I was Thrown into an Unfamiliar Manga

Passing through the school gate, where a different teacher than usual was conducting uniform checks, several tour buses were lined up in a row in front of the school grounds.

“Oppa! Then have a great time at Forest Training School!”
“Yeah, I’ll be back. Yuika.”
“Make sure to eat properly, Yui.”

Sakamoto’s younger sister, with the same orange hair fluttering in the wind, ran toward the middle school building.
Watching her disappear into the distance, Kishimoto asked,
“Your sister’s cute. How old is she?”

Sakamoto gave an awkward laugh and answered,
“She’s two years younger than me. Right now she’s in the third year of middle school.”
“Yui has a very decisive personality. Unlike her lazy brother, she handles everything perfectly.”

Yaguchi said that with a soft chuckle and patted Sakamoto on the back.
“Ah, geez! Are you my mom or something?!”
Sakamoto snapped with a grumpy expression.

Watching the two childhood friends bicker like that, we found ourselves arriving at the athletic field before we knew it.
Satoru, who seemed to have arrived early and was waiting, °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° waved at us from a distance.
“Hey! Over here!”

Having unintentionally gathered up from the subway, we all rushed over to him.
Since we were supposed to depart at 8:20, lots of students had already arrived and were standing in lines.
With the rarely-seen class president in casual clothes, Satoru, and even Sasha, all members of Class 2-B’s Group D had gathered.

“Yu-seong, you definitely brought the stuff we bought yesterday, right?”
“Of course.”
I nodded and shook the ice box slung over my shoulder.
Inside my bag were not only clothes to change into and toiletries for the campsite, but also a variety of seasonings.

“What’s that thing strapped to your back?”
Hearing Satoru’s question, I turned slightly to show him.
“It’s the wok we use at home. I brought it to make Chinese rice bowls.”

Satoru furrowed his brow and muttered,
“With that thing on your back, you look like a villain from a cooking manga.”
At that, Kishimoto chimed in.

“Ah, I think I know what you mean. That manga with the Dark Cooking Society and legendary cooking tools, right?”
“Kishimoto, you’ve seen that too?”
“Yeah. I loved it when I was a kid.”

I stared at the two of them in disbelief as they openly called me a cooking manga villain, then decided I’d better go stow the ice box in the luggage compartment of the bus.
It would only be cumbersome to carry around.
Clunk!

After placing the ice box in the luggage hold and returning to where I had been, Matsuda—dressed in blue hiking gear and fluorescent sunglasses instead of his usual tracksuit—stood on the platform and shouted.
“Alright! Quiet! Quiet! I know everyone’s excited about Forest Training School, but don’t cause any accidents and let’s come back safe! First priority is safety! Second priority is also safety! If you feel sick, contact a teacher right away, and if no one’s at their post, check the emergency contact list and call any teacher! We’ll board the buses by group order, so if you want to leave fast, get in line now!”
He didn’t even use a megaphone, yet his voice hit us directly in the ears—Matsuda really did have powerful vocal cords.

No wonder he’d been grade supervisor for three consecutive years.
Anyway, after that short round of crowd control and attendance check, we began boarding the tour buses in order.
“It’s my first time at Forest Training School, I’m excited.”

Sasha murmured with a flushed face.
Hearing her, I asked the question that suddenly came to mind.
“They don’t have anything like Forest Training School in Russia?”

Sasha shook her head.
“If it’s with family or friends, maybe. But schools don’t organize them. There are a lot of wild bears in Russia.”
“……”

It was such a starkly realistic reason that I immediately understood.
If students were to encounter a bear while camping in the woods, the school would surely be thrown into chaos.
***

Chiba is about an hour to an hour and a half by bus from Minato Ward in Tokyo, where Ichijo Academy is located.
Depending on your view, that can feel long or short, but since everyone had high expectations for Forest Training School, no one looked even remotely sleepy.
That went for our Group D as well. Taking the back seats of the bus, we gathered in a circle and started playing the werewolf game.

Because we had few participants, we only included the basic roles: fortune teller and hunter, but everyone’s acting was top-notch, making the game surprisingly thrilling.
An hour passed like magic.
The most shocking werewolf turned out to be the class president. From beginning to end, they manipulated the atmosphere, calmly eliminating every citizen without batting an eye—it was borderline psychopathic.

Anyway, we arrived safely in Chiba.
One of Chiba’s most notable features is that it’s the only one among the 47 prefectures with no mountains.
So the campsite we’d be staying at for the next three days and two nights was more of a forest retreat with a river behind it.

It was a good spot in terms of water supply, but unlike regular mountains, it lacked the kinds of valleys good for playing in the water, which was a bit disappointing.
Anyway, as soon as we arrived at the campsite, we began setting up our tents.
Usually, tents are rented out by the campsite, so all we had to do was set them up.

One medium-sized tent for the three boys, and one large tent for the four girls.
After quickly assembling the two tents, we checked the time—it was already noon.
On the first day of Forest Training School, it’s customary to eat packed lunches brought from home, so we gathered by group to eat.

“Ooh! Chili shrimp! How did you know I like this?”
“You asked me to make it last time.”
I handed my lunch box to Satoru, who had shamelessly reached out with his chopsticks while pretending to read a Korean textbook.

Sasha, who was sitting next to us, looked interested and asked,
“Kim Yu-seong, you’re into working out, so I thought you’d only eat things like chicken breast. I didn’t expect you to skip meal planning.”
I nodded while eating the egg fried rice I had made that morning.

“A diet meal wouldn’t cover the calories I burn in a day. So I usually eat freely.”
One reason I liked Chinese cooking was because it mostly involved frying and grilling—high in calories.
Plus, since it uses a lot of strong spices, you can use less salt or sugar.

Seeing Satoru eat so enthusiastically must’ve sparked her appetite, because Rika asked with her chopsticks at her lips,
“Can I try one too?”
“As much as you want.”

As I handed her the lunch box, Rika quickly snatched up a chili shrimp with her chopsticks.
I felt the others’ gazes, but I had made plenty with the idea of sharing anyway, so I placed the lunch box down in the center of the mat.
“Everyone have one. I’m pretty confident in this batch.”

The others, who had been subtly eyeing the shrimp while pretending not to care, each took one and gave it a try.
“It’s been a while since you made it, but how is it still this crispy?”
“It’s because I fried it with starch powder. Frying with starch keeps it from getting soggy easily.”

“Really? I should try that sometime.”
Yaguchi, who always seemed interested in cooking, murmured that while analyzing her half-eaten chili shrimp.
Seeing the class president, Sakamoto, and even the Russian Sasha enjoy my food made the early morning effort feel worthwhile.

We all traded side dishes and wrapped up our lunch in a cheerful atmosphere.
***
Forest Training School is generally conducted under the pretense of improving students’ health, so unlike regular school days, it usually involves a lot of physical activity.

If we’d gone to the mountains, we would’ve done hiking, but since this time we were in Chiba, which is all forest, we were assigned environmental cleanup instead.
Each group was given a trash bag and told to walk through the woods picking up garbage with tongs.
So barely having digested lunch, we left the campsite and began sweeping the forest for litter.

Naturally, no one was thrilled about it.
“Ugh, damn it. I bet the teachers are just lounging around back at the lodge.”
Grumbling as he picked up trash with his tongs, Satoru got a reply from the class president, who adjusted his sliding glasses.

“That’s what Forest Training School is always like. I’m just glad we’re not hiking.”
“Hiking in this weather would’ve been the worst. Oh, there’s more trash over there.”
I grabbed a snack wrapper hanging on a bush and dropped it into the trash bag, and Satoru, watching listlessly, asked,

“Come to think of it, for today’s courage test—who’s doing the ghost role again?”
At that, I calmly raised my right hand.
“I was picked for it.”

Unfortunately, my luck with draws wasn’t great.
Satoru grimaced and said,
“Whatever you do, don’t put on ghost makeup. Someone’s gonna faint for sure.”

“Alright, I won’t.”
I wasn’t sure why, but there was no harm in following Satoru’s advice, so I agreed for now.