Chapter 59: I Suspect You Two Are Flirting
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "[Image]!!! Meow meow meow???"
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "Admin-dono actually sent a Gift Package—incredible! But here's the real question: why did this one only get 2 Points?"
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "Ugh, this hurts, Little Kaguya-chan. I opened yours, my own, Wolffy's, AND Admin-dono's."
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "Total haul across all four: 6 Points."
Kaguya-sama: "I feel bad for Yukari-nee-sama just reading this."
Crazy Diamond: "Poor Yukari-senpai…"
RawrSoFierce: "Perfectly normal. Standard RNG. No pity needed."
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "Pah! Admin-dono must have stolen this one's fortune."
Yukari said that, but she knew perfectly well that even if someone had siphoned off her luck, it wouldn't have been Admin-dono.
They were in entirely different worlds, after all.
Unless it was that green-haired goddess of misfortune—
Skulking around the vicinity of her home again.
That was extremely plausible, actually.
Last time, after Yukari had "had a little chat" with the green-haired misfortune goddess and flung her to some faraway place, Yukari's luck had improved slightly. Now it had suddenly nosedived again.
Could that pest have come crawling back?
A flicker of cold intent passed through Yukari's limpid eyes.
She was seriously considering whether to break out her thirty-thousand-meter ōdachi. She could graciously give the goddess a 29,999-meter head start before swinging.
* * *
RawrSoFierce: "Is fortune even something you can steal? Emmm, well, even if it is—sure, I stole it. What are you gonna do, bite me? Nyeh nyeh nyeh~"
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "Nay!"
RawrSoFierce: "…?"
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "…!"
RawrSoFierce: "…?"
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: "(°Д°≡°Д°) Curses… this one has run out of words… How vexing! The great Sage of Yōkai, rendered speechless at the critical moment!"
Crazy Diamond: "I'm like 90% sure you two are flirting, but I have zero evidence…"
Kaguya-sama: "Truly an epic duel for the ages! Today's winner: Admin-dono, by a landslide!"
We, Ying Zheng: "+1"
Edward Newgate: "+1"
The Little Wandering Planet: "+1"
Green Grasslands Wolf King: "+1"
* * *
After the wordplay duel with Yukari, Ryū got down to the business of cleaning his house. The dust had to go—living in filth was not an option.
Having just sent out a 100-Point Gift Package, he felt poor all over again.
Points really didn't last, did they?
Who knew if another rare "money-delivery child" would ever come along.
One Meyu Inkyo had netted him 18,100 Points.
Ryū was starting to wonder if that windfall had come a little too easily.
But then he thought about Blackbeard—a reincarnator worth a mere 3,000 Points—
And dropped that line of thinking.
Meyu Inkyo was a fluke.
Probably wouldn't happen again.
Even if there were other System-bearing traversers out there, they were likely vanishingly rare. Most traversers and reincarnators probably had different kinds of cheats. At least… that was what Ryū figured.
The house cleaned up nicely, and the process was quick. Dust, cobwebs—all swept into the trash.
He grabbed the bin and pushed open the front door for the first time in over two weeks.
Closed it behind him and headed off to dump the garbage.
He wasn't about to leave it on his own doorstep.
* * *
"Since picking up Low-tier Observation Haki, my entire sensory field feels different. With my eyes closed and without using any of the Six Powers… I feel like I could dodge simultaneous fire from a hundred handguns."
Ryū muttered to himself. Though that was just a "feeling."
Exactly how far Low-tier Observation Haki's perception extended would only become clear in actual combat.
The problem was that Konohagakure had been absurdly peaceful lately.
Jiraiya was off doing "field research" for his novels.
Tsunade had shut herself off from the world and left the village entirely.
Orochimaru hadn't yet defected from Konoha—he was apparently still running human experiments under the radar, as yet undetected by the Third Hokage. And since he wouldn't waste time targeting anyone who wasn't a shinobi, Ryū was unlikely to cross paths with him.
In other words, Konoha right now was… disturbingly stable.
Aside from the occasional petty theft, nothing ever happened.
It was so uneventful that it didn't even feel like the world of Naruto.
More like a slice-of-life anime.
The déjà vu was intense.
"If I want to test how much stronger I've gotten, do I really have to leave the village? If my power's grown too much and I accidentally make a scene, it'll draw way too much attention."
In the end, Ryū shelved the idea. Even leaving the village didn't guarantee he'd run into a shinobi.
The Great Ninja Wars had ended, and every nation was in recovery.
Nobody knew how many shinobi had died. Konoha alone had seen its numbers nearly halved.
So even outside the village walls, the odds of encountering a ninja were slim.
And even if he did, they'd mostly be chūnin or genin.
Granted, genin were usually a bunch of broken-overpowered freaks.
But that was only Konoha's genin.
Other villages' genin couldn't buy cheats if they tried.
After all, Naruto's protagonists were all Konoha-born. In the mid-to-late story, aside from Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, the entire conflict was basically Konoha's internal family drama.
Orochimaru? Konoha. Obito and the Akatsuki? Konoha. Uchiha Madara, who'd been scheming for generations? Also Konoha.
Every single one of them was a Leaf ninja.
So how was that not an internal dispute?
* * *
Ryū tossed his trash into a roadside bin and was about to turn back when a voice called out from behind him.
"Oh? Ryū-kun! I didn't expect you to be back so soon from your trip!"
What kind of greeting is that? Is this a Konoha thing?
Ryū silently critiqued the comment. When someone comes back from a trip, who opens with "You're back already?" A paranoid person might think you didn't want them to come back.
But coming from Might Guy, it was par for the course.
He'd already recognized the voice—unmistakably Guy.
First quest homecoming: ran into Might Guy.
Second quest homecoming: ran into Might Guy again.
Fate really was a funny thing.
Why does my red thread of destiny keep leading back to a guy with a bowl cut?
Something about this feels like it was opened on the wrong difficulty setting.
☆☆☆
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