A Rider Doesn't Need a Youth Romantic Comedy [25]

Yawning, Rōma staggered into the classroom.

In order to let that princess have a good night's sleep and avoid her wreaking havoc at the Institute, everyone had given their absolute best effort to find suitable aromatic pillow stuffing.

It had to be soft enough, not causing any discomfort when stuffed into a pillow.

It also needed a pleasant fragrance—not too strong, not irritating, but mild and extremely long-lasting.

After a long struggle, they barely managed to find something acceptable before the princess’s bedtime.

Someone might wonder—why cater so much to Princess Syalis?

Actually, her position in the Institute was rather unique.

Although she hadn’t signed the [Devil’s Contract] to become an official employee of Chaldea, whenever anomalies broke containment, she always stepped in to help.

In her own words, the noisy troublemakers seriously disrupted her sleep quality.

Though she was technically classified as an anomaly herself, her actual standing might be higher than some ordinary staff.

After all, this was a woman capable of single-handedly pounding anomalous creatures into submission.

Those terrifying anomalous abilities became completely useless in the face of this princess.

Once she caught them, they couldn’t escape a thorough beating.

Rumor had it that back at the Pacific Headquarters, she'd personally beaten more than one anomaly into crippling depression.

Really troublesome…

Massaging his aching eyes, Rōma collapsed into his seat.

When he'd first entered high school, he'd seriously entertained the thought of experiencing a sweet, youthful romance.

After spending every day with abnormal individuals, he felt his sense of aesthetics had almost been twisted beyond recognition.

Surrounded either by mad scientists or distorted anomalies, after enough exposure even rabbits started looking remarkably attractive.

Returning suddenly to a normal high school felt to Rōma like stepping into heaven itself.

Ahh, this is youth!

No dangerous anomalies, no scientists with dangerous ideas filling their heads—

Just beautiful girls brimming with youthful energy.

Even a fleeting, destined-to-end-in-breakup kind of romance would’ve been fine.

Rōma genuinely had thought this.

Unfortunately, after the ordeal with Princess Syalis, that tiny flame in Rōma’s heart had abruptly gone out.

Forget romance—right now, all he wanted was sleep.

Shove the bag away, pat down his hands, stretch his legs out—

Nothing else mattered.

Sakamoto glanced over at Rōma sprawled across his desk and lightly adjusted his glasses.

Though Rōma’s behavior was unusual, Sakamoto asked nothing.

Half-asleep, Rōma vaguely overheard some excited conversation nearby.

“Hey, hey, have you heard about it?”

“Heard about what exactly? How the hell should I know what you’re even talking about?”

The first voice seemed momentarily choked, but quickly recovered, eagerly continuing:

“Apparently, there's a department store near Ōno Park you can only enter but never leave!”

“There are human-like monsters inside! The people trapped there have even built defenses to fight back against them!”

“So?”

Accompanied by the sound of a book snapping shut, a calm male voice replied.

Compared to his excited companion, this boy seemed entirely uninterested.

“We should explore it! If we bring a camera and actually film something, we’ll become famous!”

“And then put on a performance of dying on the spot?”

“I... uh…”

Seemingly shut down by that response, the initial speaker’s voice gradually faded into silence.

Well, seems like people with brains still exist after all.

Despite his exhaustion, Rōma roughly caught the gist of the conversation.

A student had heard some urban legend from who-knows-where and was trying to drag others along on an adventure.

He’d been shut down completely in a few short sentences.

If nothing unusual occurred, the place they described should be AO-3329—Infinite IKEA.

Rōma personally preferred to call it “Uncle Jackie’s Fun House.”

To put it simply, it was an IKEA with entrances at fixed locations, but exits that appeared randomly. Once inside, leaving became almost impossible.

Though the entry points remained consistent, anyone passing through them would be instantly teleported into AO-3008’s interior dimension.

Unless their luck was extraordinary, or their skills incredibly strong—

They’d have to survive until another exit opened. The problem was that these exits appeared unpredictably.

The store’s staff were faceless humanoid monsters wearing IKEA uniforms, known officially as AO-3008-2.

They aggressively attacked humans at night, and merely wandered the aisles by day—though they'd retaliate if attacked.

According to Institute investigations, AO-3329 already contained an unknown number of civilians trapped within.

Collected data indicated those trapped inside had established a rudimentary civilization, complete with settlements and fortifications to fend off AO-3008-2.

To date, only fourteen individuals had successfully escaped.

One escapee was even pursued outside by an AO-3008-2 instance and killed.

Chaldea’s understanding of AO-3329 was based entirely on logs and testimonies from survivors.

After thorough questioning, the survivors were given memory wipes and released.

I’ll have to check where that rumor originated.

A thought flashed briefly through Rōma’s mind.

Logically, AO-3008 had long since been contained by the Institute, preventing it from taking in new victims.

All related information should’ve been suppressed, too.

Yet now, a high schooler was casually discussing it.

Clearly, something was off.

Is it those people again?

Slapping himself awake, Rōma wearily sat up straight.

Although Chaldea was essentially unmatched globally, some troublesome individuals still lurked in the shadows, unwilling to accept Chaldea’s control.

They argued Chaldea had no right deciding if humanity should remain ignorant about anomalies.

Simply put, they thought everyone had the right to know—and some idiots even shouted slogans like “Anomalous lives matter!”

The Institute rarely bothered with these groups.

Ultimately, they were just ignorant fools.

Not much better than ordinary people.

As long as they didn’t take drastic actions, Chaldea mostly ignored them.

But if they touched upon forbidden territory, the Institute would swiftly make them realize…

No—actually, those individuals either ended up dead or memory-wiped.

Fine. They knew nothing.

Precisely because of this secrecy, countless reckless fools attempted to challenge Chaldea.

They’d never personally encountered anyone who genuinely understood Chaldea’s true methods—

To them, Chaldea seemed like nothing more than a slightly larger secret society.

Some idiots even attacked Institute bases directly once they acquired anomalous abilities.

Dr. Jane’s lab probably still held some of their remains.

“Hey.”

Scanning the classroom, Rōma pinpointed his target.

Just as he was about to approach, the bell for class rang sharply.

The middle-aged, balding math teacher entered precisely as the bell stopped ringing.

Seeing this, Rōma reluctantly postponed his plans.

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T/N: its different from SCP number! so yeah and allat hehehe yeah anda allat

This is a fan translation of 骑士不需要青春恋爱物语 by 青琮 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!