Chapter 46

Raye readily agreed to Chris's request.

"Ah, that's great. Phew, Amu."

Having gotten Raye's permission to take leave, Chris happily leaned back comfortably against the sofa, then casually picked up some snacks Raye had placed on the nearby table and tossed them into her mouth.

"Get some proper rest. Oh, right, not yet, Chris. There's one more thing. It's more convenient for me to handle it now, so you can't rest just yet."

Seeing Chris sprawled across the sofa, Raye walked over and said this.

"What? There's still more to do? Raye, I can't. I really don't have any strength left. I can't do any work anymore."

Seeing Raye approach, Chris could not help letting out a pained wail. She truly could not move at all.

To put it in gaming terms, Chris was currently under one of those exhaustion penalties where, until her stamina bar recovered to a certain point, she could not move again.

"...Chris, I think when we have time later, we should figure out a way to improve your stamina. You should know that the workload I assigned you isn't even half of mine."

Looking at Chris, who was full of complaints, Raye spoke helplessly.

She did not think Chris was lying. After all, according to the data gathered by the outfit she had put on Chris, Chris's body really had reached its limit.

"Ugh, I just want to rest..."

Chris, sprawled on the sofa, turned her head away.

"Fine. Since you really can't move anymore... then that's that."

Faced with the fact that not even a shred of stamina could be squeezed out of Chris, Raye thought for a moment before making a decision.

"So I can keep resting?"

Seeing Raye pondering, Chris asked happily.

"...Of course not. For the sake of efficiency, I don't want to put this task off until later. Delaying it now will only increase the workload in the future."

Raye immediately crushed Chris's hopes with her words.

"Ah, then what are we supposed to do? Just so you know, I really can't walk anymore."

Chris fell into confusion.

"It's fine."

Facing the confused Chris, Raye merely said this as she moved a little closer.

"Since you can't move, Chris, I'll help you move. First, take off your clothes."

Then, under Chris's questioning gaze, Raye placed a hand on her.

"Oh—ah? Wait, Raye, what are you trying to do? Is this something we can do here!?"

Chris's pupils shook violently.

"...What are you thinking? Or are you willing to keep wearing clothes covered in dirt and dust? Even if you are, I don't want to get myself dirty."

Raye paused for a moment, then, seeming to restrain herself, explained this to Chris.

"Oh... Sorry, I misunderstood. Then what are we going to do?"

Realizing that the other girl only wanted her to take off her outer clothes, Chris breathed a sigh of relief and asked.

"To the bathroom."

Raye answered concisely.

"!!?"

Chris also expressed her thoughts with an equally concise expression.

"Stop looking at all that weird stuff. It's just that the dirt accumulation in the outfit you're wearing is about to reach its limit. I need to extract the grime from it before putting it back on you."

Realizing Chris had once again let her thoughts wander somewhere strange, Raye endured it for a moment before explaining.

"Um, don't you have a change of clothes? I think this is still a little too..."

Even with Raye's explanation, Chris still could not quite accept it.

"No. Do you think clothes with that many functions are so easy to make? Some of the materials used to make that outfit came from dismantling my spare work clothes."

Raye lifted her lining and pointed at her underwear, patiently explaining to Chris.

Chris quickly recognized the similarity between the material of Raye's underwear and that of the restraining suit she was wearing.

"Wait, Raye, are you saying the one I'm wearing was modified from clothes you used to wear?"

Then Chris, whose experience had apparently increased rapidly, somehow caught a certain crucial piece of information in Raye's words, and forbidden knowledge kept surfacing in her mind.

"What else did you think? How do you think I made clothes that comfortable so quickly? I don't have time to make new spares right now, so unless you want me to have nothing to wear, there are no replacements."

Raye lowered her lining and replied matter-of-factly, somewhat irritably.

"...That wouldn't be so bad. Ah, no, that's not what I meant. It was something you used to wear... Wait, that's not right either."

In her confusion, Chris blurted out words that were terrible in every sense.

"I think I should try physically destroying that website... Also, let me remind you that I only used material from my work clothes. Any traces would have been cleaned away during the dismantling process."

Raye's expression visibly cracked slightly. After a moment, once she had calmed herself again, she explained this to Chris through slightly gritted teeth.

"Sorry, I'm really sorry. But if we only need to wash that outfit, I just need to give you the clothes underneath, right?"

During Raye's explanation, Chris regained her senses. Once she had done so, she still—no, even more so—felt embarrassed by Raye's original proposal.

"That would work, yes, but it's too troublesome, changing back and forth. Extracting the grime is the main purpose, but for the sake of efficiency, it's better to finish everything else that needs doing at the same time."

Raye said this while doing her best to keep herself calm. No matter what was going on in Chris's mind, it would not affect what she needed to do next. Time waited for no one; efficiency was life.

"Ah?"

Chris could not help letting out a cute little cry, because as Raye said that, she had already started taking off Chris's dirty outer garment. Throughout the process, Chris could not put up any effective resistance at all.

"Don't make that face like I've done something to you. This is a perfectly ordinary, healthy action. The unhealthy part is your brain, Chris."

With dark lines across her face, Raye set Chris's removed outer garment aside, preparing to wash it later.

"BAKA, how is this healthy!? I know, I understand. The next part of the plot is going to be..."

Hugging a cushion from the sofa, Chris kept complaining like this with her face flushed red.

There was no helping it. From Raye's perspective, she was merely handling Chris's body without the slightest emotion, but from Chris's perspective...

Well, a girl she did not dislike and even still had favorable feelings toward gripped her wrist with hands that were strong yet warm.

Then, with strength that completely disregarded her will, she was roughly yet gently doing things to her that could only appear in little adult booklets.

Chris could still recall the warm breath, carrying some sort of scent, that had brushed across her face when Raye approached her just now.

"..."

Raye no longer knew what to say.

First, she silently listed Chris's mental health treatment and physically destroying a certain website as two things that absolutely had to be done.

Then, ignoring Chris's strange behavior, she pulled the exhausted, limp girl up from the sofa and carried this white-haired girl, whose mind was full of lewd thoughts, in the most convenient position possible.

"Uweh..."

After being picked up, Chris's head seemed to let out a steam-like roar.

But that had nothing to do with Raye. She had had enough of inefficient, pointless conversation. At that moment, she only wanted to quickly process the dirty white-haired girl in her arms according to standard procedure, then get on with the work afterward.

As for Chris, she was nearly fainting by then. Chaotic images crisscrossed in her mind before finally converging into one sentence.

[Why am I being carried like a princess!?]

P.S. Good morning.

Bathing

Steam drifted and gathered into mist, thick fog filling the medium-sized bathhouse lined with pristine white tiles.

"Good. The bathwater temperature looks suitable."

Sensing that the temperature had reached its ideal level, Raye casually removed the restraints of her own clothes.

"Gulp."

In stark contrast to Raye's composure was Chris Yukine, whose face was red enough to seem capable of dripping blood, whether from the temperature or physiology.

Though she had constantly been giving herself mental encouragement, the influence of the forbidden knowledge that had invaded her mind after opening the door to a new world could not be erased overnight.

"...If you really can't take it, Chris, I can give you an anesthetic. As long as you can't feel anything, it should be fine, right?"

Seeing Chris like this beside her, Raye was somewhat helpless and made this suggestion.

Because she was usually too busy to have much free time, she personally did not understand what Chris spent all day thinking about.

Still, judging solely from the situation, if this little was enough to make her react like this, then by normal reasoning, Chris's body would probably suffer some strange adverse reaction if they engaged in intimacy in the ordinary sense.

"Anesthetic? D-d-do you mean the kind that numbs the body, then when the numbness wears off and all sensation returns, everything that was done while numb bursts forth all at once...?"

With a face as red as blood, Chris asked in panic.

It seemed Raye's words had activated some strange memory in Chris, reminding her of a bizarre CG from a game she had played, where the protagonist cured a paralysis status.

"That absolutely does not happen. Ordinary anesthetics don't have the weird effects you're imagining!"

Seeing this, Raye immediately stepped forward and knocked Chris on the head with a fist, stopping her runaway thoughts.

She did not understand why, even when she tried to speculate about Chris's thoughts in the strangest way possible, Chris could always think from an angle that completely exceeded her expectations.

"R-Really?"

Covering her head, Chris asked in surprise.

Perhaps because she had never had any relevant experience, she sometimes had trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality.

"Of course not. Even I would need several days of thought to make an anesthetic that could achieve that kind of effect. Normal anesthetics just make you sleep."

Raye complained irritably.

"Oh... Wait, so you can make that kind of anesthetic!?"

Then Chris's ability to latch onto irrelevant information performed as steadily as ever.

"That isn't important. So, Chris, will you accept anesthesia? My suggestion is that you do. I happen to have tranquilizer rounds for shock suppression. One shot will guarantee that you peacefully see tomorrow's sun."

With a vein popping on her forehead, Raye answered with a gentle smile. A white portal had already opened beside her, and she reached a hand into it.

"N-no, no need. I think I can accept this. And I've figured it out—those things are fictional. This is reality; we're just taking a bath. Nothing like that will happen."

Seeing Raye's aura gradually become dangerous, Chris hurriedly refused and made this assurance.

It seemed that after Raye's several explanations, she had finally understood a little that there was an insurmountable gulf between fictional works and reality, and they could not simply be equated.

"Oh, is that so? Good. I hope you can maintain such healthy thoughts, Chris. Now then, will you take them off yourself, or should I help you?"

Seeing that Chris seemed to have returned to normal, Raye also resumed her usual expressionless appearance.

"Mm, I'll take them off myself."

Chris answered immediately.

She had the feeling that if she made another abnormal move, Raye would definitely shoot her with an anesthetic. She was not a pervert who liked getting shot with a tranquilizer gun for no reason—ah, no, even perverts would not want to be shot with a tranquilizer gun.

Very quickly, under Raye's pressure, Chris quite normally removed both her outer and inner clothing and handed them to Raye. Without any emotion, Raye took them and tossed them into the still-open Warblade Mecha.

[Why does it feel like Raye's portal can do everything...?]

Seeing this, Chris could not help thinking to herself. She had lost count of how many times she had seen Raye use her portal for this sort of chore, and she still had no idea what was on the other side of it.

"Alright, get in. Once we're done washing, these should be clean. Hah... I really don't understand how an ordinary act of cleaning your body could become so difficult with you, Chris."

As she spoke, Raye pulled the at-a-loss Chris into the bathhouse.

As the bathhouse door opened and the two moved, mist rising from the tub filled with hot water swirled around them, draping the girls' flawless bodies in hazy woven garments.

"...Phew."

The warm mist relaxed Chris's tense mood. The random thoughts in her mind seemed to disperse from her body as it loosened under the warmth.

"Mm... This water temperature should be fine. Chris, stop standing there. I've adjusted the temperature for you. Will you do it yourself, or should I help?"

After testing the shower's temperature and confirming it would not scald anyone, Raye handed it to Chris and spoke.

"I can handle something like this myself!"

Chris said, reaching to take the showerhead from Raye's hand.