23 Hello from inside the card
One day, as I went upstairs to the shop, I heard a voice.
“Fugogogogogogu, shugoooo! Supiiii!”
No, it wasn’t a voice.
It was an extremely loud snoring sound.
Why could I hear such a loud snoring noise?
The source of the voice was Erea.
However, this was the living room, not Erea’s room.
Of course, Erea’s figure was nowhere to be seen, nor could I sense her presence.
Moreover, the fact that Erea, of all people, was snoring was strange in itself.
As a former imperial scout, Erea’s breathing is usually extremely shallow.
So shallow that newcomers might mistake her for being dead with how still she lies.
I had never seen her snoring so loudly in her sleep before.
“Erea, are you there? Ereaaaa?”
“Supiiii! Fugo! Ngogogogogogogoogo!”
There was no response when I called out.
However, the snoring sound was getting closer.
Additionally, there were traces on the table in the center of the living room that Erea had been there.
Specifically, there were several beer cans rolling around.
Also, the TV was left on, and a game was paused midway.
It seems…she must have fallen asleep.
But even if she did fall asleep, where?
She couldn’t have gone to her bed from here, could she?
As I was thinking that and approached right next to the table—
“Could it be…this?”
There was a single card lying on the floor by my feet.
[Imperial Scout Eclraire]
That card featuring the emotionless, stern face of the cold scout was distinctive.
And from there…I could hear Erea’s snoring that was a bit too impolite to share.
—Humanoid monster types are able to “enter” their own cards.
Of course, this is limited only to cards depicting themselves, they cannot enter others’ cards.
Furthermore, once inside, they cannot move the card around or anything like that.
They can’t float around like a poltergeist or anything.
However, since they can freely come and go, if they want to move around they can just come out from inside.
There are a few advantages to doing this:
If someone else holds their card, it makes travel easier.
You could even save on transportation costs that way.
Though whether those savings actually happen depends on the card’s owner and the monster themselves.
Erea, for one, doesn’t usually travel by entering her card, saying “Money exists to circulate” or something like that.
Though that’s probably also because she simply has money.
Additionally, when a monster is in their card state…or rather, in a state where they can enter their card to fight, their compatibility with that card skyrockets.
Well, of course it would, they’re right there next to it after all.
They couldn’t be more compatible.
That said, these external buffs have diminishing returns the stronger they get.
Sure, adding a thousand to someone with 100 power would more than decuple it, but adding a thousand to someone with 53,000 would just be a drop in the bucket, naturally.
So anyway, back to the topic at hand.
A major part of Erea’s sleep is due to routine.
Like self-hypnosis, or rather, she’s controlling her own body to make it that way.
So in a situation that deviates from that control like this, it seems she can be woken up normally…
Something I learned for the first time by waking the sleeping Erea inside her card.
However,
“Uhhh…I can’t get married anymore…”
Erea was utterly dejected.
Well, I suppose if I had heard those outrageous snores, I’d feel that way too.
Not that I had mentioned it, but for some reason Erea seemed to understand that she had been making those ridiculously loud snores.
Must be some special scout skill or something.
“There, there…I don’t mind.”
“Uhh…then will the manager take me as your wife…?”
“Eh? No…Erea, are you being serious?”
“Huh? ……Ah!?”
Erea started saying outrageous things.
When I pointed it out, she seemed to regain her senses and raised her voice.
Then the two of us fell into an awkward, embarrassed silence for a while.
We regained our composure, laughed it off, and decided to act like that exchange never happened.
“A-Anyway! Thank you for waking me up. If anyone other than the manager had seen me in such an unsightly state, I couldn’t bear it as a former scout—”
“So I’m fine then…”
“I just barely managed to bear it by gritting my teeth…”
Seems like it was quite the struggle…
Even though I’ve been with Erea for years now, this was the first time I’d seen her like this.
Though I suppose part of it is that she only became an adult this year.
Still, she probably wouldn’t have made the same mistake right after she first came here.
Erea really has become quite accustomed to things…which I suppose is a good thing.
“I have to admit, I was surprised at just how weak I am to alcohol…”
“Hmm, being weak to alcohol could be one factor, but were there any others?”
“Such as?”
Saying that, I picked up Erea’s card.
The illustration of [Eclraire] doesn’t change whether Erea is inside or not.
It’s just that stern-faced, somewhat intimidating young girl there.
Quite different from the Erea now…no, I’m getting sidetracked.
“If it was just being drunk on alcohol, you wouldn’t have entered your card. Even if your own card happened to be nearby.”
“You make a fair point…I don’t really enter cards to fight.”
In Erea’s case, the “Imperial” deck that she belongs to is the one she herself uses.
So opportunities for her to enter her card don’t come up that often.
That’s probably a big reason why she doesn’t enter to save on travel costs and such.
“Inside the card is dark. There’s space to lie down and relax, but you can’t bring things like games in with you.”
“Come to think of it, what happens if you bring a smartphone in your pocket when entering?”
“While inside, I take on the appearance of the card’s illustration, so I can’t touch things like smartphones. But I return to normal when I come out of the card.”
I see…I ponder as I think about it.
“If there’s a dark space to lie down in, wouldn’t that actually be quite comfortable for sleeping?”
“Ah, you might be right. Or rather, inside the card has this sense of security, you know? It’s dark, but somehow I feel at ease there.”
That sense is probably not unique to just Erea.
The reason embodied monsters—be they humanoid, spirit, or otherwise—stay close to their fighter partners in battle is likely because it feels comfortable there.
Both physically and mentally.
That’s why monsters exist alongside humans.
“So that’s why drunk me ended up entering my card. Well, that solves the mystery.”
“From now on, why don’t you sleep inside your card?”
“No no, as the one in charge of guarding this shop at night, I need to sleep physically present or my senses won’t work properly. Besides…”
Besides? I prompted her to continue.
“…If I keep sleeping here, I might become hopeless…”
“Ah I see…you are the type who would slack off indefinitely if enabled…Erea.”
It’s precisely because the discipline from her former imperial scout days is ingrained that the current Erea can live an ordinary life.
If she had been born as a regular girl in this world, she would likely have become an incredibly lazy, sluggish girl with no job.
Though, come to think of it, she might have started streaming and naturally made a living that way too.
Lazy but resourceful – that’s one of Erea’s good points.
“Plus, if I can’t bring things like my smartphone or games into the card, there’s not much point entering it anyway.”
“I see.”
I ponder absentmindedly.
“But…if you got a card depicting ‘the current Erea’ and could enter that, wouldn’t you be able to bring things in then?”
Not sure what kind of card that would be, but still.
I had just said it without really thinking, but then:
“!!!!!!”
Erea’s eyes went serious.
Ah, I may have set something in motion here…
A few days later.
“Kyaaaaaaah!”
“…What is Erea doing?”
I came across Erea letting out a strange cry in the shop.
Yato-chan, who happened to be passing by, was looking at Erea with a sidelong glance.
“There’s a card she really wants, so she’s praying to pull it from the pack.”
“With Erea’s wealth, wouldn’t it be faster to just buy boxes instead of praying?”
“This is a card that shouldn’t be in any packs in the first place.”
After all, she’s trying to pull a card that ostensibly doesn’t exist in packs.
Or rather, she’s trying to transmute a card that doesn’t exist in this world at all.
You might think that’s impossible, but this is a world where the impossible is possible.
However, simply increasing the number of packs she opens won’t allow her to transmute it.
The realistic approach is to pray for the card’s birth to be guided by Fate.
It may sound incredible, but cards do just randomly drop in this world after all.
“So that’s why she’s praying like that…”
“She buys and opens one pack from the shop every single day. Her determination is astounding.”
I thought as I watched Erea meticulously opening the pack with scissors.
“Ahhhhh!”
Doesn’t look like it worked this time.
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TIPS: When Erea sleeps while letting her guard down, her sleepinghabit is incredible.
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