When the Guardian Becomes Obsolete

On the other side of the institute, Shiori and Mochi were in the home economics classroom. They sounded flustered.

After the conversation they had with Airi a while ago, she had helped them both reach the same conclusion.

For Sora to forgive them, they had to compensate him with the same coin with which they had ruined his day.

While Mochi tried to cook Nikujaga, Shiori had come up with the idea of preparing Dashi-maki Tamago, however…

Mochi ended up burning the meat, and no matter how hard Shiori tried, her egg came out too raw.

"No, no, no! I don't understand why my cooking stats are at zero!" Mochi sobbed in frustration, waving a spatula in front of the pot from which black smoke was rising. "Sora will never forgive me if I feed him charcoal that tastes like meat!"

"Frustration level at maximum," Shiori murmured, watching her omelette fall apart in the pan unrealistically. "I've calculated the cooking time three times, but the heat transfer is inconsistent. The Tank will detect the texture error on the first bite."

Both were frustrated, annoyed. Ever since Sora had given them the cold shoulder, several of their stats had dropped drastically.

At that moment, a shadow was cast from the classroom doorway. It wasn't the heavy silhouette of a teacher, nor the authoritative figure of Airi. It was someone who moved with an elegance that seemed taken from a game with cutting-edge graphics.

"The secret to Nikujaga is to sear the meat over medium heat before adding the broth, and for that Dashi-maki... you need a smoother wrist movement, almost as if you were gliding a mouse over a silk pad."

Startled, both girls jumped and quickly turned toward the entrance, thinking Sora had discovered them.

However, the person who had spoken to them was someone completely opposite to Sora: a boy with perfectly styled dark hair, an immaculate uniform, and a smile that radiated an aura of superiority. His gaze was calm, but it had an analytical gleam that made Shiori narrow her eyes.

"Who are you?" Shiori asked, recovering her tone. "I don't detect your signal in our database."

"Just a regular student passing by," the boy replied, approaching with silent steps. He took a kitchen cloth and, with a dexterity that left Mochi gaping, adjusted the stove's knob. "My name is Ren… Now, what are a couple of girls like you doing alone in the home economics classroom?"

Meanwhile, in the main hallway, Sora walked with his hands in his pockets. The curfew to return to classrooms was approaching, but his feet unconsciously carried him toward the club wing. Tomoki's words kept bouncing in his mind like an error window he couldn't close.

"What will you do if they find a Player 2?" Sora whispered, bringing his hand to his cheek, feeling a twinge of discomfort.

"I doubt… I seriously doubt that will happen. I mean, it's not like we're in a romance story, right?" Sora thought to himself. "Besides, they can go with anyone. After all, the only thing that unites us is an old guild from a video game that shut down a long time ago…" Yet, something inside Sora unsettled him; saying those words to himself made his heart pound.

"What am I doing…" Sora whispered, stopping in the middle of the hallway. But as he realized, he had stopped in front of the home economics classroom, and inside, Sora could hear the faint voices of people he knew.

He wanted to peek into the classroom, just for a second, to convince himself they were okay and that his discipline lesson was working.

Sora applied his old stealth technique, pressing his back against the wall next to the slightly open door. His heart beat at an erratic pace. "Just a quick look... just to confirm they haven't set the institute on fire," he repeated mentally.

He peeked just a few millimeters. What he saw was a critical hit directly to his stability bar.

Inside the classroom, he did not find a discouraged Mochi. On the contrary, she was watching with fascination as that boy, Ren, cut vegetables with surgical precision. Shiori, for her part, had her laptop open, but not to work—to take notes on the "optimized cooking times" the stranger was dictating to her. There was a harmony in that kitchen that Sora had never managed to create.

Sora stood frozen, his back pressed against the cold hallway wall, watching how Ren fit in so naturally with the girls.

"You know, girls, I think a leader should never let his team lose their composure like this," Sora heard Ren say from inside. The boy's voice was soft, but every word reached Sora's ears. "Sometimes, those who call themselves Guardians forget that a shield that doesn't move is just a wall getting in the way. You need fluidity. You need someone who optimizes your potential, not someone who gives you the cold shoulder when you make a mistake."

Those words were the last drops that filled the cup.

Sora clenched his teeth in anger. Tomoki's words and Ren's were true. Ren was an upgraded version of him, one he couldn't easily surpass.

"Maybe… they're right," Sora thought, lowering his gaze to his hands. "I'm not good at studies, nor at sports, I don't have much money either, I don't have any of the qualities Ren has."

The fear Tomoki had planted materialized before his eyes. It wasn't that the girls would go looking for someone else; it was that the world itself was offering them someone better, someone who didn't ignore them, who didn't give them cold lessons, and who, above all, wasn't broken inside.

"Maybe… they'd be better off with a much more capable Guardian," Sora murmured to himself.

His discipline lesson had become the perfect space for a Player 2 to log into the server of their lives.

Without saying a single word, Sora walked away in the opposite direction. His steps were no longer those of a leader, but like a supporting character stepping away from the protagonist's life.

"If they're happy with someone like him, who am I to interfere?" he told himself, though the knot in his throat indicated his system was suffering a feeling he had never experienced before.

He didn't return to the classroom. He walked toward the stairs leading to the rooftop, needing fresh air to cool his mental processor. However, just as he opened the door to the roof, he encountered a figure who also shouldn't be there.

"Well, well… I didn't expect to find you here all alone. What's the matter? Did your companions abandon you?" said that girl as she began to laugh. However, she noticed Sora's reaction.

For his part, the only thing he did was lift his head.

The girl standing there was Mika, not in a cow costume, but in her gal uniform.

"Something like that, Mika…" Sora responded with a dull voice. "I think I just found out the world no longer needs old Guardians."