Chapter 108: First Meeting, The Real Miss Hiiro Wakaba
Taking advantage of the window where Shirazawa had taken little Leest to the labyrinth for leveling, Shiro changed into a set of modern clothing she had prepared well in advance inside her room.
She wore a crisp white button-down shirt paired with a skirt that fell just past her knees, draped beneath a light brown trench coat. Her silver hair, which normally cascaded all the way down to her heels, was elegantly pinned up, and with a pair of black sunglasses resting on her face, her entire aura shifted into something exceptionally sharp and handsome.
"Whew~"
Taking a long, deep breath to steady herself after finishing her preparations, Shiro suddenly vanished from the room in a flash of light.
When she materialized once again, her surroundings had transformed into a neon-lit modern metropolis. Looking at this world that felt simultaneously so familiar yet so foreign, a chaotic wave of emotions surged through her chest.
Gazing up at the sky, the brilliant canopy above was no longer the densely packed, unfamiliar constellation matrix of the fantasy realm, but rather a single, magnificent band of the Milky Way stretching across the horizon. As night descended, the streets lit up brilliantly, packed with a bustling crowd moving past rows of diverse shops in a noisy, lively display. The smell of automobile exhaust drifted lightly through the air, adding a subtle touch of human domesticity that was entirely saturated with the unmistakable traces of human civilization.
"The air in the alternate world is still better, though," Shiro murmured, her eyes narrowing slightly as a complex cocktail of bittersweet feelings washed over her.
Taking in her immediate surroundings, she stepped inside a convenience store and casually flipped open a magazine resting on the rack.
*It has actually only been four or five months here? Is the flow of time entirely asynchronous?* she wondered silently to herself, quite surprised by the massive discrepancy in time progression. One had to keep in mind that she had already spent roughly three to four years since her reincarnation in the alternate world, yet a mere few months had ticked by over here.
Still, she quickly came to terms with it. Since they were operating across completely different dimensions, it was mathematically natural for the chronological progression to vary.
After systematically flipping through the latest issues of several manga magazines, Shiro quietly exited the convenience store. Paying for items was out of the question; reading for free was simply far more satisfying. Leaving the convenience store clerk standing there with a thoroughly exasperated expression, she calmly walked away.
Glancing briefly at the school campus situated not too far off in the distance, Shiro chose not to linger, turning on her heel to head straight toward the residential district instead.
Over there stood the "home" embedded deep within her borrowed memories–a charming, two-story Western-style house. The nameplate hanging by the entrance clearly displayed the owner's surname: Wakaba.
Moving with practiced familiarity born of instinct, she stepped over to the flowerpot sitting right beside the entrance foyer and retrieved the house key hidden underneath it.
*Click!*
Unlocking the front door and stepping inside, she was greeted by a completely dark and quiet interior. Without pausing, she slipped into a pair of indoor slippers and walked straight upstairs.
Arriving at a specific bedroom door on the second floor, Shiro came to a sudden halt. From inside the room, she could faintly hear the soft hum of a computer's cooling fan, interspersed with an rhythmic, unmistakable *thwack-thwack-thwack* slapping sound.
This instantly threw her off her game. How on earth did that sound like... *that* kind of activity? Even though she had never personally experienced anything of the sort, it didn't hinder her conceptual understanding of the noise in the slightest.
*If I barge in right now, am I going to interrupt them? That would be beyond awkward.*
Just as she was trapped in a severe state of hesitation, the aggressive slapping sounds inside the room abruptly ground to a halt, followed immediately by a thoroughly lazy, drawling voice calling out.
"Go open the door already."
"...Oh."
The moment the response sounded, footsteps echoed within the room, and a moment later, the door swung open to reveal a girl dressed in a loose, oversized T-shirt.
She was an exceptionally clean-cut, pleasant-looking girl with her hair tied back in a neat ponytail, bearing the classic charm of the girl-next-door. However, the distinct cat ears resting atop her head and the bright orange tail swishing behind her back immediately alerted Shiro to the fact that this individual was either heavily into cosplay, or simply wasn't human at all. She strongly leaned toward the latter conclusion, mostly because that cat tail was twitching and curling with a level of organic flexibility that no artificial decoration could ever replicate.
"You are..."
Staring at the faintly familiar girl standing before her, Shiro experienced an inexplicable wave of profound warmth and familiarity. This specific physical appearance actually bore a striking resemblance to Shirazawa back when he was still operating in his spider-girl form.
[LanLi: Ok confirmed. Poor body brain. TT_TT Victim to author's impulses.]
"Ahem, who I am isn't important. Welcome back, please come on in." The cat-eared girl stepped aside, clearing a path.
The moment Shiro stepped past the threshold into the room, the cat-eared girl immediately clutched her own rear, limping and waddling her way downstairs toward the kitchen, seemingly heading off to prepare some tea to entertain the guest.
"Dammit, I'm literally wearing five layers of underwear right now, so why does it still hurt this badly?! Ow..."
Watching the cat-eared girl rub her bottom while cursing under her breath as she retreated downstairs, Shiro found the entire display strangely hilarious.
"You're back?"
The bedroom itself was completely unlit, illuminated solely by the faint, ambient glow radiating from a massive computer screen. A young girl was lounging back luxuriously in an ergonomic chair, holding a gaming controller in her hands as she greeted Shiro without even turning around.
"Since this is a first-time visit, you really ought to say 'welcome to my home' instead," Shiro countered, rare for her to articulate a flawlessly complete sentence. It felt entirely natural and relaxed, exactly like the way she communicated with Shirazawa.
"First time meeting you in person, the real Miss Hiiro Wakaba."
As Shiro offered a slight, respectful bow of greeting, D finally set her gaming controller down and slowly spun her chair around to face her.
The facial features of the two girls looked as though they had been meticulously carved out from a single, identical template, resembling an absolute one-to-one pair of twins. Aside from D possessing long black hair, deep black eyes, and keeping her hair completely loose without any braids, they were visually indistinguishable.
"First time meeting you as well, my little body-double," D replied with a serene, relaxed smile, returning the greeting.
Hearing those words, Shiro's heart skipped a heavy beat. That single sentence instantly and completely validated the reality that she was fundamentally nothing more than a fabricated counterfeit. A dense, complicated knot of emotions twisted tightly inside her mind, leaving her temporarily at a loss for words.
"Oh, don't be so incredibly tense~" D purred softly. "Come along with me. Little Moe-Wife should have dinner fully prepared by now; let's chat while we eat."
With that, D elegantly stretched her statuesque figure, causing her JK shirt to pull upward slightly and expose a glimpse of her pristine white midriff.
Shiro couldn't help but feel a sudden wave of curiosity. "Who is 'Moe-Wife'?"
"Hehe..." D offered a deeply mysterious, playful smirk. "It's honestly better for your peace of mind if you don't find out."
"..."
The two of them walked downstairs to the dining room, where the cat-eared girl was currently and with immense ceremonial gravity placing three cups of instant ramen onto the dining table. Although the presentation was executed with absolute perfection, the reality that the grand dinner turned out to be mere instant noodles was genuinely beyond anyone's expectations.
*Is there seriously no real food available in this house...* Shiro silently complained in her head, though her hands didn't pause for a single fraction of a second.
*So good~*
The incredibly rich, savory seasonings instantly exploded across her taste buds as the perfectly springy, silky noodles were chewed and swallowed. Shiro closed her eyes in pure, blissful satisfaction, a wave of sheer comfort spreading across her entire body.
Meanwhile, the cat-eared girl carefully placed a thick, ultra-soft cushion over her chair before gingerly sitting down at the table to join them in enjoying the meal. D, on the other hand, maintained an exceptionally elegant demeanor throughout, eating with a slow, meticulous precision that made it look as though she were savoring the most expensive, exquisite delicacy in the entire cosmos.
The dinner lasted for a very long time, with all three individuals remaining completely silent, quietly observing one another's micro-expressions and movements.
Yet, from D's physical form, Shiro found herself entirely unable to extract a single shred of actionable data. Even though the entity before her could be clearly seen and physically touched, her existence was completely beyond comprehension. It was as if she were a profoundly malevolent creature merely wearing a flawless layer of human skin to play-act as a human being, dripping with an unsettling sense of absolute existential dissonance.
Following dinner, D casually invited Shiro to join her for a few rounds of video games. Shiro didn't refuse, and subsequently... suffered a total, unmitigated defeat.
There was simply no helping it; as a complete novice playing for the very first time, she was thoroughly demolished. D didn't employ a single shred of her god-like cosmic abilities either, relying purely on her raw, terrifying mechanical skills to systematically bully the newcomer.
"Hmph... you don't even know how to let me win just a little bit."
D merely smiled without offering a word of denial. "By the way, do you want to stay over for the night?"
"Fine! Tomorrow, I am definitely going to beat you!"
The exact millisecond the words left her mouth, Shiro suddenly froze as a bizarre realization hit her.
*Wait a minute... what exactly did I come all the way over here to do again?!*
Snapping back to reality, Shiro's internal thoughts instantly went into overdrive: *I literally traveled across dimensions to lay my cards on the table and fight for my man, not to sit here playing video games all night!*
Moe-Wife: *(Facepalms) You're only realizing this just now?!*
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