After the exhaustive, hours-long inventory audit—which spanned from mundane slime abilities to ethically dubious Goblin enhancements—Akira finally felt the weight of his activities.
He felt his head grow noticeably heavier, the fatigue from the all-night trial, the sudden power changes, and the intense planning finally catching up to him.
Ignoring the continued, low murmur of Yukari and Kurumi Akira made the pragmatic decision to prioritize rest. He walked over to the opulent bed in the penthouse suite, climbed in, and closed his eyes, allowing himself to sink into the much-needed sleep.
Seeing Akira finally succumb to sleep, Yukari let out a deep, genuine sigh of relief,.
Kurumi, ever the observer, immediately narrowed her eyes. "Why the look, Yukari? Did he manage to tire you out with his absurd plan?"
Yukari shook her head, her smile turning somber. She explained the true depth of Akira's fatigue:
"Akira is someone who always overthinks everything. He's constantly making a plan on top of a plan—layers of contingency that never end. He was mentally exhausted long before the trial and the gamble that led him to acquire my card, and this recent chaos just added exponentially to that burden. He needed this rest."
Yukari then revealed the layer of pragmatism beneath Akira's seemingly simple plan for the infinite domain, a plan only she could perceive due to her mastery of boundaries.
"You saw the domain full of women he claimed? He won't keep them all," Yukari stated. "He will only retain maybe less than ten percent of that total population."
Yukari explained the criteria Akira would use, a process she could see played out in the boundaries of his mind and soul:
Familiarity: He will keep those he is already familiar with—the characters he truly love and the one he just one to keep for fun.
Tragedy: He will prioritize those whose lives ended in tragedy or were cut short by misfortune in their original stories.
She finished with a calm, absolute confidence, confirming the scope of her own power. "I can state that with certainty because as someone who wields the power of the Boundary, there is no limit to what I can see, including the deepest, most pragmatic calculations running beneath Akira's exhausted mind."
Kurumi processed the complexity of Akira's selective plan—the culling of the infinite domain down to a vital few—and asked the most direct question: "How will Akira accomplish that? How does he choose which ones to keep?"
Yukari answered with a shrug, emphasizing the simplicity of the underlying mechanic: "By calling their name, that simple." The power to summon individuals from the domain was still tied to the verbal command, meaning Akira only needed to decide and speak to complete the separation.
Yukari then continued, providing Kurumi with a deeper, more unsettling profile of their partner:
"Akira might look like he's in his late 20s, but he's actually in his 30s. He spent roughly 25 years of his life completely succumbing to the 2D world. He immersed himself in watching anime, reading manga, manhua, manhwa, and novels—all to simply entertain himself."
She delivered the final, most jarring piece of information with a sigh of knowing pity:
"You know he's a deeply lonely person inside. He even watches certain adult animations about us."
Kurumi's face instantly contorted into an expression of profound disgust. "Ugh. That's gross. And now, we can't escape this pervert's grasp?"
Yukari's response was a casual shrug, a physical expression of her true indifference. She could escape anytime she wished, being the master of the Boundary. But that wasn't the point. She had found a new, highly effective, and unpredictable source of entertainment in Akira and his chaotic situation, and for Yukari, that was the only boundary that mattered.
She then gazed down at the sleeping Akira, a faint, content smile touching her lips. With a gentle movement, she floated toward him and, with the ease of a cat claiming a sunbeam, curled up right beside him on the luxurious bed, immediately closing her eyes to drift into sleep.
Kurumi, who had expected either strategic planning or a grand exit, was left staring at the sight with a look of utter disbelief. Seeing the impossibly powerful, boundary-warping goddess so casually, domestically asleep next to their pervert partner had an unexpected effect: it made Kurumi, too, feel overwhelmingly sleepy.
Acknowledging her own fatigue, Kurumi surveyed the room and settled for the next best thing. She walked over to the nearest velvet couch and, adopting a similar posture, curled up there to sleep, leaving the three immensely powerful, yet utterly exhausted, figures resting in a peace amid chaos that happen outside their home.