“That’s the place, huh? I’ve seen that signboard somewhere before.”
He said as he went ahead along the street, and found the signboard of the landmark.
At the sole of a paw and small fish which were drawn on the signboard, Shin tilted his head.
“Paw, small fish…Wait, those are, dried small sardines?”
A paw and dried small sardines. To that combination, something flashed inside Shin’s mind.
“The shop’s name is ‘Nyan Da Land’…you say? D-Don’t tell me….”
While remembering the person who shouldn’t be here, Shin opened the shop’s door.
A bell rang and he entered the shop, there, it was a bar with a calm atmosphere. Shin was familiar, no, he was at a loss for a moment how he should move in the interior which he was so familiar with.
“Hm? Customer-san, I am very sorry, but we haven’t opened yet. You can have delicious sake after the sun goes down a little more, okay?”
Shin stiffened at that very moment, a deep voice of a man from the inner part of the store was heard.
Shin was also familiar with this voice, and he turned toward the direction of the voice.
“………Hibineko-san?”
“Certainly, I was called that by a close friend, but…Nyaa Nyaa Nyaa!?”
That person, expressed his surprise with his whole body when he confirmed Shin’s face.
His race was High Beast of cat. As for the appearance, there was no way of expressing it other than a cat walking on two legs and wearing clothes.
His face was mostly white but only the ears were black. A part of the fur on his face had become gray for some reason; it looked like a crack on a split tile.
The reason why Shin called him “Hibineko” was because of the grey patch. His avatar name in-game was ‘Nekomata@Rising’. (T/N: Hibineko literally means crack cat)
If only his voice was heard, one would imagined a refined man of middle age, but due to his short stature and his cartoonish costume, he looked like a mascot character of a deformed animal in an amusement park.
Add a exclamation mark floating above the head, and he would become the gag character of a manga.
“Are you a d-double?”
“Who is! Ah, no, but why? Hibineko-san, you were in the death game…”
You should have died.
Though Shin didn’t voice it, he knew he wasn’t mistaken. However, 【Analyze】 certainly displayed ‘Nekomata@Rising’.
“Really, you’re Shin-nyaa….?”
“Ah…you’re indeed Hibineko-san…first of all should I stop calling you that name?”
Shin felt that tension dispersed, as “-nyaa” attached to the end of names which was a peculiar way of calling from Hibineko. Even if he thought back to when it was a regular game, he was a player who could change the mood of the area unintentionally.
“*Sigh*, even though I don’t understand it well, it’s been a long time, Hibineko-san. No, is it better to call you Nekomata@Rising-san?”
“Mugu! To know my sealed true name, you’re really Shin-nyaa!”
“I only saw it from 【Analyze】. Or perhaps I should say, please stop calling me as Shin-nyaa, seriously.”
While communicating like they did in the past, Shin sighed.
“Fumu, it’s truly you, Shin… Hey, Shin. I want to confirm only this, have you died?”
“No, I didn’t, supposedly.”
Shin spoke briefly about what happened to himself after he defeated ‘Origin’. He couldn’t be dead at least.
“No no, such things…”