Chapter 67: So, Kamuro Masumi, Are You a Master Thief?
Soon, Kamuro Masumi arrived at the supermarket entrance with Katsuragi Keima.
"Take a good look." Kamuro then stepped inside the supermarket.
While waiting, Keima took out his cards and glanced at them.
'So many people...' If this were a game, no matter how many people there were, Keima could definitely handle it in a short time. But this was the real world, where time couldn't be skipped like in a game.
Moreover, Keima didn't have enough motivation. Even though only a week had passed, his gaming time had already been compressed significantly.
Just then, Keima saw Sakura Airi's card. The illustration on it seemed to have changed, shimmering with an indescribable light. Not only that, the information on it was different from before.
[Achievement Unlocked] [First Stirrings of Love: Raised a girl's favorability to 100% for the first time]
Aside from the achievement, there was nothing else special. But for Katsuragi Keima, it held a completely different meaning.
"Suddenly, I have motivation again!" Keima's eyes seemed to flash with light.
A moment later, Kamuro walked out of the supermarket and tossed a can of beer into Keima's hand.
"Underage students aren't allowed to buy beer. You should know that, right?"
"Oh, but what is this supposed to prove?" Keima asked, examining the beer in his hand.
"...It proves that I wasn't lying to you before," Kamuro said.
This was the plan Sakayanagi Arisu had formulated beforehand. To lower Keima's guard, most of what Kamuro said was essentially the truth. Kamuro had already learned her lesson once, so it was impossible for her to actually steal something again. The beer she used was, naturally, the same can Sakayanagi had caught her with at the start of the semester.
"I never said you were lying to me from the start," Keima said with a smile.
"Huh?"
"You came to find me, so I will believe everything you say." Keima suddenly put on an incredibly serious expression.
This left Kamuro momentarily stunned.
'Is this guy joking? Or is he... one of those pathologically nice guys?'
Just as Kamuro snapped out of it, she saw Keima pointing his terminal at her.
"Wh-What are you doing?"
"Oh, I just filmed the evidence of you stealing. Now I'm the one with the leverage."
"????????"
Kamuro froze for a moment, and then the corner of her mouth began to twitch uncontrollably.
'Wait, is this guy plotting against me?'
"You... I..." Kamuro gritted her teeth, feeling as though she had lost the ability to speak.
One second he says he believes you. The next second he suddenly pulls out a terminal to record you.
'What on earth is going inside this guy's head?'
On the other end of the phone, Sakayanagi Arisu couldn't help but let out a laugh.
'Interesting, too interesting.'
Even she hadn't expected Keima to react this way. This guy was the most interesting student she had seen in this school.
"What exactly do you want?!" Kamuro took a deep breath, finally managing to adjust her emotions before speaking again.
"Don't worry, I won't do anything. I'm just keeping it just in case."
"Just in case? And here I was trusting you so much, wanting to team up with you to deal with Sakayanagi!"
"Setting that aside, Kamuro-san, you're a Thief, right?"
"What, what thief?! What are you talking about?! Even if I do have that... habit, I wouldn't go so far as to—"
"The 'Thief' I'm talking about is a job class in games; it's different from a petty thief."
"What's the difference?"
"Then should I call you a Master Thief?
You're quite confident in your theft techniques, aren't you?"
"That's right, quite confident. I believe even with surveillance, it's hard to detect my movements."
"Then can you steal back that 70-inch screen? The one hanging on the wall in the furniture section, the most conspicuous one."
"Are you serious?"
"With an ultra-large screen, playing games would feel much better."
"...." Kamuro was now utterly speechless. She simply couldn't comprehend what Keima was thinking.
'Kamuro definitely can't understand what I'm thinking right now.'
Keima mused to himself. What he was doing now was practicing his previous theory: first, one must leave a deep impression in the hearts of others.
Although Kamuro and Sakayanagi had targeted him in advance, Keima felt it wasn't enough. Since he was doing it, he had to be even more "special."
"Nii-sama!"
Just then, Elsie's voice rang out not far from the two of them. Elsie came running back, clutching a bag containing who-knows-what.
"Bug... Elsie, what did you go off to do?" Keima inquired.
"Ah, didn't Nii-sama ask me to go grocery shopping earlier? So I went to prepare some ingredients. I didn't realize you guys had things like 'white sugar' here; it saved me a lot of trouble." Elsie looked eager.
'What does she mean "you guys have white sugar here"? Is she talking about the school supermarket?' Kamuro felt a bit confused but didn't dwell on it.
"Ah, it's Kamuro-san! What a coincidence! Why are you with Nii-sama?"
"..." Kamuro looked awkwardly at the beer in Keima's hand, wondering how to respond when Keima spoke up:
"Oh, Kamuro-san just said she wanted to perform a talent for me." While speaking, Keima quietly hid the beer behind his back.
"What are you saying—" Kamuro was about to protest when she saw Keima pull the beer out again, shaking it in a blind spot of Elsie's vision.
"That's right, I wanted to perform a talent for Katsuragi-kun." Kamuro felt like she was about to grind her molars to dust.
"Wow! Can I see?" Elsie looked at Kamuro with expectation.
"..." Kamuro thought for a moment, and a sudden idea struck her. "In your bag, that's white sugar and some ingredients, right?"
"Mm."
"Then I'll perform a magic trick for you." Kamuro then brushed past Elsie.
In that span of less than a second, Kamuro displayed her astounding theft skills. A small hole appeared in Elsie's bag, and Kamuro swiped a packet of white sugar into her hand.
"This is my talent... wait?" Kamuro felt something was wrong. The texture was wrong.
'Why does the white sugar in my hand feel fuzzy... and why is it moving?'
Confused, she looked down at the object in her hand. It was a cluster of white organisms—the "White Sugar" from Hell. They were constantly wriggling in Kamuro's hand.
????????????
'What is... this thing?' Kamuro turned to look at Elsie. At the jagged opening of the bag, countless tentacles were reaching out. And countless pairs of eyes seemed to be staring at her. They were monsters beyond imagination.
"..." Kamuro's eyes rolled back, and she collapsed in a dead faint.
Beep—beep—beep—
"What happened?" Sakayanagi Arisu frowned as she heard the dial tone from her terminal. She had just heard Kamuro talking with Elsie and the others, and the call suddenly cut off.
'Did something happen?'
Undoubtedly, Katsuragi Keima was an incredibly special existence. In this school, he was the only one who counted as "interesting" so far.
'If I could face off against him one day, that would be wonderful. The final winner would surely be me. But it's fine to use him as a pastime for this boring school life.'
"Let's go see what happened with Masumi-san." Sakayanagi supported her small body with her cane.
-
-
-
"Hey, Nii-sama, what's going on! Kamuro-san isn't going to die, is she? If she dies, the world will end!" Elsie looked worriedly at Kamuro, whom Keima had moved onto a bench. Earlier, Kamuro had trailed Keima; now the roles were completely reversed.
Keima lay nearby, looking "burned out." Kamuro wasn't heavy—she was actually quite slender—but for Keima, whose physical strength could be described as a tragedy, it was still a challenge.
"Don't worry, she probably just fainted from shock."
"Why would she faint from shock?"
"You're asking me why? Tell me, what is this thing!" Keima pointed at the white organisms in Elsie's hand.
"This is white sugar!"
"Is this the white sugar of the human world? Don't just bring weird things like this over here in the future!"
"But... I wanted to prepare a gift for Nii-sama! My cooking is somewhat famous in Hell!" Elsie patted her chest confidently.
"..." Keima could only sigh. The moment Kamuro fainted, Keima had rushed forward to turn off her phone communication to prevent Sakayanagi from hearing anything strange.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait. She should wake up in a bit." Keima looked at the unconscious Kamuro and then took out his handheld console, preparing to play games to pass the time.
"Masumi-san, I've been looking for you for a long time. Why are you here?"
Just then, Sakayanagi Arisu's voice rang out from nearby. She was in her uniform, wearing a hat, and although she used a cane, she looked incredibly cute.
"Sakayanagi-san," Keima responded simply.
"It's Katsuragi-kun. What happened?" Sakayanagi looked curiously at Kamuro lying on the bench.
"She suddenly fainted. Maybe it's low blood sugar."
"An hour ago, Masumi-san had a meal with me," Sakayanagi replied.
'Masumi fainted? Why? She shouldn't have any physical illnesses. Yesterday she said Keima took down an adult in less than a minute. Was Masumi's fainting Keima's doing?'
"I'm very sorry that such a thing happened and caused Katsuragi-kun trouble." Sakayanagi nodded slightly to Keima. "But I didn't expect Katsuragi-kun to be with Masumi-san. Did you just happen to meet?"
"Kamuro-san told me a bunch of things, warning me to be careful of you." Keima unreservedly told Sakayanagi what Kamuro had said.
This made Sakayanagi's eyes widen slightly. She had thought Keima would hide Kamuro's words; she didn't expect him to be so direct.
"So it was that kind of thing? But I don't quite understand..."
"You should know, Sakayanagi. After all, you were listening from start to finish." Keima suddenly turned his head, staring at Sakayanagi with an incredibly sharp gaze.
'When facing Sakayanagi Arisu, it's best to act as if you can see through everything.'
"Oh?" A smile appeared on Sakayanagi's face. Her gaze also focused on Keima's. It was the gaze of a predator locking onto prey. "So, Katsuragi-kun found out long ago~"
"It would be hard not to. Kamuro-san's excuse was too absurd, and to make me believe her, she went out of her way to steal another bottle of beer. That behavior is too strange. Not to mention her hand was constantly going into her pocket; I guessed you were in contact via terminal. I assume Sakayanagi-san was using the phone to eavesdrop."
"Eavesdropping sounds so unpleasant. I was just curious about your conversation, or rather—" Sakayanagi took a step forward, her body almost leaning against Keima's. "I'm just curious about Katsuragi-kun specifically."
"I want to know, what is your reason for targeting me?"
"The reason? I've already answered that. I simply find Katsuragi-kun interesting. Otherwise, this high school life would be too dull. We'll be rivals in the future anyway, won't we?"
"True."
"So, you knew from the start that Masumi-san was a decoy and were just teasing her? Masumi-san will be sad when she wakes up and finds out."
"Not exactly, because I also spoke quite a few truths."
"Oh? For example?"
"For example, my conversation with the Chairman yesterday—"
"I know. Don't say any more." Sakayanagi bit her lip slightly.
"Speaking of which, Sakayanagi, you like playing games of skill, right? Is it Chess?"
"Exactly."
"Want to have a match?"
"Oh?" A meaningful smile appeared on Sakayanagi's face. "Challenging me to Chess is quite bold. Do you like playing too?"
"It's alright. Mostly I've played in games; some characters can only be conquered through events like this," Keima replied.
Read ahead (60 chapters) by supporting me on buymeacoffee com/varietl or ko-fi edwriting