Lazing About in a Dating Sim

Chapter 20

At about 9:40, I made it to Lucia’s dorm room with a few books in my arms.

And after knocking a few times, the door swung open and I was pulled inside.

“I thought you said you’d be here in 30 minutes?”

Lucia asked, with an irritated look on her face.

“Well, I got a bit sidetracked on my way here.”

I said before taking a seat near the foot of her bed and setting my books down.

“Of course you did. Anyhow, now that you’re here, is there anything that you’d like to do?”

“Not really, I mean you’re the one who invited me over.”

“Well, in that case, do you wanna check out the novel my mom has been working on? I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet.”

“Sure, why not. Your mom's writing is probably better than most of the stuff I brought over here anyway.”

“Great, let me just find it then. It should be around here somewhere.”

Lucia said before starting to sift through the cabinet that was located next to her bed.

To say that she struggled doing so would be an understatement.

“Do they seriously have to send me so much stuff each month? They know that I’m not just some dumb kid anymore, right?”

Lucia grumbled.

“Need some help?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Lucia said with a bit of exasperation in her voice.

In response, I walked over to the cabinet and started helping Lucia rummage through it.

And not so long after, I figured out why Lucia was having such a hard time finding the manuscript.

“…Hey Lucia, why do your parents send you so many letters?”

I inquired after pulling about 15 letters out of the cabinet.

“They say it’s so that I don’t forget who they are, as if that’s even possible in the first place.”

“Huh, I kinda envy you.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, because I can’t really even talk to my parents anymore.“

After all, it’s not like my parents got reincarnated to this world with me.

“Ah… sorry for asking.”

Lucia said in an apologetic tone.

“It’s fine.”

I said simply before continuing to search through the cabinet for any sign of a manuscript.

“If it’s any consolation, you’re free to come over to my family’s house anytime you’d like, Otto.”

“You sure your parents would be okay with you bringing over someone like me?”

I asked playfully, trying to lighten up the mood.

“Please, they’ve had to deal with Ameil for most of their lives. Compared to him, you’re a breath of fresh air.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that then. Also, I think I’ve found your mom’s rough draft.”

I said before handing Lucia a leather-bound notebook with the word hemophobia written in red ink on the front cover and sitting down on the left side of her bed.

“Looks like it.”

Lucia remarked after staring at the notebook for a couple seconds.

“I guess she wasn’t kidding when she said that she was going to branch off into the horror genre. And here I was thinking that she was gonna just scrap the idea altogether.”

“Do you think that it’s gonna be better than her other stories?”

I asked curiously.

“It’ll probably be at least slightly more palpable than her romance novels. Which isn’t really saying much, considering that her romance novels have the most convoluted plotlines imaginable.”

Lucia said before sitting down next to me.

“Anyway, let’s get started. I’d like to get through this thing before midnight.”

“Sounds good to me.”

After she heard my response, Lucia just nodded before turning to the first page.

In turn, I moved a bit closer to her so that I could have a better view of the text.

The first few paragraphs ended up being very verbose and hard to digest.

Nonetheless, Lucia and I kept reading. Since at that point, the atmosphere was well crafted, and the protagonist acted pretty sensibly for someone in a horror story.

And about 30 minutes later, we ended up finishing the first half of the manuscript and started reading through the second half.

Unfortunately, that was when the quality of the story started to dip massively.

“Hey Otto, didn’t Liam get a weapon that was tailor-made to deal with gargoyles like 5 chapters ago?”

“Yeah but I’m pretty sure that they dropped it in the lagoon in the last chapter.”

“Of course they fuckin did. Why is it that whenever people are given some sort of amazing magical artifact in a story, they usually just end up losing it?”

Lucia said with a hint of frustration in her voice.

“To be fair, if you had access to as many magical artifacts as this guy, you’re bound to misplace at least one or two of them.”

“And that’s another thing, how the hell does he keep finding these things in the middle of fuckin nowhere?”

Lucia asked before turning to the next page in the manuscript.

“That’s because he’s not just finding these things in the middle of nowhere. He’s finding them in ancient battlegrounds that no one wants to build on top of.”

“Still feels like a bit of a copout to me.”

“Well, if you have a problem with it you can always just take it up with the author. You are related to them, after all.”

“I guess you have a point. Regardless, I think that I’ve had enough of this book for one day.”

Lucia said before resting her head on my shoulder.

“What happened to finishing this thing by midnight?”

“It’s the weekend Otto, cut me some slack.”

“Yeah yeah.”

I said dismissively before closing up the manuscript and setting it to the side.

“Anyway, is there anything else that you’d like to do for the next hour or two, Lucia?”

“...Is it alright with you if we just kinda stay like this?”

She said while looking up at me with her ruby red eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine with that.”