Chapter 62: Nana: Take a Look at My Foot.
....
"Lala asked me what you liked the most. I didn't really know, so I just said you've always wanted a cute girl robot assistant similar to Doraemon."
"Then she asked a few details about Doraemon and left."
The above was what Ibuki Suika had panted out to Kihara on her way back.
Connecting that to the gift Lala had mentioned, he instantly pieced together the full context.
"Lala, this robot isn't finished yet, right?"
"No. Currently, it has only implemented the most basic recognition features; gadgets like the 4D Pocket, Anywhere Door, and the like aren't complete yet."
Since she was still acting like an emotionless loli, Kihara couldn't judge her inner thoughts through her tone and facial expressions as he usually did. Feeling that continuing the chat was a bit awkward, he decisively shifted the topic.
"Speaking of which, do you remember that we agreed to do club activities together with Anna and me today?"
"That can wait until after I finish making your gift."
"Uh..."
Just as Lala stared intently at the prototype robot, looking eager to resume her work, and with Nana and Anna Yanami standing nearby with their hearts in their throats, Momo rushed out of her room drenched in sweat, holding a light-blue, kelp-like leaf.
"I... I brought the sobering grass!"
"Great work, Momo! How do we use this?"
"I'll go chop it up and juice it right away!"
Before long, Lala drank the sobering grass juice prepared by Momo. The iceberg beauty melted back into an optimistic, cheerful girl in an instant, leaving everyone present jaw-dropped.
"I feel like turning into a completely different person is nothing more than this, right?"
"Big sister feels much more comfortable like this. That cold, icy look earlier was way too unfamiliar."
"Yeah, and she barely spoke either—pretty creepy."
"Ehehe~ Looks like I caused trouble for everyone, I'm sorry!" Lala scratched her head in embarrassment, then rolled up her sleeves with overflowing confidence: "In that case, let me whip up an authentic Deviluke Royal Feast as an apology to everyone!"
"A ROYAL FEAST!!"
A sudden, booming gulp of saliva echoed through the air. You didn't even need to think to know it came from Anna Yanami.
As an ordinary human, the highest-grade food she had ever encountered growing up was the A5 Wagyu beef Kihara had taken her to eat at a high-end French restaurant.
She didn't recognize the dishes after that, nor did she care to remember them, because the portions were far too tiny to satisfy her appetite, and the prices were outrageously exorbitant.
After that single meal, Anna had never raised the request for Kihara to take her out for fine dining again, and she had even covered his breakfast and dinner for an entire semester in return.
She claimed it was to cover the expenses of that meal.
Now, suddenly hearing the four grand words "Royal Feast" that seemed to radiate golden light, judging by Lala's taste in creating the food machine, this Royal Feast would likely be so delicious it would blow her clothes off.
The most crucial part was that Lala's appetite was equally massive, so there was zero worry about insufficient portions.
Just as Anna was indulging in lovely fantasies about the impending gourmet feast, Momo and Nana's small faces turned dead pale. The former squeezed out a smile that looked worse than crying: "Big sister, a minor thing like this is nothing at all. There's really no need to pull out a Royal Feast, right?"
"Yeah, yeah! Serving this to brother-in-law is way too wasteful!"
"But... if I caused trouble for everyone, I have to apologize properly, right?"
"We're sisters, there's no need to be so polite! We'll handle apologies for brother-in-law and Anna's side."
"Alright then." Lala nodded in agreement with deep regret; it was obvious she really wanted to show off her culinary skills in front of everyone.
Kihara wasn't foolish enough to mistake the capabilities of the food machine for Lala's actual cooking skills. If he remembered correctly, whenever she made food, she added dark matter as seasoning.
Even with his heavily trained physique, he probably couldn't handle eating dark matter as seasoning, let alone a normal human like Anna Yanami.
"Anna, if you're really craving something, head downstairs and eat the pudding in the fridge. Don't go longing for Lala's Royal Feast," Kihara leaned into her ear and whispered softly.
"Why?"
"Trust me, you'll definitely die after eating it."
"???"
"Why are you cursing at me?" She frowned in confusion.
"I'm just stating a fact. Can your stomach digest dark matter?"
"Dark... mat... ter?"
Anna's eyes turned as clear as a cloudless blue sky in an instant. Lala was a genuine alien, and every dish produced by the food machine so far had been Earth cuisine.
If the "Royal Feast" she spoke of was that kind of Lovecraftian horror cooking, and seasoned with dark matter on top of that, and Anna had foolishly asked her to make extra...
When sitting at the dining table later, facing a spread of indescribable entities, she couldn't even imagine how magnificent her expression would be.
Her survival instinct erupted at this exact second, and Anna said in a trembling voice: "I... I'm going downstairs to eat pudding now. Lala, do you want to join me?"
"Sure thing! Anna, I'm really sorry about earlier. How about I find time to make a single portion of the Royal Feast just for you?"
"N-No need! If you can invent a gadget that lets me lose weight without exercising, that would be way more important to me than a Royal Feast!"
"Mmhmm, I'll keep that in mind!"
With a potential crisis defused, Momo cast a glance at the robot Kihara had casually placed back in Lala's room, her mind filled with confusion.
She didn't understand why her big sister, after turning into an iceberg beauty from getting drunk, had been so stubbornly set on giving brother-in-law a gift.
'Could it be because of the Bride Training?'
'I should find a chance to ask big sister. We must ban her from coming into contact with alcoholic food in the future.'
At this moment, a stroke of inspiration flashed through Nana's mind. Right now, Kihara—who should have been heading out with Anna and Lala—was still standing in the attic, while those two were downstairs eating snacks, and Momo had already walked downstairs holding the empty glass.
'Isn't this the golden opportunity for me to secretly let him rub my feet?'
She hurriedly called out to Kihara, who was walking toward the stairwell: "Brother-in-law, wait a second! Inside my room... there's something nice to see. Do you want to come in and take a look?"
"Hmm?"
He turned back to look at Nana, whose eyes were dodging his gaze. If he hadn't known her personality, he might have assumed she was plotting something nefarious against him. After all, her acting skills were so clumsy one could see right through them at a single glance.
Out of politeness, he didn't expose her: "Sure, what nice thing is it?"
"Y-You'll know once you come inside!"
Stepping into Nana's adorable bedroom packed with various animal plushies, she fidgeted awkwardly for a long while without explaining what she wanted Kihara to see.
The "nice thing" was a lie in the first place, meant solely to trick him into coming inside.
The silent atmosphere in the room made her feel intensely embarrassed, to the point where she wished time could rewind so she could stop herself from inviting him in.
Yet if they kept standing in the room dazed like this, if her dark-hearted younger sister Momo found out, who knew how badly she'd be teased afterward.
Grit her teeth and hardening her heart, Nana flopped onto her bed. Silently kicking off her slippers, she held her healthy, firm, and well-proportioned legs completely straight, extending her paired feet—wrapped in white ankle socks—toward Kihara.
"After getting crushed last time, my foot still seems to hurt a bit. Help me take a look at it!"
....
Thank you for reading.