Chapter 138 - Cooking Ayako
I immediately tried to restrain Ayako-chan, but the moment I raised my arm,
"Weaken."
I heard a murmur.
I felt the strength drain from my entire body with a sudden slump.
So this girl intends to use a debuff to make me unable to resist...
That said, it's just the shallow wisdom of an amateur. Something like this can be dispelled any number of times.
I promptly opened my mouth to chant the "Dispel" spell.
But my tongue tangled and wouldn't move.
"...?"
Not even the first syllable of Dispel would come out. It was as if my mouth had turned to lead.
Could I have had a cerebral hemorrhage? The initial symptom is supposedly losing the ability to speak, and of all times—as I thought that, I saw Ayako-chan staring intently at my lower jaw while repeating "Weaken Weaken Weaken Weaken Weaken" like a Buddhist chant.
It's a ruthless thing.
Apparently, she plans to first rob my mouth of its strength, rendering me unable to even chant the Dispel spell.
After that, if she weakens the muscles in my limbs too, a completely unresisting little doll will be complete.
I want to say, would you go this far just to have your way with an old man?
Well, still, it's not impossible to aim for a reversal from this state.
My arm strength has now been reduced to that of a girl's, but if I use methods like eye-gouging or throat strikes, I could probably gain the advantage.
But there's no point in going that far.
Fine, do as you like.
The opponent is a seventeen-year-old girl who likes me, and what's more, she has zero experience with men.
She can't possibly do anything serious anyway.
It'll probably end with a kiss or something, right?
When I gave up and sprawled out spread-eagle, Ayako-chan kissed me more deeply.
Since it came while the muscles in my mouth and throat were weakened, I felt a terrible suffocation.
...It's long.
Our lips are still overlapping.
When will it end?
It's getting hard to breathe.
My consciousness is also fading.
...What on earth... is she doing to me...?
＊ ＊ ＊
When I came to, I was standing in the kitchen of my apartment for some reason.
That's strange, I should have moved out and into the condo across the way... As I tilted my head with a feeling like I was being tricked by a fox, Ayako-chan was beside me, having rolled up her sleeves before I knew it.
...When did she appear?
No, come to think of it, that's right.
Ayako-chan and I were cooking together.
For some reason, I recognized the situation after the fact and accepted it readily.
The rational part of me pointed out that this is a phenomenon common in dreams, but that quickly ceased to matter.
Because the current Ayako-chan was cooking with such a happy expression.
Wearing a white apron over a vertical-knit sweater, she was grating something stick-shaped with an enraptured face.
Is that... a mountain yam?
"Tororo dish?"
When I asked, a cheerful reply of "Yes" came back.
"Young people these days eat this kind of thing too, huh."
"...I think it's popular with girls."
"Is that so? Now that you mention it, tororo dishes might be common on ladies' menus."
I wonder if it's effective for dieting, I thought, when Ayako-chan took out a rice bowl from somewhere and began to heap it full of rice.
Then, she poured the freshly grated tororo over it with a gush.
She poured it on with great gusto.
As I worried if she could eat it all by herself, she started eating with a vigor that seemed to say my fears were unfounded.
Unusually for Ayako-chan, who normally eats elegantly, she was slurping it down noisily into her mouth.
She must have been quite hungry.
Her eating even conveyed a tenacity that suggested she wouldn't leave a single grain of rice behind.
Eventually, Ayako-chan shuddered with a brrr... and then put her hands together, saying, "Thank you for the meal."
My word. That was a magnificent way to eat, I couldn't help but applaud and send her unreserved praise.
＊ ＊ ＊
"—A dream, huh."
How long was I unconscious?
Feeling an instinctive fear, I sprang up to find Ayako-chan sitting in a girlish pose beside me. She was wiping her mouth with a handkerchief, looking dazed.
The moment our eyes met, she murmured, "It was delicious," but what does she mean by that?
I looked around while pressing my throbbing temples.
It's still dark. Still night.
I hurriedly took out my smartphone to check the time and found it was just past eleven.
What, is that all?
As expected, even in decay, it's the body of a Hero. Mere oxygen deprivation only knocks me out for a few minutes.
Still, having been caught off guard by a teenage girl is nothing to boast about.
"I feel some kind of lethargy..."
I don't know what was done to me while I was asleep, but there's a languid sensation.
It feels like a portion of my body's energy was taken away.
Could it be that Ayako-chan can use absorption-type magic in addition to debuffs?
Feeling an eerie, unknown dread, I performed another Status Appraisal on Ayako-chan.
But the skill column hadn't changed at all.
If there was a noticeable change, it was that the notes column was filled with the sentence "luvluv Nakamoto-san luvluv."
Apparently, she had completely recovered her mental state in this short time.
I don't really understand, but if she's feeling better, that's what matters most.
Does my confessing affection really have that kind of effect?
"Anyway, can you help me pick up the photos? It's bad that your parents' privacy is being scattered around, right?"
"Ah, right."
She answered immediately in a truly bright voice.
The darkness seems to have completely vanished now. She's humming as she gathers the photos.
This is the true Ayako Otsuki.
Certainly, there are countless precarious aspects to her, but fundamentally, I think she's a quiet and gentle person.
It's only when romance and her own self are involved that the restraints come off.
Yes, her own self.
From that other Ayako-chan, I felt an intense hatred for her other self.
Perhaps it's because they are the ultimate mirror images of each other.
Because she understands her own flaws and shortcomings better than anyone, they must get on her nerves.
I've heard that civil wars tend to be crueler.
There's nothing uglier than a conflict between kin.
That, at least, must be avoided.
And yet, the other Ayako-chan has already grasped that we live around here... and the people from the other world are targeting Earth.
I grow weary thinking that danger might be approaching in various ways.
"...What a pain, really."
My muttered voice was swallowed up by the nighttime park.
I sat down weakly and stared blankly at Ayako-chan.
A girl on all fours, picking up photos. It's as if she's searching for a four-leaf clover, a gesture that seems childlike.
No matter how well-developed she is, she's still seventeen.
She's a child.
As an adult, I must protect these girls.
"That's right."
This is no time to be weak, I spurred myself on and stood up.
"Haven't you already picked them all up?"
"...I think so."
"So, what now? Do you still intend to talk?"
"...No, that's enough."
As if a possessing spirit had left her, Ayako-chan wore a graceful, refined smile.
"...Because your feelings, Nakamoto-san, have been conveyed."
And besides, I've already been treated to a feast, she informed me with a refreshed face.
Did I feed her something?
I don't really understand, but if her mental state has recovered, then that's fine, and so we decided to head back to the condo.
"I'm returning this."
On the way, I returned the now-unnecessary box of contraceptives to Ayako-chan.
She interpreted it with a complete misunderstanding, saying, "That's right, from now on you'll hold me without contraception, won't you," but I don't have the energy to argue right now.
"Ah."
And then, at that moment.
When I took the box out of my pocket, it seems it came out along with it.
A coin that had been caught on my sleeve fell to the ground with a clink.
It's the coin I received from Rio.
To be precise, it's the coin I got from Kana, from a hidden dungeon in the other world.
I had completely forgotten, but retrieving and examining this was supposed to be today's main objective.
"...If Philia were sane, I could have asked her various things."
The intellectual from the other world has, unfortunately, lost her sanity.
Things don't go as planned.