Chapter 404._Redo of a Romanceless Author鈥檚 Life Devoid of Love; Another Chance at Youth

Chapter 404.

 Chapter 404. Visiting a Small City from my Childhood with my Girlfriend. (1/4)

 When I stepped outside the tent in the morning after giving Rosa a few… morning kisses, the first thing I did was head over to the creek to wash off the sweat on my body. It was quite hot in the morning and being inside the sleeping bag glued to Rosa definitely made me sweat a lot when it warmed up in the morning.

 As for Rosa, she’d opted to… haha… rest inside the tent for a bit longer. Though I handled the cold better than she did, it turned out she was much more resistant to heat than I was. She hadn’t broken a sweat by the time morning came around.

 Well, that was half true I suppose. She was sweating when I left.

 Washing my body off was only half the reason I’de out here though. The other reason was to see if I could find her bra that we couldn’t findst night in the dark.

 I left my socks, shoes, shirt, and jeans on the same rock as the day before and started walking down the stream with only my shorts on. I multitasked by washing the sweat off my body with the stream water as I walked through the water at the center of the stream on the lookout.

 I walked for fifteen minutes without any luck. During my walk, I came across a few small critters drinking water directly from the stream. Up until now, they consisted of wild rabbits, mice, rats, ferrets, and squirrels. But this time around, I came across five deer a hundred meters away.

 They all had white tails, but only two had antlers on their heads. Their heads were lowered to the water and it seems they had yet to notice me. There was one fawn, and two adult females, one looked to be pregnant. Thest two were adult males.

 I wonder if they’d seen Rosa’s bra floating around. Maybe if I asked them nicely they’d answer me.

 Haha, as if that’d ever happen.

 Seeing this family of deer together, I decided to head back the way I came. I didn’t want to startle them for no reason. What if the pregnant one fell? That could be bad, right? Not only that, with a pregnant one and a young little fawn around, the males might actually attack me rather than run away.

 As such, I turned around and walked back up the stream to where I left my clothes. As expected, Rosa’s bra was a lost cause by now. There was no way we’d find it with how long it’d been.

 When I got back to the rock with my clothes Rosa was in the stream washing her body off… fully nude.

 When she noticed me and saw I was empty-handed she asked, “You couldn’t find it?”

 “No, sorry.”

 “Haaaah. Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.”

 “You brought a spare didn’t you?”

 “Uh… the thing is… I did bring a change of clothes… but I didn’t actually pack spare underwear. I was nning to buy some new stuff on our road trip through the bigger cities when we go shopping.”

 “Huh? Seriously?”

 She nodded.

 “Well… there’s at least a small citying up soon. You can get some there.”

 “Yeah.”

 Thankfully it seemed Rosa didn’t intend to push me down into the water the way she hadst night. It seems she was… satisfied for the time being.

 I dressed myself by the rock before I took a seat and stared at Rosa’s figure from behind as she washed her body.

 When she peeked over her shoulder, our eyes met.

 “Hehehe, it seems our roles have suddenly been reversed,” Rosa teased with a smile.

 “That does seem to be the case,” I concurred.

 She returned her focus to her front and continued washing herself off.

 “Shouldn’t you ask me to stop staring at you?”

 “I want you to stare at me, so no. Keep staring all you want.” She responded without looking my way.

 “Don’t you think you should act more embarrassed when a guy’s staring at you in the nude?”

 “If that guy wasn’t my boyfriend, I’d kill them for peeking. Count yourself lucky that you’re my boyfriend.”

 “How scary.”

 “Hey… by the way…”

 “What?”

 “Uh… about your back...” She peeked over her shoulder again, this time a slight trace of worry visible in her eyes. She sounded like she felt guilty.

 “It’s doing just fine.”

 “You’re sure? Does it still hurt?”

 “No, it doesn’t hurt at all so there’s no need to worry about it.”

 “Phew.” She breathed out a sigh of relief with her right hand over her chest.

 “It’s bothering you that much?”

 “Mm. Yeah, it is. I’ve never messed up like that before. I only cut things with them when I intend to. I’ve always taken great pride in my ability to do so.”

 “What are you, the fingernails equivalent of a prideful master swordsman?”

 “Yeah, I am actually.” She nodded twice and stuck her chin up proudly with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

 “Wow, that’s some major arrogance.”

 “I’m the best fingernails wielder in the world.”

 “You mean the only one, right?”

 “Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

 “Seriously? There aren’t any other assassins who use their fingernails?”

 “Well… some women born in my family have also used their fingernails in the past. But there aren’t any who do right now. It’s an assassination technique exclusive to women in my family. You need to train for years, strengthening and honing both your fingernails and fingers. It’s not something that can easily be replicated by any random assassin. Without the proper training method, you’d just destroy your nails and fingers.”

 “Oh, that sounds very assassin-like somehow. Did you see it in an anime or movie as a child and decide to imitate it or something?”

 “Wha- you think I’m making it up?”

 “I’m joking.”

 “Jerk.” She sshed some water in my direction and got my clothes slightly wet.

 “Hahaha,” I couldn’t help butugh.

 “Don’tugh.”

 “Sorry, I won’t.”

 “It’s really not something I saw and imitated, it’s an assassination technique passed down in my family,” Rosa discontentedly grumbled out while ring at me over her shoulder with a cute pout.

 “Okay, I get it. I get it.”

 “Hmph! You better get it.”

 With her body washed, she stood up straight and headed to the rock with her stuff. Once she was dressed, we returned to the campsite together and packed up our things. Atst, we departed from the thicket of trees we’d made some fond memories and spent the night all alone together.

 Our destination was a ditch beside the road I’d parked my motorcycle in. Once I pushed it out of the ditch, onto the road, we embarked toward our next destination, a small city not too far away from here.

 …

 About twenty minutester, Rosa eximed jubntly, “Oh! There it is!” when the outline of a city in the distance came into view.

 “Yeah. We’re almost there.”

 About ten minutes after that, we entered the outskirts of the city.

 It’d been ages since I traveled to another city. From my perspective, it had been decades, but going by this timeline, it had only been four to five years since Ist visited another city.

 I’d been here several times before this with my mother. The poption was a measly 50,000 people or so. Compared to the city we lived in with a poption closer to a million, it was rtively tiny inparison. In spite of that, things were actually cheaper here than in the city we lived in.

 As I took in the view I was overwhelmed by a sense of nostalgia. I recalled the times I spent as a child looking out the side window in the back seat as the buildings passed by whenever we arrived.

 Though I’d often spend a lot of my time holed up inside the cheap hotel room my mother booked at a discounted price using coupons she came across inplementary travel guides. She was a vulture when it came to coupons.

 Unlike my mother who loved to go about on a shopping spree looking for good deals, I preferred to lock myself up ying video games inside the hotel room. I grew to hate those shopping sprees because of how long they took. I’d have nothing to do and I wanted to y the cheap used video games I purchased inside the mall.

 Yes, the only appeal to me ining here as a child was the store in the mall that sold used video games way cheaper than I could get back home. Those days were much simpler times. I was easily entertained by just about any yStation 1 or 2 video game. It only cost about $5 for each game which was a steal for how many hours of entertainment I derived from each one.

 I’d y them over and over again. For some reason, I never got tired of them.

 “Have you been here before?” Rosa asked as I drove in the direction of the mall.

 “Huh? What makes you think that?”

 “I’m just getting that feeling from you.”

 “You can’t even see my face.”

 “Even without seeing it, the way your shoulders rxed and you slouched just now… it just feels like you’re toofortable. It doesn’t feel like someone visiting somewhere new for the first time.”

 “Haaaah. Well, you’re not wrong. I have been to this city before. It’s not my first time here by any means. You probably wouldn’t be aware of this since you haven’t been around here since you were a child, but this small city used to be a pretty popr travel destination for the people in our city. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as popr as it used to be five to ten years ago though.”

 “So your mother used to bring you here?”

 “Yeah.”

AliNovel

Chapter 404.