Chapter 342: Do You Have a Bias Against Tablets?
Eternally Seventeen: "Ptooey, my brain works perfectly normally, thank you very much. Is there anyone else in this whole chat group whose brain works more normally than mine? No such person exists!"
RawrSoFierce: "Heh, never met anyone quite this shameless before."
Eternally Seventeen: "That infuriating Admin-sama's a hopeless straight-shooter, siding with logic over loyalty— ah, wait, misspoke, should be siding with neither logic NOR loyalty."
Eternally Seventeen: "Looks like Admin-sama's definitely got his eye on Little Kaguya too. Not content with my shikigami, now he's after my best friend too! Yikes... I'm seriously starting to suspect you actually do want a harem."
RawrSoFierce: "...Why does every single topic loop right back around to this exact same accusation?"
Eternally Seventeen: "Because this sharp-witted youkai sage saw through everything from the start, hmph!"
My True Form Is Cola: "Ice-cold secondhand affection splashing right in my face — not that I even want to eat it, but... man, I'm sour."
Street-Corner Illustrator: "Hold up, hold up! Little Umaru, why would a girl be sour about that? Don't tell me you're into Admin-sama?"
My True Form Is Cola: "No, actually, I'm quite interested in Yukari-senpai."
Admiral Kizaru: "Ohh? Huh! You girls really are giving off some orange vibes lately, one after another. If you two ended up together someday, this old man wouldn't be all that shocked, honestly."
Roar of the Evil Dragon: "Little Umaru's into girls too? We're in agreement — paw bump!"
My True Form Is Cola: "Paw bump!"
RawrSoFierce: "Just realized Umaru's and Tohru's hair are both roughly the same shade of orange — so 'orange vibes' really is an apt description for those two."
Street-Corner Illustrator: "Feeling like I should probably keep some distance from Little Umaru-chan from now on. My own orientation's perfectly normal, after all!"
I'm Rolling In It: "Miss Eriri, care to consider getting a little closer to a certified hunk like Uncle Tony instead?"
Street-Corner Illustrator: "Ptooey! I'd rather stand closer to Admin-sama than to some creepy uncle like you — and one with a documented playboy history, at that. Sure, Yukari-senpai's always teasing Admin-sama about wanting a harem, but that's all it ever is — teasing."
Kaguya-sama: "Mr. Stark just took a 99999-damage critical hit — reports his heart is deeply wounded. 23333..."
I'm Rolling In It: "Ha, you think Uncle Tony's actually hurt over here? I've got zero interest in a seventeen-year-old minor. And her personality's about as flat as a tablet screen too, so even less interest."
Terrible Tornado: "Hmm? Does Mr. Stark have some weird bias against tablet computers?"
I'm Rolling In It: "...I'm sorry! My bad! Please forgive me!!!"
I'm Rolling In It: "Damn it, you jerks! I'm going to become a Permissions Hound in this group too, one day! I'll be the fourth Permissions Hound, AAAAAAH!"
Edward Newgate: "Gurararara, with your current strength, Mr. Stark, you've got a long road ahead before you're becoming any Permissions Hound!"
Senbei Is So Tasty: "Don't worry, Mr. Stark. When the time comes, I'll be right there as your competition."
I'm Rolling In It: "...Pfft, are you all just a bunch of devils or something?"
"..."
Tony Stark felt, frankly, quite wounded. So what if he was just the tiniest bit weaker than the chat group's upper tier right now?
Did they really have to pile on like that?
And old Sengoku was really pushing it too — already a Fleet Admiral in the One Piece world, sitting way up there in rank, and he's still going to compete for a Permissions Hound spot? That's just brutal!
No good... he had to muscle his way into the chat group's upper tier too. He, Tony Stark, was the famous Iron Man, majority shareholder of Stark Industries, a superhero with a name that carried real weight.
Under the circumstances, wouldn't it be a genuine loss of face if he didn't fight his way into the upper tier?
He was going to become one of the chat group's heavy hitters too — and just like that, his new life goal was cheerfully decided!
Whatever complicated feelings were churning through Tony Stark, Ryū had no idea — he'd already logged off the chat group by then, headed to the bathroom for a shower, dried himself off, thrown on his pajamas, and gone straight to bed.
Sure, his constitution meant he could go a full month without sleep and feel no different, but sleep didn't just relieve fatigue — it helped the mind sort through memories too. In any case, it gave his mental energy a bit of a boost.
The next morning, as the sun rose slowly in the east only to vanish behind a blanket of clouds, Ryū gradually stirred awake.
He stretched, yawned, and glanced out the window — then froze for a beat. "Huh... did it actually snow last night? And a fair amount too, by the look of it."
A thick layer of snow had already piled up on the windowsill — hard to believe that had accumulated in a single night, which said everything about how heavy the snowfall must have been.
Ryū's constitution left him more or less immune to winter's chill — even with the temperature likely well below freezing by now, he barely felt the cold at all, despite the fact that his pajamas were short-sleeved and thin, at that.
After a trip to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, and changing into a normal set of house clothes,
Ryū walked over to the bedroom window, looked at the snow piled on the sill, and shook his head, resigned. "Forgot to close the window before bed last night, apparently."
With a casual wave of his hand, the resulting gust of air sent the snow on the sill flying clean off.
Looking out toward the street below, he saw it already blanketed in white, a handful of Konoha residents dressed something like sanitation workers out clearing the snow with their tools.
Small snowflakes still drifted down from the sky, everywhere he looked blanketed in white, plenty of the residential rooftops dusted over with snow.
Probably because the snow had only just started falling the night before, the accumulation wasn't especially deep — six to eight millimeters at most, not even a full centimeter.
"Hm?"
Just as Ryū was taking in the snowy view outside, a figure that looked strangely familiar entered his line of sight — dressed in a snow-white down jacket, breathing warm air onto her hands over and over, clearly feeling the cold.
And yet, despite the cold, she wasn't moving from the spot, seemingly caught in some kind of hesitation, no telling what she was working up to.
Ryū's expression turned faintly puzzled, and he murmured to himself, "Isn't that... Mitarashi Anko?"
☆☆☆
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