Edited by Pantherocker
Translator note: Heyyya!
Thanks to the donations in my patreon account, the donation bar became full once again and here I am posting another sponsored chapter this week~ yeeey!
This is now the third chapter this week and tomorrow I will post the fourth regular chap.
Thank you, Cory, Froggy and Christian for your donations!
Have a good read!
-Cheers!
Finished with Rouga’s training, I arrived home just in time for dinner.
I was called by mom to take a seat, then ate my meal. Today’s dinner was a delicious hamburger, as expected from my mom. I suddenly sensed Karen’s odd gaze while I was enjoying my hamburger.
When our eyes met, she averted them once again.
She avoided eye contact again. I wondered if I was being ignored by her.
I threw away my thoughts about Karen for the time being and focused on savoring the hamburger in front of me.
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In the middle of the quiet night.
I abruptly awoke from my peaceful sleep due to the 【Presence sensation】, which detected something nearby. I usually had it active as a plan against thieves, but I never thought that something like that would actually happen.
I got up and prepared to catch the thief when I finally realized that the detected presence was not new and I halted. Apparently it was Karen.
As I was trying to figure out what she would be doing at this time of night, Karen stopped in front of my room. Immediately after realizing that door was slowly opening, I swiftly covered myself and pretended to be asleep.
Karen slowly approached my bed, raised my blankets and lay next to me.
Wai- what are you doing?!
Getting soundlessly shocked by her conduct, Karen didn’t stop there, but kept moving until she was stuck against me.
Eh, no way, what was this? What was this situation supposed to be?
Feeling dubious about Karen’s unusual behavior, I opened my eyes to confirm whether it was really her or not.
“…”
“……”
Our eyes met spot on.
It was really Karen after all.
Despite the eye contact, Karen remained to gaze at me. She must be extremely surprised since her eyes were faintly shifting.
We continued staring at each other for a few seconds. I mean, I couldn’t move even if I had wanted to.
Feeling pressed by the severe silence, I brought up my courage and opened my mouth.
“A- uum, What… are you doing?”
“…Nothing…”
“I-I see…”
Replying with only “I see,” to her excuse, the silence took place once again.
This was really awkward…
Trying to figure out a way out of the situation, Karen opened her mouth.
“…thanks.”
“Thanks?’
“I didn’t express my thanks to you yet.”
It was probably about the other day with the dragon. All of that happened because I blew the dragon in her direction, so I didn’t deserve to be thanked, honestly.
“I couldn’t find a good time to thank you and I had a hard time finding a good place to do so…”
“That’s why you sneaked into my bed?”
Karen slowly nodded her head.
This explains why she had been avoiding me lately.
It seemed like she had been waiting for good timing.
When I finally consented to Karen’s recent conduct, I said to her.
“Karen, all of that happened because I sent the dragon in your direction. So you don’t need to thank-”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Karen interrupted me when I arrived at the important part.
“The fact that you saved me doesn’t change. Besides, you rescued me from something else too.”
Uttering those words, Karen moved her face near my chest to hide it from me.
“So, thank you. Onii-chan.”
Karen’s last line reverberated inside my head.
Onii-chan… huh.
“Been a long time since you last called me that way.”
I wonder, when did she stop calling me Onii-chan?
Trying to remember the past, I recalled the last time she called me that way.
It was when we were still in elementary school. At that time I snapped after seeing her getting bullied by her classmates. Looking back at it now, I think that I went too far by taking their pictures and scattering them around the school.
From that day on, she started addressing me by “Hey, you,” or “Come here,” instead of “Onii-chan.”
Even here attitude had turned from that of a child to appear more like that of an adult woman.
But still, Onii-chan, huh?
“Karen, can you call me Onii-chan one more time?”
“Don’t get carried away.”
I requested Karen to call me Onii-chan again, but she refused.
I guess that was more of a rare event. I wanted to get immersed by its reverberation at least one more time.
How unfortunate, it looked like I wouldn’t be hearing that word for long while.
“But I can call you by anything else.”
Karen suggested.
Anything else? Just how bad do you not want to call me Onii-chan? Your big brother was feeling kinda sad now.
After spending a few moments pondering about how I should answer, I hit on a good idea.
“Well then, how about we go out somewhere together tomorrow?”
We rarely go out together, so it wouldn’t be that bad if we went somewhere tomorrow.
“Okay.”
Getting Karen’s consent, I promptly went back to sleep to wake up in time for tomorrow’s adventure.
“Okay then, tomorrow was it?”
“Right. Good night.”
Karen replied to my question and closed her eyes.
So she will sleep here, huh…
A bitter smile reached my face while watching Karen, who was sticking to me, and I closed my eyes to wait for sleep to come.
Her sleeping face and light breaths made it a little hard to sleep, but since it was cute, I let it pass.
————————————————————————————————————
Bonus
A promise.
“Chief, what did you do last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“Chief, yesterday you were kinda strange~ “
“Yesterday, Karen came to my room and we slept together.”
“Hmmm… hey, chief.”
“What?”
“You enjoyed your last night, didn’t you?”
“Wo- let’s clear up this matter right away.”
Nothing happened actually.
