Ch.125Chapter 125

The semester was about to start soon. It didn’t feel like summer was over yet, but why did the new term have to begin so quickly?

While there was some regret, thinking about meeting friends again naturally brightened my mood for the day.

Honestly, the vacation seemed to end too quickly. When friends invited me to hang out during the month, I declined everything, saying I wasn’t feeling well or wasn’t in a good state. After that, I barely received any messages from them.

They should have asked again.

But there was no reason to be upset. After the incident, the Professor had no intention of letting me go anywhere alone, so personal outings were prohibited.

If before I had a strong feeling that something might happen to me somewhere, now the concern was that I might trigger painful memories for someone who held a grudge against the Demon God.

The Professor seemed to care a lot about my well-being, and I couldn’t ignore that. So I only communicated with friends through messages and calls, without meeting them in person during the vacation.

We exchanged photos. Looking at pictures of everyone having fun made me wish I could have joined them. I wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing either. Wanting to show that I’d been out having fun too, I searched through my gallery, but disappointingly, I couldn’t find a single photo I’d taken.

I pouted when I realized that the sticker photo we took just before leaving the amusement park was all I had.

I was slightly disappointed that I had nothing to share. I regretted not taking more photos. Maybe it was because I wasn’t attached to my phone, but since I didn’t do simple things you could do with a phone, naturally nothing remained on it.

At most, just the chat history?

I suddenly realized how important it is to take photos with your phone. Looking at my empty gallery with an “Hmm,” I seriously considered the situation and took a picture of the precious sticker photo I had kept.

It was like preserving evidence in case I lost it later or if the sticker somehow disappeared—that would be troublesome.

Thinking I should take more photos from now on, I enthusiastically turned the camera lens. As I kept clicking away, Ouro, who was beside me, tilted her head curiously and approached me.

“What are you making all that busy noise for?”

“Oh, I’m just taking some photos. If something happens later and I need to show my friends, I’ll have something to show them.”

“Huh? Is that necessary?”

At that question, I hesitated and tilted my head.

“Isn’t it necessary?”

“Is it? Why? If the fact that I did something exists, isn’t that what’s important? I don’t see why you need to show it, though.”

I shook my head at Ouro’s words.

Why, she asks? Obviously, it’s to convey these experiences that only I had to others.

In a way, Ouro’s point made sense. The fact that I did something is indeed important, but comparing just saying it happened versus having a photo as proof, keeping a record was definitely better.

Yes, it’s not just about showing others, but also about being able to vividly recall that moment when I look at the photo.

“When you keep photos, you can vividly remember what you did then. What food you ate, what fun experiences you had. It’s not just about showing others. It’s like evidence.”

“Hmm. But your head would explode that way.”

“I’m not trying to remember everything by keeping it.”

Come to think of it, Ouro was from a species that could easily live for several hundred years. If necessary, she could live for over a thousand years, wandering this world.

So it seemed like she found my explanation rather absurd.

“These days, records are well-preserved. Even if you change phones later, you can transfer photos. And the Professor said you can even print these at places like supermarkets.”

“Hmm.”

Ouro stared at me quietly, then approached and leaned in.

She seemed slightly curious since I was talking about it so enthusiastically. As I looked at Ouro, the combination of her and a camera reminded me of something that happened before.

“Ouro, you have photos too, right?”

“Photos?”

“This!”

It was a video I had seen before. I had watched it on the Professor’s phone then, so I couldn’t find it in my video files, but I thought it would be enough to search for it since it would come up again.

As soon as I searched for the video, there was Ouro’s image prominently displayed. From beginning to end, it was just her, so the thumbnail showed Ouro sitting with her back against the sofa.

But that wasn’t the important part. For some reason, the view count had reached 1.02 million.

I couldn’t believe my eyes seeing such a high view count for something with no editing, no dialogue, nothing. There was a time before when someone asked to take a photo with Ouro, but the view count wasn’t that high then, so I wasn’t sure if this was right.

“Eh?”

“Ah, this… I guess this is also a kind of photo. Now that you mention it, I understand what you mean.”

Ouro said she understood, but I didn’t. The number 1.02 million seemed absurd, so I unconsciously clicked on the screen as if entranced.

The video played, and Ouro in the screen took out a pizza and started eating it piece by piece. She stuffed it into her mouth and chewed with her cheeks puffed up like a squirrel. She continued this pattern—stuffing her mouth when it was empty, chewing, and swallowing.

I hadn’t intended to watch the video. With a blank expression, I scrolled down slightly and saw an enormous number of comments.

[When’s the next video coming?]

[So cute.]

[Isn’t she eating and spitting it out?]

└[There’s no editing at all though?]

[The child eats so well!]

I was dumbfounded by the sight of over a thousand comments. There were some comments about child abuse, but most were admiring Ouro’s amazing ability to eat such a large amount without any change in expression.

The Professor uploaded this for Ouro, not to make money, so there was no editing at all—not even a second. No subtitles, no cuts, nothing to support the suspicion that she was eating and spitting it out.

Besides, Ouro was opening the box by herself, munching by herself, so it was hard to call it abuse.

If it were abuse, the child would show signs of suffering or crying, but there was none of that—she was just eating well by herself.

Ouro watched quietly and then asked me:

“What does it say that you’re reading so intently?”

“Other people wrote that you eat really well.”

“This much is nothing.”

Ouro spoke as if it was no big deal, but there was a hint of pride in her voice.

“Heh,” I laughed and nodded as I observed her.

“See? Because Ouro left something behind, someone else saw it and said they liked it. Plus, when you watch this video, you think ‘That pizza was really delicious,’ right?”

“Now that you mention it, I want to eat pizza.”

That wasn’t quite the direction I wanted the conversation to go.

“Hey, the Professor bought us chicken yesterday.”

“…Chicken is delicious too, but I like the variety of flavors in pizza. Chicken just has one consistent taste.”

“There are many types of chicken too.”

“Then I’d like to see the varieties of chicken.”

“When we were ordering yesterday, you said you couldn’t read the menu and asked us to order something delicious.”

I glared at Ouro.

Back then, she said she couldn’t read and asked us to handle it, saying anything new would be fine. But today, as soon as I mentioned there were different types, she perked right up. It was ridiculous.

She was probably feeling lazy because her stomach was full and her back was warm.

Pouting, I tapped on my phone and showed her the screen. Rather than just showing the menu, I wanted to show what each type of chicken looked like.

Ouro stared at the screen as if hypnotized and reached out to touch it. She swiped around and then made a groaning sound. Curious about what was happening, I leaned in to see that she had accidentally zoomed in too much, making only a white section visible.

“You should use just one finger like this.”

“…I understand.”

Ouro nodded. Then she moved her hand again and scrolled down. After checking the various chicken menu items below, she licked her lips.

She seemed fixated on it when I asked her to check it out. The appetizing colors, plus the fact that Ouro had been trying various foods lately and could now imagine their tastes, seemed to be the reason for her reaction.

“What do you think?”

“…Chicken is good too.”

Although Ouro had judged pizza with its many toppings as having “various flavors,” it seemed she changed her mind after seeing the varieties of chicken.