Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 174: Girl with Sandalwood Scent (6)

Dragon Raja 3

“Oh!” Chisei couldn’t help but smile wryly, despite the situation not being the time for laughter. “Can you really tell that’s Caesar from this sketch? The clearest thing in the drawing is his chest muscles.”

“Based on height, weight, and hair color, it’s Caesar for sure. As for the chest muscles, I guess they left a strong impression on the captain.”

“Chizuru Town—where is it?”

“It’s a small town north of Tokyo, administratively part of Saitama Prefecture, but not far from Shinjuku. If traffic is clear, we could get there in about 20 minutes.”

“The problem is, how could traffic possibly be clear at this hour?” Chisei frowned.

The fact that Caesar was still alive brought him some relief, but after learning the secrets of the Shrine of the Gods, these people couldn’t leave Japan—at least not until everything was resolved.

“The town is too remote. We have no one there except a local biker gang called ‘Aka-Zane.’ We’re trying to contact them to head to the internet café and control the situation.”

“Don’t bother with such pointless actions. If Caesar and his team haven’t reached the safe haven yet, sending Aka-Zane will only tip off the enemy. If they’ve already arrived, what could a bunch of motorbike-riding kids possibly do? Caesar’s team consists of the three most elite students in the college—lions among lions. Don’t be stupid enough to send a pack of mice to catch lions!” Chisei grabbed his sword, Kumogiri. “You drive, let’s go!”

Meanwhile, Caesar was still battling the computer. He had downloaded a few hacker programs, trying to access the college’s website via overseas routes. This was the most basic of hacking methods—since Kaguya-hime was monitoring all attempts to access Cassell College’s site from within Japan, Caesar tried to disguise his attempt as though he was accessing websites in Finland, Sweden, Germany, or China, and then reroute from Chinese servers to the college’s site.

Searching for proxy servers, pinging, waiting for an echo… searching for proxy servers, pinging, waiting for an echo… An hour passed with Caesar repeating the same actions over and over, but the result was always “Request timed out.” Even overseas proxy servers were blocked. Kaguya-hime’s firewall was far stronger than Caesar had anticipated. At moments like this, he couldn’t help but envy Chu Zihang. Chu was the top student in electrical engineering and internet systems, and Caesar had always teased him as a “tech nerd,” but if that tech nerd were here, at least he’d be doing something useful, unlike Caesar, who was just pinging like an idiot.

“Mr. Gattuso didn’t come here on purpose, right?” Makoto, kneeling beside him, was waxing the now-clean shoes and casually asked.

(Ping is a command used in DOS and UNIX/Linux systems for testing network connection speed. Echo is the response received after pinging, which is basic hacking practice.)

(Caesar had teased Chu Zihang as a nerd—an American slang term for bookish, socially awkward people, not to be confused with otaku, the Japanese term for anime geeks. Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory is a classic example of a nerd.)

It was only then that Caesar realized that while he had been pinging away, Makoto had been polishing the pair of worn-out shoes he got from the thugs. She’d been polishing them for so long, it seemed she was determined to turn them into Salvatore Ferragamo shoes.

This was probably the hallmark of a traditional Japanese girl—like a still-life painting, quietly working alongside him, never disturbing him unless necessary. They would only occasionally glance up and make eye contact.

“I originally thought it was just a regular internet café,” Caesar said as gently as he could. “You know, I don’t speak much Japanese, and I just stumbled in.”

“It’s not quite what you think,” Makoto smiled awkwardly. “It’s really just an internet café, but its selling point is having high school girls as servers. I’m just here to polish shoes. Some customers can be a bit perverted—they’ll start touching my back while I’m polishing their shoes. But I wear something under this.” Makoto pulled her collar down a few centimeters, revealing to Caesar that the supposedly “bare back” was actually an illusion. She was wearing a nude-colored bodysuit under the sheer black fabric, which made it look like her back was exposed.

“That simple?” Caesar was still a bit skeptical.

“You can also hire a girl to sit beside you while you surf the internet. I don’t do that though. It’s too close to the customers, and they start getting handsy,” Makoto whispered. “Then there’s also pillow fights, but I don’t dare join those. I just polish shoes here.”

When she mentioned “pillow fights,” Makoto used the English term, and Caesar was bewildered. A war fought with pillows? That sounds incredibly… erotic. What kind of war is fought on a pillow? Caesar thought of Cleopatra seducing Antony on a bed, forming an alliance to fight against Octavian. Is that what a “pillow war” means? How could something as world-altering as that happen in an internet café?

“It’s when the girls dress as maids and have pillow fights with the customers,” Makoto added, realizing Caesar’s confusion.

Caesar thought to himself, These Japanese entertainments are truly foolish. What’s the fun in hitting each other with pillows? When I spar with Chu Zihang, we at least use wooden swords—and for advanced levels, we go straight to assault rifles!

“So what’s the deal with the sleeping part? The manager asked if I wanted to… sleep,” Caesar asked, curious.

“It’s where customers can nap on a girl’s lap for an hour, for a fee of 2,000 yen. The shop calls this service ‘high school nap,’ saying it helps customers reminisce about napping on their girlfriend’s lap between classes back in high school,” Makoto whispered. “I don’t dare offer this service, but some girls do—it pays well.”

“Oh… so that’s how it is,” Caesar scratched his head, thinking to himself how reserved and repressed the Japanese were, yet they managed to come up with such odd practices.

“Have the customers given you any trouble?” he asked politely.

“I wear this,” Makoto said, showing Caesar her hand. On her slender middle finger was a small silver ring. “Everyone in the shop thinks I have a boyfriend, so they don’t give me any trouble. The difficult customers don’t get assigned to me. The fact that they had me shine your shoes means they think you’re a respectful gentleman, Mr. Gattuso.”

“You have a boyfriend now? Congratulations.” Caesar remembered that a few days ago, Makoto’s hand had been ring-free.

“Shou bought it for me. Working in a place like this, having a boyfriend makes things a lot easier. Those perverted old men often pester girls for dates, but once they see a ring, they usually give up.”

“Why did you stop working at the toy store?”

“I heard someone from the main family visited the shop. The next day, the owner fired me. Sho said this place was managed by one of his friends from ‘the scene,’ so he helped me get a job here. I’ve been working here since the day before yesterday. I don’t dare tell my grandmother I lost my job. When I found work, she was so happy. Her pension barely covers our living expenses, but she still wants me to go to college. If she finds out I lost my job, she’ll start cutting back on her own needs again to save money for my tuition,” Makoto explained, kneeling as she slipped Caesar’s shoes back on and polished them with a cloth.

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