Author's Note: I do not own BNHA or any elements from other fandoms, just my character and Tsurukosa.
Chapter 9: Map Quest
It took a whole another month for her eyes to stop aching every time her glasses came off, though that might have been because of the better diet. She had asked Papa about foods good for the eyes and he had taken her to the market the next day, Mama walking behind them with crossed arms and a sulky look on her face. They bought salmon, carrots, blueberries, red peppers, sweet potatoes, a bunch of greens, eggs, chicken, and blueberries.
He also bought coffee beans, stating that he'll prepare the coffee grounds for the next week for Mama, which lessened the woman's annoyance.
Though it increased when Papa insisted on showing Keiyu how to prepare meals for herself,
"You can eat the red peppers raw, but make sure to rinse them beforehand ok?" she nodded, "Let's do omurice for dinner, does that sound okay Keiko?" her mom sighed.
"Do whatever," she left and he turned to her,
"I'll show you the recipes that you can make while I'm gone, just be careful okay," and that was how Golden Week went by.
With the increase in nutrients she was taking and her knowledge of what was good and bad for her, Keiyu found out a downside to this new ability of hers. Whenever she went near a food that was unhealthy, a loud buzzer sound would appear and X's would flash in front of the food, telling her not to eat it.
"Vitamins and Nutrients not met!" Then the screen would show a list of her food intake and a bar for each of the vitamins she needed
Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamins B6, B9, B12, Riboflavin, Niacin, Lutein, Zeaxanthin, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Thiamine, Zinc, Choline.
(She found out that foods for the brain and memory also helped with the headaches.) Junk food was off the table till all bars were filled which took two whole days. Then the bars would reset the moment she ate junk food and used her ability, even if it was just clicking on the icons and looking at them.
Scowling at how much this ability restricted her dessert intake, Keiyu glared at the neon menu that no longer hurt her eyes. She'd discovered nothing else about this ability during the time it has been active as her 'level' was too low to access much of it. She did find out she can just activate an icon with a thought, though that took even more of the energy used to fuel it.
'Map' she activated and a sigh escaped her mouth at how empty it was. It only listed her house, the hospital, and the school with the town which only showed the shops she had been to.
"I wish the map was more developed," as if in answer there was a ding as a green square appeared.
"Quest alert! Exploration! Go beyond the map borders to level up the map for additional perks!" she deadpanned, wonderful. But if she wanted to learn more about this ability than she needed to be vigilant. Plus her quest bar was relatively empty apart from the time with Papa, and if she could give herself quests, all the better.
But would Mama let her leave school once lunch ended to go to town by herself till dance class and afterwards till dinnertime?
Yes, yes she would.
"Here's money for dinner and Akiko-sensei left a message saying that today's class was moved to Friday," Keiyu stared after her mother before going into the school and proceeded to wait in the teacher's lounge, getting a head start on her schoolwork as she always did.
The teachers had given up stopping her from doing so and just seemed resigned about her refusal to play outside.
"Mumuchi-chan, class is starting," with a sigh, she got up and entered the classroom, spotting yet another vase of flowers on her desk.
These kids really have nothing better to do, do they?
While the teachers did nothing about the obvious bullying tactic of the flowers and the kids harassment, apparently Grandma had given a talk to one of the teachers and anything that would disrupt class was brought to heel before anything else. No one was able to finish their required school exercises apart from her (they've tried before and got reprimanded for all the wrong answers.) Taking advantage of that to turn in her own schoolwork, she ran out of the school building ten minutes after lunch ended and arrived at the town within five. Pulling up the map, she looked it over, all the shops she had been to were lit up and she saw the path to the junkyard only a few feet from her.
Hm, it's been awhile since she's been there, maybe when she wasn't doing ballet? She went to the outer limits of the town and walked around the outside so that she could get a good idea of how big the town was in walking distance.
Then upon completing the circle, she went down a path she hadn't before and ended up in the one that only had shops that opened at night. Quickly getting out of there, she took another path and found the outdoor market. Using her allowance, she bought some takoyaki and walked along as she waited for them to cool down.
This continued on for several more hours, as in some instances she had to go back and look at a shop that she missed while looking away.
Hiding in the bathroom upon seeing some of the kids from school, she looked at her map and saw that the town looked completely finished, yet didn't have that 100% that the school did under it (her house on the other hand only had 50% which was confusing but there were some rooms she hadn't been in.)
The progress bar for the town was at 98% and she blinked, looking over the map to figure out what she was missing. The night district was entirely lit up so that wasn't it, running her finger down the different alleys, she found herself blinking at the shop that was in front of the junkyard she went to.
'Wasn't that a wine store?' her head ached as she stared at it, only to see the wine store she thought was a few doors down..
So what was in that space?
This was a bad idea, a very terrible bad idea, and yet here she was.
It's not like this was a horror novel, right? Maybe she just hadn't paid enough attention to the shop, because if by some weird coincidence no one else could see it, she was walking into a very obvious horror trap.
Staring up at the building, she wondered how she didn't notice the name before, or why none of the other kids talked about it.
"Mellow Books Convenience," debating with herself, her eyes caught sight of one of the books in the window and without even thinking, entered the shop and ran to the book she had seen.
"No way!" it was the volume 2 of the Fate series she had been searching for, she had scoured the whole library for the second volume but could never find it.
"Well aren't you energetic," flinching in surprise, she turned to see a very tall man appear from the back of the store, white messy hair and ice blue eyes as he carried a bag of marshmallows in his right hand.
"I'm sorry! I just, I've only read the first volume of the series from the library but I haven't been able to find any others.," her entire face was red, he was probably going to kick her out for being annoying.
"Oh, so that's where I had left it, and its a surprise to see someone actually come in here for once. Unfortunately, the people in this town are so narrow-minded that my store is only held aloft by online sales." he sulked as he said this and Keiyu looked around the store, eyes widening at all the books that she recognized from her past.
"How'd you get ahold of all of these? I haven't been able to find any of these series," she traced the spine of a Junjo Ito book and looked to see the shop owner watching her with amusement and tucked her arms behind her, "Sorry," he chuckled.
"No worries, I have my own little publishing house I use to reproduce these for when people need good literature. Unfortunately we're in a time of literary stagnation and I find that only a handful of people will ready these old books," horror filled her at that.
"Why?!" he looked solemn.
"It is something I cannot mention at the time, but feel free to look around, it is nice to see that someone here recognizes all of these series," still embarrassed but relieved, she went back to looking through the shelves.
"Yeah, it's strange and frustrates my friends when I make references they don't understand, I had to explain who Matilda was," his sigh echoed hers.
"I love that one," the sound of plastic crinkling entered her ears and she glanced back to see his mouth filled with marshmallows as he munched on them with hearts surrounding his head. She didn't see a nametag on him or anything, but is it rude to ask or should she just call him shopkeeper?
The topic never came up as she went from shelf to shelf, then she came to the manga section, which had some manga that she recognized from this time.
"Papa gave me this one," she pointed at one of the manga, "He said there's no sequels but that he's trying to get the mangaka to continue it," he knelt down next to her to look at the title.
"One of the rare good ones these days, is your father in the publishing industry as well?" the marshmallows were gone from his hand and he was watching her now, it made her a little uncomfortable.
"Yeah, he's an editor for manga, though sometimes he looks depressed talking about it, and Mama doesn't like it when he mentions the manga that he does like, she wants him to change jobs that make him stay on the island," she took out a manga to read the back.
"And do you agree?" she stared at the character on the front, trying to get her thoughts together.
"Papa, Papa is more Papa when he's not around Mama, he loves his job as a manga editor when it goes right. He would be miserable in what Mama chooses for him, and I don't want that, I don't want him to feel like he's caged into staying on this island," it was something she felt herself, and she didn't want him in the same boat.
"Hoh," a handkerchief appeared and with mortification at the fact that she had been crying, she wiped her eyes and handed it back to him.
"Sorry," a warm hand patted her head before he stood up and with a 'wait there a moment' he disappeared into the back.
Why did she embarrass herself like this in front of a stranger? Why did she feel safe enough to tell him what was going on?
What was wrong with her?!
He returned and handed her a USB,
"What's this?" he hummed.
"A collection of old manga I pulled from a digital archive along with some of the classics, if you want your friends to understand what you are saying you can send this to them," he gave her a wink and straightened, "Of course, you could always choose an original work to read, I'm actually writing a book series myself and need some input. Think you and your friends can give it a good review for me to publish?" a ding sounded at that request and she put away the USB in a secure pocket on her person before looking back up at him.
"Do you have them ready now?" he shook his head, looking regretful.
"Unfortunately my time is filled up with orders and keeping the publishing house from collapsing. But I will have it ready by summer, just make sure to ask your friends if they are interested, but I have a feeling all three of you will like it," she gave him a look, she hadn't said how many friends she had, he gave her an innocent look and she snorted. Then her eyes went to the Volume 2 of the Fate series, "It's a used one, and I do have the other parts of the series if you wish to buy all of them for 2000," that was the amount of food money Mama gave her and she bit her lip.
"I can't carry all of it," she mumbled, a bit disappointed, he clicked his tongue.
"That's what delivery is for silly," she felt a bit excited before remembering her mom.
"Is there any way I can buy them and just keep them here? I don't want Mama getting mad if she found them, she's not fond of fantasy fiction," he poked her forehead and she scrunched her nose.
"Then what's the point in buying it? But if that's what you want, I guess I'll be having a regular customer coming over?" he trailed off and she rubbed her arm.
"If that's alright with you," he shrugged.
"Like I said, I do most sales online, so there's no issue if you ever want to come in," she thanked him and went to go out the front door before freezing at the sight of the kids walking outside, school must have let out.
"Can I go out the back door?" he raised an eyebrow but showed her to it and she left going straight towards the junkyard and staying there for a while, munching on some fruit she grabbed from the small convenience store before taking a path that led to near her house. As she did so she thought about the bookstore.
Well that was an interesting experience, and she was relieved that there wasn't anything horror-like about him after all.
Her chat friends disagreed.
Green Might: you, you let him pat you on the head? And went into the back of his shop?!
DakoxLeon: What? I needed to know where the backdoor was!
VioletCat: Your lucky he didn't do anything weird, just because he happened to be selling ancient books you like doesn't mean you can trust him.
DakoxLeon: They're not that ancient! And if you don't want to read any of the classics I'll just keep them to myself.
They gave in after that and Keiyu whistled as she opened the USB to see over one million different titles listed, glee filling her at all the familiar titles, including the Fate ones, not that it will stop her from getting the physical copy of course.
She gave each of them several suggestions but insisted that they read Matilda first before blinking at a manga that she'd never seen before.
"Huh," this is something she could read while waiting for them to catch up, but maybe she should finish Fate first?
Then she caught sight of the manhwa 'Gamer' and realized that maybe she should do some 'research' in understanding her ability more by reading that first.
Too bad, the baby with the gun on the front cover looked interesting.
