Chapter 174: Daily Life (Patreon)

If Yukino's earlier cooking could be called tasty home-style fare, then what she made now was, without question, restaurant-quality.

Kaguya popped the last bite of pizza into her mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, and dabbed at the corners of her lips with a napkin before speaking in a light, refined tone:

"Not bad."

She seemed quite pleased with Yukino's cooking.

In fact, this was the first time Kaguya had ever eaten pizza. Before this, she'd only ever seen it at banquets — she'd never actually tasted it.

The reason was simple enough: pizza could only be eaten with your hands, and for the high-society guests invited to Shinomiya family banquets, that simply wasn't dignified.

So at those banquets, pizza was usually just there to round out the spread — pure decoration that nobody ever actually touched.

And as the young lady of the Shinomiya family, Kaguya had been drilled since childhood in the importance of upholding the family's dignity — she certainly wasn't going to lower herself to sample such 'commoner' food.

In truth, whenever Kaguya attended a banquet, she mostly just stood center stage playing the part of the mascot, at most holding a flute of premium juice. Even if she was hungry, she had to wait until the banquet ended and the guests had all left before she could eat.

By then the pizza had long since been cleared away, and there was no way Kaguya would ever ask for some.

Back then, what she ate didn't really matter to her — food was nothing more than fuel for the body, as far as she was concerned.

"Mm, I can tell," Yukino said, taking a bite of her own pizza. She'd only just finished one slice, while Kaguya had already polished off two whole pieces.

Anyone with eyes could see her satisfaction went far beyond a simple 'not bad.'

It was clearly right up her alley.

Tsundere. How else to put it? Pure tsundere.

"Want some more?" Seeing this, Ai pushed her own untouched pizza toward Kaguya.

Kaguya instinctively reached for it, but halfway there she suddenly remembered this wasn't very befitting of the Shinomiya family's dignity.

But pulling her hand back now would just be awkward.

For a moment, Kaguya was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Isac noticed her hesitation and spoke up first: "I figure a diner's enjoyment is the best compliment a cook can get. Wouldn't you agree, Yukino?"

"That's right." Yukino nodded slightly. "I don't know what the rules are like in the Shinomiya family, but at least here with 'us,' there aren't nearly so many rules. So go ahead."

Then Yukino turned to Ai. "Do you want me to make another one? There's still enough ingredients left for a small pizza."

"No need. Honestly, I'd rather have meat than pizza anyway," Ai said.

At that, Kaguya seemed to shed some invisible shackle, and her stalled hand finally moved. She picked up the pizza, tilted her head at Ai, and said, "Perfect timing — I'll be about full after this slice anyway. I'll leave my share of the grilled meat to you, Hayasaka."

Ai flashed an OK sign.

With that, the dinner atmosphere returned to normal — even a bit warmer than before.

Not until every plate was clean did Yukino finally look over at Kaguya, unhurried, and say, "Eating this much at night though — aren't you worried about gaining weight, Kaguya?"

Kaguya's expression froze. Wait, you're telling me this after I already finished eating?

She's definitely doing this on purpose!

After a few breaths, Kaguya finally managed to force out a reply: "No need to worry about it."

Then, after a pause, she added, "Worst case, I'll just exercise more tomorrow."

It was obvious Kaguya was genuinely worried about gaining weight.

Yukino gave a mischievous little smile. "Well, good luck with that."

Today's round went to Yukino; Kaguya had lost.

Isac was the last to bathe.

Mostly because it was already late — if Isac had gone first, one of the three girls would inevitably end up unable to dry her hair before bed.

So naturally, Isac, with the shortest hair, was left for last. He didn't really mind.

If anything, going last actually suited him fine — this way he could soak as long as he wanted without worrying about who was waiting behind him.

He sank his whole body into the bath, letting the warm water wrap around him, and let out a long, contented sigh.

No matter how many times he did this, a hot bath remained the finest luxury this frozen land had to offer. If he had to rank it, Isac supposed it came in second only to the back-scrubbing service courtesy of Yukino and the others.

You'd better mean actual back-scrubbing.

Isac rested his arms on the edge of the tub, tucked a towel behind his head, and stretched out in the water in a spread-eagle sprawl, watching the steam curl up toward the ceiling as his thoughts began to wander.

Aurora nights, the Survival Game, all manner of aurora creatures...

Even having already been through one transmigration, these past two months Isac still often felt a sense of unreality. Sometimes he even wondered whether the world in front of him was real at all, or whether it was just some dying hallucination.

Whenever that happened, he'd give his thigh a hard pinch — the sharp pain was proof enough that the world was real.

Guess I've just been living too comfortably, Isac thought, mocking himself.

Back when the plane had just crashed, with survival never guaranteed from one day to the next, there'd been no time for such idle thoughts. Now that they'd made it to Mountain Town, with guns when they needed guns and food when they needed food, their quality of life was basically on par with before the crash — minus electricity.

No — maybe even a little better.

After all, before the crash he'd never had the skill to share a bed with three top-tier beauties, and no pretty girl had ever cooked him three meals a day.

In fact, because his parents in his second life had died suddenly, Isac's entire high school career had been a lonely one.

He'd had friends, sure, but only at school — the kind you ate lunch or went to the bathroom with, never the kind you actually hung out with outside.

That's not to say Isac was mentally older than his years, though. In fact, when he'd transmigrated the first time, he'd only just started college.

And mental age doesn't necessarily grow just because the years pile up — otherwise the world wouldn't be so full of grown men who acted like overgrown babies. It has more to do with life experience.

So even though Isac's biological age across both lives was pushing forty, his mental age was really about on par with an average college student — maybe a touch more mature, at most.

That was part of why he got along so well with Yukino and the others — at their core, they were basically the same age.

And precisely because of that, the psychological pressure he'd felt after the crash had been every bit as heavy as what the girls felt — far from the calm, unbothered front he put on.

In plain terms: he'd just been putting up a front.

But unlike Yukino's way of toughing it out, Isac's approach was a bit more sophisticated. He didn't hide his weaknesses — if anything, he let a little of them show on purpose, using that to bury the parts he really didn't want seen even deeper.

Of course, this also had to do with his own history — once you've gotten used to being an orphan, it's hard to get used to relying on others.

It was precisely this independence, so different from that of his peers, that let Isac take the lead in the survival squad — not simply because he was the only man in the group.

"So, what's the next move?" Isac murmured to himself, staring up at the ceiling.

The survival squad was short on neither food nor guns now — by rights, he should have been able to rest easy. And yet Isac couldn't shake a nagging sense of unease.

He could actually guess where that unease was coming from: the bear spirit.

There's an old saying: no man can rest easy with a rival snoring at the foot of his bed.

Let alone when that rival wasn't even human, but a massively threatening giant bear.

Who knew when it might suddenly go berserk and tear their current peaceful life apart beyond repair?

Just thinking about how that uncontrollable giant bear might hurt the people he cared about made Isac want to eliminate it, no matter how dangerous that would be.

"Better not go looking for trouble, though."

After a moment's thought, Isac let go of the dangerous idea. By his count, the next Aurora Week was less than a month and a half away — there'd be plenty of time to plan once the Survival Game's so-called main quest showed up.

For the next month and a half, their main task would still be gathering firewood for winter — not just filling up the remaining space in the house, but ideally stacking the backyard full of wood too.

That way, even if winter dragged on longer than expected, they wouldn't have to worry about running short on fuel.

In temperatures this low, without enough fuel, people could genuinely freeze to death.

Speaking of freezing — the bathwater really did seem to be cooling off.

Still, Isac had no urge to add more hot water and soak longer. He figured he'd just give his hair a quick scrub with soap, wash up, and call it done.

Just then, Ai's voice called from outside the bathroom.

"Want me to add some hot water?"

"No need, I'm almost done."

With Isac's reply in hand, Ai didn't push it, just saying, "There's Birch Bark Tea on the stove — make sure you drink some when you come out. Kaguya and I are heading upstairs first."

"Got it."

Soon her footsteps faded away outside the door.

The water in the tub was no longer clear by now — it looked a bit murky. Isac didn't mind; after two weeks without a bath, no one's water was going to stay clean for long.

He bent down and pulled the drain plug at the bottom of the tub, then scooped up the iron bucket by the edge — there was still a bit of clean hot water left inside, which he'd deliberately set aside before bathing just for rinsing off.

Splash.

A basin of hot water poured over him, and his whole body relaxed.

He dried off and changed into clean clothes.

Shuffling along in his slippers with a kerosene lamp in hand, Isac walked out of the bathroom. Yukino and the others had already gone upstairs, leaving him alone in the living room. The fireplace no longer had open flames, just dark red embers still giving off heat.

He poured himself a cup of Birch Bark Tea. It was a bit too hot to drink right away, so he figured he wouldn't finish it anytime soon and carried the cup upstairs with him.

In the master bedroom, bright flames licked at the fireplace, their glow staining the ceiling a deep red.

When Isac walked in, the three girls hadn't gone to bed yet — they were sitting around the fireplace reading, occasionally running wooden combs through their hair, probably because it still hadn't dried.

Since Isac's hair was short, a quick towel-dry meant it would probably finish drying on its own before long.

Noticing him come in, the girls' conversation paused, and all three turned to look at him at once.

"How does it taste?" Yukino asked — about her newly reformulated Birch Bark Tea.

"Not as bitter anymore," Isac answered honestly.

"I added a bit of rosehip. It cuts the bitterness, and it's good for the skin too."

"Then you all should drink more of it."

Kaguya raised the cup in her hand. "Already on it. It really does taste much better than before — it used to just taste like bark, but now there's a bit of a nice fragrance to it."

"It's brewed from birch bark, so of course it tastes like bark," Yukino said. "Though if I remember right, that's your second cup, isn't it, Kaguya? Don't drink too much, or you won't be able to sleep tonight."

"Don't worry, I know my limit."

With that, Yukino didn't press further. She closed her book and got up from her chair. "My hair's about dry — I'm going to bed first."

Kaguya stayed put. She'd bathed before Isac, so her hair was still a bit damp — she'd probably need to sit by the fireplace a while longer.

Ai's hair, meanwhile, was pretty much dry. She glanced at Isac, then at Kaguya, thought it over for a moment, and finally said, "I'm a bit sleepy," before following Yukino to bed.

Kaguya looked at Isac. "Are you going to sleep?"

Isac shook his head. "Haven't finished my tea yet. I'll sit a while."

Kaguya didn't hold back — she pushed the comb in her hand over toward him. "Perfect, then. Comb my hair for me."

Isac had no objection. He took the comb from her and began, with practiced ease, working through her hair from the tips.

After two months of practice, he'd become quite skilled at combing girls' hair.

With his help, Kaguya's hair was soon nearly dry, and the two of them didn't linger downstairs any longer. They added more wood to the fire, closed the stove door, put out the lamp, and went to bed.

With the kerosene lamp out, the room plunged into darkness at once, the only light coming from the flickering glow seeping through the cracks of the stove door.

The moment Isac lay down, he felt two warm, soft bodies press up against him — no need to guess who; it was Kaguya and Yukino.

Whenever they all slept in one bed, his arms were pretty much doomed to serve as pillows — he'd more or less gotten used to it by now. Aside from occasionally waking up with numb arms from being held too tightly, there wasn't much downside to it.

Just as Isac figured tonight would go the same as always and he'd simply drift off to sleep, Kaguya suddenly made a new move…