Hi! I did promise the Wikia I’d take care of every Choukansha Fair stories for as long as I can, so here’s a little something to keep the blog alive. Thanks Tharuth for helping me out!
I personally do think this story is a prequel to The End of the Summer and the Straw Hat , but we never know..

On a personal note, I’m so happy to say I’ve been working full-time once again on an official project related to the IP. I’ve been learning so much, the staff is incredibly kind, and it really makes me want to give it my all…

Special thanks to Kasamaki for always helping me out with so many things, I’m really glad to be friends with you.

— Celest

Tharuth’s Note: Hihi! I don’t know what to say, but hopefully you guys enjoy! It’s pretty short, and could’ve been released last Monday (2025/08/11) but I forgot. Thank you to Cel again for translating, and you guys for reading! :)

Credits

Translation: Celest
Editing: Tharuth
Raws: Anon

【TRANSLATION】 Dengeki Choukansha Fair 2025 – Summer Homework Never Ends

Dengeki Choukansha Fair 2025 – Summer Homework Never Ends

“Is… Is it over?..”

I muttered, as I almost lost consciousness, completely exhausted.

I felt like collapsing right then and there, but I still had one last thing to do before calling it a day. Forcing my lifeless hand to move, I tapped the hollow window, and pressed the 《SAVE》 button in the context menu. After confirming the report I just finished was stored both locally and on the cloud, the last bit of my strength slipped away.

The armchair’s backrest caught me as I sank into it. When I closed my eyes, I began to reflect on the long, grueling battle I had endured―

“Oh, did you finish your report yet?”

Asked a voice across the table. I slowly opened my heavy eyelids and nodded.

“Yeah, somehow…”

“Good job!”

She exclaimed as she smiled and congratulated me. She was a female Undine player, with long, sky-blue hair tied into a ponytail from two side braids. In the virtual world, she was the co-owner of the log cabin we bought together; while in the real world, she was a year my senior at the school we were attending. In both worlds, she was my beloved partner and girlfriend, Asuna.

“Let’s check one last time…”

I raised my right hand again and opened my cloud storage. I navigated to the folder named 《SHW2026》 and double-checked the files.

“One, two, three… Yup! I think everything’s correct.”

“You did it!~”

Asuna cheered, elated as if it was her own accomplishment, making me sheepishly lower my head in gratitude.

“It’s all thanks to you helping me out, Asuna. You really saved my ass here.”

“Don’t say that, and it wasn’t just me. Liz and Silica helped you too, right?~”

“That’s right, I’ll make sure to thank them tomorrow at school.”

I closed the hollow window again, and leaned back into the armchair. Towards the bottom right corner of my view, the clock read 8:45 P.M.

Our tumultuous August was almost over― Asuna and I woke up from our long dive on August 1st. After a long and grueling rehab period, Asuna was discharged on the 13th, and I was finally let out on the 16th.

All the doctors, the physical therapists, Nurse Aki, Chief Higa, Dr. Koujiro, and even Kikuoka Seijirou, whose official title is still a mystery to us, all told us to get lots of rest. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done, because both Asuna and I had been given responsibilities that we absolutely couldn’t avoid—that being… summer homework.

I’d be lying if I said the thought of just skipping it didn’t cross my mind, especially given our extreme circumstances. I’d been poisoned by Johnny Black, AKA Kanamoto Atsushi, and fell into a coma for over a month on June 29th, while Asuna snuck on to the Ocean Turtle on July 5th trying to track me down; both of which were well before summer vacation even started. Meaning, by the time we were discharged and finally confronted by our avalanche of assignments, nearly 70% of our summer vacation was already over!

We could have asked our school for an extension or some kind of leniency, but we didn’t want to lie to our teachers with the cover-up story. That said, even if we told them the truth—namely, our comas, rehab and 200 years in the Underworld—we doubted anyone would actually believe us. Besides that, breaking our silence would get us in severe trouble with Kikuoka. Thus, reluctantly, we chose to cram all our assignments or homework over the next two weeks… but it turned out way harder than we thought it would be.

The special high-school we both attend, the “SAO Survivor School”, values student independence , so most assignments are in a report format, but the weird part is we’re allowed to use AI; though if a clear, factual error is spotted, they’d deduct points off.

AI services from tons of companies exploded in popularity and use over the past few years, but their biggest flaw: producing deceptive and inaccurate statements, is still yet to be solved. In other words, using AI still meant you had to check all the claims and sources yourself; which leads some students, myself included, to think about just doing the research themselves.

That said, I wasn’t completely immune to the temptation. I do have access to a super-AI that’s not prone to misinformation… but Asuna would definitely scold me, and I’d probably lose some respect from my own AI herself. Thus, I ended up writing the six reports myself from scratch, with Asuna helping me choose my research topics and the research material itself—and that’s how we somehow managed to finally finish right before our summer vacation ended.

All we had left was to upload the six reports onto our school server. The submission deadline, whether out of kindness from our teacher’s hearts or not, was set for 7:00 AM tomorrow morning; so we still had almost ten hours until the deadline. I didn’t have the energy to read through them again, and as I reached out to upload the files—

A tinkling sound like a bell echoed, and a small fairy-like figure appeared on our table. It was Yui, our adorable little super-AI that Asuna and I considered our daughter.

Yui clasped her hands together in front of her chest, wearing an oddly sorrowful expression and began speaking.

“Papa, I have some disappointing news.”

“Oh? Wh-what is it?”

“I hope it’s not rude, but I took a look at the reports you saved in the cloud, papa.”

As an impending sense of doom began to creep over me, I waited for what she had to say next.

“There are nine factual mistakes through the six reports.”

“….”

With my mouth agape in shock and dread, Asuna, sitting across from me, looked momentarily sympathetic before smiling brightly and exclaimed:

“You can do it, Kirito!”