Category: Gendai mo angai fantajidattanode, suki-houdai ni ikiyou to omou

It went without saying, of course, but both Mia and I were still five-year-old kindergarteners. There was no way we could simply decide on our own that we were going to spend the night at a friend’s house. And yet—

“Sounds like you and Ayano-chan are really close. Just be careful not to get into any fights, all right?”

By the time we got back to the Kirasawa household, Yuko-san had already made all the preparations for our sleepover. Apparently, Matsuki family had contacted her sometime during the day.

Mia and I climbed into the limousine—by now, we were practically veterans when it came to riding around in one—and headed for the mansion in the hills.

After enjoying a delicious dinner prepared by the private chef (main course: five-cheese hamburg steak), we eventually gathered in Ayano’s room.

The group consisted of Ayano, Mia, and me. And then there was one more person who arrived a little later—

“Huh? Master, Young Madam… What are you doing here?”

A magician wrapped in bandages and wearing a long coat. It was Shizuku Aitori.

“I asked Grandpa to have her come over.”

Ayano explained.

Come to think of it, the Matsuki family had quite a bit of influence in the exorcist world, didn’t they?

“Uhm… what exactly is this gathering about…?”

Shizuku looked a little bewildered. For the record, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on either.

“Today, I thought we’d do something to thank Shizuku-oneesan for what she did during the kidnapping incident.”

Ayano smiled. It was a smile like a flower slowly opening in bloom. And yet, for some reason, it sent an inexplicable chill down my spine.

It felt like I was staring straight at a carnivorous plant. No—more like a man-eating flower.

“I heard from Yoshito-kun. You want to win the next Shohyakka, right? Don’t worry. If you just do exactly what I tell you, Shizuku-oneesan will become much, much stronger than she is now.”

Her voice was sweet and clear, like the delicate ringing of a little bell. It was the sort of voice you could listen to forever.

But inside my head, one phrase kept echoing: “The devil’s sweet whisper.” Even the syrupy way she called her “Shizuku-oneesan” sounded like the opening act of some hypnotist’s routine.

“Ayano, what exactly are you planning to do?”

I couldn’t help cutting in.

“Shizuku is an important friend of mine. If you’re planning on doing anything weird to her—”

“Oh, Yoshito-kun, you’re so overprotective.”

Ayano’s lips curled into a soft little giggle.

“Shizuku-oneesan, you’re really loved, aren’t you?”

“Eek!?”

Shizuku let out a squeak that was practically a shriek. Her face turned as red as a cherry.

“L-L-Loved!? B-But Master already has Young Madam, and, a-and—n-not that, I mean—over this past year, whenever things got hard, he always listened to me, and—”

“Okay, okay. We get it. Lovebirds, lovebirds.”

Despite being the one who had brought up the subject in the first place, Ayano brushed it aside as though she couldn’t care less.

Wow. Cold.

Meanwhile, Mia remained silent. She had a pleasant smile on her face, but somehow, I could sense something beneath it. Like that calm before the storm.

Eventually, she turned toward me.

Then, without a word, she smoothly rose to her feet—

Whoa!?

Something heavy settled against my back.

For some reason, she was leaning against me from behind. All I could feel was the slight weight of her body and its faint warmth.

“…Oniisan, your back’s hard.”

She muttered the complaint bluntly, yet made no attempt to move away.

“Heehee. Mia and Yoshito-kun are so lovey-dovey.”

Ayano watched us with an absurdly smug grin.

“Anyway, to answer your earlier question, what I’m planning to do is create a magical system that’s perfectly suited to Shizuku-oneesan. Don’t worry. Nothing bad is going to happen.”

Isn’t that exactly what a villain in a story would say?

While I was still cocking my head in suspicion, Ayano had already moved on, carrying the conversation along all by herself.

“Hey, Shizuku-oneesan, that coat of yours is super stylish.”

“Ah… Th-thank you very much.”

Shizuku accepted the compliment with an almost apologetic little bow.

Judging by the way she was acting, I supposed the social hierarchy here was something like: [Heiress of the Matsuki family > Head of a tiny exorcist outfit].

“By the way, uhm… Ayano-san, do you happen to have any knowledge or experience with magic yourself…?”

“Yes, I do.”

Ayano nodded casually in response to Shizuku’s question.

“The Matsuki family may not come from a line of exorcists, but I’m special.”

Well, that much was obvious. After all, she had been an evil god in her previous life. She had lost most of her former power, but when it came to magic, she was probably the most knowledgeable person in the room.

“Then, Oneesan, can I ask you something too?”

Ayano reached out with her right hand. The slender index finger lightly touched the breast pocket of Shizuku’s long coat. Embroidered across the front of the pocket was a crest depicting a Cracked Inverted Cross.

Ayano slowly traced it with the pad of her finger, rubbing gently over the embroidery.

“…!”

The breast pocket was, naturally, positioned over Shizuku’s chest.

Her body gave a small involuntary twitch. Ayano paid it no mind as she continued with her question.

“What does this inverted cross mean?”

＊ ＊ ＊

An inverted cross. I vaguely remembered looking it up on Wikipedia in my previous life, though I couldn’t recall the details anymore. It tended to be associated with Satanism, but wasn’t it actually a symbol connected to Saint Peter or someone like that?

Personally, I was tempted to give it the reading “Anti-Cross” and start imagining some occult organization straight out of the Cthulhu Mythos, but that had absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand.

Some boys and girls, once they hit adolescence, are naturally drawn to designs like this. And once they get hooked, they tend to let their imaginations run wild, inventing all sorts of settings about secret societies and mysterious organizations.

I wondered if that was the case with Shizuku.

She answered,

“I just happened to see a similar design online, and I borrowed the idea. It doesn’t really have any particular meaning or anything…”

Liar. I knew that excuse all too well.

“I just happened to like the way it looked.” That was the excuse you would use when you absolutely did not want anyone digging any deeper. Like when a classmate caught sight of your anime character clear file. Or when someone happened to glance at the wallpaper on your phone—the one featuring your “waifu”.

Guh…

200 damage to my psyche.

An old wound had been ripped open in the most unexpected way. But precisely because of that, I understood how Shizuku felt. There had to be something more behind that inverted cross than mere fashion.

Something like an absurdly complicated backstory.…Or some elaborate origin story. Apparently, Ayano had come to the same conclusion.

“Oneesan, you shouldn’t lie.”

She cut straight through Shizuku’s excuse without mercy, then continued.

“This is something you need in order to become stronger. So come on, tell me. Why do you always wear a long coat? Isn’t it hot? And why do you cover one eye with a bandage? You’re not actually injured, are you? Why do you wear those fingerless gloves? And why do you wear your belt diagonally and have all those chains dangling from it? Do you think it looks cool? Huh? Come on, tell me. Huh?”

“Eeeeeeeek!”

This was psychological torture, utterly devoid of anything that could remotely be called mercy.

If Shizuku had been the kind of hopelessly committed chuunibyou who could indulge in delusions to the bitter end, she probably could have brushed off this level of interrogation without breaking a sweat. She might even have taken it as an opportunity to unveil her carefully crafted backstory.

But Shizuku hadn’t reached that level. All she could do was tremble in embarrassment, utterly incapable of answering.

“Hmmm… Looks like I’ll have to resort to the last resort.”

Despite her troubled tone, Ayano seemed to be enjoying herself.

“Shizuku-oneesan, do you know what this is?”

With that, she pulled a notebook from the bookshelf.

“…!”

The bright red color in Shizuku’s face vanished in an instant.

“No…! But I hid that inside my desk drawer…!”

“The Shizuki family’s butlers are very capable. This sort of thing is child’s play for them.”

With a smug little “hmph”, Ayano proudly puffed out her chest and opened the notebook. Then she began reading its contents aloud.

“—‘The Clan of Blood who bear the Cracked-Inverted-Cross.’ Abbreviated as ‘C∴C∴C.’ Hmm… I understand wanting all the initials to be C, but wouldn’t ‘C∴I∴C’ be more accurate? Oh, well. Let’s see…”

She continued reading.

“‘Although they call themselves a clan, they are not actually related by blood. One is admitted into the C∴C∴C through their will and their ability.’”

She paused.

“Wow.”

Ahh. Could this be one of those hot-pot monstrosities born from the uncontrollable creative urges of adolescence?

In other words… a black-history notebook.

“Ahem. ‘Magic is something that twists the laws of nature, but at the same time, it is also the work of God. Therefore, those who wield magic can be said to be both blasphemous and faithful beings. The very icon that embodies this contradiction is the “Cracked Inverted Cross.”’”

Fair is foul, and foul is fair.  I vaguely remembered reading a line like that in some classic work. But people with that uniquely fourteen-year-old sensibility sure do love lining up contradictory concepts side by side.

I used to be the same way.

“‘The C∴C∴C is what is commonly known as a secret society, and its members remain shrouded in darkness. Listed below are its ten executives—the “Fictional Crifa Round Table.”’”

An underground organization that never revealed itself to the public, ruled over by numbered elites of extraordinary power. It was such a textbook cliché that it physically hurt.

And, more importantly—

Reading the notebook aloud right in front of Shizuku herself was downright cruel.

What the hell was Ayano trying to accomplish?

As I tilted my head in confusion,

“Shizuku-oneesan, don’t you think it would be wonderful if everything written here were actually true?”

Ayano asked the question in that gentle voice. Her tone was soft, her face serene—like a benevolent Buddha lowering a strand of spider silk down from heaven.

“No, I shouldn’t say ‘if it were true.’It is true. The C∴C∴C really exists, and everything written in this notebook is the absolute truth.”

—And that was when I finally understood what Ayano was after.

Do you know the basics of brainwashing? First, you crush the target’s self-esteem, creating a blank space inside their mind. Then, into that empty space, you implant a new set of values with sweet, comforting words.

“So the magic written here isn’t just something Shizuku-oneesan made up, either. You can actually use all of it. Every last spell. —Isn’t that right, Yoshito-kun?”

Wait.

Why was she suddenly dragging me into this?

“The truth is, Yoshito-kun is actually one of the members of the Fictional Crifa Round Table. He’s Number Five in the hierarchy—the [Merciful Killing Machine-Chesed Adyeshach.] And apparently, he’s going to demonstrate one of the C∴C∴C’s spells for us right now.”

Ayano handed me the notebook.

The pages were filled with such gloriously cringeworthy names as “Eternal Frostland of the Undying—Eternal Blizzard—Force of the Distant World” and “The Gravekeeper Wails Before His Own Death—Death Burst—Diabolic.”

And, as if that weren’t bad enough, each spell came with its own unique signature pose.

Huh? I’m actually supposed to do this?

『If you want to make Shizuku-chan stronger, this is the quickest way to do it. Just play along, okay? 』

As if to pile on the pressure, Ayano sent that message straight into my mind via telepathy.

When it comes to magic, three elements are essential: Imagination. Excitement. Reality. You expand your imagination, raise your own excitement, and convince yourself that you are capable of making the phenomenon happen. If you can do that, then, fundamentally, there isn’t a phenomenon in the world you can’t bring about.

The reason Shizuku had never been able to properly wield her magical power was, in broad terms, that Western-style magic simply didn’t suit her.

It didn’t stimulate her imagination.

It didn’t get her fired up.

Maybe she just couldn’t make herself believe it was real. And that was why Ayano was trying to give her a “magical system perfectly suited to Shizuku herself.”

The C∴C∴C. It had originally been created by Shizuku herself, after all. So in terms of compatibility, it couldn’t possibly be a better fit.

…Probably.

The one thing I couldn’t accept was the fact that I’d somehow been dragged into her delusions too.

Seriously, what the hell was a“Merciful Killing Machine-Chesed Adyeshach” supposed to be?

…Damn it, that actually looks pretty good.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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“…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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I had no idea what this so-called tournament was actually like, but—

『Shizuku, you and I are way too different in height and build.』

『That’s where your magic comes in, Master. You can just use it to disguise yourself somehow…』

『I could probably manage the disguise part, but something like a mock battle would be a little difficult.』

『Hmm, that’s a problem… Ee-wait, ah!? S-Sorry, I—』

The telepathic connection suddenly went dead.

『What happened, Shizuku? Shizuku!?』

I sent my voice back to her, but there was no response.

Had something happened?

The pendant we used as a medium for telepathy also had a function that let us know each other’s location. When I checked, Shizuku was somewhere around Matsuki Station. I was worried about leaving her alone, so I decided to go check on her.

Being careful not to wake Mia, I quietly slipped out through the window. It had been a while since I’d gone out in the middle of the night like this. The last time had been a year ago, when Ayano was kidnapped.

I enhanced my body with magic and leaped from rooftop to rooftop in a kind of eight-boat leap. Still, “Go undercover and compete in the tournament for me.” That was a strange request coming from Shizuku.

Shizuku Aitori. A girl who had become head of the Aitori family at the tender age of fourteen. She was always dressed in a pitch-black long coat, with her right eye concealed beneath a bandage. It was easy to get distracted by her textbook chūnibyō fashion, but I thought there was something genuinely strong at her core.

When an exorcist named Yujiro Kijima went on a rampage, she had put herself in harm’s way to try to stop him. After the kidnapping incident, she had come under even greater hostility from the other families, yet she endured it all without ever complaining.

Would someone like her really ask for a stand-in for a tournament without some serious reason?

I could understand if she were asking me to help with training, but maybe she was carrying some pretty heavy circumstances on her shoulders.

Lost in thought, I eventually arrived where Shizuku’s location was pinged at. It was north of Matsuki Station, in a rather seedy part of town lined with questionable-looking establishments. It was hardly what you’d call a respectable neighborhood.

And there, in one of the back alleys—

“What the hell? You bump into someone’s shoulder and think you can just get away with saying sorry?”

“Heh heh. You’d better not resist. Michiru-san might have a girly name, but he knows this guy named Masaru, who used to go to a boxing gym and even took the pro test. Though, well, Masaru failed the test, and these days he works at a bar in Shinjuku Ni-chōme with his underling Saburou.”

“Don’t go blabbing about irrelevant crap, Shirou!”

The scene unfolding before me looked strangely familiar.

Shizuku was being hassled by two rough-looking men. From what I could gather, they were arguing over whether or not she had bumped into one of their shoulders. The two men were wearing ugly, sleazy grins.

I should probably step in.

Then again, if a five-year-old suddenly wandered into the middle of this, it would probably just make things more complicated.

Wait.

I had an idea.

I decided to try an idea that had suddenly occurred to me.

“—《Time Spell》: 《Pitch-Black Transformation Pose—The First Kam○n Rider to Grin Was Actually the Second One Returning from the Other Side, Not the First One on This Side》!”

As usual, the chant and the pronunciation had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Oh well, you just had to ignore that.

A dull ache throbbed in my right flank. The conceptual information stored within the “Mud” unfolded, and my five-year-old body transformed into the form of the Black Knight.

And now for the actual experiment.

Had the body beneath the armor reverted to the form I had in my previous life?

“《Armor Removal—Take It Off and You’ll Be Amazed》.”

I’d said it before, but magic was all about imagination. Basically, if you could imagine something, you could make it happen.

Yep. The jet-black armor smoothly vanished, leaving only my bare body behind. To anyone looking from the outside, it should have looked exactly like me at eighteen. That was around the time I’d been trained by my female knight master and had developed a decent amount of muscle.

As for the strength I could bring out…

Somewhere above that of a child, but below the Black Knight. On the other hand, the fact that I was still stuck being mentally fulfilled was incredibly annoying, so the progression of the contamination—“I should just die already”—was slower.

This was only a prediction, but I figured I could maintain the transformation for about thirty minutes.

Let’s organize things for a moment.

Child form: Low combat power — No time limit

18-year-old human form: Moderate combat power — Thirty-minute time limit

Black Knight: Extreme combat power — Three-minute time limit

I stepped out from the shadows and ran over to where Shizuku and the others were.

“Um, excuse me.”

I called out to the man who had been addressed as Michiru. He had a dark complexion and multiple piercings in his lips.

I felt a sudden urge to give them a tug, but I held myself back.

“Who the hell are you? We’re in the middle of an important conversation here—get lost.”

“Oh, man… I’m really sorry, it looks like my little sister was rude to you.”

(Bow, bow, bow) I kept bowing profusely.

“So, anyway, I’d like to pay some compensation…”

“Heh, now that’s a good attitude.”

“The amount is…—Ah! B-b-behind you! A… a beautiful headless ghost!”

“Heeeh!?” “Really!?”

It was a terribly lame lie, even by my standards, but the two men fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Taking advantage of the opening,

“Uh… w-who are you…?”

I scooped up Shizuku—who still hadn’t realized who I was—and bolted from the scene. Shaking off the men turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Well, my stats were still at their peak, after all. Even carrying a girl in my arms like a princess, it wasn’t exactly much of a handicap.

I reached a park near the river and gently set Shizuku down on the ground.

“Thank you very much. I’m terribly sorry for causing you any trouble.”

Shizuku bowed her head.

Her manner was impeccably polite, but I could practically feel the aura radiating from her, as if saying, “Please don’t get any more involved than this.”

Well, I couldn’t really blame her. This was the first time Shizuku had ever seen me in this form. As far as she was concerned, I was just some complete stranger.

And being suddenly swept up into that stranger’s arms and carried off like a princess? If you looked at it realistically, being wary was the perfectly normal reaction.

I could practically read Shizuku’s thoughts. Maybe something like, “I’m grateful you rescued me and all, but… isn’t this guy kind of dangerous too…?”

Hmm. This was actually kind of refreshing. I was used to the Shizuku who went around acting all, “Yaaay, Master!” So getting this cold, distant version of her was strangely fun. Still, it would be cruel to frighten her any more than necessary.

“Shizuku. It’s me. Yoshito.”

I decided to reveal the joke, using telepathy along with my words.

＊ ＊ ＊

“Oh, honestly, you really scared me… If it’s you, Master, then just say so! I was genuinely terrified.”

Shizuku looked like she was on the verge of tears as she said it.

“I don’t mind being mistreated by you or the Young Madam, but when it’s some complete stranger… that’s a little much…”

Her words suddenly dredged up a bitter memory from my past.

Yeah… just because someone’s an M doesn’t mean they’ll take it from absolutely anybody. That’s how virgins get themselves hated. They see some girl casually say, “I’m an M, you know~,” and, without understanding the distinction, start teasing her until she wants nothing to do with them.

Ah.

I’m talking about myself.

I want to die.

“Master, why did you suddenly slump over like that?”

“It’s nothing.”

Once, I took an arrow to the heart. And the wound still hurts terribly.

Ugh.

“B-By the way…”

Shizuku spoke hesitantly.

“About what we were talking about earlier—the stand-in thing… Is it really no good?”

“…You mean the tournament?”

Shizuku nodded.

“Yes. Its proper name is the ‘Gathering for the exchange of arts’, but everyone just calls it the Shohyakka. It’s basically a mock-combat tournament where exorcists aged eighteen and under gather to compete.”

“So ‘children’ because everyone’s eighteen or younger, and ‘arts exchange’ is a fancy way of saying mock combat. …What exactly does [Shohyakka] mean?”

“It’s a collective term for all the various exorcist families.”

“That sounds pretty cool.”

“Right!?”

Shizuku answered with surprising enthusiasm.

I knew exactly how she felt. There’s just something about phrases that sound like they came straight out of Classical Chinese that makes your soul tremble.

“So, why do you have to win?”

“Well, you see… there are some complicated circumstances…”

Shizuku mumbled, hesitating to speak clearly.

“A secret rendezvous at an hour like this? The Aitori family seems to be a rather unrestrained lot.”

A voice cut in.

It was a hawk. Circling through the night sky, the hawk swooped down and landed right in front of us. Its feathers, bathed in moonlight, were a dazzling, pure white.

“Forgive me for appearing as a familiar. I am Fumitaka Takasu, the eldest son of the Takasu family.”

A deep, heavy male voice resonated from the hawk’s beak whenever it moved. He was likely using magic—or something similar—to turn the bird into a speaker.

“And you there… I don’t recognize your face. Oh well—no matter. You’re probably just some insignificant, small-time exorcist. Don’t bother giving me your name, I’ll forget it instantly anyway.”

The hawk fixed its gaze on me as it spoke. Its tone dripped with open scorn. It wasn’t just a cheap provocation. This man, Takasu, seemed to genuinely look down on me.

“Personally, I don’t care how promiscuous the daughter of the Aitori family may be. That is what it means to possess the makings of a king.”

Personally?

That was one hell of a first-person pronoun, too.

Shizuku, Kijima, Hatoba…

Seriously, why were there nothing but eccentrics in the exorcist world?

“Shizuku. As I told you this morning, if you fail to win the next exchange, you will become engaged to my younger brother. Your connections to the Matsuki family and Phyllis Iris are far too valuable for a woman like you to possess. Hand them all over to the Takasu family willingly. Do you understand?”

Having said his piece, the white hawk flapped its wings and flew away. Or, at least, that was what it looked like. In reality, it slipped into a nearby grove and concealed itself among the trees.

I could feel someone watching us. Come to think of it, hadn’t that hawk been circling overhead when those two men were harassing Shizuku, too?

Maybe it had been keeping an eye on her the entire time.

I had no idea whether it was stalking her or simply acting as a scout, but either way, I wasn’t particularly fond of the whole invasion-of-privacy thing.

All right, here goes. At this distance, my magic could reach it easily enough. I put the hawk to sleep. And while I was at it, I might as well give it a dream starring Shizuku.

While I was busy tampering with the bird’s dreams, Shizuku stood there in complete silence. Her brows were furrowed, her expression unusually severe.

“Shizuku, is that the reason you have to win?”

“…Yes.”

Even her voice sounded strangely stiff.

“That man has been incredibly persistent about forcing this engagement on me. I’ve been refusing him all this time, but…”

Apparently, a man named Fumitaka Takasu was quite the forceful type. Once he decided that Shizuku wasn’t interested in him, he started pulling strings everywhere he could.

And the result was—If Aitori Shizuku fails to win the next exchange, she will become engaged to the second son of the Takasu family.

That was how the whole thing had been arranged. It didn’t seem like a decision made without the head of the family’s approval would have any legal standing, but apparently the main branch had issued an order, and that was that.

So the whole main-branch / branch-family relationship thing actually existed in modern Japan. The exorcist world really was scary.

“Ideally, I’d win the tournament through my own ability, but… there isn’t much time left.”

“When is the exchange?”

“The weekend after next. It’s already Friday since midnight has passed, so…”

“Eight days, counting today.”

The deadline was practically staring us in the face.

“First, why don’t you show me your magic? I should at least be able to give you some training.”

“R-Really? You’ll do that? …I’m sorry. When you put it that way, asking you to be my stand-in really was a ridiculous idea.”

“Don’t worry about it. Anyone would be thrown into a panic if someone suddenly started talking about marriage and engagements.”

Besides, I was more surprised that things like arranged marriages and betrothals even existed in modern society. The exorcist world was seriously complicated.

“Anyway, enough about that. Magic. Let’s see what you’ve got. Ready?”

“W-Wait just a moment!”

Shizuku answered nervously, then reached into the right pocket of her coat and pulled out a small gemstone.

“《Wake Up》”

That must have been the keyword.

The gemstone rose into the air with a low “vrrrrm”, and several metal components materialized around it. One by one, they were drawn toward each other like magnets, gradually assembling themselves into a single shape.

It looked just like the combining sequence from a robot anime.

When it was finally complete, what appeared was a magical staff crowned with a “cracked cross” at its tip. The design was exactly the same as the one embroidered onto her long coat. Incidentally, Shizuku’s outfit itself hadn’t changed.

Changing clothes after stripping completely naked first was a classic bit of magical-girl romance, but I supposed reality was simply too cruel for that.

What a shame.

“Um… what kind of magic should I use?”

“For now, just something like a fireball.”

“Understood!”

With an energetic reply, Shizuku spread her left hand wide. She held it up in front of her bandage-covered right eye and began her incantation. At this point, I couldn’t sense any movement in her magical power.

It was probably just a pose to get herself into the mood.

“—When the Brightness falls from the heavens of Air, I shall journey to the Stars of My Destination…”

An incantation.

And it sounded incredibly familiar.

Actually, wasn’t this just a bunch of sci-fi titles randomly strung together?

“—O Fire upon the Deep, O Harsh Mistress, O star of Fomalhaut—”

Fomalhaut?

Seriously?

Judging from the context, I was pretty sure she was referring not to the actual star, but to “that” Fomalhaut from the Cthulhu Mythos. What is she going to do if something indescribable actually showed up?

Putting the finer points of my commentary aside, magical power began to swirl around Shizuku.

I only remembered this from a year ago, but Kijima, who was actively fighting on the front lines as an exorcist, had a magic-power stat somewhere in the seventies.

Now, let’s take a look at Shizuku’s current stats.

[Name] Shizuku Aitori [Gender] Female [Race] Chuunibyou [Age] 15 [Title] 8th Head of the Aitori Family [Stats] ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Level: 56 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Attack Power:  56 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Defense: 52 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Vitality: 45 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Magic Power: 92 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Mental Strength:  44 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Agility: 57 [Abilities] Unknown [Skills] Western Magic III; others unknown

Last year, she had been level 52 with a magic-power stat in the eighties, but apparently, she’d grown quite a bit without me realizing it.

A magic-power stat in the nineties was pretty impressive. In the other world, that was enough to aim for a position as a court mage. And yet, the magical wavelength I could actually sense from her was strangely weak.

If her true potential were a spectacular fireworks display, then her current output was a little handheld sparkler.

What the hell was with that gap anyway?

“May it be completed within my hands—《Purgatory Flame: Cannon》!”

When Shizuku shouted the spell in a voice more dignified than usual—

….Pop.

A palm-sized ball of flame appeared with a strangely underwhelming sound. It drifted forward at a snail’s pace before vanishing as though it had run out of strength.

“H-How was that? Actually, I’m kind of at the bottom of the pack among the younger exorcists…”

Shizuku asked anxiously.

Her magic-power stat was in the nineties, yet she couldn’t bring any of it to bear. In terms of actual output, was she getting less than a third of what she should have?

I’d seen cases like this several times in the other world. The first thing to consider was compatibility. Maybe her natural aptitude simply didn’t mesh with the magic system she was using.

Hmm…. now, what should I do?

This was a pretty serious problem. I began to ponder the situation with a low, thoughtful groan, but then my time ran out.

My magical energy was depleted, and I could no longer maintain the form I’d held in my previous life. My body began to shrink rapidly, and at the same time, my consciousness started to drift away.

This is bad.

If I fall asleep now, I won’t be able to… go home…

“M-Master!?”

Hearing Shizuku’s bewildered voice, I lost consciousness.

The next morning.

Although I had somehow made it back to my bed at home…

“…Oniisan, you were out late last night, weren’t you? What were you doing with Shizuku?”

…I found myself facing some unexpected questioning from Mia.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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A little time had passed since the kidnapping of Ayano Matsuki. The months slipped by, and before long, spring had come around again. I entered my second year of kindergarten, moving up from the “junior” class to the “middle” class.

Unfortunately, during the class reshuffle, Mia and I ended up in different classes.

I guess because we’d been in the Rose (バラ) class before.

…Sorry. Forget I said that.

“Today, Ayano and I made flower crowns together.”

On the bus ride home, Mia happily told me about everything that had happened during her day.

I’d been assigned to the Sumire class, while Mia was in the Yuri class. And, as it happened, Ayano was in Yuri too. I had no idea whether the class names had anything to do with it, but those two had become ridiculously close.

I was feeling a little lonely.

And then there was this—

“Mia-sama, Yoshito-sama, I’ve come to pick you up.”

On weekends, a black limousine showed up at our house roughly thirty-three percent of the time. The man who stepped out was always the same distinguished old gentleman with silver-gray hair. Our destination was the Matsuki family estate.

And then the three of us would spend the afternoon playing together until sunset.

Except we wouldn’t.

Mia and Ayano were so lovey-dovey that I was starting to wonder if Strawberry Panic! had somehow become reality. Just the other day, they had even pressed their palms together and prayed, “May the bond between us last forever.”

Okay, this is absolutely the beginning of a yuri tower, right? And one of them is the successor to the Demon Lord while the other is an evil god.

This is seriously terrifying.

Hero, please do something about this!

…

Wait. I used to be the Hero.

Hiiiiii! Sorry. I got a little carried away there.

Anyway, there was no room for me between those two, and on top of that, I had been summoned by someone else.

“Ah, you’ve come again today. Good, good.”

Matsuki Sougen. Although he had long since retired from his position as head of the family, he remained one of the most influential elders of the Matsuki clan.

Apparently, he was turning sixty-eight this year. Sougen-san lived in an annex of the Matsuki estate, a traditional Japanese-style building with tatami floors. Bamboo groves surrounded the place, and from somewhere in the distance came the hollow clack of a shishi-odoshi.

Not that it mattered, but whenever I hear shishi-odoshi, I always feel like writing it as “獅子脅し”—“lion intimidation.” Apparently, the correct spelling is “鹿威し”—“deer intimidation.”

So, all you chūnibyō sufferers out there, go ahead and invent some ridiculously cool surname that uses the kanji for “deer” but reads it as *shishi*.

Go on. Add another entry to your collection of lifelong embarrassing memories.

“.…”

Sougen-san fixes a sharp gaze on me without saying a word.

An ordinary kindergartner would probably be in tears by now. Then again, this is the same guy who was beaming with a huge smile while pulling out a chair for Phyllis.

What flashes through my mind is the memory of him crawling on all fours back a few months ago. Having seen that, I can’t bring myself to feel any sense of dignity coming from him anymore.

 “Shall we play Mario Kart today, hmm?”

At last, Sougen-san muttered those words under his breath and switched on the Nintendo○ 64.

Apparently, despite his stern appearance, the old man was quite fond of video games. The problem was that he had no one to play with, which left him terribly bored. And yet, whenever his butlers or maids were around, he would insist,

“I’m only humoring the child because he keeps pestering me about playing games.”

The man had a rather complicated personality.

I’d become Sougen’s “gaming buddy” thanks to an introduction from Phyllis, but that’s a story for another time.

And so, the days passed peacefully.

I suppose I should also bring you up to speed on what happened to everyone else.

First, Phyllis.

She returned to her own base. Apparently, she owns an entire island somewhere near Britain, which she has surrounded with a magical barrier and turned into her personal territory. That’s where she spends most of her time conducting research. That said, she still comes by about once a month for my regular checkup, so it’s not like we’ve lost touch.

Next up is Shizuku Aitori.

As of this April, she’s a third-year middle school student, which means high school entrance exams are just around the corner. Apparently, she’s aiming for the senior high division of Matsuki Academy.

“If I pass, I’m moving to Matsuki City, so please, please come visit me!”

“That line is obviously a death flag for failing the exam.”

“Eeeh!? Can’t you pull some strings for me, Master? Like, say… get Sougen-sama to write me a recommendation letter…”

“No. Just study normally.”

Shizuku’s home was in the suburbs of Tokyo, which meant that under normal circumstances, telepathy couldn’t reach that far from my house. So I’d asked Phyllis for a little help, and she’d made us a special magic item. An obsidian pendant. As long as both people had one, they could communicate with each other over a distance roughly equivalent to the span of Honshu.

Originally, it had been meant as a precaution against retaliation from Makina Kaminagi and Aria El Samaria… but lately, we’d been using it for nothing more than “chitchat before bed.”

I’d spend about half an hour listening to Shizuku ramble about whatever was on her mind, encouraging her to do her best on her entrance exams, and lending an ear whenever she had some problem she wanted to talk about.

The Japanese exorcist community had finally started settling down around this time, but apparently there were still plenty of headaches to deal with.

One of the reasons was last year’s kidnapping incident.

According to the official version of what had happened—Phyllis Iris and Shizuku Aitori had rescued Ayano Matsuki from Herbert. My involvement, along with Mia’s, had been kept secret. Apparently, that was thanks to Phyllis and Sougen-san looking out for us.

Their reasoning was that,

“Getting involved with that world from such a young age will warp a child’s personality.”

And, as it turned out, the exorcist community really was a pretty rotten place.

Shizuku, who was publicly credited with helping resolve the incident, was treated as a “traitor who had outmaneuvered the other families,” and all she got in return was a flood of jealousy and resentment. Apparently, the hostility directed toward the Aitori family had actually become worse than it was before the incident.

What kind of demon-infested wasteland was the exorcist community, anyway?

It was supposed to be a profession where you drove demons away. Instead, the demons were living there. Not just living there, either. They’d practically taken up permanent residence.

“But thanks to the incident, we were able to establish connections with the Matsuki family. So when you look at the whole thing as a balance sheet, it comes out even.

“No, actually…”

Shizuku’s voice turned cheerful.

“The positives far outweigh the negatives.”

Worried about Shizuku putting on a brave face like that, I made sure to stay in frequent contact with her.

＊ ＊ ＊

The spring cherry blossoms scattered, leaving the branches covered in fresh green leaves. Summer arrived, with the sun blazing down from a cloudless sky.

My life didn’t really change all that much.

At kindergarten, I spent my days running around with Kousuke Orise, while the girls kept telling me, for some reason, that I was “so precious.”

On weekends, I headed over to the annex of the Matsuki estate and battled it out with Sougen-san over video games.

Before long, autumn arrived, and I turned five.

Ayano gave me a bright red handkerchief.

It wasn’t bloodstained, right?

When I asked her that but she answered with silence. Seriously creepy.

Mia, meanwhile, gave me a white scarf she had knitted together with Yuko-san.

Pure healing.

Yuko-san had done about ninety-five percent of the actual work, but from an older-brother perspective, it still counted as a hand-knitted scarf from my little sister.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I survived the winter thanks to that scarf.

Individual results may vary.

And then spring came around again. Just as the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom—

“They say, ‘If you want to capture the general, shoot his horse first.’ …I originally thought of you as nothing more than a tool for getting closer to Phyllis-sama.”

Sougen-san dropped a bombshell of a confession on me.

“But lately, I’ve found that I genuinely enjoy spending time with you, hmm… I’ve come to think of you as my own grandson.”

The sixty-nine-year-old man blushed bashfully.

What the hell was this?

I really didn’t think there was much demand for conquering Grandpa.

Especially not when my Old Man already had a harem.

What was going on with my life?

“Yoshito, if you’re willing, I was thinking perhaps you could become Ayano’s betroth—”

“GAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!?”

A merciless dropkick sent Sougen-san flying across the room. The culprit, of course, was not me.

“Long time no see, Yoshito.”

The person who suddenly burst into the tatami room was a beautiful silver-haired woman.

It was Phyllis Iris F. Crasia. Despite having just delivered a devastating kick, there wasn’t so much as a wrinkle in her pristine white dress.

“I have something to discuss with Sougen, so could you leave us alone for a bit?”

I had no reason to refuse.

Ahh, what a peaceful day.

As I left the annex, I could hear Sougen-san’s delighted screams echoing behind me.

…Come to think of it, I’d noticed something for just a split second. Sougen-san had actually thrown himself backward when he saw the dropkick, reducing the impact of the blow.

Maybe he was secretly some kind of martial arts master. There was definitely a setting like that lurking somewhere in his character sheet.

That was in March.

Another month passed.

It was now a night in April.

『Master, please help me…』

The nightly telepathic “chitchat before bed” had by now become a regular occurrence. Despite the fact that Shizuku’s entrance ceremony at Matsuki Academy’s senior high division was tomorrow, she sounded unusually gloomy.

I asked her what was wrong.

『There’s going to be a tournament for young exorcists soon, but because of various circumstances, I’m in a situation where I absolutely have to win…』

Oh?

『I’m terribly sorry, Master, but… could you disguise yourself as me and compete in my place?』

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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“I’m not omniscient or omnipotent, you know. So you’ll have to forgive me if there are a few things I’m not entirely sure about.”

With that preface, Matsuki-san began to explain.

Apparently—

* Originally, Phyllis had been conducting research into summoning supernatural beings from other worlds.

* Herbert, bitter after being rejected, stole that research and fled to Japan.

* The summoning required a sacrifice, and the closer the sacrifice’s “wavelength” was to that of a supernatural being (i.e. an evil god), the better.

“They said my compatibility rate with the evil god was one hundred percent. Makes sense, right? I mean, I’m the evil god herself.”

If I had to put it another way… it was like entering a “Look-Alike Contest,” only due to some administrative blunder, the judges accidentally handed the prize to the actual person.

I had no idea what they were planning to do once the real deal showed up. It was just too ridiculous.

Herbert, however, had apparently failed to realize any of this. He kidnapped Matsuki-san and proceeded with the summoning ritual.

“I didn’t really want to draw attention to myself, so I was just watching things play out. But I never expected Yoshito-kun to come rushing in to save me. I was really happy you see.”

Matsuki-san flashed me an angelic smile. (Except she’s an evil god.)

“So, when things started looking a little dangerous, I figured I’d lend a hand. Good grief.”

Hmm. There was something familiar about the way Matsuki-san operated.

I’d seen it somewhere before.

What was it…?

Oh.

Right.

An old-school fanfiction trope.

The protagonist gets accidentally hit by a truck because of some mistake on the part of a god, and as an apology, he gets reincarnated into the world of an anime or light novel—with a bunch of cheat abilities thrown in for good measure.

He insists he doesn’t want anything to do with the original story, yet somehow keeps sticking his nose into everything while muttering, “Good grief.”

Are you that Star Platinum guy or something?

And then, as he goes around helping one person after another, he somehow ends up stealing all the heroines away from the original protagonist and building himself a harem.

So… Am I one of his potential love interests now?

If she patted me on the head, was I supposed to blush, turn bright red, and automatically join the Matsuki Harem?

Yeah. As if.

As for how Herbert himself ended up becoming the sacrifice—

“I think it was after Yoshito-kun knocked Herbert unconscious. A little girl came along and tampered with the spell formation. That’s probably what caused it.”

A little girl…

That must have been Aria El Samaria.

“She was muttering something like, ‘The plan has deviated from the expected course, so we’ll proceed to Plan B.’”

I see. If there was a Plan B, then there must have been a Plan A, too.

Time to do a little deduction. Most likely, under the original Plan A, Matsuki-san was supposed to be the sacrifice. But then Herbert got hit with my Mind Hack, rendering him incapable of carrying out the ritual.

In the event of an unforeseen complication like that, they must have been prepared to switch over to Plan B. There was just one problem. Herbert himself didn’t seem to know that Plan B even existed.

Even after looking through his memories, I couldn’t find any indication that he’d ever had contact with either Reona or Aria. Most likely, Herbert had been manipulated by the mastermind without even realizing it.

And according to Reona, that mastermind was Makina Kaminagi. One of Old Man’s mistresses. Makina had apparently been pulling Herbert’s strings from the shadows while, at the same time, gathering freelancers together with the intention of slaughtering the entire lot of them.

What a farce. Though, in the end, I was the one who brought everyone back to life.

So what, exactly, had Makina been trying to accomplish?

I couldn’t believe her goal was simply to reduce the number of capable freelancers. But there just wasn’t enough information to say for sure.

…Guess I’ll have to put my hopes on the “bug” and “hidden camera” I planted in Aria’s mind.

＊ ＊ ＊ 

After finishing her explanation of how the whole incident had unfolded, Matsuki-san suddenly said that she wanted to talk to me alone.

Naturally, I expected Mia to object. But instead—

“All right. See you later, Oniisan.”

She simply got up and left the room.

Although, just before she disappeared, she sent me a telepathic message in a strangely seductive voice:

『When we get home, let’s play like we did the other day, okay?』

She was probably talking about what happened in bed yesterday.

I feel like our relationship is developing in a decidedly unhealthy direction.

Once Mia was gone, only Matsuki-san and I remained in the room. Outside the window, a flock of sparrows circled through the sky, chirping away. I sometimes saw them doing the same thing in front of the station.

What the hell were they even trying to accomplish?

“Yoshito-kun.”

Matsuki-san called my name softly, almost as though she were whispering it to herself.

“Is. Your. Ma-gic. Po-wer. O-kay?”

It was the sort of question asked by someone who already knew the answer.

She must have figured it out a long time ago.

“It’s pretty bad.”

So there was no point in trying to hide it from her.

“Ever since I transformed into the Black Knight, the “Mud” has been continuously eating away at my magic. …What’s happening to me?”

My current magical capacity had fallen to one-fiftieth of what it had been before the kidnapping incident. It was like I had a hole in my magic tank, preventing it from ever filling beyond a certain point.

If my maximum MP was 100, then I was permanently stuck at around 2/100. Of course, magic naturally regenerated over time. But every bit of that regeneration was simply being siphoned away by the Mud. At this level of magical power, something like resurrecting the dead with a Time Spell would probably be impossible.

“How should I explain this?”

Matsuki-san rested a finger against her chin and fell into thought, humming softly.

“It’s a little application of the Time Spell.”

“I see. I don’t understand at all.”

“Think back to yesterday, when you transformed into the Black Knight. Your magic had recovered all the way to its maximum, right?”

She paused.

“Where do you think all that magic came from?”

The way she phrased it, combined with that line about it being an “application of the Time Spell”…

The answer that came to mind was a little hard to believe.

“Did you take the magic from versions of yourself in the past or future?”

“Yep. That’s exactly right. That’s how I—and the other gods—keep our magic reserves topped up, too. …Though it’s as natural to us as breathing, so even if you asked me to explain the details, I’m not sure I could.”

In other words, gods could casually transcend space and time as part of their daily routine.

Amazing. As expected of a god.

In other words…

“So when my magic was drained several times before I fought Herbert…”

“Most likely, the future Yoshito-kun was taking it through the Mud.”

What the hell?

All this time, I’d been dumping various troublesome problems on my future self, but I never expected the backlash to come at me in quite this form.

Wait. Hold on a second.

Something about this doesn’t make sense.

“I lost to Herbert because I ran out of magic, and then, with your help, I transformed into the Black Knight. …But if my future self hadn’t taken my magic away, what would have happened in my fight with Herbert?”

“Knowing you, Yoshito-kun, I think you probably would’ve beaten him easily.”

Matsuki-san stated it with absolute confidence.

And that was where things started getting really confusing.

Let’s see…

Future me loses to Herbert.

　→ Matsuki-san helps me transform into the Black Knight.

　　→ In the process, I take magic from my past self.

　　　→ My past self runs out of magic and loses to Herbert.

　　　　→ *Loop.*

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

And if I’d had enough magic in the first place, I would’ve been able to defeat Herbert right then and there…

Hmm… My brain is starting to hurt.

“You really shouldn’t overthink it. Things will work out somehow. Or, as I like to call it, whatever happens, happens.”

Matsuki-san gave me a soft smile. She was so ridiculously cute that my heart skipped a beat.

Whatever happens, happens. Man, I am such a pushover.

“Then let me ask you something else. What exactly is this Mud, anyway?”

“You want to know? It might surprise you quite a bit.”

I wish she’d stop teasing and just tell me already.

“It’s the ‘raw material of a god.’ When it matures, it turns into something like me or the other evil gods. But for some reason, it’s fused with you, Yoshito-kun, with absolutely perfect compatibility. It’s practically on the level of ‘sacrifice me to summon myself.’”

“…Evil gods? Seriously?”

That sounded pretty damn dangerous.

“Don’t worry. If you weren’t compatible with it, the Mud would eat you up. But your compatibility is a perfect match. Practically a miracle.”

Ah, right. That sounded like the title of that travel show they still aired in the evening—

Wait. She meant Pittanko Kan★Kan. Incidentally, I’m from the generation where hearing “Pittan” immediately makes me think of *Mojipittan*. Now I want some bean sprouts.

“Besides, the Mud seems to have settled in as a part of you. So if anything happens, I’ll be there to help.”

“…Sorry for causing you trouble.”

“It’s okay. Besides…”

She paused.

“I’m happy.”

“Happy?”

The unexpected choice of words made me ask again.

Matsuki-san answered with a radiant smile, her expression blooming like a flower.

“Because now you’ll never be able to leave me again, okay?”

＊ ＊ ＊

After that, I left Matsuki-san’s room. But I didn’t get to go straight home.

Apparently, her grandfather—the elder of the Matsuki family, Matsuki Sougen—wanted to see me. He wanted to thank me personally for saving his granddaughter.

I was escorted by a twenty-eight-year-old unmarried maid, and this time we headed outside the main residence. She led me to a traditional Japanese-style annex.

“Oh, I’m glad you came, young man.”

Matsuki Sougen was, as his name suggested, an imposing old man with a stern face.

But then—

“I’ve been waiting for you, Yoshito.”

For some reason, Phyllis was in the room too. And she was sitting comfortably on top of Sougen-san, who was down on all fours. For some reason, she was also holding a riding crop.

What is this, some kind of BDSM dungeon?

No, isn’t this elder abuse?

“I’m older than he is, so there’s no problem.”

Ah, right. Phyllis was over two thousand—No, I mean, several hundred years old.

“Well, well. As always, Phyllis-sama is remarkably light. Almost soothing on these old bones.”

What the hell kind of relationship do these two have?

The sight was so absurd that I nearly broke into a fake Kansai accent just to yell at them. “What the hell is this?!”

I wanted to go home. I had plans to watch that Sha○n DVD and writhe in agony over the painful memories of my long-lost chūnibyō phase.

…

Come to think of it, that was basically hell, too.

Whether he knew what I was thinking or not, Sougen-san began delivering an extraordinarily long speech of gratitude.

Naturally, he remained on all fours the entire time.

There’s a place called Jötunheim in Norse mythology, isn’t there? The world of ice and frost, if I remember correctly.

Right. That was exactly the atmosphere in this room.

Why, exactly, was I being forced to sit here and watch someone else’s BDSM session?

More importantly, were all of Phyllis’s connections like this?

…

Best not to think about it.

There are some things in this world that are better left untouched.

That was something I learned on a certain four-year-old’s evening in this strange little life of mine.

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

—I’m sorry, Naoki. The experiment was a failure this time…

—It’s all right, Makina. Tell me about the damage.

—It’s the worst of the worst. The summoning failed, every freelancer survived, and Aria has had her magic sealed, rendering her useless. Under the circumstances, I have no choice but to disembowel myself in apology—

—It’s fine. Everyone makes mistakes.

—Th-Thank you. You really are kind, Naoki.

—I care about you, Makina. What happened to Reona?

—That one was the only person who came out of this looking completely refreshed… I really don’t understand what goes on inside a madwoman’s head.

—Teenage girls are complicated. Anyway, what caused the failure?

—This is rather difficult to say, but…

—Yoshito, I presume.

—How did you know?

—A hunch, I suppose. Yoshito and I are simply incompatible. I’ve felt that way ever since he stole Suika from me, but I suppose that confirms it. Stop all of Plan Two. Erase every trace we’ve left behind. Let’s spend about three years vacationing on a tropical island. Sound good?

—Why, Naoki?

—To make sure Yoshito can’t get involved.

—But he’s still only four years old.

—That boy is far more intelligent than he looks. We can’t underestimate him. If I were to put it in old-fashioned terms, I’d call him “a precocious prodigy blessed by the protection of demons and divine spirits.”

—Then what shall we do about Plan One?—Oh, that’s simple. We just need to make another child. Isn’t that right, Makina?

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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Now, I had regained the full strength I had possessed at the peak of my previous life. And along with it, the emotions from back then came flooding back.

—The sorrow of being rejected by my master.

—Jealousy toward all the couples in the world.

—Hatred toward handsome men.

Down with the lovey-dovey masses. There is no mercy!

Hmm? Wait.

If that was the case, shouldn’t I start by killing myself?

After all—

1. My stepsister has feelings for me.

2. A girl with a chuunibyou streak and the kind of figure you’d expect from an eroge heroine calls me “Master”.

3. I have 【Charmed】 a witch who’s two thousand… no, only a few hundred years old.

4. I’m good friends—and murder buddies—with a beautiful shrine maiden swordswoman. (I’ll ignore the fact that my sense of ethics has completely collapsed.)

And that’s not even getting into Mizuka-san (cat ears) and Manya (succubus), both of whom I’m deeply involved with.

Hmm. By any reasonable definition, I’m a member of the lovey-dovey masses.

And then there’s Herbert.

Just look at the poor guy. Not only was he rejected by Phyllis, he got psychologically beaten to a pulp and eventually stopped being human altogether.

All right!

I’m on Herbert’s side.

I’m going to beat the ever-loving crap out of myself.

…

Eh? Wait a minute.

Calm down.

My thoughts were obviously heading in a very strange direction just now.

I’m supposed to rescue Mia and Phyllis from Herbert. So why the hell am I siding with Herbert?!

This is bad. If I stay transformed for too long, I’ll become consumed by hatred for the lovey-dovey masses and end up cutting my own head off. What kind of drawback is this? 

I know that overwhelming power is supposed to come with a price and limitations. It’s the classic trope. But couldn’t they have given me something a little cooler? At this rate…. even if I keep resisting while using mana, I’d probably have an activity limit of around three minutes. Like some kind of Ultra hero.

Come to think of it, wasn’t the whole “Ultraman can only fight on Earth for three minutes” thing actually not part of the original series? 

As far as I remember, all the original series established was that the Color Timer would start flashing when his energy was running low. The actual three-minute time limit came later, starting with the series after next—the one where the protagonist’s girlfriend gets run over and killed by a car.

Uh-, sorry for the completely useless trivia.

“What the hell are youuuuuuuuu?!”

The Creepy Vine Man—or rather, Herbert—screamed.

Countless vines whipped through the air, rushing toward me in an attempt to capture me.

“《Time Spell》—《You, Anti, Shall Not Defy Time: Reverse Clock》—《Enchant: And》—”

But it was pointless.

“—《Light Spirit Spell》—《My Precious Halo Shall Split the Darkness Into Eight: Ultra-Man-Like Technique》!”

What I unleashed was a ring-shaped blade of light—a chakram. A staple weapon for any proper chuunibyou, right alongside the segmented sword. The rapidly spinning blades of light tore through the vines one after another.

At the same time—

“《Flame Spell》—《My Blade Is the Phoenix’s Purifying and Scorching Vanguard: Blade》!”

I drew my sword.

The same crude, broad-bladed sword I had used back then. Flames engulfed the blade.

You see techniques like this all the time. Like Shishio-sama. Or Sh—well, never mind.

I charged forward and cut once. In a single stroke, I freed Mia and Phyllis from the vines.

They’d both been left dangling in midair, so I caught them securely as they fell.

“…Oniisan…?”

Mia seemed bewildered.

Probably because my appearance had changed so drastically.

“It looks like you managed to draw out the conceptual information that had been stored inside you.”

Phyllis, on the other hand, seemed to have reached her own conclusion. Incidentally, her white dress had been thoroughly disheveled from being wrapped up in the vines. Her right shoulder was exposed, and the upper half of her chest was almost shamelessly on display.

“…Want to touch?”

Phyllis gave me a seductive little smile.

“If you let me examine what’s underneath that armor, I might allow you a little.”

It was an incredibly tempting offer.

But now was hardly the time.

“Why are you hurting meeeeeee?! Why?!”

Herbert shrieked hysterically. Several vines twisted together, forming a gigantic arm.

It swung at me. I couldn’t dodge. Mia and Phyllis were right behind me after all.

I lowered my stance and took the blow head-on. The fist was enormous—large enough that it looked like it could crush someone my size without any trouble.

But—

“UAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH?!”

The one who screamed was Herbert.

His fist collapsed in on itself.

The reason was this spell:

—《Reflection Spell》—《I Am Protected by the Black Elephant’s Blessing: Hit Me and You’ll Die, Got It?》

In other words, physical reflection. Its effective duration was exactly one second.

I took no damage whatsoever. The impact was simply reflected straight back at Herbert.

“IT HURTS! IT HURTS, IT HURTS SOOOOO MUUUUCH!”

Herbert writhed in agony.

The halo-like chakram I had unleashed earlier struck him again, adding to his torment. It had already shredded his limbs, robbing him of any means of escape.

That said, once someone has been offered up to an evil god or its minions, they are beyond saving. Restoring them to their former self is impossible, even with “Temporal Magic.”

Well…I had already wrestled with that particular dilemma in my past life.

“Gravity Magic—”

Just as I was about to deliver the finishing blow…

“…Yoshito, let me do it.”

Phyllis spoke up.

“I don’t know the full details, but Herbert is in a situation where he has to die, isn’t he?”

“…Yeah.”

“Then I’ll do it. Let me. …Otherwise, I think I’d regret it.”

Perhaps this was her way of taking responsibility for her apprentice. Herbert’s “Temporal Magic” had already been neutralized. Phyllis’s magic would be more than enough to end his life.

“Goodbye, Herbert. You were a bit lackluster as a man, and as an apprentice… well… actually, you were lackluster there, too.”

Come on. At least lie to the guy and tell him, “You were a fine disciple.”

“Defying one’s master is punishable by death. That is the law of our world. But if you want to resent me, then go ahead. —《Tenfold, Twentyfold: Funeral Flame Dragon Cremation》.”

A dragon of flame roared as it mercilessly burned Herbert’s body to nothing. The vines went up in flames and crumbled away. 

And as they burned, Herbert left behind one final statement:

“If only I’d known this would happen… I should’ve taken advantage of that girl I kidnapped while I had the chance…!”

What a terrible final testament.

A mama’s boy and a lolicon?

What is he, some three-times-faster red guy?

＊ ＊ ＊

Herbert—deemed lackluster both as a man and as a disciple—vanished, leaving behind a lingering, uneasy feeling in our hearts.

＊ ＊ ＊

I dispelled my transformation into the Black Knight. I was reaching the limit of my ability to suppress the urge to kill myself.

The armor faded away in an instant, and I returned to the body of an ordinary four-year-old.

“…?!”

The moment it happened, the mana that had been nearly full was completely drained. It happened in the blink of an eye.

Was it some kind of backlash from the transformation?

My consciousness began to fade. There was no way I could stay standing.

“O-Oniisan?! Hang in there! Stay with me!”

Just before I hit the ground, Mia caught me in her arms.

And that was where my memory cut out.

—

When I next came to, I was lying in my bed at home. The ceiling seemed awfully close.

“Is this… home…?”

I rubbed my eyes and looked around. The red glow of the setting sun streamed through the window.

It must have been evening.

“Ah… Good morning, Oniisan…”

Something warm stirred beside me.

“Mmm…”

She rubbed her face against my side. She’s probably still half-asleep.

What had happened after that? How had I ended up back home?

About thirty minutes later, Mia finally woke up properly, so I asked her what had happened.

“Phyllis-san took care of everything afterward. We should go thank her later.”

Apparently, Phyllis had not only carried the two of us all the way home, but had also explained the situation to the exorcists who had been at the scene and reported everything to the Department of Divinities’ Affairs—the people who had apparently been too busy squabbling internally at the Imperial Household Agency to do anything themselves.

As for the finer details, she had apparently crushed any further questioning with the connections she’d built up over the years.

Was Phyllis, perhaps, a much more formidable person than I’d realized?

I was grateful for everything she’d done. At the same time, I had to admit that Kijima had some serious nerve to pick a fight with someone like her. 

Incidentally, Kijima had been handed over to the Department of Divinities’ Affairs. They were apparently still deciding what to do with him.

“Also, about you bringing those exorcists back to life with the 《Time Spell》…”

Thinking back on it now, I suppose I may have acted a little recklessly. It’s not exactly a particularly convenient spell, either. At most, it can rewind things by about an hour, and if the soul itself has already fallen apart, there’s nothing I can do to save them.

Physical death and the death of the soul.

Those two things really ought to be considered separately.

“Apparently, Phyllis-san used hypnosis on them to cover things up. But she said we should be careful, since there might still be people who remember what happened.”

“Got it. Thanks for telling me everything.”

I thanked her and gently patted her on the head.

“~♪”

Mia happily clung to my right arm.

“Hey, hey, Oniisan.”

“What is it?”

“I gave you some of my mana back in the cave, so I was thinking… maybe you could give me a little something in return?”

“I’m still in kindergarten. I barely get any allowance.”

“Not a present or anything. Just, uhm…”

“Just?”

“I want you to hug me. A nice, big hug. Like a squeeze.”

“…Like this?”

It wasn’t like before, with the futon between us. I am holding Mia’s small body directly in my arms. Mia, too, wrapped her arms around my waist. Perhaps she was being unusually clingy because we had just barely survived a brush with death.

We were there together in the same futon. It felt as though our body heat was melting together and mingling. 

I found myself thinking that if Shuji-san or Yuko-san saw us like this, they’d surely get the wrong idea…

Tac. Tac. Tac. Footsteps were approaching.

Could they be coming to check on us?

Then again, neither of my parents knew where we’d been or what we’d been doing last night.

I wondered how that had been explained to them. Mia said nothing, nor did she make any move to let go of me.

Tac. Tac. Tac.

The footsteps drew closer. I could feel my heart beginning to race.

—Creak… click.

Thank goodness.

I didn’t know whether it was Shuji-san or Yuko-san, but apparently one of them had gone into their own room. As I was breathing a sigh of relief,

“Oniisan.”

Mia whispered, her cheeks flushed crimson.

“……That was kind of fun, wasn’t it?”

She had a mischievous, devilish little smile on her face.

I had the distinct feeling that we’d just opened a door that probably should have stayed closed.

—

Incidentally.

Apparently, Mia had explained to our parents, “Brother and I are both feeling kind of sluggish. Maybe we have the flu.”

It was February, so it wasn’t exactly an implausible excuse. Thanks to that, nobody found it particularly suspicious that we’d spent the entire day sleeping.

That night.

We slipped through the gate beneath the bed and headed over to Phyllis’s apartment.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t there. Maybe she was busy dealing with the aftermath.

The following afternoon, Mia and I were watching a movie in the living room. Shuji-san is watching with us. The final part of the live-action Rurouni Kenshin series, The Legend Ends.

Oh. Shishio was pretty impressive in the original manga, but this version really nailed that final-boss vibe, too.

“I kinda want my own group like the Ten Swords…”

Mia said that as the end credits rolled.

Just to clarify, the Ten Swords are basically the same sort of thing as the “Four Heavenly Kings”, the “Seven Heroes”” or the “Eight Princes”.

Okay, maybe not the Eight Princes.

Either way, the fact that her attention immediately went there was probably proof that she really was the successor to the Demon King.

――――This movie would later become one of the indirect causes that led us to create something resembling a secret society.

After the movie ended, we decided to head to GE○ with Shuji-san.

What should we watch next? The anime version of Rurouni Kenshin had that Reminiscence OVA that everyone seemed to rave about. I’d avoided it because the artwork was different from the TV series, but since we were here, maybe I should give it a try.

Except someone had already rented it.

What a shame.

As I stood there looking disappointed, Mia came over and said,

“Hey, hey, this looks kind of like the technique Brother used yesterday, doesn’t it?”

She held up the DVD case. A girl with flame-colored hair and burning red eyes stood there, wielding a sword engulfed in flames.

The melon-pan-obsessed girl with the famous “Annoying, annoying, annoying!” routine, voiced by Kugyu.

……Whoa. Stop.

If I keep going, people are going to figure out what kind of person I was back when I lived in Japan in my previous life.

I’m just an ordinary guy who knows a little about Gunda○ and ○ltraman, okay?

That was the sort of monologue running through my head when, before I knew it, Shuji-san had already paid for everything.

Oh no. He’d actually rented Sha○a.

Well, at least it wasn’t some moe-moe harem anime.

Still, I was mortified. Was I seriously supposed to watch this in front of my parents? More importantly, I have certain dark chapters of my past that I would very much like to forget.

Stuff from that other world.

Like the time I used 《Time Spell》 to regenerate myself and actually chanted:

《I am lost between midnight, today, and tomorrow, wandering eternally in the space between, unable to reach anywhere――where am I?》

Ugh. Overly bold self-interpretation is the privilege of youth.

I want to die. My spirit thoroughly battered, I returned home.

Honestly, this was harder to endure than my battle with Herbert.

We left the New Matsuki Station-front store and walked back through the residential neighborhood. We were just about to reach home when I spotted a black limousine.

Huh. It was exactly the sort of car you’d expect some filthy rich family to own. Could there really be some high-born young lady living around here?

Wait. Hey.

Isn’t that parked in front of the Kirasawa family’s house?

Wondering what the hell was going on, I approached the car together with Shuji-san and Mia. Standing beside it was an elderly butler in a black suit and white gloves. The moment he spotted us, he gave us a polite bow. Then he introduced himself as the butler of the Matsuki family.

“Please forgive us for the sudden visit. Our young lady, Ayano, has expressed a strong desire to meet you. If it would not be too much trouble, would you be willing to come with us?”

By the way, the full name of the kindergarten I attended was Oomichi Kindergarten, affiliated with the Private Matsuki Academy. And the school where Shuji-san works is the Private Matsuki Academy High School. And, as it happened, the Matsuki family was one of the most prominent families throughout Matsuki City.

So, yeah. There was no way we could refuse.

“P-Please wait just a moment…”

It had been a long time since I’d seen Shuji-san, who was usually so composed, actually panic like this.

Mia and I were both made to change into blouses, while Shuji-san and Yuko-san changed into their finest going-out clothes. Then the entire family climbed into the limousine.

“Y-Yoshito.”

Maybe he was nervous, because Shuji-san’s voice was trembling—something I almost never heard from him.

“Are you…close with the young lady of the Matsuki family?”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t really told my parents much about what went on at kindergarten. I suppose this was the consequence of the lack of parent-child communication in modern society.

“Y-Yeah.”

As for me, I was actually stiff with nerves myself. And it wasn’t because I’d been invited to the home of some rich family or anything like that.

I had remembered. The voice that had echoed inside my head, shortly before and after I transformed into the Black Knight yesterday.

――I wish you’d stop calling me “Foie gras”.

――Sacrificing me to summon me… I really don’t get it.

――The person they’re trying to summon is standing right in front of them, and nobody’s noticed. Kind of funny, isn’t it?

That was Ayano Matsuki.

What the hell was this? Was I about to face the true final boss?

Then again, she had sounded pretty friendly, so maybe everything would be fine.

Or maybe it wouldn’t. Alright that’s it. There was no point overthinking it.

I’d just handle things like I always did. Leave it all to fate.

Good luck, future me.

……She isn’t going to come back from the future and get revenge on me someday, is she?

The Matsuki family mansion stood in the hills north of Matsuki City.

Why did rich people always seem to want to live up high?

Maybe it was for protection against floods and tsunamis.

The limousine passed through the grand double gates and entered the estate.

We drove past a landscaped garden complete with a fountain, eventually arriving at an entrance that looked more like the lobby of a luxury hotel. This was where Mia and I parted ways with our parents.

We were escorted to Ms. Matsuki’s room.

“Oniisan…”

Mia looked a little uneasy.

I had already told her through telepathy that “Ayano Matsuki = that Evil God.”

That was probably why she’s a bit tense.

“It’s okay. No matter what happens, I’ll protect you.”

I took her hand.

That seemed to reassure Mia a little.

“Aww, how nice…”

The maid who had been escorting us muttered wistfully.

“I’m already twenty-eight, and I’m still single… sniffle, sniffle, wuu――――”

Being told something like that by a four-year-old was, well… awkward. At the very least, there was one thing I could say. “Sniffle, sniffle” is a bit much for someone almost 30. 

The route through the mansion was surprisingly complicated. I wasn’t sure we’d ever find our way back to the entrance. The hallways were decorated with all sorts of avant-garde paintings I didn’t understand, along with vases that looked like they cost a fortune.

As expected of the rich.

The Kirasawa family seemed to be doing fairly well thanks to the influence of my 【Good Fortune】, but they were still nowhere near the Matsuki family.

As I wondered idly whether I’d ever get to live somewhere like this, we finally arrived at Matsuki-san’s room.

And so, we found ourselves face-to-face with Ayano Matsuki—the Evil God I had supposedly erased from existence completely in my previous life.

She bowed deeply and said,

“Long time no see, Mia-chan. Or should I say, Mia Gransfield? From the looks of it, I guess you’ve been told who I really am.

If that’s the case, then this should be easy. Mia-chan, don’t you want to avenge yourself?

I’m incredibly weakened in my current state. With Yoshito-kun’s power, you could probably destroy me without much trouble.

This isn’t a trap or some kind of scheme. I’m telling you the truth. Even though it was something my followers did, I still ruined your life.

So it’s only natural that you’d hate me, and I think it’s only right that I pay the price. I won’t complain.

Mia-chan, what are you going to do?”

Matsuki-san asked in a tone that almost sounded like she was provoking her. There was something about the way she said it that made her seem almost eager to be punished.

As for Mia…

She closed her eyes and thought for a while.

Then, softly, she said,

“Before we talk about whether to kill you or not, there’s something you need to do first, isn’t there, Matsuki-san?”

“Are you talking about compensation? Money or something?”

“No. That’s not it.”

Mia shook her head.

“Ayano-chan, you go to kindergarten too, so your teacher must have taught you this. [When you do something bad, you say, I’m sorry.]”

When she put it that way, she was absolutely right. It was common sense.

But somehow, watching from the sidelines, I’d completely forgotten about it.

Maybe I’d been too fixated on the fact that Ayano Matsuki was the reincarnation of an Evil God.

Apparently, Matsuki-san had made the same mistake.

“Um, well…”

Looking somewhat bewildered, she said,

“……I’m sorry for using you as my vessel.”

“You mustn’t do anything that troublesome again, okay, Ayano-chan?”

Mia gently scolded her.

“Then that settles it. We’re friends again. Okay?”

She held out her right hand.

……Could it be that Mia was actually kind of a big deal?

“Is that really okay?”

Matsuki-san was suddenly much more hesitant than before.

“Because what happened was something your followers did on their own, right?”

“That’s true, but I’m an Evil God, and――”

“Are you planning to do something bad?”

“Well, not particularly…”

“Then let’s be friends.”

Mia reached out and took Matsuki-san’s hand herself.

“I don’t really understand all the circumstances, but you were reincarnated as a human, right?”

“I suppose that’s technically what happened.”

“Then I think it’s fine. More importantly, be my friend. I don’t have anyone at kindergarten I can really talk to, and honestly, it’s not that much fun.”

“Ah, right. You’re always all by yourself, Mia-chan. Where do you even eat lunch? In the bathroom?”

“……Okay, you really do need to be erased!”

Mia pounced on her playfully.

“Eeeek! Soooomeone save meee!”

Matsuki-san seemed to be having fun, too.

Considering that one of them had been the other’s vessel in their previous lives, maybe they were actually a pretty good match personality-wise.

――After that, Matsuki-san told us the whole story of what had happened this time.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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What was that earthquake just now?

Ever since then, for some reason, a dull ache had been throbbing in my right side. That was exactly where I had absorbed the 《Faceless Mud》.

…

Huh?

Why do my cheeks feel strangely cold?

The ground is awfully close.

No—wait.

I was lying on the ground.

When did I fall?

Did I pass out from running out of mana?

That’s strange though. I could have sworn I still had enough mana left for at least one more fight.

Thump!

My right side suddenly throbbed violently. And with it, my consciousness began to fade—

“Oniisan!? Hey, Oniisan, stay with me!”

I came to at the sound of someone’s voice. Forcing open my heavy eyelids, I found myself staring into the familiar face of Mia.

“What happened, Oniisan? Are you hurt somewhere?!”

“Probably just out of mana.…”

When I told her that, Mia nodded.

“—《Supplemental Transfer Spell: My Spirit Energy Is Your Nectar of Vitality, So Draw It Forth》.”

She chanted the spell and took my hand. A gentle warmth slowly spread from the point where our hands touched.

Supplemental Transfer Spell. Just as the name implied, it is a magic that allows one person to share their mana with another.

The transfer was painfully slow, but little by little, my consciousness began to clear.

“Thanks. You saved me, Mia. …But why are you here?”

Wasn’t she supposed to be outside, treating the wounded?

“I had a bad feeling. It was really vague, but… I felt like you were in danger, Oniisan…”

“I see. The power of love, huh?”

I answered jokingly.

Mia nodded.

“Maybe. Because I really do love you, Oniisan—my Hero.”

She suddenly dropped that on me.

“…”

“…”

“…Don’t say something like that and then get embarrassed yourself.”

“…………You’re the one blushing, Hero.”

Damn. What the hell were we doing, getting caught up in some cheesy romantic-comedy scene?

I had managed to drive Reona and Aria back, but it was still far too early for an epilogue.

That earthquake from earlier was bothering me, too. I needed to hurry and go after Phyllis.

“Hero, think you can move?”

“Yeah.”

I slowly pushed myself upright.

Then—

“Seriously, you can drop the ‘Hero’ thing now.”

The thought had suddenly occurred to me, so I said it aloud.

“If someone else heard you calling me that, they’d wonder what the hell was going on.”

“Then what should I call you?”

“Just ‘Oniisan’ like usual. Besides, why did you suddenly start calling me ‘Hero’ in the first place?”

“Why not? I just felt like it. It’s a mood.”

I really didn’t understand a woman’s heart.

Still—

“Then call me by my name. Seriously, being called ‘Hero’ in this world is… well, it makes my skin crawl.”

Back in the other world, it had been an honorable title. But this world was different, and so were the circumstances. Nobody exactly went around using the word “hero” in everyday conversation here. And if they did, it would probably be in the sense of “Yeah right, hero, lol.”—Something meant to mock whoever was being called one.

“Your name… y-you mean your first name, right?”

“Yeah. You remember it, don’t you?”

“Of course. It’s the same as in my previous life, right? Uhm…”

Mia hesitated for a moment, looking distinctly embarrassed.

Then, somewhat shyly, she finally said—

“Y-Yoshito… …Oniisan.”

“Drop the ‘Oniisan.’ Try again.”

I gave her a hard time on purpose, rejecting her first attempt.

“Take two. Start!”

“Huh? Whaaat?! …Y-yo, yo yo yo—”

“Yocchan Squid?”

For the record, I like the spicy version with the winning lottery ticket inside. Back when I was in elementary school, me and my three other friends had pooled our money and bought a fifty-pack in a glass jar for a school field trip. The snack budget was capped at 300 yen per person, so 300 × 4 = 1,200 yen. It was a perfect plan, right? But for some reason, the teacher got angry with us. I still don’t understand why.

“Y-yo… Yoshi… Yoshi—”

Mia was still hesitating. She kept going “yoshi, yoshi…” though. Was she trying to pat me on the head or something?

Eventually—

“…Yoshito.”

At last, she managed to say my name. Her cheeks were even redder than before, practically the color of a freshly boiled octopus.

“Mia.”

When I called her name in return—

“Fwah?!”

Boom! Mia’s face exploded. Well, metaphorically speaking of course.

“Uu… auuu…”

I watched Mia flounder in embarrassment as I got to my feet. I was still on the verge of running completely out of mana, but at least I was doing better than before.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

“O-Okay.”

We started walking, still holding hands. Mia’s left hand, my right.

The [Supplemental Transfer Spell] is still active. Neither of us said a word. The only sound echoing through the cave was the steady rhythm of our footsteps.  It wasn’t long before we reached the deepest part of the cave.

There was a door.

A massive double door, completely out of place in a cave.

“Oniisan, is that…?”

Mia is pointing at the emblem carved into the door.

How should I describe it?

An “eye caught between two shells” might give you the right image. It was the symbol of an evil god I had supposedly erased from existence in my previous life. If I were to write its name in Japanese, it would probably come out something like「ゼェャダフォァグィレャ」. It was an absolute nightmare to pronounce, so I figured I might as well call him the “Evil God Foie Gras.”

Apparently, there were two other gods of the same kind, though their names hadn’t been passed down. Probably “Evil God Caviar” and “Evil God Truffle.” You know, going by the whole “world’s three great delicacies” theme.

“…Man, now I’m getting hungry.”

“This is no time to fool around.”

I got scolded.

Sorry.

“The door’s locked with magic. …Wait here for a moment. I’ll open it.”

Mia placed her hand against the door. She was probably using the 《Unlocking Spell》. It took her a little over ten seconds. Not a bad time at all.

We pushed the doors open and stepped inside. The chamber was laid out like an altar, and an unexpected tragedy was unfolding before us.

“Phyllis-sama, why won’t you accept my feelings?! If you wish to experience love, then your disciple, who adores you with all his heart, is right here!”

“But Herbert, you’re so boring. You’re not my type. And on top of that, just because I rejected you, you retaliated by stealing someone else’s research and kidnapped a little girl. How many negative points are you planning to rack up?”

Phyllis is gouging Herbert with her words like knives. No, at this point, she is practically stabbing him over and over.

“But… I just wanted you to notice me—”

“I’m the sort of person who’ll use any means necessary to achieve my goals. But at the very least, I don’t use methods that directly contradict those goals. Or perhaps, you wanted me to find this kind of stupidity adorable? Don’t dump your mother complex on me.”

Whoa. Phyllis really had zero mercy. 

Come on, being called a mama’s boy is a critical hit against any man. Cut the guy some slack.

“Uuuh… Uaaaaaaaaahhhhhh—!”

Oh, great. Now Herbert is crying.

“Phyllis, I think that’s enough…”

I couldn’t stand watching any longer, so I stepped in to stop her.

“Oh, Yoshito. You’re late. And Mia came too?”

“Yes. I just had a bad feeling you see…”

In a sense, Mia’s intuition had been dead-on. If we hadn’t shown up, Phyllis might have continued her verbal assault on Herbert until there was nothing left of his spirit.

Hmm. Judging from their conversation just now, this guy had been trying to get Phyllis’s attention. He had planned to sacrifice Matsuki-san to summon something, all so he could prove his abilities to her. 

…They say love can drive people crazy, but I wish that he could spare a thought for everyone else getting dragged into it.

Come to think of it, I placed a curse on Herbert that made him endlessly relive his most terrifying memories. I wonder what became of that.

When I asked Phyllis about it,

“Sorry, but I had to remove it. Otherwise, we couldn’t have had a proper conversation.”

In other words, she had freed Herbert from my curse, only to kick him straight back into hell herself.

Phyllis is terrifying...

“I’m bored—no, I mean, I’ve had enough. Let’s take the kidnapped girl home. She’s over there.”

Phyllis pointed toward the back of the altar.

There was a suspicious-looking magic circle drawn there, with a single girl lying unconscious in its center. It was Ayano Matsuki.

“I’ll take Herbert with me. Can I leave the girl to you and Mia?”

Got it. Strengthening my physical abilities barely required any mana, so carrying Matsuki-san should be easy enough.

And with that, the case was solved. 

Thank goodness. 

Oh yeah, oh yeah!

Except—

That didn’t happen.

“…Kukukuku… Ahahahahaha!”

It was just as Phyllis began casting a spell to restrain Herbert.

“Ahahahahaha—(cough, cough)—ahahaha! Hahahahahahahaha!”

He was laughing hysterically through his tears, choking between bursts of laughter.

There was something warped about his laughter. Something deeply ominous.

“Oniisan, the magic circle….”

Mia’s words made me notice it. The magic circle was glowing a pale green, moving as though it were crawling across the ground. From where Matsuki-san lay towards Herbert’s feet.

And then—

“Ahahahahahaha! Kuhahahahahahahahahaha! Why am I the one getting rejected?! It makes no sense! This is ridiculous, ridiculous, isn’t it?! Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha—!”

Along with his maniacal laughter, Herbert’s body began to melt, turning into a viscous mass. The magic circle spun as it rapidly shrank in size, and a slender pillar of light shot upward.

Space warped.

Then it tore open.

Amid the smell of something like scorched iron, something began to crawl out.

I had seen this sight before.

In my previous life. Back when the members of the Evil God cult sacrificed their own bodies to summon a familiar of Foie Gras.

And this one, is exactly the same.

“XGyyyyYHAaaaaAAAAA….”

Accompanied by an indescribable growl, a grotesque silhouette emerged.

If I had to put it simply—

It’s a “Creepy Vine Man”. A writhing mass of vines had gathered together, forming something vaguely resembling a human. A translucent fluid dripped from each of the vines, making the whole thing thoroughly revolting.

I activated 【Appraisal】.

[Name] Herbert von Eulen [Gender] Male [Race] Evil God (Kin) [Age] 27 [Titles] Young Girl Kidnapper, (Former) Disciple of Phyllis, Bondage Enthusiast, Masochist [Stats] ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Level 0 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Attack Power: 1 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Defense Power: 1 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Vitality: 1 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Magic Power: Unmeasurable ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Mental Strength: Undefined ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Agility: 1 [Ability] Familiar: Foie Gras [Skills] Bondage X, Strangulation II [Magic] Time Spell (Passive/Always Active)

Level 0. Attack, Defense, Vitality, Agility—all 1. A characteristic trait of evil gods and their familiars.

But that didn’t mean they were weak. Their virtually infinite reserves of mana made up for everything. And because the 《Time Spell》 is constantly active, all attacks against them were rendered completely ineffective. There is only one way to fight them. We have to use the 《Time Spell》 ourselves and neutralize it.

The problem is, I am the only human capable of using it.

This is bad.

Even if it was only a familiar, I didn’t have enough mana left to kill this thing outright.

“H-Help me! W-What is this?! Why is this happening to me?!”

Something wriggled its way out from among the vines to Herbert’s face. His expression is twisted with terror and disbelief.

“Phyllis-sama, this is too much, even for you! Ah, help me! Help me—!”

Wait a second. Hadn’t Herbert sacrificed himself because he had snapped and decided to take things too far?

There was no way that scream was an act.

“I thought I had already destroyed the summoning spell…!”

Even Phyllis looked completely bewildered.

What the hell was going on?

“Please, help me! He…Help… me! Uwaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

Herbert let out a desperate scream. But despite his pleas, the countless vines slowly raised their heads—

And then lunged straight at Phyllis.

＊ ＊ ＊　

“At least rest in peace, Herbert. —《Tenfold, Twentyfold: Funeral Flame Dragon Cremation》!”

Phyllis reacted instantly. She cast the spell before the vines could even reach her.

It was probably the equivalent of the 《Fire Spell》 from the other world. Dozens of dragons made entirely of flame appeared and descended upon Herbert all at once. The fire dragons meticulously burned every last vine to ash, then vanished with a triumphant roar.

Not even a speck of ash remained.

—And yet, the 《Time Spell》 surpassed it.

“W-What? What’s happening?! What have I—what have I become?!”

Almost immediately, Herbert regenerated.

“This… It is the same magic Yoshito used?”

Phyllis realized what was happening in an instant, then turned her eyes toward me, as though seeking instructions.

That brief moment of hesitation proved fatal.

“—Kyaaah?!”

Vines burst from beneath her feet, wrapping themselves around her entire body.

Looking closely, I noticed that several of the vines extending from Herbert’s body had burrowed underground. A surprise attack from beneath the ground.

“Tch!”

There was no way I could just abandon Phyllis.

“—《Time Spell》—《When Your Time Comes, Do Not Defy the Flow of Time: We Shall Die Properly》—《Enchant: And》—《Wind Spirit Spell》—《My Hand Is the Sword That Severs the Sky with Magic: Cut Down the Worthless》!”

I swung my right arm downward. A blade of wind shot forth, slicing through the vines and freeing Phyllis.

So far, so good.

The problem was what came next.

“—!?”

My legs suddenly gave way. Along with the dizziness, my consciousness began to fade.

The telltale sign of running out of mana.

No way…

If I had to put my remaining mana at one hundred, then the 《Time Spell》 plus the 《Wind Spirit Spell》 I’d just used should have cost me no more than five. I should still have plenty left.

So why?

—Thump!

Once again, my right side throbbed.

Could it be…?

Was the 《Mud》 I had absorbed into my body somehow siphoning off my mana? But nothing like this had happened until now.

Why all of a sudden?

“Ow! That hurts! Why don’t you help me so it doesn’t hurt?!”

Herbert bellowed. As if giving form to his rage, the vines twisted together, taking shape into a gigantic arm. A colossal fist came hurtling toward us, dragging a vortex of wind along with it.

Then—Bang!

For a moment, I felt weightless. Then I was slammed into the ground.

“Ugh… ah…!”

The air was driven from my lungs. A moment later, the pain hit. An excruciating agony, as though my entire body had been torn apart piece by piece.

“Oniisan—Yaaah?!”

“Mia?! Ngh…!”

Mia’s scream.

Phyllis’s groan.

I desperately clung to my fading consciousness.

Gritting my teeth, I forced my eyelids open.

And there, through my blurred vision—

“Mm… hya… hn—”

“Yaa… ah… ugh…!”

Mia and Phyllis had been captured. Vines dripping with viscous fluid were wrapped around their bodies, crawling over them as though licking every inch of their flesh.

“Oh, I’m sorry Phyllis-sama, but you look absolutely wonderful like that! Ahahahahaha! And the little girl beside you isn’t half bad either. If I’m not getting out of this alive anyway, then I’ll drag everyone down with me! This is your punishment for a world that refused to go the way I wanted! Hyahahahahahahaha!”

Spouting that utterly deranged logic, Herbert tightened the vines around their necks, squeezing harder and harder.

I tried to rush over and save them immediately. But my body wouldn’t move. The bones in my arms and legs had been shattered, twisted at grotesque angles. And then an overwhelming drowsiness came crashing over me.

Damn it.

There was no way I could let myself pass out here.

I had to save Mia.

I had to save Phyllis.

But my vision was gradually swallowed by darkness—

—Thump.

For some reason, the only thing I could still feel clearly was the pulsing in my right side.

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

—Hey, Yoshito-kun. How about I lend you a hand?

—But there’s one condition. It’s nothing major, really.

—I’d like you to stop calling me “Foie Gras.”

—I mean, that’s the fatty liver of a goose or a duck, right? It’s pretty hurtful for a girl to hear that.

—Okay? Make sure you keep your promise.

…

…………

…………..

—Alright, work’s done.

—I never expected you to absorb the “Mud,” but I guess it all worked out in the end.

—Your operational limit is probably around three minutes.

—Should I throw in a “Color Timer” while I’m at it? Just kidding.

…

…………

…………..

—Huh? You’re asking if I was supposed to have vanished?

—Bwahaha! As long as there is evil in people’s hearts, I shall rise again and again!

—Just kidding…. I’m more like… a bonus that came with Mia-chan?

—Just so we’re clear, I had nothing to do with this whole affair.

—I just thought the whole idea of using “me” as a sacrifice to summon “myself” made absolutely no sense.

—It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? The person trying to do the summoning was right there, yet nobody noticed.

—As for why our kidnapper friend ended up becoming the sacrifice… well, maybe I’ll tell you next time we meet.

—Good luck out there, Yoshito-kun.

—I’d be happy if you played house with me again sometime, if you feel like it.

◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

I dreamt. In the darkness, I was talking to someone. I couldn’t remember what we had been talking about, but I had the feeling that the other person had been a girl.

Then, in the next moment, I found myself floating in a pure white space.

—Clank. Clank.

The sound of armor approached from somewhere in the distance. A jet-black knight clad in armor, a red scarf wrapped around his neck.

It was me.

My former self.

Suddenly, I remembered my conversation with Phyllis. The results of her examination of the 《Mud》.

> It looks like the conceptual information of the Black Knight is stored inside Yoshito.

> Sorry, could you put that in simpler terms?

> I don’t know how yet, but there’s a possibility that you might be able to use the Black Knight’s power…

So that was what this meant.

I reached out my hand. The armored knight reached out his hand as well.

My past self. My present self. The two became one.

I opened my eyes. The exhaustion I’d been feeling just moments ago was gone as if it had never existed. The mana that had been on the verge of running dry now surged through my entire body.

I stood up. Metal struck against metal with a loud clank. My eye level was higher than usual.

I looked down at myself.

I was clad from head to toe in jet-black armor. The form I had possessed in my previous life.

The power of the Black Knight. More than enough to destroy a familiar of the Evil God.

All right. Let’s go.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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――A girl in shrine maiden robes stands with a Japanese sword at the ready.

Reona Kaminagi. Her eyes are long and sharp, fixed straight on us.

If I remember Hatoba’s story correctly, she’s the same age as Shizuku. Which means she’s fourteen.

…Man, humans really do come in all shapes and sizes. It might seem like a strange thing to be thinking about in the middle of a battle, but since the thought crossed my mind, I might as well explain.

Reona has a dignified, striking face, with an air of quiet serenity about her. And her figure certainly doesn’t betray that impression, either. She has the kind of pure, modest build you’d expect from her appearance.

You could call it the Wall of Lamentation. Or perhaps, rather than streamlined, she’s more… straight-lined. Put her next to Shizuku, and the difference would be immediately obvious.

Shizuku, on the other hand, may have a hopeless personality and an even more hopeless set of interests, but when it comes to her figure, she’s been absurdly blessed.

“You were just thinking something terribly rude, weren’t you?”

How did she know?

“A man’s sidelong glance is a woman’s full-on stare. …Besides, breasts are nothing more than decorations. The larger they are, the more cumbersome they become on the battlefield. My body has undergone an evolution perfectly suited to a swordswoman.”

“R-right…”

There was an oddly intense conviction behind Reona’s words, and I found myself slightly overwhelmed.

“Besides, I am a swordswoman before I am a woman. I don’t care about my breasts. I don’t care about them at all, but――they still piss me off, so die anyway, you sexual-harassing kindergarten brat.”

The instant she finished speaking—

Reona vanished.

It was probably some form of movement technique combining 《Concealment》 with another skill. Not even a tenth of a second passed before she was already upon us.

“――I’ll be taking your head.”

With that declaration, Reona thrust her sword straight toward Phyllis’s chest.

Between that cheap trick just now and this, she really seemed to be the type who loved surprise attacks. That said, I had spent my previous life wading through one life-or-death situation after another. This much was easy enough to predict, and I’d already moved into position to shield Phyllis.

As Reona closed in, I gently placed a hand against her chest and activated a formula.

“《Flame Spell》・《My flame is Burning Pile Bunker》.”

The impact tore straight through her.

Kaminagi Reona’s body was blasted backward, slamming into the rock wall. A massive hole had been punched through the center of her chest. She hung there limply, head bowed, utterly motionless.

――《My flame is Burning Pile Bunker》.

A “stake” of flame, fired from point-blank range, had pierced straight through her heart and reduced it to ash.

There was no doubt about it. She was dead instantly.

“…Yoshito, I didn’t get to do anything.”

Phyllis muttered, sounding a little sulky.

“At this point, I have no choice but to double the punishment I’m going to give Herbert.”

Not just double, but an increase of two times the original amount. In other words, “1 + 2 = 3,” making the total three times the original. There is nothing to say but “Namu-san”—fitting, given it’s three times the amount.

Anyway.

“Phyllis, go on ahead and secure Matsuki-san for me.”

“Aren’t you coming, Yoshito?”

“Actually, girls who look like Kaminagi Reona are my type. I’m going to admire her for a little while longer, then I’ll catch up.”

“Oh my. What a terrible man, openly cheating on me while we’re on a date.”

Phyllis giggled.

“In that case, I’ll go beat Herbert to a pulp for you. Just try not to get too carried away with your little bit of “fire” play.”

＊ ＊ ＊ 

A moment ago, I unleashed a spell resembling a pile bunker at Reona Kannagi. In doing so—strictly out of necessity, mind you—I made contact with her chest. It felt soft and yielding, and I was able to confirm the presence of a slight swell.

Do you realize the significance of this, gentlemen?

Reona Kannagi is not flat-chested.

The size might be negligible—barely registering above zero—but there is undeniably a curve there. This may be a small discovery for humanity, but for me, it is a monumental one. I think I shall try to capture this moment of emotion in a haiku.

—You never know boobs / Until you touch them yourself

Huh? A *kigo*—a seasonal word? Boobs encompass all of creation, so it’s all good. Case closed. Q.E.D.

Hah. I’ve gone and proven something utterly trivial again.

Truly trivial stuff.

Anyway, the reason I stayed behind here wasn’t to deliver this lewd monologue—or “erologue,” if you will. Phyllis has put enough distance between us. It’s probably safe to proceed now.

“《Flame Spell》・《My Flame is the Wheel of Ordinary Purification and Incineration: Ordinary Fireball》.”

I launch a ball of fire from my right hand. It is a Fireball—the most run-of-the-mill spell imaginable, likely the one that appears most frequently in fantasy light novels.

It doesn’t split, and it doesn’t explode.

Simple is best. Considering how much I spammed Time Spell earlier, I want to start conserving my magical energy. The Fireball—sadly devoid of any unique flair—flies forward with tremendous speed.

It heads toward empty space, away from Reona Kannagi’s corpse—

“《Dispel》.”

A spell-charged word rang out.

The perfectly ordinary fireball vanished with a faint *whoosh*, without even getting a chance to put on a show.

“Now that was an unexpected development. I’m surprised.”

A small figure suddenly appeared right where the fireball had disappeared. Wrapped in a jet-black robe, the face was concealed behind a clown mask.

Black robe. Clown mask. Extremely suspicious.

Probably the mage who had attacked Hatoba and the others outside.

“When did you notice me?”

The mage spoke in Japanese with a somewhat peculiar intonation.

From her voice, she was a girl—and a very young one at that.

The answer was: I’d noticed her from the very beginning. She had been hiding here the entire time, concealed from sight. Ever since we first encountered Kaminagi Reona, she had remained hidden, waiting for an opportunity to strike us by surprise.

That was precisely why I had sent Phyllis ahead.

The most important thing right now was stopping Herbert’s ritual and rescuing Ayano Matsuki. And, of course, I had no obligation whatsoever to explain any of that to this mage.

Instead of answering, I activated a spell.

“[Multi-Casting]—《Binding Ritual》・《Your limbs are ropes; they are no longer yours to command.》”

“[Multi-Casting]—《Dispelling Ritual》・《I Refuse Your Curse》”

A total of twenty-eight ropes of light lunged toward the mage, only to be nullified in the blink of an eye.

Looks like this mage is quite the powerhouse.

“Such a disturbing fixation with bondage. Children these days are terrifying.”

“Wait, that’s a misunderstanding.”

“The fact that you’re denying it makes you even more suspicious, but Aria is an adult, so I’ll graciously let it slide.”

An adult?

She spoke with a slightly childish lisp, and she was extremely short. Probably less than 150 centimeters tall.

Honestly, she looked like she was in elementary school….

Then again, there could always be an old lady hiding underneath that mask.

“Now that Phyllis-Iris has arrived, Herbert’s plan has failed. Still, we managed to take out the freelance exorcists, so I’ll be more than satisfied if we can just recover Kaminagi Reona.”

“So, in other words, you want me to hand over her corpse.”

“Yes, exactly. If you do that now, we can avoid a direct confrontation. I don’t think either of us would walk away unscathed if we fought, so I would be deeply grateful if you would accept my proposal. Gratitude and excitement and flying pebbles.”

That was supposed to be “gratitude and excitement and rainstorms.”

Why the hell did she throw rocks into it? She had completely ruined the whole expression.

Anyway. Should I accept her terms or not?

While pretending to deliberate, I activated Appraisal. This skill only works when the target is within my field of vision, after all.

That was why I hadn’t been able to examine her status until now.

So, just how strong was she?

[Name] Aria El Samaria [Gender] Female [Race] Artificial Mage [Age] Unknown [Title] Unknown [Stats] ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Level: 50–200 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Attack: 50–300 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Defense: 50–300 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Vitality: 50–300 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Magic Power: 100–600 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Mental Strength: 10–150 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Agility: 50–300 [Abilities] Tons of them [Skills] A huge number ※ I really don’t get this girl! ＼(＞o＜)／ (by Alcapa)

What the hell is this?

Regarding the matter of Alcapa-sama giving up and throwing her hands in the air. This is basically the same as knowing nothing at all.

Still, at least I managed to find out her name. That’s a big deal.

Aria El Samaria.

I’ve heard of her. She was Dad’s mistress.

If I remember correctly, she was a “prototype of the greatest mage in human history,” created by some secret magical society.

“Did you just scan Aria?”

No way. Did she notice my Appraisal?

“An eye for an eye, toothpaste for a tooth, stalking for peeking. ――《Analyze》.”

She was faster than I was at preparing a counter-spell.

A sensation like something brushing over my entire body passed through me, and then—

“…Huh?”

Aria let out an oddly vacant little voice.

She was staring blankly into empty space, completely frozen. Maybe some kind of status screen was being displayed in front of her.

“Ishirogi Yoshito? Naoki….sama’s…. child? No, no, no, no――”

What the hell was happening?

Aria clutched her head and began to writhe in anguish.

Her black robe slipped off, and her mask clattered to the ground. The face revealed underneath was remarkably young. Not quite as young as me or Mia, but she looked like a child in the lower grades of elementary school.

Whoa.

So if this girl was Old Man’s mistress…

Was he the kind of guy who’d go for little girls, too?

I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but honestly, I think he belongs in hell. If by some tiny chance he’s still alive, I’ll personally make sure he gets there.

“Naoki-sama doesn’t have a child—no, no, there’s no way he does. I won’t accept it, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.…”

Aria muttered the words over and over, like someone delirious. As she did, an explosive surge of magical power swirled around her, and finally…

“…Kill.”

She arrived at an outrageous conclusion.

Monsters these days are terrifying.

…Despite her youthful appearance, Aria El Samaria fought with savage ferocity.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

She lashed out with limbs amplified dozens of times over by magical power, driven purely by instinct.

There was not a shred of reason in her movements. It felt like fighting a dragon-kin that had activated [Berserk]. Even if I dodged by a hair’s breadth, the gale force accompanying her fists would throw me off balance.

That left me with no choice but to take drastic evasive action, making it impossible to find an opening for a counterattack… or so it seemed.

I decided to charge in, accepting the damage. I boosted my own physical capabilities with magic, using the “Clockwork” time-manipulation spell to negate any damage the moment I took it.

A head-on clash.

Although Aria had the physical advantage, I gradually began to push her back. It was likely due to the difference in combat experience.

“…!?”

Eventually, a decisive opening appeared.

I parried the arm Aria had swung down violently and slipped right into her guard. I intended to deliver the finishing blow with “Burning Pile Bunker.”

But then… “You know… I get cranky right after waking up. So, let me take it out on you a little.”

An unexpected intruder had appeared.

Red-and-white shrine maiden robes. Cool, composed features. It was Kaminagi Reona—the very person I should have killed moments ago. The gaping hole in her chest had closed up before I even noticed.

There was no time to be surprised.

A blade was closing in, slicing through the air with a sharp *whish*.

I dodged the slash by rolling along the ground.

“This body has undergone an evolution suited for a swordswoman. I told you that, didn’t I?”

Reona muttered this calmly as she swung her sword again and again.

“When I was little, my older sister Makina cast some shady spell on me. Thanks to that, I’m… well, a bit hard to kill.”

Wait—isn’t coming back to life after having your heart incinerated a bit beyond the realm of just being “hard to kill”?

And speaking of Makina… she must mean Makina Kaminagi.

The Old Man and his associates really are nothing but trouble.

“That said, I was actually impressed by that blow earlier. You tried to kill a beautiful girl like me without a second thought—are you a denizen of some land of carnage? Usually, people hesitate at least a little.”

Calling herself a “beautiful girl”—Reona really has quite the personality.

“…Excuse me? It would be nice if you at least acknowledged what I was saying.”

“Yeeeah!”

I answered with uncalled-for cheerfulness. Right now, I was parrying not just Reona’s slashes, but Aria’s attacks as well.

I am pretty busy. It was like playing a healer class in an online game; if I didn’t think several steps ahead, I’d be done for.

“!?”

Startled by my sudden shout, Aria’s movements faltered.

This was my chance. I closed the distance in a flash and blasted her far away with a wind spell fired at point-blank range.

“To think you’d even use conversation as a weapon.…”

Reona let out a sigh of admiration.

“Are you really just a child? I wouldn’t be surprised if you were living your second life.”

Reona, you nailed it. A round of applause for the correct answer.

There used to be a show called [Heisei Kyouiku Iinkai ], didn’t there?

I wonder if they planned to change the show’s title whenever the era name changed.

Then again… I sure have a lot of distracting thoughts for someone in the middle of a fight. Back in my past life, my elementary school report cards always described me as a “restless child.”

“…By the way, if you don’t mind me asking…”

Reona was quite the talker herself, considering we were in a life-or-death struggle.

She was going to end up biting her tongue at this rate.

“Is it true that someone with a face like mine is your type?”

Huh?

I was taken aback by those unexpected words.

Come to think of it, I had made a joke like that when I decided to stay behind here. I never imagined she’d actually heard it.

“I cut down a human for the first time today, but I didn’t find it fun at all. Makina-neesan is a liar… Fighting you is far more interesting. Yes—I suppose that means you are my type.”

Reona’s cheeks flushed pink.

Am I the only one who feels like I’ve just triggered a dangerous flag? Just as I felt that chilling premonition…

“Shaaaa..!”

At that very moment, a vicious murderous intent closed in from behind. Aria, having been blown back by wind magic, had regained her footing and was lunging at me.

Exactly as calculated. Aria was now a monster devoid of reason. If I simply dodged nimbly, I could trick her into attacking Reona instead. Then, I’d take them both down while they were distracted.

That was the plan.

But in that split second…

…the cave shook at the worst possible moment.

A sound like an explosion echoed in the distance, and the ground beneath my feet lurched violently.

The tremor was massive, it was impossible to stay on my feet.

“Whoa!?”

Because of that, I couldn’t dodge to the side.

I lost my balance and fell forward…

“Eek!?”

…ending up pinning Reona to the ground.

Aria shot past right over our heads at the speed of a cannonball.

“…Did you… protect me?”

Reona murmured.

No, it was just a coincidence.

That’s what I wanted to say, but she was looking at me with such sparkling, admiring eyes that I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth.

Right. Okay.

I stood up. I also reached out a hand to help Reona up.

Regardless of how we got here, it seemed like there was room to reach an understanding with her. There was no need to make an enemy unnecessarily. Besides… I’m a sucker for someone who opens up to me so guilelessly.

“Th-thank you…”

Reona sat up, looking down in embarrassment. I felt like I was sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire.

Meanwhile, Aria was in a rather ridiculous state. Her charge at me had missed, and her momentum had sent her slamming right into the rock face. Her upper body was now wedged right into the stone. Her skirt had flipped up, leaving her “teddy bear” panties fully exposed.

“…Do you want to see mine, too?”

Reona lifted the hem of her hakama just a little.

I am incredibly interested, but… please, not right now.

＊ ＊ ＊

Anyway, I should probably incapacitate Aria.

Severing the nerves in her limbs, followed by sealing her magic, ought to do the trick.

I am in the middle of constructing the spell when, suddenly, two unfamiliar magic circles appeared.

One beneath the unconscious Aria. The other beneath Reona, who was staring blankly at me.

“.…It seems we’re being told to retreat.”

Reona murmured the words with a hint of reluctance.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly interesting in staying with Oneesan, so I think I’ll betray her at some point. I’ll come visit you soon, so if you don’t mind, I’d like us to start out as murder buddies.”

“That is an incredibly violent relationship to start with.”

More importantly, shouldn’t she go to the police first?

She had killed twenty people, after all. Or was there some sort of industry-specific code among exorcists?

I’d have to ask Shizuku about it later.

“I probably have about fifteen seconds before I’m teleported away, so why don’t I reveal as much of the inside story as I can?”

“…I appreciate the offer, but are you sure that’s okay?”

“Makina-oneesan said that killing humans feels really good, but it didn’t feel good at all. I was lied to. I’m grateful to her for raising me in place of my parents, but after what happened today, I’ve finally reached my limit.”

Reona’s family situation sounded pretty messed up.

“It was Makina-oneesan’s plan to lure Herbert to Japan, and to take advantage of Ayano Matsuki’s kidnapping to gather all those freelancers. I don’t know exactly what her objective was, but I’m fairly certain she wanted to eliminate the country’s most powerful exorcists. Oh, and… right. Makina-oneesan is obsessed with some perverted middle-aged man named Naoki Ishirogi, but don’t worry, I haven’t fallen prey to his evil clutches. I’m still a virgin.”

Was that last part really necessary?

No, more importantly—

“Old Man… Ishirogi Naoki is alive?”

“I heard he died in a plane crash, but if I find out anything else, I’ll let you know. In exchange, I’d appreciate it if you’d have a three-round death match with me as a reward.”

“Humans don’t get extra lives, you know. Once you die, that’s it.”

“Don’t worry. I have a body that’s difficult to kill, and you’re more or less the same, aren’t you?”

Well… she wasn’t wrong.

As long as I had enough mana, I could regenerate myself over and over with 《Time Spell》.

A few seconds later, Reona’s figure vanished into thin air.

Aria disappeared as well.

The teleportation magic they had used was completely unfamiliar to me, and I couldn’t analyze it. But I wasn’t about to stand there and let them get away without doing anything.

I secretly planted several “Trojan horse”-style curses on Aria. Next time we fought, things should be much easier.

And, as a little bonus—

“――《Charge Spell》・《And: Enchant》・《Time Spell》・《Your flesh and blood here is just a nuisance for the mastermind, so don’t misunderstand and flow backward, all of you》.”

I squeezed every last drop of mana out of myself and forcibly resurrected the twenty people who had fallen here. Even I was running on fumes.

Every now and then, my consciousness threatened to fade. Still, I couldn’t exactly leave Phyllis on her own.

I cast 《Hypnosis Spell》 on the newly resurrected exorcists and sent them toward the exit. Then I headed deeper into the cave.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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Phyllis’ car was surprisingly Japanese-made. From the front, its design looked like something straight out of [Predator] or [Alien].

A Toyota SAI. It was a car whose name I had never even heard of before, but apparently, in terms of where it stood in the lineup—

“Above a Prius, below a Lexus. If we’re talking Gundam, I suppose it’d be like a D○m.”

Huh. Is comparing things to Gundam the trend these days?

And why are you so obsessed with ○oms?

Anyway. I suppose what she meant was that it had better specs than a Z○ Aqua or a G○ Prius, but wasn’t quite on the level of a Gelg○ Lexus.

…At least, that’s what I think she was trying to say.

“I’ve always liked things that occupy that sort of middle ground.”

The witch, who claimed to be several hundred years old, spoke with a distant look in her eyes.

Incidentally, when I used [Appraisal] to peek at Phyllis’ status, her age was…Oh?

Sorry, it looks like someone’s here.

I’ll be right back.

――After that, no one ever saw Yoshito Kirasawa again.

End of Volume Two.

Just kidding.

Well, um… how should I put this?

Phyllis is a young lady who’s only lived for a few hundred years, got it?

The four of us left Matsuki City by car. We drove north for two hours. After passing through several tunnels, the road turned into a winding mountain path.

With nothing but the car’s headlights to guide us, we proceeded slowly—

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Phyllis-san! A little slower! Please, a little slower!”

Shizuku’s scream echoed through the night.

Phyllis was a speed demon. And the fact that she didn’t even realize it made things considerably worse.

“Huh? I read it in a manga, but aren’t Japanese people supposed to drift at full speed on mountain roads like this?”

“YOU BASTARD, FUJIWARA TOFU STOOOOORRRRE!”

Come to think of it, there was that manga a long time ago called [Initial D].

What the hell did the “D” stand for, anyway? If you know, tell me.

Incidentally, neither Mia nor I were affected by this roller-coaster of a ride.

――《Gravity Formula》・《Unmoving One Who Does Not Get Carsick》.

Thanks to a spell from the other world, we were perfectly fine.

“M-Masteeeeer! Please cast that spell on me toooooooooo!”

Sorry, Shizuku. This magic only works on one person at a time.

“Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Somehow, I’m starting to feel goooooood!”

That day, Shizuku awakened to a brand-new proclivity. Whoever ended up marrying this girl someday was going to have his hands full in more ways than one.

Eventually, the car emerged into an open area. There, more than ten cars were lined up, parked in neat rows.

“There aren’t even supposed to be any campgrounds around here… How strange.”

Shizuku muttered as she rewrapped the bandages that had come undone thanks to Phyllis’s recklessly aggressive driving.

“Maybe some exorcist tracked down Helbert’s whereabouts.”

“Then let’s hurry, Master. If we don’t get there soon, someone else will steal the credit.”

“Does it really matter?”

What mattered most was making sure Matsuki-san returned safely. If the choice was between engaging in something as foolish as a race for credit and tearing down a mountain pass in a car, I knew which one I’d rather do.

“I wouldn’t mind if you hurried up a little.”

Phyllis grinned, flexing the fingers of her right hand.

“If someone else takes Helbert away, I’ll lose my chance to punish him.”

Whoa. Maybe she was actually a pretty terrifying person.

“…Oniisan, can I talk to you for a second?”

Mia tugged lightly at my sleeve.

She wore an uneasy expression.

“I can’t really explain it, but there’s a really bad feeling here. It’s just like that underground temple from my previous life.”

“The underground temple… You mean the place where I fought the evil god?”

“Yeah. The atmosphere feels the same. You should probably be careful.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

I gently patted Mia on the head as I thought things over.

In the information I had obtained earlier by mind-hacking Herbert, he was planning to activate some kind of summoning formula in a cave farther ahead. I hadn’t been able to find out what sort of entity he intended to summon, but…

Surely not.

Evil god. A being whose name was impossible for humans to pronounce.

I had been certain that I had driven it to the point of complete annihilation in my previous life. But it was a god we were dealing with. With something like that, anything was possible.

It would be wise to stay on my guard.

＊ ＊ ＊

We got out of the car and made our way down the slope. Before long, we arrived at a beautiful mountain stream.

If we followed the river from here, we’d eventually reach the cave where Herbert was—but—

“M-Master, look…!”

Shizuku let out a small, frightened gasp.

She was pointing toward the cave entrance. Several men were lying collapsed there.

“You three stay here. I’ll go on ahead.”

Keeping an eye out for any signs of danger, I approached the men. 

Every one of them had suffered severe injuries. There were ten in total. Seven were already dead, while two were barely conscious. The last man was just barely clinging to consciousness, his body riddled with holes.

These weren’t wounds that could have been inflicted by any ordinary weapon. Most likely, they had been caused by magic.

“Who… are you…?”

One of the men spoke to me in a hoarse whisper.

His lung must have been punctured, because blood bubbled from his mouth.

“Don’t talk. I’m going to treat you.”

“What… a child… I dunno what family you’re from, but… get out of here… while you still can. There’s no saving me…”

As if I cared.

Ignoring his protests, I activated my magic.

“――《Time Spell》・《Let thy flesh and blood flow backward through the loop》”

“Y-You damn fool…! I don’t know what kind of magic that is, but you’re obviously just wasting your mana… you idiot… I mean, w-wait, what the hell?! All my wounds are gone! What in the world did you do?!”

The answer? I simply rewound the body’s time. There were all sorts of healing spells out there, but rather than bothering with those, it was faster to alter the body’s information directly.

I used the 《Time Spell》 on the other nine men as well. Fortunately, they had only just died, so even those who had already breathed their last were easily brought back to life. 

That said, I didn’t restore them completely like I had the first man.

Well, more accurately, I couldn’t. If I tried to heal them that thoroughly, I’d run out of mana first.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.…”

The man gasped.

Just then—

“Fufufu. That’s my Master for you. Ahem!”

Shizuku approached with an absurdly smug look on her face.

“You’re… one of the Aitori family’s…”

“It’s been a while, Hatoba-sama. I’m Shizuku of the Aitori family.”

Apparently, the two of them knew each other.

“You’re still wearing that ridiculous getup, huh, Aitori?”

“With your fake samurai-drama costume, I’d rather not hear that from you, Hatoba-sama.”

She had a point. 

This man named Hatoba looked like he’d walked straight out of a period drama. Imagine a wandering samurai from the Edo period, and you’ve pretty much got the picture. His hair was a messy, unkempt mop tied loosely behind his head, and he sported a scruffy beard. He wore a light-blue jinbaori over his clothes, with wooden geta sandals on his feet.

…Were all exorcists cosplayers or something?

“Goddammit, this is the formal attire that’s been passed down through the Hatoba family for generations—”

“So basically, your ancestors have all been crazy.”

Oi, Shizuku. Take a good look at what you’re wearing too.

The bandages wrapped pointlessly around your right eye, for starters. And that long coat with the Cracked Inverted Cross design. By no stretch of the imagination are you in any position to criticize him.

“Dammit, your family is just as bad, dressing up like some weird Western wannabes. You seriously walk around outside in that thing in broad daylight?”

“Wha—…Say something like that again and it’ll be war, Hyoe Hatoba-sama!”

“OW! Don’t pull out my beard! It’s a man’s soul!”

“It’s just filthy! Get over here and sit down. I’m going to pluck that disgusting chin of yours clean!”

“Stoooop!”

…What the heck is this? Where did all that tension from a moment ago go?

The man looked to be somewhere in his mid-twenties, yet he was arguing with Shizuku like they were on exactly the same level.

Sigh. Why did people have to fight with each other?

Overcome with sorrow, I cleared my throat. Then, for good measure, I used magic to blow up a nearby rock.

“Whoa!?”

“M-Master!?”

The two of them flinched at the sudden explosion.

I spoke.

“Save the bickering for later. For now, could you tell me what happened?”

The man’s name was Hyoe Hatoba. Apparently, he was an exorcist who didn’t belong to any organization and worked independently. He was evidently quite skilled, to the point that the Department of Divinities’ Affairs occasionally requested his assistance.

“It was three days ago, I think. You know the Kaminagi family… There’s a kid from the Aitori family who’s about your age, right?”

“Reona-san, I presume. Kaminagi Reona.”

“Yeah, her. I got a request from this Reona girl. She said the daughter of the Matsuki family had been kidnapped, and asked me to help with the rescue.”

“Oh? Please, go on.”

Shizuku was the one nodding along now.

I deliberately kept quiet, allowing my thoughts to turn over in silence.

Kaminagi. I heard that surname before. If I remembered correctly, my Old Man had a mistress named Makina Kaminagi. Something about her being a practitioner of an ancient sword style used to exorcise demons.

Could this Kaminagi Reona girl be related to her?

Things were starting to smell fishy…

“This Reona girl may be young, but she’s no slouch. She went around gathering all the big-name freelancers she could find and put together a rescue team for Ayano Matsuki.”

“How large was the force?”

“The ten people here were the rear guard, and twenty went inside the cave. …Just so we’re clear, though, the assignments were decided by drawing lots. Had nothing to do with skill.”

Hatoba hurriedly added the last part. He didn’t seem to be lying.

I had secretly used [Appraisal] on him, and his stats were easily above Kijima’s.

“Our job as the rear guard was basically to secure a retreat route. Herbert might’ve called in reinforcements, so we took turns keeping watch around the area.”

Hatoba and the other nine men. Every one of them was a seasoned veteran who had been through their share of battles, and apparently none of them had let their guard down.

But then—

“Before we knew it, someone had already slipped right into our midst. …A mage dressed all in black.”

All in black.

I instinctively glanced at Shizuku.

“Eh!? Eeeeeh!? But I was with Master the whole time!”

“Just kidding.”

“Hmmph!”

Shizuku’s face changed expression every few seconds, and it was rather adorable.

“…I meant to ask earlier, but who exactly are you? You don’t look like Shizuku’s little brother.”

Hatoba turned back toward me.

“You look about three or four years old, but I can tell you’re one hell of a kid. Some family’s secret prodigy? Don’t tell me you’re from the main house of the Ajiro family—”

“Let’s talk about that later… I mean, please. Tell me about the mage first.”

I cut him off.

Remembering that he was older than me, I hastily corrected myself and switched to more polite speech. As for explaining who I actually was… well, I’d think of something eventually.

Hang in there, Future Me. 

Although I seem to remember dumping things on Future Me last time ended rather badly…

Eh, must’ve been my imagination. Right. Just imagination.

“Fine. The mage is definitely more important right now.”

According to Hatoba—

The man was dressed entirely in a black robe and wore a mask over his face. Another weirdo.

I couldn’t help feeling exasperated, but I listened carefully to Hatoba’s account.

Apparently, the man could wield all sorts of magic without chanting a single spell, and had wiped out all ten members of the rear guard in less than a minute.

“Pathetic as it is to admit, I don’t know what happened after that. Maybe he went after the others who entered the cave. Maybe he’s still lurking around here. …Either way, he’s the worst opponent I’ve ever encountered.”

As for the other nine men, their stats were comparable to Hatoba’s.

If someone had slaughtered a group like that in mere seconds, then there was no question that the “mage dressed in black” possessed an extraordinary level of power.

This is bad.

I had just been handed a completely unexpected variable. I had extracted Herbert’s memories, and according to what I had seen, he doesn’t have any accomplices. Which meant the “mage dressed in black” might belong to a third faction—neither the exorcists nor Herbert’s side.

――In the end, Mia and Shizuku decided to stay behind and use healing magic on the injured.

The treatment I had given them was only temporary. If left alone, they would eventually slip back toward the brink of death.

I asked Hatoba to protect the two of them, then secretly planted several spells around the area, just in case.

“Be careful, Oniisan.”

“I pray for your safe return, Master.”

“When you get back, I’m gonna make damn sure you tell me exactly who you are.”

With the three of them seeing us off—

“Hehe. I suppose this counts as a date, too.”

—I stepped into the cave alongside Phyllis.

＊ ＊ ＊

We made our way through the cave, surrounded on all sides by sheer rock walls.

“What a strange place. It’s almost like a dungeon from a computer game.”

Phyllis wasn’t wrong.

The tunnel had been carved straight through the rock, giving the whole place an oddly artificial feel.

When had it been made? By whom? And for what purpose?

One thing was certain: it wasn’t Herbert. That man had merely kidnapped Ayano Matsuki and brought her here.

After walking for about five minutes—

“…Yoshito.”

“Yeah.”

We both tensed up again.

The smell of blood had reached us.

“Stay behind me, Phyllis. If things get really bad, run.”

“…Fufu.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I was just a little happy. It’s been, oh, two thousan—…a few hundred years since someone last treated me like an actual woman.”

Did she almost say two thousand years just now?

…No. Better not pry. My instincts were screaming that this was dangerous.

I stepped in front of Phyllis, shielding her as I continued toward the source of the smell.

We soon entered a somewhat wider chamber. The scene before us was even more grotesque than what we had seen at the cave entrance. Heads. Hands. Legs. Entrails. Human bodies had been torn apart piece by piece and scattered across the cavern. The entire floor was stained crimson.

Shizan Ketsuga—a mountain of corpses and a river of blood.

The phrase had never felt more appropriate. What kind of fierce battle had taken place here?

No. What kind of massacre?

Just imagining it sent a chill down my spine.

“Who… are you…?”

A faint voice reached us.

I looked toward the wall and saw a young girl sitting there, clutching a sword to her chest.

She was dressed in red-and-white shrine maiden robes. Another cosplayer.

Though she was covered head to toe in blood, ruining what was otherwise a perfectly good outfit. The girl shakily rose to her feet and cast her gaze toward us.

“I am Phyllis Iris F. Clacia. I’ve come to beat the stuffing out of my troublesome disciple.”

Phyllis answered before I could even open my mouth.

“And who might you be? I heard there were people who entered ahead of us. Are you the survivor?”

“Yes.”

The girl answered calmly.

“My name is Reona Kaminagi, third daughter of the Kaminagi family. I came here with a group of volunteers to rescue Ayano Matsuki, but.…”

“So you were ambushed here, and you’re the only one who survived. Something like that?”

“…Yes.”

Reona’s normally dignified features were clouded with regret.

Come to think of it, according to Hatoba, she had been the leader of the rescue operation.

“Herbert has placed a guardian farther ahead. …If you don’t mind, would you allow me to accompany you? I want to avenge everyone who died.”

“Hm.”

Phyllis responded with an air of complete indifference.

“I don’t really care either way. What about you, Yoshito?”

“Hmmm….”

I thought about it for a moment.

“The more allies we have, the better. Come help us, Kaminagi.”

“Thank you. I promise I’ll do everything I can to be of use to you both…”

The corners of Reona’s lips curled into a faint smile.

She then came toward us,

“――Although, that’s all a lie.”

“Sorry, but that’s all a lie.”

Two things happened at exactly the same time.

Kaminagi Reona drew her sword with blinding speed, aiming to take Phyllis’s head.

I infused a small stone I had picked up along the way with mana and hurled it at Reona, aiming straight for her heart. 

The moment each of us realized what the other was trying to do, we immediately moved to defend ourselves.

Reona leaped backward. I deployed 《Barrier Spell》 around Phyllis.

“You noticed?”

“Of course.”

All I had to do was look at Reona’s clothes.

Though they were drenched in blood, not a single thread of the fabric was torn. Everyone else had been reduced to gruesome corpses, yet her clothes remained completely intact.

It was far too unnatural.

I couldn’t say exactly how she’d done it, but—she had probably used the Herbert incident as bait to gather a group of powerful freelance exorcists, then ambushed them from behind once they were here.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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According to Shizuku, the power level of a man named Yujiro Kijima was—

“If you’re talking *Gunda○, he’d be a Zaku piloted by a regular grunt. In shogi, he’d be a silver general.”

Apparently, that was the best way to put it. I couldn’t quite picture what she meant, so I asked her to elaborate.

“I’d say he’s somewhere in the middle ranks among exorcists. He’s definitely strong, but if I keep working at it, I think I could surpass him someday.”

Ah. Now I got it.

In gundam terms, he is not exactly carrying some revolutionary beam weapon like a Gelgoog. He’s more like a mass-produced unit with no groundbreaking specs, but still strong enough that you couldn’t afford to underestimate it.

Now, let’s take a look at Kijima’s stats.

[Name] Yujiro Kijima [Gender] Male [Race] Chuunibyou [Age] 54 [Title] 8th Head of the Kijima Family; The Man Who Lost to a Four-Year-Old [Stats] ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Level: 68 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Attack Power: 72 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙Defense Power: 71 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ Vitality: 62 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ Spirit Power: 71 ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ Mental Strength: 63(-25) ∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙∙ Agility: 64 [Abilities] Blessing of the Thunder God V [Skills] Cosplay VIII　Handicrafts VII　Kijima-Style Onmyodo VIII　Kijima-Style Jujutsu VI [Status Ailment] Frigid Family Life: His wife has run off, and his daughter (age 4) gives him icy glares. Penalty to mental stats. ※Since he’s an exorcist, I changed “Magic Power” to “Spirit Power,” but they’re essentially the same thing! (by Alcapa)

Talk about kicking a man while he’s down. Goddess Alcapa was absolutely brutal.Could she at least remove [Man Who Lost to a Four-Year-Old] from his list of titles?

And what the hell is [Frigid Family Life] supposed to mean? Did she really have to expose him like that? The poor guy.

And while I’m at it, there’s one more thing I’d like to point out.

If he has something called [Divine Protection of the Thunder God], shouldn’t it be a little strange for him to get knocked unconscious by lightning magic?

Seriously. Could you at least do your job properly, Thunder God?

Hoo! I’ve gotten all my complaining out of my system. Time to start thinking seriously.

If I were to compare Kijima’s stats to the other world, I’d put him around the level of a Demon Lord’s Army unit commander. Not even close to one of the Four Great Demon Generals, and he wouldn’t even measure up to the boss of a small-scale dungeon.

If that’s what counts as “middle-ranking” among exorcists—well, we should have more than enough power to repel them. There’s no way Kijima would have been stupid enough to come here all by himself, so there were almost certainly some of his people lying in wait around the apartment.

Ideally, I’d like to know exactly how many.

“Shizuku, can I ask you something?”

“My height is 155 centimeters, and my measurements are 88, 57, and 84 centimeters, from top to bottom.”

Oh, so Kijima was a busty guy, eh, wha—

“Ah, of course, those are my measurements. I’m an E-cup, by the way. E-cup.”

Who cares?

Numbers and letters are nothing but decoration. If you don’t appreciate boobs, you wouldn’t understand. Boobs are precious simply by virtue of existing. (In some mysterious dialect.)

…Phew. I’ve done it again. Another timeless quote.

Wait, this isn’t the time for a comedy routine inside my own head.

“Tell me how many enemies there are. How many people did Kijima bring with him?”

“Hmph. That’s a rather underwhelming reaction.”

Shizuku puffed out her cheeks, looking a little disappointed.

“Master looked so troubled, you see, so I, Shizuku, thought I’d put my body on the line to lighten the mood…”

“We can do that later. Right now, I need information.”

“Don’t worry. It’s just Kijima-sama.”

“Huh?”

For a moment, my mind completely stopped processing.

“You’re kidding, right? Even if he wanted to charge in himself, obviously he’d bring some subordinates to back him up—”

“He doesn’t have any subordinates. They all went over to other factions that are more sensible and actually have some power…”

“So Kijima was getting desperate to make a name for himself.”

“Then why were you following his orders, Shizuku?”

“There are all sorts of complications involving our families. But, well, I did just ditch him back there, didn’t I?”

Shizuku shrugged playfully.

“At this point, there’s only one thing left to do: go all the way. So you’ll take responsibility for this, okay, Master?”

＊ ＊ ＊

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

Then, after I nodded, I suddenly realized something.

Huh? Wait a minute.

Wasn’t this weird?

Shizuku had betrayed Kijima because she’d chosen her friendship with Phyllis over him.

I had absolutely nothing to do with it. It wasn’t a matter of whether I should take responsibility or not. I was basically unrelated to the whole thing…

“Hehehe. Everyone heard that, right? I got you to say it. I got you to give me your word.”

Shizuku laughed with an “eeheehee”, sounding almost like a witch.

“That’s right. In that case, I suppose we have no choice but to properly hire her as our butler.”

Phyllis giggled, a mischievous smile playing across her face.

“Oniisan, if you abandon her now, you’ll be no different from that Naoki guy.”

Mia piled on as well.

The odds were three to one. And to make matters worse, they were all women while I was the only man. The disparity in sexual prowess was overwhelming.

Damn it. There was no way I could win.

“—Anyway, can we get serious for a moment?”

Amid the joking atmosphere, Shizuku suddenly spoke up.

“Actually, my family is in a pretty weak position right now. I became—well, I was made to become—the head of the family just last month. But by that point, we’d already been politically cornered…”

Things have suddenly taken a heavy turn.

Shizuku is usually known for her eccentric behavior, but perhaps she’s actually carrying a lot of mental burdens.

“To be honest, the Aitori family has no future regardless of who wins the current factional struggle. So, I figured—why not go all-in on a super-promising prospect like you, Master? That’s my line of thinking.”

“A ‘super-promising prospect’? In what sense? The Kirasawa family isn’t exactly an exorcist lineage or anything like that.”

“That’s not a big issue. You have the intellect of an adult at just four years old, enough magical power to knock Kijima-sama unconscious in a single blow, and—above all—you have connections to ‘Kaguya’s Moon Princess,’ Phyllis-Iris. That’s a cheat-level advantage that completely blows family pedigree out of the water.”

Shizuku leans in close, breathing heavily with excitement.

Her face  is way too close! I can smell a sweet scent coming from her. It actually made my heart skip a beat.

Also, she casually dropped that “Kaguya’s Moon Princess” title. Just to be clear, that’s a nickname Shizuku came up with on her own. It’s not an official title, so keep that in mind.

“So, when you eventually make your debut as an exorcist, I was hoping you’d consider bringing me along.”

I see. I’d thought she was just a weirdo, but it seems she’s actually thinking about the future of her house as its head.

I don’t mind that kind of sense of responsibility.

“I-It’s not like I fell for a guy ten years my junior just because he saved me from some thugs or protected me from the Black Knight, you know? Yeah. Don’t get the wrong idea about that… Don’t get the wrong idea, okay?”

Um. That last bit kind of ruined the whole thing.

Was that tacked-on tsundere act a joke, or just a way to hide her embarrassment?

I glanced over at Mia…

“I see, so she isn’t actually after Oniisan….”

She was sighing in relief. 

My little sister is so trusting. I worry about her future. 

With that little interlude over, I proceeded to tie up Kijima. I found the rope in Phyllis’s room.

“Master, you’re awfully practiced at this. It’s lewd… Haa, nngh…”

Shizuku was looking at me with an expression of ecstasy—and it was terrifying.

It’s not like I have a sadistic streak or anything.

It’s just from my past life—I had plenty of opportunities to restrain and interrogate members of the Demon Lord’s army.

Right, that’s done.

I can’t say I like Kijima, but I do think that onmyoji outfit looks cool. It might be fun to stroll through Kyoto wearing an eboshi hat, but I guess that’s something to think about after this whole affair is settled.

The kidnapping of Ayano Matsuki by Phyllis’s disciple. I wonder what the motive behind it could possibly be.

“A sacrifice, huh?”

Phyllis, his master, murmured the word.

“What that guy—Herbert—is trying to do is essentially a classical summoning ritual. By offering up a sacrifice, he can give physical form to a supernatural entity. Once the ritual begins, there will be little chance of saving that girl, Ayano.”

“No!”

It was Mia who cried out.

And really, who could blame her?

In her previous life, Mia—Mia Gransfield—had met a short end as a sacrifice to an evil god. After hearing that something similar was about to happen again, there was no way she could simply sit by and do nothing.

“Oniisan, lend me your strength.”

She looked straight at me, her eyes filled with determination.

By all rights, the sensible thing would have been to leave this to one of those so-called exorcist organizations. We are still only four-year-old children, after all. If we barged in where we weren’t wanted, we might just get in the way of the adults.

But—

According to Shizuku, every one of those organizations was an absolute mess, too busy undermining each other to actually investigate the case. The only exception seemed to be the Kijima faction—which currently consisted of approximately one member.

Unfortunately, that member was sleeping right beside me.

Sleeping in the sense that he’d been knocked unconscious.

Hmm. This is getting ridiculous.

“I was planning to go after Herbert anyway, but having Yoshito with me makes me feel a lot better.”

“I was hoping you’d show us your cool side again, Master.”

Phyllis and Shizuku joined in, egging me on.

“Why am I suddenly being treated like the leader here?”

“Because you’re my big brother.”

“Because you’re the boy who [Charmed] me.”

“Because you’re Master.”

Damn it. Women really were strong.

And seriously, the three of them had only just met, yet they were already way too close. Their teamwork was so flawless that I didn’t stand a chance.

That said—

“Someone we know is in danger. We can’t just abandon her, can we?”

Whatever else I might be, I was a former hero. I couldn’t just look the other way.

Besides, that game of house that had ended in a yandere route that one time…

It would be a terrible waste to lose someone talented enough to match my energy.

So—

[Let’s save Matsuki-san nice and quick, then rub it in Kijima’s face with a good old, “Nyah nyah, useless fool!”]

I was about to deliver that line with what I hoped would be an appropriately cool air. I was going to quickly fix my hair, then give him a sharp, sidelong glance.

At that very moment—

“It’s been a long time, Master.”

An unexpected interruption occured. 

Between this guy and Kijima earlier, was barging into people’s homes without warning and immediately launching into a conversation some kind of new trend lately?

Well, technically, this wasn’t my house. And he hadn’t come through the door, either. He simply appeared out of nowhere in this tiny four-and-a-half-tatami room.

A tall young man. His blond hair was cut short and neatly trimmed, and he wore square, silver-framed glasses. His blue eyes gleamed with cold, calculating intelligence.

Phyllis’s disciple—Herbert, I assumed.

His entire body was wrapped in white ceremonial robes, but his figure looked slightly translucent.

“I have finally finished preparing the ritual, so I have come to deliver your invitation.”

Herbert bowed with exaggerated courtesy.

Something told me this conversation was going to take a while. More importantly—he had committed the unforgivable crime of stealing my big moment. I picked up an advertising flyer lying nearby, folded it into a paper airplane, and hurled it at him.

“Hmph. How foolish.”

Herbert dramatically brushed his hair back.

“Attack like that… attack? Well, no matter. Whatever you may attempt is futile. This is merely an illusion created by projecting mental wavelengths. I realize that explaining such things to primitive Japanese exorcists may be beyond your comprehension, but in short, it is impervious to any form of interference—BYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!?”

Herbert let out a scream that was about as unfitting for a handsome young man as it could possibly be, then collapsed.

A paper airplane was embedded in his forehead. A moment later, his figure seemed to melt away, fading into nothingness.

“Yoshito, you’re actually rather ruthless…”

Phyllis gave me an awkward look. She apparently understood exactly what I had done.

“Eh? Eeh? What just happened?”

Shizuku was completely confused, so I explained.

It was a form of mind hacking. (Think back to that little trick I pulled on Manya before.) 

I had embedded a spell that synchronized with Herbert’s mental wavelength, then thrown the paper airplane at him. That paper airplane served as the starting point for the mental interference. Herbert immediately cut the connection, but when it came to constructing mental defenses, he was less than third-rate.

Thanks to that, I managed to extract the information I needed. Herbert’s location.

It was deep in the mountains, a considerable distance to the north, but we should be able to get there before dawn.

“Then we should hurry, Master. Now that Herbert knows his location has been discovered, he may move the ritual forward.”

“That won’t be a problem. Right, Yoshito?”

Phyllis gave me a light wink.

“Herbert should be unconscious by now. He might even be a vegetable.”

The possibility wasn’t exactly zero. I had forcibly extracted Herbert’s memories. A less skilled practitioner could easily have killed the target by doing something like that. Fortunately, I had plenty of experience with this sort of thing in my previous life. 

Against a human opponent, I should be able to limit the damage to about half a day’s unconsciousness. Even if Herbert woke up before we got there, the splitting headache and dizziness should leave him in no condition to perform any kind of ritual.

Just to be safe, I also placed a curse on him that would make his most terrifying memories replay over and over. In other words, we had already neutralized the mastermind.

All that remained was to go pick up Matsuki-san.

A simple job…

Or so it should have been.

As luck would have it, Phyllis owned a car, so we piled in and headed north.

This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com

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