From Today On, the Event and I Become One
"Hauuh… nngh…"
"Stay still."
"Ugh!?"
Stay still? Easy for him to say. Even when I tried to hold still, my body reacted on its own. What was I supposed to do about that?
It was his hands that were the problem — the way he worked through my hair was practically indecent.
It was absolutely not because I was being lewd.
Of all places for me to be sensitive…
Most of the time he listened when I told him something. But whenever I dug my heels in over something that would actually wreck me, he gave me that look — the one that said he wasn't buying it.
…And honestly, if I kept styling my hair the way I wanted, I had a real feeling I'd end up a bald bishoujo a few years down the line.
"Hah… hahh…"
"That ticklish?"
"…Pretty much?"
He genuinely seemed to think I was just ticklish, which was a relief. If he ever found out that his touch actually felt good —
I might actually want to die.
Still, if it was him, he wouldn't turn it into leverage. By my usual standards, finding someone's weak spot meant teasing them relentlessly while making them feel good — that playful, push-and-pull kind of relationship. That was normal.
But this guy would genuinely sit there fretting, trying to find a way not to hurt me.
…He really was a strange one.
"Done."
"Hwaaah…"
How was it that I still couldn't get used to this, even though it happened every single day? Or was it that the more I adapted, the better he got at handling my hair?
Both sides leveling up at the same rate, so the net sensation never changed?
…Not that that was the important part.
Either way, the structure left me with no choice but to endure it. Best just to stop thinking about it and move on — that was the path of least mental damage.
I put on my usual virgin-saint outfit and left the house with the protagonist.
"Not yet, huh."
Well, of course. The event wasn't the kind of thing that exploded first thing in the morning. In the game story, you got swept up in it while eating dessert at the festival grounds.
Right. I'd just wait it out with something tasty at the venue.
"Huh. Cocktail's booth isn't open."
"Ah, that. She was bragging last night about how well business went, had one drink, and passed out cold. Still hasn't gotten up."
"……"
Ah. Right. Cocktail was the type who went down after a single shot of soju.
Even Cocktail — supposedly the most normal member of that club — had one absurd setting attached to her. She loved making cocktails and was genuinely good at it… and yet a single glass of pretty much any cocktail would knock her out cold.
"She's probably not opening today."
"I see."
It was a little sad, honestly. She had the talent and she loved the craft — and she was the one person least able to enjoy the fruits of it.
"Were you all right yesterday? You looked pretty drunk."
"Please forget that…"
"You were adorable."
"Please, I'm begging you, forget it."
I'd been spouting so much nonsense yesterday that even Cinnamon, who'd been working the booth here, had apparently overheard. Great. My face was already burning and it wasn't even noon.
"…Thanks for the food."
I fled from Cinnamon as fast as I could. Of course, every staff member running this place was from the Royal Guard, so there was no real escaping the embarrassment — but ignoring it was still the best thing for my mental health.
Time to see if our culprit has shown up.
…Truthfully, I already knew exactly who was going to cause the incident. And honestly, the culprit had every right to feel wronged. At this point in the story, she hadn't done anything bad — she'd genuinely come here just to enjoy the festival.
Then, without thinking, she sat down at Minty's booth and ordered mint chocolate cheese katsu. The horrific taste made her throw up, and in pure rage she summoned a dungeon to smash Minty's booth to pieces. That was the basic skeleton of the event.
…Which was why she burned through a holy relic — essentially a dungeon generator — and got thoroughly chewed out by her villain colleagues afterward. That was the epilogue.
Anyway, the dungeon the holy relic created would keep attacking Minty's booth at regular intervals until its power ran dry. Our job was to hold the line, kill the monsters, and collect the rewards. That was the shape of the event.
…Which was exactly why I couldn't stop Minty from making that abomination of a dish for this festival. Without the mint chocolate cheese katsu, the event itself wouldn't trigger.
Sorry, but for the sake of our resources — eat it and throw up. Your sacrifice will make us rich.
There she is.
A girl with her hood pulled low came in, glancing around warily. In a hurry, she ducked into the nearest booth — Minty's — and ordered something.
To be fair, mint chocolate cheese katsu looked like ordinary tonkatsu from the outside. If you weren't paying attention, you could absolutely eat it without realizing. The distinctive mint-chocolate scent did waft off it, but Minty's own body scent was mint, so you could easily mistake it for that.
And sure enough, the girl who'd just received her mint chocolate cheese katsu took a big, completely uninformed bite.
"…? Mph? Uweeeehk…!"
I understood that feeling completely. I'd eaten it braced for impact and still wanted to throw up. If you'd put it in your mouth with zero warning, that warm tangle of mint chocolate and cheese would have been so revolting you'd vomit on the spot.
Ah. Even just smelling it from here was a little nauseating.
"Hah… haugh… You fed me this garbage— uugh… ugh."
"Garbage? Isn't it delicious? Just one more bite and you'll understand the true depth of this flavor…"
"Ah — a demon…!"
Mm. That familiar voice was as cute as ever as it reached my ears.
There was a guild called the Laboratory — still on the enemy side for now, but destined to join the allies later. And this was Musk, the dog-eared girl who belonged to it.
An incredibly gentle character. And apparently even a character that gentle could be driven to fury by the demonic power of mint chocolate cheese katsu.
Well — it was precisely because she was so gentle that her colleagues had trusted her with the holy relic, certain she wouldn't use it for anything weird. They'd never imagined it would evaporate like this.
Ugh, the way her eyes are welling up is so cute.
Even as an enemy, Musk was the kind of character who cluelessly, kindly tried to befriend you. She'd always smile and get close without thinking, then get scolded by her colleagues and end up teary-eyed — and that look was devastatingly adorable.
…Which was how she'd become my favorite character.
And of course, as my daughter unit, her performance was excellent too. Among melee DPS she packed serious damage, and for a dealer her evasion was unusually high — perfect for that high-wire playstyle of skipping a tank and squeezing out max damage while barely surviving.
Well. I can't get her yet.
The Affection Gifts I could give her were still a long way off. That went for the whole Laboratory, not just Musk.
Oh — she finally used it.
"Jasmine."
"Yes. This is it. It's starting."
The holy relic Musk pulled out fully reassembled itself, and from a tiny aperture an artificial dungeon break opened — a path leading straight to Minty's booth.
I spread my wings at once, flew over, and cut down the monster emerging from the entrance.
The event itself is easy, anyway.
The boss fight that opened in the later stages had a bit of difficulty to it, but it was still easier than a Deadly Battle. This wasn't a proper invasion like those — it was closer to an accident born of pure rage, and the story treated it that way too.
"M-monsters…!"
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Everyone, please remain calm! They're only appearing in a confined area, and we're fully capable of suppressing them. Feel free to ignore this and enjoy the festival!"
…Well, of course there was going to be a commotion. I was certain this dungeon wouldn't spill outside the booth — but for the Minor Units who'd come here to enjoy the festival, this was a bolt from the blue.
Unlike Major Units, who could fight dungeon monsters calibrated to their level, Minor Units were basically ordinary people. When a dungeon appeared, they stayed well clear of it out of fear of a break. They never saw monsters like this — so of course the first sight of one would be terrifying.
To be fair, it was rough for me the first time too.
Even if they were just trash mobs I'd seen in the game, the first time you stood face-to-face with creatures the size of a person — or larger — fear was the natural reaction. But once you realized they were weaker than you, they became about as threatening as a cute puppy.
Being a Major Unit didn't just mean high firepower. Your entire body became a set of specs that transcended ordinary human limits. Ordinary firearms used by Minor Units couldn't scratch you — only another Major Unit or a monster could wound you at all. And once the stat gap got wide enough, even those stopped being particularly dangerous.
That was why you could solo farming zones meant for parties. And once you got used to that, most monsters really did start to feel like puppies.
"Huh. It really was nothing."
"Right? Honestly, yesterday was the hard part."
Earning and pinning on this brooch had been the most difficult part of the whole event. Honestly, I was lucky he'd helped me — if I'd had to eat all of that myself, it might have been me who went berserk, not Musk.
Just remembering it was horrifying.
Come to think of it — that's why the brooch mattered.
The method for drawing the dungeon break toward Minty's booth was simple: they'd installed a vending machine inside her booth that let you redeem this dungeon's rewards. Apparently the monsters treated that machine as something that needed destroying, so they naturally went berserk trying to smash through Minty's booth to reach it.
Kill the monsters here and you got event coins. Feed those coins into the vending machine and you could exchange them for items. And since the machine was inside Minty's booth, it effectively belonged to her.
So that's how they skimmed a massive cut of the resources as a 'usage fee.'
But with the brooch, you were treated as a friend who'd shown love for their desserts — and what kind of person charges a friend a fee? The commission vanished.
There were so many things you only learned by living in the real version of this world. Even though I already knew how every event played out, all of it still felt fresh and fun.
Wow. This event is seriously generous.
We stripped the event resources bare until the vending machine had nothing left, then took down the final boss and watched the dungeon vanish entirely. Only then was everything over.
I was settling in for a well-earned rest, feeling thoroughly satisfied, when Minty came over thanking us and pulled something out.
"Thank you all so much! Thanks to you, we saved the booth!"
"Not at all. We were just doing our job. And we collected plenty of rewards, didn't we?"
"Still, gratitude is gratitude. Here — it's on the house! Everyone, eat as much as you want!"
This insane woman?
…I couldn't take it anymore. I snapped.