Club Trial Entry (4)

“I’ve committed a d-d-d-deadly sin!!”

“No, you don’t need to overreact that much…”

The girl who identified herself as Miriam immediately banged her head on the ground and screamed.

“T-to my benefactor who saved my life, I dared to commit such an unspeakable rudeness…”

“No, chronologically speaking, the saving came after…”

Moreover, from what I heard, she was a second-year student. One year older than Delphina and Oscar, the same age as me who entered a year late. A senior.

“S-Senior Miriam? Please calm down first…”

“Please spare me! Have mercy!”

Even when the sociable Delphina carefully tried to speak to her, Miriam just frantically shook her head up and down.

‘There’s no helping it.’

Thinking that the conversation wouldn’t progress at this rate, I decided to take drastic measures.

I reached out my right hand and firmly grabbed the shoulder of Senior Miriam, who was shaking her head like a main vocalist of a metal band.

“Eeeek?!”

Toward Miriam, who was looking at me with a trembling, pale expression, I spoke clearly to avoid any misunderstanding.

“I won’t eat you, so please calm down first.”

“B-but. I, I didn’t recognize the Princess and made death threats.”

“Death threats?”

At Miriam’s out-of-the-blue words, I tilted my head.

“…T-the trowel.”

At Miriam’s stammering words, I finally clapped my palm.

“Oh, that.”

“Uuu…”

“What, were you trembling all this time just because of that?”

Miriam, who had bowed her head deeply, was shaking like an aspen tree.

In fact, a trowel is sharper at the tip than one might think. It’s certainly not a tool that couldn’t be used as a weapon if one intended to.

It wasn’t incomprehensible that she was trembling like that.

I shrugged my shoulders and answered her.

“Such a thing doesn’t even count as a threat to me. So don’t worry.”

“S-such a thing.”

But at my words, Miriam looked up at me with an expression that seemed somewhat shocked.

“Such a thing…”

Miriam’s gaze slowly moved toward my left arm.

“…Such a thing.”

And then, after looking at my right hand with firm calluses that had firmly grabbed her shoulder, Miriam somehow bowed her head deeply, looking very dejected.

“…Yes. I’m sorry for my presumptuous behavior…”

Ha, ha, ha. Miriam laughed in a hollow voice as if her pride had been greatly crumpled. It seemed that the trowel incident was, to her, quite a sincere threat.

“A-anyway!”

As the atmosphere was about to become very gloomy, Delphina hastily opened her mouth.

“What exactly was that situation just now?”

“…Just now?”

Miriam asked back.

“Um, we were actually watching from below. It looked like you were having an argument with someone.”

At Delphina’s words, Miriam silently bit her lip.

“…Ah, I’m sorry. It’s probably not a story to tell freely to people I’m meeting for the first time, is it…?”

Delphina trailed off with an awkward expression. But Miriam shook her head and looked up at me as she spoke.

“…No. Since the Princess also had an unpleasant experience because of my misunderstanding… I’ll tell you everything.”

With a pale face and shoulders that flinched, Miriam began her story.

“First, I should talk about the gardening club that I belong to.”

“Gardening club?”

Delphina said with a brightening expression.

“Princess! We finally found it, a club that might be somewhat normal!”

“Delphina, let’s listen to the story first.”

“Until last year, the gardening club was full of people.”

Miriam spoke quietly, looking up at the evening sky that had begun to set, as if reminiscing about the past.

“Although it was just the fourth-year senior students and me, it was still a club of a considerable size with six members.”

Miriam slowly bowed her head.

“But after all the seniors graduated… this year, only I remained.”

“I see. I can roughly predict.”

Oscar, who had been standing with his arms crossed behind us, nodded.

Miriam briefly looked at him with wide eyes as if surprised, but soon continued her story in a calm voice.

“The problem started from then. Other circle members began to covet the gardening club’s room, which only had me as a member.”

“Covet?”

Delphina tilted her head.

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly that. Since the gardening club was left with only me, they wanted the club to be disbanded and the room to be handed over to another circle.”

“Why such a demand?”

“Most circles can only rent one room. To rent more than one room, you need to prove it with corresponding achievements.”

‘…Oh, didn’t the astronomical observation circle also have two rooms?’

At Miriam’s words, I muttered inwardly.

‘I thought it was a den of pseudo-conspiracy theorists, but maybe they’re surprisingly impressive?’

“But one room is ambiguously sized. Especially circles that need a lot of equipment for their activities are all desperate to use two rooms.”

Miriam, sitting in place, clenched her fist tightly.

“So they want our gardening club to vacate the room. If one room becomes empty, that vacant room could fall to their circle.”

“I see…”

“I, of course, refused. Principally, clubs that have continued for more than four years can rent a room regardless of the number of members.”

“…Her words are true.”

Oscar, who had been listening to Miriam’s story, added.

“Generally, in the case of circles or clubs with fewer than three members, the principle is to follow the disbandment procedure… but exceptionally, circles or clubs that have maintained more than five members for more than four years are given a three-year grace period even if the number of members is insufficient.”

“Grace period?”

Delphina asked.

“It means that during the three-year grace period, they must gather more than three members. If they fail, the circle will be disbanded and they’ll have to vacate the room anyway.”

“How do you know all that?”

“When you clean up after Sister Yuriana, you learn all sorts of things.”

“Hmm…”

I silently stuck out my tongue at Oscar’s audacity to refer to the student council’s work as “cleaning up.”

“…That’s right. So, I tried to gather new students. If I could recruit just two more people besides myself, I could avoid disbandment.”

Miriam nodded.

“But one day, when I went up to the rooftop… all the flowerpots I was growing there were broken and scattered.”

“My goodness.”

Delphina muttered.

“It must have been the work of another circle coveting the gardening club’s room, for sure.”

“Any possibility that it was simply the act of birds?”

Oscar asked quietly.

“That’s impossible.”

But Miriam confidently shook her head.

“One of the seniors who has now graduated made a device to drive away large birds to solve the bird problem.”

Miriam pointed to a wooden box hanging in a corner of the fence.

“…It’s just a box?”

“When a bird of a certain size approaches, that box detects the size and sounds an alarm. It plays a tape recording of a wyvern’s cry, which preys on large birds that might mess up the flowerpots.”

“Ooh.”

“But it’s adjusted not to react to humans. It would be a problem if it mistook the gardening club members who come up to manage the flowerpots for birds.”

At Miriam’s words, Oscar nodded.

“And the argument just now was… because I witnessed people from another circle damaging the flowerpots on the rooftop.”

“What?!”

Delphina, who was startled, shouted.

“Is that true?”

“The culprits I saw were people from the literature circle.”

“Literature circle…”

Delphina, who heard the name that came out of Miriam’s mouth, had a perplexed expression.

“Just hearing the name, it gives off a rather refined impression… It’s hard to believe they would do such a thing.”

“No, I saw it with my own eyes! Those girls, trying to throw and break the precious flowerpots on the ground!”

Miriam shouted as if wronged.

“…Calm down. I’m not saying I don’t believe you.”

Oscar shook his head.

“While climbing the stairs, I saw a group of people hurrying past us. Although it was brief, I also saw dirt on their fingertips. They were probably the people from that literature circle.”

“Y-yes, indeed.”

Miriam, who heard Oscar’s affirmation, trembled her fist as if indignant.

“Isn’t there some way?”

Delphina muttered in a worried voice.

At her words, Miriam hesitantly opened her mouth.

“So, although I think it’s really shameless… I have one request.”

“Request?”

“Would the three of you, or at least Princess Evangeline alone, become a member of our gardening club?”

Leaning her body greatly toward me, Miriam desperately shouted.

“I-if that’s too much… could you at least pretend to join? If a rumor spreads that the Princess is in our club, even temporarily, surely no one would easily think about messing with the gardening club…”

When I didn’t answer, Miriam gradually trailed off but looked up at me with earnest eyes.

“Hmm, well.”

At the sudden request, I slightly turned my head to check Oscar and Delphina’s expressions.

I don’t particularly mind, but… I was concerned about how the two of them would feel about her request.

Oscar had been sulking about something from earlier, his face stiff, and Delphina was giving a meaningful smile.

“Wouldn’t it be okay?”

At that moment, Delphina, who had made eye contact with me, opened her mouth.

“We were also looking for a decent circle, and the gardening club seems not bad, doesn’t it? Even if it’s just for a few days, if we attend the gardening club in the form of a trial entry… it would be as good as fulfilling Senior Miriam’s request.”

“…That’s true. Yes.”

I looked down slightly at Miriam, who was looking up at me, and trailed off.

“…Alright. I’ll do it. Trial entry.”

“R-really!?”

Miriam shouted, jumping up in place.

“T-thank you so much!!”

“Looking forward to working with you, Senior?”

Delphina added with a grin, and Oscar, who had been silently watching us, slightly turned his head.

“Prince, aren’t you joining?”

“I’m not interested.”

Oscar, who was speaking quietly with his head turned away. Concerned about his oddly worrying attitude from earlier, I narrowed my eyes and asked.

“Come to think of it, Oscar, why are you using informal speech from earlier?”

“…Informal speech?”

“Miriam is a senior, one year older than you.”

“…Hmph.”

At my question, Oscar retorted primly.

“The sin of daring to point a trowel at my fiancée is grave.”

“…Is that why you’ve been sulking all this time?”