Chapter 4 - Clear Bonus
Clang, clang—the sound echoed as I climbed the stairs of the apartment building.
Despite everything, I was living on my own.
That said, my part-time job earnings hovered around a hundred thousand yen a month, so things were pretty tight.
My parents sent me an allowance of thirty thousand yen every month, so I was somehow managing to survive on the combination.
An allowance.
Yes. Embarrassingly enough, at thirty-three years old, I was still receiving financial support from my parents.
When I told them I wanted to be independent right after returning to Japan, they were the ones who made the offer.
From my parents' perspective, their son, who had been a shut-in for seventeen years, had suddenly decided to reintegrate into society.
They probably felt they had to support me no matter what.
I was grateful, but at the same time, I felt pathetic.
I should have become economically independent sooner, but I was spoiling myself, claiming I lacked the willpower.
I was hopeless. I wanted to die. I didn't want to think about anything.
A vegetable. Less than human. A loser.
Repeating various insults in my head, I unlocked the door to my apartment.
This was my home.
A dilapidated property built twenty-seven years ago, it had no redeeming qualities other than the cheap rent.
Lately, there had even been rumors of ghosts, so it was beyond saving.
Above all, it got on my nerves that even this tilted apartment was technically younger than me.
Twenty-seven years old. For a human, that was still a youngster.
I was really finished if I was feeling jealous of inorganic objects.
I entered the room, mocking myself.
Then, from the direction of the balcony, a Western girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, dressed in a see-through outfit, ran toward me and—
"Welcome home, Hero-sama!"
She hugged me.
The soft, squishy sensation caused my thoughts to stop for a moment.
Then I immediately snapped back to my senses and rushed out of the room in a panic.
What was that just now?
1. A ghost.
2. A foreign thief who had trespassed.
3. A hallucination.
Well, it was probably number two. While I was gone, Japan had become full of foreigners.
Even convenience stores now had more broken-Japanese-speaking clerks than not.
...No, wait.
As time passed, my head slowly began to clear.
That girl just now, she called me Hero-sama, didn't she? Does that mean she's someone from the other world?
Fearfully re-entering the room, I found the girl waiting for me, sitting in seiza.
"Congratulations, Hero-sama! It's a clear bonus! A clear bonus!"
Locking the door behind my back, I turned my eyes toward the self-proclaimed clear bonus-chan.
She was a girl of an age where she could look anywhere between fifteen and seventeen.
She was young. That alone made me strangely restless, but she was also incredibly beautiful.
Her features were more chiseled than a Japanese person's, but not excessively so.
She had the kind of look common among people from the other world, taking the best parts of both Western and Eastern features.
She felt Eastern European, or perhaps close to mixed-race.
However, her overall pigmentation was even lighter than a pure-blooded Caucasian.
The golden hair cut straight at her shoulders.
The emerald green eyes.
The skin so white it seemed translucent.
All of it possessed a level of clarity that was impossible in this world.
Also, and this was the most important part.
Because she was wearing such thin fabric, various things were visible.
Like her underwear.
Thanks to that, the lines of her body were completely obvious.
How should I put it... she was a well-developed young lady.
Though she had a rather slender build, certain parts were bulging to the point of bursting.
Her height was at most a little over a hundred and fifty centimeters, yet she had grown in such an unbalanced way.
Uneven economic development. A developing nation that only put effort into two domes. A major dairy export country.
Nonsensical phrases floated into my mind one after another.
What was I thinking?
While I was standing there in confusion without even taking off my shoes despite being the homeowner, the blonde girl stood up straight.
Placing a hand on her large chest, she announced loudly.
"I am the Holy Maiden, Angelica. ...You know of this position, don't you?"
I had heard of it. They were, so to speak, high-ranking priestesses in that world.
But they weren't just any clergy.
The strictness of their precepts was a little—no, quite excessive.
It went beyond lifelong celibacy. They were raised physically and completely isolated from men.
Infants chosen as Holy Maidens were taken from their parents immediately after birth and confined in a temple where only women lived.
The clothes they wore and the food they ate were only those made by the hands of women.
Conversation with men was not permitted even once.
Eventually, they were believed to reach the end of their lives while maintaining their purity, serving as handmaidens to the gods after death.
The ultimate virgin, offered to God. That was the Holy Maiden.
That person, whose status would make a unicorn drool with joy, had hugged me and was now chatting away.
It could be called an abnormal situation.
Well, the fact that she was in Japan was already strange in many ways.
"Yes. Yes. That's right. I know what you're thinking, Hero-sama. This is the first time I've ever spoken to a man."
"...Are you serious?"
"Men really do have low voices, don't they? It feels strange, like the air is vibrating."
Saying "How interesting," Angelica, who was supposed to be the renowned ultimate virgin, started patting and touching my stomach and chest.
Her constant surprises of "Wow, it's hard. It's completely different from a girl!" made her seem like someone whose experience in an all-girls school had taken a turn for the worse.
"...For now, explain things to me. I have no idea what's going on."
"Right, shall we talk in order?"
The way she smoothly wound herself around my arm was just like a girl at a nightlife establishment. She looked like a foreigner, too.
She had an atmosphere that suggested she might say, "Hey Boss, want to have a drink? It's cheap."
Angelica was likely the polar opposite of that, a girl whose chastity was fully guaranteed.
She was safe and secure. She wouldn't rip me off.
Even so, the fact that I remained on guard was what you'd call the sad nature of a man.
"It was decided that it wouldn't be right to send the Hero-sama back to his hometown without giving him any reward, even though he saved the world. The King and the High Priest were also very concerned. They were discussing the reward every single day."
"How does that relate to you?"
"It relates a lot. After much discussion, they reached the conclusion that they should give you a beautiful virgin."
"And that beautiful one is me!" Angelica said, putting her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest.
Boing—her two swells wobbled.
I couldn't really look at her, so I thought while averting my eyes.
In other words, you're a living offering. Is that okay? Are you satisfied with being treated like a year-end gift?
"...A whole year has passed, and they're finally sending a reward?"
"Well, you see. The circumstances leading to Hero-sama defeating the Demon Lord were... how should I put it, special, weren't they? So, it seems they couldn't immediately recognize you as the Hero of salvation."
"True, it was special in its own way."
"There were sacrifices, too. ...There were even voices suggesting that the Hero should be executed."
"What an ungrateful bunch."
"In the end, they delivered this apology, so they do know gratitude, don't they?" Angelica said, clinging to me.
Precisely because she had no experience with men, her sense of distance was unusually close.
It's like that, isn't it?
People with few opportunities to interact with the opposite sex either stay too far away or get too close.
This girl was clearly the former, and for a while now, she had been pressing parts of her that shouldn't be pressed against me.
"...S-So, assuming you are an offering to me... in what sense are you an offering...?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, are you like a simple servant, or does it mean you're supposed to take care of me in a different way? There are, you know, options."
"Ah—"
Suddenly, with a mischievous smile, Angelica leaned over me.
The two of us fell down with a thud in the entryway.
"Of course, it's in that sense. Hero Keisuke-sama."
"That sense...? W-Why did you call me by my name just now?"
"Because I wanted to."
The sweet scent unique to young girls tickled my nostrils.
It was that melting fragrance where you couldn't tell if it was body odor, perfume, or shampoo.
No, there's no shampoo in the other world, so was it soap?
What was I even analyzing when the identity of the scent didn't matter? Being this close, even I might lose my reason.
Wait, that's right, that's exactly why I have to think about trivial things. Distract yourself, distract yourself.
As I was muttering to myself, Angelica whispered with a breathy sigh.
"Haaah," a feverish breath brushed against my face.
"From today on, I am your wife, Hero-sama."