When only the last glimmer of afterglow remained on the horizon.
When the falling night and the evening glow reflected off each other.
When everything on the ground was shrouded in a hazy rose-colored hue.
Kitahara Minakaze, who had been getting scolded at the entrance, was finally allowed inside.
He had memories of Natsume Mio’s Grandpa.
This old man was actually quite interesting.
His favorite phrase was “So noisy,” yet his own voice was louder than anyone else’s…
Back when the original owner of this body and his mother first came here, the latter had been scared half to death.
Thinking they had run into a retired yakuza or something similar.
During their formal visit, because the old man roared that her voice was too quiet, the original owner’s mother was so terrified she put on a display of frantic apologies on the spot, even getting ready to grab a knife and chop off her pinky finger…
In short, it led to quite a few embarrassing misunderstandings.
And precisely because of these incidents, the original owner had a very deep impression of this Grandpa.
Of course, it was a bad impression.
However, in all fairness, although the first impression wasn’t very good, aside from having a loud voice and inexplicably speaking with a rolled-tongue accent, this Grandpa wasn’t the type of person who was hard to deal with.
He was actually quite easy to handle.
While recalling these deep-seated memories, Kitahara Minakaze followed behind Grandpa into the house and took off his shoes at the entryway.
“Pardon the intrusion.”
Stepping onto the floorboards, Kitahara Minakaze followed the original owner’s memory and murmured softly.
Smack.
Grandpa lightly tapped his calf with his cane and roared, “You brat, this is your home! What do you mean ‘pardon the intrusion’? Think carefully before you speak!”
Ah…
A thunderous roar echoed in his ears.
Kitahara Minakaze sighed and corrected himself, “I’m home.”
“That’s more like it!”
The old man roared in satisfaction, only then leaning on his cane to continue walking forward.
Kitahara Minakaze followed closely behind.
Although the small wooden house looked very traditional from the outside, the interior was quite modern, even featuring a sofa.
Natsume Mio was busy in the kitchen connected to the living room.
Hearing footsteps, she turned around and looked at Kitahara Minakaze with a hint of schadenfreude.
“You’re back. That was faster than expected.”
Looking at Natsume Mio, who was wearing an apron and had her hair tied in a single ponytail,
Kitahara Minakaze was just about to speak.
“So noisy! Hurry up and make the food!”
The old man suddenly roared at his granddaughter.
Natsume Mio showed a look of disgust and muttered a complaint, “Yes, yes, it’ll be ready soon. And how is my voice noisy? Any quieter and it’ll reach the point where others can’t even hear me. My classmates might even think I’m some gloomy girl and start bullying me. I’ll cry right in front of you if that happens.”
“If the granddaughter of my Natsume family gets bullied, she must strike back fair and square!”
Natsume Mio sighed.
“See, my voice was so quiet, yet you still heard it! Besides, I said ‘might’, just ‘might’! Please keep your voice down, Grandpa!”
The old man finally let Natsume Mio off the hook and went over to sit in the living room.
Natsume Mio breathed a sigh of relief and turned her gaze to Kitahara Minakaze.
“So… stepbrother over there, are you standing there to supervise me? To be honest, if you follow up with ‘So noisy, hurry up and make it’, even I would get hurt. So why not have a little patience and sit over there to wait a bit. A very delicious and tasty dinner will be ready soon, so please look forward to it~”
She raised the hand holding the kitchen knife, pointed at the sofa, and gave Kitahara Minakaze an energetic smile.
Kitahara Minakaze glanced at her, thought for a moment, and went to sit down anyway.
“You brat, did you pick up any bad habits while running away from home!?”
The moment he sat down, Grandpa’s thunderous roar came again.
Kitahara Minakaze: “…”
On the other side.
Seeing her stepbrother sit down and hearing Grandpa’s familiar roar ring out,
Natsume Mio revealed a gentle expression, lowered her head again, and continued chopping the cabbage on the cutting board.
…
Dinner was finished in silence.
Although Natsume Mio’s Grandpa had a loud voice, he unexpectedly adhered to the strict traditional rule of absolute silence during meals.
Moreover, after finishing, he threw down a harsh remark to Kitahara Minakaze—”If you run away from home again, expect to be bedridden for half a year”—and went upstairs.
Leaving only the two practically estranged stepsiblings downstairs.
It looked as if he had deliberately left them some time to be alone together.
“I feel like the words ‘delicious’ and ‘tasty’ have been defiled.”
At this moment.
Kitahara Minakaze was helping Natsume Mio out, wiping plates and the like.
His main goal was to corner this newfound stepsister to prevent her from playing him for a fool again.
He was genuinely bothered by what had happened earlier.
The whispers in his ears were still ringing continuously without interruption.
Natsume Mio said with some dissatisfaction, “Even though I slipped up a little with dinner and it didn’t turn out that great, isn’t it a bit too much for you to say that?”
Kitahara Minakaze retorted, “If my memory serves me right, your cooking has always been this awful… Forget it, I’ll do the cooking next time there’s a chance. I’ll show you what true ‘delicious’ and ‘tasty’ mean.”
Natsume Mio turned her head to look at Kitahara Minakaze.
After a pause, she read in a deadpan, monotone voice, “Ah, I’m so sorry my cooking is so awful. So my stepbrother knows how to cook? So during the half a year we lived together, you, the great chef, were eating my food and silently complaining about how bad it was? Ah, now that you mention it, I’m really looking forward to your cooking. I can’t wait~ I can’t wait~”
She said she was looking forward to it.
Yet she didn’t have an expression that matched her words at all.
No, this was completely just her being sarcastic.
Kitahara Minakaze’s mouth twitched.
“Pfft.”
Seeing Kitahara Minakaze’s expression, Mio couldn’t hold her straight face any longer.
She handed the last plate to him and laughed, “I really am looking forward to it.”
“Look forward to it, then.”
Kitahara Minakaze took the plate and began wiping it.
The two fell silent for a short while.
Then.
“About what happened this evening…”
“I’m going to go heat the bathwater.”
The two spoke at the same time.
They exchanged a glance.
Natsume Mio untied her apron, clasped her hands together again, and showed an apologetic expression.
“Sorry, I need to go heat the bathwater.”
And by the time Kitahara Minakaze wanted to say something, she had already run off.
Watching her retreating back, Kitahara Minakaze rubbed his temples.
“Isn’t she just running away… Fuck, can you stop chanting!”
He suddenly raised his voice and pressed hard on his temples.
The voice, like the whispers of an evil god, still lingered in his ears.
If Kitahara Minakaze guessed correctly, this should be something like a system.
But who repeats things over and over like this?
Even if he had good patience and high Sanity, he couldn’t withstand this kind of chanting.
This thing was like a monotonous, dull, and piercing buzz.
Listening to it for too long easily made one feel irritable.
Unfortunately.
His anger could not change the current situation.
[Tutorial Quest: Go get answers; Tutorial Quest: Go get answers; Tutorial Quest: Go get answers…]
This sentence was still playing on a loop.
Kitahara Minakaze now truly had to consider the possibility that he was being targeted by an evil god.