Chapter 7: -07- Strange New World… New Strange World… Either Way, I Clearly Have No Luck

After washing the dishes from breakfast, Yamasaki-san and I sat on the sofa together watching the news and browsing the internet on our phones. It wasn’t only in Gunma that the JSDF entered the portals, it was all over Japan. The truth was, they hadn’t identified all the locations of each and every portal which fell, but of the ones they did, they secured them as fast as possible. In every account, the scouting teams which entered all encountered hostile entities, and escaped. There were a few teams which escaped without any casualties, but all in all, there was a lot of damage and loss of life.

In fact, one location, out in Odaiba, had sent in a larger squad in an attempt to retrieve their fallen comrade, but no corpse could be located. There is no official statement as to what may have happened to the body, but the current speculation is that the body was taken by the creatures inside, for what purpose, nobody knows.

“Yamasaki-san, things might be getting crazy soon. You also eat way too much, so I need to go to the supermarket and secure some more meat, otherwise we’ll be eating only noodles and rice for the next couple days.”

“Alright, I’ll go with you.”

“You want to go?”

“Better than being cooped up in this apartment. It’ll be good to stretch my legs.”

We readied ourselves, and after locking up the apartment, Yamasaki-san and I traveled towards the local supermarket, passing through the Park nearby, where she mentioned that a portal had fallen onto the bench I originally found her on, Friday night. Surrounding the portals was a team of about twenty JSDF as well as a few local police officers. There were also a number of civilians just observing from the appropriate distance, as none of the police were letting anyone close to it at all.

“Subaru, do you feel it?”

I knew exactly what she meant when she said it. It was a feeling of being drawn into the portal, or rather, it was a feeling of wanting to enter the portal. It wasn’t anything major, just a strange tug at the corner of my mind.

“Yeah, I feel it.”

“I think… we should enter this one. I don’t know about the others, but this one seems like it was meant for us, you know?”

“Are you saying that because of the coincidence that it landed on the bench you were using?”

“Exactly.”

“There’s no way it’ll be happening anytime soon. Just look at how the military is trying to contain it. For now let’s just mind our business.”

Yamasaki and I made our way through the park and towards the business district nearby. It wasn’t a shopping arcade, and a street ran through it, but it had a lot of friendly stores that have been there for years. A Seven konbini, a dagashiya which recently changed hands from the old granny to her granddaughter who has a really cute daughter of her own already. There’s my job, one of the newest additions to the district in the last couple of years, Guiseppie’s Coffeehouse, which stays open late, and sells coffee, tea, and dessert, as well as a few other things like honey pancakes and… things that go with coffee?

There’s the Gemini Arcade, which was a favorite hangout of mine back in the day. I remember these twin girls with black hair in twintails who were ungodly beasts at every machine, always ranking in the top three places that had a leaderboard. There’s also a small office building near the seven that gets frequented by a lot of gyarus lately, so maybe it’s a model management company now?

Past that is the supermarket. Incidentally, Niku’s card shop is right next to the dagashiya. I would often get a few snacks there after buying packs of cards with my weekly paypacket from work, though I’ve been doing it less often as of late.

Yamasaki-san and I made it to the supermarket, and after buying a few extra things, and some snacks that she said she wanted, I watched my funds deplete in real time. Still not a single thank you from her. Walking home, since I had forgotten to call Hotoke-san and only remembered now, I made it a point to stop by my job and check in with her.

The store had the open sign up, but there were no patrons. A little bell rings when the door opens up, to alert the staff that there is a customer. After a few moments, Hotoke-san arrived at the front.

“Subaru-kun! You’re alright!”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Hotoke-san.”

She paused for a moment to eye Yamasaki-san who had entered the shop with me.

“Who’s your girlfriend?”

Before I could answer, Yamasaki-san grabbed my arm as if we were on a date, and introduced herself.

“I’m Yamasaki Shoko. You’re the lady who called to check up on him Sunday afternoon, right?”

“Yeah.”

“As you can see, he’s perfectly fine. I’ve been taking good care of him all weekend.”

What the fuck was Yamasaki-san doing right now? If she was trying to make Hotoke-san jealous, she was being an idiot. Hotoke-san doesn’t see me as anything but a part-timer. Besides, even if she did, she’s kinda doing yuri stuff with my co-worker, Yamabuki-san.

“Is that so? That’s good to know. I was worried Subaru would be eating his birthday cake all by himself.”

“The chocolate cake? We enjoyed it together.”

Hotoke-san just crossed her arms.

“I’m in the middle of having a cig out back. If you wanna talk, let’s move there. Your girlfriend can join us if she wants.”

Hotoke-san left, heading to the back door, and both Yamasaki-san and I followed her. When we got there, Hotoke-san wasn’t alone. Yamabuki-san was there as well. I greeted her politely.

“Oh my god, is that you Rinacchi?” The words came quickly out of Yamasaki-san’s mouth.

“Shoko-pan?” Rina replied before the two of them collided in a hug.

“Holy shit, I haven’t seen you since middle school. How is everything? Still dating Oda-kun?”

“Kawazu? No… he and I split. I’m with Kouta now, sort of.... Ah, I mean Kawamura-san, you remember him, right?”

“That’s the kid Oda-kun knocked out those guys to protect back in the day, right?”

“Yep. That’s the guy.”

“Wasn’t he a bit of an otaku, though? Did he get handsome all of a sudden?” Yamasaki-san asked. As my co-workers were having a smoke break, Yamabuki-san went and joined them.

“No, he’s pretty much the same, he only got a little taller, but he’s still a short-stack.”

“Haha, what was that name you used to call him, Shota Kouta?”

Both of them began laughing.

“He’s big where it counts, now what about you? What are you doing with our Subaru?”

“With all the weird shit going on, I’ve been staying at his place and letting him spoil me. Not for free of course.”

“What do you mean not for free? You haven’t given me a single yen!” I interjected.

“Haven’t I been paying you in other ways, Subaru? How cruel of you to make me out to be a freeloader… Didn’t you wake up in my arms this morning feeling good?”

Yamasaki-san was just saying whatever the fuck she wanted and letting it be misinterpreted to hell and back. Are these two really buying this bullshit?

“Please stop saying things they can misunderstand, Yamasaki-san.”

“Shoko! Sho. Ko. Come on, you can say it, Subaru. Don’t be embarrassed.”

Of course I wasn’t going to say it, but it didn’t matter, Yamasaki-san simply chalked it up to me being nervous around her still. Since, you know, I’d never had a girlfriend before her. Though she hadn’t said even once that she was my girlfriend, she just let the misunderstanding do all the work for her.

“So what brings you here, Subaru-kun?” Hotoke-san asked, “I told your girlfriend that it was fine if you called me in the morning.”

“Ah,” I scratched my head, “I sort of forgot until I passed by.”

“It’s nice that you were busy in the sheets, but I was genuinely worried for you. You also missed your shift on Sunday…”

“Y-yeah, I’m really sorry about that. Some things happened on Saturday afternoon, and…”

She took a drag and exhaled, pointing her fingers at me.

“I’m not admonishing you. You’re my employee, so I was just worried about you. If it was Saturday afternoon, then you saw the light show, I presume?”

“Y-yeah… I saw it.”

Yamasaki-san looked at me and I did my best to return a look that carried the words don’t say a fucking thing to her. So what did Yamasaki-san do? Whatever the fuck she wanted, as usual.

“Hey Rinacchi… after the laser beams happened, when you woke up the next day, did you have something like a system?”

Rina dropped her cigarette. “What?”

After bending down to pick it back up, the two of them met eyes for a moment. There was a slight nod.

“Don’t worry, I won’t say shit. Subaru already told me it was dangerous to mention it, but I know you won’t say shit either, Rinacchi. You know we both got hit by the laser beam on Saturday afternoon. Subaru jumped in front of it and it zapped him directly. I thought he was dead for a minute, but just his clothes got burned. I was keeping an eye on him until he woke up Sunday night.”

“Yeah… I was with my boyfriend at a studio nearby when it happened. Kouta, myself, and a few other people all got hit as well. We’ve… all got systems.”

I looked at my manager, Hotoke-san, who held up her hands.

“Don’t look at me. I was at home with my daughter, Yuna. Nothing strange happened to me.”

It seems like Hotoke-san was unaffected. Both her and Yamabuki Rina finished their break, and Yamasaki-san did as well. The four of us returned inside the shop.

“So, what are your plans right now, Subaru?”

“Eh? I don’t have any, not really, anyway. I’m just waiting for them to lift the curfew and go back to school on Wednesday.”

“Want to work tonight? Rina just came to stop by and chat, and actually wanted to see if you’d work for her tonight, since she covered for you last night. I doubt it’d be all that busy. It’s up to you.”

“Yeah, I’m fine with that. Sorry for troubling you, Yamabuki-san.”

The person I was concerned about right now was Yamasaki-san. The last thing I needed was for her to cause problems at my job. She didn’t say a thing about me suddenly taking over Yamabuki-san’s shift tonight, was it because they knew each other?

“Can I get an iced coffee?” Yamasaki-san asked.

While the manager made her a coffee, my co-worker and Yamasaki-san exchanged contact info.

“Thanks for covering for me, Subaru. I have somewhere really important to go with my boyfriend later in the afternoon, and I can’t afford to miss it.”

“It’s no problem at all, again, I’m sorry I was unable to even call…”

“It’s fine. Even my boyfriend was knocked out by it. He was the last one to wake up. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, both he and his Onee-san said the same thing, about keeping it secret.”

I nodded. Hotoke-san returned with Yamasaki-san’s coffee, I went to pay but she held out a hand. “It’s on the house. You’re covering for Rina, so it’s fine.”

“Thanks, Hotoke-san.”

“Be safe in getting home, okay? The military is in the park you use for a shortcut.”

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“Yes, both Yamasaki-san and I already saw them there when we came this way earlier.” I replied, “And don’t worry, I don’t have any strange ideas about trying to enter one of those portals.”

“Good.”

Saying our goodbyes, both Yamabuki-san and Yamasaki-san hugged each other again, and we departed from my job.

“I need to make one more stop.” I told her.

While sipping her iced coffee, she followed me over to the card shop run by my friend, Rokuro Nikuni. The store was closed, but being friends, we have a secret knock. After performing the knock, there was the sound of a few things crashing, and there was a head that peeked through the blinds of the store. I waved and the door quickly opened.

Now, his nickname of Niku was no joke, he was like a large slab of fatty meat, and he quickly embraced me in a bear hug.

“You made it! You got hit, didn’t you?”

“Huh?”

“The system beam, you got hit by it, didn’t you?”

“...yeah.”

“Thank god! We need to talk, like, right now! Get in!”

I was yanked inside, however he paused when he saw Yamasaki-san next to me.

“Who’s the girl?”

“Who’s the fatty?” she replied without any courtesy.

“A gyaru? I thought you liked 「Blue」 and now you’re walking around with 「Lioness」 in tow? I thought we were friends, Subaru.”

“It’s not like that, Niku. Just…” I sighed. “She was with me when it happened, we both have systems.”

Niku stared at her for a long moment before pushing me inside the shop further. “You can come in.” He said, devoid of any courtesy to her at all. With Yamasaki coolly walking in, he shut and locked the door quickly behind us.

“What’s going on, Niku?”

“I’ve got a portal in the back.”

“What!?”

“Yeah man, It fell behind the shop, and as strange as it sounds, it can be moved. I already went in, and man is it fucking wild!”

“You ran into monsters?”

“Yeah, but that’s not important. JULI!” Niku shouted suddenly, and when a girl appeared suddenly in a maid outfit, I thought my heart would burst out of my chest.

“Yes, Master?”

Juli, for the unaware, cannot possibly be alive. She’s a sex doll, and one that cost more than a hundred thousand yen to boot. She’s fully featured, from head to toe, and her bare skin is made of Thermoplastic Elastomer, or TPE and is of the highest quality. Though it’s a bit cheaper than straight silicone, it really emulates the feel and the breast jiggle effect so much better. There are many pros and cons about the two and I’m not qualified to weigh in on it, most of the shit I’m saying is just regurgitated from what Niku has said. I just groped Juli’s tits once or twice shortly after Niku purchased her, and they felt nice.

I’ve never used her though. You don’t NTR a friend’s sex doll. There are rules to a good friendship.

“I got a sex doll system!” Niku said proudly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said, almost bummed that all I got was a deck system.

“Yeah, furthermore, she’s strong as fuck! She fights like a ninja maid, and she obliterated everything we came across. We didn’t go too far inside though.”

“How is she moving right now? She can operate outside of the portal?”

“Mana.” Came the one word reply.

“What?”

“The portals dude, they are leaking mana. Juli is only operating right now because the portal is here in my shop. She stops being able to move about 20 meters from the portal currently. My guess is that the leaking mana is acting like a wifi mana charger, though if the portals keep leaking mana, then it’s possible the whole world will change, and things like magic might be possible.”

Who would have expected that Niku of all people would get his hands on one of the portals which fell out of the sky.

“Niku, did you get hit by the beam?”

“Of course I did, how do you think I got the system?”

“But how did you get the portal? Wouldn’t the JSDF have located it first? When it hit me I was knocked out for a day!”

“Oh, that? I think it’s because when it happened, I was in the middle of uh… being with Juli.”

“You were fucking Juli?”

“Actually, when the beam hit me, I was uh, letting it out… Then all of a sudden she comes alive, you know, and she puts her arms around me and wraps her legs around my waist and… well, I wasn’t going to lose my consciousness when my Juli came alive just for me. We went another three or four rounds before I settled down. I discovered the portal afterwards…”

“Master is vigorous.” Juli suddenly spoke, “But Juli doesn’t mind. Master has always taken great care of Juli.”

Niku was just blushing.

“My waifu is real, Subaru. She’s real.”

Niku gave me yet another fatty hug, but what can I say to my friend who was invested in that kind of thing? I could only congratulate him for living the dream. For me, on the other hand, I had to deal with Yamasaki Shoko as a potential portal partner post laser beam.

Yamasaki-san was not saying a single thing, just listening and sipping on her iced coffee. This was prime material to bully and talk shit, and she was just chilling, drinking her coffee and kind of looking over Juli-san, going so far as to touch her breasts.

But all good things come to an end.

“Subaru, who has better breasts, this thing or me?” Yamasaki-san asked loudly.

Niku dropped me out of the hug really quickly. “Subaru? Are you engaging in that kind of thing with a 3D gyaru?”

“It’s not like that, Niku.” I tried to explain.

“It’s exactly like that.” Yamasaki-san cut me off with yet another misunderstanding. “Don’t you remember me sitting on your lap, while you had one hand on my breasts and another in my panties, as your fingers explored my deepest passage?”

Niku gave me a cold look for a moment, until Juli-san walked over to him and threw her arms around him, giving him a kiss.

“You are angry, Master. Is Juli not good enough? Does my Master really wish for a real woman to love after all?”

Niku was immediately disarmed.

“No way. Juli is my one and only waifu!” He put his arm around her waist, picked her up easily, and twirled her around. “How can a 3D woman ever compare to you?”

Did Juli have an artificial personality or an AI or something? I have to be thankful that she had some kind of ability, since I can’t remember Niku ever getting that mad at me before. Not even when I beat him ten times in a row at Mana the Coupling.

“I’m not going to answer that question out of respect for Juli-san, Yamasaki-san. In fact, let me apologize for that time, Juli-san.” I bowed towards her.

“It’s fine. Master was so proud of my high quality that day, he couldn’t help but show some of my best assets off to his friend.”

“You remember it?”

“My memories only begin from the moment my Master unpackaged me and fully assembled my body.”

That’s pretty amazing.

“I wasn’t alive back then, I know that much. I only have some semblance of life now thanks to the system beam striking master as he poured his life force inside of me. To be with my master as more than just an inanimate object fills me with happiness. For now, I want to enjoy this time with my Master alone as his number one, before he brings in more women.”

“Juli, all I need is you.”

“Master, you don’t need to lie to me. Juli knows all about the catalogs that Master has read. Juli doesn’t mind, but Juli always wants to be Master’s number one.”

Niku continued to hug her, weeping like a man in love. “You’re all I really need, Juli. Only you…”

Yamasaki-san put a hand on my shoulder.

“Now if only you could be as honest with me, Subaru.”

I disregarded her comment, because if I was going to be dead honest with her, I would find myself being tossed through one of the glass cases that displayed the cards in Niku’s shop.

“So what’s the deal, can you make babies with her now that she’s alive?” Yamasaki-san asked, her question being way too grounded in reality for my taste.

“If you mean biologically, I do not have a womb. There is only a duct for storing my Master’s seed. If my Master wishes for children, we can just order the parts and make them ourselves.”

“Juli, you’d have a baby with me?”

“I am my Master’s number one waifu, aren’t I?”

While the two of them shared a lovey-dovey moment, there was a bitter look of gloom on Yamasaki-san’s face. I had no idea what it was about, since she was otherwise fine just a moment ago.

“Niku, can I look at some of the cards you have for a moment?”

“Sure, go ahead man.”

“I don’t know why, but cards react to my system somehow. They don’t do anything, but I think they might help my system with card creation. They shouldn’t disappear… hopefully.”

“Disappear?”

“My favorite deck… it got devoured when I touched it. But only that one time. All the other decks I have didn’t do anything like it.”

“I trust you. Do that first, then I have something to talk to you seriously about.”

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