“…Oniisan, you were out having fun last night, weren’t you?”
“W-what are you talking about. ~♪ ~ ~♪”
I tried whistling innocently.
Come to think of it, wasn’t “Whistle” a skill in *Drag○n Quest* that summoned enemies?
Just as I was thinking that—
“What were you doing with Shizuku Aitori?”
The number of people coming after me had increased.
Damn it. So much for trying to bluff my way out of this…?
It wasn’t like anything pink and romantic had happened, but the fact that I’d met Shizuku in the middle of the night made me feel strangely guilty.
While I was sweating bullets internally—
“Hmm.”
Mia nodded as though she had reached a conclusion all on her own.
“Yesterday, I think I saw Shizuku carrying Oniisan in through the window… Or at least, I think I did. I thought it was a dream, but judging by your reaction, it really happened, didn’t it?”
Guh. Apparently, she’d just been fishing for a reaction.
“I’ll have you tell me all about it once we get to kindergarten.”
Fortunately, that meant I still had some time to come up with an explanation.
Today is my lucky day.
…Or so I thought. It’s a fleeting dream, as it turned out.
In Japanese, the character for “dream” is formed by combining “person” and “fleeting”. It implies having no grave—in other words, dying by the roadside. I’ve lost the thread of my own logic here, but the point is, the situation has taken a turn for the worse.
“All right, then. Let’s begin the trial.”
“Oniisan, I want you to tell us absolutely everything.”
It wasn’t just Mia anymore. Ayano had joined the interrogation too.
We are at the kindergarten library. The three of us sat around a round table.
Me, Mia, and Ayano. A barrier had been set up to keep other people away, so there wasn’t another child in sight. On the table sat, for some reason, a toy kitchen knife from a play-cooking set. Its blade gleamed ominously.
This isn’t a trial.
It’s torture. Psychological torture, specifically!
“Well, there isn’t really much I need to ask Yoshito-kun about. I already keep track of everything he does.”
Then I guess we can call this meeting adjourned…
Wait. Did she just casually say something that sounded an awful lot like stalking?
Before I even had a chance to question her, Ayano continued.
“Last night, Yoshito-kun apparently snuck out of the house and rescued Shizuku-chan when she was being harassed by some delinquents.”
“Heh~. Oniisan actually did something decent for once.”
Oh. Apparently, that had scored me some serious points with Mia.
The tense atmosphere relaxed a little.
Or so I thought.
“At the time, Yoshito-kun had reverted to his previous-life form. He ran around carrying Shizuku-chan in his arms like a princess, and then the two of them ended up on a date in a park at night. So romantic. I’m jealous.”
The situation took a nosedive. Ayano had just dropped an absolutely massive bombshell.
“A young man and woman alone together in a park at night… Hmm, I wonder what sorts of things they were doing?”
“Oniisan?”
Mia’s gaze grew sharp, and her hand slowly reached for the knife.
Hiiiiiiiii!
I knew perfectly well it was only a toy, but for some reason, a chill ran straight down my spine.
“In reality, it sounds like she was just asking him for advice.”
“Oh, really? ….Thank goodness. (Lets go of the knife.)”
“But going out of his way to listen to her problems in the middle of the night… Could it be that Yoshito-kun has feelings for Shizuku-san—”
“Hn? (Picks the knife back up.)”
“—Or so you might think. But I’m pretty sure his true love is Mia-chan.”
“Ehehe. (Puts the knife down again.)”
“—You two. Are you seriously having this much fun scaring me?”
““Yep! Tons of it!””
The terrifying combo of my little stepsister and her best friend. Honestly, I had absolutely no chance against them.
And so, despite being threatened with that knife more times than I cared to count, I somehow managed to finish explaining the whole situation.
Mia then said,
“That Takasu guy sounds kind of scary.”
She shuddered slightly as she gave her verdict.
“Shizuku-san doesn’t want to get engaged, but he just went ahead and forced the whole thing through… Is that kind of thing normal in exorcist families?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
Ayano shook her head.
“Fumitaka is just ridiculously pushy. Though it probably doesn’t hurt that the Takasu family is riding a wave of momentum right now.”
According to her— The Azhiro family had apparently long stood at the very top of Japan’s exorcist hierarchy. But after losing its head in an airplane accident two years ago, the family had been steadily declining. The family that had risen to prominence in its place was the Takasu family.
The eldest son, Fumitaka, wasn’t the head of the family yet, but his abilities as an exorcist were already considered among the top five in the country. His support base had been growing, particularly among the younger generation, and the faction centered around him—known as the “Takasu Faction,” or more commonly the “Fumitaka Faction”—had apparently become one of the two most powerful factions in the exorcist world.
“Ayan…., you sure know a lot.”
“Of course. I’m a daughter of the Matsuki family, remember? If it’s something happening in this city, I can just ask Grandpa and find out everything. And I figured you’d want to know, Yoshito-kun, so I asked him about it this morning. Oh, and this is me showing off my future-wife credentials.”
Ayano smiled sweetly.
The boys at kindergarten were always going on about how “Ayano-chan is seriously an angel”, but to me, that was nothing more than a professional customer-service smile.
You guys are being fooled. She’s an evil god. Both metaphorically and literally.
“Oh, right. I looked into Shizuku-chan’s abilities too. There apparently wasn’t a tournament—the Shohyakka—last year because the Divine Affairs Bureau was in chaos, but she competed in it two and three years ago.”
“How did she do?”
“She was eliminated in the preliminaries both times. She lost without ever being able to put up much of a fight. So…, counting today, we’ve got eight days left, right? I don’t think she can win using the normal approach. Do you have any ideas, Yoshito-kun?”
Nope. I had gone to sleep before I could think about it yesterday, and I hadn’t had a spare moment today. I spent practically the entire time since then being terrified of Mia’s knife, after all.
“The first thing that comes to mind is probably just one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Shizuku’s magic-power stat is around ninety. But her actual output is less than a third of that. I’m guessing she has poor compatibility with the magic system she’s using.”
As I said that, a thought suddenly occurred to me.
“Come to think of it, Shizuku doesn’t really feel like an “exorcist”, does she?”
If anything, mage or magician seemed like a much better fit.
Ayano, apparently having already looked into that as well, said—
“The Aitori family is one of the branch families of the Azhiro clan. It was established around the time of the Meiji Restoration, and the main family ordered them to study Western magic.”
Ayano explained.
“But there was a rather strange arrangement at first. ‘They must never defeat a Japanese exorcist.’ And, ‘They may learn powerful magic, but they must never use it.’ Do you know why?”
“To be the designated punching bag?”
“Yep, pretty much. The Aitori family was supposed to play the villain so that Japanese exorcists could all rest easy thinking, ‘Western magic isn’t anything special.’ After World War II, starting with the sixth head of the family, those restrictions were abolished. But the impression had already taken root, so it seems the other families still look down on them.”
“.…Ayano, you really know an awful lot.”
Mia let out an impressed sigh beside me.
“Eventually, I’ll take ove— No, never mind. I was just a little interested, so I’ve been asking Grandpa to teach me various things.”
Did that evil god just almost say “take over”?
Still, considering the kinds of things I’d heard about the Japanese exorcist world, maybe handing the whole mess over to Ayano would actually be an improvement.
Back in the other world, at least the members of the Evil God cult got along incredibly well. They were always throwing parties for one reason or another. They even held matchmaking parties for the unmarried followers at the bottom of the hierarchy. And for some reason, one of the senior executives—female, twenty-nine, unmarried, and an extreme social drinker who became unbearably clingy once she started drinking—showed up every single time.
“But more importantly, we need to figure out how to get Shizuku-chan to win. You were just about to explain your idea, weren’t you, Yoshito-kun?”
Ayano rather forcefully steered the conversation back on track.
“So if she’s incompatible with her current magic system, you’re thinking of teaching her a different one?”
“Yeah. That’s basically it.”
In both this world and the other, the fundamental nature of magic was exactly the same.
What mattered was imagination, enthusiasm, and a sense of reality.
Incantations and magical theories were nothing more than stepping stones to convince yourself, “I can totally use this kind of magic!”
That was why even something as simple as a “spell that creates a fireball” could have all sorts of different incantations and theories depending on the magic system.
“But switching to an entirely different theory in only eight days… Isn’t that a little crazy?”
“Technically, it’s not impossible. Yeah.… Though it would be a pretty terrible way of doing it.”
“What kind of way?”
Ayano leaned closer as she asked. Mia was watching me with interest too.
I really didn’t want to say it, but maybe the two of them would come up with a better idea. Hoping that might happen, I answered.
“I could use a mind hack to alter Shizuku’s memories and make her forget every magic system she’s learned up until now. Then I’d teach her a method based on imagination, like the one I use. But—hey, don’t look at me like that. Seriously, please don’t look at me like that. You’re hurting my feelings.”
“Because, you know, Mia…”
“Oniisan really is a scumbag after all…”
“ After all!? What do you mean, “after all”!? That was just one idea. I’m not actually planning to do it. I’m a pure and honorable hero, after all.”
“—Then, Yoshito-kun, try remembering what happened when I was kidnapped.”
Ayano spoke to me with an oddly cheerful smile.
“You extracted Herbert’s memories, remember? If you’d made one wrong move, he could’ve ended up a complete vegetable. And you even put a curse on him that was practically guaranteed to drive him insane.”
“T-That was unavoidable! I had to do it to make sure Ayano was safe…”
“And when you fought that girl named Reona in the cave, you didn’t hesitate to kill her at all, did you?”
“Uh…”
“Oniisan, I think you should just admit your crimes.”
Following Ayano’s lead, Mia spoke to me with an almost unnervingly gentle expression.
“It’s okay. Things like that score pretty highly by demon standards. My feelings about you haven’t changed.”
“And from an evil-god perspective, you’re perfectly acceptable too, so don’t worry, you dastardly Yoshito-kun. No, wait… Dastard-kun.”
“Good for you, Oniisan… No, I mean, Dastard-san.”
My entire identity had been overwritten by the word “Dastard”. This was a terrible case of character assassination. I wanted to sue for damages and compensation.
…Although, what would be the point of increasing my damages any further?
“But I’m sorry, Yoshito-kun. This time, could you leave it to me?”
“Ayano, do you have an idea?”
“Yep. I want you and Mia to help me, but I’d like you two to come stay at my place starting tonight.”
“Huh? Really? That sounds like fun!”
Mia and Ayano were excitedly giggling and chatting away.
It was a truly adorable sight, but just what was Ayano planning to do? She had casually foisted the role of the “villain” onto me, yet she was the most pitch-black of the lot. After all, she is an evil god.
To be honest, I was incredibly anxious.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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