Chapter 719: Iwanaga Kotoko's Call, She Really Wants to Slack Off!
Hina Amano has megalophobia.
Or rather, she has a specific fear of things that are too large fitting into places that are too small.
Ren could understand the apprehension. It was a daunting prospect for anyone, especially someone as innocent as the Sunshine Girl.
But even Illya—small, delicate Illya—had managed to adapt. If a homunculus with the body of a child could handle it, surely Hina could eventually find her stride.
After all, Ren had learned the art of patience through extensive practice.
At most, it was just a matter of easing in, expanding boundaries little by little. Illya had adapted degree by degree, her capacity stretching to accommodate his presence over time.
However, he wasn't in such a hurry right now to push those limits with Hina.
"We'll talk about this tonight," Ren said, his voice calm but promising. "I need to go out for a bit."
Ria blinked, her emerald eyes filled with confusion. "Go out? Now?"
"I, at this time, shouldn't ask too many questions. Just follow Master's lead."
A calm, majestic voice interrupted her.
Particles of light coalesced behind Ria, separating from her Spirit Origin. A tall, curvaceous figure clad in silver armor and a royal mantle materialized.
It was Lancer Artoria, the Lion King, wielding the holy spear Rhongomyniad.
She separated from her younger self's body, her gaze gently fixing on Ren. She nodded slightly, her expression one of mature understanding.
"Hmm, so this is Master's world? It feels... free."
Before Ria could complain about the sudden mitosis, another figure popped into existence with a digital shwing sound.
"Target confirmed! Ah, it's just Master."
Mysterious Heroine X, wearing her tracksuit and cap, landed in a crouch. She looked around, sniffing the air. "I smell Sabers. Too many Sabers."
Ria's face turned extremely dark.
She looked at the two variations of herself—one possessing the "assets" she envied, and the other an Assassin designed to kill her.
When these guys were persecuting her in the shared mind-space earlier, not one of them spoke up to defend her.
They only cared about their own pleasure, riding the waves of sensation Ren provided while leaving the original Artoria to bear the brunt of the physical exhaustion.
Only she, the "younger sister" in this weird hierarchy, had endured too much.
But as soon as there was an opportunity to educate her or take credit, they were all more active than the last.
Ren chuckled, sensing the rising tension among the Pendragons.
"You don't have to stay in Ria's body here. This space is infinite; just find a room to stay in."
Ren arranged the accommodations casually. "If you don't understand anything, you can ask the people living here. They are all my women."
"Hmm, am I... am I considered one too?"
Tohru, the dragon maid, stepped forward. Her cheeks flushed a deep pink as she wagged her thick, green dragon tail excitedly.
"Of course," Ren smiled. "You're my maid, aren't you?"
"Th-that, I... I'm not..."
A small, trembling hand rose from the corner.
Hina Amano, wearing her hoodie, looked like a frightened rabbit surrounded by apex predators. She weakly raised her hand, trying to deny her involvement in this harem dynamic.
However, she only received Ren's half-smile, which promised future "corrections," and Tohru's gaze, which was filled with a burning desire for her to improve.
"Amano Hina, are you an idiot?"
Tohru grabbed Hina by the shoulders, shaking her slightly.
"Ren is such a good person! He is powerful, kind, and provides unlimited mana! And you don't know how to seize the opportunity? How can there be such an idiot among humans?"
"Eh?!!!" Hina's eyes spun in spirals. "B-But... megalophobia..."
"I see you completely don't understand dragon logic! Come, let me explain it to you properly in the other room!"
Tohru pushed Amano Hina away, practically dragging the poor weather maiden down the hallway.
Before disappearing, Tohru gave Ren a look that said, 'I'll help Master break her in,' which made Ren unable to help but laugh.
"Those two..."
He shook his head. The liveliness of the villa was comforting, but he had business to attend to.
He wasn't going to waste time here.
Because a voice somewhere in the world was calling his name over and over again.
It wasn't a shout. It was a prayer. A summons.
It had been incessant since he returned to this world, buzzing at the back of his mind like a persistent notification.
Ren... Ren... Ren...
He couldn't just ignore it. Especially not when he knew exactly who the owner of that cheeky, intellectual voice was.
...
The setting sun cast long, melancholic shadows across the floorboards of a luxurious, traditional Japanese villa deep in the mountains.
It was a place isolated from human society, a sanctuary for things that bumped in the night.
In the empty living room, dust motes danced in the fading light.
A voice echoed, sounding bored and slightly desperate.
"Ren, are you there?"
"Ren, can you hear me?"
"Ren, I'm looking for you. Pick up the phone, oh great Administrator."
The voice calling Ren became increasingly weak, losing its initial vigor.
Iwanaga Kotoko sat on the expensive leather sofa. She looked tiny against the furniture, her petite frame almost swallowed by the cushions.
She wore a white dress and a beret, her signature look. Her single eye stared blankly at the ceiling, while her prosthetic leg rested stiffly against the floor.
She sighed, turning to the yokai floating beside her—a floating skull surrounded by ghostly fire.
"Sigh, can this really call him here? I feel like an idiot talking to the air."
Unfortunately, the yokai couldn't answer her. It just bobbed up and down, offering silent moral support.
Iwanaga Kotoko also lost her confidence.
She had been calling for two days straight. She had chanted his name like a mantra, prayed to him like a deity, and even tried threatening him under her breath.
And she hadn't seen a soul.
"Maybe he's busy? Maybe he forgot about me? Or maybe he's just enjoying his harem too much to care about the Goddess of Wisdom."
She pouted, crossing her arms.
Just as she was about to give up and resign herself to another night of paperwork and yokai disputes...
"What do you want me for?"
A calm, deep voice resonated right next to her ear.
Ren suddenly appeared in front of her, materializing out of thin air as if he had always been there.
!!!
Even Iwanaga Kotoko, who dealt with ghosts and monsters daily, was startled.
"Wah!"
She jumped, nearly falling off the sofa. But in an instant, her shock transformed into relief.
She threw herself into Ren's arms, abandoning all dignity.
"Wuwuwu, you finally appeared! I thought you abandoned me!"
She buried her face in his chest, making sobbing noises. "I've been so lonely! So cold! The world is so cruel!"
Her desperate appearance was truly moving. If one didn't know her, they would think she was a tragic heroine reunited with her lover.
Ren twitched his lips, looking down at the girl clinging to him like a koala.
"Stop acting," he said dryly. "And don't wipe your snot on me. Just say what you want."
"Tsk, you're so heartless. A girl cries for you and you worry about your shirt."
Iwanaga Kotoko looked up instantly.
There was not a trace of tears on her face. Her eye was clear, sharp, and calculating.
It was all an act. A performance designed to elicit sympathy, which had failed spectacularly.
Even though some time had passed since they last met, Ren still knew her inside and out. He knew that beneath the cute, petite exterior lay a cunning, slightly perverted, and incredibly lazy mind.
"By the way," Kotoko said, poking his chest. "Are you really a god who can appear and grant wishes just by hearing my voice? That's broken, you know. That's a serious bug in the reality matrix."
Iwanaga Kotoko was full of curiosity. Her role as the Goddess of Wisdom required her to understand the logic of the world, and Ren defied all logic.
Ren gave her a sidelong glance, walking over to the sofa and sitting down. Kotoko naturally sat beside him, leaning close.
"I can hear you if you utter my name anywhere in the universe," Ren explained casually. "It's a basic permission setting."
"But a god who grants wishes? You're thinking too much. I'm not a genie."
"I just want to see what the little brat who keeps calling my name wants. You were getting annoying."
"Little brat?"
Iwanaga Kotoko froze. Her eyebrow twitched.
She put her hands on her hips, puffed out her small chest, and glared at him.
"Where do I look like a little brat? I am a legal adult! I am the Goddess of Wisdom! I have a very mature worldview!"
Ren didn't speak. He simply gestured to her head, which only reached below his chest. Then he glanced at her flat chest, and then at her short stature.
The silence was deafening.
...
Well, Iwanaga Kotoko couldn't refute that. Physically, she lost completely.
She could only grumble in her heart, 'So low EQ. He doesn't understand the appeal of the petite. Shallow man.'
Thump!
The next moment, her forehead was flicked hard by Ren.
"Ow!"
Hiss!
Iwanaga Kotoko clutched her head and squatted down on the sofa, tears actually forming in her eyes this time.
"Don't badmouth me in your heart. I can hear that too."
???
Iwanaga Kotoko's eyes widened in genuine horror. "You can hear that too? Is there no privacy?!"
Despite always having a mischievous streak and being unshakeable in the face of terror, Iwanaga Kotoko felt a chill.
She had already recorded the information in her mental database.
For example, his instant appearance (Teleportation/Omnipresence).
Hearing her call his name (Cosmic Awareness).
Hearing her thoughts (Telepathy).
Combined with previous events, this person was completely a god. Not a local deity like the mountain spirits she managed, but a Capital-G God.
If he was really that powerful...
A spark of hope ignited in her heart. A hope for true freedom.
Iwanaga Kotoko stood up, adjusting her beret. Her expression became serious.
"Can you fundamentally solve the problems of the oddities?" she asked.
"Hm?"
Ren looked at her in surprise. "Aren't you the Goddess of Wisdom? Your entire purpose is to mediate between humans and yokai. I remember you even enjoyed solving the oddities with logic and lies."
Sigh.
After sighing deeply, a sound that carried the weight of endless bureaucracy, Iwanaga Kotoko sat back on the sofa.
She threw her cane aside, letting it clatter onto the floor. She slumped back, adopting a posture of wanting to slack off completely, her legs splayed ungracefully.
"I'm tired. I don't want to do it anymore."
She stared at the ceiling. "Every day it's 'Kotoko-sama, the kappa ate a cucumber that belonged to a farmer,' or 'Kotoko-sama, the ghost in the tunnel is lonely.' It's tedious. It's boring."
Ever since her two encounters with Ren where she faced problems she couldn't solve with simple logic (like the Doomsday scenarios), Iwanaga Kotoko actually felt that doing virtual deductions as the Goddess of Wisdom had become somewhat boring. The thrill was gone.
"I get it," Ren nodded, a smirk playing on his lips. "You want to slack off."
"So you hope I can fundamentally solve the problem of oddities—rewrite the laws of this world so they don't clash with humanity—so you can enjoy your leisure. Maybe spend all day eating beef bowls and sleeping."
Iwanaga Kotoko gave him a thumbs up, her face deadpan.
"You're really good at reading people. Exactly. I want to retire."
Ren smiled faintly, leaning back. "I can tell you clearly that this matter is very simple and easy for me. I can rewrite the order of this planet in a nanosecond."
!!!
Iwanaga Kotoko's eyes lit up like high-beam headlights.
It's really possible?! He can actually fix the glitch in the world's programming?
"But," Ren continued, his voice dropping an octave, "why should I do that? I'm not a charity."
He wanted to say that there was no benefit in it for him. He was about to negotiate a price, perhaps ask for information or loyalty.
But he didn't expect the Goddess of Wisdom's next move.
In a flash, Iwanaga Kotoko sat up. Her hands went to the straps of her white dress.
With a smooth motion, the dress pooled around her waist.
She was only in her underwear—a simple, cute set that matched her diminutive frame.
She didn't stop there.
She reached down to her left leg. With a series of clicks and mechanical whirs, she detached her prosthetic leg.
She placed the heavy prosthetic aside on the coffee table with a thud.
Then, she lay flat on the sofa, her arms spread wide, her single leg bent slightly at the knee. Her skin was pale and smooth, glowing softly in the dim light.
She looked at him with her one good eye, her expression a mix of determination and shyness.
"Come," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "My body is yours. This is the only currency I have that is valuable enough for a God."
"..."
This scene surprised Ren.
He raised an eyebrow. He had seen far more than this—goddesses, queens, demons—but Kotoko's straightforwardness was unique. It was transactional, yet there was a desperate affection underneath it.
He looked at her small, vulnerable form. The absence of her leg and eye were marks of her sacrifice for her duty, and now she was offering the rest of herself to be free of it.
He calmly reached out. His hand brushed against the strap of her bra.
As he approached, her small hand suddenly grabbed his wrist.
Iwanaga Kotoko still couldn't help but blush. Her face turned the color of a ripe tomato.
Her rapid heartbeat—thump, thump, thump—clearly showed she wasn't as calm as she appeared. She was shaking like a leaf.
"Cough."
Iwanaga Kotoko coughed, trying to regain some semblance of control: "You... you haven't agreed to me yet. You have to say yes to the contract before you take the payment."
"Heh."
Ren looked at her panicked eyes and chuckled.
He raised his free hand and snapped his fingers.
Snap!
An invisible ripple spread out from the villa, sweeping across the entire globe instantly. The laws of the world were rewritten. The boundary between the Near Shore and the Far Shore was stabilized permanently.
"Done."
"Ah???"
Iwanaga Kotoko was full of questions. Her brain short-circuited. "D-done? Just like that?"
Before she could react or verify the status of the world's spirits.
She was picked up effortlessly by Ren.
He sat on the sofa, positioning her so she straddled his lap.
Her single bare foot pressed against the cushion for support, while the stump of her other leg rested against his thigh. The intimacy of the position made her gasp.
Ren's hands settled on her waist, his eyes dark with intent.
"Since the work is done," Ren whispered against her lips, "it's time to collect the payment."
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