The live performance resumed, and in the intervals, I continued to spin the lottery drum to receive more presents. Honestly, if I were really going to accept a gift from every single person at the venue, it felt like there was still a staggering number left. I probably needed to pick up the pace.
Actually, would I even be able to get through them all? It felt like quite a lot of time had already passed since the start of the party. Even if I didn't have to worry about the time once I returned to the normal flow of things, staying at a party for this long would eventually become exhausting.
I wondered if the people who didn't get picked by the drum would just have their gifts collected in a bundle later. But that seemed a bit disrespectful to their effort...
(It is not a problem. We have already discussed this and finalized a countermeasure.)
Shiro-san? Ah, so she had already anticipated that things might take too long. So, what was this countermeasure? I really hoped it didn't involve extending the birthday into a second day or something like that.
(That was one of the opinions voiced. Similar to what happened during the Founding Anniversary Festival in the Hydra Kingdom, one proposal suggested having Kaito-san repeat the party several times to receive everyone's gifts, then integrating and merging the memories afterward.)
I felt a wave of relief that the idea had remained nothing more than a proposal. If I had to repeat the exact same party multiple times, there wouldn't be any surprise left, and I wouldn't have known how to react.
If someone asked me if I could recreate the genuine emotion I felt during the earlier chorus for the cake within a parallel world's version of the party... I would have to say it was impossible.
(Therefore, we will have one more event after this live performance before entering Super Present Time.)
...Wait, "Super Present Time"?
(Yes. I will create short-lived parallel worlds. While only about ten minutes will pass in this timeline, Kaito-san will move through these various parallel worlds to receive presents from everyone in sequence. Once the process is complete, the memories of those who gave you the gifts will be synchronized and integrated. This way, we can finish without issue, no matter how many guests remain. Any presents received in these parallel worlds will be automatically stored in Kaito-san's Magic Box.)
I see... so that was the plan. Well, that certainly meant I was the only one who would experience a long duration of time, and it wouldn't force the other guests to wait.
Since we weren't repeating the party itself but rather repeating a specific ten-minute window over and over, I wouldn't have to experience the same major events repeatedly. If the goal was to properly receive presents from everyone in the time we had left, it was likely the best possible method.
I mean, it sounded like it would be quite a task for me personally, but since everyone had gone through the trouble of preparing gifts, I wanted to accept them directly. I had no objections.
Serious-senpai: "Well, there are plenty of people here capable of solving a simple time constraint... They could have just stopped time for everyone except Kaito and the gift-giver... Oh, wait, some people here can ignore time stops entirely. I guess creating parallel worlds and merging them at the end is the most efficient way after all..."