ALL NOVEL Book 3. Chapter 3. “A Temporary Reality.”
Book 3. Chapter 3.
“A Temporary Reality.”
Removing her chains took longer than she had thought.
However, the banquet that Sakura’s older brother had prepared for them had been totally worth it, a pity that Satoshi, tall, twenty-nine years old and who shared the same color of hair as Sakura but with black eyes, had stayed to watch her while he scolded his younger sister. Sitting in front of them at the table full of food of different types, but without touching it. Throwing distrustful glances at Kalysto, all the while trying to be intimidating.
Keep trying! The fairy queen is much scarier than you, and I haven’t even seen her in person! She mocked inwardly, giving him a slight smile full of politeness as she picked up another fried chicken thigh and took a bite, after having eaten a bowl of chicken soup, a portion of lasagna and put some mashed potatoes on her plate next to a piece of meat with mushroom gravy. Next to a portion of French fries.
“Are you her girlfriend?” Satoshi asked suddenly, causing Kalysto to choke on the chicken thigh as Satoshi’s thick voice seemed to spread throughout the room.
“What? No, of course not!” Sakura interjected, annoyed at her brother for not letting them eat in peace. “Kalysto may be a kind of cute, but she’s not my type! We’re just good friends! What’s wrong with you to ask that all of a sudden?”
“Cough! What the hell are you talking about? Where did you get that idea?” She answered at the same time as her friend, then turned and looked at her in surprise. “You think I’m cute?”
“Well, you’re not completely ugly," answered the black-haired girl, as if she was stating the obvious. “It’s just that your personality is a bit complicated and you don’t open up to people, so sometimes you’re a bit difficult to deal with.”
“Thank you," she replied as she grimaced. “You help my low self-esteem so much!” she muttered half jokingly.
“Come on, Kalysto! You’re not serious, are you?” Seeing that she seemed annoyed, she kept talking, worried about annoying one of the few people who hadn’t approached her to take advantage of her family’s money and always listened to her when she complained about her controlling and rigid father.” Look, if you’d get yourself groomed a little, I’m sure you’d get yourself a boyfriend and stop being an eternal spinster virgin. Look, even I am very pretty, but with makeup I look fantastic,” she tried to make up for her mistake. “As I said before, it’s not that you’re not pretty, it’s just that you never pay attention to your looks. If it were up to you, you’d only wear sportswear or pajamas or your baggy black T-shirts!”
“What’s wrong with my pajamas? They’re comfortable!” She replied, starting to get annoyed. “... Just like sportswear! And don’t you dare criticize my T-shirts! Besides, black is always in fashion!”
“For a funeral!” Sakura, who always dressed fashionably and took great care of her appearance, despaired. Even her house, when she wasn’t drunk, was always clean, tidy and with a nice citrus smell. “.... Kalysto, how are you supposed to attract the attention of a handsome man if you always dress like that?” She said, pointing to her dirty, blood-stained clothes. “The only colorful clothes you wear besides your pajamas is your waitress uniform!” complained her friend. “Wait a minute! What the hell are those stains from?”
“... Cough! Cough!” Satoshi coughed, wanting to get their attention. Back to our original topic,” he said, ignoring the fact that his sister just grabbed the bottom of Kalysto’s shirt to inspect the stains more closely. “I am aware of Sakura’s sexual preferences, and although I don’t share them, I would like to be informed if someone is taking advantage of my sister," he said, throwing a scornful glance at Kalysto.
“Oh, so you don’t like women either? Well, in that case, that makes two of us!” The saintess replied with a fake smile that feigned kindness.
I think I’m spending too much time with Persephone. I’m getting too much of her tricks! She thought, while listening to the choked laughter of Sakura who was trying, unsuccessfully, not to openly mock her brother.
“Oh! That was good! How it had never occurred to me before?” Sakura mocked.
“Stop it, you two! I’m completely serious!” Satoshi growled, slamming the table hard, putting Kalysto on alert. “What kind of insult is this? Of course, I’m not a fucking degenerate who likes men!”
“So, are you implying that I’m a degenerate, dear brother?” Sakura interjected, annoyed by Satoshi’s words.
“I... no... Cough! Cough!...” Satoshi cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was taking. “Back on topic. Are you two a couple, yes or no?” he insisted.
Kalysto, annoyed by his behavior, placed her palms on the fine dark wood table.
Ice daggers! She thought, letting them materialize and let both Sakura and her brother see them. The man’s eyes widened, somewhere between surprised and frightened by the sudden appearance of two sharp weapons.
“I thought it was clear by now that we are not," Kalysto replied in a silky voice. “But I hope you don’t share the particular form of indoctrination your grandfather used to have with my friend, Mr. Lee. Or we would have a problem.”
“I can assure you, Miss Luna, that I have never hit my sister!” he growled with indignation. “I must also inform you that according to the laws of your country, it is forbidden for a hunter to attack a civilian!”
“Oh! But I’m not registered as a hunter," she replied with gentleness and a huge smile on her face, sending shivers down the spine of the unsuspecting manager, who suddenly felt like a prey about to be hunted.
“He used to throw the cushions at me when we were kids!” Sakura accused him, half excited by Kalysto’s sudden overprotective attitude, but also wanting to break the uncomfortable tension that bathed the room.
“Sakura!” her brother scolded her, his face losing the little color it had.
“What? It’s true!” She defended herself, stealing a couple of potato chips from Kalysto’s plate.
“Hey! Those are mine!” Kalysto complained, completely forgetting about her friend’s brother.
“The table is full of food. You can take anything you want! You know?” Kalysto was about to refute her, but then she narrowed her eyes, and thought better of it.
“Are you sure I can take whatever I want from this table?” she asked. And Sakura, too curious about the appearance of the ice daggers to notice anything strange, just nodded her head.
“Are you going to make it disappear right away?” Sakura scoffed, but her friend only arched an eyebrow. “Sure, you can take whatever you want! But can I touch your daggers?”
“Sure!” Kalysto replied, excited about all the delicious food that was now at her disposal. And after passing both daggers to Sakura, she took the two pizza boxes that were still unopened and put them in her blue inventory. Then she took the tray in which the lasagna was and also put it in her inventory. As she was about to do the same with one of the bowls filled with fried chicken thighs, the sound of the chair in front of her falling down caught her attention.
“What?… What the hell are you doing?” Satoshi questioned, pointing at her as if she were a witch and they were in the middle ages.
“She told me I could take whatever I wanted," Kalysto defended herself, as she put the bowl in the inventory. And then she did the same with the one containing the mashed potatoes.
“Kalysto... you know there’s something called shame, right?”
“That doesn’t feed you," she replied, this time putting away four hamburgers in the same locker. Sakura was about to refute, but then she closed her mouth, remembering that Kalysto had indeed been hungry during her adolescence.
“You are absolutely right,” she agreed. “But could you explain to me where you keep all that food, how much you can fit in there?”
“ ... In fact, I’ve just run out of room," she muttered, looking sadly at the tray with sushi, the tray with roast beef and two other bowls with fried chicken thighs. Then, after looking back at her two inventories, she suddenly perked up. “Let me introduce you to someone!” Then she pulled Tsuki out of her inventory. “Tsuki, welcome to Earth!” she greeted him, and the little guy tilted his head before barking and tried to lick her face. “No, not in the face! I’ve told you before, Tsuki! Here, you better eat this!” she said, giving him a potato chip while waiting for his reaction. Tsuki, instead of sniffing it, looked at the other two people in the room.
“Master, they are humans!” Tsuki’s voice shouted in her mind.
“I know this planet is full of them.”
“Master, there is very little mana in the air!” The little one was frightened.
“Before we had no such thing, consider yourself lucky that at least there is some mana in the air now," replied Kalysto, suddenly worrying if that would be a problem for him. “Maybe we should train you a bit and level you up, just to make sure you can withstand living in this environment with me for two weeks," she whispered to him.
“Is that a wolf? Are you sure it’s safe to touch it?” Sakura interrupted them. Her brother opened his mouth to plead, but then closed it again, preferring to be ignored while observing everything that was happening.
“Actually, Tsuki is a sacred beast that comes from another world called Elinor. Tsuki, this is Sakura!” She introduced them. “She is a little crazy, but she is reliable, except if she sees a pretty girl because she will forget about you in an instant and leave you in the middle of a restaurant,” Tsuki nodded his head, keeping the information for future reference. Sakura, seeing that the little one seemed to understand what they were talking about, was alarmed.
“Hey, don’t talk bad about me. You’re making me look bad in front of my precious nephew! Besides, that only happened once Kalysto, and I invited you to dinner as an apology!” The saintess instead of answering her just smiled, and with her free hand she took a potato chip and ate half of it, then she offered the other half to Tsuki, who this time didn’t hesitate to eat it, seeing that it was safe.
“Did you like it?” Asked both women at the same time. Tsuki barked satisfied and started wagging her tail, happy to receive so much attention.
“Can I eat more?” Tsuki asked telepathically to her mistress.
Sakura, seeing that Kalysto was going to take another potato chip to offer to the cute puppy, immediately took a chicken thigh and offered it to him.
Tsuki, excited by the offering, wagged his tail and paws, making Kalysto stop carrying him to put him on Sakura’s lap. Who received him with pleasure and fed him.
“He’s definitely your pet! It only takes some food to tempt him! That’s how I became your friend!” commented the black-haired girl, amused. Satoshi, on the other hand, began to feel more confident as he saw that the creature posed no danger to his little sister and his attention was diverted to the two forgotten ice daggers.
“Hey, I’m not that predictable!” Kalysto tried to defend herself. But Sakura gave her a look full of distrust, then she looked at the table full of food and then her gaze returned again to Kalysto. “It’s okay. I can be a bit predictable in certain things. We all have our weak points!” she defended herself.
Forgetting both of them of Satoshi’s presence, Kalysto took out one of the swords that were inside her inventory, one without penetration stats, but that increased in ten points the strength of the bearer and put it on her lap, the movement caught Sakura’s attention who kept caressing Tsuki and telling him how cute he was.
“Duplication!” she muttered three times, putting the three duplicate swords on the table, immediately catching Satoshi’s attention.
“Do those also come from that other world?” questioned the only man in the dining room.
“That’s right. I heard from Sakura that you were interested in getting weapons to fight them," she commented, as if she wasn’t interested in the subject.
“I’m interested in creating them, but can they harm the monsters?” Curiosity and greed shone in the Japanese man’s eyes, and Kalysto smiled, enjoying the show.
“Of course," she said, pulling out one of the horned rabbit bodies she had saved for Tsuki and buried one of the duplicate swords in the monster’s body. A”s you can see, they are effective," the eyes of both brothers widened, imagining the possibilities that would open up before them.
“How much do you want for them?” Satoshi questioned with a serious look and the businessman’s attitude he had learned so much from his father.