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Starting off with the conclusion, it was impossible to leave the camera team in the dust. I have no idea how they can follow right behind me while pointing a camera in one hand. This isn’t even the beginner’s course anymore.

“What kind of training did they have to be able to do that?”
‘They’re likely professionals, which is quite mad if you ask me. They’re just maids.’

That’s my point. Why are those maids capable of those feats? It should be a completely unnecessary skill for them. Also, there’s occasionally an increase in the number of people following. It seems like they have people dispatched among the courses.

“Are they anticipating my moves?”
‘If I have to guess, they must be utilizing human-wave tactics.’

This ski area has a variety of courses. How many branching paths do you think there are from the summit to the foot? The twelve families—or rather, Kotori’s tenacity—is frightening.

“Even though I’m at my maximum speed, I can’t shake them off at all.”
‘We’re snowboarding amateurs, so it’s inevitable. Rather, being able to do this much on the first day is plainly weird.’

I do have some experience with skiing, after all. So maybe that affected my speed in learning? No, that’s out of the question. Generally, I use a brute force method that relies heavily on the athleticism of Kotone’s body. If I were in my old body, I would’ve stumbled too many times to count.

“Kyousuke is desperately trying to hang on, though. He doesn’t seem to have much leeway to relax.”
‘He’s definitely going to grumble about this.’

He has no choice but to accept his fate. I wonder what Akira and the others are doing below. Maybe they’re streaming this live? I don’t think they’d do that. But Kotori certainly might go that far.

“I passed the half-way point. All that’s left is to slide to the end!”
‘What are we even doing right now?’
“I want to ask that too!”

I really wonder if I have to speedrun down a mountain summit during a private outing. Moreover, I’m being filmed doing this. I really hope they don’t use the footage for some other things.

“If these shots are leaked to the Shimotsuki family, it might not end well.”
‘With the partnership of the video and audio professionals, they could produce a promotional video out of this.’
“Don’t make me imagine something scary!”
‘I don’t want to imagine that future either!’

They’ve already surrounded me as it is. It’s a real struggle to try to escape them. Like hell I’ll allow them to be even more fortified. Even now, I live under the fear that they might just take a more forceful action. Aya is still manageable, but Sherry is too strong.

‘Mister, isn’t this…’
“It’s so blatant and obvious. This is so excessive!”

Due to the arrangement of people, my path forward has been limited. Their objective here is really easy to imagine. The camera team has been obviously pushing me to jump. And now, they are trying to make it happen no matter what.

“This is the problem with the twelve families.”
‘They really aren’t considerate of others at all. How troublesome.’

I see it—a small jump-off ramp. Though I call it that, it’s just snow shaped and fortified into a ramp, so it must be easy to remove as well. If I avoid that, they’ll probably boo me. I’ve figured out a compromise plan, so I leave the rest to the camera team’s capabilities.

“It’s no time to contemplate. Gotta slow down now.”
‘I thought you would go full speed instead.’
“There’s no telling how far I’ll fly, you know? I’m not confident in my ability to move in the air.”

Besides, it’ll be a problem if there was a guest around where I would land. Suddenly having someone fall on you when you’re just minding your own business is just a tragedy. I can’t bother other people. And yes, I am aware that I sometimes do the complete opposite.

“There are ways to make even the shabbiest of jumps look good!”
‘That’ll greatly depend on their efforts.’

I slowed down to a safe speed and jumped from the small ramp. I did it since I thought I could still make it, but I made a small mistake. After all, I flew a lot higher than I planned to. Anyhow, I just have to do a cool pose and then focus completely on the landing.

“I grabbed the nose! Even just this is making it hard to balance!?”
‘You moved mid-air, so of course that’ll be the case. You look good enough, so please prepare for the landing.’

You don’t need to tell me that. Since I jumped higher than I expected to, I braced for impact. The instant I land, I need to bounce on my knees to minimize the impact. If I only focus on this, I might lose balance and tumble. Seriously, why am I even doing this?

“Ah, shi-!?”

Getting distracted by my own thoughts, I ended up falling over. Fortunately, I’ve already lost speed, and I tumbled down in a safe way. However, it did result in me looking lame.

“I fumbled at the very last moment.”
“No no, personally, we had a good haul, as we got not only perfect shots, but also klutzy ones as well.”

Due to exhaustion, my knees are shaky and I can’t stand. Looking up as I pat the snow stuck on my head, I see one of the camera team members has approached me. I can only see her mouth because of her goggles, but from the look of it, it seems like they’re happy with the take.

“Will that be enough?”
“We will be editing the footage before sending it to our young lady, so please be relieved. We guarantee that it will be of high quality.”

No, I didn’t really ask for any sort of guarantee. I can only hope that the excited Kotori won’t give Kaori even more unnecessary information. At least it isn’t spread out to that many people, but I’m already scared to think about what would happen when I make my official debut.

“Still, after bearing witness to you on two separate occasions, I can really see that you’ve changed so much, Lady Kisaragi.”
“I’m aware that I have quite the infamy.”
“When I learned that our young lady became obsessed with you, I thought that she finally couldn’t handle the stress from the master and turned delinquent.”

Is the Fumidzuki’s family situation alright? I know they’re already chaotic enough with a brash patriarch and his wife, who quells him with brute force. I can’t help but wonder how Kotori managed to keep herself together in an environment like that. Well, I guess her preferences and hobbies did turn a bit weird.

“However, I’m relieved to know that you are the one our young lady has come to admire. With this, our young lady will grow even stronger.”
“Just where is Kotori’s future heading to?”

What are they even expecting from Kotori? Despite her appearance, she’s on the higher end in terms of combat ability among the twelve families, I seriously don’t get it. Are they raising her combat ability as a means against her father? If teamed up with her mother, they’re seriously overkill.

“Well then, we shall leave now to start on our next undertaking. May your trip be enjoyable.”
“Good work out there.”

It’s like I’m overhearing private matters, like I’m having a conversation that just doesn’t mesh. No matter how you look at it, their top priority is always Kotori. They might even turn against the Fumidzuki family head for Kotori’s sake. Is that family really okay?

“Ahh, I’m tired.”

I lay back on the snow and stretch my whole body out. The last time I exerted myself this much was the field trip’s escape show. I feel like I’ve exhausted myself more than I did that time. A shadow suddenly covered my face, so I turned my gaze and saw Kaori standing beside me.

“Are you alright?”
“I’m just so tired that I can’t move. I really shouldn’t have gone straight down from the summit without any rest.”
“That’s pretty hardcore. Though I could tell just from looking at him over there that it was pretty tough.”

Following Kaori’s gaze, Kyousuke was there, collapsed on the ground. He kept up with my speed without stumbling, so it’s only natural for him to be exhausted. On the other hand, Akira is a demon for dumping snow all over him.

“Miyako and Harumi are?”
“They’re still a bit further up. I just descended ahead of them since Miyako seemed to have a pretty tough time.”

It can’t be helped; it’s Miyako’s first time. The hardest part is how to stop being scared of every single move you make. Speeding up is scary; losing balance is scary; being so close to other people is scary; so on and so forth. Once you go past that, you become capable of doing more. Things will get a lot more dangerous too. As such, you need to enjoy and have fun in proper moderation.

“Why do you always have to act separately from us when we’re in a group together?”
“I want to know that myself. I don’t really intend to do things that’d invite trouble.”
“It’s worse that you’re doing it unconsciously.”

I mean, it’s the trouble that keeps coming to me. I just deal with it as best as I can. And this time it resulted in me separating from the group. I really do feel bad for my friends. However, if they’re prepared to get involved as well, then I’ll actively take advantage of that.

“Kaori, even you don’t like getting dragged into chaos like what happened on our field trip, right?”
“I don’t even want to imagine something of that scale. Things like that don’t happen easily, you know?”
“Even when the twelve families are involved?”
“Well, now I can’t be so sure.”

As both of us let out a tired sigh, I was made to recall that there’s someone even more troublesome than Kotori. By the time I was finally able to move, Miyako and Harumi caught up to us, so we’re back to moving as a group. I don’t want any more trouble than this.