Reincarnated as a Fat Bastard in an Eroge Game-Chapter 23: ...What?

"Over here," I heard, and spotted a table up ahead in the cafeteria. The young man who had his arm draped over my shoulder steered me toward it.

"I see you brought him," said the guy already seated there. He had roughly styled hazel brown hair and deep green eyes, dressed the same as both me and the one dragging me along. The guy pulling me was Micheal, or so I’d gathered from the system, who I had now realized was the self-proclaimed goddess herself, wait, let me rephrase that, the goddess who I had now realized was the system, we had come to an agreement. In exchange for avoiding deletion, she would prove herself useful from here on out and would no longer speak to her master, that being me, whenever she felt like it.

[Tsk. I am not self-proclaimed. I am the real deal.]

Really? Then explain why you’re trapped as a system consciousness, powerless to the point where I can delete your entire existence with a thought.

It was the question that had been sitting in the back of my mind since I figured it out.

[I...]

Nothing.

Same as before. For some reason she couldn’t answer that, couldn’t speak to anything about her past or mine either. I had even threatened deletion to push her on it and she stayed quiet, which told me well enough that she wasn’t free to say it. Either way, she had confirmed that Micheal was a close friend of mine, and I was guessing the guy at the table was Fred, supposedly another one.

"Angel, you’re here," Micheal suddenly let go of my shoulder and moved to the other side of the table where a girl was seated. Platinum silver hair, and eyes so light they were almost colorless, a pale blue that was genuinely hard to look away from.

"Yo, you going to sit or what?" I turned to find Fred giving me a flat look. I returned it with a tired smile and glanced past him, noticing there was one more person at the table. She was looking at me with an expression that landed somewhere between irritated and deeply unimpressed. The table was wide with two seats on each side, and there was an extra chair pulled close to her, clearly meant for me. She had very light pink hair that fell just above her shoulders, with a black ribbon clipped to the side, detailed enough that it stood out sharply against the soft color of her hair. Her eyes were blue, except when I looked more carefully they weren’t quite blue at all, more of a blend between blue and violet.

"Stop staring and sit down," she said, patting the chair beside her.

I nodded and sat.

They weren’t setting off any alarms, the system had confirmed they weren’t hostile and were in fact friends, supposedly, so I let myself settle and took a proper look around. The cafeteria was enormous, a grand hall spanning two open floors, the walls almost entirely glass. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling of the upper floor, throwing light down across the whole space, with smaller ones tucked into corners throughout both levels. Even with daylight coming through the windows the whole place practically glowed. We were on the second floor, which gave a decent view of everything below.

Across from me, something was going on. Micheal was leaning close to Angel with a quiet smile on his face, whispering something while she giggled, their hands linked on the table.

’What’s their deal?’ I asked.

[Are you blind?]

Are you deaf?

[They’re together.]

It was obvious enough. But something about looking at her sat wrong with me, a feeling I couldn’t quite name.

"Hey, stop looking at her like that," I heard, and turned to find the pink-haired girl had shifted closer without me noticing.

"Let’s order," Fred said, flagging down one of the attendants stationed nearby. Quite the setup for a school cafeteria.

"Hey," the girl beside me said, and I felt a sharp pinch on my leg under the table.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"At least look at me when you talk," she said.

I looked at her. "What do you want?"

’Who is she?’

[A friend. Though I only have basic knowledge, so she could be more than that.]

Right. Same as my own situation, I supposed. I knew this world well enough, knew its major players, but the ones outside the main cast were surface level at best. I understood what they did but not what drove them, not who they actually were behind it.

She frowned at me, glanced around the table, then sighed. "What’s wrong with you? You’re acting strange. Why are you ignoring me?"

I paused. Was there something between us?

"Hey, are you two ordering?" Fred cut in.

"Oh, right. Angel, what do you want?"

"The honeyed rice is fine," she said, setting the menu down.

"Just that?"

"I feel like cooking for myself later."

"Works for me. I’ll have the premium steak," said Micheal.

Fred stared at him. "That’s a few hundred points, genius."

"So? Lunch is on Leo today."

"Oh. Right, I almost forgot."

"Hang on," I said, the words coming out before I’d even thought about them, natural as breathing. "When did I agree to that?"

They both turned and gave me the same look.

"Are you going senile?" Micheal said. "You literally swore on Fred’s life three days ago."

Fred blinked. "My life?"

Micheal ignored him. "Are you saying you lied? That Fred’s life means nothing to you?"

"Again," Fred said quietly, "why my life specifically?"

Also ignored.

"I do remember something like that," the pink-haired girl offered.

"See, even Jenny’s more honest than you," Micheal said.

"Don’t phrase it like that, it makes me sound like I’m taking sides," she shot back with a glare.

While the three of them spiraled into that completely unnecessary argument, I quietly pulled up my graphto-watch and checked my available points.

I saw the number.

I went still.

’No way.’