Let Me Manage My Livestock (1)

Hazy awareness drew itself, by degrees, into a sharper outline. Softness lay along her shoulder and traveled through her, and Ninomae Hitomi slowly opened her eyes.

"Haaahm."

She let the yawn stretch long, then gathered the bedding and folded it in fumbling handfuls. Sleeping on a futon spread over the floor had left her with the habit.

"…Ah."

A beat later, the view that met her was not the morning she woke to every day.

Right. This wasn't our house.

"No—this is our house now… isn't it."

She seemed to catch the flaw in her own words as she said them, and the rest slipped out under her breath. As of yesterday, she had begun living with Han Seoyeon.

Ninomae pushed herself up, smoothed her sleep-mussed hair, and left the room. A coolness climbed through the soles of her feet.

"You're awake? Rather quick of you."

She walked the hall and came down the stairs, and there was Han Seoyeon, seated on the sofa. She had been drinking something; her gaze turned this way.

"You're up early."

"I usually get up around now. Someone has to make breakfast."

Han Seoyeon was the sort to shrug breakfast off with bread when she couldn't be bothered. Ninomae was the sort who prepared a morning meal and ate it without fail. If waking at this hour was only natural, then it was only natural.

"And yet Miss Shion, saying that, was up even earlier than I was."

"I have never needed much sleep."

She slept little to begin with, and if it came to it, there was always the option of doping herself with holy power. Han Seoyeon added the remark with a faint, thin smile.

"They say that's bad for your skin, you know? I mean—your skin might be fine, since you have holy power, but those dark circles are 100% from that. I-I do think of them as a charm point, but……."

"So long as Miss Ninomae alone thinks well of me, I have nothing to concern myself with."

"Mmph?!"

Ninomae had been about to sit beside Han Seoyeon as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and the casually tossed line froze her halfway down. She could hardly stay standing like that, so she lowered herself with care, ears burning red.

She settled with about a fist's width of space between them and let out a sigh.

"So what are you drinking?"

"Fig syrup, if that is close enough. I made Miss Ninomae a cup of it once before."

"Oh. You mean the one an acquaintance from the Church sent you?"

Han Seoyeon nodded.

She remembered drinking it the last time she had stayed a night at Han Seoyeon's. It hadn't been a familiar taste, but it had been quite good.

"Shall I pour you a cup?"

"Yes, please. I think it'd go well enough with bread, too."

Ninomae said so, and looked toward Seoyeon.

"Bread's all right for breakfast today, isn't it? I didn't have anything prepared ahead."

"I do not mind. That is how it usually is."

The inside of Han Seoyeon's refrigerator, which she had checked yesterday, was decidedly modest.

"I'll buy groceries and make a proper lunch."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"I will come with you then."

"Okay. Got it."

With that settled, the two headed for the kitchen together—Ninomae to prepare breakfast, Han Seoyeon to brew the tea.

While Seoyeon filled the kettle, Ninomae opened the bag of sliced bread left out at room temperature and took a few pieces. She set them briefly on a plate and slicked a frying pan with a little oil.

The pan heated in no time. The moment the bread went in, the oil hissed, and the smell of browning toast rose.

"Should I sprinkle on some sugar?"

"The tea will be sweet enough. I do not think we need it."

"True, you're right. Jam and butter ought to be plenty."

The figs had been sliced fine and steeped in honey. Once you considered that the result sat closer to a syrup preserve—or to marmalade—even strawberry jam began to seem like too much.

Even so, Han Seoyeon took both the jam and the butter from the refrigerator, and the jar of preserved figs along with them.

"…Miss Ninomae, might I have one more spoon?"

"Here you go."

She scooped a heaping spoon of the preserved figs and tried to knock it into the mug. The stuff was far too viscous for that. Even after she tapped the spoon against the cup, more than half stayed glued to the metal, and the only result was the hollow clink of porcelain, ringing out with a faintly pathetic dignity.

Plain tapping was not going to do it. She took a second spoon from Ninomae and scraped—only for a fair amount to stick to the other spoon instead—and so she repeated the same little operation several times over.

A trace still clung there, but it was little enough now that she simply put a spoon in her mouth and sucked it clean. There were two of them, though, and she held the remaining one out toward Ninomae.

Whether she meant to share, since they were already at it, or some other thought had crossed her mind, Ninomae had no particular reason to invent an excuse. She took the spoon into her mouth with a small, neat nom.

Sweetness spread across her tongue. The tip of it licked at the sticky honey, and only then did Ninomae understand what she had done.

W-wait…? I took it without thinking, but this is an aah♡, isn't it?!

Being fed by someone. Between young women, and close friends at that, it was not an act that ought to have felt strange. Had she seen schoolgirls doing it in a café, she might only have thought how close they were, and found it rather heartwarming.

But the place it happened most was, of course, in that kind of relationship. She could not quite say how it went in real life, but manga was fond of depicting it as skinship between lovers—or at least between characters who were, as the phrase went, in the talking stage.

And the woman named Ninomae Hitomi, for all the face she had been given, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had no friends at university besides Han Seoyeon. She spent far more of her hours on subculture than on building any kind of social life.

Our saliva didn't mix, so it isn't quite an indirect kiss… even so, why does this feel so strange…!

In short, in this one field and this one field only, Ninomae's mind was something of a flower garden. This was not a manga. In real life, how many people actually stopped to register a thing like an indirect kiss?

"Miss Ninomae?"

"Ah, y-yes. Ehehe."

She had been holding the spoon in her mouth for quite some time, and she only spoke once Han Seoyeon, finding it odd, called to her.

"Would you like another spoonful?"

Seoyeon could not read what was running through her, and so she could only conclude that Ninomae had liked it enough to want every last bit licked clean.

"……Yes."

And yet, knowing full well how innocent that offer was, Ninomae was still the one who had to cry one more!

Seoyeon held out another spoonful of the preserved figs, and Ninomae accepted it at a pace that was, somehow, delicately slow.

"Prasaba—the Anathema Server 2.0 is now open!"

"Konmea! I am Mary Tepes, the vampire queen who will one day rule this world!"

"The game I've prepared today is Prasaba. Most of you already know, I'm sure, but as of noon today a server opened with every VTuber under Anathema taking part, yes?"

Mary carried the broadcast along beneath her usual, confident smile.

The stream showed the server select screen. One press of a button, and she could connect at once.

"Then shall we head in quickly? I hear some people started right at noon, so if I'm going to catch up, I'd better hurry."

Prasaba was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠new to her, but someone like her would be fine, wouldn't she? Mary added as much.

She had half considered a practice stream before the server opened… and yet, somehow, she had only confirmed that the game would boot, left it sitting there, and arrived at the present moment still unprepared.

"I've got the basic theory more or less in my head, you know? Crafting recipes, monster data, that sort of thing."

If one insisted on sorting her into a type, Mary Tepes was a theory gamer. Memorizing numbers and drilling patterns was the floor she walked in on—a player who fought with her head.

Which was why her viewers did not much mind that Mary herself was a beginner.

"This is… hmm, a safe zone, perhaps?"

What met Mary's eyes when she connected was a castle walled in on every side. The spawn point had evidently been sheltered on purpose, a courtesy meant to keep anyone from dying in a chain.

"Weeell, safe or not, I can hardly just stand here. Let's head out."

She looked the place over, confirmed that the castle was splendid and entirely without substance, and made straight for the exit. It seemed a space with no purpose beyond respawn protection.

"Oh?"

But as she ran for that exit, a click sounded and her movement stopped. An item had slipped neatly into her inventory.

"Ah… there was a pressure plate under me."

Starter items, perhaps? Murmuring so, Mary looked through her inventory.

An assortment of low-grade tools, thirty loaves of bread, and a book by the name of Manual.

Just in case, she paced back and forth and stepped on the plate several times over, but the only thing that appeared was a single message.

"A stone sword, a pickaxe, an axe, and a shovel. And a little food… in recovery value, that's somewhere around 2,600 points, isn't it?"

A bread item that filled 50 of a satiety meter capped at 100. Thirty of those, and she would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have no need to worry about food for a while.

"Yes. Some of my servants are already in the know, I see. If you eat enough that the satiety restored goes past the maximum, a hidden value is applied, and later that value is subtracted before satiety itself…"

"Hah? Prep at this level is the bare minimum. It's an unfriendly game that won't even tell you the crafting recipes in-game."

"Unpleasant, is it?! Apologize!"

Mary blew one short huff through her nose, and went on.

"Anyway, let's get moving. It looks like stepping on that plate over there sends you outside……."

The exit was sealed with blocks. A red arrow, however, pointed at the plate in front of that wall. That was probably the switch for leaving the spawn area.

Just in case, Mary stepped onto the plate with her sword still in hand, and teleported elsewhere along with a welcome message.

A green meadow. Mountain ridges far off, and a deep, dense forest. It was the landscape of Prasaba, the one she had so often seen in videos and screenshots.

"……Eh?"

But one sight there was beyond anything she had imagined.

She had been looking over the scenery around her. The moment she turned, a dazed little sound slipped out of Mary, her face blank with bewilderment.

"Eh? Ehh……?"

There was a plain. Blatantly out of place, blatantly artificial, as if the surrounding terrain had been carved away in a single piece.

The area in question, however, was a little too vast.

At the edge of her vision, a Holy Knight was leveling an eighth mountain with nothing but a stone shovel.

Amairo Tsubasa, the same as ever.