Part 1

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Volume 2

Chapter 1

— 1 —

Even as I asked for her identity, the girl riding on top of me did not answer.

Not only did she not answer, she didn’t even twitch. She just silently stared at me with eyes that were the same beautiful blue color as her hair. Her complete lack of reaction was too unnatural, even if she were intentionally trying to ignore me.

(W-What’s going on…!?)

Waking up to a naked girl in your bed, what was this manga-like situation? Sure, I did say that I wanted an encounter, but not an encounter like this.

(What am I supposed to do at times like these?)

Showing the bare minimum of respect by averting my eyes from her naked body, I was trying to think up a plan, when,

–Knock knock.

a light knock echoed from the door of the room.

(Not this pattern!)

The timing was the worst. Lying in bed with a naked girl sprawled out on top of me, anyone could see what kind of misunderstandings would be borne from this.

Not to mention that there shouldn’t be many people who would be knocking at my door at this time.

Most likely, it would be someone from the inn.

Which means that there was a high chance that it would be Alice, the inn’s poster girl whom I had met yesterday.

(This is bad!)

Scenes from the games and manga I’d seen up till now flashed through my head.

My brain immediately started to boil over,

“I-I’m inside!”

and before I realized it, I had shouted loudly towards the door.

With the wrong words!

I ended up giving my “my stomach hurts so I locked myself in a public toilet when there’s a violent knocking on the door to my stall” response. Now I can’t even pretend to be out.

There’s no helping it now.

I hastily turned towards the naked girl, and gripped her arms. Almost faltering from the extreme softness of her thin arms, I mustered my strength and pulled her body out of the way.

“S-Sorry! But this position is… uwah!”

I was just trying to pull her away, but underestimated my power. The momentum carried us half a flip, and now I was bent over her, pushing her down onto the bed. The feeling of her soft body spread through my whole being, and I felt hot with anxiety and excitement.

Of course, this was not the time to be focusing on such feelings. Perhaps triggered by the sounds in the room, the doorknob cruelly turned.

“Ah, w-wait…!”

My words of protest were in vain, as the door steadily opened…

And on the other side of the door, coming to wake me up, was none other than,

“Breakfast is rea… ah, e-excuse me!”

blushing bright red at the sight of us locked together in bed, the old man who owned the inn.

 

After chasing down the inn owner, who had immediately run out the door, and clearing up the misunderstanding, as well as reluctantly explaining the situation to his daughter Alice who had come to see what the commotion was about, I was able to borrow some female clothing.

Unexpectedly, Alice was the one who was more understanding and tolerant,

“I know that you’re an adventurer and all, but please don’t do anything weird while staying with us.”

letting me off with just a warning.

It’s just a misunderstanding, but since I didn’t even know what the heck was going on, I wasn’t really able to explain the situation. But well, her reaction was at least much better than that of the inn owner, whose face was bright red the whole time and was more or less useless.

I mean seriously, I really wish that you wouldn’t give such an innocent reaction at your age. If you just went with the flow and said something like “I hope you had an enjoyable night”, then the psychological damage I took might’ve been lessened somewhat.

Grumbling to myself, I returned to my room,

“Wha!”

and found myself speechless.

The blue-colored girl who had suddenly appeared in my room was as I had left her, in other words, stark naked, stretched out on top of the bed.

Shaking off the sudden shock, a question surfaced in my mind.

(Could it be that this girl is actually not a human?)

Randomly appearing naked in my room was indeed quite mystifying, but more than that, her reactions, or rather her lack of reactions, hit me with this sense of bizarreness.

I don’t know with what purpose she came into my room… actually, if she had a purpose, then it would be even stranger for her not to react when I called out to her.

If her goal was to seduce me, then she would probably make a more aggressive pass, and if that wasn’t the case, then shouldn’t she be embarrassed to be naked in front of a random stranger?

But she showed neither reaction and, even when left alone, she showed no attempt to cover up her own body, and, in fact, no evidence that she had even moved at all.

(A robot… would probably not fit with the setting of this world, but something like an automata or a homunculus could be possible?)

I approached the bed that she was sprawled over, facing upwards in what could be called a lascivious posture, doing my best not to look at her.

Even then, at times her skin would come into view, causing my heart to beat a bit faster each time, and, while feeling a slight guilt at that, I did reach some conclusions.

(Looking carefully, her body moves slightly in tune with her breathing. She is definitely alive.)

I reached my hand toward her face, which still showed absolutely no reaction even after I had gotten so close to her.

I touched her smooth, porcelain-like skin. Slowly, her body heat transmitted through to my cold fingertip. Her raw warmth as well as the soft sensation felt by my finger made me completely abandon any thoughts of her being a constructed being.

Meanwhile, my hand unconsciously moved along her cheek, passing over her pointed chin, reaching toward the nape of her thin neck.

(Uwah…)

It felt so velvety smooth that I unconsciously let out a sigh. Even then, she showed absolutely no reaction, so much that I even had the thought that she might stay still like this, like a broken puppet, no matter what I did.

Reminding myself that this train of thought was extremely bad, I felt a shiver down my spine.

“She really is alive, right?”

Trying to push aside my indecent imaginations, I muttered to myself.

I had really just said what I was thinking out loud, and had not been expecting any kind of reply at all, but,

“…probably.”

for the very first time, the blue-colored girl moved.

As before, she lay on the bed, showing no signs of getting up or concealing her naked body, but her eyes reflected my figure, hand still stretched towards her, and,

“…I’m probably, alive.”

with a delicate yet clear voice, her mouth moved certainly, forming an uncertain statement.

 

There was a mountain of things I wanted to ask, but just then Alice came by bringing clothes, so my questions had to be put on hold for a bit.

Glancing from the girl who was still lying bare naked on the bed to me, Alice sent me a look of disdain, but refrained from saying anything.

That is, until she handed her spare clothes over to me,

“I’m warning you just in case. These clothes are brand new, so it’s pointless trying to do anything p-perverted with them!”

she threw those words at me before leaving the room.

I wonder just what she imagined I’d do if I got my hands on her worn clothes.

It seems that she had the impression that I was some kind of huge pervert.

“Like I said, it’s all a misunderstanding…”

While reeling from the shock of the sudden drop in Alice’s impression of me, in order to clear up this misunderstanding I needed to start by questioning this girl in front of me.

But, in order to question her, I needed to get her into a state where we could hold a conversation.

I passed the plain one-piece dress that I received from Alice over to the girl on the bed.

“I’m turning around, so please put on those clothes.”

Saying that, I turned my back to her.

But, no matter how long I waited, I didn’t hear the sound of rustling clothes. Maybe she’s mastered the art of changing clothes silently.

After what I decided as much more than enough time had passed, I tried asking “are you done?”, but there was no answer from behind me.

Could she have gotten up and left?

I started feeling anxious.

But,

“I’m gonna turn around, okay?”

when I asked again,

“…mm.”

a short reply came.

It was just a small whisper, but I felt relieved.

Man, trying to communicate with her is quite the tough task, I thought as I turned around, and found myself speechless.

What do you know! There, in front of me, was a naked girl who had received Alice’s clothes and magnificently transformed into a naked girl!!

“–You didn’t change at all!”

I ended up shouting out of exasperation, but the blue haired girl’s expression did not flinch one bit, as she held out the clothes in her hand towards me.

“…How do you wear this?”

Her words sounded like a bad joke, but it appeared she was being serious.

It seemed that she understood the concept of clothes, but the knowledge of how to wear them was curiously missing from her head, so she really did not know how to wear a one-piece.

I tried telling her to pull it over her head and put her arms through the holes, but it wasn’t getting through to her. Finally, I ended up half-closing my eyes and helping her put it on from behind her.

(I-I’m so tired…)

It was just a few seconds, but it was my first experience with both female clothes and with putting clothes on a female. I was starting to be overwhelmed with mental fatigue, but this was just the prelude.

Gathering my emotions and concentration, I turned to face her.

(Mm, this is…)

Distracted by her being naked, I hadn’t been able to look straight at her before; for the first time I was able to get a good look at her.

Her long blue hair that reached her waist and clear blue eyes that seemed almost transparent were especially eye-catching, but even without them she was quite the beauty.

Her thin figure was lacking in sexiness, but in return it was beautiful like a piece of artwork.

(She has to be an important character, right…)

Oh, and just for the sake of my dignity, I’ll have you know that I wasn’t carefully inspecting her body out of a sense of lust. Important characters, namely those filled with the devotion of the producers, have more effort put in their design, and as a result the chance of them being good looking is higher. This means that in Nekomimineko, if a character was good looking, then it was very likely that they had some important role in the game.

And, if she was one of the main characters in Nekomimineko, then I probably, no, I definitely would remember her… I’m pretty sure.

(I feel like I know her… but it feels like something just doesn’t quite fit.)

I felt like I’d seen her many times before, but I couldn’t clearly recall any of it.

(Oh well.)

There was no helping what I couldn’t remember. While I felt a bit uneasy about this, I decided to ask her directly.

“Please answer my questions as best as you can. If you don’t know then you can say that you don’t know, and if you don’t want to answer it then just say so too.”

“…Mm.”

She gave a small nod in response.

Seeing her respond honestly lifted a small weight off my chest.

I decided to proceed with the strategy of starting off with some harmless questions and slowly advancing to the heart of the matter.

In which case, the first would have to be…

“First of all, what is your name?”

“…I don’t know.”

A stumble right out of the gate.

Ah, but there might be circumstances behind her name that she didn’t want to tell anyone.

Something even more harmless than asking her name would be,

“Uhm, then, how old are you?”

“…I don’t know.”

Her age was also off-limits.

Wait, could it be…

An unpleasant possibility entered my mind, and I started firing off questions in rapid succession trying to refute it.

“Th-Then, your level?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Your favorite weapon?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Your favorite skill?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Then, what about your sex?”

“…Female. …Probably.”

“Where do you live?”

“…I don’t know.”

“Where is your home town?”

“…I don’t know.”

“What are your parents like?”

“…I don’t know.”

“What’s your favorite place?”

“…I don’t have any. …I think.”

“What’s your favorite food?”

“I want to eat some fruits.”

“Why did you come into this room?”

“…I don’t know.”

“When did you come into this room?”

“…I don’t know.”

“How did you come into this room?”

“…I don’t know.”

“…VR, logout, order, have you heard of any of these words before?”

“…No.”

“What’s something interesting that happened recently?”

“…I don’t know.”

“What’s the name of the god that this country worships?”

“…Redistas?”

“What year is it?”

“…I don’t know.”

“What’s the name of the king of this country?”

“…I don’t know.”

“What’s 345 squared?”

“………119025.”

This girl calculates so fast! But that’s not what’s important.

(Just what is up with her…)

If she wasn’t lying to me, then that would mean that she didn’t know much about herself at all.

At least, the only things I was able to learn from the questions were that she was female and liked fruits, and also that 345 squared was actually quite a surprisingly large number.

If it’s like this, there’s nothing I can do.

If only I could at least learn her name, was what I had begun to think, when,

“…Ah.”

I finally realized that I had forgotten about the existence of an important item.

Sticking my hand into my bag, I pulled out a bundle of paper strips.

This was indeed the important item that I had just remembered, the Status Sticker.

If I use this, then I should at least be able to find out her name and level.

“Do you mind if I use this?”

I asked, and she nodded without hesitation.

Trying not to surprise her too much, I slowly applied the Status Sticker on her arm.

Words appeared on the strip of paper.

Feeling relieved that finally I was going to be able to find some leads on the situation,

“What the heck is this…”

I involuntarily let out a groan when I saw what was written on the paper.

This was one thing that I hadn’t expected at all.

Double checking my eyes, I once again read over the letters on the Status Sticker.

 

【＊ェ♯＊♯※＆・＊♭・%※＊ェ@ : LV 1 】

 

She, was bugged.

 

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