CH 32

[Aftercare?]

Afterward, or rather at a later date.

Babi Niflheim who was inferior to his heyday couldn’t beat the dream team of the gods – which was impossible to form in the original work, and was subjugated within less than 10 minutes after the battle began.

He didn’t admit his faults until the very end, and literally ‘disappeared’ while spitting out curses.

This put an end to the long-standing problem of the Evil King of the Night Sky, and perhaps due to my thread of tension was cut, I lost consciousness on the spot and had to spend a week on the bed until I woke up.

The gods did the cleanup in the meantime, and as a reward for the meritorious deed of rescuing Iris and subjugating Babi, Higaki and I were promised revival to the real world.

Furthermore, as an additional reward for me, I was going to be granted with ‘anything I want’ – a truly generous extra reward, but honestly, nothing came to my mind, so I had it put on hold for the moment.

By the way, my left arm that was cut off was reattached somehow.

It seems that the magic god ‘Thoth’, who is a friend of Anubis – or so I was told, and the nameless innocent ghosts picked up my left arm (soul) that was cut off and reattached it with their power.

At that time, it seems that some ghosts were absorbed into me as the connecting material to connect my arm; when I woke up, a log of skills acquisitions that I did not remember training was displayed at the edge of my field of vision.

“To be absorbed into a disgustingly strong bastard like you is synonymous with having their consciousness extinguished, y’know~. Even so, they said they want to give and be your power as a thanks for giving that shitty bastard a blow, y’know. Well, it won’t give you a bad influence or something of the likes, so make the best use of them in a way that would satisfy them, ‘kay.”

…so were the words of my doctor, Dr. Thoth.

In other words, it’s the acquisition of bonus skills after clearing a scenario! Having understood so, I let out a sloppy grin on my face and received a splendid praise(?), “Uwah, gross”, from my doctor.

I think it is necessary to consider the mentality of the patient whose consciousness just returned you know, Thoth-sama? If you were a woman, I would have been seriously depressed though???

Well, with all that said, the various troubles ended while I was unconscious, and now I’m living a leisurely life recuperating.

Originally, I was thinking of spending 4 months (4 days on the time axis of the real world) to collect points, and have them exchanged for revival, but since I ended up getting it as a reward, I seriously have nothing to do.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to be involved in the uproar so far in just a few days after arriving at the Netherworld… No, it was impossible to predict.

Since I have to have complete rest until next week, I can’t even move away from the bed, so the most I can do right now is doing something like knitting.

After that is just to reassess the state of the skills that I had acquired thus far, so I’ll be spending my time at slow pace for once after a long while…

“Ng~~~~h, so cold, so cold. Pardon my intrusion, Sakurai-san.”

“Geh, Iris-san.”

“Muh, what is with that reaction? That is rude to someone coming to visit you, you know?”

After saying so, Iris-san mutters “So cold, so cold” while getting onto the bed, and then sticks to me.

The soft sense of touch and the sweet scent peculiar to women shake my reason, but in light of the circumstances she ends up doing this, honestly speaking, I rather feel irked by it.

Iris Niflheim who lost her memory.

It seemed that she became completely traumatized by the feeling of being deprived of her something physically and mentally at that event, so coupled with the confined state of affairs, it seems that the fear of ‘coldness’ has taken root in both her mind and body.

She therefore fell into a situation where she couldn’t live freely unless she gets in contact with people and absorb their ‘heat’ through her magic eyes.

“Then, all’s fine as long as she absorbs heat, right?” – so I thought, but the people of the ‘Netherworld’ are mostly dead people; not only there are just a few owners of ‘heat’ that she can get warmth from, even if they do possess it, the majority of them are criminal candidates who mostly thinking about doing bad things.

It would be a big problem to be with such lot all the time.

Thus, the ones selected out of them are me and Higaki.

It seems that it was concluded that there would be no problem if it was us who in addition to had worked hard for her sake, were the possessors of ‘heat’ that even Iris-san acknowledged.

As for me, I would like her to stick to Higaki day and night, but Iris-san grandly declared that since my ‘heat’ is the highest, she wants to get warmth from me at night rather than at day – which was a statement that might invite misunderstanding.

Higaki who heard it supported Iris’s judgment with a malicious smile, “If anything happens, I will kill him. No, please leave killing him to me!”, persuading the surrounding people, and as a result, when it turns dusk, Iris-san would come to my hospital room and starts sticking to me.

Being sticked to Iris-san – whose beauty is as might be expected from an additional heroine – is tempting, or more precisely, posing a danger as a typical adolescent boy, but given that the circumstances being as is, Iris-san herself is entrusting her body to me as though she doesn’t have a shred of doubt, therefore causing me to worry endlessly about things like the sincerity for that trust, men’s natural instinct, and the fact that it makes it difficult to knit and dropping my leveling efficiency… it is so bothersome.

“I wonder how did it come to this…?”

It wasn’t like the Iris-san in the original work hold such a trauma, she behaved normally until at the parting with the protagonist, and the very end she said, “It seems that I am also affected by your kind ‘heat’” – which should be a normal heroine move, right?

“Sakurai-san, it is a little cold, so can you get a little hotter?”

“Don’t ask the impossible.”

“It is so cold, so cold, I tell you. Please.”

Iris-san who is hugging my waist on the bed looks up at me in a begging like manner.

The warmth should be at the room temperature unquestionably, but it seems that the loneliness… the ‘coldness’ in her heart reacts excessively even at the slightest difference of it.

While sighing at the trembling transmitted from the arms wrapping around me, I take out my knitting tools and starts leveling silently

After a while, I gradually begin to be absorbed in the work and became less concerned about Iris-san.

My path to knit has just begun and I still have a long way to go, I’ll improve my skill to the point of at least being able to makes small changes by the time I return to the real world…!

Iris-san – who is satisfied at the ‘heat’ of mine who is thinking like that and knitting the yarn silently – begins to yawn gently.

I continue kitting for a while and come to realize that Iris-san is sleeping when the yarn has run out.

“Just, what should I do about this… haah.”

While racking my brain about how to deal with things from hereon, today too I fall asleep while being hugged by Iris-san.