"This doesn't make any sense."
Staring at the book in his hands, Natsuki felt it was completely absurd.
How could a book like this possibly exist in a castle from who-knows-how-many years ago?
How to Raise a Loyal Boyfriend... the title alone screamed modern Japanese manga.
"What are you looking at?"
Kaguya walked over curiously. Her gaze fell on the book's cover, and her beautiful eyes widened involuntarily.
This doesn't make sense!
The cover, the title—they were exactly the same... This was the very book she'd hidden away in her drawer, wasn't it?
Why would it show up inside the game?
"Do you know this book?"
Sensing the ice queen's unmistakably startled expression, Natsuki asked curiously.
Kaguya: "..."
What to do?
Should she admit to it?
If she admitted it, how would she explain why she'd been reading something like this?
No—she couldn't explain herself. She'd definitely come across as one of those girls who appears perfectly proper on the surface but is actually twisted on the inside.
"I..."
Kaguya drew in a quiet breath. Her eyelashes fluttered as she turned her pretty face away, just about to brush it off—when a soft sound suddenly drew both their attention.
"Kaguya-chan, look what I found!"
Chika waved the two of them over.
"What is it?" Kaguya walked over, seizing the chance to change the subject entirely.
"Look." Chika held up a book. "The title is super weird."
Natsuki looked over curiously. The moment he read the title, he was stunned.
The Postpartum Care Guide for Sows?
This book had absolutely no business being inside a castle!
At the same time.
The others were also discovering all sorts of bizarre titles one after another—things like 108 Ways for an ADC to Die, 100 Days to Make a Tokyo Rich Lady Fall for You, A Brief History of Time, I Became a River Crab, Ms. Su's Attempt to Survive in the Reincarnation World, and so on.
All in all, books of every imaginable variety were present, and not a single one had any business being here.
Natsuki tried flipping open How to Raise a Loyal Boyfriend and found the text inside was hopelessly blurry—completely unreadable.
A prompt appeared before his eyes once more.
[Taking a closer look, you notice this book is quite peculiar]
"No need to remind me. Anyone can see this book is weird."
Natsuki muttered under his breath, then picked up other books. He found that some had entirely blurred contents, while occasionally a book would have legible text—though only scattered fragments here and there.
"Amamiya-kun, hurry up and come out!" Chika called from the doorway, arms full of books.
"Mm."
Natsuki answered, scooped up a stack of books, and together with the other players left the library and returned to the hall.
"The fireplace is over there."
"Hurry up and get a fire going."
"I'm freezing to death. I swear my teeth are chattering."
"..."
The group of players gathered before the fireplace, shivering uncontrollably as they set down the books they'd been carrying. Then they turned to look at one another.
"We can light the fire now."
"Come on, light it already. I'm dying of cold."
"Why hasn't anyone started the fire yet?"
"..."
The air fell into an awkward silence. No one spoke.
After several seconds of dead air, Chika couldn't help but say: "...Um, does anyone actually have something to start a fire with?"
Natsuki was the first to answer: "I don't."
Kaguya: "Neither do I."
"Me me me." Kotoriyū Rokka raised her hand. Seeing everyone turn to look at her, she said weakly, "I don't have one either."
Yukino Yukinoshita: "I'm sorry."
"..."
Before long, everyone came to the same very serious realization.
No fire-starting tools.
Lighters, matches—things like that simply couldn't be brought from the real world into the game world. They seemed utterly unremarkable in everyday life, but when you actually needed them, going without was simply not an option.
Natsuki suddenly thought of a saying: Life is full of unexpected twists and turns, and the large intestine...
Wrong. Let me try again.
The dramatic ups and downs of life are exactly like that.
"With the countdown still so far off, we're not actually going to freeze to death, are we?"
One of the female players spoke up, her tone edging toward despair.
"Don't give up." Chika encouraged. "We could always try... friction fire-starting?"
Don't be ridiculous! Friction fire-starting might sound simple, but it's actually incredibly difficult. An ordinary person can't produce a spark—they'd just end up with hands full of blisters!
"Great suggestion." Natsuki nodded in agreement. "I'll leave that task to you."
Chika blinked at him: "Amamiya-kun seems to be saying the opposite of what he means."
"I'm not."
"You're not even looking me in the eye when you say that."
"..."
The friction fire-starting proposal was quickly shot down. Everyone was shivering so badly their hands and feet had gone stiff. With no suitable tools at hand, even Bear Grylls himself couldn't have managed it—let alone ordinary people.
"Actually, there is another option." Yukino Yukinoshita folded her right arm across her chest, calmly proposing: "Everyone can huddle together for warmth."
"Eh?"
"Just like the penguins in Antarctica." Kaguya picked up the thread, her voice clear and pleasant. "In Antarctic winters, temperatures can plummet to negative thirty or forty degrees. Hundreds and thousands of penguins gather together, and the collective heat they radiate is enough to ward off the cold."
"I understand now."
Chika's eyes lit up. She swiftly spread her arms and pulled Kaguya into a hug, pressing cheek to cheek: "Like this, right? Warming up together?"
"Let go of me." Kaguya tilted her head, uncomfortable with such intimate physical contact. "Huddling back-to-back is sufficient."
"No way. A proper hug is clearly more effective for warmth."
"Yukino-senpai." Kotoriyū Rokka's ahoge swayed gently as she looked toward the black-haired girl. "Warm up, warm up."
"..."
The temperature inside the castle kept dropping. Now it wasn't just the wooden door—frost had begun creeping across the walls in pale white streaks. Every single person was shivering, hands and feet numb with cold.
Under these circumstances, huddling together for warmth was absolutely necessary.
Of course, girls with girls, boys with boys.
Three sofas sat before the fireplace. The female players crowded onto one sofa, with Chika and Kaguya in the middle and the others on either side.
Natsuki sat with the other two male players, trying their best to share warmth between them.
"Are you guys cold?" The tall, broad-shouldered player Kiyono asked in a low voice.
Natsuki said, his tone melancholy: "I'm contemplating what pose would look the most heroic."
"What do you mean?" Kiyono looked at him, confused.
Natsuki: "Even if I end up frozen solid, I want it to be a heroic pose."
"Hey, this really isn't the time for jokes." The player named Izumi covered his mouth and coughed twice. "So huddling together for warmth really is useless, isn't it?"
"Maybe it's because there aren't enough of us?" Natsuki stroked his chin. "How about you two go ask the girls on the other side if they'd be willing to surround us in the middle?"
"You're dreaming. There's no way they'd agree to that!"
"..."
In practice, squeezing together for warmth had only a marginal effect at best.
Natsuki quietly turned his attention to his game inventory, hoping to find something useful.
"Hm?"
A badge suddenly caught his eye.
The exclusive badge he'd earned for clearing Midnight Subway—the Badge of Life's Light. In Marin's words, it just made your skin a shade whiter and your body temperature a bit higher.
"Trying it out will tell."
Curious, Natsuki pulled out the badge and put it on. Almost immediately, a wave of warmth spread from the badge and flowed quietly into his body. His limbs, which had been stiff with cold, rapidly relaxed and grew comfortable.
"It actually works."
Natsuki was mildly surprised. He hadn't expected it to actually come in handy.
"Huh? Why did your body suddenly get warmer?" Kiyono turned his head curiously.
"It really isn't as cold as before." Izumi was equally stunned.
Natsuki didn't bother hiding it. He displayed the badge's effect: "...It's a bound item. There's no way to lend it to someone else."
"Amamiya-kun." Chika's eyes sparkled. "The moment for you to sacrifice yourself has arrived."