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As lunch break ended, the students of Class 1-B started trickling back into the classroom one by one.
The first class in the afternoon was Classical Japanese.
And the moment he saw the tall, curvy beauty in a white lab coat over her clothes, with long black hair and a gorgeous figure—Andrew instantly recognized her.
Shizuka Hiratsuka, also known as "Shizu-cute," the perpetually single older woman. Her parents were always trying to set her up, but every single blind date ended in failure.
She was almost thirty, yet always insisted she was forever a 29-year-old beautiful girl.
Can you even call someone 29 a girl anymore?
Apparently, she was still... pure? Technically?
Anyway, beyond all those rumors, Andrew's impression of her was that she was a warm, dependable big sister type—and a really good teacher who knew how to guide her students.
Well, since Fuyutsuki already showed up, it wasn't too strange for Hiratsuka to be teaching at this school too.
Andrew glanced at her a couple of times, then pulled out his textbook and pretended to listen seriously.
Classical Japanese, huh... if you know, you know.
As a transmigrator from the Great Celestial Empire (aka China), half the stuff in Japan's Classical Japanese curriculum was based on Chinese characters and literature.
So he had zero pressure learning it, and his grasp of poetry and classic texts was way stronger than the others.
After listening for a while, Andrew checked out mentally.
Right now, he was almost done with Volume 1 of his light novel.
Thanks to his body being twice as strong as a normal person's, combined with super-fast recovery and the treasure trove of creative references in his mind, his writing speed was way beyond the pathetic version of himself back in his original life.
Since the novel was nearly finished, it was time to think about where to submit it.
He'd already looked it up online.
Currently, there were two well-known light novel publishers in Japan.
One was Dengeki Bunko, which focused mainly on isekai adventure stories and fantasy manga.
But Andrew's novel was more of a slice-of-life school romance about stock trading—not exactly a fit for Dengeki.
So, that left only one option—
Fushikawa Bunko.
That company mainly put out school romance stories. Their hit title, Love Metronome, had sold over 500,000 copies of just the first volume. Yep, definitely the right place.
Once he locked in the publisher, the next step was to pick an editor.
Luckily, he found the editors' submission email addresses online.
When he spotted the name "Enoko Machida," his eyes lit up.
She was the editor in charge of Love Metronome—the one who managed the author Utaha Kasumigaoka.
If he submitted to Machida Enoko, there was a chance he'd get to meet her author—which meant he might actually meet Utaha Kasumigaoka.
And for someone like Andrew, who was looking to form contracts with cute girls, this was the perfect opportunity.
After finalizing his choice of editor, Andrew was already getting excited.
Before he knew it, the class was over.
Teacher Hiratsuka quickly left the classroom after assigning some homework.
Andrew yawned, laid his head on the desk, and stared out the window, bored.
Suddenly, he remembered he had a wife in his online game—so he perked up, opened his laptop, and logged in.
The second he got on, his priestess partner "Ako" bombarded him with messages.
"Darling Tenjin! You're finally back! Waaaah, I thought you didn't want me anymore!"
"I waited for you every single day! And now you're finally here!"
"Uhh..." Andrew stared at those intense messages, speechless for a second.
Then he looked at her online time.
...Holy crap. Dozens of hours. She's been online nonstop.
She hadn't logged off at all!
Yep, definitely a hardcore gaming addict.
His in-game name was "Andrew Tenjin," so that's why she called him "Tenjin."
Shaking his head, Andrew typed back a reply:
"Sorry, Ako. I had a cold the last couple of days, so I couldn't log in. You shouldn't stay online all the time either—get some rest, okay?"
She replied almost instantly:
"Hehe~ I knew my darling wouldn't abandon me!"
"Wanna run a dungeon? I've got class soon, so I can only do one run."
"Yep yep, let's go!"
After they ran a quick dungeon together, Andrew spent a bit of time sweet-talking her, then logged off.
He just really hoped she was the real Ako Tamaki.
Because if this online wife turned out to be a dude... that'd be seriously gross.
He packed up his laptop and waited for the final class of the day.
The second period in the afternoon was P.E.
So everyone changed into short-sleeved sportswear.
The P.E. teacher was a guy named Tanaka, a muscular dude who looked like he could bench-press a truck.
He led everyone through warm-ups, then had the class rep fetch a volleyball, telling the students they could form their own teams and practice however they liked.
And this... this was when having friends really mattered.
If you didn't have any, P.E. could get real awkward when it came time to find teammates.
Andrew was thinking about teaming up with Hayama, but the guy was already chatting and laughing with Hina Kubota.
Or more like—Kubota had latched onto Hayama the second the teacher gave the go-ahead, leaving Hayama no room to say no.
With no choice, Andrew walked over to a guy with a permanent dead-fish stare, who looked like loneliness personified.
"Hikigaya, looks like you're solo too. Wanna team up?"
Hikigaya Hachiman was busy sighing while watching Totsuka Saika get invited away by a bunch of classmates.
He was surprised when someone talked to him out of the blue—but since he didn't really wanna be alone either, he quickly agreed.
"Sure, I don't mind."
Seeing him accept, Andrew smirked a little.
Of course, there was a reason he approached Hachiman.
This guy had an adorable little sister—Hikigaya Komachi.
Andrew wasn't about to pass up the chance to connect with high-quality potential contracts.
If he could get close to her, who knows? He might get lucky and score a home run—er, make a contract and gain a new ability.
"..."
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