Kazuma eyed the silver-haired man standing before him with deep suspicion.
Sakata Gintoki claimed he’d simply been sleeping.
That was it?
Those dead-fish eyes of his didn’t even blink, and his tone was so matter-of-fact that he might as well have been saying, “Oh, I had pickled radish for breakfast today.”
This guy’s shamelessness had probably surpassed the boundaries of biology.
Images flashed through Kazuma’s mind in rapid succession—being filmed from every conceivable angle by hundreds of smartphones, his towel slipping off, and that vicious question that had scarred his dignity forever:
“Is it… a little small?”
No.
Absolutely not.
There was no way he was telling Gintoki the truth.
In this invisible competition called “Whose Method of Crossing Worlds Was More Ridiculous?”, the dignity of Satou Kazuma would not allow him to be humiliated in front of someone else.
“Ahem.”
Kazuma cleared his throat and tried his best to make his expression equally calm and detached.
He even added a hint of the weary wisdom of a man who had been through it all.
“Me? I was taking a sauna. You know, one of those really hot little rooms filled with steam. I was enjoying myself when everything suddenly went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was in that… Times Square place. Probably the drastic temperature difference distorted space-time or something.”
After saying this, he nodded solemnly, as if providing scientific evidence for his hypothesis.
Sakata Gintoki: “…”
Satou Kazuma: “…”
The church once again fell into an eerie silence.
The two men stared at each other.
There was no emotion to be read in Gintoki’s dead-fish eyes, while Kazuma desperately maintained his composed expression.
One second.
Two seconds.
In that brief exchange, both men understood exactly what the other was thinking.
“You’re talking complete bullshit.”
“You’re one to talk.”
They both knew perfectly well that the other’s experience had been anything but as uneventful as they claimed.
One had arrived carrying nothing but his clothes and a wooden sword.
The other had arrived wearing nothing but a towel.
However one looked at it, both were clear evidence that their owners had fled some incredibly embarrassing and indescribable emergency.
“Pfft.”
“Heh.”
Almost simultaneously, the two turned their heads away and let out dry, meaningless laughs.
The laughter echoed through the spacious church, sounding particularly awkward and out of place.
Whatever.
They were both unfortunate souls stranded in a foreign world.
There was no point making things difficult for each other.
Gintoki couldn’t be bothered to investigate any further.
He shook out the clothes in his hands, stood up, and casually began getting dressed in a dark corner of the church.
First came his fundoshi, followed by his black shirt and trousers.
Finally, he draped that familiar white haori over his shoulders.
Once his body was properly covered, that lazy yet strangely dependable air finally returned to him.
He wanted to put some clothes on too!
At present, his only possession was this towel he’d brought from another world—a towel whose brand he didn’t even know.
“Hey, did you see that blue panel too?”
Kazuma couldn’t help asking.
He was referring to the system that had announced their arrival and awarded him twenty thousand points for his humiliation.
“Yeah, I saw it.”
Gintoki answered casually while fastening his belt.
“Something about the Guardian Faction and Neutral Faction. It’s set up like some kind of video game. Speaking of which, that green shield of yours looks pretty sturdy.”
“It’s still better than that useless white scale of yours!”
Kazuma immediately fired back.
Gintoki ignored him.
Following Kazuma’s earlier example, he swiped his hand through the air.
Sure enough, a translucent panel identical to the one in front of Kazuma appeared.
Gintoki curiously poked it.
It was surprisingly springy.
“Bond Summoning…”
Gintoki read the option that had caught his attention and tapped it.
The next moment, a row of familiar portraits appeared, each followed by a string of dizzying zeroes.
[Kagura — Reputation required for summoning: 5,000,000]
“Five million?!”
Gintoki’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
“What kind of joke is this?! Why is that glutton who does nothing but eat so expensive?! If I summon her, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life eating dog food! No, I won’t even be able to afford dog food!”
Indignant, he continued scrolling.
[Sadaharu — Reputation required for summoning: 2,000,000]
“Two million?! A dog costs two million?! Is its dog food made from space Wagyu?!”
Gintoki’s roar reverberated throughout the church, sending clouds of dust drifting down from above.
Kazuma leaned over and glanced at the screen.
Your two companions sound like they’re both incredible eaters.
Gintoki’s trembling finger continued scrolling downward.
Then he saw a name more familiar to him than almost any other.
[Shinpachi Shimura — Reputation required for summoning: 1,020,000]
“One million and twenty thousand…”
Gintoki muttered to himself.
The price was still astronomical, but compared with the two walking money pits above him, it seemed…
A little more reasonable?
No.
Wait.
He noticed a tiny plus sign beside the price and curiously tapped it.
A dropdown menu appeared.
The contents were displayed in crystal-clear text:
[Main Body (Glasses) — 1,000,000]
[Accessory (Shinpachi Shimura) — 20,000]
“…” Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
Time seemed to stop inside the church.
The expression on Gintoki’s face went from confusion, to shock, to disbelief, and finally…
“Pfft—HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
A thunderous burst of laughter exploded through the church.
Gintoki clutched his stomach and rolled around on the pew, laughing so hard that tears streamed from his eyes.
“The glasses cost a million! Shinpachi himself is only worth twenty thousand! HAHAHAHA! System, you really get it! This pricing is pure genius!”
“I can’t… my stomach hurts…”
“Shinpachi, Shinpachi! Do you see this?! You’re not even worth a fraction of the price of your own glasses! HAHAHAHAHA!”
Kazuma stared dumbfoundedly at the silver-haired man with naturally curly hair who, only moments ago, had looked like the walking embodiment of exhaustion and boredom.
His face practically screamed:
Is this guy insane?
Curiosity got the better of him, and he leaned over to take a closer look.
The moment he saw the price tags for “Main Body (Glasses)” and “Accessory (Human)”, the corner of his mouth twitched.
Just how little presence did this guy named Shinpachi have to earn such an accurate and merciless evaluation from the system?
Then Kazuma thought about his own party.
A useless goddess.
An Explosion-obsessed mage.
And a masochistic crusader.
Suddenly, he felt he wasn’t exactly in a position to laugh at anyone else.
Just as Gintoki was laughing himself breathless, new notifications simultaneously appeared on both men’s system panels.
[Player behavior detected: “Two-Man Naked Running Art Tour” performed on the streets of New York, causing a large-scale disturbance and creating an extremely negative (sensational) social impact.]
[Neutral Faction Player “Sakata Gintoki” gained 10,000 Reputation.]
[Guardian Faction Player “Satou Kazuma” gained 3,000 Reputation.]
Gintoki’s laughter abruptly stopped.
Kazuma’s face immediately darkened.
“Wait a minute!”
Kazuma pointed furiously at the panel.
“Why does he get ten thousand while I only get three thousand?! That’s not fair! I participated the entire time too! I contributed just as much as he did! My towel almost fell off, for crying out loud!”
Gintoki glanced at Kazuma’s furious expression, then looked at the ten thousand points displayed on his own panel.
He lazily picked his nose and answered in an infuriatingly smug tone:
“Maybe… it’s because I’m more dedicated to my craft.”
He gestured toward Kazuma.
“Look. I was completely naked, while you still had a towel wrapped around you. That’s the difference in professional spirit. Get it, Mr. Excalibur?”
“You shameless natural-perm bastard!”
Kazuma stamped his feet in fury.
“If you hadn’t sold me out, I wouldn’t have had to do it a second time!”
“Now, now, don’t put it like that.”
Gintoki stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes.
“If it weren’t for yours truly, how would you ever have gotten the chance to experience the thrill of running naked in the center of the world? And you even made three thousand points from it. You should be thanking me.”
“I’ll thank you when pigs fly!”