Chapter 77 Subsequent Events
The final conversation ended with both parties in a state of contentment.
Kazumi waved goodbye to the plump store manager named Masamori and headed home with a sense of accomplishment.
Perhaps it was the urgency to hire new staff, or perhaps it was due to the terrible personality of Noyoru Yokota, the store’s sole employee, the hourly wage Masamori offered Kazumi was almost unbelievable.
A simple calculation showed that if she worked four hours a day after school, the pay would be enough to cover Kazumi’s daily expenses, and possibly even leave some surplus.
Regarding Noyoru Yokota’s inexplicable hostility towards her, Masamori had also explained in detail. The gist was that this person harbored a strong dislike for women due to being abandoned by his mother as a child and constantly facing discrimination for his appearance.
However, these were all irrelevant matters to Kazumi. She was only here to work and didn’t feel the need to build good relationships with her colleagues. For someone like Kazumi, who wasn’t very adept at socializing, having a colleague who completely refused to talk to her was ideal.
What if the other party decided to cause trouble for her?
Kazumi hadn’t expected that they would be a student from Shikoku Gakuin. If that were the case, her previous thought of taking them to a secluded place and getting rid of them if they crossed her would no longer be feasible.
Then there was Sato Shinichi. Her cheap boyfriend would need to be useful at this time.
It would be best if he could resolve the situation, but if he couldn’t, or if he made a fool of himself in front of her…
Using the excuse of feeling disappointed because he couldn’t even protect his girlfriend to break up with him seemed like a perfectly reasonable and unassailable reason.
“But if we break up, won’t all the previous investments go to waste?”
“No, no, I’ll keep this as an emergency plan for now. I have to at least get some returns before breaking up!!”
Considering the pride she had lost in front of Sato Shinichi, Kazumi felt that she couldn’t let him off so easily. The idea of breaking up was certainly valid, but in any case, she wanted to extract something from him before making a clean getaway!
With that thought, Kazumi reached into her pocket and took out her mobile phone. As expected, the first message on the screen was from that familiar small flame avatar.
She shook her head helplessly, but with a hint of anticipation on her face, she opened her phone. She then remembered the boy’s silly remark from before: that it was impolite for a girl to end a conversation between lovers. Such a foolish statement.
With a soft chuckle, Kazumi casually replied with a small emoji. But the next second, before Kazumi could even put her phone away, the small flame on the screen flickered again.
“Damn it! Don’t you have anything else to do!!”
Kazumi couldn’t help but inwardly complain about this “simp” who always replied to her messages instantly, but the corners of her lips curved upwards as she picked up her phone to chat.
…
Night, 11 PM, Chindou Hall residential area, in Kazumi’s bedroom.
Kazumi Shimizu sat absently at her desk, staring blankly at the ceiling. On the desk, her mobile phone glowed softly, the screen still faintly showing the words “Good night” in the chat dialog box, followed by a cute emoji.
“No, no, no, I can’t keep falling like this!!”
She abruptly sat up, turned off the glowing phone screen, took out the notebook she used for mind mapping, and wrote “Self-control” in large letters with a red water-based pen, then drew several circles around it in red ink with frustration.
She then tore off the paper and threw it into the black coffin beside her. After taking a few deep breaths, she picked up the black ballpoint pen and carefully wrote on a new page: Reduce unnecessary chat time!!
It was like those mobile game players who used to say they’d finish one more quest before sleeping, but Kazumi never managed to stop playing until one or two in the morning.
Kazumi didn’t have the time to play any so-called mobile games anymore, as abilities were infinitely more fun than mobile games.
But now, she had inexplicably started to “grind” Sato Shinichi!
At first, she could still justify it as enhancing their relationship and understanding the other aspects of this world, a slight cover for her own instincts.
Now, her reason told her that their relationship had reached a point more intimate than before, at least that’s what he thought, so there was no longer much need to constantly pester him with chats. In other words, the returns on her investment were no longer enough for Kazumi to continue abandoning her pride to do this.
The problem was that her body didn’t think so!!!
It was as if some habit had formed. As soon as she picked up her phone, Kazumi couldn’t stop until they said good night. It was always in the “sage mode” after the conversation that she realized what she had done.
It was like those otaku who always claimed to abstain from sex but, upon seeing suggestive images, would voluntarily draw the curtains, grab tissues, and open their browsers, only to later regretfully look at their own sticky hands.
“Everything else is going well, but only this one thing…”
She flipped to the previous pages of her notebook and put checkmarks behind the tasks regarding finding a reasonable economic source, clearing herself of suspicion from the [Dark] Organization, and the activation of the golden finger, which Kazumi had specifically marked. This proved the progress of her current goals.
On this page, Kazumi had meticulously written down her nightly summaries of her future goals, from understanding the new world to recently clearing her name. She had basically put a checkmark behind each completed item.
Finally, at the end of the information, Kazumi picked up her pen and added another item: Investigation related to the relationship between Warhammer and Dragonji, and then connected this item to the name Fukada Akihiko written beside it.
She then drew a third prominent star behind the entry “[Self-control of bodily instincts caused by female hormones],” which was written towards the beginning of the page. Only then did Kazumi close her notebook with a sense of satisfaction.
She took a sip from her water cup, then frowned, glanced at the mobile phone placed beside her, and let out an annoyed “Tch.” Kazumi then pulled out a book titled “Sex and Instinct” from the borrowed books beside her and began to read it diligently.
