Resource Optimization: The Mage and Cleric’s Almost-Kiss
The first rule of survival for a retired player is to never let your guard down, not even when you're offline. Sora learned this the hard way.
The sun had just begun to rise. That was the sign that misfortune was about to begin.
Sora’s bed, once cold and lonely, now felt strangely warm and heavy.
He felt something soft and sweet pressing against his right side, along with a warm breath.
It sent a shiver down his spine.
With a hint of fear, Sora slowly turned his head to the right. There, Shiori slept soundly, using his arm as a pillow. She was wearing one of his shirts—so oversized it revealed more than Mochi would’ve allowed.
“W-well… I doubt Mochi would allow this, right?” Sora thought, trying not to panic.
“But… if she’s here, why does my left arm feel heavier?” Growing more uneasy, Sora glanced to the other side—and his heart began to race.
There she was—Mochi. The girl who had set a boundary between Shiori’s side and ours last night.
Mochi clung to Sora’s arm like it was a rare in-game item. She slept with a warm smile, murmuring something he couldn’t understand.
Sora tried to make sense of the mess he was in. “Is this some kind of reward or a curse? If Mochi wakes up and sees Shiori like this, I’ll be caught right in the middle.” He thought, trying not to panic.
Panic began to set in. The stress was wearing down Sora’s resolve fast. He needed to get out of there.
“They’re both still asleep. I need to take this chance and get away,” he thought, silently begging for a moment of peace.
Slowly, Sora began to free his arms. First the left, slipping in a body pillow that Mochi hugged at once with a satisfied sigh. Then the right—he replaced it with a small cushion, which Shiori clutched to her chest, murmuring about her laptop’s warmth.
At last, after some effort, Sora slipped out of bed and onto the floor without a sound. Without looking back, he quietly crawled to the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
[In the Bed - 10 Minutes Later]
The sunlight was beginning to illuminate the room more strongly.
Mochi remained lost in her perfect-wife dream, sensing her beloved’s warmth begin to shift. Meanwhile, Shiori unconsciously searched for the warmth that kept her comfortable.
However, with Sora out of the way, both girls had gotten so close that their heads were almost touching.
"Sora... You smell different," Mochi whispered while slowly opening her eyes with a tender, sincere smile, which only made her try to get closer to her future husband's lips for a good morning kiss.
“Tank… your warmth feels so soft,” Shiori whispered as she began moving toward where Sora was supposed to be.
Their faces were only inches apart. Mochi closed her eyes and leaned in, expecting the kiss—Shiori did the same. Just as their lips were about to meet… something felt off.
Both girls opened their eyes instantly.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH?!" The scream was so intense that the birds outside the building flew away.
Both Mochi and Shiori jumped back with absolute terror, while Shiori wrapped herself in the sheet like sushi, and Mochi pulled out a wooden spoon from who-knows-where.
“Y-you discount mage!?” Mochi shouted, wiping her mouth. “W-w-what were you trying to do, kissing me!? That’s Sora’s territory—no one else’s!”
"Y-you were the one who got close, perverted Cleric!" Shiori replied, adjusting her glasses with trembling hands. "M-my system detected a proximity threat and activated the defense protocol! I almost died from fright because of you!"
"THAT'S MY HUSBAND'S CLOTHES!?" A scream echoed throughout the house.
For his part, Sora, who was already in the shower, tried to ignore the chaos that had formed in his room.
Twenty minutes later, the newly formed guild walked through the streets toward the school.
The atmosphere was... tense, to say the least.
Sora walked a few steps ahead, pretending not to know the two girls following him to maintain his low profile. Behind him, Shiori walked with her head down and one hand holding a large bump on her head, courtesy of Mochi's Purification Spoon.
"I can't believe I took a critical hit from that perverted cleric," Shiori whispered under her breath. "She caught me with my defenses down."
"You deserve it for being a husband-stealing knockoff mage!" Mochi shouted furiously, walking in her spotless uniform while radiating contempt toward Shiori. "I demand a logical explanation for this before my patience bar hits zero and I exterminate you with my staff!"
Shiori adjusted her glasses while letting out a long sigh. "I already told you... it was a location error," Shiori tried to explain while glancing sideways at Sora. "In the early morning, while I was using my computer, my body malfunctioned and I spilled coffee on my only clean clothes."
"And you think that's a good excuse to sneak into my beloved's room!?" Mochi protested with an intense look while pulling what appeared to be a wooden spoon from her bag.
"No... it's just that I didn't want to make noise using his washing machine and wake up the cleric's judgment," Shiori continued talking while remembering everything she had been through during the night. "I had entered to get one of Sora's shirts so I wouldn't sleep dirty, but when I tried to leave the room, my energy dropped to zero and my system felt like it was leaving my body, so I had to throw myself onto the tank's bed. It wasn't a planned attack, it was just... resource optimization."
Sora, who was listening to everything from ahead, felt a twitch in his right eye and thought to himself: "Is she really expecting me to believe that? I perfectly remember how tightly you were clinging to me like an albino sea otter... Well, at least Mochi didn't disintegrate her right there. I guess that bump on her head is a small price to pay for infiltrating at night."
As soon as the group crossed the entrance gate, Sora activated his invisibility protocol and separated from both girls instantly, hoping each would go to their classroom. He just wanted to reach his seat and disappear among the crowd.
However, the server of reality had other plans.
In the distance down the hallway, a group of girls was watching from around the corner without Sora noticing.
A girl who was neither Mochi, nor Shiori, and to his bad luck, wasn't the student council president either, but someone far more chaotic who would make his life even