Chapter 103: Introducing Chaos to a Slacker and a Glutton

With Victoria Housekeeping

“Wah!!!” Corin cries as she tries to wipe the tears from her eyes, but to no avail, as the tears keep escaping her eyes. Currently, she’s in her green fox onesie as the girls are having a sleepover in Victoria Housekeeping’s building.

“Oh, dear…I have never cried over a story; this is a first…” Rina says, wearing a bunny onesie as she flips to the next page. The girls had gone through several Cycles of ‘As I’ve Written’ before they were hit by the devastating blow at one of the cycle’s epilogues, where Cyrene started to realize that her memory is fading away every cycle, including her body.

“…” Ellen can be seen wearing a shark onesie, sitting in the corner of the room, hugging her knees as she tries her best not to sob. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing out of her eyes. She finally realizes why her friends were reacting that way and how they’re severely underreacting.

This shit hits the feel.

“I…” Lycaon wears a plain white shirt and black pants, wiping a single tear from his eye. “I can see why the Inter-Knot is giving the story such high ratings, even when their reviews consist of death threats.”

“I think they crossed the line with the death threats,” Rina says as she wipes her tears. “I know the reviews are mostly cursing the author for misdirection, but hearing the complaints from Ellen’s friend, it seems like Miss Nicole was the one who misdirected the readers.”

“S-so, it was Ms. Nicole’s fault everyone wants to hurt Mr. Caelus?” Corin asks, still wiping her endless tears.

“…yes,” Rina sweatdrops while chuckling lightly.

“Still, I never would expect such a good story written and published here,” Lycaon admits. “I’ve seen quite a lot of books, and the recently published ones tend to be…not interesting.”

“You mean slop?” Ellen says dryly, wiping the tears.

“I don’t understand why kids these days would invent random words or change the meaning behind an existing word,” Lycaon says in a deadpan manner.

“It means terrible,” Ellen says in a dry tone.

“Is it so hard to say that?” Lycaon sweatdrops, earning a giggle from Rina.

“Anyways, what Sir Lycaon said is true. There are a lot of stories published, but none has ever captured our hearts as much as ‘As I’ve Written’. It’s an amazing story consisting of many characters. The story lets us get to know the characters on a much more personal level, letting us see how the Chrysos Heir, despite their divine status or their true identity as programs, is human…” Rina says with a sad smile, looking at the book cover.

“The story consists of many beautiful moral messages and made us reconsider how we view some words,” Lycaon nods in agreement. “I…don’t think I could see the words ‘See You Tomorrow’ in the same light ever again…”

“A lot of my friends were traumatized by those words,” Ellen says with a sweatdrop. “Honestly, I have yet to figure out why. A lot of my friends and classmates would randomly start crying when the teacher said those specific words.”

“…I think they were just being dramatic,” Lycaon sweatdrops after hearing Ellen’s story. Something is truly wrong with the current generation.

It took them billions of Cycles to find out why such words were traumatizing the newly developed fandom.

————————————————————————————————————————————–

With Tsukisira Yanagi

“Nagi, are we going to see new friends?” Soukaku asks curiously as she grabs a shopping basket full of food. She and Yanagi can be seen standing in the cashier line.

“Yes, Soukaku,” Yanagi smiles as she gently pats Soukaku’s head.

“Yay, Soukaku gets to meet a new friend!” Soukaku cheers excitedly, causing Yanagi to chuckle in slight amusement.

“Why am I coming with you guys again?” Yanagi’s smile dims a bit before she turns around to see Harumasa, looking like a puppet with a few strings still attached to his back. He looks like he didn’t want to be here with them.

Which isn’t wrong, as Harumasa looks like he wants to go home and sleep in his bed.

“Because you have slacked off quite a lot in these few days, especially when I wasn’t in the office,” Yanagi says with a frown. “I can’t believe you would use that chance to sleep for the entire day. Have you seen the pile of paperwork on your desk?!”

“There were too many of them,” Harumasa whines. “All I did was blink, and everything suddenly appeared right in front of me!”

“And you left the pile to grow even more, which increases your entire workload,” Yanagi says in a dry tone.

“No, they don’t. Even if I do it, the amount of workload will stay the same,” Harumasa argues.

“…you got a deadline till this Friday,” Yanagi deadpans, causing Harumasa to wail in misery. She merely rolls her eyes before looking at Soukaku. “Don’t imitate him, or you’ll know nothing but suffering in the future.”

“Okay,” Soukaku merely replies with a smile.

“So cruel,” Harumasa says as he clutches his chest dramatically. “I want my bed.”

“You could go home earlier if you’d done your work quickly,” Yanagi argues.

“But it was too much!” Harumasa whines comically.

“God, why are you even joining H.A.N.D. if you didn’t even want to do any of the work,” Yanagi mutters while shaking her head. Harumasa didn’t answer, merely sighing in dismay, which annoys Yanagi even more.

‘Easy now, Yanagi. Don’t let Harumasa get to you again with his antics,’ Yanagi says to herself. ‘Just focus on today’s teaching, the most relaxing time I’ll ever get. One of the things that Chief Miyabi is most reliable for is seeking out potential members, and she nailed it. Phil and Caelus aren’t prodigies, but they could be once I’ve taught them during their trial periods.’

Yanagi can’t help but start daydreaming of a relaxing day in the office where her work as the Deputy Chief of Section 6 got less burdensome with the help of Caelus and Phil. The ideal dream alone makes her feel blissful, letting out a happy sigh.

“…something’s wrong with Deputy Chief,” Harumasa whispers to Soukaku, who looks confused at his words.

“I don’t see anything wrong with Nagi. She seems happy,” Soukaku says as if it were the most obvious thing, earning a sweatdrop from Harumasa. He keeps forgetting that, despite Soukaku being much older than Yanagi herself, she’s physically and mentally a child, at least by Oni’s standards.

After paying for all the food and (forcibly) asking Harumasa to carry all of the groceries, they leave the supermarket and head to Meilian’s apartment. Upon arriving at the building, they hear a loud noise coming from the cafeteria. The trio looks confused before they try to investigate.

Upon entering, they were greeted with a sight that they couldn’t have ever imagined. The Cunning Hares can be seen talking with the officers from the Public Security, and two of the soldiers from the Defense Force didn’t even bat a single eyelid on them, simply talking at each other.

Nicole can be seen begrudgingly comforting Seth, muttering about how it wasn’t his fault for letting the prisoner escape, while Seth looks like he’s drunk, sipping a bottle of…milk? The scene alone is weirding the Section 6, except Soukaku, who looks curious as to why Seth looks like that for simply drinking milk.

Does milk have a different effect on Thiren? Because she never looks like that when she drinks hers.

Anby and Nekomiya can be seen helping an old lady clean the dishes at the back, clearly visible through the kitchen’s window. Billy can be seen discussing something with Yanagi’s students, Caelus and Phil.

Qingyi can be seen sitting beside them with Zhu Yuan, the former sipping her tea calmly while the latter is on a call with her parents. Meanwhile, Seed can be seen talking happily with Seed Sr., who simply listens without interrupting her.

Yanagi had never felt so confused in her life, wondering what in the world she was witnessing. Did she overwork herself again and accelerate her deteriorating eyesight? None of this makes any sense.

“Oh, Ms. Yanagi, you’re here!” Caelus notices her and waves at her.

“Caelus, what is going on?” Yanagi asks shakily.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Caelus asks in confusion.

“I mean this,” Yanagi says as she gestures to the groups. “Why are the Cunning Hares here being buddy-buddy with the PubSecs?”

“Ah,” Caelus realizes what she meant. “Well, I did mention a few times how the Cunning Hares are more than they seem.”

“I, uh, um…huh?” Yanagi looks so lost that she doesn’t know how to properly react.

“…oh, god. You broke her,” Harumasa can’t help but be amused at the scene. Seeing Yanagi, who always seems calm and collected, look this confused is quite hilarious.

“Oh, you brought friends,” Caelus says, not noticing smoke coming out of Yanagi’s head. “Hello, I’m Caelus, the recruit…I guess?”

“Hi, Asaba Harumasa here.” Harumasa greets lazily, pulling his hand out as Caelus shakes it. Harumasa can’t help but note how Caelus doesn’t seem to act as his co-workers act towards their section, admiration, disdain, or envy.

Some of their co-workers are members of their section’s fan club; some treated them with disdain for disobeying the higher-ups’ ridiculous commands and doing things on their own, and some envied their fame and strength.

Caelus didn’t seem to show any sign of those, simply treated him like a junior treating their senior. Harumasa paused for a moment before he realized something, but before his train of thought could reach its destination, it was halted by Yanagi as she stared at him silently.

“W-what?” Harumasa asks nervously, but Yanagi continues to stare at him. He looks at his deputy chief before letting out a sigh. The entire interaction confuses both Caelus and Phil as they wonder what is going on.

“Hello.” They turn their head towards the source of the voice and see Soukaku waving her hand with a bright smile. “Nice to meet you, I’m Soukaku!”

“Hello, Soukaku,” Caelus says with a smile before he instinctively pets her head. Soukaku doesn’t seem to mind, and she seems to look happier.

‘Oh, I thought I was the only one,’ Phil stares at how Soukaku seems to be happy with a simple touch, remembering how he tried to hide his happiness when he did that to him. He had thought it was because of him being a Thiren that made him love getting pet on the head.

After seeing Soukaku, he had a feeling Caelus just had the power to make anyone happy.

“Huh…never seen Soukaku this happy besides getting a lot of food,” Harumasa comments as Yanagi smiles a bit. She was glad that Caelus isn’t racist. She was a bit worried for Soukaku, as people in New Eridu have some bad memories of Oni after the war, but it seems that she might be worried for nothing.

“By the way, is something wrong with Seth?” Harumasa couldn’t help but ask.

“Long story short, someone from PubSec let a prisoner escape with their car. Seth tried to chase after him, but the prisoner managed to lead him into a trap and escape.” Caelus explains while sweatdropping. “He… is being hard on himself, unable to stop blaming himself for the failure of two incompetent nitwits screwing up the job. He’s been acting like he got drunk by consuming milk like it’s alcohol.”

“Pfft,” Harumasa covers his mouth, trying his best not to laugh out loud, but fails spectacularly. “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but…this is too much…”

“…” Without another word, Yanagi slaps his head to shut him up. “So… why is Nicole of Cunning Hare comforting him?”

“The prisoner is Perlman, and she was hired as the Canvas Street citizen’s lawyer. If she wins the court, she will get the money. The prisoner escaped, which means she lost all the money, so she has the right to blame Seth,” Caelus explains. “Thankfully, she didn’t and instead comforted him.”

“…sorry, I’m still processing…” Yanagi says as she rubs the bridge of her nose. “This is too much…”

“…fair,”

To be Continued