Jin’s POV
   Jin just loves the atmosphere of the class nowadays. It has been three days since the heated argument which erupted over the discussion about what the whole class should do for Cultural Festival. Now, both boys and girls are only hanging out with those of the same gender. Morale is at all time low, and absolutely nothing has been decided. When Jin went outside during breaks, he saw that some class has already begun their preparation for whatever it is that they’re doing. Not Class 2-2, though.

   Out of options, Wakaba called Jin, Watanabe and Estyshana out during one lunchtime. She gathered them at the courtyard so that they could discuss on what to do. Jin has no idea why he’s called. He’s less than helpful in situations like this. Besides, he prefers it if the status quo remains the same.

   “What should we do? We can’t just do nothing, can we?” Wakaba asks the others.

   “That’s easier said than done, though. Everyone pretty much don’t feel like taking part in the discussion since they’re still mad at each other.” Watanabe says.

   “Do you have an suggestions, Minase-kun?” Wakaba asks Jin.

   “Nope, I got nothing. But I can suggest this. Whatever job you’re giving Yoshii, it has to be something done from the shadows. Stagehand, kitchen crews, stuffs like that. We can’t have him hog all the spotlights, whether he’s doing it intentionally or not.”

   “Yup. That’s the only way to keep the rest united.” Watanabe agrees. “But that’s just it. They aren’t.”

   “What about you, Esty? Do you have any suggestions?” Wakaba asks Estyshana next.

   “Can’t the four of us decide what will we be doing all by ourselves? They’re not going to participate anyway, right?” she asks instead.

   “Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea. This is a class effort, after all. We can’t just leave people out, particularly when they’re the majority.”

   “Hold on, I think she’s on to something. Maybe the three of you could come up with something so amazing the others can’t resist and feel like joining in.” Jin tells Wakaba.

   “...That, actually sounds like a good idea.”

   “Just one thing, though. Why aren’t you including yourself in it, Minase-kun?” Watanabe asks Jin.

   “Do I look like someone who could come up with constructive ideas?”

   “You could at least try. Besides, you just did.”

   “That was just a fluke.”

   Estyshana, on the other hand, is looking at Jin with a mildly surprised look on her face.

   “To think that you’ll ever agree with me. Is it going to rain blood soon?” she says to him through telepathy.

   “It’s not exactly agreeing, you know. More like riding on the tailcoat of your success, or something like that.” he replies back.

   “Well, I guess we could start by thinking up something on our own.” Wakaba continues without realizing that Jin and Estyshana were talking to each other with their mind.

   “Sure. I’ll do my best. And you’d better too, Minase-kun!” Watanabe insists.

   “Fine, fine. I’ll do it.” Jin agrees reluctantly.

   “Say, what are we doing about our Home Economy Class?” Watanabe asks all of a sudden.

   Upon hearing that, Wakaba slaps her forehead lightly with her right palm.

   “Oh, that’s right! I was so caught up in the Cultural Festival I’ve forgotten about it. It’s the day after tomorrow, right?”

   “Yup.”

   At the Home Economy Class in two days time, students are to form groups of four and cook something together. Students were given free rein on what to cook, and they’re to bring their own ingredients. Naturally, Jin isn’t part of any group.

   “Say, Minase-kun. Have you joined any group?” Wakaba asks Jin all of a sudden.

   “Why do you ask?”

   “You see, there’s only three people in our group: myself, Anri and Esty. So I was wondering if you would like to join us. Unless you have plans to join another one.”

   “You should totally join us, Jin!” Estyshana says to him excitedly.

   Jin gives her a look.

   “Do you even know how to cook?”

   “Nope! Not one bit!”

   Jin looks at Watanabe.

   “Don’t look at me. The only cooking I ever did was cup noodles.” she confesses.

   “Suddenly, I’m very scared of joining this group. Wakaba, please tell me that you can cook.”

   “As a matter of fact, I can.”

   “Well, that makes the two of us I guess.”

   “Oh, so you cook too Minase-kun?”

   “Sort of.”

   Ever since Jin received lots of money from his mercenary job, he had been cooking decent breakfast and dinner for himself. He still has to act poor in front of his classmates, so the pitiful lunch has to stay. Even so, all the cooking has improved his cooking skills.

   “Is there anything in particular that you want to cook?” Wakaba asks him next.

   “Not really. And rather than cooking something that we want to, I think we should make something simple instead. You know, since we have two beginners in our group.”

   “True.”

   “Oh oh, I want to eat apple pie!” Estyshana butts in the conversation.

   “Foie Gras for me! And seafood pizza!” Watanabe states her opinion as well.

   “Weren’t the two of you listening to what we were saying at all?” Wakaba chides them.

   “We did, but we want to eat them anyway.”

   “We’ll just let you two handle everything, while the two of us will just sit back and wait to be served.”

   Jin looks at the two of them, then at Wakaba.

   “Do you have to deal with this all the time?” he asks her.

   “I’m afraid that I do. You have no idea how tiring it is.” she replies with an exhausted look.

   “You have my condolences.”

   It was then when Jin’s phone vibrates inside his pocket. He takes it out to see who’s calling. It’s Sergeant Wakaba.

   “Sorry. I need to take this call.” he tells them.

   He moves quite far way from the girls and makes sure that he’s completely alone before picking up the call.

   “How may I help you, Sergeant Wakaba?”

   “I’m really sorry for calling you during school hours, Minase-kun. The thing is, we spotted a creature at Shinjuku. We’re going to need your help on this one.”

   Aside from Sergeant Wakaba’s voice, Jin hears lots of gunshots from the other side. They’re so loud Jin could barely hear her.

   “On broad daylight? Whatever the creature is, it must be really confident.”

   “From the way it’s wandering around attacking random people and destroying buildings on the street, your guess might not be far from the truth.”

   “So, what are we dealing with?”

   “I’m not sure. It has the head and horns of a bull, the torso of a man, and the lower body of a horse, and it’s carrying a double-bladed war axe. Is there something like it in one of the mythologies?”

   “...I have no idea. I guess there’s always some obscure creatures that you never even heard of.”

   “In any case, please head over here as quickly as you can. We have the creature suppressed with firearms right now, but we’re not sure how long we can contain him.”

   “Understood.”

   Now then, he needs to create a clone and sends it off to deal with the creature. This is quite a risky move since the clone only has one twentieth of the original’s strength. Unfortunately, this is a risk he has to take. If he goes to the place where the creature is himself and let the clone to remain at school, Estyshana might intentionally expose it for the fake it is.

   While continuing to pretend that he’s still on the phone, Jin forms a transparent ball of ice on his palm. He then sends it to the general direction of Shinjuku. With that done, he puts his phone away and walks back to the girls.

   “Is everything all right, Minase-kun?” Wakaba asks him once he’s back.

   “Yeah, it was just my landlord. He told me that he sent a plumber to fix my leaked pipe at the kitchen.” Jin lies.

   “Oh, so you live alone? How is it like?”

   “It can be a bit difficult, since you have do literally everything by yourself.”

   Jin glances at Estyshana.

   “Though I guess it’s much better than living with someone really insufferable.” he ends.

   “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

   “Nothing.”

   “I know I have no right to say this since I was fooling around as well, but shouldn’t we be wrapping this up soon? The break for lunch is about to end soon, you know.” Watanabe reminds them.

   “Oh, right. Let’s get this over with.”

   In the end, they decide to make hamburgers, miso soup and rice. Curry would have been much easier, but Watanabe said that two other groups were already doing it, so it’s better if they chose something else. Hence hamburgers. Jin has no objection to it since he loves hamburgers.

   Right on time, the bell which signals the end of lunchtime rings the moment they’re done. Even more importantly, the ball of ice has reached Shinjuku. Jin could tell it’s Shinjuku since the ball passed by Kabukichou a while back.

   While following the three girls back to class, Jin searches for the creature Sergeant Wakaba was talking about while looking through the ice ball. When it reaches certain part of the city, he starts to notice tons of wrecked vehicles. Smokes are coming out from most of them, and one if even caught on fire. All the pedestrians he sees are running around in fear. Overall, the street is in a huge mess. The creature certainly had been busy.

   He finally got back to his classroom. Wasting no time, he sits down on his seat. There. Now he won’t be distracted as he’s remotely controlling the ice ball. Unless a teacher calls him up front to solve a maths problem or something. Now then, where’s the-

   A loud bellowing told Jin all the answer he needs. He steers the ball towards the direction which the bellow came from, and sure enough, there’s the creature which completely fits the description given by Sergeant Wakaba.

   From the way the creature looks, it sure looks like the child born between a minotaur and a centaur. It’s supposed to be impossible, but what does Jin know? He went to a world where real dragons exist, so he won’t be surprised anymore. And it’s huge. It’s at least three meters tall and easily twice of Jin’s size.

   Currently, the creatures are surrounded by the police. All of them have formed barricades around the creature with their cars while pelleting him with bullets. Oh look, there’s Sergeant Wakaba. Even Date is here, although his whole body is shaking in fear.

   Sadly, the bullets aren’t even denting the creature’s tough-looking hide. All they did were being bounced off and makes the creature even more upset. He’s swinging his battle axe around menacingly, but for some reason he’s not attacking. Oh well. If he isn’t going to, then Jin will.

   It was then when Jin’s History Teacher enters the classroom. Right. Jin just remembered that they were having History right after lunch. The man teaching History is a nice teacher and all, but he tends to make things boring by going on and on about the lesson. At least Jin has no danger of being called out and asked to recite the date when the Battle of Sekigahara happened or something.

   Jin transforms the ice ball into his clone, complete with the armor and Felfarthen equipped. He makes the clone jumps through a barricade and aims the ice sword straight towards the creature’s throat.

   Upon seeing the clone, the creature lets out an angry bellow and swings his war axe downwards in an attempt to crush the clone. Unfortunately for the creature, Jin’s clone is much faster. He controlled it to dodge to the left and uses Felfarthen to chop off the creature’s head.

   Similar to the time with the female troll, the stump where the head was got encased with a block of ice. The head, on the other hand, dropped to the ground with a loud thud together with its massive body. The last expression that the creature made was one of surprise. He probably couldn’t even saw the attack coming.

   With the job done, Jin keeps Felfarthen away. He then controls the clone to walk towards Sergeant Wakaba. All the police around him put their gun away without being panicked by his presence. Looks like his existence was already widespread among them.

   “Well done. Once again, thank you for your hard work.” she tells Jin’s clone.

   “Please think nothing of it. This is part of my job, after all.” Jin says through the mouth of the clone.

   While they’re talking, the police around them are starting to do their stuff. Some went inside the police cars and starting the engine so that they can be moved. Some head elsewhere, probably to check on casualties or something. Some are going near the corpse of the creature. They’re probably doing forensic work.

   “Hey, Date! Come and help us with this!” Jin hears someone yells.

   Date springs into action immediately.

   “Coming!” he says loudly.

   With that, Jin is left alone with Sergeant Wakaba.

   “I’m not being ungrateful with your help here, but you can go back to your school now that the creature’s been taken care of.” she says.

   “No need to worry, sergeant. You’re currently speaking with my clone. My real body is at you-know-where.”

   “Still, isn’t it bad if you’re being distracted when you should be listening to lectures?”

   “Please recall what I look like under this helmet, sergeant. Did I look like someone who listens to lectures diligently in class?”

   “...I guess you can stay until we’re done here.”

   “Thank you.”

   As the two of them watch, the forensics are starting to examine the creature.

   “That reminds me. Those jerks from UCI should be here any minute now.” Jin says.

   “I doubt they would. The scare tactic you pulled the last time was pretty effective. I mean, they haven’t been showing up since then.”

   “Since then? Are you saying that there were more creatures being spotted without me knowing?”

   “That’s right. We called you to take care of this creature since we had a hard time with it. By contrast, the ones we took care of ourselves weren’t that big of a deal.”

   “I see.”

   “We’re really sorry for treating you like a tool that we can summon whenever we like.” she says a bit guiltily.

   “Don’t be. As I said before, this is my job. I would feel guilty if I ended up doing nothing despite getting a lot of money for my salaries.”

   “By the way, have you ever seen one of those at Ifezan?” she asks while nodding towards the corpse.

   “Nope. Even after seeing it in person, I’m afraid that this is still my first time seeing something like it. And that’s saying something since I’ve killed a lot of creatures while I was there.”

   “Hmm, I hope our forensic team can come up with something.”

   A few minutes later, lots of journalists and news reporters arrive. The police had to stand in front of them and prevent the from going further so that they don’t get in the way. One journalist in particular caught Jin’s eyes from the way he takes his pictures. He’s darting all over the place, and his cameras are constantly flashing lights. It’s getting kind of annoying and bad for his eyes.

   “Hey, you there! The one in the armor! Are you the newest lapdog of the government?” he asks Jin loudly.

   “...Is it okay if I cut him in half?” Jin asks Sergeant Wakaba while pointing at the journalist.

   The journalist flinches, and his face goes pale. Everyone near him, on the other hand, immediately stay away from him just in case they got caught up in the collateral damage.

   “Y-You can’t harm me! The law was created precisely to protect helpless citizens like myself from evil psychopaths like you!” the journalist tells Jin with a wobbly voice.

   “Listen, buddy. No law will protect you if I ever decide to turn you into mince meat, and that’s a fact.”

   “Did you hear that, officer? He was straight up threatening me!” the journalist asks Sergeant Wakaba.

   “I hate to break it to you, but even the PM can’t touch a single strand of hair that I have.” Jin says to him.

   The journalist gasps in horror.

   “This is an abuse of power! The people shall hear about this!” he exclaims while putting the strap of his camera on his neck and taking out a notebook and a pen from his pocket.

   Jin shrugs without having a care in the world.

   “Go ahead and write all the articles you want. Like I care.”

   Jin suddenly realizes that he has seen the journalist before. He narrows his eyes and takes a closer look. Yup, he knows him alright.

   “Say, aren’t you Maebara Takuma?” he asks the journalist.

   The man called Maebara seems proud to be recognized.

   “Looks like my hard work is finally starting to pay off! I guess I’m some kind of celebrity now.”

   “You’re the one who leaked out the name of the corrupt politician that accepted bribes from convicts’ families to have them released.” Jin remembers.

   “Indeed I was. I guess I could say that it was the highlight of my career.”

   “Well I hope you’re proud of yourself. After all, his family members were harassed so much by the public they took their own lives.” Jin continues drily.

   “Why does everyone keep on telling me that their deaths are on me? If they want someone to blame, they should blame the rotten politician, not me!” Maebara cries.

   “Sure sure, keep telling yourself that. I’m sure you won’t lose any sleep either way.”

   Jin ignores further outburst from the journalist and looks at Sergeant Wakaba.

   “Well, I can’t take being in the same space as that ray of sunshine, so I’ll be off.” he tells her.

   “Of course. Take care.”

   “Wait! Before you go-.”

   Jin didn’t even bother to make the clone fly to somewhere quiet before making it disappear. He just made it melt instantaneously around the same time he retrieved his armor and put it back to the Vault.

   Just in time, the bell rang, signaling that the History Class is over. Jin is glad that he could get his business done before this class is over. The next class is English, and it’s being taught by Daigo-sensei who just loves to make everyone, and Jin means everyone, to participate in his lessons. There’s no way Jin could ever act like he’s paying attention in one of the gym teacher’s lessons.