Diary Of Service Club, Helping The Elf Princess

After all, this world isn't as safe as the ordinary modern world. The more one wades into danger, the more likely they are to mess up. He needed to minimize the chances of personally dealing with impossible situations. Once he had enough money, he could try hiring professional assassins to handle minotaur hunts instead.

Hachiman, after mulling over this, stopped obsessing over playing dead and instead stared at his Absolute Taming Ability, sinking into thought.

[Absolute Taming: Tame and nurture; nurture and educate. There are no disobedient pets, only lazy owners.]

Taming refers to raising and domesticating.

For example, dogs were domesticated from wolves after more than ten thousand years of care and taming. Other examples include wild chickens turning into domestic chickens, wild boars becoming domestic pigs, and so on. Turning wild animals into domestic ones follows this process.

This Absolute Taming wasn't a kind of forced control ability.

To be precise, Absolute Taming should be considered a passive ability that accelerates the Taming process.

As long as you genuinely put effort into taming, you'd end up with obedient pets.

Hmm... though this ability seemed somewhat speechless. He barely had time to flirt with girls, let alone spend time taming pets. But the rewards for character missions seemed to appear based on their original fate.

The training boyfriend mission for gyaru girls gave him increasingly refined skills. The big-breasted clear-minded girlfriend from the swimming club gave him a service collar. Gabriel, with her task to fall from grace as the heavenly realm's top angel, rewarded him with a Fallen Angel Ring.

For Ichinose Ayano, this easily captivated and helpless individual, receiving a reward like Absolute Taming didn't seem all that strange either.

However, this ability didn't seem particularly useful for counseling Sakurase Shino.

Although he wasn't sure of the exact reason, Sakurase Shino appeared to listen to him well enough. Even though she was still extremely withdrawn and uncommunicative, her body obediently followed his instructions.

It was precisely because of this that Yukinoshita Yukino saw hope in counseling Sakurase Shino. She believed she couldn't lose to him and agreed to use the task of guiding Sakurase Shino as a competition. To reclaim her position as the Service Club's president and restore the club's atmosphere, she worked hard.

"Is this Hikigaya-san? Daydreaming in class isn't good~"

While Hachiman was pondering how to utilize his new ability, he suddenly noticed the new English teacher, Tateki Chino, standing by his desk. Her slender, white fingers lightly tapped his desk as she looked at him with a kind smile.

"Please stand up, Hikigaya-san, and answer the question I just asked."

'What question?'

Hikigaya hadn't been paying attention to class just now and had no idea how to respond.

But being sent to stand in the hallway for zoning out wasn't a big deal. He could even use the opportunity to sneak off and play with the elf princess Eiris.

Just as he was about to admit he didn't know the answer, he caught sight of Gabriel in his peripheral vision. Nonchalantly, she picked up her pen, scribbled a few lines in her little notebook, and subtly propped it up on her desk in front of him.

'Hmm... this little angel...'

Hikigaya gave up on his plan to sneak away and earnestly followed the answer Gabriel had written to respond to Tateki Chino's question.

Aside from having decent grades in literature, his performance in other subjects was mostly subpar. His English was only slightly better than other subjects because it fell under the humanities category.

But that was before. With his assassin template granting him knowledge of various disciplines, English was no longer an issue for him.

Hearing Hachiman's pure accent, Tateki Chino was momentarily stunned.

Due to the abrupt resignation of Mr. Misaki, she had taken over in a hurry that morning. Nervous, she only had time to skim through the records of top and bottom students in the class.

If she remembered correctly, Hachiman was one of the weaker students in English. How could he have such high-level pronunciation?

"Ahaha, Hikigaya-san answered well. Please make sure to focus more during class and learn from Gabriel-san next to you."

She didn't say much more, only nodding at Hachiman with her unchanged smile. After glancing at Gabriel, she gestured for him to sit down, then returned to the podium in her high heels to continue the lesson.

After sitting down, Hikigaya looked at the slender figure of Tateki Chino standing by the podium and helplessly shook his head.

Her graceful and natural demeanor was quite attractive, but he sensed she was like Mafuyu Kirisu—beneath the glamorous exterior was a side nobody knew.

While Tateki Chino seemed approachable and friendly, unlike Kirisu's aloofness, she was even more popular than Kirisu at Sobu High. However, he couldn't help but wonder what dangers she might face.

A delicate, fair hand holding a small notebook suddenly extended toward him from the side.

On the pristine white paper of the notebook was written a single line:

[Please focus on class. (◣_◢)]

Hikigaya glanced at Gabriel, who widened her eyes and silently urged him to take class seriously.

Actually, Gabriel felt it wasn't right to give Hachiman hints. Getting called out in class for daydreaming should make him regret his lack of effort, leaving a stronger impression.

Tateki Chino's glance before leaving probably meant she noticed Gabriel secretly providing Hachiman with answers.

But since Hachiman's slacking off was partly her fault, she couldn't ignore it.

If he were continually reprimanded by teachers, his motivation to study would plummet, making things worse.

Hachiman looked at the notebook, then at Gabriel's petite figure. He felt she wouldn't look great pulling off that expression.

[Can you mimic this expression (ಠ_ಠ)?]

Hachiman scribbled in the notebook and pushed it back to Gabriel.

"..."

Gabriel looked at Hachiman with a blank expression.

She was trying to talk to him seriously, but what on earth was going on in his mind?

Satisfied to see Gabriel making the face he'd requested, Hachiman nodded, deciding to stop messing around with her before Tateki Chino noticed.

Though his goal was to be a househusband, he couldn't slack off too much in school. Otherwise, the next long holiday might land him in cram school.

Letting Gabriel know about his slacking was enough.

After finishing Tateki Chino's English class and two more periods, Hachiman took his sports uniform to the bathroom, changed, and headed to the field.

The last class of the morning was tennis, with several classes gathered at the courts.

Tennis wasn't one of his favorite classes. He liked basketball even less because it made him sweat more.

For tennis practice, partnering up with someone was essential, and for Hachiman, finding a teammate was the most troublesome part. Usually, he'd wait until the end, when the teacher paired up students from different classes who were also left out.

Now, however, he had developed closer relationships with classmates, such as gyaru trio Yuina, unexpectedly pure-hearted Miura Yumiko, and the little angel Gabriel.

"Little Hachiman, You can do it~"

When the gym teacher asked everyone to freely form pairs and help each other stretch before starting practice, Yuina patted Hachiman on the shoulder, gave him some encouragement, and then went off to find Miura Yumiko.

Miura Yumiko's small group also consisted of three people. Since Iroha Isshiki and Kitagawa Marin had already paired up, Yumiko was left out, so she had to team up with them. On the other hand, Minami, who didn't get along well with Miura Yumiko, teamed up with Rin.

"..." Hachiman.

He understood what Yuina and her friends meant. It wasn't that they didn't want to pair up with him; they just wanted him to team up with Gabriel.

This kind of practice wasn't an opportunity for anything improper, but helping each other stretch was a relatively close interaction that could help improve relationships and foster feelings.

However...

"Gabriel~ Found you!"

The mischievous angel Raphiel approached Gabriel with a cheerful smile, pulling his little angel Gabriel away.

In tennis classes, where students from different classes participated together, the general rule was for each class to practice separately. However, with such a large tennis court, it was common for students to find friends from other classes to practice with. The gym teacher didn't care about such arrangements.

Though he could still go after Gabriel, compared to a worry-free angelic friend, Gabriel would undoubtedly prioritize him.

But right now, Hachiman didn't feel like dealing with the mischievous angel Raphiel, so he decided to drop it and find someone else.

Earlier, when he was coming downstairs, he noticed Iris changing into sportswear and heading this way, which meant she was also attending the tennis class.

Wait, he might have found someone even more suitable.

Just as Hachiman was preparing to approach the elf princess Iris to strengthen their bond, he suddenly noticed someone else from another class who was also alone.

A pitiful creature with pink ahoge, curled up in the corner—a representative of the unfortunate and awkward species.

Gotou Hitori, a first-year student at Sobu High, was introverted, friendless, and suffered from severe social anxiety.

Originally, her academic performance was terrible. No matter how hard she studied, she still scored zero on her tests. There was no way someone like Gotou Hitori could get into a prestigious school like Sobu High.

However, Sobu High wasn't satisfied with merely being Chiba's top-ranked school in terms of academic performance. It continuously recruited potential talents in fields like athletics, swimming, and tennis. Gotou Hitori was admitted into Sobu High's music department due to her professional-level guitar skills.

That said, her special admission to Sobu High didn't bring her success in life.

Despite leaving behind her middle school classmates and the associated black history, she still hadn't made any friends at her new school.

On one hand, her professional-level music skills were limited to guitar; unlike others, she didn't master multiple instruments or have extensive music theory knowledge, making her struggle academically.

On the other hand, her social anxiety showed no signs of improvement in this unfamiliar environment. Seeing that most of the music department students were either wealthy or exceptionally outgoing, her severe communication barriers made her even more reluctant to approach them.

There was another girl in the music department as withdrawn as she was. However, the other girl was much stronger—independent and unyielding, going her own way. She even hit someone during the first month of school and frequently arrived late or skipped class.

Gotou didn't dare to follow her example. On days like this, during tennis class, she could only curl up in an empty corner, hugging herself to get through it...

Although she had many imaginary friends, they were completely useless in such situations...

Curled up in an empty corner, Gotou Hitori hugged her knees. Half of her face was buried in her legs, and the other half was obscured by her long bangs. Only her lifeless, dead-fish-like eyes stared blankly at the tennis court floor. Her entire demeanor was utterly dejected.

"Hello, are you Bocchi-chan?"

"Eh? Bocchi...-chan?"

Noticing a figure in front of her, Gotou Hitori raised her head to look at the boy seemingly speaking to her. Her pupils instantly dilated. Subconsciously, she wanted to back away, but with her back against the metal fence, there was nowhere to retreat. She could only suppress her urge to flee, tense her face, and avoid eye contact as she stammered a response.

"Oh, sorry, I misspoke. Are you Gotou-san?"

Hachiman looked at the shy, pink-haired girl with an ahoge who didn't dare meet his gaze. She looked as if she might break down just from answering a simple question. Correcting his earlier slip, he repeated his question.

"Bocchi-chan" was the phonetic translation of "Kodoku-chan" (Lonely-chan).

According to common translation practices, adding "-chan" usually meant adding "little" before the name in English.

Seeing how confused Gotou Hitori was by the nickname "Bocchi-chan," it seemed like Ijichi Nijika hadn't recruited Bocchi-chan into her band yet, so Gotou hadn't earned her official nickname.

"Yes! I'm Gotou Hitori... May I ask... what you need... from me...?"

In response to Hachiman's question, Gotou Hitori instinctively nodded to confirm her identity. However, she had no idea why Hachiman would approach her, nervously stammering as she glanced around, afraid she was about to be bullied.

"It's tennis class practice, and I don't have a partner. Could I trouble you to form a temporary team with me so we can practice together?"

Watching the extremely shy and gloomy pink-haired girl before him, Hachiman smiled and got straight to the point.

When looking for a practice partner, naturally, someone like Bocchi-chan—who suffered from social anxiety and introversion—was the ideal choice. She wouldn't even dare to voice her rejection.

From the moment he saw the romance list, he had known about Bocchi-chan's existence, though she was difficult to find.

Since she suffered from severe social anxiety and found normal conversations challenging, suddenly approaching her would likely scare Bocchi-chan, who wanted friends, into fleeing.

Now, during this tennis class, their shared experience of being "abandoned" by their classmates would probably make Bocchi-chan see him as a kindred spirit.

"No one wants you either?"

Hachiman's prediction was spot on. As soon as he finished speaking, Gotou Hitori, who had been worrying about being bullied, suddenly looked extraordinarily thrilled.

"Uh..."

Looking at Gotou Hitori, Hachiman struggled to find the right words to respond to her question.

Although his situation differed from Gotou Hitori's socially anxious introversion, his current position of seeking her out seemed to align with her perception—no one wanted him.

"No, that's not what I meant! Uh... um... I mean, I also..."

Seeing Hachiman suddenly go silent, Gotou Hitori belatedly realized her misunderstanding. She hurriedly tried to explain but froze up as the words got stuck in her throat, not knowing how to offer comfort.

Having had almost no friends since childhood, her social circle was limited to family and teachers. She even had to muster up courage just to go grocery shopping alone.

Comforting others—especially the opposite sex—was utterly foreign to her.

Despite being a socially isolated individual herself, she felt happy that someone had approached her to team up. Feeling this way about another person's misfortune made her feel even worse.

'Ahhhhh!!'

'I'm such a terrible person!'

'As expected, a worthless bottom-feeder like me doesn't deserve friends!'

"Gotou-san, since you don't have a partner either, would you team up with me to practice over there?"

Hachiman, ignoring Gotou Hitori's gradually crumbling expression and her 6д9-style facial contortions, calmly pointed to an empty spot nearby.

When dealing with such socially anxious, introverted girls, you had to lead the pace. Otherwise, if dragged into their rhythm, they'd spiral into self-pity and eventually run away.

Hmm... Back then, he was also severely introverted and socially anxious, though not as bad as Bocchi-chan. Slowly facing reality had beaten it out of him.

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