I really don't want to have a girlfriend.

"In that case, the 'fourth place' may have sensed something was wrong in advance and, in order not to repeat the mistakes of others, hid in the shadows, remaining unchanged until the situation became clear."

Tenkuji Yu suddenly realized.

"Just like a clever moth that sees another of its kind flying towards a flame, it deliberately avoids the light source and will not approach until it is sure whether it is a light bulb or a flame..."

He couldn't help but smile, praising her from the bottom of his heart: "Such a cautious mind, she truly is worthy of being my girlfriend!"

Her eyebrows twitched slightly, and Kasumigaoka Utaha gave him an unhappy glance—this guy, saying these things during a serious reasoning process, really doesn't know how to read the room.

And what's with this "cautious" attitude? You're just as cunning as a fox, aren't you?

Since those girls knew of each other's existence and were willing to come to the dangerous place to save their boyfriends, it meant that they had already accepted that they were members of his harem. Ha, she had seen palace dramas before. Her mother watched "Empresses in the Palace" at home every day. In it, the empresses and concubines would talk about being sisters, but secretly they were scheming against each other. They were incredibly cunning.

The fourth person is clearly the kind of player who is particularly cunning.

Let others step on the landmines first, and don't come out until it's completely safe—people like that are either foxes or rats!

...While such caution is good news for them.

"We now have two directions."

After summarizing the information she provided, Tenkuji Yu gestured in the air with his finger and began to explain calmly: "First, the movements of Kanaria's human form—I will first go and collect information on [Yuuki Asuna] and [Natsukawa Masuzu]. If we can confirm their whereabouts before Miss Kanaria comes to me, then we will take the initiative to go and find them, and monitor them as closely as possible."

"Even if their disappearance is unavoidable, we must find out when and how they disappeared."

"Close surveillance?" Kasumigaoka Utaha couldn't help but sigh. "With them not remembering you, this is the behavior of a perverted stalker. It's amazing that you could make such a decision."

Yuu Tenkuji always felt that she was subtly mocking his thick skin.

But it didn't matter. He simply looked intently into her eyes and said, word by word:

That's why I need you.

"Kasumigaoka Utaha, you are indispensable to me. I can't do anything if you're not here."

"I need you. Please remember that."

The voice was infused with power; only words spoken from the heart possess such unquestionable force.

"..."

Kasumigaoka Utaha blinked blankly, seemingly not quite reacting to the sudden change in atmosphere, or perhaps captivated by the sincere and affectionate light shining in his eyes, leaving her speechless and unable to utter a single word.

Within seconds, she forced herself to snap out of her daze and instinctively looked away from his gaze.

"Is...is that so..."

She gently curled her long hair that hung down to her chest, suppressed the pounding of her heart, and said casually, "Of course, I understand my own importance. But you don't have to use such an exaggerated way of putting it, do you? It feels like a confession, which is a bit disgusting."

"It's alright, I'm glad you understand."

Tenkuji Yuu revealed an innocent smile, his eyes full of encouragement.

"So, the work of contacting them (including surveillance) will be entirely yours. Thank you for your hard work in advance."

"...Huh?"

Kasumigaoka Utaha slowly turned her head, her clear and beautiful wine-red eyes wide open like copper bells, staring at him in disbelief.

This time, however, it was Tenkuji Yu who turned her gaze away and said nonchalantly, "This is also for their own good, to avoid the possibility of accidents happening if they come into contact with me... So the second point is to conduct an investigation at the school."

Kasumigaoka Utaha said coldly, "I'm not saying this to be mean, but your skill at changing the subject is as bad as a frog's pee."

"Don't interrupt." Yuu Tenkuji waved her hand, and with the sound of her irritated foot shaking in the background, she continued, "The fact that Toyonosaki Academy has two 'girlfriends' and us is noteworthy in itself... We must turn Toyonosaki Academy upside down and focus on collecting all kinds of supernatural events or ghost stories. We must find the extraordinary in the ordinary."

"Are you sure this will lead to the 'gate'?" Kasumigaoka Utaha asked, raising an eyebrow as she crossed her arms.

"Of course it's uncertain, but we should be able to find something, right?" Tenkuji Yu shrugged. "Also, as you said, the system doesn't have the extra energy to allow the trial space to cycle repeatedly within a year like Sora does."

"And I've confirmed that the trial space is only within Tokyo. Let alone going abroad, even if I take the train to another prefecture, I'll just return to Chiba directly, so there's no way to explore more areas."

"So I guess they all used the same standards to design a world—fixed time, fixed space to avoid waste, and focusing on the things around us, so that all events develop and extend within this circle."

"The trial world is Soubu High School, so the center of this world should be Toyonosaki Academy without a doubt."

After giving a thorough and detailed analysis, Yuu Tenkuji said to Utaha Kasumigaoka, "Even if we can't find the gate to leave this world, I think there should be clues we need in Toyonosaki."

“Then we need to allocate our time well.” She nodded, crossed her long, beautiful legs, and then crossed her left leg over her right. She propped up her delicate, fair face with one hand and pondered, “We still have four days. If we want to complete this cycle in one go, we can’t fall behind on either side… Luckily, we don’t have to go to school or rush to finish our manuscripts now, so we can focus all our time on exploration.”

"I have no family in this world, so you should also consider your parents' feelings, right?"

If there were a fake Sora in this world, Yuu Tenkuji wouldn't be able to leave her alone and run around with girls every day.

Even if they are just NPCs designed by humans, their families hold the same important place in their hearts and are a weakness that cannot be guarded against.

“Don’t worry, I used to rent rooms or stay in hotels to write when I needed to meet deadlines, and then I would ask Ms. Machida to bring me food or something.” Kasumigaoka Utaha shook her head, indicating that he didn’t need to worry about these things. “I insist on doing it this way, and they’re used to it.”

"Instead of letting my parents watch me go crazy in front of the computer day and night, worrying about my health from morning till night, I'd rather go out and focus on my work, and let the editor, an adult, comfort them... Honestly, I should have said I was old enough to be independent."

Tenkuji Yu responded to her sigh with a dismissive attitude.

"You're only eighteen years old. You haven't completely left the greenhouse of school yet. Don't think you're so mature."

Kasumigaoka Utaha wasn't offended. A slight smirk played on her lips, and her eyes narrowed into slits with a playful expression: "So, may I ask how old you are now? Junior... no, adult who transmigrated here to pretend to be young?"

"I'm just a former office worker. Anyway, I won't do anything that would worry my family."

Yuu Tenkuji didn't intend to continue the topic and quickly got back on track: "As long as we are free to move around, then for the rest of the time... or rather, until we leave this world, we must go in and out together. Unless we have to split up, we should try to stay in each other's sight to avoid any accidents."

“I understand, this is the safest method.” Kasumigaoka Utaha nodded readily.

Then, after a few seconds, she suddenly stopped, as if she had heard some shocking news, and her whole body inexplicably stiffened.

Her lips parted slightly in surprise, and her blank, wide eyes reflected the calm expression of Tenkuji Yu.

After a long while, she finally spoke in a thin voice, as if to confirm:

What did you just say?

With a helpless smile, and just in case she still didn't understand, Yuu Tenkuji deliberately used a way of speaking that she would probably like, and repeated it again with a natural expression—

“I said, from now on, you will be living with me at my current place.”

"..."

"Don't worry, this is just to ensure your safety and facilitate our operations. Nothing bad will happen as you imagine."

Tenkuji Yu offered a few words of comfort: "Besides, my place is quite big. You can sleep in a guest room on the first floor, so I won't go downstairs to raid you at night."

Kasumigaoka Utaha remained silent, only her fair skin flushed slightly, and her twitching cheeks seemed to be suppressing some emotion, as if a volcanic eruption was about to occur on her face.

In response, Yuu Tenkuji simply suppressed her smile and placed her hands together on her knees.

Stop joking, his expression and tone both turned serious, and he slowly spoke with a firm and solemn expression:

"Most importantly, there's someone you'd like to meet."

Chapter 123 Saving the World

Yuu Tenkuji arrived at Kasumigaoka's house in the afternoon.

Although they had spent a lot of time in their memories and experienced things that could be described in tens of thousands of words, in reality, they had only met for less than half an hour. It was a very short time, which would have felt like no matter who came out first after the door was closed.

At least that's what Kasumigaoka's mother thinks.

Instead of hiding by the door to eavesdrop, she stayed in the living room watching TV, with a bowl of freshly washed fruit on the table.

I wanted to serve it to them, but I was afraid of disturbing their "good time," so I could only prepare it for now. If there was any noise from upstairs, I could use delivering fruit as an excuse to go and check on the situation.

Curiosity kept tickling her chest, and her gaze kept glancing upstairs. Kasumigaoka's mother couldn't concentrate on the variety show at all. Even the slightest vibration of the ceiling would make her, who had experienced many hardships, start to have all sorts of thoughts.

I'm somewhat looking forward to my seemingly aloof but actually withdrawn daughter finding love soon, but I'm also afraid that she'll experience the bittersweetness of love at such a young age, get pregnant before graduating high school, break up, and become a single mother, bearing everything alone...

Watching too many TV dramas has this downside: the two people in the drama never admitted to being a couple, and there was even a sense of irreconcilable hostility between them.

Kasumigaoka's mother sat downstairs, speculating about the relationship between the two, even imagining their love and hate ten years later.

"Hmm, is it possible that they really are just senior and junior colleagues, and what they wanted to say was just serious business, with no romantic feelings involved?"

Just as Kasumigaoka's mother was trying to stop her increasingly wild imagination from running wild with reverse thinking.

The sound of a door opening came from upstairs, and the conversation between the two could be faintly heard downstairs.

"Half an hour should be enough time to get your luggage ready, right?"

"Although I really want to say it's not enough, now is not the time to worry about that... I'll just bring some basic necessities, and I'll buy anything else I need later, since there are only four days left anyway. Of course, you'll have to pay for it for me."

"Is it worth taking advantage of this little bit? Money has no meaning to us anyway."

"It's very meaningful to me to be able to rip you off."

"Okay, whatever makes you happy."

Sky Temple sighed and walked downstairs.

As I looked up, my eyes met those of Kasumigaoka's mother on the sofa, and I stopped in my tracks, startled by her curious and inquisitive gaze.

"...Sorry to bother you."

He quickly regained his composure, nodded to the woman in her early forties, gave a slightly shy smile, and said nothing more.

To deal with married women, you have to act young and shy to arouse their maternal instincts.

Even if you don't want to be a traitor, but just want to make a good impression on the girl's parents when you first meet them, this method is more approachable than showing off or bragging to them at the beginning.

Don't ask Yuu Tenkuji how she knows; it's an instinct etched into her DNA.

"No, no, we'd be more than happy to have you as a guest. Would you like some fruit?"

Kasumigaoka's mother quickly got up, a kind and gentle smile on her face, and walked towards him with a fruit platter.

"I can do it myself, please don't be so polite."

Regardless of whether they were his girlfriend's parents or not, Yuu Tenkuji would never allow his elders to serve him food.

As she stood up, he leaned over to her, gently pulling the fruit plate and her arm back to their original positions before sitting down on the sofa opposite her.

After taking a bite of one of the rabbit-shaped apples and praising it as sweet and delicious with a big smile, Kasumigaoka's mother nodded in satisfaction, slightly toning down her enthusiasm.

Then the first question was:

"How come it's over so quickly?"

"..."

Before he had even finished half an apple, Yuu Tenkuji froze in place, his lips twitching almost imperceptibly, and he remained silent, looking embarrassed.