A Late Bloomer's Powerful Restart ~My Second Life Starts at a Prestigious School Where the Gender Ratio Is Totally Off, and for Some Reason, All These Talented Girls Get Attached to Me...!?~

Chapter 33.2: The Truth About Pure Beauty Amber

…From the crooked framing, it was clear she accidentally took it during the mistake, but the important thing was that the clock above the blackboard was visible.

You could tell the flash had gone off, and it was solid proof that she had been in this place at this hour.

I transferred it to my own phone via cloud, then handed her phone back.

“…Th-that kind of photo… it’s not evidence of anything.”

I didn’t miss the words she muttered under her breath.

She couldn’t act tough toward a boy, it seemed… but even though her voice trembled, she still had some defiance left.

“Who knows? At the very least, I’d say a teacher’s questioning is pretty likely.”

“She took her clothes off herself in the first place! I have nothing to do with it!”

“…………What do you guys think?”

Ignoring Riko’s excuse, I turned my eyes to her followers. They let out tiny “Hii!” squeaks and shrank back in fear.

Even three against one, the difference in strength between boys and girls was obvious.

Sorry, but I’m not a good person like Sasa… I had zero intention of going easy.

“…You’re prepared, right?”

“Wh-what are you going to make me do—”

“Yeah… The fastest way would be to let you experience firsthand what was done to Sasa… But first, what weakness did you use to threaten her?”

Riko had said it herself… that Sasa took her clothes off willingly.

Riko was the one who set it up, so it was reasonable to assume she had threatened her with something.

When I looked at Sasa, her eyes, which had been downcast and emotionless, suddenly widened.

“Th-this girl was a shut-in when she was in elementary school! See? Aren’t you disappointed? She acts like the perfect young lady, but she was actually a truant problem child!”

“…That’s enough. Shut up.”

The current Sasa who smiles brightly at everyone… compared to the previous-life Sasa who was more timid and dark than anyone, so mentally cornered that she had to depend on someone.

They seemed like completely different people, so I had predicted that something would happen to her.

But I mistakenly thought that as long as I was nearby, nothing bad would happen.

Finally I reached one truth… I had always wondered why previous-life Sasa ended up with that kind of personality, but now I was certain.

——It was because of Riko Morozumi.

“Now then… How ugly can that pretty face of yours become, I wonder?”

“A-ah, aaaaaahhh…!!”

When I lowered my voice even more and cracked my knuckles, Riko burst into tears and tried to run away… then fell again and hit her hips.

It must be scary… But Sasa had gone through something many times more terrifying.

——In her previous life, she could hardly even smile.

She crawled, trying to escape while looking up at me——but at that moment, a hand grabbed the hem of my shirt from behind.

“…!!”

She couldn’t speak, but she was trying to stop me.

Why stop me… I couldn’t understand that kindness.

But I decided to respect her wish.

“…I’ll let you go. Get out.”

“Ah, y-yes… yes…”

“Also, about Amane’s matter… we’ll talk more another day.”

I drove the point home and glared at their backs until they left the classroom.

There was no evidence left anyway… Riko probably wasn’t stupid enough to do something reckless and try to strike back from here.

I made sure to carve fear into her so she wouldn’t.

I quietly picked up the clothes that had fallen and draped them over Sasa.

“Sorry… It must have been scary. You can’t even speak.”

“…No, I’m glad you came… really.”

Even in her previous life, she had a habit of hiding how much she was burdened.

In fact, I hadn’t noticed until she was confined just how mentally broken she was—that she couldn’t endure without depending on me.

The fact that she could still express her feelings like this meant there was still time.

I naturally pulled her into a hug and rubbed her back.

I wonder how much time passed like that.

Eventually I noticed she had calmed down, and I spoke.

“Hey… If you’re okay with it, could you tell me…? About yourself, Sasa. It seems… I don’t know anything about you.”

I had known absolutely nothing about the past that was apparently traumatic for her.

Even in the previous life when our relationship was deeper than now, I hadn’t been able to ask.

But I had to know… if I wanted to truly understand her.

“——I promise… I will never be disappointed in you.”

Maybe that plea reached her, because Sasa finally opened her mouth.

“I… a long time ago, we were really… poor.”

That was something I didn’t know… No, perhaps no one in the entire academy knew.

That the young lady of the Kokonoe Group had once been poor would normally be dismissed as an unbelievable rumor.

But her words carried weight.

“When Dad was still a student… he admired someone and wanted freedom, apparently. So he gave up his position as the Kokonoe Group successor and married Mom. After that, me and Kohei… my little brother were born.”

It was shocking. The man who clung to the group’s authority more than anyone had once abandoned his successor position—that was news to me.

But for now, I chose to believe her story.

When Sasa was born, the family must have been incomparably poorer than now.

“Because we were poor, people who didn’t know anything mocked us… I was showered with heartless words, and I escaped by becoming truant.”

That was probably the beginning of her becoming a shut-in.