Astral Online: Cursed by the Demon Lord to Become the Strongest Beautiful Girl, I Rapidly Grow and Dominate with Cheat Skills Despite Being the Weakest Profession - Chapter 173

Chapter 173: Rain and the Unfortunate Silver Hair

Rain is such a hassle.

Even with a little wind, your pants get soaked below the waist, and needless to say, your shoes end up drenched. Walking with that unpleasant, waterlogged feeling underfoot is truly uncomfortable.

Judging by the current rainfall, it seems moderate. Not so intense that going outside is unthinkable, but enough to be annoying.

Under an umbrella, Sora walked with Kurono, looking up at the dark rain clouds that had hidden the sun for nearly a week, and let out a deep sigh.

“Sora, not feeling great today?” Kurono asked, sounding concerned as she noticed her demeanor.

Shaking her head, Sora denied it and smiled at her, accustomed by now to walking arm-in-arm with her.

“Nah, I was just thinking. If we don’t defeat the boss, will this rain keep going like this?”

“Last time, after we beat the raid boss, the flowers and magma disappeared, so this time it should be the same, right?”

“Yeah, probably. But it’s still strange to think that defeating a boss could make the rain disappear.”

“If you put it that way, isn’t it even stranger that ?Astral Online? affects reality at all?”

Sora couldn’t deny the logic in that. It was true, while they’d grown used to it, the idea of a game impacting the real world was pretty unbelievable.

Her curse had caused her to change gender and appearance.

The beta players had been drawn into the game, body and all.

The abnormal phenomena triggered by the raid bosses.

And then, something that people often forgot: the so-called god and her followers. The white-clad girls who appeared in the real world and were recognized as divine beings by people all over.

With these four surreal events, Sora and her friends had come to see ?Astral Online? as the root of all these problems affecting the world.

If someone asked for proof, it would be because each of these phenomena were linked to ?Astral Online?.

As they walked, Sora smiled wryly.

“Honestly, before summer break, I never would have thought I’d end up in this kind of body.”

“Yeah… I never thought things would turn out this way either.”

“…Sorry. This must be hardest on you, Kurono.”

“No, don’t worry about it. Thanks to all this, I got to meet you, Sora, so it’s not all bad.”

Even though she had reunited with her mother, it hadn’t changed much about her situation. There was still a fair amount of uncertainty weighing on her heart, but she narrowed her eyes and gave her best smile.

Seeing her smile, Sora thought to herself how angelic she looked, though she didn’t say it out loud, it was too embarrassing. But she knew staying silent would lack consideration as her partner, so she managed to get out a few words.

“It’ll be alright, Kurono. I’ll handle everything, so don’t worry. You can count on me.”

“…Thank you, Sora.”

Kurono smiled, expressing her gratitude. She looked as though she’d made up her mind about something, and then asked her a question.

“Just hypothetically… if everything gets resolved, and my mom and dad come back, and you turn back into a boy… what do you think will happen to us?”

“Uh, well…”

Sora stopped in his tracks, momentarily stunned by her unexpected question.

If she thought about it calmly, ignoring herself for a moment, it seemed likely that if her parents returned, Kurono would go back to America, ending their current life together.

Returning to how things were was natural, and it wasn’t something she could control. But…

Why, then, did the thought of her leaving cause a slight, unfamiliar ache in her chest?

This wasn’t a feeling she’d experienced before.

With Ilya, the pain was the guilt of not being able to protect her disciple. But this was different, somehow.

Sora stood there, dazed, as the sound of rain pounded against the umbrella, loud in her ears.

After a moment, Kurono tilted her head.

“Sora, are you okay?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing. I just hadn’t really thought about it before, so I’m not sure…”

“S-sorry for asking such a weird question.”

“No, no, it’s not weird at all, so don’t worry—woah!”

“Sora!?”

Startled, Sora lost her footing and slipped, taking a spectacular tumble right there. The only thing she could commend herself for was instinctively letting go of Kurono’s arm so she wouldn’t get dragged down with her.

When she stood up, she was soaked through from her shirt down to her pants. She’d definitely have to change into her spare gym clothes later from her bag. Otherwise, she’d catch a cold. Cutting their conversation short, Sora and Kurono decided to hurry and run to school.

………………………..

During break time, Sora’s classroom was bustling, with students from other classes gathering at the door to catch a glimpse of the scene inside.

The reason? Two stunning girls with silver hair and blue eyes had shown up.

“Wow, they’re really attracting attention, huh?”

“Yeah, I’d say it’s pretty much impossible not to notice them…”

The ones whispering quietly nearby, keeping watch just in case, were the dashing duo, Shinji and Shiro.

In the place where the Japanese boy with black hair originally sat, a stunning silver-haired, blue-eyed girl named Sora Kamijo now sat, wearing the sailor uniform of Kamisato High School.

Until now, Sora’s male uniform must have created a mistaken impression of her as just a pretty boy. But dressed like this, it was clear she was a true beauty, standing side-by-side with Kurono and looking like they were twin sisters.

The attention she was getting from classmates, both guys and girls, was overwhelming, making her feel slightly nauseated. And having to wear a skirt? It felt so unreliable, she couldn’t believe girls wore these so casually every day.

Overwhelmed by the unfamiliar stares and outfits, I hid my face in my desk. The class monitor, her eyes narrowed in annoyance, aggressively shooed away the other students from other classes.

“You look cute, Sora.”

“Th-thank you…”

She replied mechanically to Kurono’s encouragement, sighing deeply for the second time that day.

She still couldn’t believe she’d ended up wearing the very girls’ uniform she’d so adamantly refused before.

The reason was that Sora had forgotten to pack her spare gym clothes in case she got wet in the rain and, to top it off, the school had no extra boys’ uniforms or gym clothes available. Unluckily enough, the only spare clothing they had on hand was a girls’ uniform.

The one small silver lining in this sea of bad luck was that Sora had at least remembered to pack a pair of boxers in her bag. “Why did I remember the boxers but not the gym clothes?” she muttered, feeling exasperated with himself.

Across the room, she could see a male student, who’d asked the class monitor to deliver a letter to the “silver-haired sisters,” retreat in fear as she glared her down, practically transformed into a demon.

Incidentally, her classmates’ first reaction when seeing her in this form was:

“Is that an angel?!”

Well…yeah. That’s exactly what Sora often thought about Kurono. But hearing it applied to herself? It hit her differently. Despite her current appearance as a silver-haired beauty, deep down, Kamijo Sora was still a high school boy. Being called an angel to her face was awkward, to say the least.

“C-come on, don’t be so down,” said one of her friends.

“Look, they just released the update info. Maybe this’ll cheer you up,” said the other, showing her the latest update to ?Astral Online? on his smartphone.

Once again, it seemed that the much-anticipated adventurer’s guild was postponed…!

Upon reading the contents, Sora abruptly stood up from her seat

Because right there, she saw:

“Skill United… A function to combine existing skills and transform them into a higher-level skill?!”

There’s a catch, of course: once used, the selected skill would be on cooldown and unusable until it reset. But the system still seemed like a blast to try out.

“Yes! As soon as we’re done eating in the cafeteria today, I’m heading straight home!”

Watching Sora perk up in an instant, Shinji and Shiro couldn’t help but chuckle.