“Did mother send you to get me?” Natsumi sighed as she grabbed her electric guitar. With a swoosh, the guitar she held disappeared in an instant. “If that's the case, you're wasting your time. I'll go home when I want to, but it wouldn’t be today.”

  “Greetings, I’m Mashiro Shimizu Mikan. You call me Mashiro. I was just doing the dishes and I heard your singing, so I’ve e here.” I walked towards her and sat on top of the tree stump o her.

  Perhaps it was distrust, but I felt fident it was more of ay and annoyane sitting and being close to her that made her fiddle her fingers awkwardly. I nudged her clothes and tapped the empty tree stump o me. She sighed, but didn’t pin any further and sat o me. I could feel her blue hair toug my shoulder.

  “Yeah, right. As if someone would just casually be on the easternmost of the ti, close to the dragos, and know my name.” I noticed that she was gng around at the butterfly flying around us. She occasionally poked some of them, and there was even a butterfly that would nd on her finger. “I’m not… ing home.”

  Looking at her… I was in a daze. It was disorienting and I felt lost. My brain shuffled its way through, finding the right words to respond. However, there was nothing I wao say. I found myself following her and watg the butterfly together in the middle of the night.

  “Your mother is… worried.” I muttered, with a volume so loorried she couldn’t hear. But the flicker of her fox ears perhaps sighat she did hear it, especially with her line.

  “You don’t know that! You don’t know what I’ve been through!” Natsumi yelled, sg away the butterflies. Her blue hair spread apart crazily.

  It was loud, and scary. However, I didn’t feel anything but exasperation. The more words she spew, the more irritating it became. I peered straight to her eyes, it was like looking at a mirror. heless, I gulped down my annoyance, and hugged her.

  “Please, talk to her. Everything is okay, you don’t have to act strong anymore. Just… Please, don’t leave,” I whispered to her ear while holdiight. I couldn’t make out her face. The only thing I was able to tell was her silence.

  It felt… ing. I was mimig Mashiro’s speech pattern and tried to fort the girl in front of me, the same way as she would in the game. The moment I saw her, I knew who she was, the same way as I kneas Mashiro upon seeing my refle. She was Natsumi, the character I hated the most in Luminous Dream.

  “Please, take care of yourself.” I kept huggiightly.

  This was it. This was why I hated her, why I felt jealous of Natsumi. She was Mashiro’s rival sihey were in different bands, but most importantly, she was Mashiro’s best friend. Watg the anime and pying the gacha game, I could rete to Natsumi so much that it ractically looking at myself in the mirror. The way she acted, the problems she faced. However, usumi, I didn’t have Mashiro. I was alone.

  “Are you… okay?” Natsumi asked. I was trapped inside my mind so much that I hadn’t realized she let go of my hug and stared at me. Her dark blue eyes were looking straight at me with .

  “Ah…” I muttered out loud. Without realizing it, tears came dripping down on my cheek. I was overwhelmed with so much emotion that I didn’t know what to feel anymore. I always wao be hugged by Mashiro, and for her to tell me everything would be okay. “Sorry, I was just… sleepy.”

  Natsumi sighed heavily as she stood up. She waved her hand around and a piece of gem materialized in her hand. It was rainbow colored, and shiny, just like the one I got from the slime earlier. However, the size of it was a lot bigger than the one I ghly two times bigger, just slightly bigger thaandard .

  “Fine, I’ll go back to Vulprithal.” She reached out her hand to give the gems to me. “Here’s the reward for you. It’s something I got from a dungeon, but I don’t know what it is. It might sell for a lot of money.”

  I graciously accepted her s. After taking the gem from her hand, I imagihe gems disappeared. Just like that, the gem I was holding was repced by a text bubble.

  [+25 Luminous Gem]

  “Thanks… Though I’ve heard they’re useless.” I repeated the phrase I’ve heard from Catherine, which was met by a total disbelief and even anger expression from Natsumi.

  “Of course they’re not! They look beautiful!” Natsumi yelled in denial, which drained all color from my face. Those strings of words made me realize one of her adorable, yet dumb personalities that I could never rete to. “Si looks like a good gem, it would fetch a good price!”

  “Natsumi, you never get… scammed or anything, right?” I asked.

  With an offended pout, she responded, “Of course not! I always score the best deals from the marketpce. Like this ring—supposedly worn by a level 1000 her an epic battle with dragons—and this bracelet, which arently a meteorite from another world, fed in the heart of a dying star!”

  “Are you sure you weren’t being deceived by those vendors?” Even though I’ve only been in this world for two days, I was sure that those item descriptions sounded ridiculous. But there was also the ce that it might be true, so I asked.

  “You’re such a worrywart,” Natsumi said as she took off her bracelet. She walked towards a nearby rod raised her hand holding the bracelet and started to beat the rock using the bracelet. “Of course it’s super durable and real, see?”

  The moment she finished saying that, the bracelet that was allegedly a fed meteorite from another world shattered into pieces. Leaving nothing but a small lump of metal. Feeling shocked and speechless, she watched the broken bracelet in silence for a while.

  “Um… Anything else?” I asked.

  I could sehat her eyes were slowly turning moist. Even in another world, it seemed that her airhead personality didn’t ge. She was still the same Natsumi I’ve read and watched on the series. There were so many episodes of her buying things on impulse and not realizing it was a scam.

  “Well… There was also this. I spent so much gold on it because the person selling it told me that it would give me legendary power…” said Natsumi as she materialized a ticket with the name redshift written on it. She gave the ticket to me with a dejected voice, “whatever, you have it.’

  I simply accepted it with an awkward “thanks.”

  “Well, I’ll be going now. Thanks for everything, Mashiro.” I saw her smiling for the first time. It eculiar feeling, seeing the character I reted to so muing to life in another world. Still, I didn’t mind this feeling.

  I watched the butterflies cirg me and Natsumi rather spicuously. I didn’t know why they did it, or where the butterflies even came from, but their shiny blue light gave ahereal feeling that enhanatsumi’s beautiful smile.

  However, that smile ended rather quickly as the sound of rustle could be heard from the bushes. The ck of light made us even more wary, as we stood o each other, fag the source of the noise. I sciously willed the ticket I was holding to disappear and summoraining sword.

  [+1 Redshift Ticket]

  That sense of wariness pletely vanished as soon as I saw the figure that caused the rustling bushes. A familiar witch hat and magic staff arent as she walked closer.

  “...?” The familiar noise from Catherine could be heard. She had the same shocked face from whe me for the first time.

  Even though my guard was rexed, the fox girl o me still remained cautious. She was visibly shaking, while Catherine's eyes dropped down, avoiding Natsumi’s gaze.

  “Natsumi, rex! She's friendly–"Just before I could finish my sentenatsumi’s blue eyes shined into a really light blue color. In the moment, her body was pletely repced by hundreds of blue roses, leaving nothing of her flesh. She pletely disappeared.

  “Well, that was to be expected.” Catherine sighed disappointedly as she gripped her witch hat tightly. It was an inexpressible sehat I couldn’t expin in her eyes. However, ohing I could tell was that she kept avoiding my gaze as I tried to make eye tact. Catherine’s mouth started to move and uttered something in such a low volume that I could barely hear, “I’m sorry.”