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“That… Nancy… if you don’t mind, I will… I will take responsibility for you!” After uttering this sentence, the girl sitting on the bed in a duck-like posture blushed deeply, as if all her strength had been drained by those words.

Nancy: ???

After a moment of confusion, Nancy finally looked at Sherry in front of her, feeling both amused and exasperated.

“Sherry, what are you talking about? I’ve already said it doesn’t matter, it was just a first kiss, not the first night… Besides, the first time was when you were drugged, and the second time I was just trying to save you…”

“So… if it was the first night… would I have to take responsibility for you?” Sherry tilted her head, innocently asking in a soft voice.

“?” A big question mark gradually appeared on Nancy’s forehead. Then, without hesitation, she reached out and gently tapped Sherry’s head:

“No naughty thoughts!”

“Ugh… I understand…” Sherry, with tears in her eyes, rubbed her head in grievance.

“Alright, you rest a bit more,” Nancy instructed Sherry to lie down on the bed, then personally adjusted the blanket for her. She attributed Sherry’s abnormal behavior upon waking up to the effects of Samuel’s drug needle. This little girl might be acting a bit out of character due to the residual effects of the drug.

“I’ve arranged for the police to request leave from Roland High School. Tomorrow, you don’t have to go to school either. Just rest here, okay?” Nancy stood up, trying to look serious with her hands on her hips.

“Mmhm…” Sherry naturally agreed obediently, and then Nancy left the bedroom.

In the living room, there were already two steaming bowls of instant noodles on the table. While making these simple meals, Jenna displayed quite decent cooking skills, something Nancy had only recently discovered.

Hmm, household chef tally +1

However… Nancy encountered another problem. Her home really only had that one bed. Last time when Sherry came, they could still lay out blankets on the floor, but now Sherry was practically a half-invalid, so they couldn’t do the same as before.

Therefore… Nancy, temporarily at the bottom of the household hierarchy, quickly made a new arrangement: Jenna and Sherry would sleep in the double bed in the bedroom, and she would temporarily endure sleeping on the sofa in the living room.

After all, she had been a soldier in her past life, what kind of harsh environments hadn’t she endured? Just sleeping on the sofa was already quite satisfactory for Nancy.

But when she informed the other two of this arrangement, she unexpectedly encountered resistance.

“I don’t want to…”

The girl with beautiful blue hair had already changed into Nancy’s pajamas. At this moment, this lovely girl hugged a pillow and shook her head towards the snow-haired girl in front of her, saying, “I want to sleep with Nana.”

Before Nancy could respond, Jenna behind Sherry had already puffed up her cheeks angrily. Even she herself was usually too embarrassed to openly propose to sleep with the boss! Because if she did, Boss Nancy would tease her, saying she was “just like a kid who couldn’t be separated from her big sister.”

It was true that she couldn’t be separated from the boss, but she wasn’t a child anymore, so even though Jenna was close to Nancy, she hadn’t actively suggested sleeping with her during these days of living together.

“This…” Nancy looked at the determined Sherry in front of her, and the unhappy Jenna behind her, completely unsure of how to handle the situation.

Wait… shouldn’t the focus now be on why Sherry was clinging to her like this?

Perhaps sensing Nancy’s confusion, Sherry hesitated for a moment before whispering a few words, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible: “I just want to sleep with Nana…”

Nancy didn’t hear Sherry’s words, but Jenna did, which made the orange-haired girl even more displeased: How can she, at her age, still say such things without feeling embarrassed?

Clearly, Jenna had forgotten that she herself was only a sixteen-year-old girl.¹

“…” Nancy didn’t hear Sherry’s words, but she began to understand why Sherry was so clingy to her. She vaguely remembered studying some related matters in her past life. In psychology, Sherry’s current behavior could be called ‘victim dependency syndrome.’

In situations where a person suffers both physical and psychological trauma, they tend to become extremely dependent on the person who rescues them. They instinctively develop a strong sense of dependence on the rescuer and may even develop feelings for them, akin to situations where someone says, “Marry me for saving my life.” Such decisions are often made impulsively under the influence of this psychological suggestion.

Digressing a bit, and returning to the issue at hand: Sherry was initially sold by her foster father and brother to that lecherous man, Samuel. She then experienced being drugged and other hardships before being rescued by Nancy before deciding to commit suicide…

Moreover, before all this, Nancy was one of the few friends Sherry could talk to. With all these factors combined, it was normal for Sherry to develop a ‘victim dependency mentality.’

Nancy’s guess was correct. Since waking up, Sherry felt lonely whenever she couldn’t see Nancy. She felt a great lack of security, a feeling that was very uncomfortable. So, instinctively, Sherry wanted to get close to Nancy, to the point where she almost wanted to stick to her at all times.

“…In that case, let’s sleep together in the bedroom tonight.” Nancy looked at Sherry, whose eyes were like a startled little animal, and sighed helplessly after understanding everything.

Hopefully, the old bed could accommodate the three of them…

…………………………

Changing clothes, washing up, getting into bed, turning off the lights; these actions were done in one go. After Nancy turned off the bedside lamp, the only source of light in the bedroom, everything immediately fell silent, and in the darkness, there were only the faint breaths of the three girls.

Fortunately, whether it was Jenna, Nancy, or Sherry, they were all slender and beautiful girls. Sleeping together didn’t feel crowded at all.

Although she didn’t feel very sleepy, Nancy lay with her arms folded, staring at the ceiling, her thoughts wandering.

Thinking back over everything she had done from morning until now, Nancy couldn’t help but think it was all a bit over the top. If it hadn’t been for Charlie’s support, if it hadn’t been for Donovan’s sudden appearance, maybe she would have been thrown into the moat and drowned by now?

No… given Samuel’s character, he would have probably made her wish she were dead instead.

Looking back now, it was really embarrassing… Why had she been so excited and lost her reason back then? Was it because of the inexplicable mission released by Candy? Definitely not. So far, that inexplicable mission had only given her an equally inexplicable “heroine detector,” which seemed to be of no importance.²

Then what was it? Was it because of sympathy for Sherry? It was indeed worth feeling indignant that a tragic girl like her had been sold out by her foster father for a small profit… but was that really it? Or was it simply… because she had come to regard Sherry as a friend? A somewhat sympathetic… friend?

Even Nancy herself didn’t realize that since she had been reincarnated into this unfamiliar world, a long time had passed, and she had unwittingly developed a sense of belonging to this world.

“Um…” The movement of the girl next to her brought Nancy back to reality. Sherry’s delicate hand gently reached over Nancy’s head and finally enveloped her in her embrace.

“Nana… Thank you…”

That’s right, Nancy only now realized, Sherry had unconsciously changed her address from “Nancy” to “Nana.”³

Go to sleep. Nancy turned around and rubbed her forehead against Sherry’s cheek, then closed her eyes.

However, she wasn’t actually asleep. In her consciousness, she was looking at a screen floating in front of her.

At this moment, there was a pistol-like object quietly floating above it.

1. Silva: She is? And she can drive? Does she have a valid license?
2. Silva: I almost forgot about this thing, but couldn’t she have used this to find Sherry? Or does it not work that way?
3. Silva: All along, I’ve been translating 小音 as Nancy, but now that the author is starting to differentiate them, I have no choice but to come up with a nickname for Nancy.

   The other instances where Nancy was called Nana was by Charlie, I believe. Should I go back and convert the names? Or just leave them be and only do that for future chapters?