
Before she finished, Mona had already pressed the candy into her hand. The cool sweet touch made Ellen pause.
"…Thanks."
"You looked like someone had pulled your spine out all class," Rin said, pushing up her "wisdom-sealing" glasses. In the bright sunlight on the rooftop, the lenses flashed with calm, razor-edged clarity—like a detective locking onto the key clue through layers of fog.
"Your energy bar was visibly deep in the danger-red zone. Once all impossibilities are eliminated, whatever remains—no matter how unbelievable—must be the truth."
She stared straight at Ellen.
"You stayed up again."
As expected, the shark who'd fled to the rooftop for some peace immediately showed a flicker of guilty panic—like ripples spreading across a calm surface after a stone dropped in.
More tellingly, the strong shark tail behind her began swaying side to side in small, involuntary motions, betraying how unsettled she was.
"I-I didn't stay up that long…" Ellen tried to sound casual, but her ending drifted with obvious guilt.
"Tell the truth." Rin's voice stayed quiet, but carried an undeniable weight. Her gaze was surgical.
"What time did you sleep?"
"Ten… eleven…" Ellen's eyes slid toward a rusty pipe beside them.
"Hmm—?!" Rin drew out a suspicious hum that came with pressure.
Meanwhile Mona's face screamed Really? I don't believe you, and Ruby—who had apparently recovered from "petrification" to full HP—lunged forward like a shark smelling blood, hands on hips, her expression clearly spelling: Only a ghost would believe that.
Three pairs of eyes—three high-powered searchlights—locked onto Ellen, each with a different texture of judgment, forming an invisible net of pressure.
Ellen finally collapsed under the sheer girl-squad aura. Her shoulders slumped. Her voice dropped.
"Fine… one a.m. But… that's not that different from eleven, right?" She tried a last weak struggle with flimsy logic.
"…Ellen." Rin's tone was calm, but it sank into the bones.
"Make it clear—I'm not Ruby's type—"
She paused, flicking a glance at the blonde who'd perked up her ears.
"—the kind who gets easily bewitched by flashy 'CRAZY DISCOUNT!' 'BUY ONE GET TEN!' signs outside some new corner shop, then dives headfirst into a carefully arranged 'gentle trap,' gets sweet-talked dizzy by a smiling clerk, empties her already-thin wallet willingly, and ends up permanently broke…"
"GWAH—!" Ruby let out a tragic screech like her tail had been stepped on, dropped to her knees again, and pounded the cold rooftop floor.
"Why?! Why must you, Rin, so precisely—so repeatedly—tear open my bloody wounds that haven't even scabbed over?! My heart… it hurts!"
Rin ignored the dramatic background entirely. Her eyes—polar ice that never melted—stabbed straight into Ellen's wavering gaze.
Ellen felt like she'd been hurled from a warm Pacific shallows into a frozen Arctic pit. Cold crawled up her spine to the back of her skull.
That look was complex, like a painter's palette:
Three parts heavy worry that almost became physical,
three parts suppressed anger ready to erupt,
three parts deep confusion,
and the final part…
What was that?
Pity?
Sympathy?
Before Ellen could sort out even a thread from that suffocating whirlpool of emotions, Mona—timid, as if gathering enormous courage—fired the crucial "combo skill."
She twisted her fingers together. Her voice was mosquito-soft, but it tapped clearly against Ellen's taut nerves:
"Ellen… you've been in such bad shape lately… c-could it be… could it be you've been PUA'd?"
"Huh?" Ellen went completely blank, red eyes filled with pure confusion—like she'd just heard alien language.
Seeing that this idiot still hadn't caught on (and probably didn't even know what "PUA" meant), Ruby couldn't take it anymore. She sprang up with the force of thunder and wind, charging right in front of Ellen.
She curled her pale fingers and knock—knock—knock! tapped Ellen's smooth forehead three times, each hit full of "why won't you learn" grief and fury.
"Ellen! Wake up! We've figured it out! You got tricked by a scumbag! Mental control, you get it?!"
"Ah?!" Ellen's mouth dropped open wide enough to fit an egg. Her shark tail went rigid, like a flagpole frozen solid.
"No, wait—what the hell are you talking about? What 'news'? How do I not know anything about this?!"
"See!" Ruby screamed like she'd caught decisive evidence, finger trembling as she pointed at Ellen. "You even said 'what news'! That's classic cognitive confusion from deep PUA brainwashing! You don't even know you're being conned! Wuu wuu wuu—oh! My poor Ellen! My carefully protected, fresh, dewy little cabbage—!"
She even made a move like she was about to climb onto the rusty ventilation pipe, as if preparing to deliver a tearful "cabbage memorial speech" from above.
Ellen was utterly stunned, staring at Ruby—who'd instantly switched into tragic heroine mode like an actor possessed—and seriously wondered if she was still trapped in a post-math nightmare.
And the synchronized, overflowing sympathy in Rin and Mona's eyes made Ellen feel a choking, nowhere-to-spend kind of speechlessness.
"No! You three! What kind of nonsense is this?! Wake up!"
"It's because of you!" Ruby snapped, switching from "tragic" to "prosecutor" with a dramatic spin, finger nearly poking Ellen's nose.
"At lunch break! Even though you were sleeping like a little pig, you were still mumbling stuff like—'Chiya~ a little cake like you was born to be eaten by me~' 'Chiya… you're not allowed… not allowed to look at other women!' 'Chi—' mmph?!"
The name "Chiya" sparked the fuse.
Before Ruby could finish, Ellen's body reacted faster than thought: her hands shot out like a hunting shark—one clamped over Ruby's mouth mid-rant, the other over Mona's mouth as Mona gasped in shock.
At the same time, her strong shark tail whipped like a flexible steel lash—PA!—and sealed Rin's lips with perfect, appropriately measured force, shutting down the icy analysis that was about to come out.
In that moment, Ellen was intensely grateful for her thiren "gift."
One extra tail.
One extra unit of combat power.
But even perfect physical suppression couldn't extinguish the flames in those three girls' eyes—the fire called protecting our friend.
Their gaze was firm, resolute, practically "ready to die for justice," glowing under the golden dusk like something brighter than midday sun.
Ruby especially—being muffled did nothing to stop her fighting spirit. One hand struggled to pry off Ellen's immovable grip, while the other hand, like it had a motor, was already blind-typing on her phone in her pocket.
No need to look—those characters were definitely something like:
"CABBAGE DEFENSE: HIGHEST ALERT! GET TO THE ROOFTOP NOW!"
Faced with this united, uncompromising girl-squad, Ellen finally deflated. She released hands and tail, sighed in defeat, and her shoulders slumped completely.
"Ugh. I really can't with you guys… eavesdropping on someone's sleep talk is so—"
"What do you mean?!" Ruby bounced back up instantly, cheeks puffed in anger.
"We're worried you'll fall into a pit of fire! Get scammed by a bad man until there's not even crumbs left! That guy named 'Chiya'—who exactly is he? Mule or horse, we have to drag him out and verify him!"
"Otherwise we won't feel at ease! This is the unanimous decision of the bestie squad!"
Ellen looked at the three faces now nearly pressed to hers—each stamped with no retreat. Their stubbornness was harder to shake than New Eridu's tallest skyscraper.
Silence stretched in the rooftop air that smelled faintly of rust—tight as a drawn string.
Finally, Ellen gave up. She pulled out her phone, finger sliding across the cold screen, and let out a surrendering sigh.
"Fine. Fine. I'll message him. You're unbelievable… even more naggy than my boss at Victoria Housekeeping…"
She typed fast, still warning them:
"But I'm telling you, he's super busy. Normally he wouldn't—"
"Wouldn't what?" Rin caught the hesitation instantly.
Ellen's fingers stopped.
Screenlight washed her face as her cheeks visibly heated, reddening from ear roots down to her neck like a fully cooked shrimp.
She didn't answer.
She only typed faster—focused, almost urgent—and unconsciously pressed her lips into a tiny sweet curve.
Seeing the shift in her expression and movement, Ruby, Rin, and Mona exchanged a lightning-fast look.
In that look:
"Called it."
"Told you so."
"This is definitely not simple."
The answer was obvious.
Today—no matter how far the clinic's appointments were booked—they were meeting the mysterious figure who had "kidnapped" their Ellen.
"Anyone who dares lay hands on Ellen…"
Rin—most rational, and the most quietly oppressive—slowly pushed up her glasses.
In the dusk, the cold resin lenses flashed a sharp gleam like a scalpel blade sliding through light.
"I will not let him off."
New Eridu's evening was like a spilled cup of amber liquor—thick golden light running wild through every corner of Lumina Square.
Huge billboards woke one by one, splashing neon across the water curtain of the central fountain, only to be shattered by flying droplets into a field of dreamy stardust.
The air carried fresh ramen's warm sweetness, street food's smoky bustle, and that restless prelude to night—the city about to get loud.
The café on the square's second floor was the perfect place to watch this moving feast.
Ellen Joe curled deep into a window booth like a lazy shark who'd finally found a warm nest. Her chin rested on folded arms, red eyes half-lidded, long lashes dropping tired shadows beneath them. The shifting lights outside danced over her faint frown and soft black hair.
In front of her was a glass filled with crystal-clear iced mint soda water. Mint leaves and lemon slices floated among ice cubes; condensation beaded on the glass and sparkled in the dusk.
Across from her, Chiya drank lemon water with satisfaction, occasionally letting out a pleased little hum.
An unopened strawberry lollipop lay at the corner of the table like a small rest mark.
"Mm…" A contented sigh slipped from Ellen's lips. Her shark tail fin patted softly against the velvet sofa, brushing the fine texture.
"This place is still the best… a hundred times quieter than the classroom."
She turned her head. When her eyes landed on Chiya's calm profile, her lazy mood instantly brightened into something almost buoyant. The corners of her mouth lifted, revealing one tiny sharp shark tooth.
"Why did you reply so fast today? Did you miss me?"
Her tone carried a faint, intimate probe.
Chiya paused, lifted his head, green eyes turning to her. His long lashes fluttered like butterfly wings.
"I've been missing you the whole time…"
"Cough—cough…" A blush flashed across Ellen's face. She sat up straight in a panic, grabbed the lollipop like a prop, and spun it nimbly between her fingers.
"And Lycaon, Rina, and Corin too."
"Mm… two-timing Chiya."
"Eh?!" Chiya protested. "As your long-term employer and doctor, isn't it normal for me to care about you? Why call me two-timing?!"
"Fine then," Ellen said flatly. "Naturally evil little demon Chiya."
"Hey?!"
The corner of Chiya's lips twitched almost imperceptibly. Just as he was about to say something, his eyes flickered and drifted toward another direction.
Ellen followed his gaze—
At the second-floor corner of the café, three heads popped out and ducked back with the most amateur tailing skills imaginable.
Blonde Ruby was wildly waving her arms while holding Rin back.
Rin—glasses on, face furious—was trying to charge over, lenses flashing sharply under neon.
Mona, trembling, covered her face with one hand… yet left her fingers spread wide, big eyes round and unblinking as she stared at the second floor, while her other hand also clung to Rin.
"Let go! Let go of me!" Rin hissed.
"Can't you see Ellen has already broken the law?! Going after such a tiny pretty boy—this is no ordinary 'round shark' anymore! We need a heavy punch!"
"Rin! Ellen's serious! Spare her!"
"No! Indulgence is betrayal!"
"Rin!"
"You three idiots—what are you doing?!"
Many years later, when facing Chiya, Ellen Joe would recall that distant afternoon—
the day her three best friends "secretly" hid in the corner to get a look at Chiya…
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 119)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter79)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter125)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 73
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 55
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 66
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 63
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 55
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 31
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 31
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 31
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