Chapter 101
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: Nanami vs. Reika: The Backstory of That Confrontation
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Heh heh heh. Preparations are perfect.”
The official Rune Academy swimsuit and cheap tanning oil. Plus a beach mat.
These were the items Shiina Nanami had prepared for sunbathing on a certain holiday.
The location was the rooftop of her own house.
Nanami, dressed in her academy swimsuit, spread out the mat in one corner of the rooftop.
The reason Nanami didn't go to a salon like her other friends but tanned at home was simple.
“Why spend good money on it?”
The Shiina family had three kids, including herself, but no proper working adults.
Living off government aid meant no room for waste.
“Shoko. Could you rub some of this on my back?”
“Sure.”
After applying oil to her own arms and legs, Nanami asked her little sister, who had been watching from the side, to finish up.
Shoko, the seven-year-old girl from the twins, carefully spread the oil over her big sister's bare back with her small hands.
“Thanks, Shoko.”
Nanami, now gleaming from the oil, lay down on the mat.
Clear blue sky, warm sunlight, cool spring breeze.
The reality was a rooftop, but in her mind, it was Hawaii.
“Want to do it too, Shoko?”
“Nah, I'm good.”
Her little sister shook her head at Nanami's invitation.
To the still-young Shoko, there was no point in deliberately tanning her skin.
Her twin brother Kouta came home pitch-black just from playing outside all day, and to Shoko's eyes, that tanned skin didn't look pretty at all.
“Okay? You're still too young for that. You'll be popular with the boys someday.”
“I don't want to be popular anyway.”
“I guess your generation doesn't care.”
Nanami envied her sister's indifference.
Her generation, where only men had been drafted during the Great Catastrophe, faced an extreme gender imbalance.
In a class, there were 12 girls to just 1 boy. Competition was naturally fierce. That was why Nanami, who would have been popular in normal circumstances, had no choice but to work hard to boost her own value even a little.
“I hope this works well.”
Would Naibusu like it?
Nanami was aware that she lagged quite a bit behind in Naibusu's harem (as her friends called it). She thought he liked her, but her rivals were just too formidable.
Mighty powerhouses, a childhood friend she'd known for over ten years, mature teachers armed with adult charm, and even a senior girl cooler than most guys.
And lately, with Reika joining the fray—someone whose character overlapped a lot with Nanami's—Nanami could feel her presence in the harem fading more and more.
Tanning her skin like this was part of her efforts to appeal even a little more. The harem oddly had a lot of prim-and-proper types, so she planned to target a niche with a healthy, proactive charm.
“Tan the skin, do makeup, dye the hair, and... going too flashy might be bad? Naibusu seems kinda straitlaced deep down.”
Nanami gazed blankly at the sky, listing ways to appeal to him one by one. At the same time, she pondered the risky line where he wouldn't feel repulsed, and what scenarios might make her the final winner.
Even if she agonized over it, becoming his first choice among the harem members was probably impossible.
So Nanami planned to maintain a relationship that was more than friends but less than lovers—one he could meet with a light heart.
Even if Naibusu ended up with someone, with his womanizing habits, problems were bound to arise. When that happened—whether they fought and broke up or just shook— that would be her chance.
She could embrace even his womanizing ways. By appealing that tolerance, she'd provide him a safe haven.
'Marry Nanami, and I won't have to cut ties with other women!' If she could plant that thought in Naibusu, she'd have a shot.
She knew her thinking wasn't normal.
But she couldn't help it. She'd fallen for him.
If there was a way to claim the man she loved, she'd charge straight toward it.
Nanami was a girl living for love.
“Sis, whatcha doing?”
As Nanami nodded in satisfaction at her perfect scheme, Kouta, the boy from the twins, climbed up to the rooftop.
“Can't you tell? Sunbathing.”
“Stop messing around and help me with my homework.”
“Don't interrupt. This is an important moment.”
Her young sibling wouldn't understand. This big sister's desperate feelings.
Society's gaze on single female Rune Holders was harsh.
They had to marry and have kids before graduating the academy. Otherwise, it was military service or massive taxes.
Rich girls could pay it off. Independent types could enlist.
But Nanami couldn't choose either. Her family was too poor for taxes, and she couldn't enlist leaving her disabled mother and young siblings behind.
All that was left was marriage and kids.
It was only natural to hope the partner would be the man she loved.
“Do your homework alone. This is for you guys too.”
Yeah. This was for her siblings as well.
Nanami's father had died in the Great Catastrophe. Her mother had ended up limping from injuries sustained then.
With the breadwinner gone and her mother disabled, life for the women grew bleak.
To make matters worse, the government started imposing huge taxes on Rune Holder households with one or fewer children—a desperate measure to restore their plummeting numbers after the catastrophe.
That policy hit the Shiina women right in the gut. As a single-child household, they qualified for the tax, and with the husband dead and mother unable to work, there was no way to pay.
Outrageous as it was, in these emergency times, no one raised a voice against it.
The only option left was quick remarriage and more kids.
But with her heart wound from losing her husband not fully healed, her mother had no desire to remarry.
So they chose the government's 'test-tube baby program.' Her mother conceived the twins alone that way, and afterward, they even received aid to live on.
And at a young age, Nanami had to play breadwinner, caring for the newborn twins.
But Nanami never resented that life. The twins' arrival helped her forget the pain and loneliness of losing family.
Since the twins were born, the Shiina house never went a day without kids' cries or laughter. Nanami, the girl head of household, tended to her ailing mother and siblings, living day by day like weeds pushing through cracks.
“Mom! Big sis is doing weird stuff again!”
“Kouta! Be quiet!”
The only issue was that, as years passed, the siblings listened to their big sister less and less.
Still, Nanami was happy with her life now.
“Nanami! What are you doing up there? Get down here!”
“Mom! I have to do this~!”
Would Nanami claim victory in that fight?
Nanami's lonely battle continued.
Someone living a life similar yet opposite to Nanami's.
That was Reika, Nanami's friend and rival.
“Reika. I heard Tsukimiya's daughter Akane died in some 'accident.'”
During dinner. Reika's father brought it up as if it had just occurred to him.
“...Yes.”
Reika swallowed the food in her mouth with difficulty and replied.
“You're not involved, right?”
“......Yes.”
“Good. Let's keep it that way.”
-Clink, clink.
For a while, only the sound of knives cutting meat echoed quietly at the family table.
Reika felt suffocated in such dinner settings.
Reika was a rare first-generation Rune Holder among the younger crowd these days.
In an era where Rune Holder marriages and births were the norm, first-gens born to ordinary parents still popped up occasionally.
Reika—and the Akane just mentioned—were like that.
The difference from second-gens was in how parents treated their Rune Holder kids.
Unlike second-gens whose parents were also Rune Holders, first-gens had ordinary parents who often struggled with child-rearing or their marriage because of it.
Reika's parents were no exception.
When their daughter, whom they'd raised as ordinary, turned out to be a Rune Holder, they panicked. Father suspected the wife's affair; mother got angry at the suspicion.
Genetic tests confirmed paternity, but the once-cracked family bonds didn't heal easily. Even now, her parents treated Reika like an 'outsider' or 'mutant.'
“Reika, is the food not to your taste?”
“......No.”
“Eat more. You look thinner than before. It's worrying.”
“Yes.”
Thinner? Who?
Reika swallowed her inner complaint at her mother's words.
She was already dieting; being called thin meant they weren't paying attention to her at all.
They arranged these weekly dinners to fulfill parental duties. Outside these once-a-week meals, they never met.
Both parents were execs at big corps, so they couldn't stay in Rune Town.
But to Reika, it felt like an excuse to keep the 'intruder' disrupting their happy family apart.
For Reika, though, it was for the best. Having rarely felt parental love since childhood, she saw her parents as just 'adults named Mom and Dad' she met regularly. More time together would just be awkward.
She wished this boring play-like time would end soon.
Reika muttered that in her heart.
“Sigh.”
After the weekly parental dinner ritual, on the way home.
Bloated from her mother's insistence on eating more, Reika patted her stuffed belly and sighed.
Weight gain again. When she was already at a disadvantage.
Reika admitted she ranked at the bottom in the 'Naibusu harem.'
She'd basically forced her way in midway.
“But at this rate...”
Already disadvantaged.
Gaining fat would kill any hope she had.
Until now, nutrients had mercifully gone to her chest, but it was saturated now, with fat starting to spread elsewhere.
Especially her lower body.
Reika had just heard a shocking comment from a former close friend: 'Haven't your legs gotten thicker lately?'
“This won't do!”
Thicker legs → Less feminine appeal → Dropped from Naibusu harem.
An obvious chain even a kid could see.
Quick independence required marriage and pregnancy.
Reika hated enlisting or asking her parents for money.
To break free from those parents ASAP, she needed to snag a guy she liked and marry fast.
And she already had that guy in mind.
The man who'd made her nearly wet herself from sheer thrill. Naibusu was the first.
Like a chick imprinting on the first thing it sees as its parent, Reika—with her narrow social circle—fell hard for Naibusu the instant he gave her that jolt.
That he was building a 'harem' didn't matter to her.
Her chest was top-tier. She had youthful glow. Face wasn't the absolute best but top percentile. Overall score unbeatable.
Just trim the figure to support those assets, and she had a real shot, Reika truly believed.
So starting tomorrow, serious diet!
Reika's eyes burned with determination.
Then her fiery gaze landed on a product poster.
「Compression stockings that make legs look slimmer just by wearing them! Heat up your legs and melt fat away. Lose 1kg a day with amazing results! ¥1,990」
Reika shoved open the store door right then.
“One pair of compression stockings! No, make it three!”