NBAA Vol. 4 Short Story

EXTRA

“… I’m bored.”

A girl was lying down under a clear sky. Or rather, a being who had taken the form of a girl. She wasn’t actually the age of a girl.

“I’m mad at the narrator. I don’t care, but…” the manager of the chasm between worlds, Airis, was mumbling to herself.

As a general rule, she had too much time on her hands.

Whenever someone fell into the chasm between worlds, she could spend her time getting rid of them. But, that sort of task didn’t look like it would come up anytime soon.

Airis looked down. She looked at the human she was observing.

“Reito… It’s nighttime, so even you must be sleeping. If I wake you up, I bet you’ll be in a bad mood. Let me go gather some information on the world instead.”

She was only supposed to be in charge of the chasm, but as an exception, she was also looking out for Reito and the world below. For a pleasure-seeker like her, it was the only thing she had to look forward to.

She used the bifocal-like object in her hand and peeked at the world below.

“Ho, ho, ho! I see, I see! I can’t believe you would do that.

Without physically peeping at the world below, she could have grasped all the information about it in an instant with her angel powers. Despite that, she was using this more indirect method.

“This looks like it’s going to be interesting. That snake of a queen looks like she’s about to make a move. I might need to tell Reito about this sooner than later.”

Airis wasn’t allowed to enter any world besides the chasm. Even if she managed to get into one of the other worlds, she would immediately turn to dust.

“Ah, I forgot to eat. Not that I need food anyway…”

Airis put out her right hand and made an apple appear in her hand. She made it pop up in her left hand, carved into the shape of a rabbit.

“Nom nom… Yep, it tastes the same as usual.”

Airis was disappointed at the unchanging taste of the apple. These are the times I wish I had a real body like Reito.

Airis was able to create other things besides apples. Sometimes she would manifest video game consoles. She could even manifest humans.

But, they were no more than extremely close imitations.

She could play video games with the human she created. But, regardless of whether she won or lost, things always went according to her plan.

There was nothing more than inevitability. She was just playing with dolls. That caused her considerable pain – that’s why she rarely created anything.

“I hope you wake up soon. I should have made him learn a ‘Sleeplessness’ skill.”

Airis idly watched the sleeping Reito. She felt frustrated she couldn’t do anything. But, she also felt a sense of excitement at things not going her way.

She had intended to give Reito just the right amount of advice. However, there were times when he would defy her opinion and take his own actions. Things didn’t go according to her calculations in the Gain and Rotten Dragon fights mostly because Reito didn’t want to forsake the other humans.

She didn’t feel any dissatisfaction with Reito or anything like that. Conversely, she enjoyed the “discomfort” of Reito disobeying her orders.

In fact, she felt fond of him for providing that “discomfort” to her chasm world where nothing interesting ever happened.

“No matter how things end up, I will always be watching over you.”

“Eww… Don’t watch me while I sleep.”

“What kind of on-the-nose sleep talk is that!?”

Airis was startled at Reito mumbling as if he heard her words – but that was also something she enjoyed about him.

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