I don’t know how this happened, but I was sitting on a bench having tea with the Sister girl who hit on Chiba the Crimson Carp Fan the other day.
The spot where I usually had fun lunch breaks with Shequraso and Lupe was now enveloped in this awkward atmosphere. More people had started passing by. The women wore short skirts like me, always on the arm of a man.
This was a back street in the nightlife district, and there were lots of sex workers.
Kiyori furrowed her brow and put a hand over her mouth. “I’ve never been to a place like this before.”
She looked almost like a sheltered princess in profile. Her pretty face blushed.
“Oh, you must hang out by the church usually, huh?”
I kept thinking she must have come to talk about Chiba—after all he’s the only one who would have told her where I work—but I suppressed my urge to kill him ASAP and brought up a benign topic.
“No, I’ve already received my angel name, so I work outside the church now, like at the hospital. I hope I’ll be able to register at the adventurer guild and be of some use on the front lines,” she mumbled quickly in a tiny voice.
All I could say was, “Hmm.”
She was probably referencing something to do with religious groups in this world, but I have no common sense here.
“When I was little, an adventurer saved me from a monster once. Ever since then I’ve wanted to help them protect people from the demons. I studied hard, got my license, and since I wanted to partner with someone strong so I would be able to save as many people as I could, I started going to the arena. That’s how I met Mr. Endless Crimson Rain.”
“That’s sure a funny thing to do when you need to start thinking about the rest of your life.”
“He really is strong. He’s so young, yet he fights so boldly, and with so much respect for his opponents. He’s someone I can admire.”
Respect? I’m pretty sure he’s just having his opponent do a move so he can watch for research.
She doesn’t know about hidden skills and levels, so she has no idea how easy Chiba has it in his fights.
He totally looks down on everyone with his sneaky cheat skills.
“Well, but he rejected me.”
“Oh, nahhh. He wasn’t talking about an adventure partner. Unpopular guys take any invitation from a girl as romance.”
“...But I’m in love.”
“What?”
“I like Mr. Endless Crimson Rain. I want to go adventuring with someone I like, which is why I took the liberty of approaching him,” Kiyori blurted, her cheeks bright red. She was looking straight at me.
Oh geez, this is nuts. Just a big pile of misunderstandings.
“I understand the relationship between you and Mr. Endless Crimson Rain, Miss Haru. Please excuse me for the sudden interruption the other day. But allow me to say one more thing, even if it’s adding rudeness on top of rudeness: I’m not sure what I think about this attitude of yours, where you do th-this sort of work while being a companion to Mr. Endless Crimson Rain.”
“No, so that’s the thing. It’s a misunderstanding, or like, really, the Crimson guy is completely misinterpreting the situation in the first place, but I’m only friendly with him when I’m getting paid for it. In the end, we’re just acquaintances, nothing more, nothing less.”
“B-But I heard you had carnal relations. Beyond the scope of your work, he said.”
“Even that I’ve only done as work. He’s the only guy I know in this place, so at first I asked him to come by, and I gave him a little bit extra to thank him. And I mean, I even act sometimes.”
“What’s ‘a little bit extra’? Act? Like in a play?”
“Uhh, like giving him a bit of head after he blows his load? And acting is pretending to cum even if he sucks. Just the kind of stuff anybody does.”
“...What’s ‘head’? And where do you pretend to go?”
“I knew you would say that. You’re just that type.”
“Wh-What? Please don’t make fun of me.”
I’m not making fun of you.
Honestly, I feel kind of like you’re making fun of me. How can I help it?
“All I mean is that he’s a dummy who hears what he wants and gets excited about it all on his own. Probably he’s having fun in this world, so he’s just wilding out a bit. But I know what kind of person he is, so I’ll never go out with him. Don’t worry about that.”
“...Then what exactly is the relationship between you two?”
“Like I said—”
“He says things like ‘this world’ or ‘Haru’s the only one who knows the old me’ sometimes. It’s almost as if there’s a whole other world only you two know about. And you just said, ‘this world.’”
“D-Did I?”
“Yes, you did. You both talk like you came from another world. And sometimes you use words I don’t know.”
Kiyori was still mumbling in her tiny voice, grilling me with her eyes glued to my face.
Crap.
“Ohhh, we’re just from the same area.”
“Oh? I get the same feeling from you that I get from Mr. Endless Crimson Rain. I can’t quite describe it, but you have this air about you that people around here don’t. You’re not like people from the capital, either... I sense a bigger cultural difference.”
It’s the Tokyo air.
But I knew she wouldn’t understand that even if I said it. Madam didn’t believe one word of my story.
None of the people here have such an anime brain that they’d accept such a ridiculous story and become an adventurer like Chiba.
“We just ended up in this city together by chance and don’t know anyone else. That’s the only reason we meet up. He’s not my type to begin with, so I think we’ll grow apart eventually.”
Knowing him, he won’t come around anymore once he starts dating someone like Kiyori.
And I have enough regulars that I’m fine without Chiba now.
I’m sure that after a while we’ll settle into just waving if we happen to see each other.
“...So what should I do?”
Isn’t it weird to ask me that?
It would be easy to cut her off like that, but if you leave these poor helpless people to their own devices, they spin their wheels forever.
“I think the Crimson guy’s type is actually girls like you. He’s only attached to me because I’m his first, so just go for it.”
“But I’m not cute like you, Miss Haru...”
Oh my gawd, how obnoxious. She’s such a pain in the ass.
“Whaaat? No way, you’re definitely cuter than me. You have the kind of face he likes, too.”
“Th-That’s not true. Please don’t tease me.”
As I was saying whatever she wanted to hear, I managed to make some desperate eye contact with Lupe who had popped her head out to see what was going on.
“Oh, Haru. We have to prep for that thing soon.”
“Oh yeah, gotta prep for that thing. Okay, you got this. I’m rooting for you!”
“Huh? Umm!”
I hurried off to prep for that thing.
Geez, these losers just need to pair off already. What does it have to do with me?
For my part, I was busy working on getting my sales rank up.
I kinda stopped caring about appearances and decided it was time to hit this foreign world with some foreign culture.
“Nyan-nyan♪”
I put on a handmade cat ear headband and went to the shop.
I looked so damn good in my black dress and black cat ears. Smokin’. Believe in yourself.
“Haru, that’s so original. How cute!”
I caused a sensation in the shop, too. Yes, I am a goddess of revolution from the realm beyond the senses. I’ll exhibit unrivaled cuteness from another world.