Unsurprisingly, Shu and Sumire got extremely excited upon seeing how easily Hajime was able to modify their house with his transmutation—the same magic that had once killed a god. Their praise made Hajime get a little carried away, and since Yue and the others didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t for the average Japanese house, they didn’t bother to stop him.
By the time he was done, Hajime had five entire stories’ worth of rooms, and the whole structure was more than twice the size of the entire plot of land the Nagumo house sat on. The basement rooms were all accessible via a teleporter, so Hajime had built them over fifty meters deep underground, ensuring they wouldn’t get in the way of municipal pipelines or the sewer system or anything.
All in all, Hajime had made his new bedroom, a workshop for himself, another workshop for his parents, a training room (complete with a shooting range), an arcade, a theater room, a freely modifiable nuclear shelter (made near the end of his building spree when he hadn’t been in his right mind again quite yet), a new display room for everyone’s otaku goods, and a fully stocked library.
None of their neighbors knew that literally overnight, a huge number of rooms had been built under their houses.
The morning after all that illegal construction was completed, Hajime looked over his handiwork and said, “Maybe I went a bit overboard...”
He then sat down on the living room sofa and stared at a display of all the rooms he’d created.
“And in the end, I’m still just using my old room...”
Indeed, after a long discussion, Hajime had ended up sticking to his old room on the second floor. Yue and the others had been insistent that if Hajime was going to move underground, they would all sleep down there with him. And if they went through with that, all of the second-floor rooms would go completely unused, defeating the initial purpose of Hajime’s construction project.
“He he, that shouldn’t be a problem, should it?” Remia asked with a smile, walking into the living room.
“Don’t you want to be in the room next to us, daddy?” Myu asked, walking in behind her mother. She then jumped onto Hajime’s lap and pouted up at him.
Hajime poked her puffy cheeks and shook his head.
“Nah, I was honestly kind of attached to my old room, so I’m happy with this arrangement. Besides, that makes my basement room that much cooler, since I won’t be using it all the time.”
“Glad to hear it. I was worried we were being too pushy when we asked you to stay upstairs.”
“I’m fine with this, but are you guys sure you don’t mind? You, Tio, and Myu all have to share a room now.”
Naturally, the other room was occupied by Yue and Shea. Remia sat down right next to Hajime and shook her head.
“I don’t mind in the slightest. If anything, I’m glad to be sharing a room with Tio-san. We often talk late into the night about all sorts of things and it would be a shame if I could no longer do that... Heh heh heh,” Remia said with an almost childish smile. It was clear she didn’t mind sharing a space with Tio at all.
“It’s fun sleeping with mommy one night and Yue-oneechan and Shea-oneechan the next!” Myu exclaimed.
“I see. Well, as long as everyone’s happy with this, it’s fine, I guess.”
It seemed everyone was more than happy to share rooms.
“Don’t you get lonely sleeping alone, daddy?” Myu asked suddenly, pointing out the fact that only Hajime had a room to himself. It was an innocent enough question, but it still hurt to be asked that.
“Well, you see, Myu, boys have times when they want to be alone,” Remia replied before Hajime could respond.
“Really?” Myu asked as Hajime shot Remia a confused look.
“That’s right. You see, daddy has a lot of hobbies, and sometimes he wants to be alone so he can enjoy them,” Remia explained.
“Why alone? How come Myu can’t be with him?”
Wait, that’s not true!
However, before Hajime could say anything, Remia plowed ahead and said, “You just can’t. You’re not old enough yet. You see, in this world, there are age ratings for some things, and children can’t look at R-18 material.”
“What?!” Hajime exclaimed, jumping in his seat and losing his mind.
How does Remia know the word R-18?! Has she seen my collection?! But how?! When?!
“Mrr! So I can’t see them yet? What about you, mommy? Or everyone else? Can they be there with daddy?”
“Ufu fu, we certainly can. But only if he wants us to, isn’t that right?” Remia stated, shooting Hajime a playful wink. Myu turned to Hajime as well and gasped when she saw him.
“D-Daddy, what’s wrong?!”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“You’re sweating a bunch!”
“Ha ha, you must be imagining things. Don’t worry, I’m just fine.”
“You don’t sound fine!” Myu exclaimed as she pulled out a handkerchief and started dabbing at Hajime’s sweat-streaked forehead.
“My, oh my,” Remia said with a knowing smile. “I’m sorry for snooping, Hajime-san, but while you were busy, your mother showed me all of your ‘doujinshi’ and ‘visual novels.’”
“Mooooooooom! Get your butt up here! How do you even know where I hid all my VNs?! Depending on your answer, I may have to disown you!”
“P-Please don’t blame her, Hajime-san! We’re the ones who kept on begging her to tell us what our husband’s fetishes are!”
“You talked about what while I was gone?! Is that the kind of thing you normally ask your mother-in-law?! Do you have any idea how embarrassing that is for me?!”
Hajime jumped to his feet, still holding Myu in his arms. His face was beet-red, which was unusual for him.
Myu stared intently at him, enjoying seeing this rare side of him. At the same time, she realized she had to find whatever it was that her daddy was so desperate to hide from her. It was clear from her expression that she had some wicked thoughts cooking in her brain, but Hajime was too shaken to notice.
“Ha ha ha ha, sorry we looked through your room without permission, Hajime-san,” Shea said, walking into the living room.
“My apologies, but we were dying to learn more about what kind of person you were before you were summoned to Tortus, master. Surely you can forgive us for this one indiscretion?” Tio said, following Shea inside.
“Mmm... Sorry, Hajime. I didn’t want Kaori to be able to keep saying she knew more about the kind of person you were before you came to Tortus, so I had to learn everything I could about you,” Yue said, also walking in.
After hearing the sincerity in Yue’s voice, Hajime deflated and sat back down.
“You guys really are a handful,” he said with a long sigh.
“Oh, also...” Yue said, trailing off.
“Wait, there’s more?!” Hajime asked, suddenly on guard again.
In an apologetic voice, Yue said, “Father showed us your family album.”
“Oh, that’s it? That’s not that big a deal...”
“You were really cute even when you were a baby, Hajime. And seeing you play around in the bath as a toddler was...adorable.”
“Hang on, what are you insinuating here?!”
“You looked totally different from how you do now... You were so cute that I could have just eaten you right up... Well, I suppose I did end up doing that once you were all grown up.”
“Hey, no dirty talk when Myu’s around, you perverted vampire!”
“Father gave me copies of all the best pictures. I’ll treasure them forever.”
“Get rid of them right now!”
It was one thing to want to know everything about him, but it was quite another to be lusting after his toddler body. There were some things even Hajime couldn’t let slide.
To his dismay, it seemed Yue wasn’t the only one who’d found young Hajime delectable. Shea and the others were blushing as well.
“Incidentally, master, I’ll gladly perform any of the acts in your doujinshi for you at any time if you so—”
“Stop right there or I’m bringing white-haired Hajime back,” Hajime cut in with a threatening voice. He was, of course, referring to his true appearance, which he’d come to dub combat mode. The only thing stopping him from balling his hands into fists was the fact that he was using them to cover Myu’s ears right now.