Book 3: Chapter 4: Patch 1.0: The Latest Addition

“Isn’t – isn’t this a bit overkill? I mean… is it that important?” Ryouta asks.

Cassandra, standing behind him with her arms locked underneath his own and holding him back, asks, “You don’t want to hide anything from us, right?”

“This is good research material. Great idea, Serra!” Aiko praises, patting Serra on top of her head.

Even Alice is in the room now, sitting in her wheelchair next to Serra.

Ryouta is going to have to start deleting his history.

“Alright, I won’t try stopping you. It’s embarrassing, but there isn’t anything too bad in there. I think,” Ryouta says.

“Promise?” Cassandra asks.

“I promise.” With that, Cassandra lets go of him and they both walk over to join the other three girls.

Ryouta has regrets.

He forgot that the very first doujin in his list—the one with the highest rating that he can give—is full on tentacles. Everybody gets to experience the wonderful flavor of tentacle grape in it, and now his girlfriends and Aiko get to look at the pages full of erotic tentacles and cute girls as well.

Serra turns around, looks at him, and gives him a thumbs-up before returning her attention to the doujin.

“I think I would rather you have tried to stop me from seeing this, you… perverted dog bastard,” Cassandra says, upgrading his nickname to a whole new level.

“I see, I see. So, these are the kinds of situations you like, Ryouta? Ooh! That expression she’s making… I’ll have to remember that. And making peace signs! But, I think I would probably die if anything that big tried entering me,” Aiko says.

“I would prefer monsters or even wild beasts over strange looking octopus creatures, but I love this scenario! To have your entire being broken down to just accepting whatever your new master forces unto you – it’s wonderful!” Alice commentates.

“How do you even get into stuff like this?” Cassandra asks.

“Well, uhh… I guess this kind of thing just sort of happens when you’re on the internet for so long,” Ryouta tries explaining, but she’s not impressed by his answer.

None of the girls are surprised by the next doujins in the list, however. Girls wearing sweaters are on the covers of the next seven doujins, then there are more tentacles, then more sweaters. However, something that Serra and Cassandra realize is that most of the girls in his top-rated favorites look like they do. Half the girls are short and petite girls with long, silvery hair and the other half are busty blondes.

Serra opens up one of the ones with a girl that looks like herself and notices the “loli” tag next to the cover, highlighting it for them all to see. Next, she opens a new tab and goes to the city’s government’s website. Her final destination is the section for the city’s police where she highlights their phone number and takes out her cell phone.

“H-hey now, it’s not my fault that people like to label anything with short and petite girls as loli even if they’re not actually lolis. I mean, you’re not a loli, Serra,” Ryouta explains to her, but given that she’s looking at her phone and pretending to input the police’s number, she doesn’t hear any of it.

The other girls find it amusing at least. Well, maybe not Cassandra. Cassandra is definitely judging him.

“Cass Cass, don’t forget that you’ve done things to her body, too. If I’m going to jail over Serra, you’re coming with me,” Ryouta tells her.

“You don’t need to say that sort of thing out loud!” Cassandra shouts, her face red.

Serra lost interest in her own joke and has moved onto the next doujins in his list. No longer are the girls like herself and Cassandra, but instead look like monsters. There are girls like Alice’s in-game character but with one giant tail instead of legs, girls with fur-covered arms and legs, girls with the tails and ears of common household pets, and even one girl with the lower body of a spider.

Both Serra and Cassandra judge him for the spider.

“Hey, it’s different if the spider is a cute girl, too,” Ryouta explains.

One cover seems to have drawn Aiko’s attention more than the others. When Ryouta looks at where she’s looking, he sees her staring at probably the bustiest girl out of all the covers. Her breasts are just utterly massive, she’s wearing skimpy clothes, and has cat ears and a cat tail.

“I knew it, you like them huge!” Aiko says with an accusatory voice.

“I never said I didn’t like them big, just that I like all sizes! Hey, where’d you get that notepad from? Isn’t paper super expensive now?” Ryouta asks.

“Oh, this? This is what I’ve been using to keep my notes on you ever since we bumped into each other! I’ve got your sleeping pattern, how often you go to the bathroom, how much time you spend on the computer, and all that!” Aiko explains. “And now I have your fetishes and preferred body types!”

“How – how’d you find out all that other stuff?”

Aiko points at his window. Across the street is a large, tall building that he considered moving into but had less privacy, so he chose his current apartment instead.

“That window right there is in a hall, so I can stand there and look into your room from there!” Aiko explains.

Ryouta closes his blinds.

“Thank you for telling me I need to always keep my blinds closed. I never considered anybody looking in here from over there,” he explains.

“It’s okay! I don’t need to collect information on you from there anymore now that I’m here with you!” Aiko says.

While Ryouta may be the one with the browsing history full of hentai that Serra is still scrolling through, Aiko is the one being judged by Cassandra, Alice, and Ryouta.

Aiko, immune to their judging stares, changes the subject. “By the way, what’s that game you all play again? Fantasy Something Something?” she asks.

“Fantasy Tales Online, yeah. Why?” Ryouta asks back.

“Because I want to play! It’s not fair that everybody else gets to play with you while I don’t! But… if you’re playing that game and in bed while playing it… I could play with your real body while you play around in the game.”

“I’ll call the police on you,” Cassandra tells her.

“It’s alright, the headsets come with the game and they’re pretty cheap right now. There’s a half-off sale, I think,” Ryouta explains.

“Oh! Is it that game that’s been in the news lately? Some countries wanting to ban it or something?” Aiko asks.

“That’s in the news again? I remember some countries getting pretty upset with it at first, but I thought they were done talking about. But yeah, this is probably the game they were talking about.”

Aiko pulls out her phone, taps away for about thirty seconds, and then shoves it back into her pocket. “Alright! I ordered one of the headsets. It’ll be delivered here in a couple of days!” she explains.

“Here? Why didn’t you have it sent to your home?”

“You’re so silly, Ry-ou-ta! This is my home now. I already broke my lease and used the rest of my money to hire a moving van to bring all my stuff over! It should be here in a couple of hours.”

“When – when did you do that?”

“A couple of hours ago!”

Serra, Cassandra, Alice, and now Aiko… are all going to be staying with him?

There is no way that this place is large enough for them all, plus there is the fact that he won’t be able to afford those insane expenses. His bed is only big enough for three people at most, his couch is only big enough for one person to sleep on, and there is nowhere else to sleep. So, if his girlfriends share his bed and Aiko has the couch, that leaves him with either the floor or the bathtub.

“You can’t just completely change your life and move in just like that!” Cassandra scolds Aiko.

“Why not? I saw you bring some of your own stuff, so aren’t you doing the same?” Aiko asks.

“That’s different! I still have my apartment and most of my stuff there! I’m just staying over for a while since Alice is.”

“And I’m just staying over forever because Ryouta is!”

“You—”

“Alright, alright. It’s alright. Aiko can have the couch until we figure out something better for her,” Ryouta interjects.

“Yay! See? I knew Ryouta would want me staying here!” Aiko cheers and clings onto him.

Cassandra looks ready to shout again but turns around when she hears Serra giggling.

Everybody looks over at what’s on the computer screen.

Oh.

Oh no.

The worst possible thing that could happen is currently happening.

There is truly no situation worse than this.

Serra found the folder of his old attempts at drawing hentai.