Chapter 6 - Would You Like to Touch My...

Leo listened as she explained that she hadn't been idle for the past 200 years. Even with her magic severely limited by the seal, she had spent that time trying to decipher the barrier. At her current pace, she estimated it would take roughly 1,200 years just to interpret it.

Of course, for a mortal like her, interpreting a god's barrier was absurd. Even if she succeeded, breaking it in her current state would be an entirely different challenge.

"Ah, then now and before are different, right?" Leo asked.

"Different?" Iris repeated, her voice filled with confusion.

"I'm here now," Leo said with a reassuring smile.

He began to wonder if there was a way to escape without having to lift the barrier. His thoughts turned to artifacts—there was a department store that sold an escape artifact meant for those trapped in magical gates. While it was expensive enough to make one cry, he thought it could be manageable with enough effort.

However, there was something Leo overlooked entirely. From the beginning of human history, Earth had overflowed with magical artifacts and tools, yet the existence of gods had never been definitively proven. Some transcendent beings were described in ancient tales, but scholars still debated whether they were truly gods or simply powerful individuals, akin to S-class hunters.

Leo had no way of knowing what kind of being the World Tree's gods were, nor what they represented in this present world. It was a shallow imagination on his part, but it allowed him to focus on the immediate problem.

"I came from another world called Earth," Leo said.

"Yes...? Another world?" Iris asked, her eyes wide with curiosity.

Leo explained his journey to Iris as clearly as he could, leaving out the part about the dating app. It wasn't something he was particularly proud of, and his pride wouldn't allow him to admit that he'd been transported here because of it.

Of course, Iris wouldn't know what a dating app was, but Leo hadn't anticipated that he might have to explain it to her. Instead, he chose to focus on his cellphone, unsure how to explain its function.

"It seems the development of magical tools in this world is less advanced than I thought," Leo muttered to himself.

"So you're saying that you dimensionally teleported to our world through this... communication device in your world?" Iris asked, gesturing toward his phone.

"Yes," Leo confirmed, surprised at how quickly Iris seemed to grasp the concept with minimal explanation.

It was surprising how easily she understood, despite his poor attempts at explaining it. Her reaction to dimension travel, however, was surprisingly bland.

"Is it because it sounds ridiculous?" Leo wondered silently.

Rather, it seemed that Iris was more interested in the cellphone itself. Even without speaking, her expression said as much.

"Would you like to try using it yourself?" Leo asked.

"Is that okay...?"

"Of course."

"Oh, thank you," Iris said, her tone polite yet eager.

Leo handed over his phone to Iris, who had been staring at it as if mesmerized. He patiently explained various things to her, satisfying her curiosity as she fiddled happily with the device.

Her expression turned to one of disappointment when he told her she couldn't access the internet at the moment. The look was so adorable that he couldn't help but want to capture it in a photo.

"The way an elf reacts while using a five-star phone," he mused.

"If I uploaded this to NewTube, it'd probably get a million views in a day," he thought with a smirk.

"By the way, I guess I'm the only one who can see the 'otherworldly dating app,'" he muttered to himself.

He tried showing Iris the app just in case, but she didn't seem to notice anything unusual. It seemed like the app wasn't actively matching him with women from this other world but had instead transported him to a place where women already met his criteria.

"I think I'll try matching a few more times," Leo thought, though he quickly brushed the idea off as a distant dream for now.

"Leo..." Iris called out suddenly.

"Huh? Why is she calling me?" Leo turned his head without thinking.

When he glanced at the screen Iris held up, it felt as if someone had struck him in the back of the head.

The screen displayed a very familiar image: a photo of an porn actress with large, exposed breasts, free of any censorship.

"I just recently added this to my gallery. Why is it showing up now?" Leo panicked internally.

"Didn't I tell you not to open the gallery?" he muttered under his breath.

Although the photo was relatively recent, it wasn't the only one he'd saved. If Iris had seen this picture, it meant she'd likely seen others—ones even racier and far more aligned with his personal taste.

"Leo, do you like this kind of stuff...?" Iris asked hesitantly, her voice quiet.

Leo was struck speechless. The situation was like going on a blind date and somehow showing the other person the most explicit and private photos you owned.

"Of course, I've never even been on a blind date before!" Leo thought, his internal voice screaming.

"Hey, just kill yourself," a hallucination-like voice from his instincts mocked.

At that moment, just as he contemplated burying his face in a bowl of water out of sheer embarrassment, he heard Iris's trembling voice.

She approached him, her face looking as though it might burst from the tension, and grabbed his hand tightly.

"Would you like to touch my chest...?" Iris asked softly, her tone both hesitant and serious.