“How does this path look, John?” 

“Let me see… yeah, that will probably work. Still, this will take a couple of days, even if everything goes off without a hitch. Good work Saya.”

It was nighttime already. John and Saya were in the house’s study, plotting the rescue routes they were going to take for the last known locations of the survivors’ families on a city map.

Most of the day had passed getting everyone settled into the home, or the large military tents set up outside for the survivors that were already rescued by the Takagis. After that, they interviewed everyone, finding out who still had families nearby that were still alive to the best of their knowledge. 

They moved up to this room to get some privacy while they fleshed out a plan. Not that they were alone. Saeko was beside the door, choosing to guard him instead of taking a shower. She was frowning at the fourth person in the room, one who was hovering over him and Saya. 

“Saya, don’t treat Mr. Wayne so informally! Mr. Wayne, please do not take offence at my daughter’s lack of decorum. I do not know what has gotten into her.”  Yuriko Takagi, Saya’s mother, said. She then bowed her head to him.

Slender with modest curves, at least compared to most of the women he met in this world, Yuriko was a beautiful, mature woman who appeared to be in her late thirties. She had long, light purple hair and soft-looking eyes that matched.  Wearing a maroon dress with a plunging neckline, her DD-sized breasts were nearly spilling out when she leaned over the table to make her point. It drew his eyes when he turned to look at her, but he snapped his eyes back down on the map immediately.

No, bad John! She is already married. 

She arrived back at the manor near sunset, she and her team wearing firefighting bunker gear and carrying rifles and fire axes. They were patrolling the areas around the manor to make sure none of the zombies had infiltrated the wire barriers they had strung up nearby.  There was a bit of commotion when she started demanding where the new people came from, but Saya ended that quickly, jumping into her mother’s arms and crying in relief.

It was a wonderful moment for John, watching the first person from his group reunite with their loved ones. 

Afterwards, Saya explained to her mother about what had happened with them, and how they managed to survive thanks to him. She cast him a sharp glance more than once during the story, but let her daughter finish before asking her questions.

Once John proved he could indeed cast magic, she turned into almost a different woman. From being a strong, assertive leader to her people, she interacted with him with deference, acting as ‘Lady Takagi’, addressing someone who outranked her or her husband. 

Though that didn’t stop her from chaperoning her daughter as they continued to work on their plan. 

“Lady Takagi, your daughter and I have been through life-or-death fights together. She asked if she could call me by my name, and I gladly accepted. She has more than earned the right.” He said, then looked at her. “Now, can you help us look over this plan? If you are half as smart as Saya insinuated you are, I am sure you can poke some holes in it so we can make changes or mitigate the dangers.” 

Her eyes flashed for a moment, not liking being talked to like that, but John was once again starting to get tired and didn’t really care about being polite. He would have to take another pill if this planning session continued too much longer.  He just wanted to go soak in a bath full of Epsom salts, something that Saya had promised him earlier. 

“Of course, Mr. Wayne. Forgive me, but she is my only daughter; I expect her to comport herself appropriately for her station.” She replied, her irritation hidden well beneath her submissive demeanor. 

“MOTHER! Stop it! John isn’t from Japan; you should know he doesn’t know our ways.” Saya said, standing up and confronting her mother. Her breasts jiggled around, drawing John’s eyes again. At least she was wearing new, untorn clothing. It was a frilly, white shirt that buttoned up to her neck and a knee length black skirt.

“Quiet, young Lady, adults are talking!” Her mother replied, standing up quickly, her partially exposed breasts jiggling even more.

He closed his eyes then and started to massage his temples. The two women started bickering in front of him, all pretense of noble etiquette disappearing between the two of them.  

What in the world? They were so happy to see each other earlier.

He was about to snap on them when a pair of hands touched his shoulders, starting to massage his neck and back. He leaned back in his chair and looked up, staring into Saeko’s emotionless eyes. She didn’t say anything, just continued to push her thumbs into the meat of his muscles, trying to help him relax. He looked forward again, watching the mother and daughter fight in front of him, which he found oddly entertaining.

God, her fingers are amazing… wait, why is she massaging me? 

“Saeko? Mmm… Why?” He whispered, not wanting to interrupt the two across from the table just yet. Unless it started to get violent, this was something they needed to work out for themselves. 

“Because you said you liked my cooking. Just relax, John-Sama, they will finish soon enough.” She said softly in his ear, her hands not stopping.

He just grunted, her fingers almost like magic on the pains in his back. He leaned forward on the table, letting her hands move further down, which she obliged.

The other two women kept going for another minute or two, then slowly quieted down when they saw Saeko giving him a massage. 

“Why are you doing that here, Saeko?” Saya asked her, sounding like it wasn’t the first time she had done it.

“Mr. Wayne, that is highly inappropriate to do in polite company,” Yuriko said to him, an exasperated expression on her face.

“Any less inappropriate than airing your family’s dirty laundry in front of an esteemed guest?” Saeko said to the older woman, the cutting barb causing the Lady of the house to react in shock at her own breach of etiquette. She continued her massage for a few moments, then stopped, standing back and to the side of his chair. 

“Now, back to my question. Do you see any holes in our plan, Lady Takagi?” He said, pretending the last five minutes didn’t happen.

“Ahem… no. Well, none other than the obvious one of what to do if the people are not there.” She said, clearing her throat and regaining her noble facade.

“We look, we move on. Simple as that. It is important to find them if they are alive, but without knowing where they are, it would need to be a door-by-door search. That is impossible for me to do by myself, and right now, I am the only one who has the cure to this virus.” He said, then stood up. “Thank you again for hosting our survivors, Lady Takagi. If there is nothing else, I am going to go find a bathtub and a bed.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Have a good night, Mr. Wayne.” She said, bowing her head slightly to him. 

Saya went to follow them out, but Yuriko stopped her, apparently still having more words for her daughter. John just waved, which she returned, then exited the room. Saeko closed the door behind them, the voices of the two women now muffled by the thick wood.

“That was… interesting,” John said to her, heading down the hall to his room.

“It is because of who you are, John-Sama. She wants Saya to act like a proper submissive Japanese woman so she can marry her off to you.” Saeko said beside him. 

John stopped in his tracks. “What?”

“I overheard it earlier, when she and Saya were discussing you after you showed her that you were capable of magic. This isn’t the first time she and her husband have tried to set her up with an arranged marriage. She saw the potential of tying your power to her family.” She replied, stopping beside him.

“Seriously? That is crazy. She is young enough she could be my gr- my daughter.” He said, his headache increasing in intensity.

“John-Sama, it is a fairly common thing among nobles, a younger woman marrying an older man. Though it happens less in the modern era, much like my own, the Takagis are an ultratraditional house. Lady Takagi herself is nearly twenty years younger than Lord Takagi,” She said, then a small smile formed on her face. “You know, John-Sama, many of us don’t mind the thought of having an older, more experienced man as our husband.”

He just looked at her, a confused expression all over his face. She laughed slightly into her hand, then started to walk down the hallway again, leaving him with only a single thought going through his mind.

Were women always this insane?

Back on the Peninsula…

The zombie shambled around with others of its kind. For days, the only thought going through its mind was the need to feed, to eat. And it had. At first, it was small animals that happened to stumble nearby it, then others like it, though it did not like those as much. Then it found something larger, a family trying to move across the street. Not that it knew it was a family then, it just knew it was hungry and needed to feed.

After eating the three people, something changed inside it, and it blinked its eyes for the first time in days. It could see, not just hear, its prey now. It could also think, though not like it could when it was a human. No, it was still mainly a base instinct to feed, to kill, to spread itself to living things.

“GRRRAAAAHHHH!!!!” It growled out, shambling along with the crowd, but unlike its brethren, it was looking and not just listening for prey.

Back at the Takagi Mansion…

“Ahhh… this feels good,” John said to himself. He was lying back in the massive tub that was in the room Saya had given him to use. Beside him was a bottle of sake, which he was partaking in since he wasn’t under the effects of Substance X currently. 

“God, there are so many things I need to keep balanced these days. People, supplies, rescue planning. Now I need to keep track of my pills like… Hah, like an old man.” He continued to himself, then sank his body deeper into the water.

He wanted to study his tomes more, but there was just no good opportunity yet. He still needed to sleep after…

Wait a second, when I was drinking this stuff in The Great Cleric, I got by on only a few hours of sleep and still felt refreshed.  

He almost reached out of the tub to take one, then realized his folly.

Damnit, I can’t take them and drink too. I don’t want to let it slip out that I am actually from another version of Earth. Not yet, anyways.

He sighed. He didn’t like the side effects of this drug; it hindered his favorite hobby of enjoying a few drinks after a hard day’s work.

He reflected on everything that had happened since his return to this world. They managed to increase the size of their group of survivors, which, if he included this household, would have more than six times the number of people he left the school with. He was hoping to bring them along with them when they left; the number of tradesmen under the Takagi household would be a significant boon to their future.

Book learning would only take their group to the drawing board. They needed people who knew how to use their hands to actually build a new life for them all. He might be getting a little ahead of himself, but anyone or anything they could save before they departed the city would be an asset to whatever was in store for them later.

They had a significant amount of firearms now, most of which he had locked away in his truck. If possible, he would like to get his hands on a bunch of spears or long-handled weapons of some sort. Being quieter when killing these things seemed to be such a great advantage in not getting swarmed by the horde. Not to mention you didn’t need to worry about finding ammo. 

It would be one thing if he were back home in Texas; they could find more than enough ammo there pretty much anywhere, but here in Japan, it was really only available in police stations or military bases. Looking for one of those would be on his list later on. 

Finally, it was all this incessant flirting the girls were doing with him. First, it was Rei, rubbing his crotch while she was drinking, then Saeko sleeping on his lap and giving him a massage. 

Rei really hadn’t talked to him much since that night, so maybe she remembered that part. Either that or someone told her about her tumbling incident, and the fact that he carried her to bed naked. She might be too embarrassed to talk to him right now.

I still need to make some time to talk with her about her two dead friends. She seemed really torn up about it.

Saeko, well, that was another ball of wax. She kept by his side most of the time, almost as constant as his shadow. The only time he ever saw an expression on her face was when she was with him, killing zombies, or when she was doing something for him. When she was talking with the others, it was always with a straight, expressionless face, even if she was cracking a joke. 

After the conversation they had earlier, he was almost positive she was flirting with him now. He wasn’t dense, but he couldn’t understand why she, or any of them, would have any interest in an older man like him.

Saya was the only one who wasn’t openly flirting with him from what he could tell, though she talked more than all the others combined. He was thankful for that, though if her mother was going to try and force a marriage to him on her, he would have some words with them.

Finally, Shizuka. She was a beautiful and easy-going woman, her bubbly attitude that drew him to her initially still coming out now and then despite the stressful situation they were in. 

I really need to spend more time with her. Now that we have more people who can drive, I can have her join me in the truck when we leave the city. Sadly, she won’t be joining us for the rescue operation. She was hopeless when Kohta tried to show her how to use a pistol.

Suddenly, his system sent him a notification

*Ding* 

[Quest Received]

[The Cross-Worlds NoFap Challenge]

[Level 2]

[Virgin Conqueror – Take The Virginity Of Five Different Women 0/5]

[Counter Will Reset Anytime You Fap Yourself To Completion]

“The Fuck!?” He said, looking at the quest that just arrived. “What are they thinking?!?”

Just then, the door to the bathroom swung open.

In the depths of space, Alec just laughed. It was exactly the response he expected from his favorite contestant.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep