40. Arcana Online

40. Arcana Online40. Arcana Online

"See you tomorrow."

"Kyuung!"

As I'm stretching after logging out of the game, the doorbell rings.

It's Rea unni.

"Hello?"

"I'm in front of your house right now. Can you open the door?"

"I'll be right out!"

As I'm heading to the front door, a thought suddenly occurs to me.

Doesn't Rea unni know the password to our house?

When I open the door and look out, Rea unni is waiting for me in workout clothes.

"Want to exercise with your unni!?"

"What?"

With those words, I was kidnapped.

Straight to Rea unni's house next door.

I thought surely nothing much would happen, but I regretted it as soon as I entered the living room.

I never imagined the living room would be turned into a gym.

"Alright! From today on, you'll exercise with your unni every evening! For our Yuna's health!"

"Every day!? That's too much!"

"Don't worry. Your unni will take care of everything. It took some time to prepare all this."

So this was the reason she couldn't invite me to her house until now.

She says it took a long time to turn the living room into a gym, smiling brightly, but it's too scary.

She says she did all this for my health, and I can't bring myself to say anything.

I change into the clothes she hands me and step on the scale. There are handles, so I stretch my arms out.

After a while, the machine says it's complete.

Rea unni's expression isn't good as she checks the results.

"I didn't think it would be this bad..."

She looks at me with a serious expression, saying I have less muscle mass than an elementary school student, and touches my body, which is soft.

My body, which doesn't seem to have even 1g of muscle.

I can proudly say it's the best among soft bodies.

"Since it's the first day, we'll focus on stretching. You'll have dinner at our house too, okay?"

"Yes..."

And then hell unfolds.

It was a time when I realized how long 30 minutes can be.

"P-please save me..."

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Rea unni looks at me with a serious expression.

She says she'll get advice from experts on everything from exercise plans to diet, and then guides me to the bathroom to wash up.

After sweating buckets for 30 minutes, I go straight into the bathroom to wash up and change into the clothes Rea unni prepared, but what's this!?

A yellow one-piece dress.

I struggle to put on the dress, my first time wearing one in my life, pulling it over my head. When I finally get it on, it feels strange with the bottom open and breezy.

As I'm hesitating due to the unfamiliar experience, I enter the kitchen and Rea unni, who's preparing the meal, compliments me.

"Oh my. It suits you so well."

"R-really...?"

I see Rea unni's grinning expression, but why do I feel uneasy?

After dinner, I refuse Rea unni's offer to stay over and return home.

When I lie down on my bed in my room, fatigue washes over me.

Is this all because of the exercise...?

*

*

*

When I wake up in the morning, the muscle pain is no joke.

I-I feel like I'm going to die.

I stumble to the bathroom, eat the special lunchbox Rea unni made, put on the gear, and log into the game.

As I get up, I stroke Yong-yong who welcomes me, hand him a magic stone, and stretch. Just then, I hear a knock.

"Come in."

The door opens and a girl who looks like a maid says she's here to help with morning preparations. She guides me to the bathroom and fills the bathtub with warm water and bath salts.

Then she approaches me to undress me, but I send her away, saying I'll bathe alone. I take off my clothes and sink into the bathtub. It's heaven.

"This feels so good..."

"Kyuu..."

Yong-yong seems to like it too, floating in the bathtub. I didn't know he'd enjoy it this much.

I should do this occasionally from now on.

After finishing preparations and going outside, the maid is waiting.

"The Duke is waiting for you in the dining room."

"I'll go right away."

Following the maid's guidance, I enter the dining room where the Duke is waiting.

"I'm sorry. Did I keep you waiting too long?"

"It's alright. As I've gotten older, I wake up earlier. Don't worry about it."

We chat about various things, and after spending a few comfortable days at the duchy, getting dragged to exercise with Rea unni in the evenings, the promised day arrives.

The day when the angels said they would come to pick me up.

I tell the Duke that I'm very grateful for his hospitality, and he tells me to come visit anytime I want. As I leave the mansion, I hear a voice as if it had been waiting.

"We've come to escort you."

One of the angels I met before has come to pick me up.

"I'll come right away."

With my words, pure white stairs begin to form in front of me, stretching high into the sky. I'm startled.

Surely they don't expect me to climb these?

"Isn't there an escalator?"

"What's that?"

Damn. I guess they don't exist in this era.

As I climb the stairs, panting, at some point the scenery changes.

[You are the first traveler to visit the celestial realm.]

Gained 100,000 Fame points.

An unfamiliar yet familiar landscape.

I've seen this scenery in a fairy tale book I read as a child.

It looks exactly like the scenery from that book with the philandering god and the goddess troubled by her husband.

A pure white temple unfolds before my eyes, and numerous angels are visible around it.

Each angel has a different number of wings.

From angels with two wings to those with four wings, I follow the angel with six wings guiding my path into the temple, where I see angels with eight wings.

"Welcome, traveler. Archangel Michael is waiting inside. Please enter."

Following the angel's words, the door inside slowly opens and I hear a voice telling me to come in.

Archangel Michael with ten wings.

A woman with golden hair and golden eyes looks at me with a bright smile.

"Welcome. Was it tiring to get here? Please, have a seat."

"Y-yes!"

As I sit down, the Archangel stares at me intently.

Archangel Michael keeps looking at me without saying anything for a while.

"Um... Why did you call for me?"

"Recently, there's been some commotion in the demon realm, and we found out that a human is at the center of it."

With those words, she takes out a bead and plays a video with a bright light.

It shows me with the Demon King.

"I called you because I was curious. It's the first time in demon realm history that a human received the title of duke. Wouldn't you be curious too?"

"You even knew about that?"

"Hohoho. I know even more than that."

Another video plays, showing me summoning monsters.

"I've been wondering what to do with a human who has this much power."

The bright smile from just a moment ago disappears like a lie, and she looks at me with an expressionless face.

"Even now, looking at Yuna makes me feel emotional. So I was sure. That you have a special ability. So I want to ask you something. Are you a succubus?"

"What!? No, I'm not!"

As I wave my hands and answer that I'm 100% human, definitely not, a picture-perfect smile appears on her face, but it's so different from the image I had imagined.

Perhaps she saw through my thoughts.

"Are you disappointed?"

"A-a little..."

"Aren't you being too honest?"

The Archangel, who had been laughing for a while holding her stomach, puts on a serious face saying she forgot to introduce herself, but it's too late.

My image of the Archangel has already been shattered.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Michael, one of the representative Archangels of the celestial realm."

"I'm Yuna. Please take care of me."

Archangel Michael, who says she'll show around the first human to visit the celestial realm, extends her hand to me.

When I take her hand, her ten wings spread out and in that instant, space shifts.

To the sky above the celestial realm.

"How is it? It's nice to see the entire celestial realm at once, right?"

"N-no, it's not okay!!"

Just a moment ago I was standing on the ground, but now I'm standing on clouds in the sky. How could this be okay?

I want to scream, but at some point, I seem to have adapted, and I can feel the texture of the clouds I'm standing on.

It feels like walking on snow.

It feels like it should make a crunching sound, but I don't hear anything.

As I'm looking around, fascinated by this strange experience, Yong-yong peeks his face out from my arms, and his eyes meet Archangel Michael's.

"Oh? A dragon that hasn't even ascended..."

She mutters while looking at Yong-yong with interested eyes, but what is she saying?

She keeps muttering to herself for a while, staring at our Yong-yong, and I have no idea what's going on.