Done with business, Rimu and her father returned home. She cheerfully went to her room with the pink smartphone she just got. In their room, she saw Riku in front of his PC, sitting in his rotated chair while playing farmville. [‘residence’ would be more temporary]
"Welcome back." said Riku without looking back.
"Un~ I'm home. Riku."
Rimu looked at Riku's PC, it was already connected to the internet. Now that she observed carefully, from the back of the computer she saw a cable, which most likely an Ethernet cable, extending to the next room, their father's study. Riku most likely got permission from their father to use his router.
It's not like Rimu hadn't considered to ask his father. But because of her deeds in her previous life, she hesitated to burden him with her selfishness.
But now, after thinking carefully, allowing them to use his router was not causing any inconvenience at all. Even if they somehow downloaded so much data that their hard disk exploded, the internet bill wouldn't cause the Nekomiya family to go bankrupt.
Because [Medical Trust], the company her father worked for, would take care of all the expenses.
As a researcher, information was a necessity. It made no sense if Medical Trust allowed their talented researchers to have difficulties with accessing the information they needed.
Rimu sighed helplessly.
'I spent so much time thinking about how I could use the internet, and Riku had already arrived at the shortest answer...'
Sure enough, the difference in wisdom was huge!
Riku closed the game and glanced at her,
"Wanna switch?"
Although he had found enjoyment from surfing on the net, he couldn't think of anything to do yet. He has created his own Twitter and Facebook account, but it was left empty1Cultural Difference: Japanese people will not add anyone without permission and consequently they will not accept friend requests from anyone even if they are acquaintances unless they have talked about it.. The few websites that seems interesting were blocked by the safety filter his father made.
This was to be expected, no sane parent would allow their underage tweens to look at websites with adult content. Even their room was cleaned regularly, in order to prevent them collecting adult books.
As such, there was nothing he could do at the moment except play browser games and read web novels.
'Maybe I should ask Kouta for an MMORPG recommendation.'
Rimu didn't say anything and took the LCD, her mini-PC, keyboard and mouse out of the closet. She placed all of it on her desk, plugged in all the cables and pressed the power button. The screen quickly showed the Raspberry logo and shortly afterwards, the bootup finished, revealing the standard Raspberry OS desktop.
She put out her smartphone and turned the tethering on. Since she already had it, it would be a waste to leave it unused. A few seconds later, the mini-PC detected a WiFi connection and connected to it. She didn't forget to encrypt the hotspot with a password.
"Hey~ Riku, tell me your SNS2Social Networking Site, I will add you first." Says Rimu as she opened a web browser.
"Eh... ah...! highlander@nekomiya·co·jp3Fictional address. Not exist in real life.
His name is 猫宮りく. If りく is converted to kanji, it will become 陸 which means land., Twitter and Facebook uses the same email." Riku answered, hiding his surprised face.
He expected Rimu to take over the PC instead of using those scrapped goods. The LCD had scratch, and some of the keyboard's letter were almost unreadable as the paint has faded (Rimu wiped the keyboard with a wet cloth to clean up the dirt and odors from the garbage disposal, she used too much power and the paint peeled off).
"Rimu, you know I wouldn't mind giving the control of this PC to you, right? Why do you keep using those things?"
"Um~ I know. Every time you got an interesting toy, I tried to make it mine... you didn't even get angry at all."
Rimu stopped her hands and turned her head, facing Riku seriously,
"But after I got those toys, I found out it was not as interesting as I thought. Do you know why?"
Riku shook his head. He didn't understand where this conversation was leading to. Rimu continued,
"All this time, I kept thinking about this and I reached a conclusion. Stealing something from others doesn't feel good. It's only when you get something by yourself you gain the enjoyment."
She rotated her chair and let her long hair flutter as her body was spinning. She recalled her hard work and the suffering for years before her time travel.
The moment when she painstakingly graduated from college.
The moment when she got her first salary at her workplace.
The sense of joy that she felt when her hard work was rewarded.
"Yes, I was too stupid back then. It was the moment when I obtained something, I wanted with my own effort did I feel the accomplishment. I felt pride. It was the best reward I could gain, exceeding the value of what I had obtained."
At that moment, Rimu seemed really beautiful in Riku's eyes. Her figure looked so bright as she bathed in the light of the the sunset that entered through the window.
'I take back what I thought this morning. She indeed has changed, but... it doesn't feel so bad.'
Riku's impression toward his twin sister changed greatly.
She was no longer the stupid ponkotsu imouto, from now on she was a slightly clever ponkotsu imouto.
He paid attention to the Raspberry on the desk and compared it to his PC. He was both impressed and curious. How could that small thing do the same as his PC which was many times bigger.
He still has preconception about how computer works.
The bigger the better, right?
Whether it is wealth, authority, oppai...
Riku shook his head. He was thinking so much that his mind started to think about weird things.
Rimu created her Twitter and Facebook accounts. As she had created her Google account a few days ago, she didn't take much time to do it. The last touch was adding Riku's account as a friend.
"...Click and click... and done! Riku, I created my SNS accounts and added your name, check it out."
"Hmm, dacrydiumcupresinum@gmail·com4Fictional address. Not exist in real life.
Just a reference: Her name is 猫宮りむ. Which is the same as the name of a tree in New Zealand, Dacrydium cupressinum, a.k.a Rimu tree., is this you, Rimu?"
Rimu nodded, her hands still fixed on her keyboard. She opened a new tab and started browsing the video-sharing website, YouTube. Rimu ignored the entertainment section and looked at crafting videos. There were a lot of DIY videos that taught people how to make things.
Indeed, this site was gathering of experts!
The other video-sharing site she knew was Niconico which also had DIY videos. Both websites had their own pros and cons, though she preferred to use YouTube because it used worldwide, not just in Japan.
She typed "DIY Scanner" in the search bar and clicked on one of the search results. From this video, she learned how to make a simple scanner using only a cardboard box, a flexible USB LED light, an OTG cable, and a smartphone5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-mFQVSL7fU. The first two items were already in their shed, and the last two items ... she was currently holding them.
Any work that required dexterity was her specialty.
While Rimu's overall assessment score was a D, but her art score was an A!
Rimu swiftly went to the shed and took the first two items then returned to their room.
Now all the required materials have been collected.
Using the video as a guide, Rimu assembled the Scanner (lol) without much trouble in less than 10 minutes. She placed the Scanner (lol) on her desk and her smile widened.
"Hehe... Now then, time for the main dish!"
Nani? Riku has 'A' in 'Home Economics'.
Smart and can cook... doesn't that make Riku the perfect husbando candidate in the eyes of other ladies?
Poor Rimu has it hard. All she has is a pettan chest
Don't be so sad about it..
She's like a little
with a face of an
when doing something very - very 
She's our Loli right?
She's also crafty and crafters can do pretty much anything if you give them the information.
He absorbed all the nutrients in the womb.
There should be another column named determination and rimu should have a very good score In it even over riku.
You should really check what CPU means. It's bugging me a lot when the abbreviation is used to refer to the entire computer/desktop/case when it's really nothing more than a single chip on the motherboard. Thanks for the chapter though!
The problem is Riku haven't learned about that. Since he received a fully assembled PC right from the start.
A 10 years old won't try to open up the computer case right off the bat, right?
But maybe I should rephrase my words again, thanks for the input.
@FlyingPirateCat So it's because the characters don't know any better? But Rimu also referred to the broken desktop she found as a CPU and it has never even been implied that this was merely a misconception. Regardless of who tells the story, if the storyteller says that they found a broken CPU, the reader won't know any better and will think they found a CPU. When they then talk about attaching cables to a CPU or how a CPU and a screen make a whole computer, it's just an unnecessary mindf*ck. Also, it's a bit weird when they never mention not being familiar with the terminology (you can be unfamiliar with PCs and still know what a desktop computer is) and everyone so far has immediately started calling it a CPU like it's obvious.
But hey, not a big deal now that I know you had a reason for it. Fix it or not, it's up to you. In the end, I'm just nitpicking here. A great story you have going here otherwise!
I guess what I'm trying to say can be summed up by saying that unless a misconception made by the characters is necessary for storytelling, the narration should protect the reader from it, because all readers are building the world and scenes in their mind as they read and having to correct this image later without a good reason can cause frustration.
@Ohems I guess I need to revise those chapters again. Thanks for the input.
I think I keep mixing up Riku and Rimu's perspective in my writing. Oh well, I will try in the future to avoid using terms that elementary school kid shouldn't have learned yet.