Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume6 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 1===

With the exception of the shower-only bath, life on a cruiser was more luxurious than a cheap one-room apartment, but it was hard to sleep very deeply. Needless to say, this was because the waves were constantly rocking the boat even when moored at land. Some might find the rhythmic vibration of a train relaxing, but this was a little more random and required a bit of a trick to entrust oneself to. Dozing off was one thing, but it was not so easy to get a good night’s sleep.

With the Milky Way thoroughly erased by the bright morning sun, the nighttime lux restrictions were removed.

“Hm, hmm. Hm, hm, hm, hm, hmm.”

Kyousuke heard humming. When he sleepily rubbed his eyes and sat up in the double bed, he found the sound and smell of sizzling olive oil coming from the kitchen space.

“Why not study up at the planetarium today to prepare for a romantic date below the stars on July 7? The celestial memorial museum in M Block is supporting all you lovebirds, so if you tell the receptionist you’re here for a rehearsal and pay a small extra free-…”

He listened to the announcer on the TV and trudged in that direction in his pajamas. There he found horned Biondetta with her back to him. For some reason, she had changed out of her trademark waitress outfit and into a modified yukata that was so short that it showed off everything right up to the very base of her legs which were covered by black knee socks. Even more mysteriously, she wore an apron over that. She was shaking her butt and tail decoration in time with her humming, so he could just about see some dangerous things.

Then she turned his way with a frying pan, a spatula, and an impeccable smile.

“Good morning, sir. I’m just finishing up breakfast, so please go watch TV to wait.”

“Is that so?”

“Y-yes…? Your former nemesis, Biondetta, is happily and energetically making you breakfast. So, um, shouldn’t you have more of a reaction than that?”

Kyousuke blinked and focused his bleary eyes on the Oiran-style demon.

“Yawn. Maybe, but the White Queen already did the ‘wake up to find her making breakfast’ thing to me.”

“You can yawn at this!? That is an insult to a girl’s home cooking!! …Th-then even if it is cliché, do I need to put my body on the line by being in your bed when you wake up?”

“The Queen and Isabelle both already did that one.”

“More than one!? So when you say ‘I’m half the reason the world ended up like this (heh)’, do you secretly have a smug grin on your face!?”

“Mumble, mumble.”

They were living together with no locked doors between them. If he wanted to, he could push that alluring and sexy young woman down onto that bed or this sofa, but he did not seem to care much. He sat at the table as she had instructed, worked the TV remote with his head still drooping, and lay down on the table to fall back asleep instead of listening to the announcer’s voice. Biondetta’s mind went blank when she saw it.

She was endlessly obedient to her contracted master, but Liar Cat also had her own policy.

She was not satisfied unless she was in control!!

“I guess I’ll have to go as far as running into him naked while pretending to get in a morning shampoo. Or…no, but if I went that far…hmm, he might be weirded out by that. Oh, I give u-…”

“Danger.”

Kyousuke’s summoner senses warned him of an unknown threat, so he suddenly straightened up.

Biondetta’s breakfast was Eggs Benedict, a dish based on the English muffin. The bread dough had a soft-boiled egg, crispy thick-cut bacon, and a yellowish-white sauce made with butter and cream placed between it, and she sprinkled olive oil on the top as a finishing touch. She had probably already used some when frying the bacon, so that was double.

It was a lot like eating a fluffy English muffin thoroughly decorated with carbonara sauce, but as you can probably guess, only the XL-sized self-styled New Yorkers could handle something like this first thing in the morning. A normal Japanese person would feel their stomach recoiling in fear just from smelling it.

“Do you have something against me?”

“Eh? Do I really have to spell those things out for you?”

Biondetta grinned while also serving him a full bowl of Caesar salad that looked more like the chicken was the star than the vegetables. He was afraid she would also bring out a pizza or a turkey at this rate.

“Really? The Eggs Benedict and the Caesar salad both have soft-boiled eggs in them…”

“C’mon, Kyousuke-chan, don’t you have something to say to the person who fixed this meal for you?”

“Thanks.”

He had enough sense left to actually thank her.

This was a difficult day from the get-go for a boy who generally just ate cereal and milk, but if you ignored that this was breakfast, it tasted fine. The way she had used pepper, basil, and mustard was downright inspired. Eggs Benedict and Caesar salad both had a powerfully unique flavor from their sauce and dressing, but that kept them from having an evenly-distributed flavor and each bite brought a new surprise. The amount used was no different, but the oil flavor did not stick with him and he felt refreshed. The way she used the herbs and spices was a lot like how a summoner mixed their own Incense Grenades.

“Hm. This goes down surprisingly easily.”

“It’s not like we’re Tokyo stock brokers who spend all day at a desk. We’re summoners who use our brains and bodies quite a lot. If anything, it’s a mystery how you’ve lasted so long on nothing but cereal.”

“But…ew. Does this milk have honey in it!?”

“Not quite. The actual secret ingredient is condensed milk☆”

“I’d forgotten ''you'' had such a sweet tooth, Biondetta. Urp.”

Kyousuke set the glass down and pushed it away with a fingertip. His tongue simply could not accept that one. Perhaps because it had no pepper in it.

Biondetta removed her apron and toyed with the cat nametag on her obi before casually grabbing the rejected glass and setting a suspicious-looking brown bottle on the table. It was stuffed full of white antibiotic pills. A big sister who had run into him in the bath was powerful indeed. She did not even blush at the prospect of an indirect kiss and drained the glass with a smile.

“Once you’re used to condensed milk, it goes down quite easily too. Are you familiar with South Indian tea? They fill it with plenty of condensed milk and use air to make it dance around.”

“Stop bringing up other cultures and traditions to criticize me. And more importantly…”

With a quiet clunk, Kyousuke casually placed a silver key with a 30-carat diamond in it on the table. It was the Diamond Master Key. In a something-or-other suspense theatre on TV, people would die left and right for 10 million yen, so something like this could easily lead to an entire museum blowing up, but unfortunately, these two were dealing with a war, not crime.

“Let’s decide what to do next.”

On Kyousuke’s suggestion, Biondetta stopped moving her fork and shrank her shoulders down.

“My apologies, sir. Please punish me for that.”

“I wasn’t trying to criticize you.”

“I have all the tools you might need. It won’t be any trouble for you. If you like, I can lecture you on the use of some more minor tools like the flute, the violin, the Judas cradle, or the pear of anguish.”

“Aren’t those all medieval torture devices with perverted aspects to them? Are you really apologetic or are you teasing me!?”

“Oh, how knowledgeable. Then I have nothing to worry about☆”

“Ahem. I said that night was your final test, but I knew we would share the same fate as soon as I let ''you'' out of your cage. And criticizing ''you'' would be meaningless. It won’t bring the Golden Treasure Chest back.”

Yes.

The Saint had escaped Biondetta. If the Summoning Ceremony battle came to an end, the loser would be left a zombie for more than 24 hours, but they had reached the 10 minute time limit and it had ended in a draw. They had had no idea how much backup that indulgent saint/witch had with her, so retreating had been the best option.

And so Kyousuke and Biondetta had the master key while Bridesmaid had the treasure chest.

“Biondetta, can they pry open the chest without the key?”

“If that was possible, wouldn’t you have focused on the chest from the beginning? If the legends surrounding it are true, forcing it open will cause it to self-destruct and the secrets inside will be lost. It’s like quantum cryptography. …Of course, there’s always a possibility those believers will do something stupid.”

“…”

All of the White Queen’s worshipers were insane, but insanity was not enough to execute such a largescale plan. This group was known for waiting with surprising clarity and taking action with surprising audacity. He doubted they would do anything rash during this preparatory phase.

“Let’s just assume you have to use both the key and the chest.”

“In that case, Bridesmaid is sure to attack us. A defensive battle goes against my stance as a hired avenger, so we need to take the initiative back somewhere.”

“''Your'' stance doesn’t matter, but there is a wider range of options for us.” Kyousuke sighed. “The chest only contains the decoder for the location of the Founder’s Gallery. It isn’t the actual answer. That means there’s also an ancient map that information is used with. And the legends say that treasure map is ''drawn on human skin''.”

“Three sacred treasures? Come to think of it, the president of Toy Dream created the Gozaru Samurai when he was inspired by Japanese culture, didn’t he?”

“The fly in the ointment is how he was just a bit mistaken about a lot of it. …But seeing a Rekshy Warrior sword-fighting in space using a glowing katana is really exciting. To foreigners.”

Anyway…

“We don’t know where they are and they don’t know where we are, so neither of us can make an attack right away even if we want to. So don’t we have the perfect bait to lay a trap? We just have to use the owner of the ancient map.”

And they needed that map either way.

If Bridesmaid was after both the master key and the ancient map, their actions would be harder to predict, but a counterattack would be much easier if both their targets were in one place.

Biondetta clapped her hands in front of her pink mini-yukata’s chest.

“Now, a question: where is this ancient map?”

“That’s well-known. It originally belonged to a family that protected an Egyptian pyramid. They grew close to the president of Toy Dream due to his passionate efforts to preserve the pictures and writing on the walls there. And when the Toy Dream Company bought up all the land around those ruins and then moved the pharaoh’s body and the grave goods into a museum, that family moved with them. They claim wherever the pharaoh sleeps is the homeland they must protect.”

“Meaning?’

“Toy Dream 35. They live in a normal apartment in this city. They’re apparently working with a Japanese software development company to do some VR mapping. That will later become a new attraction where you put on goggles and explore a pyramid full of traps.”