“Oh, that’s true.
Sento-kun has a point.” Ai showed a look of sudden realization.
She finished the last of the black tea in her cup, her thin cherry-blossom pink lips pouting slightly, glistening with the oils from the canned food.
“So how should we arrange the time?
Why don’t you rest first, Sento-kun?”
Sento waved his hand.
“You should rest first.”
This time, Sento wasn’t just considering Ai’s needs; he was realistically weighing his own situation.
As a veteran shut-in, pulling all-nighters was routine for him.
Staying up until three or four in the morning was no problem, and he wouldn’t even feel particularly sleepy.
But if he were asked to wake up halfway through a sleep, he truly wouldn’t be able to last a second.
Hearing the firm resolution in Sento’s tone, Ai didn’t push back further.
She tightened her coat around her and said, “Then I’ll listen to Sento-kun.
After all, you have more experience.”
To be honest, Ai was also very satisfied with this arrangement.
Her situation was the exact opposite of Sento’s.
As Kaguya Shinomiya’s personal attendant, regardless of when she went to bed at night, she had to wake up much earlier than Kaguya Shinomiya every morning.
Getting up at 4 AM was a common occurrence, so waking up to keep watch for the second half of the night was actually easier for her.
Sento took the frying pan—which was basically scraped clean but still had a small amount of sauce from the canned food—outside to wash it with snow.
During this time, Ai also roughly tidied up the bed, which was covered in dust and spiderwebs, at least ensuring they wouldn’t be choked awake by dust while sleeping at night.
While washing the pan outside, Sento noticed that the sky had clearly begun to grow dim.
Since neither of them had any timekeeping device on them, they could only judge the time by the sky.
“Awoo—”
Just as Sento was admiring the orange-red afterglow of the sunset, a loud wolf howl suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
This was followed by one wolf howl after another.
Sento’s heart skipped a beat, but he quickly forced himself to calm down.
After all, he was standing right next to the cabin.
Never mind a few wolves; even if a bear ran over, he could flip it the middle finger and then turn around to hide inside.
Once he calmed down, he judged the sound more carefully and realized that the wolf howls were still quite far from his current location; the sound seemed a bit ethereal.
“Tsk…
tomorrow we might still have to have a go at it with these wolves.” Sento muttered to himself, shook the snow-water out of the frying pan, then filled it with a packed pan of snow and headed back inside.
After returning to the room, Ai, who was kneeling on the bed with her back to Sento tidying up, heard the sound.
She turned around and raised both hands, letting out a cute “Ta-da!”
Sento looked at what was in her hands.
They were two slightly flat plastic bottles, a bit larger than a palm, and dark in color.
He recognized them immediately.
Weren’t these the small bottles of lamp oil that often appeared in games?
This was good stuff.
Adding it to a hurricane lamp could provide stable lighting, and it could also be used with cloth strips and wooden sticks to make torches.
Now that it was real, it wasn’t restricted to the fixed uses in the game; it could probably also be used as a lubricant or something similar.
“Lamp oil?
Where did you find it?”
Ai pointed to the bed.
“On the bed.
I don’t know how these people store things, but they actually left lamp oil on the bed.
Luckily it didn’t leak, otherwise the bed would be unusable.”
Taking the lamp oil Ai handed him, Sento placed it on the workbench to the side.
Ai straightened her clothes.
She took off her very heavy outer coat and pants, keeping mainly her inner layer of thermal clothing.
She lifted the covers, which smelled slightly of dust, and crawled inside.
Ai pointed to her parka piled on the sofa by the stove.
“Even though there’s a fire, the temperature in the room isn’t very high.
Sento-kun, when you’re on watch later, remember to put on that thick coat.
Also, when it’s time for the shift change, you must wake me up.
Don’t think about staying up all night by yourself.”
She stared with her round, wide eyes; her blue pupils were like clear crystals.
“If you stay up all night, you’ll definitely lack energy the next day, which will delay our journey.
So Sento-kun, please remember to wake me up in the middle of the night.”
After finishing her instructions, she sweetly said goodnight to Sento, lay down completely, and closed her eyes.
Sento placed the frying pan he had just prepared on top of the stove.
It would be a waste to just let the fire burn like that; he’d imitate the operations from the game.
In the game, using the fire for two or even three purposes was the most basic player operation.
For example, filling a heavy cast-iron pot with packed snow, placing it on the stove to melt and boil it, would provide drinking water.
During this period, the player could choose to sleep, which could replenish energy, boil water, and simultaneously warm the body by the fire—killing three birds with one stone.
In reality, boiling water while sleeping was a bit difficult to manage, but simply boiling water while keeping watch by the fire was no problem.
He adjusted the position of the pan to ensure it received the maximum heat possible.
After finishing all this, Sento walked to the sofa and picked up the parka.
He first sat in the single-person sofa, then draped the parka over himself from the front.
His outstretched feet rested right on the edge of the stove, feeling nice and warm.
Now everything was set: the water was boiling, the fire was warming him, and next was the all-nighter.
After sitting idly on the sofa for a few minutes, Sento felt an intense sense of boredom.
When pulling an all-nighter at home, he was either watching movies or playing games, so staying up for three to five hours was naturally easy.
But here, with nothing to pass the time, he suddenly felt that three to five hours was far too long.
Feeling that he would definitely fall asleep if he kept sitting like this, Sento took his hands out of the parka and patted his cheeks, intending to find something to do.
‘Speaking of which, Hayasaka seemed to mention earlier that she also has an Unawakened Talent.
From the look of it, does everyone have an Unawakened Talent?
Then how do you awaken this thing?’
Being a veteran bookworm of over a decade, Sento’s thoughts turned.
He felt that this Unawakened Talent was probably the kind of personal talent common in infinite-style novels—a unique talent that only oneself could unlock, similar to the Light of the Soul.
Generally speaking, the effects of these personal talents were very good.
Sento figured he should find a way to research it and make it awaken quickly.
So he opened his panel again, only to find to his surprise that the translucent badge representing the Unawakened Talent had actually undergone some changes.