Gabriel White Tenma.
Thanks to his photographic memory, Natsuki’s memories from his previous life were preserved inside his mind like an enormous archive.
Whenever he wanted, he could pull up even the smallest detail with perfect clarity.
Naturally, he recognized the infamous fallen angel standing in front of him.
Judging by her appearance, Gabriel had only recently graduated from angel school and descended to the human world.
She had not yet fallen into a life of gaming, laziness, and general degeneracy.
‘So much for this being a normal slice-of-life world.’ Natsuki silently complained.
Heaven and Hell both existed here.
Clearly, this world was hiding far more than he had ever imagined.
His peaceful everyday setting had completely fallen apart!
At this point, someone could tell him that evil spirits were lurking everywhere, dangerous creatures occasionally slipped in from other worlds, or a legendary dragon would one day come flying from the edge of the world, and Natsuki would not even be surprised.
Having only just arrived from Heaven, Gabriel was curious about everything around her.
When she saw Natsuki step out of the apartment building, she smiled, and for a moment, she seemed to glow with an almost divine radiance.
“Hello.
Do you live here too?” “Hello.” Natsuki nodded.
“My name is Amamiya Natsuki.
I live in apartment 302.” “My name is Gabriel White Tenma.
I’ll be living in apartment 303.” Natsuki smiled.
“Then I guess we’re neighbors.
It’s nice to meet you.” “It’s nice to meet you too.” With that, Gabriel carried her suitcases into the apartment building.
Natsuki did not linger and headed straight for the supermarket, grumbling to himself as he walked.
“Ever since I started high school, it feels like I went to sleep one night and woke up in a completely different world.” Gabriel, an angel from Heaven destined to become a hopeless shut-in, now lived right next door to him.
Natsuki also remembered a conversation in the light novel authors’ group chat a while ago.
Someone had claimed they encountered something supernatural on their way home, but at the time, Natsuki had assumed they were exaggerating.
Now, however, there was a very real chance they had been telling the truth.
He stopped at the nearest supermarket, casually picked up some snacks and daily necessities, then prepared to head home.
“Looks like it’s going to rain.” The sky was covered in dark clouds.
Natsuki stuffed everything into his backpack with a quiet sigh.
Unfortunately, he still had not received any kind of spatial storage ability.
That would have made shopping much more convenient.
“Meow—” “AHHH!” A cat’s cry suddenly came from a dark alley nearby, immediately followed by the terrified scream of a girl.
“Hm?” Natsuki raised an eyebrow and followed the sound.
The narrow alley beside the road looked gloomy and deserted.
Hardly anyone passed through it even on a normal day, and with the weather like this, there were even fewer people around.
So who could possibly be in there?
An urban legend?
The Eight-Foot-Tall Woman?
Natsuki found himself growing strangely excited at the thought.
Curious and more eager than he probably should have been, he headed into the alley.
Deep inside the dim passageway, a girl had fallen to the ground in terror.
She wore a loose white T-shirt beneath baggy overalls, along with a large hat and black-framed glasses.
Beside her, a small orange kitten stood with its fur raised on end.
Farther down the alley, an eerie presence seeped from the shadows.
Something was hiding there, and the first thing Natsuki saw was a pair of crimson eyes.
“Kehehehe…
You smell wonderful.
Become my food, and you can live forever inside me.” The disturbing voice echoed from nowhere as the creature gradually emerged from the darkness.
It had a vaguely human shape, but its hunched body, blood-red eyes, and twisted features were unmistakably monstrous.
There was an old legend that man-eating demons came out after sunset.
For some reason, that warning surfaced in Eriri’s mind.
“No…
Stay away from me!” She desperately scrambled backward.
All she had done was stop by a nearby convenience store to buy a few new drawing pens.
When she heard a kitten crying inside the alley, she came over to check on it.
How was she supposed to know she would run into something like this?
Monsters were real?!
She had never heard anything about them before!
Fear overwhelmed every other thought.
The demon moved with terrifying speed, bloodlust gleaming in its eyes.
In the blink of an eye, it had already reached Eriri, far too fast for any ordinary person to react.
Despair filled her eyes.
‘I can’t believe I’m really going to die here…’ At that moment, another figure appeared as though he had teleported.
Natsuki tossed his backpack into the air, golden arcs of energy wrapping around his right arm as he thrust his palm forward.
“Scarlet Overdrive!” His calm voice rang through the alley.
Boom!
The instant his palm connected, the demon was launched backward like a cannonball and slammed into the wall.
The impact cracked the concrete in every direction.
Crackle—!
A moment later, Hamon energy as bright and warm as sunlight erupted across the demon’s body.
The creature lost all of its earlier arrogance and could only scream helplessly as the golden energy consumed it, reducing it to ash.
Natsuki casually caught his falling backpack and slung it over one shoulder.
‘So this world also had creatures similar to the demons from Demon Slayer.’ Perhaps he had simply been incredibly lucky until now.
Either that, or the world had recently entered some kind of supernatural awakening period.
Compared to the Breathing Styles from Demon Slayer, though, Hamon from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was practically designed to kill creatures like these.
With that thought, Natsuki turned toward the girl.
There was no mistaking those familiar twin-tails hidden beneath her hat.
Eriri Spencer Sawamura.
The world-famous blonde losing heroine herself.
Eriri was still shaken, her face deathly pale as she drew in one ragged breath after another.
That had been the closest she had ever come to dying.
The entire experience felt like a nightmare she had not yet woken from.
It took her a while to recover enough to speak.
“You…” She blinked in surprise.
“Natsuki-kun?” She knew Natsuki well enough, especially after what had happened that morning with his bizarre X-ray vision.
Natsuki nodded.
“Are you hurt?” “N-No, I’m fine.” “Thank you for saving me.” “It was nothing.” Natsuki smiled.
Eriri had never imagined that Natsuki would be the one to rescue her.
More importantly, this was the first time she had discovered that supernatural creatures and powers actually existed in their world!
“Um…” “What is it?” Natsuki looked down at her.
Eriri was already petite, and with faint tears clinging to the corners of her eyes, she looked especially vulnerable.
“Could you help me up, Natsuki-kun?
My legs have gone numb…” Her pale cheeks turned pink as she spoke.
For an ordinary person, what had just happened was far too terrifying to brush off easily.
Natsuki reached out and pulled her to her feet.
“Wait, where did the kitten go?” Eriri looked around, but the little orange cat was nowhere to be seen.
“It ran away right at the beginning,” Natsuki told her.
“That little traitor!
I was even planning to buy something to feed it!” Eriri puffed out her cheeks in frustration.
If she had not heard that kitten crying, she would have gone straight home after buying her pens and avoided this entire disaster.
“You should be more careful from now on.
After what you saw today, you know this world isn’t as safe as it looks.” Natsuki glanced toward the darkening sky.
“It’s about to rain.
You should hurry home.” “I-I know.” Eriri’s voice came out awkward and strained.
Right now, all she wanted was to get home as quickly as possible.
She had been so frightened earlier that she had wet her panties!
No wonder she had felt cold and uncomfortable this entire time.
And Natsuki had definitely noticed.
‘Noooo…
This is the worst!’ …
At the Sawamura residence, Eriri went straight to the bathroom the moment she arrived home.
After washing up, she changed into the green middle school uniform she often wore around the house, threw herself onto her bed, and rolled back and forth in mortification.
“AAAAHHHH!” She buried her face beneath a pillow.
“Natsuki-kun must be laughing at me!
I can never show my face again!”