Chapter 405: Can't Get In
Time slipped by, day after day. Nearly nine days had passed since Ling Ying first pulled Ryū aside for that private conversation.
Over those nine days, not much of note had happened, aside from the group gaining one new member.
Battle Through the Heavens might be a high-powered world, sure, but with the plot itself barely underway yet, no major events had unfolded. That famous canon scene — the whole "fortunes rise and fall" moment — never materialized on Ryū's watch; from what he could tell, it wouldn't actually play out at the Xiao residence for another three or four years yet.
With nine days gone, plus the first day of arrival, that left only a few hours remaining before the group event officially wrapped up.
Clear water trickled gently past her feet. Feeling the cool current against her bare skin, Kaguya sat on a rock by the stream, giving the water a light kick, sending up a small splash.
Glancing over at Eriri, roasting a magical beast beside her, Kaguya asked quietly, "You're sure this strange-looking thing is actually edible?"
Eriri, mid-roast, blinked, then patted her own chest — flatter, if anything, than Kaguya's own — with confident assurance. "Relax, Kaguya-senpai, I actually asked Admin-sama about it. He said most magical beasts are perfectly edible."
The two of them had run into each other on the sprawling Dou Qi Continent by pure chance nine days back, and had spent the whole stretch since exploring together — hunting monsters deep in the mountains one day, shopping for local specialties in nearby towns the next.
As for where all those souvenirs actually went?
No shortage of storage space, as it turned out.
Wolffy — the group's near-omnipotent inventor — had long since developed something akin to a spatial storage ring, capable of holding a genuinely absurd amount of cargo. Inanimate objects only, mind you — anything alive tossed inside wouldn't survive the trip.
The device had already spread throughout the entire chat group by now. Per Wolffy himself, the actual engineering wasn't especially difficult and the materials weren't expensive, so he'd simply handed one out to every member, free of charge.
Eyeing the now thoroughly roasted, dripping-with-fat magical beast, Kaguya glanced at the discarded hide lying nearby and offered a brief, silent moment of mourning for the creature's spectacularly bad luck.
She checked the woman's watch on her wrist and murmured, "About two hours left before this whole trip wraps up... compared to previous group events, this one's honestly been a bit on the boring side."
Beside her, Eriri caught that with a faintly teasing expression. "Kaguya-senpai's only calling it boring because Admin-sama's nowhere around, isn't that right?"
Kaguya's mouth twitched slightly. "Why does everyone always love dragging Admin-sama and me into the same joke?"
"It's not a joke. Everyone's just seen through the truth of the matter, that's all!"
"The truth? What truth?"
"The truth that Kaguya-senpai's got a crush on Admin-sama, and Yukari-senpai doesn't seem to mind one bit."
"...Shut up."
"Right, okay..."
"..."
Watching a handful of finger-sized fish drift through the stream, Kaguya let out a small, resigned laugh.
She looked up at the passing clouds, felt the breeze drift by, and asked, "Eriri, do you have anyone you're into?"
Eriri blinked, pressed her lips together for a moment, thinking it over, and answered, "Yeah, actually!"
"Who?"
"Umaru!"
"Pfft—"
"..."
Genuine disbelief crossed Kaguya's fine features. She stared at Eriri, looking her up and down with an odd expression, and finally said, "I thought your tastes ran perfectly ordinary. Didn't you mention having a childhood friend you liked?"
Eriri shrugged, laughing it off. "Girl's got someone she likes, that's all. And honestly, ever since joining the Dimensional Chat Group, I've started thinking dating an ordinary person would basically be a mistake."
"Why's that?" Kaguya asked, genuinely confused.
Eriri gave a small cough and said, with total seriousness, "Wouldn't fit."
Kaguya: "..."
She had roughly a thousand things she wanted to say to that. And yet, somehow, she found herself utterly speechless.
Sure, that particular... unmentionable anatomy did technically have an opening already, but the specific opening in question apparently still had trouble accommodating an ordinary partner.
Kind of like if Kaguya stabbed herself once, then had a regular person try the exact same wound with the same knife — they might not even manage to nick a single capillary. Which, functionally, would be a pretty serious problem.
Wait — how exactly did Eriri even know this kind of thing in the first place?
Made sense, though, really — the woman who used to draw those not-entirely-wholesome manga probably had a mind that ran along similarly not-entirely-wholesome lines the rest of the time too.
Shaking her head, brushing the whole tangent aside, Kaguya's consciousness slipped into the chat group when something else suddenly occurred to her.
Puzzled, she turned back to Eriri. "Wait, was that earlier answer of yours actually serious?"
Eriri blinked. "Which one?"
"The Umaru thing."
"Emmm... what do you think, Kaguya-senpai?"
"I think it was fake."
"Eh? Why?"
"Because it'd better be fake. If Umaru found out, she'd probably kill you, and you couldn't take her in a fight."
"Ahem, not a big deal, honestly!"
"..."
It's absolutely a big deal, Kaguya thought privately. She couldn't help wondering why the group's roster of members with... unconventional tastes kept growing lately.
Was it because there just weren't enough male members around?
No, wait, the group's gender ratio was basically split even these days, wasn't it?
Or maybe it was because the male members who did exist just weren't good-looking enough?
Hm... actually, that theory held up pretty well.
After all, out of every man in the entire chat group, genuinely attractive ones were in short supply — and attractive and single ones were basically nonexistent.
Kaguya briefly wondered if she herself was at risk of being swayed the same direction, spending this much time around these people.
Hiss... genuinely unsettling thought.
Her consciousness slipped further into the chat group. She figured she'd better stop dwelling on this particular tangent before it got any weirder.
Eternally Seventeen: Bought myself an absolute mountain of local specialties — going to be able to fill up an entire room back home with all this. Lovely.
My True Form Is Cola: Yukari-senpai, I swear you've got some kind of hoarding compulsion — every single group quest, you come back with an insane haul of souvenirs.
Eternally Seventeen: No, no, that's just a woman's retail spirit igniting, that's all.
My True Form Is Cola: Shopping sounds like way too much effort. I'd rather just stay home and game.
Terrible Tornado: Umaru's a lost cause of a shut-in, same as Admin-sama.
Crazy Diamond: The chat group's two officially recognized shut-in champions: Admin-sama and Umaru!
RawrSoFierce: Eh? Am I really that much of a shut-in? I just grind games for like ten days straight sometimes, that's nothing.
My True Form Is Cola: Right, a mere ten days straight. Basic stuff, really.
"..."
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