《Miracle Match Making App (MMMA)》 Chapter 1 A light breeze caused the naked branches overhead to rattle like wooden windchimes. This was a popular retreat for couples in the summer. The deciduous trees provided a beautiful green canopy, far out of sight of teachers and fellow students. But now, in late winter, it felt like I was standing under a pile of kindling. I breathed into my cupped hands and rubbed them together furiously to prevent them from numbing in this cold. "Just how long am I expected to wait out here, anyway? I''m sure I wrote 4:00 PM on the note." At lunch break, I managed to slip the note between the pages of her math book while she wasn''t looking. I was more a fan of the letter-in-the-locker though but that wastoocliche, at least this way she would realize that I knew she liked math. Yes, this would certainly show a bit of initiative. As I pondered when she would come, the snowfall gradually thickened. The snowflakes silently falling from the white-painted sky were the only sign of time passing in this stagnant world. Their slow descent upon the frozen forest made it seemed like time had slowed to a crawl. The rustling of dry snow underfoot startled me, interrupting the quiet mood. Someone was approaching me from behind. I turned my head and saw a black haired girl. "O...oh?! You came?" Damnit... I spent all afternoon trying to come up with a good line and that was the result. Pathetic. Once again, the wind stirred up the branches. The cacophonous noise was music to my ears. She flinched ever so softly against the gust of wind. As it passed, she started shaking as if she was meeting with a monster. "What will you do to me if I don''t say yes..." She said with teary eyes. I wanted to say something in reply, but my throat was tight; my vocal cords felt like they''d been stretched beyond the breaking point. I doubt I could even force a word out if I tried. "I''m sorry!" She shouted and bowed... then running away as if her life was depending on it. Today was the last day we were going to school before winter break started, and I, for once, didn''t want to spend my Christmas all alone again... but it seemed that dream was still far away from reality. I stood there, motionless from the shock. What was so scary about me? Was it because I had this dirty-brown hair? Nothing that I could do about it since I inherited it from my grandpa. Was it because of mysanpakueyes which I fully aware, made me looked like an intimidating delinquent? Or was it because I had piercings on my ears and lips? ...This last one might be my own fault though. Walking home, my shoulders were slumped and my eyes cast down in a mournful gaze. Mymouth was set in a semi-pout. I kicked a stone along the sidewalk with the side ofmy snow-splatteredsneakers as I replayed the moment she ran away from me. Before I knew it, I didn''t know how or why but I already spent the rest of the day staringat the television screen in the dark. The windows were shut close,the same thing happened with the door. On my hand was a bucket of chocolate ice cream, in which I gluttonously scoped into my mouth while my eyes kept focused on the television screen. I watched ''Hachiko'' and once in a while, every time the scene on the dog wasn''t in the movie, I would shift my attention to my phone. "...What?" I couldn''t help but muttered to myself when I saw a new app with a heart-shaped icon on my phone. I wouldn''t say I was a neat or an organized person but I had this habit of putting each app into their respective folder, so once I saw a new app, I instantly recognized it. "Miracle Match Making? When did I install this?" Ignoring the movie, I shifted my attention to my phone and moved my thumbs to touch the app. It opened, just like any normal app should be and delivered straight to the terms and agreement screen. Scrolling down throughthem without reading a single word, just like any normal sane man would do. As soon as I clicked ''I have read and agreed to the terms and agreement.'' The interface shifted to the registration screen. Much to my surprise, they didn''t have the option to use Facebook to register my account, then again, they also didn''t need my email or my phone number, which was weird for an application on this day and age. Either way, they only need things such as my names, my gender, my age and a picture. Nonchalantly I filled the info and uploaded aphoto of me that had the most like on my Instagram and the only photo where I didn''t look scary. As soon as I finished the registration, the screen shifted once again. Name:Emiya Yuu. Gender: Male. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.Age: 17. [About Me.] [Write something interesting about yourself! You''ll never meet 100% of the matches if they don''t know about you!] Level: 1 Stamina Point (regen per hour): 42 (16) Miracle Point (regen per hour): 15 (15) Match Limit: 10. Strength: 5 Vitality: 3 Agility: 7 Dexterity: 7 Miracle Power: 2 Miracle Resistance: 1 Miracle Boost: 1 Miracle Break: 7 Extraordinary Miracle: Enhanced Perception Lvl 1. (Increase stealth detection by 5 points.) Supernatural Miracle: Conjure Crossbow andBolt Lvl 1. (Conjures a sturdy crossbow crafted from black ore and acase to contain the bolts. The Crossbow lasts for 1 hour on your hand or 60 secondsif it gets removed from your hand before it disappears. The arrow lasts for 300 seconds after beingtaken from the quiver before it disappears. Cost: 5 Miracle point to conjure the Crossbow. Cost 1 Miracle Pointto conjure 10 bolts.) "What is... this?" Indeed there was a column for me to write about my status, butother thanthe usual column where one usually wrote something to tell about their preference or condition, there was another Status column on this app that was all about my Strength, Agility and et cetera. No matter how I looked at this damn app ''Miracle Match Making'' app, it was clear the target market was for the nerd. But as soon as I said that, I heard a ghostly voice echoed in my head. <> I jolted in my seat when I heard that voice. Though, my eyes that still locked to my phone screen noticing the screen once again had shifted and showed me a picture of a girl. Shehad golden-blond hair flowing down with horse tails on each side, had a blue eye on the right and red eye on the red. She wore a Gothic Lolita dress, thigh-high socks with a black barrette. There was number ''57%'' on the bottom left of her photos. Under the number was her namewhich was was Eirlys XIII Amelia Sumeragi, and next to her name was what I assumed as her age... in this case, she was 10. "..." Yes, Iknew that this was a dating app... and setting aside for the fact that a 10 years old girl had started using dating app, I couldn''t help myself but grimace at the irony that came from this dating app. Just after I got rejected by my crush and this app was now installed on my phone. Was this a bad joke? Was this a sign that I should just forget about my crush and find a new one? I didn''t know who made this app, how and when it got installed on my phone, and what was thepurpose behind this app, but I immediately swiped the screen to the left before the police started invading my house. As soon as I swiped to the left, it showed me another picture of a woman. From her picture, which somehow was a whole body picture, like a photo that you took for your schoolbook, I could tell she was a fairly tall and busty woman. She had purple eyes and long, black hair that reached her up to her shins, stuck out at her neck and fell over her shoulders. She was wearing a knee-length white jacket similar to a lab coat, a black vest, and black pants with a brown belt. Underneath her vest was a dress shirt and a loosely worn short tie. This time the number had somewhat lessened to 26%. Her name was... Mrs Nightmare, and her age was... 29. Not like I hated the older woman, but she might be a little bit... too old for me. So I swiped to the left. After her, was another girl with a soft expression. She had short, light grey hair, large and sparkling blue eyes, and light skin tone. She was wearinga dark and light green sports jacket, similar coloured shorts with black knee-length tights underneath, and wears a v-neck shirt that is long sleeved and a lighter shade of green in colour. The number was 61% and Her name was... Kotaro? Much to my surprise, she was a he. Even though he had this feminine and cute appearance. And here I was, havingeyes that would make a baby cried with just a glance. Anyway, I swiped to the left. "Oh?" The one after Kotaro was a girl with long flowing, black hair that was decorated with small pink ribbons at the ends and purple eyes. She had a thin and slender figure and show a white skin. Though, unlike her girly appearance, in her profile photo,she was wearing casual-boyish clothes. It consisted of a purple-yellow v-neck, coupled with a brown jacket and blue jeans. She also wore a pair of yellow-white sneakers with red stripes on it and a red-white cap with an "S" written on it. "Since when a full body photo has become a trend?" I tilted my head to the side, trying to ignore the ghostly voice that I''d just heard from before. But leaving that fact aside, her name was Karasuma Hanako, she was also 17, same as me and her number was ''91%''? What was the deal with this number? Anyway, for the first time, I swiped to the right. After kept doing this for a while, I found another girl that if I had to put in my own word... really piqued my interest. She shoulder length red hair and brown coloured eyes. Though if I had to say, she might be piqued my interest because she was the only one that sat on the chair as her profile picture. Aside from that, the other information that I got was her name, Red, in which I didn''t even need to think or figure that it was a fake name. She was 18,one year older than me and her number was ''4%''? I didn''t get much about what was the deal with that number,for now, I just assumed it was our similarity. Either way, the lower numberthe less similarity we would have, right? or it was the other way around? But... she was pretty cute even without wearing any makeup, at least for me. I swiped to the right. As soon as I did that there was a notification popping out from the screen of my phone, telling me that both of Red and I had liked each other. And considering I''d just created my account a few minutes ago, wasn''t this a little bit too fast? Either way, almost simultaneously with that notifications, a new notification was now telling me that Hanako and I was now a match. While I was thinking about what I should say to them.Should I tell a joke? Or just greet them like a normie? "Hello~/Hello." Two new notifications were popping down from the top of my phone screen, telling me that both Red and Hanako had started a conversation. Chapter 2 "Let''s meet up! / Let''s meet." I hadn''t replied to their last message and they already said that. I didn''t have any other words to describe those two girls except for... aggressive. It wasn''t like I hated the fact that they were the one who made the initiative though, in fact, it was good that they immediately wanted to meet me even though we barely or in fact, only greeted each other through the messaging app and hadn''t had any conversation... Though setting that fact aside, I had one big major problem. What kind of clothes should I wear? I knew they didn''t mean to meet up right away, but just in case they wanted to meet in the near future, I began to think about my clothes. I threw my blanket that had covered my body for the whole afternoon to the floor, put the half eaten ice cream bucket to the floor, and walked down to my wardrobe. A frown formed on my face as I opened the wood varnish door. Black hoodies, black jackets, black sleeveless shirts, black shirts, black t-shirts, black sweaters, black pants, everything was black except for two spare white shirts to accompany my school uniform. Heck, I had enough confidence to say that the inside of my wardrobe was as dark as one of the two famous superhero movie franchise. Either way, lamenting at my own wardrobe wouldn''t make a new set of clothes to suddenly appear. While keeping that fact in mind, I took my hoodie, which obviously was a black coloured, and went out to check and maybe bought a newpiece of attire. I began tostep out from my house as the sun sank lower in the sky, the light of day draining away, giving way to the velvety dark of night, I started thinking about what kind of clothes I should buy, focusing more on the colourful colour combination, maybe it was yellow and black? Or red and black? Light blue also seemed pretty good with black. "...." Walking the same path to my favourite clothing store,though even when I said favourite, that store was the only clothing store that I ever visited, while thinking there was something definitely wrong with my fashion sense or I might be had an obsession with a black colour. And with each stride,I suddenly realized one important thing. My hair fluttered in the air, my clothes clung to my body, my arms tightly wrapped around me. I didn''t think about this that much butI had underestimated the cold on themiddle-end of December... walking outside atsix p.m with only a single piece of shirt, pants and hoodie might be wasn''t the brightest idea. I could turn back of course, but then what was the point of walking this far if I turned back right now? So bearing with the cold, I decided to march forward while rubbing my handsagainst each other and ''enjoying'' the white fog that was flowing out from my mouth each time I breathed. As I continued walking down the street, my shadows were now twice as long as myself, the air was damp and cool smelling faintly of a car''s exhaust fumes. As the trees that lined thestreet stood as black statues silhouetted against the darkening sky, a green creature stood barelyone meter tall with itsscrawny body and wide, ungainly head wearing onlya loincloth to cover its groin walking past right next to me, and almost simultaneously the street lamp clicked on. "What the-?!" I turned my neck around, looking to my back while hoping my eyes were playing a trick on me. Unfortunately, my widened eyes still saw that green creature, nonchalantly walking as nothing weird was going on. I didn''t know how others would react but the only thought that occurred to me was the need to record that creature with my phone. Though as I shifted my attention to take my phone for a second, only three meters away from me the green bald creaturehad stopped his steps, turned around and looking at me with hate-filled green eyes.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The intention to take a photo of that creature was ripped away from my thought by a deep growling sound thatcame out from its mouth. It began to slowly pace toward me, getting slightly closer with each step he took while slowly sheathing the knife away from its back. My heart began to beat faster as I noticed a few words above the... creature that saidGoblin Warrior [Lvl 1]. I might not understanda single of bit why and what the hell was going on right now but I had enough awareness to realize thatan angry creature with a knife on its hand was not something that I wanted to deal with. The Goblin stepped closer and closer with each step, making his way in astraight pathtoward me. I began to slowly scramble backwards, maintaining eye contact with the strange creature in hopes that it viewed me as a threat and backed away. The only effect that it seemed to have was making the corner of the goblin''s mouth curled up into a wide Cheshire''s grin and as the result, showing more of his teeth. Largeteeth, which seemingly incredible large hung and pointed from the inside of his mouth, I couldn''t see his gum, but one thing that I saw was that the teeth appeared to be coated in dry blood, browned from age. There was absolute stillness. Not a sound could be heard from both of us, except for the goblin low growling sound. This strange encounter was only interrupted as a couple nonchalantly walking past us without even batting an eye to the goblin. The goblin just exposed more teeth and walked closer, using his finger to spinhis dagger. From the way the goblin played with its dagger, it would be a lie if I didn''t say the goblin was clearly proficient with using a dagger. Swallowing spit that seemed to be as thick as sandpaper along with the fear of beingstabbed by the goblin, my heartbeat speeded up. Letting out a breath andtrying to make a decision of whether or not I should run or fight him, the goblin already had been bellowing out a war cry,as he raised hisknife and rushedtoward me like a beast. The only response that I could give to the goblin was... disappointment. Just like its physical appearance, the goblin was far slower compared to the guys that I had ever fought. And if I had to say, the goblin himself maybe not much faster or stronger than a little kid. Maybe because the goblin was still level one? Still, the goblin brought a knife in his hand, and I assumed that was more than enough to turn a little kid into a killer, just like that Halloween movie. With his short stature, the goblin was clearly aiming for my stomach, but just like his height, his arm''s reach was also short.I took a step forward and repelled the goblin by swinging my right leg,kicking the goblin right in its stomach and creating a thick sound asa sign that something had been broken. (I did not care about the couple that was watching me from the distance and had started whispering to each other while fastening their walking pace. I more care about what happened if the goblin was real and they were the one that couldn''t see him.) Right at that moment, anger and killing intention left the goblin''s face as shock took its place and the goblin dropped his knife and slowly fell to his knees. The goblin coughed up green liquid, in which I assumed as the colour of goblin blood, as he tried to pick his knife up while enduring the pain. Just before his hand reached the knife, I was able to easily step on his knife and kick it to the side. Thenas if I was kicking a soccer ball, the goblinflew one meter away as my foot made contact right in his face. My eyes widened and my jaw dropped as I watched the goblin landed to the ground. I didn''t know the goblin exact weight but I assumed it was somewhere around 20kg, and I just freaking kicked him off the ground. "--!! ---!!? GiiiIIIii" Much to my surprise,the goblin still groaned and squirmed as he prostrated himself on the ground. I didn''t know much about it as I never actually felt it, but the pain of getting thrown one meter away by a kick should be unbearable, but he was somehow persisting. I was wary at first, thinking the goblin might still have enough power to retaliate, but that was immediately proven to be a needless fear as before I could even move my finger,the goblinhad been slowly turning into smoke. I stood still like a statue, completely dumbfounded about what was happening and how I managed to not freaking out through all of that shit. I didn''t know which was weirder though, the goblin, the floating words above his head, the fact that other people couldn''t see him, it turned into smoke, or the fact that it left behind a small red jewel on the ground. Congratulations! Your level is now 2! +2 Status point. +1 Miracle. Or the same ghostly voice telling me that my level was now two. Chapter 3 I stood in front of a shop that was wedged between two taller buildings. It looked squeezed as if the neighbours were closing in. The sign was neon lights, some letters had become illegible as they flickered on and off at random interval. But the window was clean and the clothing apparel on display was clearly... Unique. There was no theme to them or colour coordination and they were crammed together rather than artistically arranged. I pushed the door and a bell rang. Almost simultaneously as I did that, my phone vibrated and I received a message from Red. [ Wow! Level two already?! How do you do that? Anyway, Congrats! ] Reading her message only made me wonder about something. The ghostly voice from before told me I reached level two after I killed that Goblin. And since Red knew something about level two, shouldn''t that mean she also had killed or at least known about the Goblin? I had the urge to ask her about the goblin, right here right now. But I had a feeling that kept screaming inside of my heart, telling me that asking Red through the message would only leave me with more question. Speaking of the message, she had already sent me three messages and I hadn''t replied to her at all. Moving my thumbs, I started tapping on my phone screen and replied. [ Thanks. And there''s something that I wanted to ask. Can we meet tomorrow? Your time your place. ] [ Sure~ I''ll message you after I find the place! ] After I read her last message, it was good enough for me to notice our appointment had been decided. And so with a strange determination to not scare her away on our first meeting,I started strolling around the shop. But... to tell the truth, I always hated everything about shopping. I hated the crowds, the queues and the aching feet. I also took exception to overly attentive shopping assistants, the perky seasonal music playing in every store and all the special deals tempting me to spend even more and only made me confused in the end. But in this store... well, the crowds were non-existent and therefore, no queues. The owner was here, or he might be not here, either way, he would immediately come out everytime I wanted to check out my goods. Rather than perky music, the only music that I could hear were the echoes from my own footsteps. And from my perspective, it was weird to not meet or see any kind of abnormality in this store, even though just a few minutes ago, a goblin was nonchalantly walking on the street. Shrugging my shoulder, while rolling the small red jewel across my finger, I non chalantly walking in a corridor with shelving spanning both sides, picking the clothes one by one and brought them to the counter. Like I said before, not a second had passed since I did that and theowner''s head had already been sticking out from the backroom. Theowner whom I called as Ken was a lanky man with black hair, styled into an undercut. Various tattoos covered his arms, and a sun tattoo covered his entire neck and went down to the left side pectoral region, which he always showing off to the others through his loosegray tank top. Well, if I had to describe his appearance in general, it was a little bit... scarier thanmy own. And Ken greeted me with a big yawn while massaging his neck. "Do you really need to buy clothes at this hour?" He did another yawn after he said that. "Just put the money on the register and go home." He immediately went to the back room as soon as he finished his sentence. Maybe it was the trust because I was this storelong time customer or because he had a secret CCTV that he used to monitor the counter? Either way, that was a whole new level of laziness coming from him. Following Ken''s cue, I leaned my body from outside of the counter and opened the money register just as he said.... andcouldn''t see a single coin inside of it, though considering Ken''s attitude this view didn''t surprise me at all. While putting exactly4,780 yen onto the register and then packing my own goods, I could only wonder how his shop still survived. Then again, his goods always seemed new, so I guessed he did just fine. I walked home, walking at the same pace on the same route. But in my eyes, the familiar trees and street signs of the daytime took on new and ominous forms. It was as if their friendly and familiar spirits had been replaced with malicious demons. Even thelights andseveral people that was nonchalantly walking to their house could not make them seem any less threatening.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I couldn''t help but thinking that way though,considering Icould see a horde of... rain droplet shaped monsters with round eyes, and goofy, toothless smile happily bouncing around near the street sign; On top of their head was [Slime Lvl 0] Aside from those slimes, hanging upside down on the branch with its long, monkey-esque tail was a short, round white-silver furred creature with duckbill, bird-like claws, and a Mohawk, [DuckPunk Lvl 2] For now, I... just pretended to not see any of those creatures and focusing my attention into my phone, more precisely the Miracle Match Making App, considering I started seeing weird shit after I got this. I didn''t pay much attention before, but there was a new notification on my status page. Touching the top left corner, which was my status screen, Isaw a small, glowing ¡®+2¡¯ in the upper right, just outside my ''Status column'' and ''+1'' on my ''Miracle column.'' When Itouched it, theStatus column rippled and changed, expanding slightly to allow for some plus and minus signs to surround all theStatus numbers. That part... in a weird way was somewhat predictable; I had increased in level, so I had some points to distribute. At least that was my brain told me if I chose to just ignore everything else. I had no idea where to start though. All I could do was stare at the character sheet and make some guesses according to their self-explanatory names. To tell the truth, I wanted to increase either my INT or my CHA but they didn''t give me that damn options. Then again, beggar couldn''t choose what was given to them. The whole status thing might be real or it might be fake, which considering all the weird thing that I had seen, it was very unlikely for the latter. I''d just happily accepted the deal and silently increased my Stats. (About increasing stats, I had played enough RPG and smartphone games to know the meaning behind each of those statuses and the terms such as min-maxing, dump stats, and generalist/specialist trade-off.) First of all, for nowI just assumed Miracle Resistance and Boost as my dump stats, considering those two were the lowest of all of my stats. No, in fact, considering I didn''t know anything about Miracle I had alreadyput everything with ''Miracle'' as their name in ''Dump Stats'' Category. (After I defeated the goblin, I hadshouted the Miracle names, both of ''Perception'' and ''Conjure Crossbow and Bolts'' while concentrating and imagining their shapes on my mind, and the result? Nothing happened except for people looking at me with somewhat sympathize looks on their face. Then again, I wouldn''t want to know what kind of face they would make if they saw a crossbow to magically appeared on my hand.) That left everything under of what I called as Physical Status. They gave me no indication of what the underlying mathematical reality was. But from my stats distributionand my miracle, I assumed I was more of a ranged type character. And If that was the case then wouldn''t that mean I should''ve just increased my Dexterity and Agility? Curiously, I tried to put a point in Dexterity, I sawthe Status pointchangedinto one. Andsimultaneously with that, my Dexterity increased to 8 and alongside with it, my stamina was now raised by two and becoming44 in total. I didn''t feel any real difference in my body though. Then again, it was pretty hard to count someone dexterity, so I guessed I should''ve gone with something more countable, which I obviously, instantly removed Vitality from the list. While keeping that in my mind, I ran the jogging app on my phone then nonchalantlysprinted with all of my might on the area with less people. As soon as my phone vibrated, which signalling I had passed the 50-meter mark, I stopped running and starting taking my phone from my pocket. It recorded that my maximum speed was 20,1 kmh. Opening the Miracle Match Making App, I couldn''t help but notice my Stamina had dropped to 39. Shrugging my shoulders, I put the remaining of my status point into Agility and saw the ''+1'' vanished and my Agility raised to 8. Alongside that, my Maximum Stamina and Stamina Regeneration had increased by one, becoming 45 and 17 in total. Once again, using the same method, I tried to sprint into my houseand was pleased to find I certainly felt a little faster or maybe it was only a suggestion from my brain and I, in fact, hadn''t gotten any faster from before. But after checking my phone, my lips curled up. It had recorded that my maximum speed was now 21,12kmh. So is each point of Agility increased my running speed by 1 kmh? Or should I also consider the decrease in my Stamina?While thinking like that, I shrugged my shoulder and openedthe app, only to notice my Stamina had decreased to 35. As I shifted my attention into ''Miracle column'' I didn''t see any other options for learning any new Miracle, except for raisingtheir level intolevel two. Though, after considering I didn''t know which one was more useful, I just ignored it for now and silently went to my home. Like a deja vu, as soon as I opened the door of my house, I received a message from Hanako. [Congratulations for reaching level two.] Chapter 4 [ I am sitting on a bench and wearing a red scarf! ] Closing the screen on my phone, I looked into my own apparel. I was wearing my newly bought clothes, a red jersey jacket which featured white stripes on its sleeves over a black v-neck T-shirt with light brown pants. Bending my neck backwards, the thing that greeted me was a formidable glass-and-steel apartment building rose from its position like a glittering needle threading the sky. But that wasn''t my destination. My destination was the park next to that building. The park was acres of concrete interspersed with neat grass verges. It had a rollerblading track, tennis courts, basketball courts, child playground, water fountain and skateboarder basin. There were vendors with hot dogs and burgers, vendors with curry and rice, vendors with tacos and sour cream. There was always music, sometimes clashing from various sources, none of them official. It didn''t have colour from roses or asters, but it was more vibrant than any planned garden. I strolled my way down to the water fountain, where I could see several elderly just sat somewhere where the birds could actually be heard or playing chess with their friends. Looking around from where I stood, just from the corner of the water fountain, red hair figure caught my eye and I continued walking toward her direction, making my way around the water fountain. Only for me to stop walking and staring at her for a few seconds... hesitating. Sitting down was a girl with shoulder length red hair, with two blue clips attached to her left fringe. Her eyes were dark brown, and just like her message, I saw her wearing a red scarf over her dark blue sweaters, her skirts were khaki, reaching all the way up to her knees. With a spoon between her finger, a morsel of food stuck firmly on the end. "..." For some other reason, I didn''t know how I should greet her. Red''s mouth was wide open, ready to accept the spoon but she seemed to be frozen in place when she noticed me and staring at me with her huge eyes like a rabbit in headlights. I was staring back at her, trying to curl my lips into a smile, suddenly remembering I hadn''t said anything to her. This weird stalemate kept us both stunned into silence, punctuated only by the sound of chess pieces hammering onto their wooden board. "Hello~" Red said with a smile. Her arm raised up and she waved at me, beckoning me to come and sit next to her. She then stuffed the spoonful in her mouth and was now staring at me expectantly while chewing. This was a bit awkward. I... I supposed going back would be incredibly rude. I marched forward with a complicated feeling. "Um... hello. Sorry for being late." I didn''t late though. We were making an appointment to meet at 4 p.m and the time right now was 3:58. But... I couldn''t help but said that to her. "It''s fine~ I just got here either."She picked up another spoonful. I raisedmy eyebrows asI saw... the mountain of food packaging piled up on the bench. "Did you?" She looked to where my eyes were staring at while gulping down her food, then she gasped as if no one should''ve known about her lie. "You... are pretty observant. I guess I did not. And you must be..." "Ah, I''m Yuu. Emiya Yuu. I''m the one that you meet on that app." "Oh? Using a real name? Then I''m Aya. Ikezawa Aya.Aya Ikezawa. As you can see I won''t bewalking anywhere, but at least we''ve met each other now. That''s very nice." Her deadpan manner of talking made it hard for me to determine whether she was joking aboutwalking or not. It kinda bothered me though, I wouldn''t say she catfishing me since I didn''t ask whether or not she was... wheelchair bound. I never had met any other person, especially someone near on my age using a wheelchair, so I didn''t know how I should react at her joke, but I just thought joking about these matters didn''t feel appropriate at all. While I was trying to figure what was appropriate and whether this girl was, Aya seemed to have lost interest in me and was now gazing yearningly back at her food. "If you don''t mind me, can I continue my lunch first?" "Go right ahead. But... lunch?Isn''t now a little bit too late for lunch?" I sat down on the bench while looking to the girl that was sitting on her own wheelchair. She let her spoon stayed in her mouth for a second while pondering about something before she took the spoon out from her mouth. "Then~ What word would you use then? There is no word for a meal you eat after lunch but before dinner, right? It bothers me very much too, but I don''t really know what I should say." "I don''t think you are supposed to eat a meal between lunch and dinner to begin with." She raised her eyebrows as if she was suspecting my statement was false. "But I''m hungry now and my delicious boxed lunch would go to waste otherwise." With much decisiveness, Aya once again picked up the spoon and with at least as much impoliteness, she pointed it straight at me. "I have a curry! It''s very delicious. Do you want some? I don''t mind giving you one or maybe two spoon~ but not three! three is too much." I... politely declined her offer by shaking my head several times and patiently waiting for Aya tofinish her lunch. Halfway through her lunch, "So, Emiya, what kind of question do you want to ask? I might not look like it, but I am pretty smart, you know." Aya thumped her chest with a smug expression.Stolen novel; please report. "I..." Iopened my mouth but did not have the chance to say more words. "Wait! I can guess. I am good at guessing. Better than most people do." Aya cut me off before I could answer her question. She keptwondering what myquestion could be, with an overtly contemplative look on her face. She put her spoon between her lips and leaned back, looking at the sky as if the answer was written up there. "I think it''s must be something relatedto MMMA. But I don''t think the question will be boringly ordinary, unlike this lunch of mine, which is amazing." She nodded for a while and snapped her finger. "I see~Your question must be ''What should I do after I got gang raped by a tentacle monster and how do I get my revenge!?" This messed-up Sherlock Holmes kind of statement and the sheer lack of tact it was delivered with caught me completely off guard. I thought I might''ve reeled back even physically as Aya''s eyes widened in revelation and astonishment. "So I was right! A monster with tentacles is raping you, right? And the reason why you seem hesitant to sit down is because your butt is hurt, am I right?!" I still partially in shock but recognizing the need to reply something, I spat out the first thing that I could think of. At the same time, I was amazed by the fact she seemed fine mentioning the word ''butt'' while eating her curry. "What?! No! Nothing like that. I only meet goblin and several other small monsters." As I said it, the girl in front of me pursed her lips together and glowered at me, looking very disappointed. "How boring~ Troublewith tentacle monster would have been much more scandalous." What was with this reaction? "I guess... sorry to let you down?" "I forgive you." She said with a big grin while patting my back."Anyway, if your question isn''t something about the tentacle monster, then what do you want to ask? If it about the existence of monsters in general, yes, they exist, it is written on the term and agreement, paragraph 47." With little left to say, Aya resumed her lunch and the conversation died away, but I kept thinking about what was said. Normally a person wouldn''t read something like that, right? Especially when it was only for registering in some kind of social media. "Ah! Right! Since you agreed to meet me, I assume for now you don''t have a partner, right?" I... really felt like as someone that''d just skipped the whole tutorial part and was now didn''t know how to play the game. Anyway, I shook my head, completely unsure by the meaning of her words. "Hm~ Even without a partner you still able to level up? It seems we have a tough guy over here." She said while jokingly punched me in the shoulders. "So~ how about we become a partner?" "Ehh..." I was not sure what to make of this partner thingy, but Aya looked serious even though her tone was still playful. "...Can you explain what is ''partner''?" I had enough confusion by not reading the term and agreement, and if I could, I didn''t want to have that kind of feeling when agreeing with something that I didn''t know. "Ah~ I think I just find someone that didn''t read the terms and agreement." Aya sneered at me. "Well, to put it simply~ By becoming a partner we can use our Miracle when we are near to each other." "..." I waited for a few seconds and let the silence filled the air, but it seemed that was really all she had to say. "Anyway, it will be easier if I just show you how." Aya started taking her phone out, opened my profile and used her thumb to hold my profile for a few seconds, which if I timed it right was about three seconds. A new menu selection appeared from the bottom. There were four rows and starting from the top it was: Send File. Partner Up. Create Party. Delete Match. And with a single movement from her finger, I felt a vibration from my pocket. Taking my phone, it was an invitation toPartner Up with her, in which, I pressed yes. Congratulations! You now have a partner. You have received a newExtraordinary Miracle:Eagle Eye Lvl 1. After the notification, I looked down at myphone and double check it withAya''s. It seemed both of us had gotten a new Miracle, though she didn''t seem that surprised by this discovery asshe just spooned the last bits of her meal to her mouth. Emiya Yuu Extraordinary Miracle: Hunter''s Bond Lvl 1. (Improve the attitude of an animal toward you. You can use this Miracle to form a close bond with one animal and increases its status by one.) Red Supernatural Miracle: Eagle''s Eye Lvl 1. (Your eyes become wide and raptor-like, and you grow feathers on the sides of your head. Increase your stealth detection by 2, Visual Acuity by 1.5 and field of vision by 10 degrees. Last: 1 minute. Cost: 1 Miracle Point.) "So... how do I use this ''Miracle'' thingy?" Aya looked at me hard in the eyes but that intimidating feeling you get when someone stared at you wasn''t there. It was like she was actually not looking at me at all. She blinked a couple of times, and I couldn''t figure out why a pause like this just popped between us out of nowhere."You... don''t plan to do Miracle in this place, right?" "Eh..." She... somehow had a common sense. "Anyway just follow me. I know someplace in this park where there is no a lot of people." She said as she started spinning the wheel away, as I followed her from behind, only for her to suddenly stop. "That''s very nice of you. Don''t need to feel obliged to push my wheelchair. I was about to use my hand to spin them anyway. You just do whatever you are going to do." "Err..." Was that sarcasm? or was that her true thought? To tell the truth, it was kinda hard to figure out what she wanted. "Right... let me help you with that, Ikezawa." "You can call me Aya. I feel that our relationship is at this point good enough to warrant this much." "Fine, then I''m Yuu." "Then you are." There was something like a tiny smile there in her face when she said that, maybe. Anyway, with that, I quietly pushed her to the back of this park. As we reached the empty part, she just casually... turned into a wolfwith red fur and piercing yellow eyes. She happily leapt out from her wheelchair while darting her tongue across sharp white teeth and started running around, chasing after a butterfly. I felt like this supposed to be a big revelation like the moment when David revealed as the werewolf, but she just casually spoiled it like that and playing all by herself whileignoring our true purpose. "What an intriguing person..." I couldn''t help but mutter that. In front of me, I heard a muffled, sing-song voice: "I heard tha~t!" Said Aya... even though she was still in her wolf form.