The next morning was bright with the shimmering sun. Touji awoke early, much earlier than he had previously been accustomed to. He felt groggy and sluggish as usual, though much more so today due to him only retaining two hours of rest since they arrived back from the city. While also still recovering from the slightly traumatizing events from early that morning it was hard to blame him for his lack of thoughtfulness when he realized he had slept with his shoes on and still neglected to remove them even after realizing his mistake, a mortal sin for a Japanese youth.

Nonetheless, he got up from the sofa and tiptoed into the kitchen to find the old man and his wife casually folding laundry beside the dining room table.

"Oh, you’re up. You wanna help Claria outside today? She has the whole garden to weed, so if you wouldn't mind?" Derra asked as Touji greeted them ‘good morning’.

"Yes, I'll do it." Touji wiped his sleepy eyes as he took his seat where a stacked plate of eggs resided. He then proceeded to gulp down his breakfast with little consideration for the ones who made it.

Touji was famished and certainly not in the mood to appreciate the people around him.

“Remember the promise I made.” Asked Odja as Touji finally noticed his existence for the first time.

“Promise?” Touji pondered while eyeing the old man as he tapped his head repeatedly.

The old man smirked at him with a mischievous grin unbefitting of his age.

-Oh that. You mean the one in which you sold your own daughter? Yeah, I remember that. Regretfully.

Before letting the conversation even begin he promptly replied with a quick, “Nope. Don’t remember a thing.” in the hopes that it would not see the light of day. Odja now seemed disappointed to a degree, but Touji had zero motivation to entertain any such deals in which people were involved without the consent of all parties.

-This whole marriage gimmick is getting out of hand. It's full of troupes I hate.

He sighed, putting away his plate along with any thoughts pertaining to engagement on the kitchen counter, he quietly stepped outside for a bit of fresh air. It was quite a splendid morning as the sun gracefully spilled over the horizon. The birds chirped quite furiously, hopping from tree to tree.

One notable improvement in the world's graphics was the reduced amount of the presumed arclight clouds in the air which was minimal, to say the least, allowing Touji to fully appreciate his surroundings.

-Kind of weird of me to be thinking this, but I feel like if this were a proper isekai, there should be more than one sun. Or maybe it was more than one moon, I can’t remember.

He'd imagined at least two round Christmas ornaments floating aimlessly yet also orderly in the sky, and it seemed almost out of place for the horizon to have been left so empty.

Taking his socks and footwear off, Touji stepped out onto the grass barefoot, letting the morning dew seep between his toes. When he reached the garden, Touji stooped down to his knees and then rolled onto his back.

He peacefully stared at the sky counting all the black clusters of dark arclight mist which stained the light blanket of sea blue.

Without warning the sun was suddenly blocked by the long shadow of a human figure.

"Whatcha doin'?" Claria asked, bending over Touji's face, letting her rosy hair dangle over his nose.

"I was enjoying the morning view, which I still am, though apparently there's more than one type of view."

"What do you mean?" She asked tilting her head.

"Well . . ." He replied, sitting up and changing his position into a very teacher-like posture. "You see, there’s view number one." He pointed to the sky. "And view number two." His finger turned and pointed at her.

"Ah, I see. Well, that's nice of you to say." She answered, her cheeks slightly turning red.

"Damn, I've never seen somebody take a comment like that without a slap and tell such as ‘gross’ or 'perv' at the top of their lungs first," Touji remarked quite surprised. Glancing down at her waist he noticed that she had been keeping her right hand behind her back. He deduced by her non-verbal gestures that she was trying to prevent him from noticing something about her right hand.

-Is she holding something she doesn’t want me to see?

Touji wondered.

“Is that the normal reaction?” Claria replied to his previous comment. She was a little disheartened by his former sentence, mainly because she in some possibly large way, might not be completely normal.

“Well, to a certain extent. Though I can’t differentiate if that’s what really happens or is just something that commonly occurs on TV.”

"TV? Well . . . I'm not used to lashing out." The girl responded subconsciously putting her hands together in front of her and fiddling her fingers nervously. One of her hands, her dominant to be precise, was wrapped in a cloth or bandage-type material. Knowing her, she probably didn’t want him to ask for whatever reason cause women get worried about those sorts of things.

"You know what they say, you aren't a real gentleman until you can take a slap from a woman."

"I've never heard anyone say that before."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"That's beside the point. Anyway, why don’t we both make this a learning experience? Try slapping me."

The randomness of this request was shockingly bizarre and felt extremely out of character. Touji had a reason for such a request though there were dozens of other ways he could have gone about it, he instead chose the most exotic option.

"What? I-I don't think so." She hastily replied.

"Look." Touji sat down, trying desperately to make something so unnatural make sense. "It's perfect training for you and me. I get used to the pain of being slapped by a woman, (which we all know I will be experiencing in abundance from now on), and you get to feel what it's like to punish your cheating boyfriend. It's a win-win." He held his thumbs up grinning though it was starting to become apparent that his reasoning was quickly falling apart.

Why this absurd idea sounded like a good one in the first place is beyond comprehension. It was a Naegi Touji attempt at being subtle and funny while at the same time messing with the mind of a naïve young girl.

"If you insist. I'll try." She raised her hand and began to swing it down onto Touji's face. Touji’s eyes winced as he prepared for the impact, but her hand stopped before colliding with his cheek.

"I'm sorry, I can't do it." She squeaked as she retreated her hands back behind her.

Touji noticed some movement on the other end of the yard and saw that the cousin, Milo, was watching them.

"Oi, you over there," Touji shouted. "I will give zero excuses. It's exactly what it looks like."

The cousin ignored him and carried on with his business.

-Generally works. Blatantly pretend you're doing something sketchy without any remorse and people will generally leave you alone.

He then turned his attention back to the conversation at hand.

"Come on, whaddya say? Take another swing. You can't possibly hurt me as much as your cousin just injured my pride."

"Why do you want me to slap you so bad? Are you into . . . Indecent . . . things?" What she was referring to was the term 'masochism' though it was far too 'indecent' for her to utter this forbidden word out loud.

At this point, Touji realized that satisfying a little curiosity in an entertaining manner wasn’t worth the blow to his reputation.

"Ah no, and you don't have to slap me. Actually, I'd prefer it if you left both my face cheeks out of this."

"Then why did you ask me to sla-"

"Never mind that. Let's start working. You know what they say, gardeners save the world, one weed at a time."

“Oh, I didn’t know.” She became quite enveloped in thought which was equally amusing as it was sad.

As Touji had expected, the bandage wrapped around her hand had come loose with the failed attempt at anti-harassment measures. Strangely enough, it wasn't covering a wound or incision of the flesh, but instead a black marking or tattoo with some rather delicate designs. He had caught a quick glimpse as her hand had dropped.

-Makes sense why she didn’t just get the doctor to heal it. Strange though. Now why would she be hiding a tattoo? Maybe she’s hitting her rebellious phase and doesn't want me to know. Well I mean, even in my world if you got a tattoo it wasn’t something you’d show your fam.

As he pondered these and many other thought-provoking questions, his hands got busy with the reconstruction of the garden.

For the first hour, they both worked in silence, each tending to their section of the yard. After a short while Touji glanced over his shoulder to see how much ahead he was of the girl in terms of work progress. To his dismay, she was leagues ahead of him.

"Wow. You're almost done. That's impressive."

"Not really." She responded, "I’m actually a bit slow today."

-Heh!

This deeply wounded Touji's pride, something he did not expect to have such a large impact. A situation where a girl had beaten him in an unofficial challenge of ‘who can weed the garden faster' somehow made him feel empty inside. This led Touji down the train of thought that perhaps the people of this world were generally much stronger and endowed with better gardening abilities than what he had been accustomed to in Japan. Even the girl’s mother seemed to have been blessed with strength almost equal to his dad, which was quite scarring, to think about.

"I really enjoy things like this." The girl said quite suddenly, breaking Touji out from his personal trip through space. "It's kind of peaceful."

"Interesting."

-Um, weeding the garden? You, OK? Peaceful? Not my first choice of words and definitely not enjoyable.

"What's so interesting?" The girl inquired.

"I mean, I guess that’s just what girls enjoy doing." He answered quite honestly.

Touji knew he had very little knowledge of a woman’s thought process and trying to comprehend it wasn’t something he spent much time on, which unavoidably led to many socially awkward scenarios and misunderstandings.

"Are you saying you don't like doing this?"

-Yes. Who the hell likes weeding a garden? But I'm not going to say that out loud.

"Do what, Mi'lady?" He answered in an extremely low voice which unbeknownst to the speaker was really quite repulsive.

"The Garden-" As she was saying this, a faint red light began to radiate off of her figure. Touji paused and examined the light. The entirety of her body was glowing a dark red.

-Heh? That's not normal now, is it? Can she see it?

While still kneeling, he reached out his hand, grabbed her by the wrist and instinctively tried to pull her away. But instead of feeling the natural warmth of her hand and the delicate texture of her soft skin, he was met with an unfamiliar sensation. He was no longer holding her hand but instead a strange and thick liquid.

Bewildered, Touji flipped his palm over and examined what was in it. His eyes widened as horror overtook him.

"No. It can’t be." He whispered to himself in disbelief. His hand had been painted a bright scarlet.

"No. No. No. NO! NO!!" Touji yelled as he violently retracted his hand.

The girl no longer knelt beside him. A thick red mist floated down softly decorating the grass with its unnatural heugh. A pool of blood began to form around his knees and soaked into his pantlegs. As he stared at the flowing blood, his brain began to identify chunks of bone and flesh neatly scattered amidst the weeds, like confetti.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!" He shouted as he felt his breakfast rolling from his stomach and into his mouth. His face contorted into a horrible grimace as he vomited up bile. His heart throbbed so violently at this hideous and gruesome spectacle.

-What’s happened?! What's happening?!

After some time, he sat up, uttering non-coherent noises as he could no longer grasp his situation. Not saying a word, he gently picked up a piece of shredded clothing and held it in his hands, tears flooding his eyes. Suddenly a wisp of black smoke passed through the side of his vision. As Touji twisted his head in its direction, an object bearing a resemblance to a boomerang shot towards him from between the bushes. It was gone before he had a chance to look away, but he felt something hit his chest, while at the same time, it seemed to bear little to no weight.

He glanced down to see what had hit him. The sound of his head hitting the ground was the last thing he remembered.

***

Touji woke up, a single tear rolling down his cheek. He was covered in sweat and his breathing was shallow. He felt feverishly sick while his heart pounded out of control. He shivered and wrapped his arms around his legs, burying his head in his knees. He closed his eyes trying to forget everything he had seen.

After what felt like hours, he finally moved from his crouched position and looked up from where he sat. There was nothing but an empty hall. No light could be seen shining through the miniature windows, as it was blocked by the obnoxious black smoke which loomed through the air like a poisonous gas. The hard stone floor beneath his feet and the moisture in the air were all too fresh in his memory to forget.

"W-what's going on?" Touji whispered to himself.

That strange temple-like structure where he began, once again held him captive.