Restricted Fantasy I Chapter 237: A Setback at the Very Beginning

"Thud!"

"Whoa, the road is clear!"

"Did the prefecture send people over?!"

"That is a rare sight..."

The bright lights had burned through the night, driving away the mountain darkness until the early dawn, when the sun's rays finally took their place.

It had not been long since the sky turned faintly bright, yet the entrance to this normally isolated village was already crowded with personnel from Fukuoka Prefecture and heavy road clearing vehicles, all gathered just beyond the collapsed path.

After all, an obscure corner like Shenxiang Village was a place that even city officials rarely saw, let alone people from the prefectural level.

As a result, upon hearing the commotion outside, the curious villagers gathered at the village entrance, watching the crews working fervently on the distant mountain road.

Standing at the entrance of the shrine high up on the mountain, Granny Kamishiro imdiately spotted the dust billowing from the construction in the distance.

Understanding what was happening, she turned to look behind her.

There, Yan Huan and An Le had already changed back into the clothes they had arrived in, stepping out of their room together at that exact mont.

She smiled kindly and asked them,

"Did you two rest well last night?"

Yan Huan smiled and nodded, saying,

"Thank you for looking after us. I rested very well during our stay."

He wasn't lying.

Originally, being a lone man stranded in an unfamiliar village with An Le—a girl capable of taking on four opponents at once—had made Yan Huan rather nervous.

His primary concern, of course, was that An Le might consu him completely and take full advantage of him. Secondly, he worried they had wandered into so village plagued by strange, horror-movie-like scenarios.

But to his surprise...

An Le was a good companion, and the village was a lovely place.

It allowed him to truly relax and get so proper rest.

There was no scheming against the Modifiers. He would go out in the morning to do so manual labor, and when he returned in the evening, An Le would be waiting like a virtuous wife, having prepared dinner, bathwater, and their bedding...

The pace of life was slow, yet it carried a deep sense of warmth.

It often made Yan Huan feel as if he had accidentally transmigrated into a slice-of-life farming novel, the kind that gifted you a cozy little ho right from the start.

Unfortunately, after leaving today, he would be thrown right back into the dire straits of battling the Modifiers...

The Crab dicine.

The Crab dicine.

"I rested well too, Granny Kamishiro. Thank you for all the trouble we've caused you lately,"

An Le chid in. Standing beside Yan Huan, she placed her hands elegantly over her lower abdon and expressed her gratitude to the elderly won.

Granny Kamishiro simply shook her head and replied amiably,

"There is no need for thanks. Our eting may very well be the guidance of the Divine Lord amidst the great currents of fate."

"Is that so..."

An Le was on the superstitious side—the type who would bow three tis the mont she saw a Bodhisattva at Dongda Temple.

Hearing ntions of the "Divine Lord," she imdiately pressed her palms together in a respectful gesture.

Though he wasn't sure if this was the correct worship posture...

"..."

As for Yan Huan...

Even in his past life, he had never believed in divine protection. And after coming to Linn, even though he had actually t a so-called "Kami," he ironically found himself believing in it even less.

All because Myau-chan was entirely useless!

"ow?!"

In the very next second, a plump black cat materialized on Yan Huan's shoulder, taking on its round-headed form as it glanced around suspiciously.

'Who's calling

useless? I'll end their life,' its expression seed to say.

"ow~"

But upon catching Yan Huan's speechless glare, it instantly tilted its head adorably and patted his cheek with its paw pads.

See? Aside from having sharp senses at tis like this, it was completely useless.

"Um... Xiao Huan..."

Yan Huan's speechless exasperation toward Myau-chan ca across externally as disrespect toward the deities, prompting a worried An Le to tug gently at his sleeve.

Feeling her slight pull, Yan Huan looked at the smiling Granny Kamishiro. Realizing his rudeness, he quickly straightened his expression.

"My apologies, Granny Kamishiro. I didn't an anything by it."

"It is alright. The Divine Lord is very gentle and would not bla anyone,"

"..."

Yan Huan offered a polite smile, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

"Well, Granny, the road outside has been cleared, so we plan to take our leave now."

"Alright. It is a pity that little Aoi Ka and Kazuya are not awake yet, so they cannot see you off..."

Reaching the door, Yan Huan and An Le glanced back at the children's tightly shut room doors and couldn't help but chuckle softly.

"The festival ran quite late last night, so let them sleep a bit longer. Besides, maybe we'll et again if the opportunity arises."

"Mhm, I left a little gift for them as well."

With that, Yan Huan turned back once more to gaze at the shrine that had housed them for the past few days.

After taking one final look, he bid his farewells and headed down the mountain alongside An Le.

They crossed the bluestone path, followed by the ancient Torii gate...

But just as they were about to pass under the Torii gate, Myau-chan suddenly leaped from Yan Huan's shoulder and landed lightly on the ground.

The black cat swished its tail and looked back.

There, amidst the verdant greenery at the end of the path, the three elderly grandmothers were waving goodbye to Yan Huan and An Le.

They couldn't see Myau-chan; their gazes passed right through its tiny body to focus on the distance.

However, the ethereal Myau-chan was watching them intently.

"Rustle... Rustle..."

Suddenly, a breeze swept through the forest, swaying the trees that obscured the Torii gate and revealing the characters for "World Shrine" inscribed above.

The wind brushed past the three old won's flowing white garnts and swept straight into the main hall of the shrine.

Behind the fences of the main hall, the normally closed wooden doors of the altar were pushed open by the gust, revealing the main entity enshrined within.

Inside, faintly visible, sat a vaguely shaped clay dog statue.

Perhaps because deities inherently have no true form, the clay dog statue's features were blurred, making it impossible to distinguish its breed.

Only at the top of the clay figure were two precious green eralds inlaid, seemingly placed there to serve as the deity's eyes or as a symbol.

This lifeless and dull object—this clay figure embedded with green eralds—stared blankly at the small kitten at the bottom of the steps...

It stared into the cat's incredibly lively, erald eyes, which seed to contain the vitality of the entire world.

'Myau-chan, let's go!'

In the distance, Yan Huan's voice echoed deep within its mind. He seed to have noticed that Myau-chan hadn't kept up and called out to remind it.

"Woof!"

Hearing this, the black cat imdiately turned its head and let out a brisk bark.

Then, without a backward glance, it raised its tail and trotted eagerly after Yan Huan's retreating back view.

"Clang! Clatter!"

"Thump! Thump!"

"Please make way, everyone, please make way!"

The entrance to Shenxiang Village was packed with villagers. Yan Huan held An Le's hand as they squeezed through the crowd, watching as a road that would have taken a whole week to dig out by manual labor was being leveled by countless machines, slowly revealing a narrow path.

Everyone was just spectating, so Yan Huan wasn't in a hurry. He simply used this rare mont of free ti to start brainstorming.

Naturally, it was about the Crab dicine.

Two hours. Without relying on any Modifier's influence, he had to actively kiss the other four Modifier hosts...

With tongue, no less!

In order to save An Le, he had to kiss the four people who were currently her enemies...

Why did it feel weirder the more he thought about it?

For a mont, Yan Huan didn't even have ti to ponder the sick twisted nature of it all. He just had to quickly consider its feasibility.

First of all, accomplishing the deed itself wasn't actually that hard.

The hard part was figuring out how to stick a safe landing afterward.

Let alone the fact that Ye Shiyu would absolutely explode if she found out his lips had beco a "public utility" over a two-hour span—even if Spencer and Sakuramiya Hitomi found out, Yan Huan's conscience wouldn't be able to handle it.

But after taking a glance at An Le's limbs beside him, Yan Huan gritted his teeth and decided to temporarily throw his morals out the window to formulate a plan.

There was no other choice. Everyone would just have to suffer a bit, and Myau-chan could shoulder the bla!

"ow?!"

Pinching his chin, Yan Huan considered the specific execution.

Firstly, two hours seed like a long ti, but the problem was that interacting with each host required three essential phases.

The emotional buildup to make the kiss with the host feel natural, the excuse to smoothly disengage after the kiss, and the transit ti to the next location.

Therefore, he had to carefully arrange the order of the kisses.

Logically, the hosts who were easiest to succeed with and safely walk away from should be scheduled first. This would minimize the risk of a major problem blowing up in his face later on.

Thus, the correct sequence would be Spencer, Sakuramiya Hitomi, Bai Yi, and finally Ye Shiyu.

That way, right after kissing Ye Shiyu—the one with the strongest possessive streak—he would instantly obtain the Crab dicine.

Secondly, he had to carefully plan the locations for the kisses.

The girls needed to be in close proximity to make moving between them convenient.

But they couldn't be too close, or else they might easily discover one another and trigger a catastrophic disaster.

Yan Huan's eyes flickered, and he instantly thought of the perfect setting. A bustling comrcial center would be best.

The locations would be clustered together, with plenty of buildings and massive crowds... It was the optimal environnt.

As long as he t the four girls at different spots within those two hours, the odds of success were high.

It was just...

It would heavily test Yan Huan's ti managent skills.

After all, you couldn't just ask soone out, kiss them, and imdiately say, "Alright, let's call it a day," right?

Even if that idiot Spencer didn't see through the ruse, it would probably still break her heart.

Furthermore, if he rushed to his next appointnt like that, who was to say the departing host wouldn't bump straight into the incoming host?

That would be the disaster of all disasters.

Yan Huan was a firm believer in the "Law of Conservation of Luck."

The last ti, he had gotten incredibly lucky, taking out that old geezer Sakuramiya with a single barrage of fireworks.

This ti, his luck was bound to be terrible—he was destined to be cursed with misfortune.

He was certain that if he dared to just let one of them walk away, he would absolutely be caught red-handed by the previous host while kissing the next one.

Therefore, after the kiss, he could only excuse himself temporarily. He had to keep them tethered to their spots...

"..."

Thinking about it this way, Yan Huan gradually realized just how disgusting this thod of obtaining the Crab dicine truly was.

But what surprised him even more was that during this first attempt at "calculating multi-timing schedules," his thoughts were frighteningly clear...

It was as if he had a natural talent for this sort of thing, noticing even the finest details.

Could it be...

Tch, this was definitely all Myau-chan's fault for making him do bad things!!

"ow?!"

As Yan Huan pinched his chin and pondered this, Myau-chan on his shoulder raised a paw pad to point at itself, its feline face filled with utter disbelief.

"Rumble!"

"Xiao Huan, the... the road is clear!"

Right at that mont, in the few minutes he had been lost in thought, the blocked road ahead was finally forced open by the heavy machinery.

These engineering machines possessed a captivating beauty. When Yan Huan was young in his past life, he used to love collecting models of excavators, big trucks, and cent mixers.

It was precisely the imnse power contained within these machines that allowed humanity's talent for reshaping the world to be executed with such ease.

"Cough... Cough..."

And indeed, a job that would have taken seven days of manual labor was completed in a single morning by the machinery dispatched from Fukuoka Prefecture.

The dust kicked up from the newly opened road morphed into a thick fog that washed over them, forcing both Yan Huan and An Le to cover their mouths and noses as they coughed lightly.

Coughing, Yan Huan struggled to lift his gaze toward the haze.

Within the smoke, amidst the roar of engines, a gentle breeze swept past to part the mist, and a beam of holy light seed to shine down.

Yan Huan gripped An Le's hand tighter, raising his other hand to block the dazzling morning rays.

In the next second, a scene straight out of Yan Huan's dreams materialized within that morning light.

In Yan Huan's fantasies, his true love was a peerless hero who would one day arrive wearing golden armor...

Ahem, wrong script.

Looking at the person approaching, it was hard to say if they were a peerless hero, but their petite stature was certainly real.

She wasn't wearing golden armor either, but rather a yellow safety vest and a green safety helt.

And naturally, she wasn't riding on iridescent clouds; instead, she was standing atop an absolutely massive excavator.

It was exactly the person coming to marry—no, to save Yan Huan: Sakuramiya Hitomi!!

"President!"

"Sakuramiya?"

"Vice President Sakuramiya?"

Yan Huan and An Le stared at Sakuramiya Hitomi, who looked exactly like a construction foreman, thoroughly baffled by her getup.

Upon seeing Yan Huan and An Le, Sakuramiya Hitomi's expression imdiately shifted to worry. She jumped down from the excavator and sprinted toward them.

"President!"

However, after shouting and running just a few steps, she was instantly left panting and out of breath.

"Hah... Hah... Hah..."

Resting her hands on her knees for a few seconds, she then pushed forward again, looking as exhausted as soone running the final fifty-ter sprint of an eight-hundred-ter race.

"..."

An Le was stunned. Fortunately, Yan Huan, who had enjoyed daily companionship with Sakuramiya Hitomi, tacitly understood and took the initiative to walk forward, effectively bringing the finish line right to contestant Sakuramiya.

"Hah... P-President, I flew to Kyushu Island overnight to dispatch the crews and machinery... At last, we..."

Sakuramiya Hitomi's small face was slightly pale and coated in a cold sweat, and there were even faint dark circles under her eyes.

It was obvious she hadn't rested at all last night.

No wonder she collapsed after running just two steps today...

Oh wait, even if she had rested, she was still a weakling who would get tired after running two steps, right?

"You've worked hard, Sakuramiya."

Yan Huan offered a gentle smile as he spoke.

Sakuramiya Hitomi looked up and down at the perfectly unhard Yan Huan and An Le before returning a bright smile.

"It is nothing. I was so worried about you two, so seeing that you are both safe makes it... Eh?"

Sakuramiya Hitomi finished her visual sweep and looked away. But the mont her gaze shifted, her brain belatedly processed a piece of information that didn't quite sit right, sending an imdiate command to her optical organs for reconfirmation.

And so, Sakuramiya Hitomi quickly looked back at Yan Huan and An Le...

And imdiately spotted their tightly clasped hands.

"??"

Exhausted from her all-nighter, Sakuramiya Hitomi froze on the spot, staring blankly at the two of them.

Yan Huan and An Le also belatedly realized that sothing was wrong.

N... Not good!

'I completely forgot, I pretended to be affected by the mory Correction and beca An Le's boyfriend!'

'I completely forgot, the mory Correction on Xiao Huan hasn't been lifted yet, so in his eyes, I'm still his girlfriend!'

With the synchronization of an old married couple, a sense of impending doom blossod in both of their hearts.

And right at this very mont, the surrounding villagers gathered closer. Completely ignorant of the situation, they chid in with familiar warmth,

"Oh my, little lady, you must be a classmate of this young couple, right? Thank you so much for helping clear the road for us so quickly..."

"Yes, now my Aoi Ka will finally be able to get to school."

"Don't worry, we've taken excellent care of them over these past few days."

"They slept together every night, ate well, and had a great ti. They were perfectly fine..."

"Oh my, you really are their friend. They make such a perfectly matched boyfriend and girlfriend, and you are... err, well..."

The overly friendly, kind-hearted villagers looked at the panting, sickly-looking Sakuramiya Hitomi wearing a green safety helt, and the complints suddenly caught in their throats.

"A fine-looking talent!"

"..."

Sakuramiya Hitomi's eyes went wide, completely deaf to the rest of the villagers' chatter.

At this mont, her field of vision seemingly shrank down to encompass only Yan Huan and An Le, standing together hand in hand.

"Couple... Boyfriend and girlfriend... Perfectly matched?"

"Crack... Crack... Crack..."

Although Sakuramiya Hitomi probably wasn't doing it on purpose, the re fluctuation of her emotions and the surging desire were enough to make the Modifier within her restless.

It surged toward Yan Huan and An Le like a terrifying tsunami.

Feeling that imnse pressure, Yan Huan's eyes couldn't help but roll back slightly, as if he were about to pass out for a while.

The main issue was...

This was yet another dilemma.

If he denied being An Le's boyfriend, it would contradict all the hard work he had put into elevating her mood.

Changing his story on a whim like that—even holding the interpretive rights granted by mory Correction—was just asking for trouble.

But if he didn't deny it...

Sakuramiya Hitomi had toiled all night for their sake, only to be treated like this...

If she didn't explode in fury, Yan Huan would want to explode on her behalf.

Furthermore, they were surrounded by villagers, making it impossible for Sakuramiya Hitomi and An Le to settle the issue privately using their Modifier perspectives.

"..."

That familiar, thorny sensation surged back into his mind, nearly causing Yan Huan to lose his grip and black out.

Our "two-hour ti managent prodigy," Mr. Yan Huan, was about to perish right on the spot before his journey had even truly begun...

No, seriously, was this fair?

To suffer a setback at the very beginning of a task like this?

But just as Yan Huan found himself facing this increasingly disastrous atmosphere, he bit his tongue, yanking his consciousness back from the brink of swooning.

Are you kidding !

If he couldn't even resolve an Asura's battlefield involving just two girls, how on earth was he supposed to get the Crab dicine from four hosts later on?!

He had to maneuver his way out of this! He needed to perk up and take control!

With that thought, Yan Huan narrowed his eyes and instantly straightened his posture.

The Modifier's sense of oppression bore down on him, sending Yan Huan's adrenaline skyrocketing.

In the next second, fueled by the rushing hormones, his brain—operating in what felt like bullet ti—instantly caught a glimpse of hope...

His chance for survival lay in this very mont!!

"..."

A faint glimr flashed in Yan Huan's eyes, and then—

He spoke softly.