The Protagonist's Party is Too Diligent

Still, I was really lucky my sisters were smart.

Usually, in these kinds of situations, the cliché is that people from another world don’t listen properly to the one originally from this world, which leads to all kinds of accidents. But at least Alice and Claire weren’t like that.

I couldn’t just have them use public transportation like the subway or buses right from the start. Of course, I’d be riding with them if they did, but public transit during weekday mornings is crowded. If we got on and then the doors closed before everyone could board, it would be a disaster.

I couldn’t keep them in the clothes I used to wear either. And besides, since I had been male, my clothes were too big for all three of us. Alice and Claire seemed aware of that too, and though they thankfully didn’t ask me directly about it, the point remained—we needed new clothes.

And just in case, I also had to teach them the basic layout of the area around where I lived. If they went out and got lost, we’d be in trouble.

...There were plenty of other things we’d need to take care of later, but for now, the priority was getting them some clothes.

Alice and Claire were both from noble families. To be specific, Alice was of royal blood and Claire was from a baron’s house, so technically, they were in different categories, and the gap between them was considerable. But they’d both grown up in a world where surviving required a minimum level of awareness.

They didn’t say anything unnecessary, just like I advised. Claire, of course, and even Alice, though her eyes were full of curiosity as she looked around the world, restrained herself. She didn’t blurt out weird questions in public that might make others suspicious.

...Though once we got back home, they both unloaded all the questions they’d held back.

“Why are these pants so short? If you wear a long top, the pants don’t even show—it looks like you’re not wearing any! Do people here all walk around like that?”

“Not all of them, but yeah, there are definitely people who dress that way on purpose. I don’t really know why. I guess that’s just what looks good to them.”

And well... I also think it looks good.

Come to think of it, even if not pants, there were short skirts in our old world too. The academy uniforms had pretty short skirts. You could make adjustments, but there were limits.

Maybe it was the difference between pants and skirts? Now that I think about it, in their world, it was natural for women to wear skirts anyway.

“What kind of fabric is this? Did they stretch rubber thinly...? No, wait, that’s not it.”

“It’s probably something extracted from petroleum. ...I don’t know the exact details either. It’s kind of a specialist topic.”

I said that in response to Alice, who was fidgeting with a windbreaker. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Alright. Clothes and shoes—check. Fortunately, underwear wasn’t too different from their world. The kind that commoners wore there was definitely baggier than what we think of as underwear, but the kind worn by nobles or wealthy commoners was basically the same as what we have here.

I guess the price comes down to how much labor and fabric goes into making it.

Anyway, thanks to that, I didn’t have to teach them how to put on underwear. ...Honestly, if the style of underwear had been totally different, I wouldn’t have known how to wear it either. I’d never lived as a woman in this world, after all.

“So, what do we do now, unnie?”

Claire asked, her eyes sparkling.

From the moment I first saw her here yesterday, those constantly sparkling eyes were honestly kind of amazing.

Alice’s eyes had a bit of a glow too, but not as much as Claire’s.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“For now, I think we should focus on learning about this world over the next few days. It won’t be enough to fully grasp another world’s general knowledge, but at the very ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) least, you should be able to move around on your own in an emergency.”

“You’re going to teach us, unnie?”

I shook my head.

Even I knew I wasn’t good at teaching others. The reason I’d hidden so many things until now was because they were “too hard to explain” or “too vague.”

But thankfully, in this world, there were plenty of ways to learn things without knowing how to read the language.

Alice and Claire couldn’t read this world’s script, but just like I could understand spoken language when I crossed into their world, they could understand me here.

I wasn’t sure if that would apply to videos on a computer, though.

*

Thankfully, both Alice and Claire could understand the speech in the videos.

One more thing we learned was that all three of us—Alice, Claire, and I—could understand every single language spoken in the videos.

In the other world, the universally spoken language was the Imperial tongue. Of course, there were languages like Belvuran or other national dialects, but anyone of high enough status to converse with me naturally spoke Imperial. It seemed like basic cultural literacy.

Now that I think about it, I lived in that world speaking to people from all over the globe without issue. Even when I met someone who spoke a different language, I could tell it was a different language—yet I could still communicate fluently.

When I met foreign nobles, they’d politely switch to Imperial for my sake, but even street vendors or shopkeepers—who obviously wouldn’t know to do that—I could talk to them just fine if I wanted.

Because I had taken “automatic translation” so much for granted, I hadn’t realized just how incredible that ability really was.

“...So you’re saying the reason you’ve always sounded like a native speaker in every foreign language is actually because of this ability?”

I always just assumed Alice was naturally multilingual in that world. She spoke so fluently, I thought that was just how things were over there.

Plus, the word order and vocabulary often felt similar, so I hadn’t thought much of it.

But it’s like Korean and Japanese—just because they share some similar word orders and sounds doesn’t mean you can learn one easily without effort. It must’ve been the same for foreign languages in their world.

“But hey, if that’s what let me talk to you, then it’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

Claire’s response made Alice shut her mouth tight.

“You fell into the orphanage, remember? If we hadn’t been able to talk back then—well, knowing you, you probably would’ve saved me anyway.”

She smiled at me after saying that. That smile was so bright it made me feel guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“...Well, I guess it’s thanks to that power that we can talk to people here too.”

Alice ultimately agreed with a sigh.

Luckily, there were tons of videos explaining how to use the subway, ride the bus, and transfer between lines in Seoul’s public transport system. Judging by the Korean narration, they were probably made not for foreigners, but for locals unfamiliar with city transit.

We watched videos about transportation first, then moved on to how Koreans talk to each other, and basic etiquette. Turns out ●Tube was absolutely full of videos breaking down everyday knowledge in ways I hadn’t even thought about.

While I had them go through those one at a time, I started preparing dinner.

...It had been so long since I cooked that I wasn’t sure I could still do it. But I couldn’t just feed them instant food forever, especially now that we were all here.

Until I started making proper income again, I’d have to save money by cooking myself.

I pulled out an old cookbook I had impulse-bought ages ago—the kind written for people living alone. It wasn’t even on my bookshelf; I’d left it on the kitchen table, and when I found it again, it was covered in a thick layer of dust.

Even after brushing the dust off, the sticky notes I’d stuck between pages still had a light coat of grime.

They marked recipes I remembered tasting good, or ones that were simple and edible even when done lazily or with mistakes. Eventually, I’d grown tired of cooking and decided it was more convenient to just order food instead of using up leftover ingredients, so I hadn’t used the book in forever—but I think it served me well during that first year of living alone.

The recipes weren’t complicated anyway, and cooking for three would still be cheaper than ordering delivery every day.

Thinking that, I grabbed a random sticky note and opened the book.

A recipe for gochujang jjigae.

I mentally reviewed the ingredients I had in the fridge and decided this would be tonight’s dinner.

*

I didn’t bother watching Alice and Claire while I cooked. It had been so long since I last did it that I was a little nervous.

To avoid messing up, I focused on the recipe and finished the dish before turning around to call the two of them—

“....”

“....”

Only to find them completely absorbed in a video.

It was just a typical livestream.

But the game being played was Chronicles of Azerna, and it just so happened that the scene featured our familiar party members.

What the hell? How many streamers are out there playing that game that they managed to find one!?

And even worse—it was a pretty attractive woman streaming, even if I didn’t know her name.

They clearly didn’t understand most of the text since they couldn’t read the language, but both Claire and Alice’s eyes were sparkling as they watched the footage.

...Okay, fine, Claire I understand. But why the hell are Alice’s eyes sparkling too!?