I was standing in a bookstore staring at a particular sight, a wall of isekai light novels. Each had titles that were ridiculously long and honestly a chore to read. I couldn't just give up, however. I had agreed to assist Tanaka-san in procuring the newest release of 'I Got Transported to a Fantasy RPG World, But My Glasses Were Left Behind. So, I Can't Read My Stats!'. It hurts even thinking out the long title.

This was a series Tanaka-san apparently liked. He told me he was always the first at the bookstore to pick up a new volume when released, except for today. He didn't give many details, but he had some family matters to deal with that happened to fall on today. He turned to me to go pick up the book for him. Reluctantly I agreed.

Now here I was, standing in the store staring at each of the titles that lined the shelves to find this one I wanted. I could just ask an employee where the volume was, but I had no intention of giving in so easily. I was bound and determined to find this book even if I had to be in this store all day!

An hour later, I finally found it. The series was buried deep in the back of the store. Between a series titled 'I Was Hit by a Fork Truck and Reincarnated into a Generic Fantasy Setting at the Beginning of its Industrial Revolution' and 'I Ended Up In Another World and Got Stranded on A Desert Island. Now I have to Figure Out How This Worlds Magic System Works, Otherwise I will Not Survive!'

I happily moved my finger down the row of books, reading the volume number. The volume Tanaka-san wanted was number 17. It honestly surprised me how such a story had 17 volumes released. I counted the numbers: fourteen... fifteen... sixteen... and nothing. The latest volume was not on the shelf. I let my head hang. I had spent all that time searching, and I had to ask anyway. I began my slow and sad walk up to the counter.

"Um, excuse me?" I quietly said when I reached it.

"Can I help you?" The person at the counter answered in a cheery voice.

"I'm looking for volume 17 of 'I Got Transported to a Fantasy RPG World, But My Glasses Were Left Behind. So, I Can't Read My Stats!'" I said in a quiet voice.

"Oh, you're after the latest volume of 'No Glasseskai'? I'm sorry, we must have forgotten to put it out. A customer usually reminds us about it whenever there is a new volume, but I guess he's running late today. I'll get it for you right now!"

I think what disappointed me the most was not that I had spent all this time looking for the book, nor was it that the staff apparently well knew Tanaka-san due to this book. What disappointed me the most was that there was a nickname for the book, and I had spent all this time saying the full title.

It only took a few more minutes for the staff to bring me the book. I quickly paid for it and walked out the door. As it shut behind me, I let out a deep breath.

"Jeez, Main-kun, you said it would only be a couple of minutes!" Trash-chan yelled at me. I jumped and turned to her.

Before going in, I had told Trash-Chan to wait outside. She argued, but I figured it would only take a minute to find the book. She had waited outside the door the whole time.

"Sorry about that; I didn't expect it to take so long," I sincerely said. Now I felt terrible making her wait. "How about we get something for the walk home?"

"Oh! Yes, I heard the Amari's have a special ice-cream Sunday at their shop right now!" Trash-chan said with sparkles in her eyes.

"I suppose I can get you one..." I said with my voice trailing off.

The bookstore belonged to the same market that the Amari's sweet shop was in, so it wouldn't be too long a walk to get there. Or at least it shouldn't be, but we had to make a couple more stops on the way. First up was a stop at the game store so Trash-chan could get a pack of the new Magioh set. She had become quite a fan of the game after my mother had challenged us to that war. The next stop was for groceries, and after that, we would be able to go to the Amari's.

However, we did not get far in our grocery shopping before Trash-chan took note of something.

"Main-kun! Look!" she said while tugging on my sleeves and pointing. I turned to look at what she was pointing at, a sign for The Tournament Arc.

"No, no, no. We are not participating!" I firmly declared and picked up my pace to walk away.

The Waifu Wars was a type of event that could be held at any time with several variations of formats. Single battles, double battles, and even card games could be held at any time in the year. However, there were also special events that were held throughout the year. Two such events were on a yearly schedule, The Christmas Special in winter and The Tournament Arc in summer. A typical waifu war would be like a single game while these events were on a world cup or super bowl level to use a sports analogy. I had no desire to participate in such an event.

"Ah, come on, Main-kun. Don't you think it will be fun?" Trash-chan asked as she chased after me.

"Not in the slightest," I answered as I kept my brisk pace away from the flyer.

"But, don't you think it will help us get to the top of the Waifu Wars?"

"You are the only one that wants that."

"What about gaining victory with friends by your side? It is a team event, right?"

"I would feel bad making them participate if they didn't want to,"

"You are as stubborn as ever!" Trash-chan finally yelled out.

She crossed her arms and closed her eyes. Her brow became furrowed as she was lost in thought. She stopped walking and stood like that. I stopped as well and turned to her. It was clear she was determined to convince me. I would have to make sure to talk her out of it now. Otherwise, she might say it in front of my sister. Then I would have two people trying to talk me into competing.

"Trash-chan, we don't need to keep competing in the Wars. We are well enough right now, and personally I'm comfortable with leaving things as they are," I made my appeal to her as she was still lost in thought. After a moment, she finally relaxed her posture and looked at me in the eyes.

"Alright, Main-kun, the truth is your father sent me to you," she said in a serious tone.

"I know, you already told me that when we first met," I answered in a neutral tone.

"Well, this is around the time when I was supposed to tell you that information!" she broke her serious expression for a moment to blurt out at me. Then she coughed and resumed her earnest delivery, "You see, your father gave me three tasks."

"Uh-huh."

"The first was to find his son, you."

"Okay, I knew that much."

"The second was to participate in The Tournament Arc, and he planned to have a messenger in the arena that will rendezvous with you during that time."

"So, what you're trying to say is that we need to compete, so we are in the arena?"

"Exactly!"

"Couldn't we just go watch the event and meet up that way?" I asked.

"Of course not! How would the messenger know how to find us in the crowd?"

I wanted to argue, but she made a good enough point. If we competed, the messenger would have an easier time narrowing us down. People that competed could be messaged on their tablets, and their pod locations were available to look up at any time. If we were in the crowd, the messenger would have the daunting task of tracking us down among all those people.

"Okay, fine. That makes sense," I conceited. I still didn't want to compete, however. If my old man wanted to contact me, he should just do it. I had not heard from him in four years, and now I hear he can send a messenger to me. He could have sent whoever this person is at any other time.

"That's great! Now we just have to get our team together!" Trash-chan cheered and happily danced around.

"Hold on. I said it makes sense, not that I would compete." Trash-chan stopped moving around and looked at me with a tilted head.

"Don't you want to get the messenger from your father?"

"Couldn't he have sent a messenger at any other time? Who is he even sending?"

"I don't know. I don't see how your father had much contact with anyone else given..." Trash-chan's sentence trailed off as she became lost in thought. "Well, I'm sure it doesn't matter too much!" she ended up concluding.

I wanted to argue with her more, but I decided it would be best to give up. She was determined to convince me after all.

"Fine, I'll think about it. Just don't bring it up around anyone else until I have decided," I said.

"You don't want me to tell Sister-sama and have her convince you?" Trash-chan read me like a book.

"Let's just go get that Ice-cream Sunday," I said while walking off.

"Oh, yes, that sounds great!"

We walked off to finish our shopping. I sighed. I had gotten her not to say anything, but to be honest, I wanted to ignore the whole conversation. Was I wrong to do so? This was my dad's attempt to contact us after four years of radio silence. Even if I was mad at him, my sister deserved to have an opinion on the matter; he was also her father, after all. If this messenger led us to him, perhaps I should consider at least trying to meet. At the very least, I shouldn't try to hide this from my sister.

After that line of thought, I told her about what I had heard from Trash-chan when we returned.

"Dad will send a messenger! We have to compete in this!" she immediately said.

"Now, hold on. We don't know what this messenger will even say. Furthermore, we can't compete unless we have a team of four."

"No problem, we will get that team in no time! Let's do this, Big Brother!" my optimistic sister shouted.

I sighed. It may have been a mistake to tell her, but given the subject matter, I would have felt guilty if I didn't. I guess I would have to get a team together.

TANAKA-SAN'S HOUSE

The options for my teammates would be obvious. I didn't have that many friends with waifus to ask after all.... I stood in front of Tanaka-san's apartment building. He had recently moved since Raphine became his waifu to a reasonably nice building. It was a tall, square building with multiple balconies jutting out. There were four apartments on each floor, by its looks, and they must be a decent size given how large the building was.

I rang the bell, and the door immediately buzzed open. I had already let him know I would drop off the book today at this time. Trash-chan, who was with me, and I walked into the building and went up the elevator. Tanaka-san lived on the 7th floor of the building. The door dinged open, and Raphine immediately jumped in to hug Trash-chan.

"Oh, Trash-chan, I missed you so much!"

"Ah! Let go of me, you crazy raccoon!" she yelled while trying to push her away.

I ignored the two and walked to Tanaka-san's apartment. It was directly opposite the elevator, and he was standing in the doorway laughing at the two waifus behind us.

"She was excited to have you both over," he said with a smile.

"Are you sure her excitement was about the both of us?" I asked while looking back. Trash-chan had given up trying to push Raphine off and just let her hang on her. With her head lowered, Trash-chan began to walk over to us; Raphine walked along with her.

"Hahaha, I guess it might not seem that way. Well, come on in. I prepared some tea!" We followed Tanaka-san into his apartment. It was exactly how I expected it to be. We first took off our shoes and put-on anime slippers. I had a picture of five similar-looking characters with differently styled red hair on mine. Trash-chan had a group of nine idol-looking characters on hers.

The apartment halls were lined with shelves that were packed with figures of characters from every genre conceivable. They were scattered around with no rhyme or reason as well. On just one of the shelves, an idol stood next to a mecha which stood by a samurai. They all stood in front of a large poster of some Shonen-looking characters. It seemed like every shelf in the place was decorated in this manner.

We walked into the main living space. He had a large TV in the room that was surrounded by large beanbags of various characters. Each beanbag had a small table standing next to it with a coaster for drinks. Tanaka-san had already set out the tea on each of these tables.

I picked a random beanbag and sat down, and picked up a mug. A character in a school uniform was surrounded by lightning on the cup with the words Kaeru Gunner written above them. I suppose that was the character's name. I turned my attention away from the image and took a sip.

"So, Tanaka-san, I have a favor to ask," I said after my sip.

"Your next line will be: 'Would you be able to join me in The Tournament Arc!' Of course, I will!" Tanaka-san said before I started my next sentence.

"Would you be able to... was that really necessary?" I asked. Tanaka-san just smiled and sat on the beanbag next to mine.

"I just wanted to have a little fun."

"How did you even know what he would ask!" Trash-chan asked in shock as she finally got Raphine off her and sat on a beanbag.

"Elementary, my dear Trash-sensei. Given that the tournament is coming up and your claim that you will get to the top of the Waifu Wars whenever you introduce yourself, it was easy to expect that you would be looking for a team. Also, Juyo-chan posted that her brother would be competing in the event. Given that we've fought together before I expected, I would be asked to assist in this event."

"Wow, what an impressive deduction!" Trash-chan said.

"I'm going to have to tell my sister to be careful with what she posts," I said aloud.

"Now, how about we watch some anime!" Tanaka-san suggested.

"Oh, yeah. Let's watch that one with the vampire again!" Raphine chirped.

"We've watched that three times already. Don't you want to watch something else?" Tanaka-san said while shaking his head.

We ended up binging the whole anime. It took about 10 hours.

OSANA-CHAN'S HOUSE

The next stop was Osana-chan's house. We had to move it back a day due to binging that whole show with Tanaka-san, but I was finally standing in front of her home. It had been years since I had been in front of these large gates. I swallowed and rang the bell.

"Yes?" a stereotypical butler voice answered.

"Hello, Jeeves, it's been a while, huh?" I answered.

"Ah, Young Juyo. Please do come in," the voice over the speaker said. With that, the giant gates broke open to allow us to enter.

"Wow, Main-kun, I didn't realize Childhood Friend-sama was rich!" Trash-chan muttered in shock as we walked through a large garden.

"Yeah, her great grandfather was among the first to start a business with waifus. It was a simple restaurant, but it became very popular and now has chains all over the world that employ waifus and husbandos that don't want to partner with anyone," I explained.

"Wow!" was all Trash-chan was able to answer with as we approached the front door of the house. Calling it a house was a little understated, though. It was a giant building with many rooms that people could easily get lost in. I remember running around all those rooms with Osana-chan while my parents and hers discussed business.

The door to the home opened up, and two faces greeted us. The head butler Jeeves, who was not a husbando but rather an old family butler, and the second in command butler Estouls.

"Welcome to our home," Estouls said with a polite bow in his butler uniform.

"Hahaha, Estouls! I never thought I'd see you in an outfit like that!" Trash-chan exclaimed.

"Trash-chan, shush!" I said sharply. "I apologize for my waifu; she can be a little rough around the edges," I told Jeeves.

"No matter Young Juyo, Sir and Madam Tomo have been eagerly waiting to see you again since they heard you had gotten one. Please do enter." We were gestured into the home's grand hall. It was a large open space with multiple doors to other rooms and two spiral staircases in the corners to take someone to the house's different wings.

In the center of the hall were two people I had hoped to avoid on this trip, Osana-chan's parents.

"I will fetch milady; please bear with it for the moment," Estouls whispered to me as the door shut behind us. He quickly disappeared from the scene after that.

"Ah, Young Juyo, how good it is to see you again!" Osana-chan's mother said as she greeted me with a hug. "You've grown so tall recently, too!" she added.

"Indeed, my dear, it has been a long time, hasn't it," her father answered with a laugh.

"Is this your waifu? My, she is very cute," Madam Tomo had let go of me and was now examining Trash-chan.

"What do you think, dear?" Mister Tomo said as he walked up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Hmm, she seems a little rough around the edges, but she looks promising. Tell me, dear, what is your name?"

"I'm Trash-chan, the trash-tier waifu! Main-kun and I are going to get to the top of the Waifu Wars!" Trash-chan declared. If Mister Tomo wasn't right behind me, I might have smacked my palm on my forehead. Why did she have to tell them all that?

"Oh my, the top of the Wars. That is quite a declaration. However, what is Trash-Tier?" Mister Tomo said.

"It's a joke she likes to say! She likes to make sure her opponents can't guess what tier she is at!" I stammered out a lie.

"Oh, I see! How clever!" Madam Tomo answered. Mister Tomo nodded along as well. I am glad they bought that.

"What kind of abilities does she have?" Mister Tomo asked next.

"Oh! I have the –" Trash-chan started.

"She can take the attacks and items from opponents and use them herself with certain limitations." I interrupted Trash-chan before she could finish and quickly spat out our superficial understanding of her unlocked ability from her fight with Firestorm.

"Wow, impressive. You did a good job finding this waifu!" Mister Tomo approved.

"Mother! Father!" a shout came from above us. Osana-chan was looking down at us from the balcony with Estouls.

"Oh, Osana dear, we were just catching up with Young Juyo!" Madam Tomo said.

"Enough of that, Tai-kun, come with me!" Osana-chan yelled down at us. She didn't have to tell me twice. I grabbed Trash-chan's hand and gently pulled her away from the two parents. We went up the stairs and followed Osana-chan deep in the house. When we finally were far enough away, she let out a deep sigh.

"You need to let me know if you're coming! I haven't told you what I told them yet!" she said somewhat loudly to me.

"I'm sorry, I was hoping not to run into them!" I replied.

"Main-kun, what is going on?" Trash-chan asked.

"The Master and Madam do not like to associate with anyone with a waifu or husbando that is C tier or lower. They will make some exceptions with business relations, but Juyo-kun is no longer considered a business relation. Milady told them that you are a B-tier waifu, and I pretended to confirm so they would buy it," Estouls explained to Trash-chan.

"What! Why would it matter! Is this why she seemed distant when I first started going to class with Main-kun?" Trash-chan loudly exclaimed.

That was the exact reason. After my family lost our waifu, Osana-chan was no longer allowed to talk to me. My father had hoped they were good enough friends to help out during that time, but instead, her parents cut off all ties to us. That is not the reason we came through.

"Osana-chan. I came to ask if you and Estouls would join us in The Tournament Arc!" I blurted out.

"Of course, we will help!" Osana-chan quickly agreed.

"Milady, are you sure this is wise? We have plenty of strong waifus that can fight." Estouls asked.

"It won't be a problem! Now let's go get some tea!" Osana-chan happily escorted us to one of the sitting rooms. After tea, we would spend more of the day doing some of their house's various activities. We went bowling, watched a movie in the theater, and swam in the Olympic-sized pool that was all contained in Osana-chan's home.

SHIN-SAN'S HOUSE

I got back to Shin-san's house, exhausted from the long day. He was the last to ask about assisting and the easiest to talk to since we were currently staying in his home. I walked through the front door with my shoulders slumped.

"Long day?" Naka-otousan asked from the kitchen table.

"Good to see you. Is Shin-san here?" I asked.

"He's up in his room."

"Thanks," I said as I stumbled over the stairs and began my ascent.

His door was already open when I got to it. I peered in, and he was sitting on the floor playing the video game 'Plumber Kart.' I lightly knocked on the open door.

"Ah, Tai-san. Come on in!" he said after pausing his game to look at us.

"Thanks," I said groggily as I walked in and sat next to him.

"You seem tired."

"I just got back from Osana-chan's. She wanted to do everything we could before I left."

"You went to Osana-Chan's," Shin-san exclaimed, "and you didn't invite me!"

"Sorry, but I had to ask her a question," I answered as I picked up a controller. Shin-san exited his race so that I could enter as a player.

"Ah, about The Tournament Arc?" he asked.

"Yeah, I had to ask her if she would help," I answered as a race started.

"So, what did she say?"

"She said she would help; I also got help from Tanaka-san," I answered.

"Hey, don't hit me with that!" Shin-san shouted.

"You had it coming when you cut me off," I responded.

"I'll get you back in a moment!" he declared.

"You can at least try," I taunted.

"So, do you want Junkers to help too?"

"Yes, if she could."

"Certainly, We can help."

We continued playing the game for a moment before I suddenly paused the game.

"Hold on," I said, "how did you know I was going to ask you?"

"Oh, Emiko-chan already told everyone that you would compete; it was a logical guess after that."

"I should have expected as much."

With that, we unpaused the game and continued playing. The team was now set for The Tournament Arc. I could only hope that it would be a simple tournament.