Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
Delicious.
Although the food had a subtle sensation of being cooked by a beginner, it was still at the level of "delicious." This was Seiji's objective assessment.
If he gave her extra points for the fact that this was her first time cooking, he'd give Natsuya 120… no, 300 points!
This was food that the student council president had personally cooked for him. Plus, they were eating each other's food together. Only giving her 200 would be far too conservative.
"How is it?" Natsuya asked.
"Really good." Seiji smiled sincerely.
Upon seeing this smile, Natsuya felt that her waking up super early this morning and working hard at cooking under her maid's tutelage was all worth it.
A warm feeling arose in her chest. She now felt even more fortunate to be with him.
"What do you think of my food?" Seiji asked the same question.
"It's quite good… it has your taste to it." Natsuya smiled in response.
"My taste?"
"I can feel that you made it… a taste like that."
'There's such a taste?' Seiji's head was covered with question marks.
Still, Natsuya looked quite cute as she said that with a shy expression. He decided not to pursue the matter.
The two of them chatted and laughed together as they ate.
Halfway through their lunch, Natsuya moved over to sit next to Seiji instead. She picked up an egg roll with her chopsticks and blushed as she brought it to his mouth with a "Say ahhh~~~"
Seiji cooperatively ate the eggroll. He also fed her some food as well. "Ahh~~~"
Natsuya's face became even redder as she ate the food. Her feeling of bliss increased even further!
Seiji was quite moved by her beautiful smile… no, shaken!
As they ate and chatted together, they were indeed accumulating deeper feelings for each other.
After lunch.
Natsuya poured some tea that she prepared and handed Seiji a teacup.
"I'd like to learn more about the soul and better understand soul attacks and defense… Could you teach me?" Seiji asked after sipping some tea.
"Of course. However, I'm not skilled at soul magic. I can only teach you the basics," Natsuya told him.
"That'll be enough."
Seiji felt it would be likely that battles in the soul realm would occur during the Bloodwine Ritual tournament. And with his previous experience, he felt that soul magic would be even more important in the future, so he needed to start cultivating it now.
Actually, he knew someone even more skilled in soul magic than Natsuya—his bonded female spirit, Yomi. But, she always remained asleep. And even if he asked her on one of the rare occasions that she wasn't sleeping, he felt she would likely refuse with her lazy personality.
The rest of lunch break passed by with the student council president teaching Seiji knowledge about the soul.
Later that night.
Seiji and Shika practiced cultivation together at Natsuya's residence.
They were currently fighting fiercely against each other with wooden swords.
Seiji caught one of his adopted younger sister's mistakes and swiftly took advantage of the opportunity to suppress her. It looked like he was about to win.
However, Shika didn't retreat as expected. Instead, she counterattacked at the last moment, forcefully knocked away his wooden sword, rushed into his arms, hugged him, and bit his neck!
"Er…" Seiji was shoved backward several steps by the collision and almost fell over.
'Biting is against the rules!'
He really wanted to say that. But, he did lose after all.
Shika hugged him tightly and used a small amount of force as she bit and sucked on his skin.
"Shikchan, don't be like this…"
"Awoo!"
She responded with a guttural sound that indicated she was going to do what she wanted!
Seiji felt helpless about the situation.
He didn't dislike the way his adopted younger sister was acting. But as for liking it… at any rate, it was a rather subtle way of behaving intimately.
At this moment, footsteps sounded.
Seiji immediately knew that these footsteps belonged to Natsuya! He hurriedly indicated to Shika for her to let go of him. Yet, she refused to let go or stop biting.
"What are the two of you doing?"
Natsuya widened her eyes upon seeing how Shika was currently tightly hugging and biting on to Seiji.
"A practice bout," Seiji responded awkwardly.
"…What type of technique is this?"
"Er… one that Shika created herself. There's no name for it yet."
"Ah~ en~" Shika made a moaning sound.
Natsuya and Seiji were both rendered speechless.
This mysterious atmosphere of awkwardness continued for quite a while.
Shika finally stopped biting Seiji as she licked the bite mark on his neck before letting him go. She then glanced at Natsuya before silently walking away.
Natsuya watched her leave before looking at Seiji.
Seiji rubbed the bite mark on his neck and had an expression of extreme awkwardness.
"…Should I pretend that I saw nothing?" Natsuya asked expressionlessly.
Seiji didn't know how to respond. He could only smile wryly.
"Come to the living room, have some tea, and take a rest. There's something I need to tell you."
Natsuya treated his silence as tacit admittance that she should pretend that nothing happened.
They left the underground practice field and returned to first floor.
"I received a report… there was only one piece of important information that was analyzed from the cursed item that you helped remove from Ooike-san."
"What is it?"
"That cursed item was probably created using human sacrifices."
Seiji frowned upon hearing this.
He just had to deal with Akatsuki Mitarai who treated humans as nothing more than body parts for his experimental dolls. And now, something like this was happening again…
"Although it's impossible to be 100% sure, the report is that there's an over 90% chance possibility that the item was made with human sacrifices," Natsuya continued. "If it's really as you suspect, and this cursed item is a new product from that 'Messenger' organization, something they're preparing to sell just like 'Bliss'… then it's quite likely that many people will begin dying when they start mass-producing this item. But, suspicions are only suspicions. Right now, we don't know the specifics of this item, or how it's supposed to be used. I feel that it's unlikely that it'll be mass-produced… let's not even consider whether it's possible or not, as using human sacrifices on a large scale to mass-produce this is nothing more than insanity that will only lead to self-destruction."
No person would willingly choose the path of self-destruction.
Logically speaking, that was.
But, there would always be maniacs and insane people in the world that would utilize any method at their disposal for realizing their own desires! Even if it would lead to their self-destruction.
Akatsuki Mitarai was simply one such example.
Kazufuru Ooike had recalled that the man who gave him the cursed item said that he was indeed crazy.
If this man was someone even crazier than Akatsuki, then…
'No… I should stop thinking about it.' Seiji prevented his thoughts from heading down a dark abyss.
"Right now, what we know for sure is that a self-proclaimed crazy man said that this cursed item was a new product that needed testing," Seiji stated calmly. "As for who this man is, what faction he belongs to, and what he intends to do, all of that is a mystery. The only clues we have are the item itself along with Ooike-san."
"Right now, no Spiritual Ability users have approached Ooike-kun. His life is continuing as normal—that's what the two I arranged to watch over him reported to me," Natsuya told him.
"That man said that it was a 'test run,' which means that he should return to confirm the effects." Seiji looked directly at her. "If the people you arranged didn't make any mistakes, then either he's capable of observing from a distance, or he hasn't come back to check on Ooike-san yet."
"I believe in those two, they won't make any mistakes."
"Then let's trouble them to continue watching over Ooike-san. If we catch that self-proclaimed crazy guy, there'll be nothing else for us to think about."
"What if we can't catch him?"
"Let's think about it if we really can't." Seiji paused for a moment. "By the way, has there been any progress in investigating the 'Messenger' organization?"