ch161-ch180 · 172-ch172

Chapter 172: Good-Son Machine No. 2

"What a wonderful husband you have. He looks quite young—is it a new marriage?"

"The wedding is still to come. ...From here to there, please."

"HOLD IT—!"

This is an electronics store, not a clothes shop, you know?

You don't need THAT many fridges!

Do not try to bulk-buy the whole section just because a female clerk complimented you a little.

"As expected of a rich young lady. What extravagant shopping."

Today I'm out fridge shopping with my mother.

The good-son strategy, of course.

Apparently my becoming an adventurer has her worried, so I figured I'd buy her something on the pricey side.

"Of course, of course. Mother's fridge comes first. Did you find the model you had decided on?"

Along with our own fridge, I want to set one up in the warehouse and in Mia-san's shop too.

I want ice cream and milk chilled and ready for Shiraishi-san's parfaits.

Aikawa really does seem set on living in the warehouse, so a microwave and other appliances are needed as well.

But then it stops being just our business, which means my mother ends up buying one too, hmm.

(Will Soushi be okay?)

Aikawa apparently spent last night at the warehouse already.

Both Kasumi-san and Shiraishi-san told her to come stay at their homes, but when she says she wants to be alone, well.

Kasumi-san, who had to explain the situation to Bear Ossan through Makihara-san, looked like she had the hardest time of anyone.

They also briefed the night-shift Association staff so they'd keep an eye out, and somehow yesterday settled down.

So today, Mia-san is set to storm Aikawa's house with Soushi in tow to collect the runaway's belongings—and who knows how that'll go...

Surely they won't come back with the fridge or the microwave too, right?

Given Mia-san's momentum yesterday, I'm genuinely scared they might...

The warehouse and Mia-san's shop are a bit of a distance apart, so we want one unit for each.

Buy two, or settle for one today...

"Oh, this is the one. It IS big, isn't it... It's just me and Haruki at home now... Say, do you have a smaller version of this?"

My mother asks the clerk.

This fridge is the one we'd picked out of the catalog beforehand.

Buying online might be cheaper, but there's the trade-in on our current fridge, the installation, the paperwork—too many moving parts.

So we decided to buy in-store.

"We do carry this maker's in one size smaller, but the features fall off a little. This is the newest, best model, you see. ...Will you not be living with your daughter-in-law in the future?"

Hey.

That came out of nowhere.

My mother's assuming she's picking the big one with an eye on us all living together, huh.

If it turns into a "will you live together" conversation, will Kasumi-san hate it?

Kasumi-san?

"A 'daughter-in-law'... Mfufu. I'll take that one."

What Kasumi-san pointed at was a fridge so huge it looked like two joined together, in a silver body.

That one is commercial-grade. Please don't.

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In the end, we bought the big fridge we'd settled on from the start.

Plus a smaller fridge for the warehouse, a microwave, and a blender while we were at it.

Soushi's 【Cooking】 skill will thrive with this.

Thanks to holding out against the female clerk who had taken to praising me at every turn, we kept it to the bare minimum... I believe.

For Mia-san's shop, I'll consult with Mia-san herself.

Depends on the haul from over there, too...

We didn't buy one for our house, but my mother collected a fat stack of catalogs.

The plan is to come back and buy later.

Seems she enjoyed shopping with Kasumi-san along and wants to do it together again.

That said, it came to quite a bill.

"Hey—!"

"Ow!"

My mother smacks my rear.

What was that for?!

"Kasumi-san's the one paying! And you lied about the good-son bit!"

This one's on me, fair enough.

At this price, what's in my bank account doesn't cover it.

The Forest Ogre magic stones from the dungeon date the other day should be worth over a million yen even split two ways with Kasumi-san, but I can't cash them in under my own name, so every last one goes into Kasumi-san's account.

I'm already on an allowance, wallet firmly in Kasumi-san's grip.

Endo-san is all smiles about this, for the record.

And with a flood of magic stones coming in, Hayashi-san is all smiles too.

There are taxes to think about, so this year I've left the whole money side to Kasumi-san.

The problem, though, will be the earnings from OUR party—the one where me, Soushi, and Aikawa are the registered party on paper.

Magic stones from the shallow floors are fine, but once summer break ends, we're due to start hunting past Floor 20 to get real combat experience.

Since we're not planning to file any rank-up applications, naturally we can't cash anything in either.

So all three of us end up on allowance from Kasumi-san?

"All finished. The fridge will be delivered Tuesday before noon. May we call on your home then?"

"Call on us? Don't be silly—you're welcome any time. The only nuisance in this house is my idiot son. Thank you, truly. I could never sleep with my feet pointed at you again. Come to our place whenever you like."

So Kasumi-san is finally coming to our house.

A major event, that.

If she shows up unannounced, the place won't be ready, will it?

Even a cleaning robot running at full tilt only gets the floor clean.

This calls for a full-power cleaning session.

There's a fair bit I'll need to throw out, too.

"Um, the money is coming from what Haruki-san earns, so it is not me paying, you know?"

"Making you go to all this trouble... Sniff, I'm sorry my son's such a sorry excuse. Lunch is on me."

She doesn't believe a word of it.

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"Aikawa-san? That girl who was in your class last year too, right? I've never seen her parents. Not once at class gatherings or get-togethers. Not a very well-regarded family, I hear."

Having finished lunch, we ended up chatting a while over tea.

"Her dad's a famous adventurer."

"Ah, well then of course they can't come. I wonder if our place is safe? I ought to get in touch with Soushi-kun's mother, too."

The bad reputation with the parents is Bear Ossan's doing.

Aikawa's not in any clubs either, so no parent-to-parent connections, huh...

Mizuki's parents are the anti-adventurer, anti-dungeon type, so Bear Ossan can't exactly show his face.

People that big on their principles and causes do love grabbing school committee positions, after all...

Most of the parents grew up in a world without dungeons, so plenty of them simply have no interest in the whole thing.

The parents' honest feeling is probably: stay away from both camps.

Our school's a college-prep school to begin with, so few students should become adventurers—but this year, in my class alone, there's Minami's delinquent crowd, plus Soushi and Aikawa.

Seven kids in the adventurer crowd alone aren't going on to college; our homeroom teacher had his head in his hands.

"If only they'd all manage it like Haruki does—study AND adventure," he kept sighing.

The only one who praised my test results was him, too—"keeping your grades up, very admirable."

"About Aikawa-san's father—remarriage talks are progressing, and Aikawa-san is leaving home. Her father may reach out to you as well, ma'am, so I thought I should give you advance notice..."

"Remarriage! What sort of person is the lucky one?"

You love this stuff, don't you.

A very Shiraishi-san reaction.

"My senpai from my university days, and..."

If it's Kasumi-san, who gets along so well with Shiraishi-san, this might actually go smoothly.

This side is at peace.

Who knows what's happening on the other side...