Chapter 9 - Reina-sensei and the quintuplets

After sending his mother to her bedroom, Rei, along with his three daughters, moved to the bakeshop and unlocked the glass door while also changing the 'closed' sign to 'open'.

Sometimes when his mother was busy inside thier house to prepare for their lunch and the likes, Rei was the one who would look after their shop, so he was already used and not nervous doing this. He also have his daughters by his side so he don't have anything to worry about

And people closer to Rei have said earlier that they will visit him, so he will wait for them here in the shop.

But while he was waiting, he asked Rhian to serve them some sweets since he wants his daughters to taste the food made by their grandmother.

「Anyway, min'na. I hope you didn't get bored earlier. Did you read the mangas I suggested? If it's not to your liking then we will buy later.」

「We still haven't read it yet, Father, as we got immersed in searching for the cause of apocalypse.」

「Oh, is it about the zombie apocalypse said by Iris-oneechan? Did you find something? Is there a Demon King who would turn people into a zombie?」

「We're still not sure if there's a Demon King or just some demons, but we suspect that this Z virus is what would turn the people into zombie.」

「Eh, no way? There's someone in this neighborhood who died due to Z virus and we didn't hear them saying that he turned into a zombie, so i think that's impossible...」

「Really? I seems that we are wrong in our suspicion... Can you tell us more about what happened to that person, Father?」

「Un. His family said he was just eating some peanuts, but he suddenly choked and as they could not help him after already giving him abdominal thrusts, they decided to call an ambulance. But when they reached the hospital, the doctor said that he already died on arrival due to Z virus.」

The three sisters became speechless with Rhian almost dropping the pitcher she was holding to pour juice on the glasses after hearing the story told by thier father. If it didn't come from their father then they would think that the person was just kidding.

The first to recover was Amara.

「I think we need to investigate this Z virus more since it's becoming weirder and weirder whenever we hear anything about it.」

「Alright. Just let me know if there's anything I can help you with.」

After Rhian done serving, she sat on her seat and all of them said,

「「「「Itadakimasu.」」」」

Then Rei's daughters each took a baked good that they want to taste. He was quite worried that it might not be up to their taste since they grew up in Is-kai.

「How is it? It doesn't have much energy contained in it, but I'm confident about its taste.」

「It's delicious, Father. If I didn't know beforehand that it don't have much Mana in it, then I would have thought that this is one of those expensive foods high in energy because of its taste alone.」

「Amara is right. Most mana-dense ingredients in Is-kai will naturally be delicious even if it was cooked by an amateur. It's rather amazing how Grandma Inami can bake or maybe even cook this delicious by only using simple ingredients.」

「As for me, I prefer eating meat as I always do physical activities, so I don't have much knowledge about baked goods but, I can say that this is one of the delicious baked goods I tasted.」

「Really? That's reassuring to hear, min'na. Maybe it's because people here on Earth can't sense Mana so, they consider the taste more instead of how much energy is contained in it.」

After eating, they had some small talk until they sensed some people going near the shop.

When Rei looked towards their direction, he can see through the wall that Reina-sensei and her quintuplets daughters are already approaching near their shop.

「It looks like Reina-sensei and her daughters are already here. I'm sorry, min'na, but can you go to my room by yourselves?」

「It's alright, Father. There's also a lot we want to learn so we will spend our time searching in the internet. Just enjoy your time reuniting with them.」, said Amara.

After saying a brief goodbye to their father, the three sisters immediately teleported to Rei's room.

Immediately after seeing his daughters teleported, Rei heard the sound of wind chimes on the door, indicating that someone have entered the shop.

「Re-kun! Why didn't you go to our house? Don't you know that everyone missed you?」, said Yotsuba while pouting.

「Rei-kun...」, muttered Miku.

「You know it's bad to miss out a lecture, right? Ho, how would you be able to support us in the future if you suddenly become this lazy...」, said Itsuka while blushing at her latter words.

「But, it's really suspicious for our diligent Rei-kun to be absent. I wonder what you're hiding from your onee-sans.」, said Ichika while narrowing her eyes.

「What are you all saying? Didn't we already hear earlier that there's some woman circling around after Rei-kun? I'm sure it's a new woman again.」, Nino said bluntly.

As soon as they entered the shop, the quintuplet teens, who have similar looks and even have their hairstyles and outfits matchingly, talked to Rei successively.

「Alright. That's enough, all of you. You would make Rei-kun uncomfortable, you know. Anyway, Rei kun, are you sure that you're alright?」, said Reina-sensei after scolding her daughters.

「I'm alright, Reina-sensei. Sorry for being absent today, but I will surely attend your lesson tomorrow. Thanks for worrying and visiting me, min'na.」

「That's reassuring to hear. By the way, where's your mom?」

「Oh, mom? She experienced too much emotion and loss conciousness.」

「Is that so…? Well, I think I should rather not ask the reason...」

「Hmm? Okay, Reina-sensei.」

Then Rei led them to a table while asking them what they want to eat.

And as usual, the some quintuplets voluntarily went to get the trays and plates on the cabinet while the others went to prepare the drinks, and they approached Rei, who was already in front of the display counter with a tong in his hand, to be given pastries and sweets on the plates they're carrying.

Rei then closed the sliding glass door and returned the tong in its place. He arrived at the table where Reina-sensei and her daughters are seated, but all the seats are already occupied as usual.

Before the quintuplets could offer Rei to sit on their lap instead, Reina-sensei beat them to it.

「Alright, girls. You should not waste time fighting and make the still warm food wait. Rei-kun, you can seat on my lap instead.」

「Un.」

As the quintuplets was pouting at their mother, Rei went to Reina-sensei and sat on her lap.

「Alright, min'na. Itadakimasu.」

「「「「「「Itadakimasu.」」」」」」

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Author's Note:

It took a while to create this chapter since halfway through I hesitated whether to make characters from different manga or story appear this early in my novel.

My initial plan was to make this an alternate reality where Rei originally came from and he will eventually visit another reality or dimension.

But maybe because I was smitten the moment I saw the picture of Reina/Rena from The Quintessential Quintuplets or because I like idea of having quintuplets who looked similarly in the story, I stopped caring and decided to make characters from Quintessential Quintuplets appear early in this story.

Of course, I made some changes like Reina is still alive, the Quintuplets still look similar to each other and didn't change their styles, and many more.