Tale of Discovery

What's this sensation?

It feels like a snail is moving over my cheek.

Opening my eyes, I see Koneko on her knees and hands, leaning over me.

As if not expecting me to wake up, she stiffens up before looking me in the eyes with her tail standing upright.

Was she licking me just now?

Seeing how panicky she's acting confirms my suspicions.

I check the room for the presence of anyone else, and once I'm sure that we're alone, I pull Koneko into my embrace.

"You're seriously adorable, you know?" I whisper into her ear, my breath making it twitch.

She is cute. Dangerously so.

I proceed to move her head and look into her golden eyes. Both of her eyes seem to be twitching from anxiety.

Right, upon leaving this room, Koneko will be discoursing with her sister, whom she believes has betrayed her. Naturally, she should be stressed out right now.

To calm her down, I place my hand on her left cheek before leaning into her.

Koneko realizes what I'm planning to do as she closes her eyes and moves her head closer.

Our lips press against each other as I embrace her petite body tightly.

While kissing her, I enjoy the softness of her tail, which is coiled around my right arm as I play with her ears using my other arm.

After a few minutes of kissing, I back away from her before saying,

"Let's go, Koneko. Everything is going to be fine with me backing you up, okay?"

Koneko nods her head once while uttering an "um" before getting up from the bed and waiting for me to do the same.

Following suit, I get up from the bed and hold her hand as both of us walk to the door.

[[Do you have a thing for kids?]]

"No," I mutter in response to Tia's inquiry.

---

Currently, all the residents of the mansion are in the living room, myself included.

Everyone listened to Kuroka speak of her past, probably out of curiosity.

Koneko, who's sitting on my lap, was dissatisfied with her explanation, to the point that she denied the possibility of it being the truth.

Looking at the disheartened Kuroka, I decide to intervene.

"Kuroka," I call out to her, attracting everyone's attention.

"I have the power to make you obey every order I make. Are you fine with me using the power to make you tell the truth?"

In response to my words, Kuroka is mildly shocked by the oddity of my power, before she seriously nods her head as confirmation.

Thus, I spend the next ten minutes confirming everything she said using Indoctrination.

It seems like the effort was worth it as Koneko seems to be convinced of everything. Nevertheless, Koneko said to me that she needs time to accept her, which I relayed to her sister.

Fortunately, Kuroka seems like she's willing to wait patiently.

Leaving that aside, it seems like I really do need to pay a visit to House of Nauberius.

I wonder how painful "holy" objects are for Devils...

--

"Hello, how have you two been doing?" I say in a friendly manner upon entering the room a certain mother and daughter are.

"We've been doing fine, thank you," Yasaka replies while continuing to brush Kunou's tails.

A few seconds later she stops and turns her head to face me before saying, "What brings you here at this hour?"

I shrug and say nonchalantly,

"Nothing in particular. I only hoped to see you two again."

That's one of the reasons. Another one is that I wanted to check on the state of the Youkai district here.

I suppose, fortifying the shrine-house that was offered to us will be beneficial, so I will have Yuno come over soon and get it done.

Naturally, I will reward her properly.

"Excuse me, Mr. Haruka," Yasaka's voice interrupts my thoughts.

"Victor," I say, "You may call me Victor."

Yasaka squints her eyes slightly before nodding her head and answering gracefully,

"Very well, Mr. Victor (Victor-san)."

"Could you drop the "Mr." (-san), as I'm not used to being called in such a manner."

"Understood," she replies, "You may call me Yasaka in return."

I nod my head and wait for her to continue with what she wanted to say earlier.

"Victor, do I get to have the pleasure of knowing your identity?" she bluntly asks, while maintaining her elegant composure.

"No problem," I say nonchalantly before grinning and stating, "I am God."

As expected, Yasaka isn't startled by my claim. There are two plausible reasons for her to be unsurprised.

The first one is that she thinks of it as a joke. As for the second one, Yasaka must've expected such a reply or one similar to it, which is quite intriguing.

"You knew?" I ask her curiously.

"No," she replies calmly, "I had a general idea of your strength and disposition, however, I didn't know who you were."

"Do you believe me?"

Yasaka slowly shakes her head and says,

"It doesn't matter if I believe in your words or not. What matters is that you're strong and have peculiar abilities. As such, I wouldn't want to offend such a figure and effectively endanger my fellow Youkai."

In response to her words, which for some reason make me seem like a psychopath, I beam a smile and say,

"You don't need to worry about me harming any Youkai, as long as no one attempts to do something dumb."

[[It seems like I was mistaken about you, concerning what I said earlier.]]

"Of course," I mutter, knowing that Tia is referring to when she said I'm interested in kids.

[[You simply don't care about age, at all.]]

...

Hah~ I will just ignore her from now on.

Focusing back on reality, I look at Kunou who has been staring at me ever since her mother stopped brushing her tail and say,

"Yasaka, do you mind if I take Kunou out?"

"What for?" she says while looking at me with a small smile on her face.

"I only wish to spend some time with her," I respond.

After thinking for a few moments, she nods her head and says,

"That's fine, however, I will be accompanying you."

Just what I wanted to hear.

It's better if I spend some of my time away from the mansion, so that I don't get bored of staying there. The same goes for the girls, so I should take them on an outing every once in a while.

There is another reason that I'm staying outside, which is that I wish to see how the girls in the mansion treat each other while I'm away.

For that purpose, I set up a bunch of mini-cameras that are barely visible in the mansion, while using Rework to make them seem invisible from the outside.

Once I'm back in the mansion, checking what was caught by the cameras will be the first thing that I will do, and act according to what I see.

"We can't go out tonight, as it's too late to go anywhere, so let's go some other day," I suggest.

"Of course," Yasaka replies.

I take a look at Kunou and see that she's delighted at the prospect of going out somewhere.

It's almost like she doesn't get the chance to do this a lot.

"While I'm here, how about we play a game of your choice?" I say to Yasaka.

---

After hours of playing table games with Yasaka and Kunou, I finally return to the mansion, exhausted.

Just as I'm about to drift off to sleep, I feel a soft and wet sensation on my cheek.

Has this become a habit for Koneko now? Licking my cheek? Well, it's cute, so I don't mind it much.

Pulling the petite body into my embrace without bothering to open my eyes, I give her a quick peck on the lips before patting her head.

However, I suddenly feel a chill run down my spine as I'm unable to feel Koneko's cat-ears.

Gulping down some saliva, I open my eyes anxiously.

What meets my sight is a blushing Ayumi who's trying to cover her face with both of her hands.

As I hear her softly mutter "Brother Yu", Tia's voice resounds within my head,

[[You've done it now.]]

Shit.

~~~~~

Complete Title: Kuroka's Explanation ; Visit ; It was at this moment that...