"Strange..."
As he prepared to go downstairs to make dinner, Yuu looked at the wall with slight concern.
Next door was Sora's room. The soundproofing in their house wasn't very good, especially these two adjacent bedrooms. Basically, if there was any loud movement, sounds would be heard in the next room. Because of this, the two siblings paid great attention to their actions. Whether playing music or watching videos, they would wear earphones. If they had to make phone calls, they would go to the balcony, avoiding disturbing the other party or hearing embarrassing strange sounds.
Especially Yuu, whose physical condition was increasingly approaching that of a monster. Even if he stood in the middle of the room, as long as he focused his hearing, he could even hear Sora's breathing sounds as she sat in front of her desk, let alone cursing while gaming or snoring while sleeping.
So, to avoid his little sister having no privacy at all, Yuu would usually try to ignore the movements from behind the wall, pretending his hearing wasn't that good. He had also reminded Sora to be more careful in doing anything, or move to sleep in their parents' room downstairs, which would also be fine.
However, Sora firmly refused, reasoning that there was nothing Yuu couldn't hear anyway, as if she was very indifferent about it. Since she said so, Yuu naturally didn't comment much and gradually got used to the sound of keyboard typing or game controller slamming occasionally heard from the next room. He would feel strange if that room was completely quiet.
And now, was the time when he felt strange.
Since Sora went upstairs and returned to her room, it had been about ten minutes. There was no movement at all from the next room, quiet without any signs of life.
If it weren't for not wanting to be a perverted stalker eavesdropping on his sister, Yuu would have already pressed his ear against the wall by now, using one hundred percent of his hearing to ensure Sora was safe.
"I'm probably overthinking it... What could happen in this trial space?"
He touched the wall with his hand, but ultimately didn't do that unnecessary thing. He went downstairs to cook as if nothing had happened.
Dinner was finished. When he went upstairs to call his sister to eat, Sora also immediately opened the door, kept flipping her long silver hair, and sat at the dining table.
"Let's eat."
In the middle of the meal, Yuu asked as if casually: "I feel like you've been very quiet today, are you tired from playing games?"
Sora's hand holding chopsticks paused for a moment, then while scooping rice and side dishes, she answered indifferently: "Yeah, I was just lying in bed playing on my phone. After getting tired, I plan to go straight to sleep... By the way, I didn't expect Yuu to actually eavesdrop on movements in my room."
"No, I just happened to feel it was strange." Yuu's tone was also quite casual. "I already told you my hearing is very good, and the walls are thin. Even if I don't want to listen, I can't help but care~"
"Oh really? Then it's fine." Biting her chopsticks, Sora answered carelessly, "Don't worry, I pay attention to volume control. It's natural you can't hear anything. Even if you could hear it, I'd feel disturbed. I don't want to bother you or anything... Anyway, this is all for your sake. Praise me a little."
Yuu comforted her without sincerity: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sora is an obedient child~"
Sora puffed her cheeks, dissatisfied with his attitude of not taking it seriously at all: "Not a child, I'm already twenty-four years old, I'm an adult!"
"I'm not even twenty yet, your age leap is too fast..."
After dinner, Sora washed the dishes and went back upstairs to her room.
She wasn't afraid Yuu would suddenly open her bedroom door and discover that black-haired intruder inside.
Whether going to the toilet or eating, Sora would always lock the door every time she left the room. The lock on the door was a special lock. Even if her all-capable brother was skilled at lock-picking, he would have to use brute force to break through the last defense and enter her room.
But before that, she had many ways to stop him. She wasn't afraid of any accidents at all!
"It's just Yuu, no need to be afraid!"
After muttering with full confidence, Sora opened the bedroom door and saw under the neon light, Utaha in that absolutely soundproof room trying to escape, even shouting loudly at the wall:
"Is anyone there? There's a girl imprisoning a girl here! Come quickly and save me, answer immediately if you hear me—"
"Give it up. Even if you shout until your throat breaks, no one will come to save you."
Sora wasn't angry, she just leaned against the wall, sneering while enjoying her circus monkey-like performance. She also didn't forget to close the door.
"This room is independent from space-time coordinates. As soon as I think about it, this room will sever its connection with this trial world and return to float in the river of time where there is nothing."
While speaking, she walked to the window, opened it, and threw a crumpled piece of paper outside.
Clearly outside the window was scenery that had just become evening. Looking down, she could even see elderly people going out for evening walks. However, when that crumpled paper left the window, it immediately disappeared.
Not long after, as if teleporting, the crumpled paper returned to Sora's hand.
"So, without my permission, first, you can't escape through the window. Second, your voice won't reach Yuu. Even if they want to save you, they'll never be able to find the entrance."
She looked at Utaha's increasingly gloomy expression and laughed with a bit of mischief: "You're already checkmated, Kasumigaoka-senpai."
"...Alright, I admit, trying to escape from this absurd place alone, I was too naive."
Dismissing her anxious heart, Utaha dropped her shoulders, sighed very disappointedly, and said unenthusiastically:
"Then what's your purpose in confining me here? Are you planning to starve me to death? Or slowly torture me to death?"
She bit her lower lip, showing a pitiful expression, but because it was too exaggerated, the deficiency was immediately visible.
"I'm not that strange. It's because you're stubborn and refuse to provide information."
Rolling her eyes, Sora was too lazy to look at her and closed the window: "Originally I planned to use another method to get rid of you, but after thinking about it, maybe you, who suddenly entered, could be an unexpected trump card, so I'll leave you here temporarily and let you go after the problem is solved."
"The way you talk..." It sounded like she was about to start some kind of war.
Utaha vaguely realized something, but didn't have time to ask.
"Don't worry, as long as you're in this room, time is almost stopped. Eating, drinking, and relieving yourself are no longer necessary. It's just that it might be a bit boring."
While saying so, Sora kicked the cabinet in the corner of the wall and pointed with her chin at the TV beside it: "I'll be using the computer, so I can't lend it to you. Only I can connect to the internet... As compensation, there are thousands of types of games and dozens of game consoles here. All are items that made me bored. Enough for you to play for several decades. It shouldn't bore you to death, right?"
Utaha was speechless, her face full of black lines: "You'd better give me pen and manuscript paper so I can focus on writing."
And even if the games were very fun, playing games for several years in this ghost place would definitely drive her crazy!
Sora came to her senses: "Oh, right, I forgot you're a novelist."
Then she took a stack of manuscript papers and a pen from the cabinet and placed them on the table in front of her with a plop.
"Here, the items you wanted."
Utaha was truly at a loss for words.
"...I'm asking, are you really planning to trap me here for several years?"
"Don't worry, I can manipulate time and will appropriately speed up the time process... If Yuu's situation is optimistic, you might be freed soon."
Speaking in a completely unconvincing tone, Sora pulled up a chair again and sat down. Her gray eyes stared straight at her, looking somewhat displeased: "Besides, do you think I really like being with you? If it weren't for you still being useful, and there being no other place to accommodate you, I would have long ago kicked you out of my room."
Sitting on the bed, Utaha placed her hands supporting her heavy body weight, crossed her arms, and sneered: "I don't want to either. Who knew I'd suddenly come here. If you tell me some information, maybe I have a way to solve it."
"Sorry, that's a forbidden item."
In a situation where she wasn't clear about the other party's background, Sora didn't plan to tell her more. As for threatening the other party with her life to exchange for information, she really wasn't good at doing that. After trying a little, she immediately gave up.
After all, in her memory, although her relationship with Utaha wasn't friendly, at least it was much lighter than her relationship with her brother's girlfriends. She didn't have an irresolvable feud with her, so naturally there was no need to be cruel.
In the end, this senpai's experience was really pitiful. So pitiful that even when Sora recalled it, she felt sorry for her...
"Forget it, consider it my boredom."
Shaking her head, Sora sighed softly. Her eyes rarely showed warmth: "Wait a moment. Let me think about what's appropriate to say."
Although the situation finally showed a tendency to move forward, Utaha couldn't honestly be happy at this moment. She just looked at the silver-haired woman in front of her who was thinking with a strange expression.
"This feeling of being pitied, what's going on..."
Somehow it made her uncomfortable.
By the way, Sora was adult-sized when she left the room, but returned with the appearance of an underage child. She only changed back to an adult after closing the door...
Did she not want Yuu to know she could grow and shrink?
Changing size at will like this, she wondered if it would hurt her bones...
"What are you thinking about?"
"Some unimportant things." Utaha blinked and shifted her gaze back to her, "What about you? Have you thought about what you can tell me?"
"Yeah, almost done." Sora touched her long hair, the corner of her mouth slightly smiling but not smiling. Her feelings were indescribable. "Although it's a trivial matter of no importance, if it must be said, perhaps it's the starting point of everything?"
"Oh? I'm listening."
Utaha straightened her body, sitting on the bed facing the silver-haired woman wrapped in a white lab coat. Her expression gradually became serious.
She apparently hadn't brought her notebook to this dream realm, couldn't contact those in the real world, and couldn't leave the room where she could be killed—helpless, she could only obediently listen to others talk like this.
But because this involved Yuu's privacy, and possibly also the origins between the God and notebook, Utaha was very curious, both personally and professionally. Of course, she couldn't possibly miss this opportunity to easily obtain information.
As a novelist, appropriate gossip was also beneficial for triggering inspiration, wasn't it?
"So then, where should we start~"
Sora slightly raised her gaze. She seemed to be searching for a small yellowed photo from her very large memory library, and unconsciously used a nostalgic tone:
"Oh right, at that time Yuu was still using the Life Achievement System. It was crude and simple, and there was no confidentiality agreement. He could say it whenever he wanted... Now it seems the upgraded Boyfriend System is most suitable for him."
"Mhm, Life Achievement System and Boyfriend System..." Utaha nodded with a serious expression, then asked with a confused face.
"What are those?"
"You don't know?!"
Shocked, Sora immediately reacted. Her expression became gloomy. She pressed her lips together, digesting this information: "I see, you really entered through some other cheating method. Otherwise, it's impossible you wouldn't know about the system's existence... In that case, you probably also don't know about light orbs and their power, right?"
"What are you talking about? Is that a novel setting?"
Being bombarded with unfamiliar terms one after another, and feeling as if she had been tricked into giving more information by the other party indirectly, Utaha couldn't help but irritably curl the long hair on her chest. Her heels also unconsciously trembled.
Sora hesitated, but decided to explain to her what almost everyone who had ever been close to her in the past knew.
"After switching to the Boyfriend System, Yukino and the others should use the term God to refer to it, right? Because there's a confidentiality agreement."
"God..."
Chewing on that word repeatedly, Utaha slowly widened her eyes and couldn't help but draw a cold breath. She voiced her hard-to-accept guess with difficulty: "Wait, you mean, the entity that gives missions to people, takes away Yukinoshita and the others' memories, and toys with the world repeatedly, isn't a god controlling everything, but—A game system?!"
"It's not a game, and it's not a joke."
Gracefully flipping her long hair, Sora corrected with a straight face: "Its origin is unknown, how it works is also unknown. Anyway, one day during summer vacation, Yuu got this Life Achievement System—as long as he completes achievements, he can get various rewards. Money, special abilities, even physical condition. Everything is there, except failure penalties. So, from that moment on, his life was no longer ordinary!"
The corner of Utaha's eye twitched: "This is like a third-rate novel introduction..."
That wasn't finished. Sora raised one finger and added: "By the way, Yuu was originally an ordinary corporate slave from a big country across the ocean. He reincarnated in Japan due to an accident, that's why he has adult thinking at a young age and could raise me alone... The authenticity of this story is still questionable, but that's what he told me."
"A life like that is already very unusual, you know?!"
Gasping, Utaha pulled back her gaze. She didn't know what else to complain about.
The information given was too massive. She unconsciously held her head. That complicated information was jumbled in her mind, making her dizzy and tight in the chest. She didn't know what expression to make right now.
Just in an instant, she met the eyes in front of her that seemed to sparkle.
At this moment, the cold aura she usually used to face enemies unconsciously melted, transforming into the warmth and cheerfulness she had seen in the living room.
Utaha was slightly shocked. The chaotic thoughts and confused feelings felt like a wild cat whose fur had been smoothed, no longer too troublesome.
Perhaps, even she herself hadn't realized it, right?
{Sora, when talking about her brother, really smiled very happily.}
It's just that she didn't know why.
Although it looked like a genuinely bright smile from the heart, it also gave a feeling of regret, as if Sora would cry the next moment.