Chapter 122: The "Direct Line"
"You'll spend the night here for now. I expect to be back by tomorrow morning."
After giving Reze and the others their instructions, Chiya left with Denji and Kobeni. An instant later, they were transported back to the Soviet Union—specifically, to the small room in the slums. This was the first time Denji and Kobeni had experienced such long-distance spatial teleportation; they found it both novel and shocking.
"For the next few days, you'll be staying here. This is a slum in the Soviet Union; no one knows about this place except for our own. As long as you don't step outside, it is almost absolutely safe," Chiya explained.
After the thorough cleaning from last time, there was nothing wrong with the place other than it being small. It was fully furnished, with bedrooms and beds for Denji and Kobeni to sleep in. It was arguably the safest place outside of his Kamui dimension—and he couldn't actually let them stay inside the Kamui space. Aside from it being pitch black and unsuitable for normal people to live in long-term, many of his combat abilities relied on that space, such as trapping enemies inside. If Denji and Kobeni were there, that ability would essentially be neutered.
"I'll stay with you tonight, but starting tomorrow morning, try your best not to leave this room," Chiya reminded them once more.
Before going to sleep, Chiya opened his system interface to take a look.
Host: Otonashi Chiya
Strength: 150
Speed: 159
Vitality: 467
Allocatable Attribute Points: 103 (Total earned: 856)
System Shop LV1: (144 more points needed to unlock LV2)
Purchased Items: Night of the Clan Slaughter Skin (Standby)
The system panel had changed slightly since last time, now showing his cumulative points and the progress toward the Level 2 shop. Chiya did some quick math: 140 points spent on Strength, 148 on Speed, 455 on Vitality, 10 for the skin, plus the remaining 3 points and the 100 points from the "Night of Slaughter" achievement. The total checked out.
He also noted the skin bonus: when wearing the Night of the Clan Slaughter skin, his Vitality would display as 467 (+5); currently, it was at its base value.
[Ding! Allocation complete. Strength +10, Speed +1, Vitality +82!]
Strength: 160
Speed: 160
Vitality: 549
To prepare for the upcoming battles, Chiya focused heavily on the Vitality attribute. This would allow him to recover much faster from the severe exhaustion caused by his assault on the Soviet military. However, he intentionally saved 10 points to purchase the "White Mask" skin.
[Ding! Host has successfully purchased the "White Mask" (Skin). -10 Attribute Points. Current remaining points: 0!]
Early the next morning, Chiya said his goodbyes to Denji and Kobeni.
"It's time for me to go. If anything bad happens, contact me immediately; I'll get here as fast as I can," Chiya instructed. "You won't have to wait long. It shouldn't take more than three days to settle everything."
The worst thing they might encounter here would be homeless people or low-level thugs; if anything happened, he could simply teleport back and eliminate them instantly.
In a place like the slums, even if someone died, the police wouldn't bother investigating, so there was no fear of exposing Denji and Kobeni's location.
"Mhm, I believe in you, Otonashi-kun."
"Me too! And we're fine here, so you must be careful, Chiya-gege!"
Both Higashiyama Kobeni and Denji had absolute faith in Otonashi Chiya's words. Consequently, they cared more about his safety than their own.
"I'll be careful. That's it for now—I'll come find you once I've settled everything."
With that, Chiya transferred himself back to Japan. Kobeni and Denji felt fine about the arrangement. They were used to Chiya only coming back once a week; waiting three days would pass in a flash. At most, they just couldn't go outside. But given their personalities, staying indoors didn't really matter. Denji could play games with Pochita, and Kobeni would occasionally join in—especially since she had brought plenty of snacks and fruit. To her, having good food was better than anything else.
Back in Tokyo.
The first thing Otonashi Chiya saw as he stepped out of the spatial vortex was the four men sprawled across the various sofas in the living room. He could immediately imagine what had happened last night: the two bedrooms were likely occupied by Reze, Shingetsu, and Furia, leaving these four to make do with the couch.
Theoretically, with their Hybrid constitutions, they didn't need to sleep. Like devils, they could recover as long as they consumed blood. However, they still felt exhaustion when blood was scarce, and a nap felt quite comfortable when the body was weary.
Just then, Reze opened a bedroom door and walked out.
"Ah, Master is already back." Seeing Chiya, a slight smirk played on Reze's lips. "By the way, Miss Shingetsu just woke up and is changing her clothes. Would you like to go in and take a look, Master~?"
However, the moment the words left her mouth, the bedroom door slammed shut with a loud bang—clearly Shingetsu's doing. The noise woke the four men on the sofa, but having slept their fill, it was indeed time to get up.
"I'm not that much of a pervert," Chiya said, rolling his eyes at Reze. "So you slept with Shingetsu last night, and Furia was in the other room."
He had expected the relationship between Reze and Shingetsu to be somewhat discordant, but it seemed Shingetsu preferred sharing a bed with her most familiar acquaintance, Reze.
"That's right! Miss Shingetsu and I get along famously!" Reze said with a laugh.
"If that's true, then all the better," Chiya remarked casually.
A moment later, Furia emerged from the other room. "Sorry about that! I feel bad making you four men suffer last night," she apologized immediately.
"It doesn't matter. Sleeping on the sofa is actually quite comfortable."
"Yeah, at most, it might be bad for the body long-term, but as Hybrids, we don't need to care about physical health issues."
The four men didn't mind. It was clear that they had yielded the bedroom to Furia. To be more precise, they first didn't dare fight Reze and Shingetsu for a room, and secondly, they had surrendered the remaining bedroom to Furia. After all, in their eyes, Reze and Shingetsu were the "inner circle" with a special relationship to Chiya, while they were merely the "outer branch" that had just surrendered.