Chapter Forty-One

For the next few days we began plodding through help wanted advertisements and online job postings. There were a lot of possibilities there. Since we had automatic translation, the most obvious thing was for her to take a job as a translator. But when I suggested that, Celia immediately gave a shake of her head that was so vigorous that her long, ink dark hair came over her shoulder and hung down her front. “Absolutely not.” She answered me. “That will absolutely not do.”

“Why not?” I replied, “Is it too easy?”

“No.” Celia’s cheeks took on a little rose color, she looked slightly away demurely, showing only the profile of her face. “It isn’t that it’s too easy, it’s…”

“Yes?” I asked.

She chewed on her lip and made a little noise as if she were trying to either bottle up words or force them out and I had no idea which one it was when she exclaimed…

“I've just never had a friend before and now that I’ve got one I don’t want a job where I’d have to travel far away and stay super busy all the time and then not be able to hang out with you!”

She let out a puff of air after rushing her words in that way, like the sound of steam bursting out of a pot after you pull the lid off all of a sudden.

It took me a moment to work out what she’d said exactly, not long, just two or three blinks of my eyes. When I did understand, I got a big goofy grin on my face and I said, “That’s sweet, but you always have teleportation, same as me, you could be back here at any moment.”

“That’s not really good enough, besides, those,” she pointed to what I had up on the screen, “all require a lot of travel, and the hours are really different, I’d come back tired and you might even be asleep and…” She took on a pout to her face, “I’d just miss you, is all.”

I had to remind myself that I really was her ‘senpai’ in a lot of ways, and when it came to relating to anyone beyond transactional things, she was very much an innocent. Plus she was still getting used to a human body with all its high passion, hell, high emotion in general.

“Alright, so forget that, then.” I said, the usual ‘reason’ wouldn’t work here and all I could accomplish would be hurting her feelings by accident, and hurting my Celia was the last thing I wanted to do.

So, we browsed more, we browsed a lot. Fast food. Slow food. Store food. My stomach rumbled. I got up and teleported to the fridge twenty paces away. I had no idea what I wanted, but the debris around us was now filled with empty containers. The downside of being a swapper is… we need to eat a lot, especially if we’re swapped into a form that isn’t ours. If our body burns off too many calories we’re bound to revert back to our natural state. Unless of course we’re stuck, in which case things that are equal parts permanent and unpleasant things will follow.

So, we have to eat quite a bit to keep that from happening. How much, that varies from one of us to the next. I'm a prodigy, so it’s not nearly as much for me, but even so, when I get hungry I know not to ignore it. Thankfully, we can eat nearly anything in a pinch, since we can always swap to the body of something capable of consuming whatever is available. I’ve even heard of swappers becoming worms to eat dirt. Unless of course… you’re stuck, in which case you’d better hope there’s food available that your body’s current form can eat. Or that you have a high tolerance for shame and can bring yourself to reach out for help. Or… if you’ve got a friend who can help you out and keep their big mouth shut.

I grabbed some bulgogi out of the fridge, it was a big bowl full of deliciousness, and then snagged the spicy red sauce that worked best with it, and I gave the bottle a couple of liberal shakes before taking a couple of plastic forks and stirring it up a bunch so there was a nice coating of hot sauce in there to add the kind of kick I liked.

I scooped a bunch into two plastic red bowls and brought them back over to the table after bumping my butt against the fridge door to close it, then dug into my food, savoring the burning sensation all over my tongue.

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“You moe,” I said while I chewed, “you khouhld loohk at the school.” Alright I probably should have finished chewing. But it was so good!

“Swallow then talk.” Celia said with a little smile my way, I guess she thought I was kind of cute in my own weird way. Or at least I amused her.

“You could look at the school, they might offer something, maybe you could tutor kids there or something, you know none of the material short of their culture or history will be a problem.” It was a thought, and she clearly seemed to give it more thought than being a translator or anything to do with travel.

But before she could say anything more, I snapped my fingers, “Oh, I forgot! You wanted to read the light novels for that series before, the one about the woman who lived a slow easy life but still got into shenanigans somehow? Yeah that got here and I must have forgotten to mention it.” I went into my room and grabbed a box I’d thrown off to one side before, “Here you go. Call it a… welcome to Earth, present.”

“Wait, present? It’s always present since the past is already gone and the future hasn’t happened yet.” Celia said and looked at the box like it was about to explode, “How do you have a box of the present?”

“No… not that kind of ‘present’.” I chuckled, “It means a gift, something you give someone, either to celebrate something, or just… no reason.”

“I’ve never gotten a gift before… I thought you’d forgotten I wanted to read this…” She said as she stared down at the little brown box in my hands.

“I sort of did.” I snorted, “Sorry, I just didn’t think about the mail, what with everything going on lately, anyway, here you go. It’s yours.”

She snatched up the box with the enthusiasm of a small human child on their gift giving holidays and promptly began tearing at the ridges where the fiber tape held it shut, her fingers were very nimble, snapping the little strands one by one until she’d torn it open and lifted the flaps up to show the smiling face of the protagonist and some of her friends arrayed on glossy cover after glossy cover.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Celia said, “this got here while you were still asleep this morning.” She then reached into her magic item storage, and pulled out a small white metallic looking headband, it glowed with a dim blue color when she held it up, and had a small panel on it which had various numbers reading that… honestly I didn’t know what those meant.

“That’s the thingy?” I asked.

“Yes, it is the thingy.” She chuckled, “All you have to do is put it on the subject and… wait. Maybe feed it some magic, but that should be it, the numbers tell you how much magic it needs. It’ll probably take you a solid week of mana cycling and contribution though, and you’ll be even more worn out at the end, if their injuries are bad enough.” She cautioned me, but I was unperturbed.

“Oh, got it, well thank you for the thingy. With any luck, this will solve five problems in one go.” I accepted it from her hand and tossed it into my own magic item storage. Those are useful, but the trouble is it only works with magic items, I can’t just store endless snacks in there. Endless enchanted snacks, sure. But those aren’t a thing, if they were, I’d have found them and eaten them already.

“Five problems?” Celia asked.

I held up my hand and pushed my pinky finger down. “Rin will be restored.” I pushed my ring finger down, “Shugo will be restored.” I pushed my middle finger down, “Asahi will not need to watch them anymore.” I pushed my pointer finger down, “Whatever is happening with them, almost certainly won’t anymore. And lastly?” I pushed my thumb down and pumped the fist in the air, “It will be easier to get chores off my plate!”

“You’re going to work almost all day and all night, exhausting yourself persistently, over and over again… for maybe a week… each… all because if you do then maybe Asahi and his cousins will be of more help with chores?” Celia asked.

“Yes.” I answered.

“You really hate doing laundry, don’t you?” She asked with wide eyed disbelief.

“And vacuuming, and mopping, and shopping, and… all of it, yes, absolutely. It’s my vacation, and I refuse to do chores on vacation. It’s the principle of the thing.” I said with a sharp nod and crossed my arms in defiance of the mere suggestion of criticism.

“I… see.” Celia mumbled and looked down at her gift, “You’re an odd one, Kayobi Taida… but I have to admit, I like you how you are.”

“Same.” I said, thinking privately to myself though, ‘If you’re willing to do ‘work’ on your vacation, you’re odder than me.’