Not long after Akimi and Asuna left the Divine Dragon Alliance’s base, Kirito sent a message saying he had already informed the Knights of the Blood Oath and Klein.
Overall, the process went smoothly without a hitch.
Akimi flexed his fingers lightly—though unlike in the real world, no crisp popping sound came out.
It was a small detail hardly worth caring about.
Smiling, he said,
“Mm, that settles part of the matter… not nearly as troublesome as I thought it would be.”
“Actually, giving the information to the Divine Dragon Alliance can’t really be called troublesome at all.” Asuna shrugged.
“Whether or not we tell them is up to us, but whether they listen is their own problem.”
“Tch, I hold grudges. If it weren’t for your soft heart, Asuna, I wouldn’t have bothered wasting time coming here.”
“Well, one way or another, the Divine Dragon Alliance is still one of the main forces in the raiding group… Of course, if they don’t know their place again in the future, it won’t be so simple then.”
As for whether the Divine Dragon Alliance was important as one of the raid group’s main forces, Akimi actually didn’t think so.
Even without them, the Knights of the Blood Oath’s combat power was more than sufficient—in other words, their presence or absence made little difference.
But he couldn’t be bothered to argue over such meaningless things.
After glancing at the time, Akimi, walking in front, slowly turned to face Asuna while backing away. “We’ve got about two and a half hours before departure. Want to stop by the item shop to restock?”
Asuna didn’t answer immediately.
She opened her quick bar and checked the number of consumables.
“Mm… yeah, we’ll have to go. I’m running low on healing potions.” She muttered under her breath, then pouted as she added, “And it’s all because of someone’s ridiculous ‘100% trap-trigger rate’ setting that the potions ran out so fast this time.”
“My fault?” Akimi pointed to himself, looking a little indignant, as though he wanted to refute her—but nothing came out.
Or rather, he really had nothing to say—
Because over the past few days, three-quarters of Asuna’s healing potions had gone to him.
His knack for setting off cage traps was practically unrivaled, and keeping his HP in a healthy state had inevitably drained their potion supply.
Sure, they could’ve waited for natural HP recovery, but given how often Akimi triggered traps, they would’ve barely managed a few hundred meters a day that way.
Under Asuna’s gaze, Akimi sheepishly rubbed his nose, then hurriedly changed the subject:
“Ahem, let’s not argue about whose fault it is… Once we buy potions, let’s settle lunch.”
The clumsy change of topic, paired with the forced smile on his face, only made his guilty conscience more obvious.
Seeing Akimi too cowed to talk back, Asuna huffed and turned her head with a tsundere air, then said, “There’s no need to argue—because it’s obviously your fault.”
Then she stopped walking, put her hands on her hips, and smirked.
“Besides… if I remember right, today’s lunch is my responsibility.”
At her words, Akimi’s heart skipped a beat.
He thought anxiously: Huh? She’s not going to cut me off from food, right?
Don’t do that… skipping lunch just because I mouthed off a bit would be way too cruel…
As if reading his inner monologue, Asuna’s smile softened as she said gently,
“Relax, I won’t let you go hungry. But as for what kind of lunch you get… that depends on how you behave, A–ki–mi–kun~~”
Akimi pressed his lips together and went silent for a moment.
Then, wearing a look of steely resolve, he muttered to himself:
As long as there’s food, I’ll do whatever it takes!
Yes, that’s definitely worth it!
…Probably worth it?
——————
An hour later, a nearly numb Akimi received from Asuna a bento of the highest grade.
Inside was a golden, perfectly crispy fried pork cutlet, topped with a ketchup-like sauce.
Beneath it lay soy-fried rice, cooked with Asuna’s own special soy sauce recipe.
At the edges of the box were a few leafy greens of some unknown variety, their fresh green color making the whole meal look even more appetizing.
It was a perfect bento, combining flavor, appearance, aroma… and even emotional value!
Akimi thought this as he kept shoveling bite after bite into his mouth.
—My hour of suffering wasn’t in vain after all.
In fact, I almost feel like I came out ahead… though it’s kind of like being domesticated. (Tragic).
As for what exactly had happened during that hour, Akimi felt there wasn’t much worth saying.
Simply put, he’d traded manual labor for a reward—nothing that outsiders needed to know.
In plain words: he went shopping with Asuna, carrying things, paying for things, and offering opinions whenever she asked.
Easy enough.
Honestly, Akimi couldn’t understand why most women seemed to have an unbelievable, almost obsessive drive for shopping.
Observing, comparing, deciding whether to buy, moving to the next shop and repeating the whole cycle… wasn’t that exhausting?
His beloved mother, Tomioka Yoshiko, was like that.
Asuna was like that too.
The only real difference was in attitude—between him and his father, Tomioka Kazuya.
Akimi himself thought the whole routine was a bit stupid, while his father never resisted it.
In fact, he even seemed to enjoy it.
At the time, Akimi had once said to his father with deep frustration:
“Tomioka Kazuya, if you keep this up, you’ll end up nothing more than Mom’s plaything!”
His father had just rolled his eyes, flicked him hard on the forehead, and replied:
“First off, I’m your father—what kind of kid calls his dad by his full name?
Second, it’s your mom buying things, so all you need to do is give her objective and accurate feedback.
And last… you just don’t understand the feeling yet.”
Of course, the “feeling” his father spoke of was something Akimi still didn’t get… though maybe, just maybe, he was starting to.
At least until Asuna, smiling sweetly, dropped this little bomb:
“Mm, actually, I only ever prepared that one bento. There weren’t really any ‘levels’ at all. But since you worked so hard, I’ll give you a little something extra for dinner.”
Her words ended with a playful wink—
and Akimi’s stunned, frozen face.
— The end of the Chapter–
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