Crunch~
Anna pulled out a bag of cucumber-flavored potato chips from somewhere and started eating with loud crunches.
"Speaking of which, I still haven't met Sora's little sister... Here, cucumber-flavored potato chips are super delicious!"
"This is a calorie bomb, don't eat potato chips first thing in the morning." Sora took the chip and popped it into his mouth. "The weekend is almost here. If you come over to play, you might be able to see her."
Anna's gaze shifted. "Hey, hey, is your sister really cute?"
"That's right."
Sora nodded straightforwardly.
Putting personality aside and just talking about looks, Sagiri was indeed quite cute.
Anna continued to ask, "Do Sora and Sagiri-chan have a good relationship?"
Sora hesitated for two seconds, then shook his head.
"It's not that good. Sagiri has always hidden in her room and refused to come out. We often don't even exchange a single word."
Yesterday was just an exception. Since it was an exception, it wouldn't be long before Sagiri quickly returned to her normal state, right?
"Leave it to me." Anna ate the last bite of the potato chips, then gave a thumbs up. A bright smile bloomed on her pretty face, and her azure eyes rippled. "I'm the best at taking care of people!"
"You seem very interested in Sagiri?"
Sora slightly raised an eyebrow, his tone suspicious.
"Ahaha..."
With a flash, Anna swiftly slipped away, her skirt fluttering in the air.
"That's Sora's little sister, of course I'd care. Anyway, tomorrow is the weekend, wait for me to come play."
Sis-cons must be corrected!
In this world, apart from childhood friends, everyone else is a thieving cat, and little sisters are no exception!
The morning half of the day passed by in a flash.
Lunch break.
Sora picked up his bento box, stood up, and left the classroom, planning to eat his bento outside.
Today, there was no 'fateful encounter' in the Losing Heroine Diary, so Anna didn't follow him. Instead, she stayed in the classroom to mooch food and drinks. Because her expression when eating was super cute, girls often fed Anna.
After finishing up his business in the restroom, Sora was just about to head to the roof to eat his bento when the phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated.
Taking it out to look, it was actually a message from Gokou Ruri.
"...Sora-kun, do you have time right now?"
Sora: "I'm just about to go to the roof to eat my bento."
Gokou Ruri: "Then I'll come to the roof to find you."
Sora: "See you in a bit."
Although he didn't know what Kuroneko wanted, helping to purify her magic power would yield versatile experience points; only an idiot would refuse.
Sora put his phone away, took his bento up to the roof, and sat down on an empty bench in the corner.
Before long, a fair-skinned girl with long, straight black hair styled in a hime cut walked over.
"Good afternoon, Sora-kun."
Ruri hugged her bento and greeted him quietly.
"Good afternoon." Sora looked over curiously. "Did the side effects appear again so soon?"
"No, everything has been very normal since yesterday..."
Ruri gently shook her head. She sat down next to Sora, keeping her legs together, and placed the bento box on her lap.
Sora's gaze involuntarily drifted downwards.
Today, Kuroneko was wearing black thigh-high socks. Black is slimming, making the girl's legs look even more slender and cute. Paired with the pink bento box, it was extremely pleasing to the eye.
"Today, I first wanted to thank Sora-kun." As Ruri spoke, she took out a can of coffee. "This is the boon I promised yesterday. Drinking it will relieve fatigue and improve studying efficiency."
Sora: "..."
Even if you describe it with flowery words, it's still just an ordinary can of coffee, alright!
"Then I will accept it." The drink wasn't expensive, so Sora didn't refuse. He took the coffee and casually handed over a carton of milk. "Here's milk for you."
"Eh?"
Ruri looked up in confusion. The teardrop mole at the corner of the girl's eye was quite cute under the sunlight.
"I mentioned it yesterday, my ability allows me to grow stronger by helping Witches." Sora explained casually. "When I helped Ruri-san purify the magic power yesterday, I also gained a lot. This is my return gift."
"...Then I shall begrudgingly accept this tribute."
Ruri hesitated for two seconds, blushing as she reached out to take the milk.
"There is one more thing." Ruri lowered her voice, leaning her body forward. "When I left home this morning, I heard the echoes of destiny."
Catching the faint scent coming from Kuroneko, Sora gave her a speechless look.
"Which anime setting is this from again?"
"Anyway, when I left home this morning, I saw a flyer posted at the intersection. The issuer is a woman, and the contents stated that her contracted beast has gone missing." Ruri lowered her voice, dropping the chunibyo speech for the moment. "So I wanted to ask Sora-kun to team up with me to search for that lost cat."
What happened to 'contracted beast'?
So it's just a lost cat after all!
Sora reminded her softly.
"Overusing your ability will cause the side effects to appear rapidly."
"I know." Ruri's eyes sparkled brightly. Because there were other students on the roof, Kuroneko subconsciously leaned closer to Sora and lowered her voice. "But that orange cat is super valuable!"
"Hmm?"
Sora put his bento box down.
Now that you've mentioned value, I'm wide awake.
"The cat's owner stated on the missing cat poster that anyone who can help find her lost contracted beast will receive 200,000 yen as a reward." Ruri's eyes sparkled, showing no intention of hiding her desire for money. "I can communicate with cats and can rally stray cats to help search for the lost orange cat, but if I overuse the ability, I'll grow a weird tail again... That's why I want Sora-kun to act together with me."
"If I really do grow a weird tail, I'm begging Sora-kun to help purify the magic power right away."
"As for the 200,000 yen reward, we'll split it fifty-fifty."
"..."
For an ordinary high school student, 200,000 yen was undoubtedly a massive sum of money. Moreover, from his memories, Kuroneko's family was actually quite strapped for cash, so she naturally didn't want to miss this opportunity.
Sora swallowed the mini sausage in his mouth and looked at the black-haired girl sitting beside him.
"Half is too much..."
In the matter of finding the cat, Sora couldn't help at all. And helping to purify the magic power required no real effort; on the contrary, he could harvest versatile experience points. No matter how you looked at it, he was the one profiting. Taking half the reward made him feel completely unworthy.
"No, we must split it fifty-fifty." Ruri shook her head firmly. Her beautiful purple pupils, courtesy of colored contacts, sparkled like jewels in the sunlight. "So many partners in the world end up parting ways simply because of uneven distribution."
"During break time, I searched online with my phone and saw that there are missing cat posters all over the country... Look, look."
Ruri pulled out her phone. Ignoring the usual distance between boys and girls, she leaned right up against Sora, holding the phone in front of him and swiping the screen with a slender white index finger.
"A while ago in Kyoto, someone's contracted beast went missing, and the owner even offered an astronomical bounty of 1,000,000 yen!"
When talking about the million-yen bounty, Ruri's pupils practically turned into the shape of yen symbols.
Even Sora was a bit surprised, but on second thought, it didn't seem so strange.
In modern-day Japan, marriage rates and newborn birth rates had repeatedly hit record lows, replaced by a pet population that increased year by year.
Humans actually deeply need emotional sustenance. Many of those who don't date or marry choose to raise a pet for companionship. Once their pet goes missing, most people will be incredibly anxious and desperate to find their pet. If it's an owner who doesn't lack money, a million-yen bounty really wasn't strange.
"I want to forge an eternal partner contract with Sora-kun, not just a whim." Ruri sat up straight, her gaze looking over expectantly. "In the future, if there are suitable bounty commissions, we will go search for the lost contracted beasts together... Therefore, only by splitting it evenly can the partnership last a long time."
"An eternal contract..."
Sora quickly understood.
"Ruri-san wants to form a party for life, right?"
"F-For life..."
Ruri blinked her bright eyes. Her pretty face suddenly flushed crimson, and she hurriedly lowered her head to look at her toes.
(If... if the side effects can never be permanently cured, then I truly wouldn't be able to leave Sora-kun for the rest of my life, right?)