Internet Shrine Maiden Tsugumi-chan:Volume1 Ending
“And then what, and then what? You have my attention now. Tell me exactly what happened!”
“Huh? I’m not really sure what you’re expecting me to say. Wh-why are you breathing so heavily?”
It was still the morning.
In her school uniform, Yahirodono Tsumugi was eating a breakfast of 1300-yen health cereal (she ordered it because the employee casually recommended it, but it certainly wasn’t healthy for her wallet) at the food court near the park when someone began pressing her for information. The straitlaced sister was also at the table with them. The next thing she knew, Tsumugi was telling more than she had intended.
She didn’t need to ask how it happened. This was beginning to be normal for her.
The gyaru sister replied while chowing down on a healthy taco filled with nine kinds of vegetables (and fish sausage).
“I mean, from what you were saying, it sounded like the two of you were alone in the office at night. D-did one thing lead to another and you ended up sleeping with Onii-sama Detective Kouga-san!? Oh, wow. I have heard people actually get more ‘excited’ when they’ve overexerted themselves.”
“Eh!? Is that true, Yahirodono-senpai!?”
“Absolutely, positively not!!!” Tsumugi shouted, red in the face.
Why did the straitlaced sister also lean eagerly in and become suddenly polite? That was the first time she had called her “senpai”, wasn’t it?
Rainy held her hands behind her head and pouted her lips.
“Yeah, I guess getting to the goal line in a single night like that would be tough. It takes a lot of work for a girl to prepare for these things. Listen up, boys of the world! Don’t assume all the young maidens out there are always wearing matching underwear!! Sometimes our daily schedules get out of sync and they get mixed up!”
Tsumugi hadn’t been talking about that in the slightest.
She really wished that gyaru sister would stop making these smug pronouncements in the morning (especially when she had no tolerance for this topic when it was about herself). They were getting some painful looks thanks to the non-matching girl. Tsumugi thought her heart was going to shrink.
And then Rainy threw another curveball.
“It’s important to prepare for these things. By the way, what kind of underwear does a real shrine maiden wear?”
“Sigh. Why should I answer these questions so early in the morn-”
“A loincloth?”
“Do I need to fry you?”
The hostility she normally reserved for Malign Spirits was leaking out.
But compared to her initial shyness, she was starting to come out of her shell. The online shrine maiden was a little bit impressed by the familiar gyaru sister, but…
“I can’t help but notice that wasn’t a clear yes or no. Okay, it’s time for an impromptu fashion cheeeeeck!!”
“Nyuwah!! Why are you climbing under the table when there’s no disaster!?”
A solid thump came from below the table, but not from the online shrine maiden. Yuhi, elegantly eating a pancake set at the same table, must have delivered a kick. A sharp one.
The straitlaced sister tilted her head (while a groaning sound came from below the table).
“By the way, Yahirodono-san, what is that you’re doing on your phone while you eat?”
“Uh… I just added the digital Hundred Times Prayer, so I’m brainstorming what other services I should add to the internet shrine.”
“Ultra high quality video of a young schoolgirl shrine maiden mediating under a waterfall as her thin white training outfit gets wetter and more see through. Attention everyone with free time! Combine that with a waterproof phone and it can help you in a sauna’s cold bath! Anyway, then you can auction off the wet clothing online!!”
“Is this inappropriate gyaru trying to deliver a finishing blow to the shrine’s recovery?”
Rainy crawled out from under the table (on Tsumugi’s side for some reason), but she went ignored. Someone willing to fake cry at the police box to get views had too much guts for her advice to be useful here.
Straitlaced Yuhi held her index finger to her chin and looked a bit upwards.
“Hmm? Omikuji is about the only thing I know that you do at a shrine, but…huh? If you do that on your homepage, it might end up feeling like paying for rolls in a gacha game.”
…Would she get in trouble if she didn’t display fine print saying the odds of getting the best fortune were 0.0X% or whatever? It felt like it wouldn’t seem quite so spiritual if you were given the odds in advance like that.
“More realistically, you could do ema. Ema, ema! It doesn’t feel like a proper shrine without writing a prayer on one of those and tying it to a tree branch!!”
“Onee-chan, I think you’re getting that mixed up with omikuji.”
“No, it looks like this,” said Rainy, pulling out a paper napkin and drawing on it with a highlighter. Apparently the malformed pentagon was supposed to be an ema, not the home base in baseball.
“See, see! I was remembering right! Let’s ask the expert. A Shinto ema looks like this, right, Mugikko!?”
Tsumugi sighed.
Rainy had even written a prayer on it. Without a second thought.
Let us be the bestest of friends forever and ever and ever☆
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