NOVEL NEXT Chapter 354 – Shopping goodies
The girls were still chatting together in Anna's room, and Steph, to the surprise of none, was splendidly getting along with everyone. She had already become a part of the group. Ari had a bit of a problem with her, though. On a personal level, she liked the little sister a lot already, but she now had the confirmation that she was just as bad as Sophia when it came to the common sense question. One might even say that Steph's the worst of the bunch. Because of that, the jaguar finally decided to give up on being the voice of reason for good. Luckily, Maya managed to talk her into helping out when they needed a reprimanding in public, at least.
The group continued to chat about turning a jungle into a magical wonderland in the future for a while. Still, it was eventually turning late, and the sisters were getting tired after having run around so much the entire day. Or, that was Sophia’s excuse, at least. In reality, she really wanted to try out all the things she and Maya had bought in the other world. She still needed to come up with an explanation about all that for Anna and Ari, so she went with the tired excuse for the time being.
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“Oh, it’s been a while!” After the girls, without Anna and Ari, had returned home and entered the living room, Maya spotted the wolves relaxing on the sheepskin rug there and greeted them.
“Well, it’s not like all of you had much free time lately.” Fen looked at her. “Be it taking in a runaway princess or casually going to a different world without prior notice.”
"A-Ahaha...” The cat-girl had little to say here. “Things were a little weird lately...”
“That’s putting it lightly.” Aura also faced her.
“Stop looking at me, you two! I take next to no blame for those hectic days!” She raised her voice while gesturing at Sophia next to her.
“It certainly hasn’t gotten boring with me lately~.”
“No kidding! That’s way too much of an understatement!” Everyone glared at her.
“Hehe~.”
“By the way,” Chloe, sitting next to Steph, with a suspiciously minimal amount of distance, as it already became customs, looked at Sophia and Maya. "You mentioned something about having bought many things from the other world, right?"
“Right!” The cat-girl raised her voice. “The vibrating fun!”
“...” The fox paused for a moment and then focused on Maya again. "That, uhh... wasn’t exactly what I was asking about.” Even while saying that, she still looked mighty curious, though.
“Boring!”
“What is this about?” Aura seemed a little confused.
“You don’t want to know.” Sophia simply shook her head in return. She was fairly sure that it wouldn't be much of interest to the wolf. “Other than that, Maya and I bought all sorts of inventions the humans in our old world made to make everyday life less boring and more entertaining.”
“So we are talking the vibraty things, after all!"
“Go and take a cold shower!”
“No!” Maya shook her head. “Unless you can use them while taking a shower!”
“You actually can.” Steph, knowing what she was talking about, answered her. "They're much more fun during a bath, though. Easier and more relaxing, too.”
“Let’s go!” Liking the sound of that, she grabbed Sophia’s hand and stood up from the sofa the two were on.
“Sit down and shut up, idiot!” The tiger just sighed while rolling her eyes. “The cold shower was meant for you to calm down!”
"Boo!" Her smile changed into a big pout, and the cat-girl returned to the sofa again.
“Haa…”
“Hehe~.” The dog-girl’s expression changed into a gentle smile while watching the couple.
"Their bickering is great, isn't it?" Chloe had the same look as she glanced at Steph next to her.
“Very!”
“Then do some bickering on your own!” It wasn’t overly intense, but Sophia still glared at the rather cuddly-looking duo on the sofa opposite of her. She also wanted to make a comment about how her sister was more and more using Chloe’s tail as a pillow and how the fox-girl seemed to be leaning into it, as well, while ever so slightly wrapping the tip of her tail around the dog. She and Maya still had somewhat of a non-intervention pact on that topic, so she managed to hold back.
“Soo… about the stuff you got from that world…” Fen wanted to get back to the topic. He was also more interested in that, rather than the romance flair lingering in the room.
"Thank you!" Sophia was happy that at least one serious individual was left beside her. “We got some cameras, tablets, TVs, an obscene number of movies and series, and even a game console with some games! Together with some accessories and equipment to run everything.”
“Yeah, I don’t understand a single word you just said…” The male wolf lightly shook his head a few times.
“Ahhh…”
“Wait, you actually got a TV and all that…?” Chloe tilted her head while listening to the tiger.
“Yup!” She gave her a thumbs up. "Now, we can have the cuddly time while watching cheap reality TV, just like you wanted the other day!”
“You were the one with the reality TV stuff!” The fox-girl got loud. “I don’t really like that! In the first place, I prefer movies over series 80% of the time!”
"Series have much more entertainment value, though!" Sophia disagreed with her.
“Not this again…” Her little sister suddenly let out a sigh. “Thank you for being on my side with that, Chloe… I had to go through discussion almost every evening with her because I also like movies better…”
“Yay~.”
"Not so fast, my dear fox!" The blonde wasn't done yet. "Hasn't it been like 20 years since your last movie? Who knows, maybe you like series now better, too!”
“Fair, I guess…? Have movies changed a lot since then, though?”
"A lot, a lot!” Steph nodded a few times. “They got worse with each passing year!”
“Ehh…?”
“They look a lot better than in the past, though.” Sophia added her own bit. "The plot is bad or nonexistent most of the time, but they're still quite entertaining, and the visuals are amazing! The same is pretty much true for series, too, though…”
“Ehhh…? Chloe got even more confused. “I mean, cheap movies are pretty fun every now and then, but…. Shouldn’t a good plot be more important than how a movie looks?”
"…" The sisters had nothing to reply to here.
“Wait!” The fox-girl got louder. “How are we going to run a TV, anyway? From time to time, it does feel like raw magic is kinda similar to electricity, but there’s no actual one in this world!”
“Was solar power already popular for home use 20 years ago?” Sophia looked at her little sister with a questioning expression.
“How am I supposed to know? I was only just born back then…”
"Fair… Well, I know that photovoltaic stuff is much older, so it probably has been?”
“Oh, the stuff that uses the sunlight to generate power?” Chloe looked back at the tiger. “I remember my father really being into green energy, and he plastered our entire roof with those big blue panel tile thingies… I never really understood, but I do recall how proud my father was about being as good as independent from the electric guys. At least during the day and when the sun was out… He always mumbled that part. So, yeah, they already were popular when I lived in the old world.”
“Great! That makes explaining a lot easier!”
“Does it…?” Fen didn’t sound convinced. “If anything, I’m more confused than ever before…”
"Don't worry. We'll get to that later. For now, I want to explain it to Chloe first because she’s from the same place, so there’s a higher chance for her to understand.”
“Wait, so you got some of those solar panels for the roof here…?” The fox-girl stared at the tiger again. “Don’t you need like a company to install those things…? It looked pretty complicated from what I can remember…”
"While I was shopping with Maya, we discovered that there are also somewhat portable variants for caravanning and stuff. It comes with several large but foldable solar panels you connect to some huge rechargeable batteries. In those, you can plug anything electric as it has regular AC outlets and stuff. From what the clerk told me, even with the fewer sunlight hours during winter, all the stuff I got is way more than enough to easily power a regular household and then some! At least unless you don't want too much at once."
“Ohh!”
“Where did you get the money for that…?” Steph tilted her head while looking at her sister. “I had looked into that stuff not too long ago myself, and it was insanely expensive!”
“Ahh… Fun fact, the currency in this world includes gold coins… You know, made from actual gold. I have a literal ton of gold coins. I mean literal. I exchanged some of those coins for cash in our world. Afterward, Maya and I went shopping~.”
"That sounds incredibly sketchy and outright illegal for some reason…"
“I thought so, too!” The blonde nodded a few times. “Then, I decided not to think too deeply about it. It’s not hurting anybody, after all.”
“Wait, if you have that much gold, couldn’t we just buy a house or some other place in the old world, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, to hide your portal thingy in? If you own it, there’s basically no chance for someone to find out about it. At least, after making sure about it with magic in one way or another.”
“Hmm…” Sophia tilted her head while thinking about her little sister’s idea. “I’d definitely have the money for it if I get that amount of gold exchanged somewhere, but that alone would probably already be a problem. Not to mention buying a house with cash… or adding that much money to a bank account would probably trigger all sorts of money-laundering-related alarms… Not to mention property taxes and all that fun stuff where the government would get suspicious."
“Those are some valid points… Too bad. I thought it would solve the issues of being readily available to go back and forth.”
“I don't plan to go back often, anyway… Maybe some shopping every now and then to get some inspiration or technical books and the like, but I guess it's best to keep the apartment for a while? Once we get a hold of mom and explain what is going on, we maybe could relocate the portal to there. We could pay her for it, too.”
“I guess that’s the best course of action, yeah.” Steph had to agree with her.
Afterward, once the talk was done, they were finally about to start the unboxing of their shopping. Unfortunately, as Maya hadn't understood a whole lot of their exchange, she wasn't able to comment on Sophia's unusually high levels of common sense she had shown just now.
