Chapter 74: Integration
[Edited by: ArchmageNaoki, deathbricks, Bunny, and Arthur300000 ]
"Ohhh! So this is a witches' bathroom! How do I turn on the shower? An incantation? A tap with a wand? Or maybe, ‘Fluxus Aquae!’ " Barbara raised both of her hands and yelled in front of the shower, naked.
"Y-you can just turn that knob." I absentmindedly answered as I facepalmed myself. This is bad, if I keep ogling my niece’s naked body I would be even more of a failure as a man.
It was only Barbara and me in the bathroom because as we came back, Mr. Anderson from the Outsider Management Institute was already waiting for us at the front gate. He said: "We detected a dimensional disturbance here, so they sent me to inspect." I wondered why he didn't arrive this fast when I came to this world though.
I also wanted to be there and negotiate with him for my niece, but my mom firmly told me to let the adults handle this, and that I should help Barbara with taking a bath instead. Well, considering that I didn't pay the bills for a very long time, my apartment surely had neither electricity nor water, so it was understandable that she really stunk. I didn't mind being excluded from the meeting though. Since Barbara was with me, they had to go through me first to take her away anyway.
Even though all contact with Barbara in my past life was through her father one sidedly bragging about her to me, she still was my niece in the end, so I felt I had to protect her. I knew that I already did a lot of shameful and unforgivable things since I came to this world, but to be honest, they were totally worth it. Still, I wanted to do something right, at least for her.
"Huh? What's wrong Kuro? Did the interdimensional transportation make you sick?" My niece noticed my distress. She turned around and exposed a full view of her assets to me.
"I-I'm fine," Physically at least. I answered. However, Barbara suddenly used her forehead to measure my temperature.
"Hmm, you seem fine, be careful with your health, okay?" She smiled and then directed her attention back towards every other little thing in the bathroom.
"Wow, there are so many bottles. What is this? Cheese scented soap bar?" While I was trying to calm my mind by arranging toiletries the way they were before, Barbara picked my favorite soap up. It was the one that I got from the luxurious hotel a while ago. It was a bit dented here and there since I dropped it from time to time. My mom also nagged me once to change it because of that, but I still considered it to be in serviceable condition.
"Y-yeah, it's mine, it smells nice doesn't it?" I replied without looking back at her. I also explained to Barbara about the owner of each shelf and a plan about installing her own shelf when we had time. I pointed at the topmost shelf which was filled with mom's strawberry related products, and the second shelf which was my sister's vanilla scent toiletries. The third shelf belonged to me. It consisted of all kinds of things I snatched from that luxurious hotel. Some of them I didn't even know how to use. I only used soap and shampoo anyways.
"Ohh! And what is this!?" She pointed at the most spectacular bottle of all: hamburger scent shampoo, extra bubbles, at the bottom shelf.
"That's Cocoa's shampoo, but you better not touch that. See that line? She measures its content." I pointed at the permanent ink mark at the side of the bottle. Because Cocoa bought it with her own money, and she seemed to be fanatic about it, we kind of had a taciturn agreement that we wouldn't use this bottle.
"This bottle costs 40 credits after all." I told her the price that I asked Skynet to investigate.
"Hmm, how much is 40 credits?" Barbara asked.
"Oh, it's about four pan-, I mean about a tenth of Cocoa's monthly salary. And for reference, a normal shampoo of that size is only worth one credit." I almost slipped up and told her my secret appraisal technique.
"Whoa, it's that expensive!" Barbara stared at the bottle. "B-but only a bit should be fine, right?" She seemed very interested in the product.
"Uhm, Cocoa once said that we could also try. 'A bean size only', she said." I told Barbara what I remembered.
"So, we can try... Maybe we can share it." Barbara said conspiratorially. Then she bent down to reach for the bottle and carefully squeezed the hand pump until a shiny droplet came out. I gulped as she did that, there were so many forbidden fruits in front of me. An expensive shampoo for Eve, and Eve’s ass for Adam.
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"Whoa, look at these bubbles!" Barbara said excitedly as a tiny droplet turned into a bunch of foaming bubbles in her hands as she rubbed. I wondered what would happen if I used a whole handful as I usually did. Maybe I could fill the entire bathroom with bubbles.
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After all the dirt on Barbara’s body and my code of ethics was splendidly washed away together down the drain, I was enlightened by the fact that a certain shampoo could make my niece's hair become pleasant to touch like Cocoa's tails. Maybe I should buy it as a gift to all the women in this household.
"Here are all the toothbrushes and toothpastes I have. You can select any one you like." I materialized all kinds of dental products that I bought from a convenience store a while ago on the counter next to the sink. That time I was too excited and bought more than I needed.
"Did you produce these magically?" Barbara asked as she inspected each of them.
"No, I bought them." I told her honestly while tiptoeing to wipe away the water mist and droplets that condensed on the mirror above the sink with my hand.
"Why did you buy so many? Was the shop difficult to reach?" She picked the red toothbrush up and moved on to select her toothpaste.
"It's ... a long story." I answered, and brushed my teeth with a child-sized toothbrush that I got from the hotel. Well, the standard size was a bit too big for me.
"Having sisters is fun." I heard her mumble to herself as she picked a crimson colored poroporo flavored toothpaste. I handed her a personal cup for her use. A red one, since she seemed to like that color. There was also an image of a flying spaghetti monster on it.
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"Ha ha ha ha!" I heard some mirthful laughter from the living room as I came out of the bathroom with my niece skipping behind me, smiling broadly in my sister's dress. She couldn’t wear mine because it was a bit too small for her, so she had to make do with my sister’s clothes for the moment, even if they were too big.
"She's the cutest girl I’ve ever met, but sometimes she acts like an uncle." I heard the voice of my mom.
"Yes, I was so surprised when she brought a massage chair home. She seemed proud of it and took it with her everywhere she went, even when we traveled to visit my grandparents." Pristia added. Wait, are they talking about me?
"Yeah, but grandpa is very fond of her. He keeps asking me to bring her there again. That’s a very surprising thing coming from him." Aunos said.
[Oh, mistress welcome back. They are just talking about you.] Skynet, the somewhat harmless AI who I left in front of the bathroom to spy on them, reported to me.
[The Outsider Management Institute agent is having no problems with Mistress's family requesting to take care of Barbara. Now he’s just waiting for her to finalize the documents.] Huh? Was it that easy? I thought we had to bring her to their facility or something but it seemed not to be the case.
[Also, Ms. Cocoa is still busy turning the storage room into a room Ms. Barbara can use as her bedroom, upstairs.] Skynet finished her report as I took her with me to the living room. I thanked her for a job well done.
"Oh, there you are, we were just talking about you. It seems you get along with everyone quite well. Congratulations." Mr. Anderson greeted me. "Also, Ms. Barbara welcome to this world. There are some procedures we must-" He ranted on about a lot of bureaucratic crap.
Long story short, Barbara was treated with somewhat the same conditions as me. She got her 5,000 credits as an initial amount and 1,000 credits per month in allowance until she turned 18 years old. She could choose one item from Earth to keep and had to watch that childish bunny video introduction. However, something seemed off, there was no sedation, no interrogation, and no weird drug injections like in my case. Also, her mobile phone, which was her choice item to keep, got returned to her immediately after Mr. Anderson scanned it with his strange device.
"Hey what are you planning?" I whispered to Mr. Anderson as Mr. Bunny on our living room television warned Barbara not to shoot at flying cars no matter how threatening they seemed.
"What do you mean miss?" Ms. Anderson whispered back.
"Her treatment. I'm not complaining or anything. But didn’t she get it easier compared to me?" I stared at him, trying to determine what kind of plan he was hatching.
"No, there is nothing secret, miss." He chuckled. "It’s just that her threat level from the scanner is a lot lower than yours. So, the procedure is a lot more relaxed."
"Oh, Is that so?" I looked doubtfully at him.
"You see, miss, we trust our scanning technology. If anything can fool it, then we’re doomed anyways." He shrugged and went back to focusing on the document in front of him.
Barbara, on the other hand, watched Bunny's video excitedly with "Oh" and "Ah" slipping from her mouth from time to time. She grabbed the edges of the television as Mr. Bunny told her about a flying whale, a tourist attraction that came around every spring, and of course, that she shouldn't try to shoot it down... Have outsiders of the past mostly been the trigger-happy kind of people?
There were a lot of common sense related things in the video, like do not use a magic device in public space, if something bad happens run towards the police, and do not store any items in your storage device until you purchase them. Damn, I could’ve saved myself from a lot of embarrassment if I earnestly watched this video when I arrived.
In the end, Barbara chose to use our family name instead of the one from our previous world. As he left, Mr. Anderson also commented that she should go to the hospital to have some vaccinations. I felt a bit jealous of her treatment, so I looked at her ID card to see whether or not she had a strange line like what I used to have.
Name: Barbara Velvori Age: 16 years old
Race: Human Gender: Female
Credits: 5,000
As I thought, there was no strange line like mine. And from this point on, my niece had suddenly turned into my elder sister… This felt weird.