At eight minutes past eleven in the evening.
Chansan's favorability degree towards Y-san was 29 (acquaintance).
Hoshino Gen yawned boredly. On the coffee table were several bags of snack wrappers, an instant noodle box with only soup left, half a can of Red Bull and an unopened can of concentrated coffee.
Among the messy snacks and drinks, that black demon sword was placed there casually. One could grasp the hilt at any time as long as reaching out, and it could be drawn out of its sheath immediately with just a little force.
Hoshino Gen really wanted to draw the sword and slash at that TV right now. He had almost poured all the honeyed words he had in his life into this TV today. Since the input box appeared in the evening, it had never disappeared. The multiple-choice questions were gone, and all the conversations with Chansan had become manual input!
Although it was no problem to tell lies to ghosts, after saying so many lies in a row, Hoshino Gen not only felt that his emotional intelligence was soaring, but he almost felt like he was turning into a ghost himself!
Unable to resist, he yawned again out of extreme boredom. Just when Hoshino Gen was thinking that there were so many fierce ghosts in the world and it wouldn't matter if he gave up on one, the mobile phone he had thrown on the coffee table rang.
He craned his neck to look at the caller, and it showed "The cutest sister in the world~(ღ˘⌣˘ღ)".
"..." Hoshino Gen was silent for a moment and then answered the call.
"Oni-chan, could you please come downstairs to pick me up?" The voice on the phone was very soft, completely in a coquettish tone. However, if one's hearing was sharp enough, one could notice a slight tremble in the voice, which was obviously an attempt to hide her own fear.
Well, this sister had completely become a coward.
"Got it." Hoshino Gen's voice sounded a bit helpless. He would have liked to ignore it, but actually, this was still his fault after all. After all, he was the one who brought the sword back, and this home was also Hoshino Rin's home.
The usage rate of the elevator was significantly lower in the late night. Hoshino Gen only took three minutes to go downstairs and bring Hoshino Rin back.
The brightly lit living room made Hoshino Rin completely relax. She changed her shoes at the entrance, took off her mask and baseball cap, stretched her small body a little and then followed Hoshino Gen into the living room.
Seeing the messy scene on the coffee table, Hoshino Rin widened her eyes in surprise: "Brother, were those your dinner?"
Hoshino Gen ignored her and couldn't help yawning again. He sat back behind the coffee table again. The favorability degree of this wretched game would decrease if the player left, and the longer the time, the more it would drop. Fortunately, this wasn't a proper game. Otherwise, if it was released through formal channels, its sales would definitely be a disaster!
Although it had only been a little over a day, Hoshino Rin had already gotten used to the way her brother behaved after revealing his true nature. It didn't matter if he ignored her. Who made you an "SSR"? As a资深网瘾少女 (a资深internet-addicted girl), Hoshino Rin deeply understood the truth that the harder it was to obtain something, the more precious it was.
Hoshino Rin stepped forward to tidy up the coffee table. However, as soon as she got closer, she saw something familiar.
It was a long black sword. Even though it was almost buried by the snack bags, its existence was still so conspicuous.
Hoshino Rin's face turned a little pale. She remembered that last night, she accidentally touched this sword and then started dying repeatedly in her dreams...
Noticing the abnormality, Hoshino Gen quietly picked up the sword on the coffee table and stuffed it under the carpet. He was so confused by playing the game that he forgot to put the sword away before going downstairs.
With the thing that had brought psychological shadows disappearing from her sight, Hoshino Rin's expression relaxed. She swallowed: "O... Oni-chan, what was that?"
"A handicraft bought on the street."
"Liar!" Hoshino Rin resolutely expressed her distrust of her brother.
"Believe it or not." Hoshino Gen didn't care at all. His lazy eyes were fixed on the TV screen, and then he was surprised to find that the chat input box had disappeared at some point, and the interactive dialogues with Chansan had options again.
After thinking for a while, Hoshino Gen figured out the problem. He glanced at his sister who was glaring at him angrily beside him - it seemed that the dialogue options also disappeared in the afternoon after Rin left.
Could it be that this ghost also knew how to be shy? Would it feel embarrassed when there were more people around?
Hoshino Gen raised his eyebrows. Great! Multiple-choice questions were much easier than subjective ones!
And Hoshino Rin, seeing that her brother was quickly immersed in the game again and had no intention of paying attention to her anymore, immediately lost her spirit. Finally, she made a face at Hoshino Gen and turned around and left.
After taking a bath, Hoshino Rin was lying on the sofa at the back in her nightdress and sleeping on her side. Hoshino Gen was still sitting in front of the coffee table and fighting hard.
Originally, Hoshino Gen wanted to stay up all night to see if he could raise the favorability degree to sixty before going to school. But in the end, he still overestimated his patience. For him, who was neither a lolicon nor a fan of love simulation games, the boredom level of this game was second only to having math classes!
At a little past four in the morning, in the midst of the soothing and quiet background music, Hoshino Gen fell headlong onto the blanket beneath him and fell into a deep sleep.
Zzzt...
The TV screen flickered slightly, and the game screen and the snowflake screen switched back and forth. But at this time, the demon sword that Hoshino Gen had stuffed under the carpet trembled twice, and the flickering screen instantly returned to normal, and even the game automatically crashed and closed.
The dim living room finally became completely quiet.
...
Hoshino Gen was woken up by his sister. When he opened his eyes in a daze, the world outside the floor-to-ceiling windows with a circular screen was already bright.
Hoshino Rin was still wearing that white nightdress, and her long hair was in a messy state, which showed that she had just got up as well.
Hoshino Rin was sitting on the carpet like a duck. Seeing that Hoshino Gen opened his eyes and sat up, she covered her mouth and yawned with one hand, and handed her mobile phone showing the time to her brother with the other hand.
In a soft and cute but also listless voice, she said: "Oni-chan, it seems you're going to be late for school."
Maybe because he was still a bit sleepy and didn't have a good sense of space, that latest model iPhone was almost about to have a close contact with Hoshino Gen's face.
Hoshino Gen wasn't nearsighted. On the contrary, his eyesight was surprisingly good, so he had to lean back a little to see the time shown on that mobile phone - nine thirty-five.
The morning class time of the high school department of Setogawa Private Academy was eight forty in the morning. So he wasn't just going to be late, but he was already late.
He replied with a listless "Hmm". Hoshino Gen really wanted to lie down again and take a nap, but soon he remembered something, and he immediately became completely awake.
He hurriedly looked at the TV screen and found that the game screen of "Red Skirt" had disappeared. Now what was shown on the screen was the desktop of the computer connected to the TV.
Hoshino Gen quickly grabbed the mouse on the coffee table and double-clicked the icon of "Red Skirt". The moment the familiar game screen appeared in front of his eyes, his eyes immediately looked at the favorability degree column. Just like the last time he looked there last night, it was still "37 (acquaintance)".
Hoshino Gen breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, his efforts hadn't been in vain.