I showed Sumire all the information that I could see regarding the [Wood Minion].

“That’s pretty interesting.”

After swiftly reading the descriptions, she took her foot off my bed and looked over at me. Her artificial smile was hanging on her face as usual, breeding an unsettling vibe. At least, I think it’s artificial. I don’t actually know if that’s the case—but most things were learned artificially in the Ideal Human Project. Maybe that was why it was unsettling.

“If the more wood it has, the faster it makes more. I suppose we could invest in a lot of them and stack all of its wood in one minion,” she continued.

“Are you sure that’s possible? I don’t think we can take wood out of its inventory.”

She thought for a moment.

When I looked at my FIELDS, it definitely didn’t give an option for me to take wood from the [Wood Minion]. Therefore it can only have as much wood as it produced itself, so it could only really be used as a really long-term investment.

At this point, there wasn’t much else we could do aside from wait for more points to accumulate.

*

POINTS

Your current points: 1,594

Current Rank: #84,963

We could hear footsteps outside—lots of them.

“Are you hungry, Sumire?”

“Not really, why?”

“I just thought that most people who are gathering outside are probably looking for food.”

“I guess so. It’d be good to scout out the food sources, and our opponents.”

Leading the way back to my door, Sumire put her shoes back on. I was starting to get a little hungry so I definitely wanted to sort out the whole food situation. The school hadn’t given us any more communication, so it was up to ourselves for now.

The door creaked open and we walked out. Immediately to our left, there was a huge group of boys who were loudly laughing with each other.

“…haha, maybe we’ll eat some sushi train.”

“…there’s no way they’d have that here, you’re an idiot!”

“…we’ve got tons of points, I’m sure we can eat something good today!”

…

They suddenly stopped as they were about to walk past us.

The tall, curly-haired boy in the front of the pack decided to look over at me. He looked down at me with his confident, beady eyes.

Whatever this was, it definitely wasn’t going to be fun.

“Hey bro, what are you doin’ with a girl here? You guys a thing or something?”

“No.”

“Really? This is the boys’ living area. What are you doing with a hottie, then?”

There’s no way people are this confident in real life. Sumire was standing right next to me and could definitely hear everything he was saying.

“We’re just… friends, I guess.”

The way I replied was quite suspicious, but it shouldn’t matter that much.

He suddenly turned around and whispered some stuff with the rest of the boys. It was loud enough so that I could’ve probably eavesdropped if I wanted to, but I genuinely did not care enough to do so.

Sumire glanced at me with a bored expression and rolled her eyes.

Right as we about to walk away, another boy stepped forward. This time, it was a shorter, muscular guy approached us. However, instead of facing me, he looked at Sumire.

Anyone could’ve guessed what would happen next.

To be fair, his face wasn’t ugly, it was just normal. With a somewhat defined jawline and sharp eyes, his appearance was unique and had its charms.

“Um, you’re cute… can I have your number or something?”

Sumire stared back at him with an empty expression.

“You can already search those up on your phone,” she replied.

I could see the stress building on the boy’s face. His legs were shaking and sweat was gathering on his brow. It was clear that he didn’t have nearly as much confidence as the previous guy.

He also fumbled pretty bad.

“Well, do you have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t.”

“T-that’s good.”

What are you doing bro…? Just get to the point already, I want to get some food.

Looking at Sumire who was apathetically responding to all his advances, it was pretty clear what the result was. I didn’t even care about the result, I was just bored. It was also uncomfortable being around so many people—the rest of his friend group was watching us like owls.

“Yeah… so do you want to go out with me?”

He finally spat it out.

“No thanks. I only like smart people.”

What a shallow requirement.

But oh well, such was expected from Sumire.

However, the boy wasn’t done.

“I’m pretty smart. Like, I’m always top of the class, just ask a-anyone.”

He quickly turned around to look for validation from his friends. They all began to grunt in unison and vouch for his intelligence.

Sumire sighed.

I guess she kind of shot herself in the foot with that response.

“Well, I’ll give you a clear answer this time. No.”

With that, the boy was silent, slowly backing into his group of friends. They suddenly began to vocalise their thoughts.

“What’s with that? You just said that you liked smart people!”

“Yeah! Was that just an excuse?”

For the second time, we were interrupted as we were about to get away.

Sumire turned around.

“So what if it was an excuse? I’m not interested.”

Again, her hair swayed and she turned back around. The group of boys followed behind us for a little while as we walked, saying various things. However, Sumire’s clear disinterest eventually led them to give up. All aside from one boy walked the other way. It wasn’t the boy that asked her out, but a completely different one who was standing near the back of the group.

“Don’t you know when to give up~?” asked Sumire.

“It’s not that. I want to ask you something…”

After being trailed a little more, Sumire finally turned back around again.

…

“Alright, what’s your question?”