Tsukiyomi Ruri looked at Mizuhashi Yuzuki, then at the pool itself. A vast number of girls were all wearing school swimsuits, large expanses of fair skin fully on display outside the water. Now, as they frolicked in the pool, the splashing droplets sparkled with translucent luster under the sunlight.
So dazzling!
Truly dazzling!
Ruri walked to the edge of the pool, first dipping one foot in. The cool pool water felt rather pleasant to her. She immediately slid her whole leg in, followed by the second.
It would be nice if she could just sit quietly in the pool and enjoy the cool water. Unfortunately, there was someone beside her, seemingly possessing an inexhaustible supply of energy, vigorously splashing water her way.
Ruri looked expressionlessly at Mizuhashi Yuzuki. “Fun?”
“Yeah, really fun,” Yuzuki answered honestly, nodding.
Tsukiyomi Ruri: “…”
Why was she in the same class as Mizuhashi Yuzuki? Was there still time to transfer to Class B with Inoue Keiko? Or maybe skip a grade to wherever Izumi Shirayuki was?
“Ruri, I noticed you seem really listless. Are you feeling unwell somewhere?” Yuzuki swam over, very naturally wrapping an arm around Ruri and asking.
Embraced by Yuzuki, Ruri discovered that Yuzuki was considerably more… substantial… than she had anticipated.
“I’m not uncomfortable, I just don’t really like playing. You should go play with someone else,” Ruri shook her head and said.
“No, I want to play with Ruri,” Yuzuki giggled.
Seeing this, Ruri could only sigh inwardly. It looked like she wouldn’t be able to shake Yuzuki off easily.
After some thought, Ruri asked, “Yuzuki, have they found your hospital’s missing Yankee Ane-go and Gounon yet?”
Yuzuki shook her head. “Still haven’t found them. No idea where they ran off to.”
Not found?
Ruri was a bit surprised inside. If they hadn’t been found, wouldn’t Izumi Shirayuki be curious about it? And if Shirayuki was curious, wouldn’t she bring everyone along on a so-called investigation?
There had to be something fishy going on!
With a moment’s thought in her mind, Ruri naturally detected some inconsistencies.
Shirayuki couldn’t possibly be uninterested in this matter. The only explanation was that Shirayuki had simply chosen not to bring her along.
From what she knew of Shirayuki’s personality, no matter what she was investigating, she generally liked to drag everyone along with her. Shirayuki found it more fun that way. When Shirayuki didn’t bring others along, there was naturally an extra reason for it.
Ruri mulled it over. The need to keep it a secret from her… without a doubt, the matter must be related to Reincarnators. After all, in Shirayuki’s eyes, she was just a frail ordinary person.
‘They encountered something involving Reincarnators? But judging by the fact that nobody seems worried or distressed, the situation should still be within controllable limits. I don’t need to be overly concerned.’
Ruri thought of Izumi Shirayuki’s strength and felt that Shirayuki should be more than capable of handling anything.
Senior Reincarnator. In the past, that was already quite a respectable Reincarnator, their numbers relatively few. Was it likely the same now?
Ruri wasn’t so certain anymore. After all, she already knew that the number of Reincarnators nowadays had increased considerably compared to the past. Under these circumstances, had Senior Reincarnators also become a dime a dozen?
“What are you thinking about?” Mizuhashi Yuzuki noticed Ruri spacing out, and poked both of Ruri’s cheeks simultaneously with two fingers.
“Nothing,” Ruri shook her head.
Yuzuki tilted her head, still feeling a bit curious. But recalling that Ruri had always been a loner, she didn’t dwell on it further.
The day passed peacefully.
The Urban Legend Club had nothing going on. Or rather, even if there was something, it would be kept away from Ruri.
So after school, Ruri made her way leisurely back home.
Leona was in the midst of a heated game. Ruri didn’t disturb her. Now, Leona basically rested at home during the day and went out to scare people at night. After all, she couldn’t go out during the day; sunlight was her greatest enemy.
Sitting on her bed, Ruri used her phone to access the Reincarnator Forum. She made a rare post in the Chat Section.
《May I ask if anyone roughly knows the number of Senior Reincarnators?》
Not long after the post went up, someone replied.
Little Moon: “Second floor!”
Seeing this second-floor-grabbing Little Moon, Ruri was a bit speechless. She remembered this was Mizuhashi Yuzuki’s ID on the Reincarnator Forum. Was Little Moon that free right now?
Just as the thought crossed Ruri’s mind, the third and fourth floors appeared.
Snowflake: “Third floor.”
MustBeConfident: “Fourth floor.”
Looking at these utterly unsubstantial replies, Ruri felt a bit bored. But right at that moment, she noticed that two people had followed her—precisely the ones who had replied: Snowflake and MustBeConfident.
This situation made Ruri thoughtful. “Snowflake, MustBeConfident… are these Shirayuki and Keiko?”
Ruri figured that the three Urban Legend Club members were probably together right now. Perhaps Yuzuki had noticed her post and mentioned it to Izumi Shirayuki and Inoue Keiko.
Thus, while replying to the thread, Shirayuki and Keiko had also conveniently followed her.
While Ruri was guessing, a normal user finally replied beneath the post.
“How many Senior Reincarnators are there? Who would know something like that? Who even asks such a dumb question?”
Ruri added the fifth-floor poster to her blacklist. People on her blacklist would be barred from replying to her posts.
“Reincarnators exist in every country. Who can count them all clearly? We can’t even count the ones in our own country clearly, let alone the whole world. That’s even harder to say.”
The sixth-floor answer was relatively neutral.
“Nowadays, the number of Reincarnators really is increasing. You go to the Reincarnation World to do a single task, and you run into over a dozen teams doing other tasks. There are quite a few conflicts and clashes, sigh…”
The seventh floor seemed to have a past they didn’t want to recall.
“TC’s profile says girl? Wanna form a CP?”
The eighth-floor reply was up for less than five seconds before the poster found themselves joining another person on Ruri’s blacklist.
Then, Ruri opened her own profile and changed the default gender from Female to Hidden.
After that, a string of replies continued to appear. Ruri looked them over, and couldn’t help but sigh inside. Because nowadays, the number of Reincarnators, even Senior Reincarnators, had reached a point where they were too numerous to count.
‘Judging from this situation, the present-day Real World is hiding people with extraordinary powers everywhere. The Real World is very unsafe. How much longer can the surface peace last?’
Ruri mused darkly, wondering what direction the existence of Reincarnators would ultimately lead the world.
