Having both grown up in royal palaces, they not only lacked common sense about ordinary life, but had also both been assigned arranged marriage partners. The two of them really did have a lot in common to talk about.
"Taking turns..."
Everyone looked at Hachiman, who hadn't fallen into any kind of love-triangle crisis at all and was instead happily enjoying having beauties on both sides, and they had long since gotten used to it.
With a barrier that combined all kinds of magic around them anyway, they felt that even something more stimulating would still be acceptable.
However, after hearing Raphiel's arrangement about taking turns, Gotou Hitori, who was huddled beside Kita Ikuyo, also brightened up. She stared fixedly at Charlotte and La Folia beside Hachiman, waiting for her turn.
There weren't that many people who had come out together today. After excluding those who weren't particularly interested in hugging Hachiman while walking around, it would probably be her turn soon.
"Yukinon..."
Looking at Hachiman ahead, caught between two gorgeous girls, one silver-haired and one pink-haired, Yuigahama Yui, who was following behind, couldn't help glancing repeatedly at Yukinoshita Yukino beside her.
Although petite girls weren't especially rare in the Service Club, the girls with good figures around the president only got more impressive one after another. She couldn't help wondering whether that was why Yukinon had been neglected.
Although Yukinoshita Yukino's status as a politician's daughter didn't seem particularly remarkable within the club, she was still the vice president personally entrusted with important responsibilities by President Hachiman.
Yukinoshita Yukino and the Service Club's vice president, Yukinoshita Haruno, were such a beautiful pair of sisters, and they could even bring in plenty of allies. How had things ended up like this?
"Yui, what are you looking at?"
Feeling the gaze lingering on her, Yukinoshita Yukino suddenly turned to look at Yuigahama Yui.
"N-Nothing!"
How could Yuigahama Yui possibly say what she was thinking in front of Yukinoshita Yukino? She quickly shook her head and looked away.
"...", Yukinoshita Yukino.
Sometimes, she questioned her own life too.
If she had accepted her fate from the beginning, she could have used her head start to win over many of the girls at Sobu High before anyone else entered the picture, bringing them onto the Yukinoshita family's side.
But there was no "if."
Without experiencing it herself, she never could have imagined that one day she would be serving Hachiman together with her sister, even taking the initiative to recruit others and thinking of ways to make Hachiman happy.
Unlike Yukinoshita Yukino and Yuigahama Yui, whose thoughts were running wild, Asagami Fujino, walking behind them, simply stared silently at Hachiman's back. Her expression remained completely unchanged.
"Hachiman, I spotted a few Sobu High students. They seem to be planning to cosplay too, and some of them even have doujin books prepared. Can we let them into the barrier? I'd also like to ask whether they'd be willing to join our convention tomorrow."
Suddenly, Kitagawa Marin, who had been walking ahead with Lumilia looking around the convention, turned to Hachiman and gestured toward a few students she recognized from Sobu High.
"They're Sobu High students too? Sure."
Following Marin's gaze, Hachiman spotted several figures in the crowd and nodded casually.
Besides holding a cosplay-themed event, the main purpose of their private convention was also to let Lumilia and Marin have fun and experience what it was like to gather fellow fans and organize a convention.
Otherwise, if all they wanted was enough people, he believed the girls' schools currently participating in exchange programs with Sobu High would gladly send more girls to act as extras.
"Karen! Huh? And this is... never mind, come on in!"
After getting Hachiman's approval, Kitagawa Marin immediately stepped outside the moving barrier and pulled several girls who had been chatting in front of a booth into it.
"Huh? Marin!"
"This is... President Hikigaya from the Service Club!"
"Why are there so many girls... The princesses from the Principality of Hazerlink? And the imperial princess of the Kingdom of Aldegyr?"
"Ahem! Even though you all probably know Hachiman, Hachiman doesn't know you, so let me introduce everyone."
Before the girls she had brought in could finish expressing their shock over Hachiman and the many girls around him, Kitagawa Marin eagerly introduced the fellow fans she had known before.
"This is Marianna Priscilla, an exchange student from Finland. She's in the same international studies class as Yukino. Like Lumilia, Marianna is pretty interested in otaku culture. I sometimes helped take photos for her."
"Hello, Hikigaya-san. Just call me Marianna."
The sunny-looking blonde beauty Marianna looked a little nervous facing Hachiman, who was surrounded by beautiful girls and even several princesses, and quickly greeted him.
"These two are Tsukishima Karen and Meda Hitomi. They're childhood friends. Karen may not look very confident, but she's really good at drawing and has great potential as a manga artist. As for Hitomi, she likes cosplay just as much as I do."
"N-No, Marin's exaggerating. Hello, President Hikigaya!"
"President Hikigaya, just call Karen and me by our names!"
The long black-haired girl, who seemed just as shy and insecure as Bocchi, and the cheerful blonde girl beside her, Meda Hitomi, also hurriedly greeted Hachiman.
"Uh, this..."
When she got to the last girl, a bespectacled short-haired girl with a slight hunch and one eye hidden behind her bangs, Kitagawa Marin hesitated.
She didn't seem to be a Sobu High student.
"We just met her at the convention. Fumika is interested in cosplay too, and she's planning to cosplay together with us."
Seeing Marin pause, Marianna could only help with the introduction.
"Hello... I'm Sugahara Fumika, an ordinary college student..."
Sugahara Fumika looked uneasily at Hachiman, who seemed to have an extraordinary background, and spoke cautiously.
Another Fumika? It looked like without any help from him, Marin and Lumilia could already put together a pretty decent little convention.
As Hachiman silently sighed to himself while looking at the otaku culture enthusiasts Marin had brought over, he suddenly heard the system notification.
[Ding! Character Quest Triggered — Cosplay Operation]
["Cosplay is the ultimate expression of one's feelings toward the characters one supports. It is the embodiment of the ultimate love."]
["My favorite characters total fifty."]
[Kitagawa Marin had once thought that way, wanting to cosplay every one of her favorite characters. But after seeing your abilities, and with your support, her dream has taken on a new form.]
[Help Kitagawa Marin find fifty fellow enthusiasts who love cosplay as much as she does. Every group event should have fifty amazing cosplay fans cosplaying together.]
[Quest Reward: Temporary Roleplay.]
'Marin's character quest?'
'And what is Temporary Roleplay?'
Hachiman was somewhat surprised when he heard the system notification.
He had thought the quest had been triggered because he met these heroine candidates from the hidden world for the first time at the convention. He hadn't expected Marin to still be the main focus of the quest.
Come to think of it, Kitagawa Marin really hadn't triggered a character quest before. This time, she had arrived at her own home ground and met many fellow cosplayers, so it had probably activated.
Temporary Roleplay sounded a little strange. It was already roleplay, why add the word "temporary"?
Could it be like Temporary Coach? Or was it like the magical girl template and able to grant special abilities to other people?
It actually required fifty people. No matter how weak Temporary Roleplay was, it couldn't possibly be that weak.
But... fifty people... where was he supposed to find them for Marin.
Getting fifty people from the Service Club together to hold a cosplay convention wasn't difficult. The real problem was finding fifty people who loved cosplay as much as Marin did.
True cosplay enthusiasts... somehow that felt even harder than finding fifty girls at the idol agency who genuinely loved being idols.
As Hachiman considered whether the Cosplay Operation quest was worth it, Marianna, Tsukishima Karen, Meda Hitomi, and the others, seeing him remain silent in thought after greeting them, immediately grew nervous and exchanged hesitant looks.
"..."
Aside from Sugahara Fumika, the college girl with one eye hidden by her bangs whom they had just met at the convention, both the Finnish exchange student Marianna and the childhood friends Tsukishima Karen and Meda Hitomi all knew how capable Hachiman was.
Even though they were ordinary people without enough connections to truly understand the extent of Hachiman's influence, just looking at the many beautiful girls surrounding him revealed enough.
The two foreign princesses, La Folia and Charlotte, who had just transferred to Sobu High, had clearly come specifically for Hachiman. They had even accompanied him on a weekend outing.
Although they still found it hard to understand. Shouldn't the highest-status person at Sobu High be the elf princess? Why was everyone revolving around Hachiman instead?
"Savior-sama, if you think there are too many people, would it be okay if Marin and I looked around nearby with them?"
Seeing that Hachiman didn't seem particularly enthusiastic toward these girls, Lumilia spoke softly.
These cosplay enthusiasts were all pretty cute. If they became magical girls, their looks and presence would improve even more.
But the Service Club's circle was already packed with young ladies and princesses competing to get in. For ordinary people, joining the Service Club really depended on luck. Being pretty alone wasn't enough.
If Savior-sama didn't like the idea, she couldn't very well recruit these cosplay enthusiasts into the Service Club.
"It's not that I mind your friends, Lumilia and Marin. I was just thinking that if we're organizing our own convention, we can't only invite cosplayers. Otherwise it'll feel less like a convention and more like a cosplay gathering."
Hachiman smiled, stroked Lumilia's smooth, beautiful platinum-blonde hair, gently kneaded her slender fair pointed elf ear, and patiently explained.
"Of course, if you want to look around by yourselves, that's fine too. Just don't go too far."
Logically, he should accompany them, but there were simply too many people around him. Even with the moving barrier, staying together wasn't very convenient.
Letting them wander around nearby wasn't bad either. With their magic, a simple disguise was enough to hide their nonhuman features without causing a disturbance.
"President Hikigaya, are you planning to invite other kinds of otaku fans besides cosplayers to your private convention?"
Meda Hitomi, with her long hair draped over her shoulders, hadn't intended to interrupt, but hearing Hachiman mention setting up booths, she couldn't hold herself back.
"That's right. Did Marin tell you about the private convention?"
Hachiman looked at Meda Hitomi and Tsukishima Karen, who kept secretly glancing at him beside her, smiled, nodded, and asked in return.
These two hidden-world heroines... he had indeed seen them around Sobu High before and had some vague impression of them, but nothing more.
Just looking at them, they seemed like pretty girls. Even knowing their names, he had no special impression of them.
"Marin only mentioned it briefly. Karen and I actually haven't made up our minds yet... But that's not the important part. The important question is whether President Hikigaya would be willing to hire us part-time."
"Part-time? Working part-time at the convention?"
Hachiman was a little surprised.
"That's right! Part-time! Cosplay part-time!"
As she spoke, Meda Hitomi pulled over the timid, hunched, long black-haired Tsukishima Karen beside her, took a doujin book out of Karen's backpack, and handed it to Hachiman with both hands while looking at him nervously.
"Please take a look. Karen drew this herself. There are still some parts that aren't completely finished, but it should already meet the standard for selling at a convention, right?"
"A doujin book... Let me have a look first..."
Hachiman accepted the unfinished book, while Lala and Charlotte beside him also watched as he opened it.
Well... From an amateur's perspective, Tsukishima Karen's work really was quite good.
Although her drawing skills were still a little immature, her art style was nice and her fundamentals were solid. If she sold it, plenty of people would buy it. The only question was how many people at their private convention would actually purchase doujin books.
"We originally planned to sell it at this convention. But Sobu High was busy preparing for exams, and we were also short on printing costs, so we couldn't get it printed in time."
Seeing from Hachiman's expression that he seemed fairly satisfied with the unfinished book, Meda Hitomi continued explaining their situation.
"If possible, President Hikigaya... could you let us have a small booth at your private convention to sell it? Karen and I can both cosplay at the convention."
"Also, because we're short on printing costs, we'd like to ask if you could pay us part of our cosplay wages in advance..."
By the end, Meda Hitomi had turned red with embarrassment.
Discussing part-time wages with someone like Hachiman, whose status was clearly extraordinary and whose every action could influence many people, was really hard to bring up.
But she had no choice. Both she and Karen came from fairly ordinary families and didn't get much spending money.
Instead of working ordinary part-time jobs elsewhere, they'd rather earn money at the private convention Marin was organizing while also enjoying their hobby.
"Hehe, that's no problem at all. Just talk to Kikyo about it. Tell her I said so, and have her give you the highest part-time rate."
Hachiman smiled and nodded.
"Kikyo? You mean Kushida Kikyo from the Advanced Nurturing High School transfer class?"
Meda Hitomi stared blankly at Hachiman.
Most of the transfer students from Advanced Nurturing High School kept their distance from the other students. Only Kushida Kikyo was an exception.
In the eyes of many Sobu High students, Kushida Kikyo, who allowed Hachiman to casually stroke and play with her in front of him, was a bright, cheerful little angel. Naturally, Meda Hitomi knew who she was.
She just hadn't expected that Kushida Kikyo, who usually treated boys coldly at Sobu High and was only friendly toward girls, had such a close relationship with Hachiman behind the scenes that she was even managing the money.
"That's right. There are a lot of girls participating in this convention. Someone else is handling people from outside the school, while Kikyo is in charge of the Sobu High students."
Hachiman explained with a smile.
[🙇🏻 You Can Support the Story Through P@tr3on—AmbitiousTranslator. It also has 40+ Chapters of all the novels and fanfics. Thanks for reading~]