In the middle of the night—
Kazumi quietly emerged from Kotomi's body.
"Emerged" might sound a bit ominous, but honestly, there wasn't a better word to describe what she did.
Anyway, in the dead of night, Kazumi sneakily slipped out from Kotomi's body.
After lying beside her for a bit, she slowly sat up, gently got out of bed, and slipped into Kotomi's house slippers.
Their feet were practically the same size.
Kazumi tiptoed out of Kotomi's room. Worried that opening the door might make noise and wake Kotomi, she simply used her system powers to phase through the door.
The hallway at midnight was silent. If someone had suddenly appeared behind her, Kazumi might've screamed and activated Unlimited Blade Works out of reflex.
She wasn't like a certain white-haired vampire loli who liked taking midnight strolls. Kazumi was a hardcore shut-in. Unless absolutely necessary, she rarely left Kotomi's body.
After all—living inside Kotomi was unbelievably comfortable! If she could, she'd happily stay in there for the rest of her life!
Each day inside was cozy. When she got bored, she'd repair the old servers of the God-Level Heroine System and fix the mountain of bugs that had piled up over time.
She was living the good life.
That said, for reasons beyond her understanding, every time she confidently set out to fix the bugs, things would spiral out of control.
She'd fix one small bug—only for three new ones to pop up.
Or she'd fix an obviously simple bug with no complications, only to discover that the entire system segment it belonged to would crash and stop functioning altogether.
She tried every trick in the book to get things running again. In the end, with no other options, she had to reinstall the very bug she'd just removed...
Miraculously, after reinstalling the bug, the system immediately returned to normal.
Now she didn't even dare tell Kotomi about it...
Earlier today, Kazumi had worked hard inside Kotomi's body, trying to fix the servers—managed to fix four bugs, but ended up with seven new ones.
She had originally planned to pull an all-nighter. But to her surprise, she suddenly felt... hungry.
Despite being confused by this, she still obediently emerged from Kotomi's body, planning to find something to eat in secret.
Thanks to Kotomi, the Izumi household never lacked snacks.
Gurgle gurgle...
Her little tummy growled in protest. Kazumi sighed, rubbing it gently.
Feeling hungry or thirsty was normal—for humans.
But the thing was... she wasn't human. She was a system, Kotomi's not-so-reliable cheat plug-in.
By definition, a system was supposed to be desireless, emotionless, never initiating interaction with its host—just silently handing out missions and providing cheats like a cold, efficient machine.
But Kazumi was different.
From the moment she was created, she had emotions. It wasn't until she met Kotomi that her emotional awareness fully awakened.
She had accepted all that, until one fateful day—not long ago—when Kotomi had given her a bite of taiyaki...
And she discovered she had an appetite.
Kazumi couldn't believe it at first. She tried to ignore the hunger pangs, telling herself it had to be a glitch—but it wasn't.
Not only did she feel hungry, but she also wanted to eat. When she got thirsty, she actually craved water.
She had always had taste buds, sure, but never the need to eat or drink—unless she was humoring Kotomi. On her own, she had no such desires.
But now... it was clear. She had emotions. She had desires.
When she was hungry, she wanted to eat. When she was thirsty, she wanted a cold drink. When she crashed the system with a bug fix, she wanted to crawl into Kotomi's arms and pout...
"Could it be that one bite of Kotomi's taiyaki turned me weird?" she mumbled to herself.
Silently, she made her way to the kitchen. With practiced ease, she opened the cabinet where Kotomi and Aimi stored their snacks and pulled out a bag of steak-flavored chips, three sweet chestnut buns, and a bottle of water. Sitting down on the floor, she began munching away.
Lately, whenever she got food cravings, Kazumi would sneak out of Kotomi's body in the middle of the night and sit in the kitchen alone, using snacks to temporarily hold herself over.
Of course, she knew snacks weren't a real meal.
But she couldn't bring herself to tell Kotomi: "Hey, I suddenly want to eat human food now."
Until she figured out what was going on, she'd just rely on chips and bread to get by.
She made herself at home like it was her own house. Having followed Kotomi around, she'd memorized exactly where everything edible in the Izumi household was kept.
Getting up, she took an apple and a mangosteen from the fridge. Time for some fruit to balance things out. Mimicking the way Kotomi washed fruit, she rinsed them under the tap.
She'd never eaten fruit before. After all, her system world didn't grow any.
The first time she'd seen Kotomi eating fruit, her eyes had lit up like a kid at Christmas.
"Apples... I think you just bite into them directly."
Crunch crunch—
In no time at all, Kazumi had devoured the apple and carefully tossed the core in the trash.
Then she turned her attention to the mangosteen.
Her clever little brain suddenly came to a standstill.
How do you eat a mangosteen?
Not having a clue, she decided to treat it like an apple.
She chomped straight into the thick, rubbery rind.
"Ugh! So this is mangosteen? It's awful! The peel is hard enough to break teeth and tastes terrible... The white part is okay, I guess, but the outside is just nasty. It's good, but also gross. What a contradictory fruit!"
Having bitten through most of the mangosteen rind and regretting every second of it, Kazumi still forced herself to finish the whole thing.
No wasting food, even if it tastes like despair.
Afterward, she guzzled the bottle of water just to recover from the trauma.
She had nearly been defeated by fruit.
Just as she was about to finish off the rest of the chips—
The kitchen door suddenly swung open.
Without a moment's warning.
Akina, wearing her nightgown, strolled casually into the kitchen and flicked on the light.
The whole room lit up in an instant.
Kazumi thought she could qualify as a top-class spy.
The moment Akina opened the kitchen door, she reacted in a flash—
Akina hadn't come to the kitchen because she heard something. She was simply thirsty and wanted a glass of water before going back to sleep.
As the light illuminated the kitchen, Akina naturally spotted the half-eaten bag of steak-flavored chips lying on the floor. She frowned slightly. She clearly remembered that when she left the kitchen after washing the dishes earlier, there hadn't been any chip bags on the floor.
And yet now, it looked like one had appeared out of nowhere.
Believing the most dangerous place to be the safest, Kazumi transformed into an object and huddled in a corner of the kitchen, cold sweat dripping down her back.
She had nearly bumped into Akina head-on just moments ago!
But because she had so little time, she couldn't clean up the half-eaten chips and just left them on the floor, making it look like someone had come in for a midnight snack, eaten half, and then casually tossed the bag aside without cleaning up.
Akina hated that kind of behavior.
To be fair, Kazumi wasn't being cowardly—this was survival instinct. The moment she saw Akina, she instinctively knew...
She couldn't win.
If it came to a fight, she'd almost certainly be pinned to the floor and thoroughly defeated.
Even though her transformation was flawless, just knowing Akina was nearby made Kazumi feel like a protagonist in a horror game, caught in a chase-and-hide sequence. She'd just barely avoided the killer and hidden in a locker. Now, through a tiny peephole, she was watching anxiously, heart pounding.
Thump thump—
She just wanted to sneak away and return to the safety of Kotomi's body.
Akina picked up the half-eaten bag of chips from the floor and frowned.
"Who came in here to sneak snacks in the middle of the night, then didn't even finish the bag and just tossed it on the floor? Tch. If I find out who did this, I'm giving her a proper scolding!"
Kazumi, now transformed into an object, trembled.
So scary. Akina is terrifying.
A good system should be equipped with advanced visual cloaking abilities. With that, even standing in plain sight of Akina, she wouldn't be spotted. It was kind of like invisibility in a supernatural novel.
If she had such a feature, she wouldn't have to worry even while sitting right in front of Akina.
But alas... only elite systems get those upgrades.
And clearly, Kazumi had nothing to do with the word elite.
All she could do now was silently pray for Akina to hurry up and leave.
When Akina realized the chips were steak-flavored, she thought aloud:
"There are so many flavors of chips in the cabinet. If it were Kotomi, she'd definitely pick original or cheese flavor. But steak flavor... that's Aimi's favorite."
In an instant, she had a general idea of who the culprit might be.
She placed the chip bag on the dining table. But then her eyes narrowed as she noticed something odd.
A powder blue mug had appeared on the table—one she didn't recognize.
"Do we have a mug like this at home?" Akina wondered.
Kazumi nearly fainted from fright.
Because in that split-second earlier, she had transformed into...
A powder blue mug.
Most dangerous place = safest place. So once she transformed, she boldly placed herself right on the dining table.
It wasn't that Kazumi was being cowardly—
It was just that, in that instant, Akina's gaze had turned terrifying. It felt like she could peer into the essence of death itself.
Akina picked up the powder blue mug from the table and examined it carefully. She seemed to be thinking deeply, and then suddenly recalled—
"That's right. Kotomi's old mug disappeared for some reason. We searched all over and never found it. Lately, she's been sharing one with Aimi... so this must be a new one she bought."
Thinking that way, the sudden appearance of a new mug didn't seem so strange after all.
Time was getting late. After finishing her drink, Akina turned off the light and left the kitchen.
As darkness returned to the kitchen, the powder blue mug let out a long sigh.
It wasn't water that filled it—it was cold sweat.
With a flash of powder blue light, Kazumi returned to her true form. She wiped the beads of sweat from her forehead.
"That was way too close... I almost got exposed."
"Didn't think midnight snacking would be this risky. I need to get back inside Kotomi ASAP."
Rather than going back the way she came, Kazumi decided to teleport directly to Kotomi's room.
The risk of being seen was way too high. If she accidentally ran into Akina again, even turning into wallpaper wouldn't save her.
Akina might just rip her off the wall and yell, "Reveal your true form, you little monster!"
Click.
Just as Kazumi's teleport progress bar was filling up, the kitchen door suddenly opened again.
She jerked her head around in panic—
And made direct eye contact with Akina.
Akina saw Kazumi.
Kazumi saw Akina.
Fortunately, within that split-second of eye contact, the teleport finished buffering and transported her straight into Kotomi's bedroom.
It was less than a second. For most people, it would feel like a trick of the eyes.
"Damn! I never should've come out tonight. I just wanted a snack! Why did it turn into a full-blown horror game sequence?! Is Akina really just a regular housewife? That look she gave the mug earlier—it felt like she could see through my soul. I seriously thought I was going to die at age three!"
Kazumi had been thoroughly traumatized.
Especially that last moment when she teleported and Akina opened the door at the same time.
Luckily, the brief flash of powder blue light wouldn't have been enough for the naked eye to catch in such a short time. At most, it would seem like a trick of the light. A fleeting illusion.
Even so, Kazumi had been spooked enough to dive straight back into Kotomi's body.
Back in the kitchen—
Akina rubbed her eyes.
She had come back suddenly because she remembered needing bacon for breakfast tomorrow.
She wasn't sure if they had enough left in the fridge, so she returned to check.
And when she opened the kitchen door—
She saw something.
Raising an eyebrow, Akina calmly closed the door and returned to her bedroom.
Tonight, the Izumi couple was staying up a bit later than usual. Akina's husband, Kaneyoshi, was currently propped up against the pillows reading Volume 1 of Sword Art Online.
After all, if your daughter writes light novels—what kind of parent wouldn't want to read them?
After returning to bed, Akina gave Kaneyoshi a little nudge.
Kaneyoshi thought she was trying to initiate something, and promptly took off his glasses, placing them along with Sword Art Online Volume 1 on the nightstand.
"Honey, let's not stay up too late tonight. We both have work tomorrow."
"Yeah, so let's keep it to five times—wait, that's not what I meant!"
Akina glared. "Kaneyoshi, do you know what I saw in the kitchen just now?"
"Don't tell me you saw Cthulhu." Kaneyoshi chuckled.
Back in high school, the Izumi couple had loved reading Lovecraft's novels. After they both became librarians, the first book Kaneyoshi asked Akina to help him borrow on his library card was At the Mountains of Madness.
As for the last book?
In Search of Lost Time.
From Lovecraft to Proust—what happened in between was their own story. That's a tale for another time.
Akina shook her head. "We don't live in R'lyeh, how could Cthulhu show up? Unless I just went full SAN loss. Anyway, I'm not joking, Kaneyoshi—I think I saw... a writhing mass of blood-red tentacles in the kitchen."
"Tentacles?"
"Yeah, they looked like blooming flowers, twisted and pulsing, glowing with a soft powder-blue light. The whole thing looked eerie as hell. Honestly, it looked like something straight out of a Lovecraft story. Could've been Cthulhu's cousin. But maybe it was just my imagination—I only saw it for a split second before it disappeared."
Half-joking, Akina rubbed her eyes again.
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