Facing Amane, who was still bouncing and circling around her like an excited puppy, Horikita decisively reached out her hand.
"Ow, ow, ow! Stop pinching my ear all the time!" Amane let out a cute, protesting whine.
"Hmm, I respect your opinion, Amane-san." Horikita smiled and released Amane's ear.
Then, she cupped Amane's face in her hands.
"Ahem, Suzune, there are so many people watching right now, it's not really appropriate… I'll let you kiss me secretly when we get back, mmph—!"
Horikita firmly pulled and stretched Amane's cheeks in opposite directions.
"That mouth of yours is truly annoying, always spouting such nonsense."
Even as she said this, the strength in her hands gradually eased. It ended up just being her rubbing and kneading Amane's face.
"Kikyo-chan, save me!" Spotting Kushida not far away, Amane quickly called for help.
"Ah, I'm just passing through. Don't mind me, Amane-san, you two can carry on." After saying this, Kushida winked at Amane.
Her expression clearly said, [Go get 'em, I won't disturb you two!], before she scurried away from the pair.
"It's not what you think! Save me, Suzune is bullying me, help… you traitor, Kikyo-chan!"
Amane pouted. She simply gave up resisting after that. Letting Horikita rub her face as she pleased. But Horikita had only rubbed it a few times when her expression turned a bit strange.
"What's wrong, Suzune? Could it be you feel sorry for me?"
"No, it's just the face you're making right now looks a bit like a pufferfish. It's kind of gross."
Crack.
That probably wasn't the sound of a heart breaking, right?
"P-pufferfish? I am not! Not at all like a pufferfish!!!"
Amane looked at Horikita, her big eyes welling up with tears.
"Even if you say that, you really did look like one just now."
"Hmph, Horikita-san is a meanie."
"I'm so happy. You've finally realized I'm a bad person. So, since I'm a villain, I have even less of a conscience about bullying you, Amane-san."
Horikita patted her chest.
She looked thoroughly pleased with herself.
Amane blinked.
No.
Something was off.
This wasn't like the Horikita from before!
Could it be…the legendary 'leveling up by grinding monsters'?
Bully Amane once, EXP +1.
And then she evolved into this terrifying version?
"You're not actually scared, are you? You're a bit of a coward, Amane."
Seeing Amane staring at her dumbfounded, Horikita gave her cheek a pinch.
"Waaah, I thought you'd turned bad, Suzune, waaah!" Amane threw her arms around Horikita, nuzzling her face repeatedly against hers.
"I never said I was a good person." Just as Horikita was about to say something more, suddenly—a sharp whistle blast.
Everyone's attention snapped to the swimming teacher.
Oh.
Right, there was a teacher. Amane had almost forgotten this teacher with their near-zero presence.
"I see everyone has practiced enough… Hey, you, the girl over there. Could you please get off the other person?"
Amane finally let go of Horikita, scratching her cheek a little sheepishly.
"Back to the main topic," the swimming teacher continued, "Due to insufficient participants, the 50-meter test will be temporarily changed from five-person heats to two-person heats. You can choose your own opponents, but you must get their consent."
After speaking, the teacher glanced over the meager group of fourteen students present.
"To motivate you all to try harder, I plan to award personal points to the winners. The top three winners in the two-person heats will receive 5,000, 2,000, and 1,000 points respectively. All other winners will get 500 points."
There were point rewards for a test?!
This school was almost too good to its students.
But then again, those willing to take swimming class probably had some affinity for it.
Winning definitely wouldn't be easy.
Just then, Yamauchi raised his hand.
"Yes, this student? Do you have a question?"
"How exactly are the top three determined? And since it's two-person heats, that means we can race against the girls, right?"
Yamauchi's smile was downright sleazy.
Even Wang Meiyu subtly increased her distance from him.
"The top three are ranked by the shortest time. As for your second question… if the other party agrees, it is permitted."
No sooner had the teacher finished speaking than Yamauchi and Ike both jumped for joy.
"Yesss!!!"
Witnessing their embarrassing display, even the tall and imposing Sudō silently put some distance between himself and them.
Standing next to them felt… shameful.
"Suzune, let's form a team?" Amane linked her arm with Horikita's, wearing a fawning expression.
"You don't actually think you'll beat me, do you?" Horikita assumed Amane was trying to take advantage of her relative weakness in swimming.
"Hehe." Amane didn't explain.
She simply wanted to take the test with Horikita, that was all.
After the simple grouping process, the first heat was Wang Meiyu versus Onodera Kayano.
Given Wang Meiyu's usual performance, nobody held out much hope for her.
Unexpectedly, however, Onodera, who had an extremely low profile in class, turned out to be a hidden expert!
She completely crushed Wang Meiyu from the start, clocking in at 26 seconds.
Wang Meiyu finished in 43 seconds.
She looked rather pitiful.
The second heat was Mori Nene and Inogashira, both finishing in the 30-second range, a fairly normal result.
Then came the third heat.
A more interesting match: Hirata versus Sudō.
Quite a few girls on the observation deck were cheering for Hirata.
This visibly annoyed Sudō.
So the moment the race started, he went all out.
He finally defeated Hirata with a time of 25 seconds against Hirata's 26.13 seconds. But after the race, everyone seemed to feel sorry for Hirata's narrow loss.
This left Sudō feeling resentful. He even refused to shake Hirata's hand when Hirata came to congratulate him after the match. In an instant, Sudō's reputation among the female students plummeted.
The fourth heat was Kushida Kikyō and Yamauchi Haruki.
Amane had no idea how Kikyo-chan had ended up agreeing to race Yamauchi.
Maybe she had no other choice since everyone else had already paired up?
Amane decided this was the most likely reason.
The highlight of this heat was that Kushida actually ended up defeating Yamauchi. The poor guy looked utterly defeated.
Next was the fifth heat, Ike Kanji and Hondo Ryotaro, a classic case of two unskilled boys duking it out.
Both took over thirty seconds, nearing forty, to finish.
The swimming teacher looked like he wanted to say they were slower than his dog's doggy-paddle.
Sorry.
That last part was just Amane's imagination. But the swimming teacher's expression was indeed rather grim.
The sixth heat was Kōenji Rokusuke and Ayanokoji.
"Has the magnificent me's time finally come? Prepare to cheer for my performance, all you lovely girls!"
Kōenji, wearing a distinctly unique style of swim trunks, swaggered to the pool's edge.
Ayanokoji, in contrast, looked utterly listless.
"Miyako-san, what's the average speed for a boy?"
"Wha—! Th-that kind of thing, how would I know?!"
"I thought you might know."
"There's no way I'd know something like that!!!"
Amane felt her face burning. This usually quiet, inscrutable guy had a side like this?
"So, being around the same speed as Yamauchi and the others should be fine, right?"
"Ah? You mean swimming speed?"
"What else? What did you think I was asking about?"
"...Ahem. If you want to get noticed, you should swim faster. At least aim for Sudō or Hirata's level. That's the normal speed for boys. A speed like Yamauchi's would just get you laughed at."
After saying this, Amane gave Ayanokoji a thumbs-up.
"Do your best."
Ayanokoji nodded silently.
At the teacher's signal, both dove into the water. Kōenji swung his arms like propellers, rapidly cleaving through the water as he charged forward.
Seeing Kōenji suddenly accelerate, Ayanokoji had no choice but to speed up a bit as well, hoping not to lose too badly.
When both finally reached the finish line, Ayanokoji looked back.
He noticed everyone was staring at them in dead silence.
"Kōenji, 21.59 seconds. Ayanokoji, 22.11 seconds."
The entire swimming hall fell completely silent.
Amane was dumbstruck. How were these two so ridiculously fast?
The world record was, like, 20 seconds, right?
Kōenji emerged from the pool with a puzzled expression. Someone had actually been able to keep up with him when he was giving it his all.
It was utterly unbelievable.
Moreover, Kōenji had a feeling.
Ayanokoji hadn't even been trying his hardest.
Meanwhile, on Ayanokoji's side, he shot a somewhat accusatory look at Amane. It was because she told him to swim faster that he got caught up in Kōenji's pace and accelerated.
Even though he'd deliberately finished a beat slower, a result like this…the attention it drew was just too conspicuous.
"It's over… my 5,000 points are gone… I'd already thought about how to spend them, waaah." Amane's face was a picture of despair.
"You were actually aiming for first place?" Horikita was surprised. She thought Amane's level was, at best, slightly better than average.
A person's energy is limited, after all.
She couldn't possibly be skilled at both archery and swimming, right?
"Well… I was originally planning to gamble on it. Seems there's no hope now." Horikita nodded, half-convinced, half-skeptical.
After all, even Horikita never expected someone could swim a 21-second 50-meter.
Horikita and Amane took their positions. As the starting signal sounded, both Amane and Horikita dove into the water simultaneously.
The difference was, while Horikita swam forward with all her might, there was no movement at all from Amane's lane.
"Could Amane-san have sunk?"
Kushida looked worriedly at the swimming teacher. The teacher hurried over to check Amane's lane. Seeing that she hadn't simply sunk to the bottom, the teacher breathed a sigh of relief.
But if she hadn't sunk…
Could this child possibly be swimming the entire way underwater?
Was everyone in this class secretly a swimming prodigy?
The swimming teacher fell into deep self-doubt.
Horikita felt she had performed beyond her usual ability.
She lifted her head to look.
Only about three meters left to the finish line.
She thought about looking back to see where Amane was.
But when she turned, she couldn't see Amane at all.
How was that possible?
Could she really have…?
Horikita quickly looked forward again. Only to bump right into Amane's chest.
"Ehehe~"
Amane puffed out her chest proudly.
After touching the wall in her own lane, she had swum over to Horikita's lane and surfaced, poking her head out to observe.
Seeing Horikita was still looking back, she had fully emerged from the water, resulting in Horikita colliding with her.
"Miyako Amane… 23.01 seconds…" When Horikita heard this number, she couldn't help but show a shocked expression.
This goofy girl was actually genuinely good at swimming too.
"So? I'm super amazing, right?"
Amane winked.
Her reward was a sharp flick on the forehead from Horikita.
"Yes, very impressive. So, could you let go now? And please keep your hands to yourself. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind delivering some punishment."
"No way!!!"
--+--
T/N: She beat the world record for women's free style, as it's 23.61.
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.