Tokyo Soft Rice King.

"That's just human nature."

"But I really didn't expect her to be your sister, Kuroba-kun. It's just... a very strange feeling."

"I understand what you mean. That's the wonder of fate."

"In short, I don't want to retaliate. If you're worried about entrusting your sister to me, Kuroba-kun, I can call my older sister over."

"No need. If we call Makoto over, Hikaru will become unsafe."

It's important to know that 'little sister' is also a key word in Makoto's heart. As an extreme sister-complex, other people's little sisters are also within her protection range.

“That’s true… Besides, I also heard from Hitomi that you’ll be living in this shrine from now on, Kuroba-kun.”

"Yes, I live here all by myself."

"I didn't expect that not only Hitomi, but even Shion agreed to these rules... Tomita-kun is truly an ace wherever she goes."

"What a coincidence! Qingxia said something similar before she left. She said, 'Zhencheng, you are the backbone that stabilizes morale.'"

Zhencheng and Qingxia are students at the same school. They often hear rumors about each other and secretly admire one another.

"I see... I haven't had a chance to talk to Tomita-kun before, but we can have more exchanges in the future."

In particular, when Makoto heard from Anri Hitomi that Haruka was going to follow the path of asceticism, Makoto was shocked because she knew very well how agonizing that path was.

Zhencheng even considered advising Qingxia to give up, because she really didn't think anyone could maintain their individuality in Yinluan's harem.

"In short, I will abide by the rules of the game, but my sister may not. In fact, she will definitely try to break the rules."

"Well, after all, she's Makoto. It's more like her to disregard and trample on the rules."

"If my sister gets violent, Kuroba-kun, please contact me immediately. I'll help... by controlling her remotely."

"Is this how you use empathy?"

"This...this is the fastest way to stop my sister, but it only works when I'm in my room and no one else is around. If I happen to be outside, I can't help, because I don't want to faint in the women's restroom again..."

Recalling her shameful experience of wetting her pants during CM, Zhencheng blushed and her knees trembled.

"It seems I need to work on my patience."

Kuroba Akira massaged Makoto's thighs to ease her tension, and Makoto also put her arms around Kuroba Akira's neck and gave him a kiss.

"Ugh... Kuroba-kun, you big bad guy, you just love to grope people..."

"Do you hate it?"

"I like it... but my constitution is probably beyond saving, it's just that... I might get Dad's car seat cushion dirty later."

"I also like the way your body is honest, Makoto."

"Pervert... I'll give you a straight drink next time, but please let me go today. If you keep going, I really won't be able to walk anymore. I still need to support your sister."

"Don't worry, I'll help too."

Because Hikari was petite, easily held in one arm, Akira Kuroba carried his sister in one arm and put his arm around Makoto's shoulder with the other, and put the two of them into the Saionji family's car.

And so, on the first day after moving to the shrine, Kuroba Akira successfully held his ground, and the two of them spent the night together.

The next morning, Kuroba Akira started weeding in the shrine. Haruka brought him food, and then she and Kuroba Akira cleaned the room together.

The shrine occupies a large area, and Kuroba Akira didn't finish cleaning it in just one day. It will probably take another two or three days to complete it.

Actually, hiring someone to mow the lawn would have been quick and easy with a lawnmower, but Akira Kuroba felt that money shouldn't be wasted, and since it would also be a good exercise, he decided to do it himself.

In the evening, the head of the Miyako team, whom Tomita Hogen had brought, came to inspect the various buildings of the shrine.

The so-called "Miya Daiko" refers to a team that specializes in the restoration and construction of shrines and temples using traditional techniques. For example, buildings with mortise and tenon joints require custom-made construction.

There are also things like the shrine maiden's shop for bestowing amulets, display shelves for brochures, a shrine for worshippers to wash their hands and rinse their mouths, benches for tourists to rest, and so on... all of these need to be custom-made.

Then a furniture supplier came, specializing in providing furniture related to the shrine, such as shrines, offerings and other ritual items, ritual implements such as the altar and the ritual implements, as well as old offering boxes, fortune slip boxes, and ema (votive plaques) and other worship items that also needed to be replaced.

After filling the empty shrine, Kuroba Akira continued to convey Kuroo's opinions and added many modern facilities, such as air conditioners and dehumidifiers, transforming one of the shrine's rooms into a homestead style that would be most comfortable for her to live in.

Although the main hall is generally the place where gods reside, Kuroo said that living alone was not interesting, and he would rather live next door to Kuroba Akira and be his neighbor.

After finishing all that and doing the math, good heavens! The savings account given by Tomita Hoken was not only insufficient, but also left Kuroba Akira with a debt of 15 million yen.

Is it really that expensive to repair and improve a shrine?

Could someone be overcharging?

However, these people were all brought in by Tomita Hokugen, who himself was a prominent figure, so they didn't dare to raise their prices in order to build relationships with him.

Moreover, in a world where gods truly exist, one must be extremely cautious when doing business related to gods, because who knows if a god might find humans too cunning and issue a curse upon them.

In fact, the high price is due to the 'labor,' 'handcraft,' and 'custom-made' aspects. The materials also cannot be compromised; they cannot be low-grade wood, so the price will naturally not be low.

No wonder Tomita Hogen said that this amount of money was not a large sum; he probably had already anticipated that repairing the shrine would cost so much.

Actually, if the materials weren't top-grade, it would be just enough, with about a third left over. But the vain Kuroo insisted that he couldn't use any materials worse than those from Inari Shrine, otherwise he would definitely be ridiculed by the sly fox. That's why the price was much higher.

However, Kuroba Akira had become arrogant and even numb, feeling that 15 million yen was not an astronomical figure, and that he could save up that amount in two years by working as a god.

There are still two years until graduation, so I'll not use my salary as a priest during this time; I'll use it all to pay off my mortgage.

As a result, Kuroba Akira returned to being penniless with zero money.

Kuroba Akira couldn't help but sigh.

Alas, money is indeed just an external thing; you really can't keep a single penny of it.

Chapter 408 My Little Sister Comes from a Thousand Years Ago

Two days later, the dilapidated shrine underwent a complete renovation and upgrade, except that most of the custom-made items would take some time to arrive.

After the renovation, the shrine looks less dilapidated inside and out; all that's left is its old appearance... In more sophisticated terms, it has a sense of historical depth.

At this point, one has to admire the efficiency of modern construction in human society... Of course, this is on the premise that you are paid enough and have reliable connections, so that they can truly demonstrate their 'craftsman spirit'. Otherwise, who knows how long they will drag things out and rip you off with a huge amount of personnel costs.

Haruka originally predicted that after the New Year, everyone would take the initiative to make their move, but in fact, in the past few days, only Makoto and Mirai have bothered Kuroba Akira. The former tentatively asked him if he was enjoying living alone, while the latter asked Kuroba Akira if he wanted to play eroge (adult games). Now he can enjoy it all by himself without worrying about disturbing his roommate.

The core of their questions is to subtly inquire whether Kuroba Akira truly no longer has a live-in girlfriend and has become a single man.

This is due to the unique information dissemination network among girls, which led to 'the whole world knowing'.

It was nominally a chat group for the girls of their club, "Hatsushin-sha" (初心社), but since the only boy in Hatsushin-sha was Kuroba Akira, it was actually a "secret group" that was set up behind Kuroba Akira's back.

At that time, smartphones had not yet appeared, and group chats were a very troublesome thing. One-on-one communication was usually done by sending text messages, while sending messages to a group of people relied on email, which felt like writing daily or weekly reports at work.

First, Makoto asked when the 'club activities' would resume. Of course, she wasn't asking the serious kind; she just wanted to find someone to hunt down Xiaoming again.

At this moment, everyone suddenly received a mass email from a 'stranger'. It was actually sent by Haruka. Anri Hitomi gave her everyone's email addresses and asked her to introduce herself first. Then she spread the news that Kuroba Akira lived alone.

This news naturally stirred up a lot of excitement. Kuroba Akira wasn't living at home anymore? He wasn't living with Shion anymore? He was living at a shrine? And a really big shrine at that? Does that mean he could open a silver medal at the shrine where he lived?

So, Makoto, who was in high spirits, first asked Shion for confirmation. After seeing this, Shion sent a group email saying, "I really don't live with Akira anymore, because no one can stay overnight at the shrine now." She saved her face and also conveyed the ban on overnight stays to everyone.

When Ziyin said this, everyone was naturally curious about what was going on. Then Qingxia explained it to everyone. Of course, she didn't give the real reason, but rather used the god as a pretext, saying that the god who protected Kuroba Akira had returned to his shrine, so it was not allowed for 'unknown women without a title to stay overnight in the shrine'.

This explosive news surprised the girls again. Although they were a little dissatisfied with the god's domineering attitude (Kuroo was innocently caught in the crossfire), they immediately realized the 'graduation conditions' that Haruka had specially set.

The gods do not allow women without official status to stay overnight at the shrine. Conversely, as long as one has official status, one can stay overnight and stay as long as one wants. Isn't that the point?

As for how to obtain the title, is there even a need to think about it? As long as you take Kuroba Akira's surname and become his wife, you'll have the title, right?

So Qingxia is guiding everyone towards the orthodox marriage ending.

As we all know, legal marriage is based on monogamy, so naturally, competition is sparked.

Next comes the step of confirming the details, such as whether one is absolutely forbidden from stepping into the shrine.

The reason for this question is that some shrines in Japan are not open to the public; they are private property and ordinary people cannot visit them.

In this world, most shrines are open to the public. After all, the main function of a shrine is to gather faith. If it cannot provide faith to the gods, then what is the point of the shrine?

The answer is 'the private villa of the gods'. Even gods who walk among humans have a need for private space and sometimes don't want to be disturbed. Therefore, some gods with richer faith will set up relatively remote small shrines as their own secluded villas.

Of course, only those "big shots" who own several shrines would do something so extravagant. After all, the biggest dream of those Noragami who don't even have a shrine is for someone to build a shrine for them, so they can end their precarious life of begging for faith and truly settle down in the local area.

As for turning superfluous shrines that don't generate good religious benefits into private villas, that's something I wouldn't even dare to dream of.

In reality, the only shrine that truly has the resources and is quite willing to do so is the fox spirit, Inari, who has been criticized countless times by Kuroo.

Throughout Japan, there are private shrines dedicated to her vacations that are not open to the public.

Then, the main reason was to show off to Kuroo. After all, although Kuroo had many shrines in her hometown of Shikoku, she only had one shrine in Tokyo. Although it was in the most central area, it occupied a very small area and was inconspicuous. It was a poor ancestral home.

In the past, Kuroo would have been very defensive, since she couldn't turn her only shrine into a closed one. But this time, Kuroo really considered whether she should just set the shrine off from entry for non-related personnel when she reopened the old shrine.

The shrine gathers less faith throughout the year than Kuroba Akira could get from dating a girl with a higher-ranking talent (C-rank or above).

So why not just turn your shrine into a shrine for folk customs, with Akira Kuroba as the signature deity, and all the girls who come to worship are there for the deity's 'great blessing that makes people happy'?

It feels like it's turned into some kind of silver phoenix at an angle. Will the main beliefs of the shrine become 'love and marriage' and 'safe childbirth' in the future?

However, for now it's just a referral system among acquaintances, and no one has any plans to expand their network, since there aren't enough people to go around with.

Haruka explained the specific details of the overnight stay ban again, saying that it only meant not being able to stay overnight at the shrine, but everything else was fine. Everyone's minds started to stir.

The key is to figure out how to lure Kuroba Akira out of the shrine.

Of course, not all girls only think about pulling Kuroba Akira out of the shrine and enjoying him all to themselves. Some people also feel that Kuroba Akira now has time to detach himself from romantic relationships, so it's perfect to visit him during the day.

Not every girl is only interested in romance and sex.

Kuroba Akira himself also enjoyed a long-awaited period of leisurely days without girls around him.

But it only lasted one day.

On January 6th, after only two days of peace, Kuroba Akira's sister, Kami, who had once given him a hard time, returned with a vengeance.

However, this time Tian Yuguang didn't sneak out on his own; he was brought here by Tian Yuchen.

Kuroba Akira originally thought that this family head, who seemed capable of killing with his eyes, would interrogate him, but in the end, he simply sent Amehiro Hikari into the shrine and then waited outside the shrine, showing no intention of entering it. He only glanced at Kuroba Akira and didn't even say hello.

The attitude expressed was very clear: I sent her here simply because my own deity expressed a desire to come here; the Tianyu family will not interfere with the freedom of their deity.

As for Kuroba Akira, who was expelled from the family, Ameyu Tatsumi didn't have much to say to him. As long as Kuroba Akira didn't go back to his hometown, it was fine. What he did in Tokyo was none of Ameyu's business.

It's been cut off, like a single stroke that cuts it in two.

On the contrary, Kuroba Akira thought this was better. At least he wouldn't be involved in the messed-up family affairs of the Tenyu family and the branch family anymore. All he wanted to do was see his parents; nothing else mattered.

Do you want to meet your parents?

As soon as she ushered Amayu Hikari into the room, she brought up the question that Kuroba Akira cared about most.