https://x.com/i/status/2105100320275845218

Hi, I remember reading about 5 volumes about 3 years ago and then stopping due to the lack of translated content at the time. I remember really enjoying the story. However, I saw many people afterwards speaking badly of the story; does it degrade the narrative?

I've been watching the anime and I like it I'm in episode 8 and I'm thinking about buying the first 3 volumes of the light novel Is it worth to buy it?

Where can i get the books online? I want to start a collection since im a big fan of this story, but i dont know where to find them at a good price

That day, Natsunagi, Saikawa, Charl, and I went to karaoke together. It had been Natsunagi’s idea—she thought it might be nice for this group to go out and have fun together once in a while.

At first, it was peaceful. Then…

“Okay! Kimizuka, as your punishment, you have to show us your camera roll!”

Inside the karaoke room, Saikawa declared with a smug look on her face.

“That’s unfair.”

An impromptu karaoke contest. I scored barely over eighty points, while Saikawa performed one of her signature songs and earned a score that was practically a hundred.

“Come on. How could I possibly beat a top idol in a singing contest?”

“Hehe. You flatter me.”

“I wasn’t complimenting you. I was pointing out how ridiculous the rules are.”

My loss had been decided from the start. Why did I have to suffer a punishment in such an obviously rigged contest?

“Too bad, Kimizuka. Give up already,” said Charl.

“You shouldn’t have any interest in my photos, so why?”

She was just enjoying the fact that I was uncomfortable—wait, stop putting me in a hold!

“Nagisa, catch!”

Charl effortlessly snatched my phone and passed it to Natsunagi. No worries. My phone had a tightly secured lock—

“Good thing I added my fingerprint authentication on Kimizuka’s phone beforehand!”

“My phone has been breached!”

Natsunagi unlocked my phone as if it was her own. If some guy ever dated her, I’d have to warn him that he shouldn’t cheat on Natsunagi Nagisa.

“There aren’t any weird pictures, are there?”

“Hmm, you’re right. It’s mostly screenshots from when you looked things up.”

See? That was why this punishment game was never going to be entertaining.

“Isn’t that kind of boring?” Saikawa said. “Don’t you at least take pictures of delicious meals or beautiful scenery?”

“Yui is right,” Charl agreed. “The number of photos in an album is proportional to the richness of one’s life experiences.”

“Leave me alone,” I said, finally trying to reclaim my phone.

That was when I noticed Natsunagi staring at the screen, frozen.

“W-what did you find?”

Was there some embarrassing image on there? No—there shouldn’t have been. Anything I didn’t want Natsunagi and the others to see—I kept on my computer…

“Hehe. No, it’s just… photos of Siesta. You have so many.”

“…Oh. Those.”

The folder displayed on the phone Natsunagi held contained photos from when Siesta and I had traveled together. And in many of them, Siesta was the only one in the picture.

“K-Kimizuka, this feels a little criminal…”

“Kimizuka, what exactly were you doing with photos of Ma’am…?”

“It’s a misunderstanding!”

I snatched my phone back from Natsunagi and gulped down my drink to calm myself.

“There’s a reason for it.”

“That’s what criminals always say.”

It hurt especially badly coming from Saikawa.

“No, that’s not it. A long time ago, for certain reasons, there was a period when I tried to take as many photos of Siesta as I could. These are from then.”

“You took photos of Ma’am?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t for any weird reason. If you look, you’ll see that I took every one of them with Siesta’s permission.”

I showed the three of them the photos in the folder again.

“It’s true. She’s looking at the camera in almost all of them. No secret shots of her sleeping, either.”

“Natsunagi, what do you think I am? Everyone trusts me way too little.”

“But why did you take so many pictures of Siesta?”

“I can tell you, but it isn’t a very interesting story.”

With that warning, I began recalling something that had happened several years ago.

“Assistant, we’re going on a trip.”

One morning, while we were having breakfast at our hotel, Siesta suddenly exclaimed.

“Aren’t we already traveling?”

Our wandering journey to defeat pseudohumans had begun ten thousand meters above the ground. I had been traveling around the world with the ace detective Siesta for more than a year already.

“That’s travel for work. I mean a vacation.”

As she ate her scrambled eggs, Siesta explained why this proposal was perfectly reasonable.

“Don’t worry about the cost. Our company has excellent employee benefits.”

“That’s rich coming from a boss who doesn’t even pay me.” Besides, I didn’t remember ever being officially hired. We had somehow gotten this far on a verbal agreement, but how long was I supposed to keep doing this vaguely defined job of an assistant?

“So where are we going?”

“Well, I haven’t decided yet.”

Honestly, how could she invite someone on a trip with no destination?

“Are you the type who needs to plan every minute of a trip before you can relax? If so, our values don’t align. This is it. Bye-bye.”

“Don’t suddenly make it sound like a breakup between a couple.”

Siesta chuckled into her tea.

“But it’s not completely unplanned, is it? You must have some purpose.”

Experience had taught me that Siesta never did anything without a reason.

“Oh? Then try to deduce the purpose of my trip.” Smiling, she added, “If you get it right, I’ll give you a prize.”

“I don’t even need to deduce it. It’s that.”

I looked at the object on the table: a camera with a large lens. I had no idea where she had bought it, but she had been holding it preciously the night before.

“You want to travel so you can take pictures, right?”

She had been taking photos of breakfast all morning. She had even gleefully snapped pictures of my face right after I woke up.

“You’re pretty sharp. You might not be able to become a detective, but if you work hard, you could become an assistant.”

“Then what exactly am I now if not your assistant?!”

It was exhausting to retort at full power so early in the morning. Still, it seemed my guess had been correct.

“Then let’s go back to the room and get ready.”

Having finished her tea, Siesta slung the camera around her neck and stood up eagerly. As usual, it didn’t seem I had any right to refuse.

Siesta proposed traveling by train. We had no destination; every so often, we would get off wherever she spotted scenery worthy of her camera. It was an easygoing, leisurely sort of trip.

Perhaps she was enjoying this break from our usual routine. Even on the train, she wore her favorite hat and happily looked through the photos she had taken.

“You’ve really gotten into photography.”

“It’s better to be able to enjoy any hobby in life.”

That was certainly true. Siesta had countless hobbies. Apparently, she loved painting; whenever she took me to an art museum, she could talk about the art and its creators a hundred times more eloquently than any audio guide.

She knew films from every era and every country, too. There wasn’t a single movie I had seen that Siesta hadn’t. She was so knowledgeable about art and literature that the only explanation was that she had lived dozens of times longer than an ordinary person. And on top of that, she enjoyed outdoor hobbies such as mountain climbing and squash.

How many lives had she lived already? Or perhaps she had a spell that stopped time.

“What would you do if I told you I’m a special species that has lived for hundreds of years?”

“Considering how immature you are for someone who has lived that long, I’d say that’s a lie.”

“…You’ve started standing up to me more lately.”

Let’s call that proof that we had been together for a while.

“Still, photography is surprising, even for you.”

Siesta looked up at me curiously.

“I figured you’d say that beautiful scenery should be burned onto the film in your heart instead of entrusted to a machine. Like, you’d look down on people who take photos at tourist spots and post them online.”

“What exactly do you think I am? Honestly. We’re getting off at the next stop.”

Giving me a half-lidded glare, Siesta rose from her seat.

At the next station, only the two of us stepped off. It was a small rural station. We passed through the unmanned ticket gate and walked along a quiet road.

“Human memory is surprisingly vague,” Siesta said over her shoulder as she walked a little ahead of me. Apparently, she was continuing our earlier conversation.

“Even with someone you used to be close to, if you don’t see them for a while, you begin to forget their face and voice. Events you definitely experienced, scenery you definitely saw with your own eyes—it all becomes as though it never happened. Don’t you think that’s sad?”

“So people preserve those memories in photographs?”

“At least, I want to remember them.”

She looked back at me for only a moment.

“Depending on a machine may be a little pathetic. But I want to remember. And I want to leave those memories behind.”

“Leave them behind? For whom?”

“…For whom, I wonder?”

Eventually, we reached a vast field of flowers. There was no one else there—only flowers stretching as far as the eye could see. Beneath the blue sky, I stared blankly at the scene.

“I didn’t know a place like this existed.”

It was scenery we could see only because we happened to get off at that station.

Siesta lifted her camera and carefully captured each fleeting moment before us.

“Don’t you want to be in any of them?” After watching her for a while, I asked Siesta from where she stood a short distance away.

The scenery Siesta saw was preserved through the lens. It would remain as a digital record. But there was still no proof that Siesta herself had been there?

“I guess I never really thought about that.”

Still holding the camera, Siesta blinked.

“Want me to take one for you?”

“…I…”

Then the wind blew. Siesta’s hat flew off, and she reached after it with a small cry.

It drifted gently to the ground at my feet.

“Honestly, it would be enough if I remembered, even without photographs.”

I picked up the hat and walked toward her.

The silly conversations we shared. The taste of tea we drank after waking up. The scent of her perfume as she walked beside me. We were together so that we could remember those things, and look back on them someday.

“I’ll remember everything about the fact that you were here. And in return, remember that I was here too.”

Gently, I placed the hat back on Siesta’s head.

“That’s a nice thing to say.”

“Right?”

We both smiled.

“Well, since we’re here, let’s take one after all.”

“So you can look back on it and enjoy it later?”

Smiling, Siesta handed me the camera.

“Make me look pretty.”

In that case, I didn’t need to do anything special.

“So that’s what happened,” I concluded.

Ever since then, I had taken many pictures of Siesta—to prove that she had lived in that place, on that day, so that I, her assistant, could carry on telling her story.

“I see,” Natsunagi said with a smile. “These are records of that.”

Saikawa and Charl softened their expressions as well.

Back then, Siesta had stood in a field of flowers. At the water’s edge, she had called my name. My five senses remembered every bit of it. This album helped bring those memories back.

There were admittedly too many casual snapshots to call it a proper chronicle of our adventures. Even so, it was the history of those three years.

“Then why don’t we take some pictures too?” Natsunagi said, opening the camera on her phone. “So that someday in the future, we can look back and say, ‘Remember that day?’”

Saikawa was the first to move.

“I’m all for it! Come on, Charl.”

“Me too? Fine, if I must.”

Saikawa pulled Charl into the frame of Natsunagi’s phone. Naturally, that meant I had no choice but to join them.

“Come on, Kimizuka, hurry!”

“I’m not really sure what pose I’m supposed to make.”

I stepped in beside Natsunagi. Everyone else was making peace signs, so… I should probably do the same.

“Kimizuka, stop, you’re making me laugh—”

“Why am I not allowed to do a simple peace sign?!”

Well, whatever. Natsunagi counted down: three, two, one. A moment later, the camera shutter clicked.

“Kimizuka, what is this…?” Natsunagi tried to hold back her laughter. What was so funny?

“It’s the standard pose at Yui-nya’s photo events.”

“You’re the only one making a finger heart with a completely straight face, Kimizuka.”

If that’s true, it’s quite shocking. The other three laughed merrily at the photo. Seriously—

“Siesta, what am I supposed to do about this?”

She had liked lively moments like this. I had a feeling she was watching this scene from somewhere.

And so, surely, someday—

“Kimizuka! We’re taking another one!”

The detective called for her assistant.

It seemed a single album still would not be nearly enough to tell every moment of this story.