Leave a comment

“Oh, that was nice! It’s been a while since we played those.”
“You seem happy.”
“Well, until now I couldn’t see, so all we could play was Shiritori¹.”
“That’s true.”

Kanata and Sakura had been playing Othello and Jenga. Back in Japan, the two kids usually either played video games or studied, so it had been a long time since they last used board games.

“I’ll make dinner, then.”
“Hrm, in that case, I’ll take care of our stat screens. Could you write yours down on a piece of paper?”
“Oh, right. Thanks in advance.”
“Sure thing.”

Kanata and Sakura both opened their status screens.

Sakura wrote down the details of her display on the paper and then disappeared into the kitchen with a somewhat happy look. After checking the details, Kanata decided to decide on how to allocate STP first.

To begin with, he obviously focused mostly on S. Consequently, he quickly invested 50’000 of his 115’000 points into said stat. Next was MP. Kanata’s skill ate up a fair amount of it, so he wanted it on the higher side, even if he went back to level one. For now, he put 10’000 points into it. Following that, he allocated 5000 to dexterity, 40’000 to attack, 5000 to HP, and finally, thinking that there might be a time when he’d need it, 5000 to W.

Then he pondered over Sakura’s STP.

First, he wrote down on the paper that she should invest 15’000 points into MP and A, and then 30’000 into S and W. The remaining 25’000 STP would be distributed as 10’000 each to HP and C, and lastly, for the sake of caution, 5000 to D.

At this point, he decided to end the stat screen management.

One reason for that was that he wanted to put off the decision of how to distribute their skill cards. Then, on top of being able to defeat the magic beasts in the dungeon in a single attack, the time to finish a single round was also quite short thanks to his teleportation. Finally, they didn’t have enough magic cores to start mass producing SS-Rank skills.

The only thing he did was use the SS-Rank magic core he had obtained the round directly after using Reincarnation for the first time to learn “Secret Spear God Technique” and allocate SKP to it.

Sakura, on the other hand, was mumbling in a small voice as she focused on her cooking.

“(I’m cooking a meal for Kanata! Me, cooking a meal for him! Eh-heh-heh, it’s important, so I said it twice. Me, me! It’s like I’m his wife… How wonderful… Living together under the same roof, occasionally getting spoiled like today… and cooking food… At some point, Kanata and I might have kids…! T-Though we first need to be adults to have kids…)”

With his sharp ears, Kanata should have been able to pick up on it, when she used his name, but due to being so immersed in his stat allocation, he didn’t hear what she was mumbling this time.

A bit later, Sakura finished cooking dinner. It was Hamburg steak and spaghetti Bolognese. In hindsight, Sakura realized that it was just ground meat with more ground meat², but she defiantly told herself that everything was fine, as long as it tasted good.

“Dinner is ready, Kanata.”
“I also just reached a good stopping point.”
“I see. Here you go. We’re having spaghetti and Hamburg steak.”
“It looks delicious.”

As she heard Kanata’s comment, Sakura smiled happily. Though she herself didn’t realize what expression she was making.

“In that case, thanks for the food.”

Kanata first tried a bite of the large Hamburg steak. Sakura waited for his reaction with bated breath. He chewed on it, swallowed it down, and a few seconds later, seemed ready to state his impression of it.

“How… how is it?”
“It’s crazy good.”
“R-Really? That makes me happy… but you don’t need to flatter me, you know?”
“It’s true! It really is delicious!”
“Eh, eh-heh-heh… Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh… Thank you… Still, even if you praise me like that, I won’t give you more than half of my part…” Sakura said happily, as she cut her own steak in half and then ate just a mouthful of one of the halves.

It was then that she came to realize that Kanata’s comment hadn’t been empty flattery. She immediately sensed that her food turning out this delicious was thanks to the skill.

“Yeah… you’re right. Definitely.”
“Right?”
“This skill is amazing.”
“Huh? True, you used the skill to make it, but this is your cooking, Sakura. And it’s delicious.”
“T-Thank you.”

After the two kids finished their meal, the time came for them to take their baths.

At this point Sakura told Kanata that there was something she needed to do and that he should take his bath first, before disappearing into the kitchen. This was a mere pretense. Once she had made sure that Kanata went into the bathroom, she started staring intently at the wall separating her from the bath.

“(I guess I’ll… try using Clairvoyance… I’ll only do it once, just a single time!”

After giving Kanata so much grief over Great Clairvoyance, Sakura was about to use it to peep on him. Indeed, she used the skill to look at the other side of the wall, where the bathroom was situated beyond the changing room. In exactly that moment, Kanata had finished taking off his clothes and was about to go into the bathroom.

“(I… I wonder, is that alright…? For me, to do such a thing… This is just as lewd as I thought. If this comes out, I’m in deep trouble… B-But… Wah! Kanata looks so cool! All I can see is his back, his back and his butt, but it’s amazing! I hope there’s no one else in this world with this ability… Awawa, wawawawawah! He… he turned my way! He’s grown a lot in places since I saw him 10 years ago, after… all!? Eek! Wah~… I saw it all… what do I do… what do I do… Aaah, he’s washing himself… W-Why does he look so cool, even though he’s just washing his own body?)”

After a short time, Kanata got out of the bath and put on his pajamas. Sakura hurriedly escaped back into the kitchen.

“Sakura~, I’m done in the bath~!”
“Ah, right! I’m not yet done washing the dishes, Kanata… Could you do that?”
“Sure.”

Sakura frantically took refuge in the bath. While he found it strange that her face had been this flushed, Kanata got to work tidying up.

Sakura decided to stay a tiny bit longer in the bath, than she normally would.

Author’s note:
Kanata’s and Sakura’s stats at the end of the chapter:

TL notes:
Oops, I thought there’d be no more stat-screens until chapter 316, guess I forgot this one. Also, there doesn’t seem to be a single calculation error in the stats this time. It’s a miracle!

As everyone could’ve guessed, Sakura uses Clairvoyance to do exactly what she accused Kanata of planning to do. Continuing the trend we saw with Alim and Mika, the author seems to portray girls as the ones more interested in sex and things seen as perverted.

Now, thanks to the whole “adult manga masquerading as something aimed at young girls” backstory, this would make some sense for Mika and Sakura, but the problem (at least in my view) is that Rir is characterized the same way. As someone who was abused and had to face the prospect of becoming a sex slave (and all the horrors that come with it) for what was likely years, you’d expect her to be much more reluctant/fearful in these aspects.

1. Shiritori is a Japanese word game where you have to take the last syllable of a word and find a new one starting with said syllable that hasn’t been used before. It is featured prominently in one arc of the No Game No Life novel series.
2. The original is 挽肉に挽肉が被ってしまった (“accidentally/completely covered ground meat with ground meat”). I assume that’s what she means, but it might also be that all she had for the sauce was ground meat.