Matthew finally received his lottery money. True to his word, he wired half of it to the Association, responsibly assigned a good chunk to his art budget, and only then blew a lot of it on his hobbies.

  “Five hundred euros?” Kari choked in shock and outrage when she saw his account balance on her laptop. “You’ve spent five hundred euros on games? In ten minutes?”

  “You can’t possibly understand,” Matthew complained as he sipped his morning coffee. “You can’t fathom the pain of drawing nothing but three-star units in Isekai Warrior Heroes for hours on end to farm luck! This is mistreatment! This is torture!”

  “I can understand blowing off steam, but half a grand?!” Kari’s expression confirmed that no, she couldn’t possibly understand his agony. “That’s way too much!”

  “I swear the story is super good too!” These gacha games were like honey for the artistic types like Matthew. “Every time I try to escape, they pull me back in with a new twist and fanservice! They made goblins attractive!”

  “Give it up, Matsumoto,” John said with a scoff while finishing his own breakfast. “His hole Key also covers money holes. His bank account is a bottomless sink leading straight to the red zone.”

  Kari sighed and stared in despair at Matthew for a moment. He didn’t like that look at all. She was clearly considering something drastic.

  “Okay,” she finally said before typing on her computer. “Okay, I’ll set up an investment account we’ll share where you can put your money without taking it back until we reach a certain threshold.”

  Matthew choked on his coffee. “What?! You can’t do that!”

  “Yes, I can! You clearly have no impulse control, and our plan requires long-term investments!” Kari shrugged. “I’ll assume control of our common finances until we reach a sufficient threshold.”

  “Like we’re married?” Matthew couldn’t resist teasing Kari. “You’re skipping a lot of steps here.”

  “Don’t make this weird, Matthew, we’re just married to our passive revenue plan. Our P.R.P.” Kari cleared her throat. “Oh, that makes me think, I can arrange a date with Marlene for you.”

  Matthew’s head perked up and he immediately straightened up in his seat. “You know what, Kari? I know you’re distracting me, but it’s working!”

  Marlene was totally his type: an attractive redhead, friendly, and artistic-minded. Sure she almost killed him by accident during the match because of his Lucky Star spell, but many love stories started with worse premises.

  “Thank you,” Kari replied with a gentle smile. “Marlene is open to a friendly date before the Formal itself under one condition.”

  Awww, of course there was a catch. It was too good to be true.

  “Which is?” Matthew asked warily.

  “She says she can’t respect a boy who can’t beat her in a fight,” Kari replied. “So you’ll have to duel her in a martial arts match.”

  “Oh, that’s all?!” Matthew let out a sigh of relief. He had expected much worse, like a costly dinner date or destroying a rival dojo. “Easy peasy. Between my spells and long fighting game experience, there’s no way I can lose.”

  Kari squinted at him. “You’re going to use your spells on Marlene?

  “Why not?” Both Matthew and John asked at the exact same time.

  “Because…” Kari struggled to find a good explanation herself. It was difficult for her to argue against using spells in their personal life when busy exploiting her own magic for money. “Because that would be disrespectful!”

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  “What would be disrespectful would be holding back on her,” Matthew replied mischievously. “You want me to go easy on Marlene because she’s a girl?”

  “You’re twisting my words.” Kari quickly turned the computer in front of Matthew to better distract him from her own embarrassment. Kari Matsumoto looked so cute when flustered. “Whatever, I’ve selected a list of good financial investments. All you have to do is use Lucky Star to pick them at random.”

  Matthew promptly did that. He didn’t even look at the titles of the shares, commodities, and other cryptocurrencies which Kari chose from. He simply closed his eyes and let his stored fortune guide his finger as he picked a few.

  Some of his choices gave Kari pause. “Axionext? Really? I wouldn’t have bet on them.”

  John’s jaw clenched. “Me neither.”

  “And that’s why fortune favors the bold,” Matthew countered with a grin. “Besides, Kari is willing to invest in cryptocurrency of all things and she’s blaming me for spending money on gacha games.”

  “It’s not my fault if people keep buying that stuff,” Kari retorted. “They’re like gold at this point. Either you buy some or you miss out.”

  “Let’s go all in then,” Matthew suggested. “I’m fine with becoming a bitcoin millionaire.”

  Kari, ever the killjoy, didn’t follow through with his brilliant suggestion. “I’ll buy some Axionext stock and allocate the rest on other safer bets you pointed to.”

  “You’re no fun at all,” Matthew complained, but washed his hands of the entire matter. He would keep up his strength for the Major Chicken Dungeon which they planned to tackle after school.

  He was finishing his coffee when he spotted Maggie entering the cafeteria.

  Matthew froze in shock. He hadn’t seen Maggie at school since the year began, let alone so early in the morning. She moved straight to the group’s table with a steady pace and stopped next to it, much to his teammates’ surprise.

  “You got a moment, Matsumoto?” Maggie asked, cutting straight to the chase. “I was told to meet with you for my missing classes.”

  “Oh?” Kari cleared her throat and closed her laptop. “Y-yes, of course.”

  John raised an eyebrow. “So you’re finally going to attend school again?”

  “So far,” Maggie replied without too much enthusiasm. She exchanged a brief glance with Matthew before focusing back on Kari. “I don’t like wasting time when I could be outside clearing Dungeons, but this is where your new team meets up.”

  “You mean Sasha and the others?” Kari asked in disbelief. “You’ll join the Association?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I’ve talked with your Crypto. I’ll help train Miss Priest’s band and patrol the Old Town ‘till you can afford to send a team there, but that’s all.”

  Matthew frowned in concern. “Alone?”

  “Alone.” Maggie’s jaw clenched and she swiftly avoided Matthew’s gaze. “I work better that way.”

  Matthew didn’t push the issue further. Part of him wished to argue with her to at least accept a teammate, but he knew that the mere fact that Maggie finally agreed to coordinate with the Association was huge progress in itself.

  Baby steps. Baby steps.

  “Suit yourself,” John said with a shrug. “It’s not like we can afford to send more Crawlers to help you for now either, and we have our own Dungeon to clear out.”

  Maggie scoffed. “The chicken restaurant?”

  “Yup,” Matthew confirmed. “Crypto successfully closed off all entrances for now, so we’ll clear it out today.”

  “We should confirm if Tarantulas was the only monster of its kind inside while at it,” John said. “Or at least that its Disbelief-immunity didn’t spread to the locals.”

  “Let’s hope we can recover the Old Town team’s remains too,” Kari added with a grim scowl. “We should at least return their bodies to their families.”

  Maggie winced, as did Matthew. That remark hit too close to yesterday’s conversation and what happened to Perse.

  “Uhm…” Kari cleared her throat and tried to change the uncomfortable subject. “Can we meet after art class, Maggie? I didn’t expect you to show up, so I’m not prepared.”

  “Sure, whatever.” Maggie shrugged and prepared to leave. “See you around.”

  “Wait!” Matthew rose from his seat and rushed after her. “Maggie, do you remember our old band sessions?”

  “‘Course I do,” she replied dryly. She likely felt insulted he thought she had forgotten Perse and the others. “Why?”

  “Did… Do you recall anything strange happening during them?”

  Maggie gave him the strangest look. He could feel his teammates’ gaze on his back too, since they were close enough to overhear. “What the hell are you talking about, Matthew?”

  Matthew scratched the back of his head, his mind furiously trying to find a good way to word his answer. “I… I have the feeling I’ve forgotten something I shouldn’t have.”

  The truth was that Matthew had spent all night exploring his Sentimental World and shifting through its hole-riddled memories. A few included Maggie, so he figured she might recall what he couldn’t.

  “Well…” Maggie scowled, and then chuckled. “You did crash into a wall once.”

  Matthew blinked. “I did?”

  “Yeah, you did.” Maggie smirked just thinking about it. “You missed the door by a full meter and swore it used to be in front of you. We all laughed at you.”

  Matthew stared at her without a word as he tried to make sense of her words. He recalled his old friends laughing at him many times across the years, but not for something like that.

  A door that wasn’t there before, and disappeared when everyone paid attention…

  Could it have been a Dungeon’s entrance?

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