Chapter 43: Kyoto School Trip (V)

"Yes. We are quintuplets." The five sisters spoke in synchronisation.

"Wow! I haven't even seen twins before! Nice to meet you!" Shouko bowed slightly as she went up to them and started talking, leaving me alone in the middle of the room with my pack of cards.

I was abandoned...

"Don't worry, Fuutarou-kun. I'm here with you." Ichika spoke.

"Thanks, Ichika-san. You don't mind me calling you that, right? Calling you Nakano-san when all five of you are together is a bit...weird."

Imagine calling out 'Nakano-san' to refer to any one of the five sisters, and all five responded simultaneously.

Wait, it might actually be quite fun to see their synchronized reactions.

"Why do you refer Miku as Miku-chan, and me as Ichika-san?"

"Well-"

"Call me with -onee-chan!"

"But you're younger than me?"

"But I'm the oldest amongst the quintuplets. So I am an onee-chan. So call me onee-chan as well."

What have you being the oldest amongst the quintuplets, got to do with anything with me?

"Fine. I'll call Ichika-chan since you're younger than me."

"Mou...fine. It's better than Ichika-san, at least."

Girls are weird. They pay attention to the least significant thing.

"Nino! Yotsuba! Itsuki! Let's all play Uno together! Fuutarou-kun said that he was bored!"

Hey! I never said anything like that! Stop putting words into my mouth.

"I'm not going to lose now." Shouko hyped herself up as she sat beside me.

"Shouko-chan lost just now?" Miku asked as she planted herself to my other side while her four sisters sat themselves down, creating a circle.

"She didn't just lo-mpffhhh!"

I was about to comment on how she lost terribly when she suddenly covered my mouth with her hands, preventing me from talking.

"You don't have to report all my losses..." Shouko said shyly, trying not to remember the three-lose streak caused by her own mistakes.

Not teasing Shouko any further, I patted her head and spoke, "Fine. Let's play a fresh start, shall we?"

They all agreed, and we started playing.

Uno is an American shedding-type card game that is played with a specially printed deck. I won't go into the details since many would know how Uno works, but it's basically a game aiming to get rid of all the cards in your hands while trying to add as many cards as possible to your opponents' hand.

Uno is a game that could go on for a long time if there was a sufficient number of players. The seven of us played for about an or two, and sadly, Shouko lost most of the time.

In the end, she didn't even want to play anymore. She just laid her head down on my lap, enjoying herself on my lap.

"Yoshi, yoshi...you're just unlucky today..."

I comforted her as I started patting her head with one hand and placed down my card using the other.

"Reverse!"

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[Congratulations, Host! You have gained Advanced Proficiency for Head-patting (0/500) due to repeated acts of doing the said action 10 000 times.]

[Hidden Quest completed: Gain an advanced proficiency without the use of the system.]

Description: Don't rely too much on the system! Most of the time, hard work would pay off!

Passing Criteria: Gain an advanced proficiency without the use of the system.

Rewards: 2x normal gacha

Additional rewards: The rarer the type of proficiency gained, the more additional rewards Host would get. (E.g. There would be more rewards earned by achieving a [Free solo climbing proficiency] as compared to a [Riding proficiency] as Free solo climbing is considered a more advanced skill to have as compared to riding a bicycle or motorbike.)

Failure: None

System tips: This quest is hidden until revealed. (Duh!)

*****************

[Hidden quest completed, calculating rewards...]

[Rewards are being issued.]

[2x normal gacha + 1x special opportunity token]

Wow...I sure did not expect this, but it was a welcomed surprise. And why is the system getting more...sarcastic?

And what is a 'special opportunity token' anyway?

[Special opportunity token is to be used under ??? situation.]

Wow. Thank you. I have gained a lot of information from that. Out of the 5Ws and 1H, I only know when, who, and perhaps, a little 'why' to use it. As for what, where, and how to use it, I'm clueless.

I can only hope that the system would at least inform me when I can use this token.

[Don't worry, Host. A system prompt will automatically appear when the time comes.]

Thank you, then.

"Fuu-kun?"

"Hm?"

"Why...never mind. It must have just been my imagination." Shouko shook her head and continued resting her head on my lap.

Was she going to ask me about my patting? Did my skill automatically enhance my patting skills?

Still, why did I only get this skill by myself? Going by the system's logic, with that many years of living and doing different things, shouldn't I be getting a bunch of basic skills?

[And that is precisely why the system wouldn't display those 'bunch of basic skills' as they are not only not very important, but also a waste of word count and space.]

I see. Does the system have a limited area of a display screen or something?

[No. It just requires too much divinity to expand it, so unless it's an essential proficiency, the system will choose not to display it.]

"Zzz..."

As we continued playing Uno till the dead of the night, Shouko slowly fell asleep halfway. I could see that she was sleeping soundly on my lap while hugging my waist as her bolster.

The quintuplets weren't doing any better. Their energy was slowly dropping as we switched games from time to time to not get too bored. Finally, when Miku fell asleep halfway first, the other four followed suit almost immediately, with Yotsuba being the last one to fall asleep, slumping their bodies on the floor as they slept.

They genuinely are quintuplets...even their energy levels are almost the same.

Now...I look around as I heard peaceful snores all around me.

Sigh, now it's up to me to put them in their futons, huh?

I slowly placed Shouko's head on the floor after prying her fingers off my waist before standing up and stretching.

Ahh~. My legs are stiff are sitting down for a long time.

The room that I was currently in was located at the corner of the inn, so out of the four 'walls', two could be opened to reach the courtyard, one was separating this room from the adjacent rooms, and the last one opened to the corridor.

I opened a tiny gap in one of the doors and exited outside to the courtyard.

The night was very peaceful today. Apart from the six girls' soft snores and the cicadas' chirping outside, it was very silent.

The air outside was fresh, and I could feel the cool, windy breeze blowing at my face.

I glanced at the cloudless, ink-black sky, and out of the countless twinkling stars, the biggest one easily attracted my attention.

The moon. Well, technically, the moon wasn't a start, but you get what I mean.

A full moon at the start of the month. Completion, the height of power, the realisation of your desires, and the peak of clarity. These are what the full moon represents.

I don't know whether it was a coincidence or not, but I feel those symbolisations might actually be true. Strangely enough, although I would usually be sleeping at this time of the night, I don't feel tired at all.

Well, even though I don't feel tired, it was unhealthy to stay up too late at night, especially when you have nothing else to do. That was something that I learned the hard way years ago.

Looking at this bright moon, it reminded me that...

"Boy...? What are you doing here so late?"

"Ah!" I let out a small scream before immediately covering my mouth.

God...the voice scared me! I look at where the voice came from, and I found an old grandma facing me with her eyes closed and a small but worried smile. But she was only a few centimetres away from me, causing me to stumble back to put some distance between us.

"Haha...sorry to startle you, boy."

"Obaa-san...it's bad for my heart to scare me like that..."

I usually have nothing against grandmas, but this grandma is scary. Being so close to me yet not letting me notice her until she spoke was a skill that no ordinary people would have.

Her attire was as strange as her personality. She wore a green hat with matching green Yukata and apron - a weird combination of apparel. Her hair sticking out at the back of the hat was curly, while the exposed hair at the front of straight.

[Picture here->]

"You young little people, if you have hearts that could stop because of one old grandma, then what about us oldies' hearts?" The grandma shook her head as she sat herself down on the porch, stretching her short legs on the grass, "Would you mind giving me a massage?"

"No." Since I had someone to accompany in this dead of the night, I might as well do something for the old grandma. I started massaging her as she asked me to, careful not to use so much strength so that I don't accidentally hurt her.

"Sigh...what are young people eating nowadays? Even my husband has more strength than you, and he's been dead for some years already."

Wow, this just turned dark real fast. Did the grandma just compare my strength to the strength of a corpse? Fine, if you want more strength...

"Oh? It turns out you still have some strength." The grandma spoke with slight surprise, but her eyes remained close as she enjoyed the spur-of-the-moment message, "It's better, but not at his level yet."

Seriously? I have already used 60% of my strength, comparable to an average teenage athlete's strength. How durable is this grandma?!

"Ah...this is good. It's at least enough to reach deep into my old bones. My husband can still do better, though."

Ignoring her comment about her husband, I continued my massage.

"Ano...obaa-san?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you out here so late?"

"And why are you out here so late?" The grandma replied to my question with the exact same question I asked her.

"Urgh...fine. I was playing cards until my friends fell asleep."

"Staying up too late isn't very good for you, boy."

"Same goes to you, obaa-san. You shouldn't be walking around in the dark. What if you accidentally trip over a pebble or something?"

"Don't talk nonsense. This place is basically my house. Do you trip over things at your own house?"

"Sometimes I do."

"Well, that just means you haven't lived long enough at your house yet."

Wow. Ok. I don't even know how to reply to that.

Silence ensued as I continued my massage for the next fifteen minutes.

"Ahh...thank you for the massage, boy. It's been years since my husband and son gave me a massage. And my granddaughter is too young to exert any strength on my old bones."

"Where is your son?"

"Somewhere far away..." The grandma said with melancholy.

"I'm sorry to hear that - OW!" I was about to pay my condolences when I suddenly got smacked.

"Don't curse my son out of nowhere. My son is literally in a place far away, and he brought his daughter with him to explore and photograph the world." The grandma said, her eyes never opened once during the entire motion.

How do you even see with your eyes closed?! And don't say something so misleading in such a sad tone! Anyone with common sense would have also inferred what I inferred.

"It's okay. I'll forgive you for your ignorance."

I haven't even said anything yet, granny, and you already forgive me? This granny is just going on at her own pace now...

"Sigh, little boy. So tell me, what is your problem?"

"Huh? I have no problems, though?"

"Don't lie. You wouldn't be out here in the middle of the night in the cold if you were just bored."

This granny is sharp, huh? Though I don't feel the cold.

"Hm...obaa-san, have you ever thought about how life is filled with regrets?"

"Of course. When you're at my age, the number of regrets I have is probably more than the number of days you have lived. But so what? Regrets are just those - regrets. They can't do anything to you unless you actively choose to embrace it. Do you have some regrets? Like doing something bad? Cheating in a test, for example?"

My lips twitched. I'm sorry, but the scope of what I'm asking is much more than cheating on a simple test.

"Nope. My life so far is regret-free, and my plan for the future is to ensure that it remains the same."

The granny turned to face me before breaking into smiles.

"Seems like you really don't have any problems."

More like I had resolved all of them early in my life. Adapting to a place filled with girls thirsty for shotas isn't easy, you know? Sniff, sniff...

Well, soon, I'll be graduating from my shota status.

Besides, how can I live a life with no regrets if I keep looking back at the past and regretting stuff?

"Yep~."

"Well, take care of your girlfriends, alright? I'll bring in some extra futons for you."

"Thank you. And I only have one girlfriend. The quintuplets are friends that I had just met today."

The granny didn't reply to my words and just shuffled off.

Jeez...

After spending some time outside, I finally heard the door open. I went back inside the room and saw the granny carrying seven futons on her back.

Is it not heavy?! Does your back not ache from the weight of the seven futons?!

"There you go, boy. I called your teacher with the number you gave me, and they said that they'll pick you up tomorrow at 6pm. Make sure that you don't oversleep."

"So early?"

"Can't be helped. Your teachers said your return trip was at 7am."

"Okay then. Thank you for the futons, Obaa-san. Have a good night."

"Don't oversleep." The granny repeated her words before closing the door.

I laid out the seven futons on the floor before carrying each girl to one of them and tucking them in, though I highly doubt that they will remain in them for long since their sleeping posture is...

Unique.

Unsurprisingly, they were all very light and, ahem, soft. I have no other intentions there apart from wanting to carry them into their futons.

After placing Shouko into her futon as well and planting a kiss on Shouko's forehead, I slipped into my own futon as well before closing my eyes.

Sigh...this is the last day in Kyoto, huh? I'm going to miss it. I don't know when I'll get the opportunity to come here again.

"System, use one normal gacha token."

[Spinning...]

[Host has gained 2x Permanent token.]

"Huh? What does it do?"

[As the name suggests, it allows something to be 'permanent'. For example, if you use it on your height now, this would be your permanent height even after you die.]

Hmm...I have no idea what to make of it. And more importantly, I can't seem to think of a time where I would need that token. Maybe to make some rapist permanently lose his ability to be sexually aroused?

"System, use the other normal gacha token."

[Spinning...]

[Host has gained...]

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A/N:I'm not going to state the last one. Just look at the status chapter, and you will see it. For your information, other than everyday items, nothing is useless. Everything that Fuutarou gains will be for the future plot. If you can actually guess what it is used for, I will applaud and...do nothing. I updated the status a little. For those who are complaining about the senzu beans, which no one should be at this point in time, I described all the items present in the status.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The Kyoto arc is finally over. But fret not. This would not be the last time he will see them. Perhaps there will be a chance to meet in middle school?

I have many things planned in middle school, and I assure you that it would be as enjoyable as high school. Mostly, the middle school will be made of plenty of original plots by yours truly, unless you do have some middle school anime you want me to add? I'm sure I'll be able to think of something. There should be two more teeny-mini-events in childhood before volume 2 comes out. His music career will also explode before settling down just before high school again, and I'll be adding Forest of Piano (maybe).

The next chapter will be a slice-of-life chapter with no major plot. Since I have the tag 'slice of life', I would need to add it in occasionally.

Author's Rambling (A/R): NOOO! Season 2 of Gotoubun no Hanayome is over, and it ended so shittily! Well, I'm waiting for season 3 and the five kisses with Fuutarou in like a few years. Still waiting for No Game No Life season 2. I've heard Happy Sugar Life's OP song before but never knew where it was from. Turns out both the music and anime itself were pretty...amazing.