Chapter 24 - Magic Items! Cheaper Than Shoes!

The night passed with Lucia sleeping peacefully, and a new day dawned.

Bright sunlight streamed through the curtains. Today was the last day of February, with two days left until school started.

It was a little pathetic that I was counting down vacations and school terms when I wasn't even a student, but anyway.

Laward and the heroines would soon return to the academy.

The main events of the second semester involved pursuing Rebecca and Veronica, the two heroines whose endings I hadn't locked a single one of yet. It was time for the stories of the swordsmanship-obsessed gyaru mage and the suspended troublemaker to begin.

My college junior had told me—without my asking—that those two were the hardest heroines to romance. Because of their difficulty, he'd deliberately placed their routes in the second semester, once players were familiar with the game.

The game was structured so that Laward got to know the heroines and chose whom to pursue in his first year, then began courting them in earnest in his second.

I stretched out, drawing back the curtains and extending both arms in the sunlight.

"Beautiful weather."

There were things I wanted to buy today, so I planned to head a fair distance out. First, though, I should check whether Lucia was awake.

Lying in bed, I rolled to my left and fumbled over the nightstand for the Ring of Disguise. After a few taps, my fingers found it.

I slipped it haphazardly onto a finger and headed for her room.

I'd discovered recently that the Ring of Disguise could keep me looking my best without any washing or grooming!

I doubted that was its intended purpose, but it was wonderful all the same.

KNOCK, KNOCK.

Lucia's room.

As soon as I entered, her little sisters pressed their tiny fingers to their lips and shushed me. They must have meant to keep quiet because their big sister was asleep.

"Still sleeping?"

When I said that while looking down at Lucia, her sisters grew even more frantic, apparently thinking I meant to wake her.

She was as still as the dead. If I hadn't felt her warm, steady breath against my outstretched fingertips, I might really have mistaken her for a corpse.

Normally, even the faint sound of my hand touching the doorknob would have made her eyes snap open. Not now.

With the blanket pulled up to her neck, she was dead to the world. A rosy flush had returned to her pale cheeks, and the dark circles beneath her eyes had faded considerably.

More than twelve hours had already passed, yet her face was as peaceful as if she'd only just fallen asleep.

She slept like a baby.

She must have built up a lot of exhaustion. School by day, guild work and childcare by night—she couldn't have had a moment to rest.

If sleep debt was a thing, Lucia was bankrupt. Her credit was shot.

The achievement required her to sleep soundly, too, so forcing her awake would be pointless.

As I was carefully closing the door, I met a few little eyes shining through the gap. Lucia's sisters sat huddled together, watching me.

"Shh."

I pressed my own index finger to my lips. The children flinched at my low, stern voice, then clapped their hands over their mouths.

Their solemn nods were rather funny.

CLICK.

I closed the door very slowly, taking care not to let any sound escape, then walked down the corridor and outside.

My destination was the commercial district: the marquisate's Third District.

Unlike the Sixth District, which was pushed out to the fringes, it sat squarely in the middle of the marquisate.

It looked as though Lucia wouldn't open her eyes for quite a while anyway, so I had plenty of time.

In the heart of the commercial district stood a building with a particularly eye-searing color scheme.

[Magic Items! Cheaper Than Shoes!]

[An Honest Shop Run by a Graduate of Water Melon Magic University's 151st Class!]

[Explosive Sale! 30% Off Everything! (Actual Bombs Also Available)]

Posters scrawled in every color of magical ink covered practically every inch of its outer walls.

The shop was incredibly flashy—and an utter visual mess.

That bizarre taste, utterly devoid of aesthetic sense.

There was no mistaking it.

This was the very shop I'd seen in the game.

JINGLE!

The moment I opened the door, a clamorous bell assaulted my eardrums.

The inside was an even worse spectacle. Display shelves that made me wonder whether anyone ever organized them. Scrolls rolling around like toilet paper.

Mountains of assorted junk left hardly anywhere to put my feet.

"Yeees... Welcome..."

A vacant-looking maid greeted me halfheartedly. She held a broom as tall as she was.

Why even have a broom when the shop looked like this?

"If there's... anything you're looking for... please... let me know..."

Her voice didn't contain so much as a gram of soul.

"I understand Veronica works here. Is she not in today?"

"We don't sell people... If that's what you're after, try the Sixth District..."

That's where I'd come from.

More importantly, could she not make it sound like that was an option? I'd been trying not to mention the Sixth District's true nature. It made things needlessly dark.

I'd hoped to see the fifth and final heroine while I did my shopping, but apparently today wasn't the day.

"Can't be helped. I'll just look at what I came to buy."

"Yeees... Take your time... Our owner's gone mad... Everything's on sale..."

"Ah, it would be faster to speak to the owner."

Literally. She spoke far too slowly.

"I'm planning to buy in bulk. Could you call the owner?"

"I'm the owner..."

This crazy woman...

"What did you need me for...?"

The maid—correction, the maid who turned out to own the shop—tilted her head as she asked.

The longer I watched her, the more amusing I found her. I was suddenly becoming intrigued.

If she'd graduated with the 151st class, how old would that make her now? In her thirties?

"In bulk... May I get my hopes up...?"

"I'm looking for communication devices," I said, scanning the shelves. "Ones capable of long-range communication. Very long range."

"Hmm... Just a moment..."

She tossed her broom aside and plunged both arms into a mountain of junk.

CRASH, CLATTER.

Objects toppled with an almighty racket. Inventory management was clearly the last thing on her mind.

"Found them..."

A moment later, she pulled something out of the wreckage.

TAP.

She set two kinds of matchbox on the counter. One was matte black; the other, vivid red.

Both had the shop's name scrawled across the front in white cursive.

She took a match from the black box and deftly stood the black-headed stick upright on the counter.

"The black ones are 'kings'... And the red ones are 'soldiers'..."

Next, she stood a red match beside it. She made it look so easy, but the more I watched, the more impressed I was.

A match with a red head and a brown body. Calling it a soldier was a bit of a stretch, though the colors did vaguely suggest a nutcracker doll.

"They're simple to use."

FSSSH!

She struck the red match, and a small flame sprang up with the acrid smell of sulfur. Then she struck the black one and handed it to me.

Red for her, black for me.

Soon, the flames changed in a peculiar way. Rather than simply burning, they revealed a hazy image within their flickering light.

A face—her face—was reflected in my match's flame like a mirror.

"The red match is facing me right now, so you'll be able to see me..."

It wasn't just an image. Her voice came through clearly as well, carried by the crackling vibrations of the flame.

"Light a red match... and it connects to the 'king' holding the black matchbox..."

Looking closer, I saw a number written on each match. Presumably, red number one connected to black number one, a one-to-one match.

Yes, that had to be it.

They were matches, after all.

I couldn't have found anything better suited to handing out to the Houndry lot.

"But the screen's too small. It's only a match flame."

I casually tossed the black match into the fireplace behind me.

WHOOSH!

The instant the match landed on the logs, flames roared upward. The entire blaze in the fireplace became one enormous screen.

Her startled face appeared, magnified within the shimmering fire.

"Oh...? How did you know...?"

"This isn't my first time handling magic items. They tend to have an extra use or two like this."

"Hmm..."

"I'll take these."

My decision was made.

Discretion, functionality, and versatility. They met every requirement perfectly.

Magic items in this world invariably came with some kind of defect, but these were top-notch.

"Do you have enough in stock?"

"Of course... I can send them over today. But..."

She tilted her head again.

"When will you be paying...?"

"Don't worry. I have plenty of that, too."

I pulled a heavy gold ingot from my pocket and set it on the counter. Its golden gleam lit up the dusty shop.

"This is the deposit. I'll send the rest once the goods arrive."

Her eyes lit up, too.

For the first time today.

I scribbled down the delivery address for the magic items and closed the shop door behind me.

CLICK.

"Oh... So you were Lord Karma...?"

024

Shopping finished, I returned to the hideout.

A mountain of packages from the maid shopkeeper was already stacked in one corner.

What? How were they here so fast?

"Welcome back, sir!"

The guild members' spirited voices rang through the lobby. If they had that much energy, was it already nighttime?

I decided to hold off on distributing the magic items until Lucia woke up. There was no need to get on with work while she was sleeping, especially when she'd taken on the role of my secretary.

I summoned the system window in midair. No achievement notification yet.

I didn't need to open her door to know. She would still be dead to the world.

"... It's been a full day."

School started the day after tomorrow. She was going to make it, right?

Right. Be patient. Even if I wanted to wake her, I had to resist.

I put those thoughts aside and entered my room. The instant something soft touched my back, my eyelids grew impossibly heavy.

Huh...

Come to think of it, I hadn't washed once today...

Slowly, my vision sank into darkness.

The next morning.

The moment I opened my eyes, a system window floated before me. Its notification greeted me even before the morning sun.

Achievement Complete!

[Miracle Morning!]

-Encounter Lucia after she has slept soundly for an entire day.

-Reward of 200 coins awarded.

Coins Held: 500

Finally.

I checked the time. Nearly forty hours had passed since Lucia fell asleep. She'd slept a full day and another half, then.

The credit defaulter had miraculously paid off her debt.

Smacking my lips in anticipation, I immediately tapped the [Shop] icon. Just then...

—!

A series of cheerful notifications sounded. It was a familiar sound by now.

That sound could only mean...

[Ending (7) Locked]

[Sun and Moon]

『"Senior, let's camp here for now."

The inter-academy sports tournament arrived during Laward's second year.

During the hunting test, Laward and Lucia lost their way.

"Camp? Here?"

"We don't have a choice. The tournament runs until tomorrow, and our overall score is still lower than the other academies'. Since we're lost anyway, let's wait here for our chance."

"Honestly, I don't care what happens to our score."

"Huh?"

"Someone else can score points for us. Veronica's back, too."

"What are you talking about? We have to camp! Camping is nonnegotiable!"

"Laward, are you more interested in camping than scoring points? Do you want to sleep with me that badly?"

"Huh? Yes."

"Teasing like that... really doesn't work on you..."

"Anyway, let's sleep. I learned how to build a makeshift tent because I knew something like this might happen."

"You knew something like this might happen...? Well, all right..."

And so their first night together passed.

This is not a clumsy attempt at a scene transition.

Lucia really did fall asleep as soon as she lay down. She went out so abruptly that he wondered whether she had died.

Laward even pressed his ear to her chest to listen for her heartbeat.

He could have checked her pulse or breathing, but he went out of his way to listen to her heart.

He also discovered that pressing his ear to Lucia's chest was difficult.

Things got in the way.

Lucia woke up two days later, and they lost the inter-academy sports tournament.

It had little to do with the tournament, but naturally, the world ended.』

Endings Currently Cleared: 9

Endings Remaining Until Stage 2 Perks Unlock: 1

"What the..."

Laward was getting worse with every ending script. How did someone like that manage a harem route...?

Honestly, I hadn't expected to clear an ending while working on the achievement. The unexpected bonus was nice, but first I should go check on Lucia.

With that thought, I pulled back the blanket.

Something hidden beneath it lunged at me!

In an instant, it was on top of me. Before I could gather my wits, silky black hair spilled down and tickled my face.

Then I met her sky-blue eyes.

A sky brighter and clearer than ever.

Her cheeks flushed red, Lucia leaned closer with an expression that lifted my spirits just to look at.

"Good morning, Lord Karma! The best morning ever!"

Lucia bounced up and down on the bed—and on me.

"Let's go for a walk!"

What the hell was this now?