Ch.66Chapter 66

After eating, we said goodbye to the Professor and parted ways.

It was the first time I was stepping outside the Academy without the Professor.

Since I had never gone out like this without the Professor before, I felt both scared and excited. I felt empty yet my heart wouldn’t stop racing.

As long as I stayed with Sera, Aria, and Karen, I could play safely and return safely. That thought pulled the corners of my mouth into a smile.

“I was worried whether she would really give us permission, but I never dreamed she would say we had to come back the same day…”

Sera held her phone with both hands and tapped the screen quickly.

After being momentarily flustered by the Professor’s unexpected words, she seemed to be making a reservation for a place she had in mind if we were to go.

I wondered if there would be a place that would accept us if we suddenly wanted to rent a room for the usual four hours starting right now. But that concern seemed foolish as I soon saw Sera making a V-sign with her hand, saying the reservation was complete.

“Um, senior. How much should I pay?”

At the mention of a successful reservation, Karen cautiously spoke up. Sera stared at Karen for a moment and then shook her head.

“What are you talking about? Aria and I will split it. I came up with the room idea, and this is all so sudden for our junior.”

“Let’s do it that way. I already talked with Ourr earlier during the morning lecture.”

When Sera pointed at Aria and shrugged her shoulders, Aria, who had been watching, also shrugged and told Karen it was fine.

Karen looked like she didn’t know what to do, but Aria added some words to comfort her.

“Karen, don’t worry about it too much. It’s not that we have a lot of money. It’s just that as seniors, we want to do something for you. When you become a senior later, you can do the same for your juniors.”

“…Still.”

“Come on, shall we stop by the convenience store first?”

Aria reassured Karen a few times that it was okay.

After that, everything proceeded smoothly.

The reserved accommodation wasn’t that far. I learned for the first time that there were so many lodging facilities near the Academy.

Unlike the world I came from, I thought accommodation businesses wouldn’t thrive here since they had good facilities like warp points, but that didn’t seem to be entirely true.

It seemed unnecessary to stay overnight due to inconvenient travel. After all, you could just pay for a warp point instead of accommodation.

Actually, it was hard to compare. I still didn’t know how much warp points cost. I tilted my head, wondering if they charged based on distance.

If it’s just teleportation, I thought they would charge similar prices.

Putting aside my minor questions, we first looked for a convenience store nearby before entering the accommodation. I opened my eyes wide and looked up at the impressive size of the large convenience store.

“Come on, let’s go in.”

Sera gestured and led us inside.

The first things we saw were everyday items like stockings and cotton swabs. In the middle were preserved foods like canned goods and ramen, and only after going further in could we see refrigerators packed full.

“Ourr, do you like ice cream?”

“Hmm, no? I don’t particularly like it.”

Since I hadn’t really eaten ice cream much even when I was with the Professor, I was indifferent. I felt like I could take it or leave it.

Aria asked me the question and then fell silent for a moment.

“Would you like to try some this time?”

“…I do know what ice cream is, you know.”

“Great, let’s go with this.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

I glared at Aria with narrowed eyes, but she didn’t seem to care as she tossed the ice cream into her basket.

Aria had a somewhat willful side to her. No, maybe that was true of Sera as well.

They had similarities yet differences, and differences yet similarities. I thought they really were worthy of being best friends.

“…Oh, a refrigerator connected to freezing magic formulas… How does this…”

“Karen… are you really looking at that kind of thing even here?”

Meanwhile, Karen was examining the magic circle embedded in the ice cream freezer, her eyes sparkling as she started rubbing her chin.

I wondered if she should have switched departments with Sera when she entered if she was going to be like this.

I was already feeling tired.

Aria was busy grabbing everything she wanted, and Karen was busy contemplating every interesting subject that caught her eye.

I moved with dragging steps. When I escaped to Sera’s side, she glanced at me.

“Ourr, is there anything you want to eat?”

“I’ll have juice.”

“Hmm, you came all this way just for juice?”

Sera said in a sly voice, then started taking beer out of the refrigerator. One, two, three…

“Why, why are you taking so many?!”

“Huh? There are four of us, so we need at least this much. And can’t each person easily drink two cans? Soju would go faster.”

“…You think I can drink two cans of beer?”

“If Ourr doesn’t drink it, I’ll have to drink it myself.”

Sera said that and added one more. The basket became heavy as a result. It was no wonder it was heavy with eight large cans of beer in it.

I was confident I could say it would be impossible if she asked me to carry it.

“Alright, now that we’ve chosen the alcohol, shall we go pick some snacks? Oh, frozen food? Hmm, dumplings seem good too.”

“Ah, I’ll buy this.”

“You will?”

Karen, who I thought was deeply absorbed in the refrigerator’s freezing magic formula, approached quietly.

There were many things inside the refrigerator.

“Except, except this one.”

When I looked at the numbers, it seemed that regardless of which country’s convenience store or which world’s convenience store it was, there was a separate section that only nobles would browse.

It wasn’t an ordinary price.

It was similar to the price of the beer we bought earlier, but the volume was much smaller, making it feel wasteful.

When Karen turned away in horror, Aria, who had been watching from who knows when, suddenly appeared and interrupted.

“Let’s each eat one from here to here.”

“Aria, you already picked a lot of ice cream.”

When I grumbled and added a word to Aria, she shook her head.

“I didn’t. I put them all back.”

“…What? You acted like you were going to pick a bunch.”

“Well, you can drink several bottles of alcohol on the spot, but you can’t do that with ice cream, right? It’s better to eat snacks instead.”

Aria answered nonchalantly as she opened the refrigerator.

She picked one ice cream cup and also chose something like a frozen gratin from inside.

“Wait, isn’t that ice cream too?”

When Sera grabbed Aria’s hand, Aria glanced at it and put it back down.

“My grand dream…”

“If your grand dream is from here to here, why don’t you realize it over there?”

Despite Aria’s desolate voice, Sera calmly pointed to the side.

Karen, who had gone ahead and was intently looking at something, turned her head in surprise. When our eyes met, Karen slightly showed me what she was holding.

…That’s!

“Karen, what’s that?”

“This is corn cheese. They say you heat it up with cheese on top.”

“Ooooh!”

There was a menu item I wanted to eat.

It was something that could almost be considered a drinking snack, so it was hard to find in ordinary restaurants. I was so moved that I could find it in a convenience store like this, wondering if this was what a miracle felt like.

When I grabbed the corn cheese Karen was holding and expressed my admiration with a “Wowww,” Karen held up something else to show me.

“How about this? It’s inari sushi.”

“…That, well, I do want to eat it…”

As they say, familiar tastes can be scary. There were tastes that remained vaguely in my memory that I found myself seeking out.

Of course, as a Demon God’s body, it was closer to seeking the nostalgia of food rather than just a taste that remained in memory.

I hesitated, wondering if I should pick so many things when I could only taste the food but couldn’t feel full. As I faltered and trailed off, Karen gave it to me with a bitter smile.

“Here, if you want to try it, I think it would be good to try.”

“Yeah…”

I nodded, deciding to buy this myself.

It seemed like we had chosen a lot of things. By the time we had filled our basket with things that could be heated in the microwave, beer, and even one ice cream, the basket was completely full.

Are we really going to eat all of this between the four of us?

While I thought four people might be able to handle it, seeing the actual amount made me feel afraid.

“Let’s eat this too. I’ll take all of this.”

Aria, apparently not satisfied with what we had, pointed to all the chicken next to the counter.

She seemed intent on taking the entire container that had skewers, hot dogs, chicken, cheese sticks, and various other items.

I grabbed Aria’s sleeve, thinking that even if she had a lot of money, buying this much would leave too many leftovers.

“Aria… aren’t you buying too much?”

“I’m buying it because I want to take a bite of each. We’ll eat it all, right?”

“That’s true, but this is going to be too expensive.”

“It’s fine. Sera will pay half.”

At Aria’s nonchalant voice, Sera objected.

“Hey, hey, that’s crossing the line. After getting all this, you’re telling me to split it half and half?”

“Yes.”

“No way, I’d rather pay for the room rental.”

Sera grabbed her throbbing head and sighed.

While the part-time worker was scanning the barcodes with beeps, I took out the bills I had carefully folded and put in my inner pocket.

“Ta-da! I have 50 Riel.”

“…I’m jealous.”

“……”

When Aria said that, it didn’t sound sincere at all. Moreover, I wasn’t showing off to make her jealous, so her comment was absurd.

“That’s not it! I want to pay for my inari sushi and corn cheese…”

“Then I’ll accept it as payment for a kiss from Ourr.”

“Eh?”

“Thank you.”

Aria said something strange on her own and rejected my money.

Looking at the money that was unexpectedly returned, I made a dumbfounded sound. As I looked back and forth between the bills tightly held in both hands and Aria, I made another dumbfounded sound.