“Ahhh, the Phrase girls have been giving Leylle so much attention that it’s got Allis in a huff, is she?”

“But Leylle doesn’t have anyone else that she can rely on, so I can’t really blame them.”

It wasn’t as if the girls were deliberately trying to leave Allis out; they just wanted to help a child who was thrust into this world all by herself.

“It’s a bit of a tall order to ask a child to understand that, darling.”

“I guess...”

I felt like Kuon would understand, but maybe that was a sign of a parent’s neglect more than anything...

“I’d say it’s pretty normal when you have siblings,” Elze said. “Oh, though you wouldn’t know that, huh, Touya?”

“I agree. There were times I was so frustrated that I would cry when my brother got praised all the time,” Hilde added.

Huh? Is it really that common? Admittedly, they’re not wrong. I didn’t grow up with siblings, so I can’t relate.

I had a younger sister now, but we didn’t grow up together, so I couldn’t say I fully understood the sentiment.

“I understand that feeling, as well, when I get compared to my sister...”

“I do get compared to my brother too, I do...”

Even Lu and Yae had experience.

“Hmm, I’ve never particularly felt that way with my little brother, though?” Sue said.

“You may not understand so much when you have a large age gap,” Linze replied with a wry smile.

Yumina, Sue, Sakura, Leen, and I didn’t have any siblings close in age, so it didn’t quite click for us in the same way. Well, Allis and Leylle weren’t really sisters, more cousins, but it was a similar idea.

“Oh, but I have been compared to Yumina before. I remember that making me feel a little annoyed. Now I get it.”

“What? You were compared to me?”

Apparently, there was a time when Sue had been compared to Yumina at a noble function, and she’d felt quite unhappy at the time. Sue and Yumina were also cousins, so I could imagine that people would compare them. That meant Sue joined the ranks of the ones who got it.

“We’re not making comparisons between Allis and Leylle, though, so I doubt it’s quite the same.”

“Basically, it’s to do with jealousy. Allis feels as if her parents’ love has been stolen from her...perhaps?” Leen analyzed.

Jealousy was the root cause of this predicament, huh? When you see love directed at your sibling instead of yourself, you start to get jealous because you’re worried that your parents don’t love you anymore. Something like that?

Honestly, it made me a bit worried. I wasn’t showing more love to one of my kids over another, was I? Well, whatever the case, Allis was the focus for now. She was a good kid, so I personally thought she’d understand if we just had a chat with her about it.

I turned to go talk with Allis, but then Yumina yanked me back by the sleeve.

Huh? Why are you stopping me?

“Do you hate Leylle, Allis?”

“...Not really.”

“Then why are you angry?”

“...I dunno.”

Kuon and Allis were talking. Yumina was glaring at me, practically shouting at me to read the room. Was it really okay to just leave it to him?

“Leylle has arrived at this world alone, where she knows not a single soul. If we didn’t have Grandmother Tokie, we would have been in the same boat. Do you not think she’s quite scared right now?”

“...”

“You’re angry at yourself, aren’t you? You weren’t able to be kind to Leylle, despite her experiences, so you directed all your anger at your mothers. You can’t forgive yourself for what you did, but you aren’t sure what to do. Did I hit the nail on the head?”

“...Yeah, probably. How’d you know?”

“I am your fiancé, after all. I can at least understand how you’re feeling.”

Kuon smiled at Allis as her face turned bright red. What a tactful choice of words... Was Kuon really my son?

“Kuon’s nothing like his dad, huh?”

“That’s because he’s my son!”

“I wish his father would learn a thing or two from him, I do.”

Elze, Yumina, and Yae were all muttering about me behind my back.

Now, come on, you shouldn’t take Kuon as the base level here. I’m pretty sure most men are as bad as me... Surely.

“I said some really mean things to my moms...”

“Everyone sometimes says things they don’t truly mean. I sometimes accidentally say some really mean things to Silver myself.”

“You what? Things you don’t mean? Only sometimes?” came the questioning voice of Silver at Kuon’s waist. The moment Kuon laid his hand over him with a smile, the Artificer shut up.

“If you’ve done something bad, then simply apologize. Your mothers will forgive you.”

“Leylle too?”

“Leylle too, I’m sure. You two are pretty much cousins, right? In fact, Leylle is almost like a newborn child, so you have to make sure you teach her all kinds of things as her big sister.”

“As her big sis? I get to be a big sister?”

As if she hadn’t realized that fact until this very moment, Allis’s face lit up in utter delight. Technically, since she came from the future, she would be younger than Leylle, but far be it from me to ruin the mood. Actually, wait, Leylle was from the future too, so maybe it was right.

“Allis!”

Just as I was thinking such trivial things, Ende burst in through the balcony window.

Hey, don’t come in through there! We have an entrance for a reason! I’ve really gotta work on the castle’s security...

“Hey, didn’t we already decide that Allis would be staying here tonight?” I asked him.

“I was worried, so I came here by myself! I can’t go back home right now, anyway! Lemme stay too!”

So now the father was tagging along. We had spare rooms, though, so it was whatever.

“Allis, daddy will stay with you for as long as you need today, so—”

“I’m going home. Sorry, dad.”

“Huh?”

Ignoring Ende looking dumbfounded in the corner, Allis came over to us and bowed.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused! I’ll go home now! See you later, Kuon!”

After saying her farewells with her usual liveliness, Allis simply left through the balcony.

No, seriously, both of you need to learn to use the front door.

“Wait, Allis?!”

Ende went back out through the balcony in pursuit.

What did I just say?!

“Well, uh, I guess everything worked out?”

“Most likely. The rest is for Allis herself to handle,” Kuon said, giving his body a big stretch.

“You really know how to handle her, huh?”

“Well, when you have as many sisters as I do, you learn how to mediate.”

Oh, so that was what he was used to. Did that mean I was partly responsible for my son having no choice but to learn how to handle women...? He’d probably had to learn those skills in order to live in peace with a family of mainly girls. I gave him a gentle pat on the head, beginning to feel a little bad for him.

And then, Yumina tossed me aside and took over that role.

Why...?

“You haven’t forgotten that we still have no idea what happened to the original Halle, right? If he’s dead back up on Phrasia, that means that for Melle, that personality inside Leylle is the last remaining memories of her brother—in fact, it’s her brother himself. Could you really delete that?”

“You’ve got the wrong idea, I’m not saying to delete him. But is there no way to temporarily seal the memories, or make it possible for us to enable and disable the personality at will? I’m pretty sure a fluctuation of emotions being all it takes for Halle to present himself isn’t convenient for Leylle either.”

I understood what he was saying, but wouldn’t everything be solved if he just...made up with Halle? They’d be able to interact fine if Halle didn’t keep coming out because of his instinctual animosity toward him.

“I doubt there’s any chance of us making up...” Ende said, his head drooping dejectedly. I honestly couldn’t think of what else to tell him. “Were your wives’ families against you getting married to them at all, Touya?”

“Not really...? Wait, no, the overlord was a bit grumpy when I married Sakura.”

But being grumpy was all he was, however. He didn’t particularly object to it. Sakura was completely on my side, so he couldn’t really do anything.

“Couldn’t Melle maybe help mediate a little?”

“Melle still feels guilty over having essentially abandoned Phrasia, so I don’t feel right trying to convince her to help with something like this.”

“Not like I don’t understand where you’re coming from, but...”

If no one ever took that step, then the whole situation would remain unsolved. There’d be all kinds of issues if we just remained at a stalemate.

“...Then again, you’re the one who’s most troubled by all this, so maybe we don’t have to worry too much about solving it?”

“Hang on! It’s a huge problem for Allis too, ’cause she can’t meet me, you know?!”

“She’s never said anything like that. And she’s getting along with Leylle like they’re sisters.”

All the color drained out of Ende’s face before he collapsed sideways onto the sofa.

Oops, guess I went too far there.

My phone rang as I was wondering what to do with the guy.

Wait, that’s not mine. Is it Ende’s?

“Hello...? Huh? Yeah, now’s fine, but...”

Ende’s eyes regained life again as he spoke on the phone. He slowly rose off the sofa and walked away as he continued his conversation with whoever was on the other end.

Who was he talking to? Was it Melle telling him to buy groceries for dinner?

When Ende finished his phone call, he turned to look at me as I was sipping away at my tea.

“It was from the guildmaster. Apparently, there’s a stampede over in Sandora.”

“A stampede?!”

At that ominous news, I pulled out my phone and displayed a map in the air. Zooming in on the Sandora region, I used [Search]. “Run search: monsters or magic beasts going on a stampede.”

“Searching... Search complete. Displaying results.”

Red pins appeared on the map. Though it looked like they were moving slowly, in reality, they were running at an extremely fast pace.

“Exact number of matches?”

“32,691 matches.”

Damn, that’s a lot.

It was a stampede on a pretty large scale, and it looked like there was a town in its path. They’d reach it in less than three hours at the current rate.

The Kingdom of Sandora that ruled the region no longer existed. Nowadays, several small city-states had become independent, working away at improving their trade to survive. My reputation was the same in Sandora as it was in Yulong, given that I was the one who led to their destruction, especially with slave traders.

Given the town was in Sandora, chances were high that it was financially supported by ex-slave traders, but...

“So what was Relisha saying?”

“It was a hunting request. They only just managed to get a branch set up in Sandora, so the last thing she wants is for them to get destroyed already.”

Could Ende really manage it alone? Sure, he had the Dragoon, but that was still a massive number.

“Don’t worry about me. Relisha said she’d send a request to the black and red crowns as well.”

“Norn and Nia?”

Norn was the master of the back crown, Noir, while Nia was the master of the red crown, Rouge. They were both registered with the adventurer’s guild, and we had also loaned them their respective Over Gears. Add the Dragoon and some more impressive adventurers, and such a large horde of monsters should be fine. Ende could teleport over there, so his time wouldn’t be so limited.

“You can join if you want, Touya? This commission is for adventurers who are red-rank or above.”

“I’m not so sure I can... Reginleif is still in for maintenance.”

It wasn’t that I would be in danger if I were to participate without it, but the problem was that the people of Sandora really didn’t like me. I’d much rather not make myself visible, especially since a lot of adventurers taking part would be from the area.

I could probably avoid it if I used a Knight Baron, but it had been so long since I really moved my body that I felt I might as well go without one. I’d been so focused on forging the sacred treasure that it’d been a while since my last fight. Plus, I could just put on my silver mask to make myself unidentifiable.

It was time for the return of Shirogane, the silver-masked warrior. I wanted to warm up before I had to fight the wicked devout anyway.

“Hm, might as well join, then. I’ll let Relisha know.”

People would probably be shocked if Shirogane suddenly reappeared again without warning, so I made sure to send a message explaining the situation to the guildmaster.

That’ll do.

“I’ll get in contact with Norn and Nia, so let’s meet in two hours outside the gates,” I said.

“Roger,” Ende responded before leaping out through the window.

What did I say about using the front door?!

I grumbled to myself as I returned to my room to get changed, completely unaware that a small figure had been watching us that entire time.

◇◇◇

I met up with Ende, Norn, and Nia in front of the town entrance. Norn and Nia had made sure to bring their crowns with them. The noble thieves that usually accompanied Nia weren’t with her this time though, only Est, her second-in-command, and Akagane, Est’s Gollem.

“Where’s Red Cat?” I asked.

“Those guys aren’t red-rank yet, so they can’t join. Only Est and I are qualified.”

I hadn’t realized they hadn’t passed the required rank. Nothing else we could do about it, then. That was probably the reason that Norn’s humanoid Gollem, Elfrau, wasn’t here either. Though Norn’s elder sister, Doctor Elluka, had said that Elfrau was specialized for medical purposes, so I didn’t think she would be all that useful in a fight anyway.

“Not that I care all that much, but what the hell are you wearing? Have you gone loopy already?”

Norn was looking at my full attire of armor, surcoat, and silver mask in disgust as she gave her harsh opinion.

It isn’t that weird, is it?

“I don’t have the best reputation in the Sandora region. This is just a disguise so I don’t draw too much unwanted attention. Call me Shirogane when I look like this.”

“You don’t have the best reputation? What did you do?”

“Well, uh...I guess I destroyed their country?”

I could feel everyone present apart from Ende recoil at that admission.

Okay, now hang on a sec, they’re the ones who declared war first! I just protected Brunhild from a potential danger.

I didn’t expect them to understand if I explained, so I just went ahead with opening a [Gate] to Sandora.

“Whoa!”

When we stepped through the [Gate], there were already a ton of male adventurers waiting for us.

This was one of the small oases in the desert of the Sandora region. It had been designated as the meet-up point for everyone involved in the commission. It seemed like a good bunch had already gathered.

Relisha had already let the members of the guild know we were coming, so someone frantically rushed over the second he saw us.

“Gold-rank adventurer Ende, red-rank adventurers Norn, Nia, and Est, and...Shirogane, yes?”

The moment the words “gold-rank” were uttered, the crowd around us grew restless. There were only three gold-rank adventurers in the world right now, after all: Galen, one of the previous kings of Lestia, Ende, and myself. I was pretty sure Yae and Hilde would join those ranks soon, though.

The guild member had clearly deliberately obscured what rank I was. Seemed Relisha had made sure to work that out with this branch.

“So you really can use teleportation magic. It gave us a bit of a fright. No wonder you’re gold,” he marveled.

“Well, y’know,” Ende awkwardly muddled his words. I was the one who used the [Gate], but Ende could actually use teleportation magic, so it wasn’t a complete lie.

“Is this all of the adventurers who accepted the commission?”

“Yes. There are ninety-four red-rank adventurers in the Sandora region.”

Including us, that made an army around a hundred strong. Even though a lot of it would be trash like goblins and kobolds, asking us to take on a stampede that was more than three hundred times the size of us was insanity. But red ranks were first-class adventurers, so they would be strong enough to take this on. Plus, the commission was put out under the assumption that people like Ende and Norn would be joining anyway, so we would be fine.

“Jeez, it’s so hot out here...” Norn complained. “Sorry, but I’m gonna go cool myself down until the fight starts.”

After saying that, she took out a storage card from her pocket, and with a swish, made her lion Over Gear, Leo Noir, appear in the desert. Ignoring the shocked onlookers, Norn boarded the cockpit together with Noir.

Look, I get that they come equipped with air conditioning, but seriously?

“Ugh, lemme do the same.”

Nia immediately copied Norn, materializing her tiger Over Gear, Tiger Rouge, and began boarding it. Sometimes these girls could march to the beat of their own drums a little too much.

Seeing the two Over Gears on our side, the adventurers began showing signs of relief. They must have been nervous after all.

I had heard that there were a lot of former slaves and gladiators among the adventurers of Sandora. I couldn’t imagine former slaves holding a grudge against me, but it would be a little awkward if they started making a big deal about getting to meet me, so I felt I’d made the right call coming in a disguise.

“Tou— Shirogane, how far has the stampede gone?” Ende asked.

“They’ll arrive here in about thirty minutes,” I said upon checking my map. Ende had also called out his Dragoon from the pocket dimension.

There was a large town to the back of this oasis. They had guards there, but the ideal situation would be not letting a single monster leak through. In the case that any did reach the town, though, the guards would be more than capable of handling a few dozen of them.

“Guess I should get ready myself.”

As I watched Ende board the Dragoon, I pulled two phrasium katana from [Storage], one large and one small, and attached them to my waist. If I used Brunhild, I would definitely end up standing out. There was also the risk of people realizing who I was. Phrasium weapons were easy to explain away, since other countries who had acquired Phrase fragments, few as those were, had learned to manufacture them themselves.

All that was left was to call out Kohaku.

“My liege, what is with your appearance?” she asked, looking at me with suspicious eyes. I could tell, right this minute, that she was thinking to herself, “You’re doing something strange again, aren’t you?”

“We’re trying to stop a little stampede. Thought I’d have you tag along like you did in Eashen.”

“I see. Well, I have been a bit lacking in exercise recently.”

While at the castle, Kohaku very much lived a cat’s life. Or a big cat’s life in captivity, in her case. She would eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. Of course she would feel that she wasn’t getting enough exercise. Naturally, I made sure to say none of that out loud.

“Hm?”

Suddenly feeling eyes on my back, I turned around. The Sandoran adventurers were focusing on preparing for the stampede, maintaining their weapons or focusing their minds. Some of them were looking in my direction. Was it their eyes I felt? Rather than curiosity, I felt like someone had been watching me out of caution... Well, whatever.

“Tou... No, uh, Shirogane, it seems like the head of the pack’s arrived,” Ende told me from the Dragoon. I leaped up from the oasis using [Fly], and when I focused farther away in the desert, I could see a sand cloud being kicked up among the heat haze.

“[Long Sense].”

I strengthened my sight and was able to see countless magic beasts charging right toward us. Sand Goblins, Desert Scorpions, Basilisks, Sand Crawlers, Lizardmen, Desert Buffalo, Sand Sharks... There were a number I didn’t know the identity of too.

Beasts that could move through the sand such as Sand Sharks and Sand Crawlers led the group. Due to the difference in speed among them, rather than closing in like a wave, they were in more of a spear formation.

Well, at least that makes it easier for us.

“They’re here, huh? All right, let’s do this!”

Nia, full of energy, burst right out of the oasis with Tiger Rouge.

“Oh, come on! Don’t go charging in by yourself.”

Sick of Nia’s antics, Norn chased after her in Leo Noir.

“Guess I should head off too.”

The Dragoon lowered the wheels in its heels and dashed off into the desert. I thought the sand might impede movement, but it seemed to be moving perfectly fine. Had Doc Babylon upgraded it?

Once the three Frame Gears were off, the adventurers also began their charge into the desert.

Better make sure I don’t fall behind.

I jumped onto Kohaku after she had landed on the ground and turned into her large tiger form. When I unsheathed my tachi, Kohaku charged toward the stampede.

“The silver-masked warrior will begin his assault! I suppose that’s the appropriate thing to say here.”

Kohaku had passed by the adventurers in a matter of seconds, and before long, we had caught up with Ende and the others. We were going fast despite having to wade through sand.

“Kohaku, we’ll just end up getting in the way if we’re too close to the Frame Gears, so let’s hold back here and catch any monsters that get past them.”

“Yes, my liege.”

Kohaku slid to a halt. Ende’s group was already wreaking havoc on the stampede, no mercy to be seen. I could see a Sand Shark’s fin poking out of the sand, sliding along toward us. The sharklike magic beast leaped out of the sand, mouth open wide to chomp down on me.

“Get lost, you impudent brat.”

At the shock wave that Kohaku released from her mouth, the leaping Sand Shark exploded into pieces. Now nothing more than chunks of meat, it fell to the ground, red stains left behind in its wake.

You can eat Sand Shark, can’t you? Maybe cook up its fins?

I could already picture Lu and Arcia getting mad at me if I wasted it, so I decided to put its body parts in [Storage] for now.

“Oh, got another visitor.”

First was the Sand Shark; now came a Desert Buffalo. Desert Buffalo were rampaging carnivorous beasts that came equipped with deadly horns. Kohaku easily dodged its charge, and I took my phrasium blade and slashed its head clean off as it passed. The buffalo went tumbling over after being beheaded.

Lu and Arcia would almost definitely get pissed at me if I left the buffalo behind too, so I decided to store that as well.

For now. Just for now, okay?

“Hyeh hyeh hyeh!”

“I don’t need you, though,” I ruthlessly said as I cut down the Sand Goblin that had come jumping at me next. No point collecting monsters we couldn’t eat. “Kohaku, prioritize the targets we can take back as food.”

“I feel like your priorities are a little skewed here...”

Kohaku was clearly confused by my order, but she ran off to fulfill it regardless. We jumped into the rush of magic beasts that had gotten past the Frame Gears and slashed through them all. I made sure to not forget to take a little detour to put them into [Storage] here and there.

I could’ve taken all of them down with one fell swoop were I to use magic, but then the adventurers would lose out on pay, and I wanted to get my feel for battle back anyway, so I decided not to do that.

The more monsters I fought against, the more I could feel my honed instincts returning. I was keenly reminded of how this stinging tension that came from being in actual danger wasn’t something you could truly replicate in training.

When I looked up, I noticed the adventurers also starting to engage with the stampede.

Look at ’em go.

Trust red-rank adventurers to charge into a horde without fear and still successfully take down the monsters.

Perhaps because there were a lot of locals, they seemed knowledgeable on the most efficient way to take the creatures down. They were even properly equipped against those with venom like the Desert Scorpions. Good on them.

Oh, and there was Est fighting together with Akagane. They were both showing great teamwork, coordinating their attacks well as they looked out for the other. As expected of a Gollem and its master, they were completely in sync.

The adventurers were fighting as hard as they could to not be shown up. There was a girl over there fighting with a katana, same as myself. Was she from Eashen? She looked a lot like Yakumo. Another girl over there swinging a halberd around looked a lot like Frei. And a girl beating up a Lizardman by the back looked a lot like Linne.

Oof, that was one hell of a tackle.

The girl who’d done it looked exactly like Steph. The girl using magic over there looked like Elna, and the girl cheerfully singing looked like Yoshino. The girl going around collecting the monsters that looked edible looked exactly like Arcia. And honestly, I could only see the one wearing the power armor as Quun.

Ha ha ha...

“WH-WHAT THE HELL?!”

What are my kids DOING?!

◇◇◇

No matter how you looked at it, my kids were taking down the stampede one monster after another.

“Hey, why are you guys here?!” I angrily questioned, running to Linne where she was sending Lizardmen flying with her fists.

“Who are you, old man?” was the response I got back from Linne, her head tilted.

Guh!

A metaphorical knife stabbed right into my gut.

Oh, right, I enhanced the mask with cognition disruption, so of course she wouldn’t recognize me...

It was a type of magic that only got stronger the better I knew the person. It completely erased that sense of someone looking familiar, meaning that Linne couldn’t register any features that would let her recognize me. In her mind, I was just a stranger. Still, did she really have to call me an old man? I was eighteen...

“Huh? Wait, is that you, Kohaku?” Linne asked, looking over in surprise at Kohaku behind me.

“Indeed.”

Oh, so you’ll recognize her and not me, huh?

Even though Kohaku had no form of cognition disruption cast on her, I still felt burned.

Things finally clicked into place, so the girl slowly asked, “Is... Is that you, dad?”

After a beat, I replied, “I am indeed your father.”

I nudged aside my mask a little. Somewhat hilariously, Linne started flailing at the realization.

“U-Um, that’s, this...! Q-QUUUUUUN!”

At Linne’s shout, Quun immediately came lumbering over in her power armor. Quun herself had made it, an Armored Arm Gear that she called Beowulf, I think?

Jeez, just what are you riding there, girl?

“Whatever is the matter, Linne? Did you get hurt? Wait, father?!”

When Quun saw me with my mask slightly off, she showed the same shocked expression as Linne.

“Quun? Mind explaining why you’re all here?”

“U-Um, that’s, this...! Y-YAKUMOOOOOO!”

Thank you for having the exact same reaction.

The Mochizuki family’s eldest daughter, Yakumo, came over next, slicing through any monsters in her path.

“Why are you all hanging around here?! We need to prioritize the high-ranking monsters and take them... Wait, f-father?!”

Admittedly, I felt a little depressed at Yakumo having the exact same reaction as the other girls. Our kids had a habit of pushing responsibility on Yakumo much more than they should. I really needed to sort that out before it was too late.

“Yakumo, you’re the oldest. You must have an explanation, right?”

“U-Um, that’s, this...! A-AUNT MOROHAAAAAAAAA!”

“What’s up, kid?”

“YOUUUUUU! YOU’RE THE REASON FOR THIS MESS, AREN’T YOU?!”

It was my turn to exclaim when Moroha suddenly popped up.

And so, the villain makes her appearance! It was clear that this musclehead goddess of swords hadn’t gotten enough action recently and so had decided to lead our children down the path of evil!

“Well, that’s a bit rude. I’m more like their leader and their guardian.”

She laughed heartily as she slashed the incoming monsters in half with her sonic boom.

“The kids were already heading here through Yakumo’s [Gate] by the time I saw them. I thought it looked kinda fu— I mean, I felt a little worried about ’em, so I decided to hop on through as well. I only learned what was going on after I got here.”

So rather than Moroha bringing them here, the kids had made their way here themselves. Apparently, Yoshino had overheard me and Ende talking about the stampede. Steph ended up wanting to go when Yoshino told them, then Linne and Frei joined in after her, and Quun successfully enticed...convinced the reluctant Yakumo. And then, Moroha caught them in the act and ended up becoming their leader plus guardian?

“Do Yae and the other girls know?” I asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“Um, they...probably don’t? We only came here for a bit of exercise, so...” Yakumo mumbled, averting her eyes.

You don’t go participate in a stampede extermination for some light exercise...

I mean, technically, that was why I went, but still! To these kids, this was probably the same as going to play a little ball in the park. Why should they need to tell their mothers about every little outing? But that was dependent on family. That said, we did tend to give them a lot of freedom.

“If Kuon had been there, I’m sure he would’ve either tried to stop you or at least made sure to tell me and Yumina,” I muttered with a sigh. Quun averted her gaze. She totally didn’t tell Kuon for that very reason.

You’ll be the ones getting yelled at by your mothers later, you know?

“Father, um, maybe you can leave the scolding for later? The monsters are closing in, see? Look!”

“Mngh... You know what, fine. Stay together, don’t get separated. If anything happens, tell an adult right away.”

“Okaaay!”

At least their responses were enthusiastic, but I was pretty sure their mothers would be mad at me too later for this... In fact, it would definitely happen. They’d demand to know why I didn’t stop them. But what parent could after seeing how much fun they were having?

Nothing I can do about it. I’ll just get scolded along with them.

“Moroha, keep an eye on them for me, will you?”

“Leave it to me. But before I go, Touya, who exactly is this musclehead goddess that hasn’t had enough action recently, hm?”

“I’m really sorry!”

Damn it, she knew exactly what I was thinking!

After bowing my head in apology, I leaped onto Kohaku and left the scene.

I’ll just let sleeping gods lie!

“Grrrrrrrrr!”

“Shut it!” I slammed a [Fireball] straight into the mouth of the Sand Crawler that suddenly decided to stand in my way. It might have been a bit too obvious that I was letting my frustrations out, but...well, whatever.

Even though Ende, Norn, and Nia were managing to thin out the numbers, the amount leaking through never seemed to decrease at all. With the kids and Moroha here now, it didn’t really matter how many leaked through—we’d be able to clean them up easily. But it was quite mentally taxing when it felt like there was no end in sight. I guess if the adventurers were hitting the end of their tether, I could just kill them all with magic...

Oh?

“I think there might be some monsters joining the party that I’ve never seen before.”

Pretty sure that Sand Shark I just killed had two heads. Was it some kind of subspecies...? It wasn’t as if I knew every monster that existed. In fact, since I was basically never in Sandora, I wouldn’t really know about the monsters specific to this region. I kind of just assumed they would be the same monsters you’d find in any old desert region.

Suddenly, I was attacked by yet another unfamiliar monster. Was it a squid? An octopus? Some kind of strange monster with a bunch of tentacles burst out of the sand. I cut one of its tentacles down with my blade when it attacked, purple blood spurting out from where it was severed. When the rest of the tentacles attacked, I cut those off as well.

Right after that, it suddenly started spouting some kind of red-brown liquid at me. Of course, we made sure to dodge that one. When it landed on the sand, there was a sizzling sound as white smoke rose from it. It had quite literally melted the sand.

Ugh, not dissolving acid!

It was gross as hell, so I decided to take it down as fast as I possibly could. Betting on it being similar to a squid or octopus, I thrust right between its eyes, and just like that, it fell to the ground dead.

This was the first time I’d seen a monster like that. Was it a Sand Octopus? Or maybe it was called a Sand Tentacular?

Can we eat this...? No, no, that thing was spitting out acid. No way I wanna eat something like that.

But there was definitely something strange going on. None of the monsters attacking us now were the same as the ones from earlier. And if it wasn’t my imagination, it felt like they were getting stronger too.

Just as I was starting to feel a faint anxiety at that thought, my phone started ringing. It was Ende.

“Yeah, hello?”

“Touya, something’s weird about this stampede. It’s like there’s no end to it, like they’re just infinitely appearing from somewhere.”

I did agree that it felt like there were a bit too many monsters than would be normal. Stampedes obviously did not occur if there were no monsters or animals to cause said stampede. There would be some sort of trigger that would result in swathes of them migrating from areas like forests and mountains that tended to be rich in resources. But deserts were tough locations for animals to live in to begin with, so stampedes rarely had reason to happen in them.

But then, where did these monsters come from? It was like someone had gathered them from all across the desert and set them loose...

I was starting to get the feeling that this was a man-made stampede.

Could this also have been caused by the wicked devout?

I took a look at my phone’s map again, but the shape of the stampede hadn’t changed at all. The only difference was that the red pins now stretched all the way to our location. The rear wasn’t moving at all? Actually, rather than it not moving, it was like more monsters were appearing from there.

“No way! [Teleport]!”

Getting a bad feeling, I teleported myself and Kohaku to the rear of the stampede. What I saw there was a whole crowd of monsters coming out from distorted space. The monsters leaping out were charging straight along the desert, probably blindly following the monsters in front.

“Is this a [Gate]?! Actually, no, is it...?!”

“Oh my, was I a little late?”

As if to confirm my speculation, a familiar voice spoke from behind me. When I turned around, standing there was Grandma Tokie, a slightly awkward smile on her face, which meant...

“Is this a timequake distortion?”

“Precisely, my dear. And one so dangerous that it is completely connected to the past. Should this remain, the past and this time will have a constant path open to each other.”

Was it one of those time tunnels that she had mentioned once before? If I remembered correctly, when time tunnels completely stabilized, the past, present, and future would get all jumbled together, and since there was no easy way to fix it, the god of destruction would have to appear and completely destroy the world as a countermeasure.

Hey, hey, hey, isn’t this pretty bad?!

That meant that the strange monsters I had been seeing were actually extinct species from the past!

“I’m sorry. I acted so confident, and yet I had been putting this off... It is quite shameful of me.” Grandma Tokie laughed bashfully. It was a rare sight for her.

But is this really a laughing matter?!

Despite my panic, Grandma Tokie simply closed her right fist into a ball...and the dimensional rip disappeared in an instant. I thought we were in a critical situation, yet she handled it so easily...

“Um, what was this about you being late, exactly?”

“You see, I wanted to solve it before you found out, but it appears I was just a wee bit too slow.”

That was what she was talking about?! She was talking about erasing the evidence?! Grandma Tokie gave me a cheeky little chuckle.

“Dimensional distortions of all sizes have been opening across the land recently. I had thought it was the effect of the timequake, but it appears there might have been someone pulling the strings.”

“The wicked devout, by any chance?”

“Yes. They are unmistakably creating the distortions of their own volition. As a result, monsters foreign to this time are flowing here from the past. That can often be the trigger for a stampede, but in this case, the stampede itself is from the past. Due to the endless flow of monsters, even if the dimensional rip wants to close, it can’t.”

Usually, small rips in space fixed themselves through the world’s natural regenerative abilities. But when they got too big, it took time to close them, and on rare occasions they could end up stuck there. That created a time tunnel.

The constant flow of monsters coming through it was what had been preventing this specific tear from repairing itself. The god of destruction would absolutely have ended up arriving here if it weren’t for Grandma Tokie...

Was that the goal of the wicked devout? The end of the world through the god of destruction? That spelled the end for themselves as well, so it felt odd to think it was the case, but there were those out there who outright wished for complete destruction, so maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched.

“What has me a little curious is why the recent ones have only connected to the past. Dimensional distortions should be able to connect to the future as well.”

“Now that you mention it...”

Though there were plenty of visitors from the past, the only visitors from the future had been our kids. The kids’ and Leylle’s appearance here was no doubt due to the timequake, and the wicked devout likely had no hand in that. Was there a reason for them to be so invested in the past?

“Wait, is it possible for them to pull the wicked god here from before we killed him?”

“That would be impossible. So long as I’m here, I refuse to let the wicked god or any other troublemakers make their way here. Were they to arrive, I would send them to an infinite looping time chamber and have them wander there for eternity.”

My deduction was immediately crossed out. An infinite time chamber? What was that? It sounded kind of scary...

Paying no mind to my fear, Grandma Tokie sighed and continued, “They may be unaware of that themselves and are going on a wild-goose chase, though.”

That was a possibility. It could be that the wicked devout were trying to revive the wicked god, unaware that their efforts were fruitless because of the goddess of space-time’s intervention. But as much as I’d end up feeling sorry for them if that was the case, was that really what was happening?

“Wait, does that mean stampedes like this will keep happening?”

“This case is a little unique in that the dimensional tear just happened to end up connecting to a stampede from the past. That is the only reason it grew to this size. I don’t think ones of this scale will happen so often. But these kinds of distortions tend to appear next to anything that moves, so monsters appearing will be an inevitability. Since many monsters in the past were stronger than the ones in the present day...”

“That leads to a stampede, regardless.”

Basically, all the animals got a fright when really strong monsters suddenly appeared, so they all ran away at once. It was their natural survival instincts kicking in, so I couldn’t blame them, but it sure was a hassle.

“So...is there any way for you to know where dimensional tears are going to appear before they happen?”

“Well...I wouldn’t say it’s impossible for me to pinpoint likely locations, but...not only can there be unexpected cases like this one, but I don’t know what to think about an upper god like myself giving too much assistance to the surface world. There are already some gods unhappy at how much we listen to you.”

Ugh, well, if she says that...

It was technically my responsibility as the caretaker of this world to clean up this mess. Plus, I was already getting a ton of help from Moroha and Kraft. They could at least make the excuse that they were just giving some guidance to the newbie, but Grandma Tokie was hands-on assisting.

If a time tunnel were to form, the god of destruction would arrive to bring about the end of the world. That in and of itself was a special measure put in place by the gods, especially given this was the gods’ resort.

“So you can only assist when a time tunnel has already formed, is that right?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that is all you can rely on me for. More importantly, is everyone all right over there?”

Grandma Tokie pointed behind me, and when I turned, I saw a large sand pillar. A gigantic monster about the size of Leo Noir with the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and a skull head was floating in the air. Was it a Behemoth?

Hmm, no, maybe on the way to becoming one. The size is kinda small, comparatively.

“This is not a monster that crossed over to this world. It was originally from the desert of this time.”

“Yeah, I think this is a...Skull Sphinx? It probably got attracted here by the smell of all the blood.”

Though the Skull Sphinx had a skull for a head, it was a monster that loved sucking the blood of its enemies. Whether it was because deserts were so devoid of water or it was simply just its taste, I didn’t know, but it was definitely attracted by the ridiculous amount of blood flowing here.

“Grrrrrrr...”

All I could see within its eye depressions was pitch darkness. Though it had no eyeballs, I could tell that it had noticed me. The mouth of the skull opened, and a long needlelike tongue slithered out. That was most likely what it used to suck out the blood of its prey.

Like a falcon that had found its quarry, the Skull Sphinx made its attack from above.

“GRRRRRRRRROOOOOOAAAHHH!”

“Be quiet, you fool.”

Kohaku slashed her claws down at the attacking Sphinx. A slash that practically cleaved space in two cut the monster into pieces.

“GRRREEEAAAEEEEEE?!”

“There we...go!”

I slashed the Skull Sphinx in two when it came falling toward us.

Wait, I’m pretty sure this guy’s fur sells for a lot. Man, what a waste.

Now that the time tunnel had been sealed, there were no longer monsters adding to the stampede. We could probably put an end to all of this in just a few more hours.

There was no way in hell the girls weren’t going to shout at me once we got back, though...

This sucks.

◇◇◇

“Activation experiment no. 125: failed.”

The dull light being emitted from the large jagged core that looked like konpeito candy inside a cylindrical tank filled with light purple liquid faded. A small figure sitting in front of the tank frantically ran its gold fingers along the console, looking at the graphs displayed on the monitor.

“Adjustments complete. Commencing activation experiment no. 126.”

Bubbles started to form in the purple liquid, and the core began pulsing as a light flickered from it.

Deep within the camera eyes of the small golden Gollem that was quietly watching over the experiment were the dark flames of a deep-rooted delusion glowing like embers.

“Papillon appears to have a hand in this.”

“Papillon?”

It felt like I had heard that name somewhere before.

“It was a criminal organization that you took down on the western continent. They were Black Cat’s parent organization.”

“Right, right, that was a thing.”

We had infiltrated the black market in the western continent once in order to try to get our hands on some Gollems. The operators of that black market had been a criminal organization known as Papillon. That was where we first met the purple crown, Fanatic Viola, and its master, the perverted girl named Luna Trieste. I remember we nearly got killed back then...

Papillon ended up fractured after that, and a number of the stray members banded together to form Black Cat under the lead of Silhouette, also known as Kageyuri. Black Cat operated as information brokers, making use of what they learned from the brothels and inns that they owned. Tsubaki appeared to frequently make use of their information network, so that was likely where she received the info.

“But didn’t I destroy Papillon?”

“Not entirely. You only cursed the leader, then left them to their own devices.”

Wait, did I really do something so terrible...? I totally did. I cursed, uhhh, what was his name? Zabbit? I cursed him to never go near Silhouette or the other Black Cats ever again.

He left the town after that, but we met him again trying to extort money from an orphanage in a different town. I had only cursed him concerning Black Cat, so he was free to do all kinds of heinous acts elsewhere. Was I maybe a bit too naive not doing anything more direct?

“So, this Zabbit is transporting the golden drug to the eastern continent?”

“That is not quite right. It is confirmed that Papillon is behind it, but Zabbit has already passed away. Someone else is now the leader.”

What? That old dude kicked the bucket? Was it because of my curse? But Silhouette hadn’t said anything about getting into an altercation.

“No, Your Grace, your curse was unrelated to his death. He died due to infighting. His men overthrew him.”

What, he was betrayed by his men, then?

To be fair, he didn’t really come across as someone who would be all that well-liked by his people. Maybe that was common in the underworld.

“And this new leader is the one spreading the drug?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

But that left the question of where Papillon was getting their supply of the drug in the first place. Were they in cahoots with the wicked devout?

“Where’s their base of operations now?”

“They previously had their base of operations in Strain, but are now located in a town in western Gardio.”

That was close to Isengard, where we had fought the wicked god. Isengard was now nothing more than a wasteland, basically a lawless country, so it was the perfect place for the underworld to gather.

“The drug does seem to be spreading around Gardio as well...”

Looking at the map, the pins were in higher density in highly populated areas, as you would expect. That had to be because of Papillon.

Naturally, we’d made sure to supply Gardio with antidotes as well, but there was a limit to the number, and the antidote was only effective up until the worst symptoms began showing. By that point, there was a good chance it was too late to save the patient. Even though we’d spread the information that the gold powder was dangerous, there would still be those who would take it.

According to Flora, the drug temporarily reduced stress—in other words, pressures on the mind—and made any pain, both mental and physical, vanish. Of course, if that was all it did, you couldn’t really call it a bad drug, but unsurprisingly, the rate of addiction was high. When one quit cold turkey, their stress would increase, and so naturally they’d relapse in a desperate attempt to get rid of the renewed stress. It led to an endless cycle.

Flora had suggested that this repeated cycle caused a human’s negative emotions to build up inside their body. Once that reached a certain level, the mind became unable to handle it, and just like an overfilled balloon, the worst symptoms would start to show. When one ended up in that state, an antidote was incapable of doing anything. You would become an inhuman follower of the wicked god.

Wanting to escape mental strain or pain was natural as a human. Not everyone had the mental fortitude to cope. They were the ones being preyed on with the drug. The dealers weren’t selling them at an especially high price; it was a price that even an average citizen could afford. That, in and of itself, was also preying upon the weak.

The drug would steal your money, eat away at your mind, and break your body. It quite literally consumed you down to your bones, turning you into its slave. It was something completely unforgivable.

“For now, I’ll inform each country where the gold drug is spreading.”

I attached an image of the map with the pins still on it and sent it around. If I made them all aware of it now, it would help in the prevention of victims.

“What shall we do about Papillon, Your Grace?”

“Good question. If we don’t nip it in the bud, it’ll just turn into a game of cat and mouse.”

Where were they acquiring the drug from? Who was doing the deals with the wicked devout? Usually, I would just assume it was the new leader of Papillon, but...

“Shall we infiltrate Papillon’s new base?” Tsubaki suggested.

“Infiltrate? Who, you?”

“No, Homura’s team.”

The three kunoichi serving under Tsubaki were Sarutobi Homura, Kirigakure Shizuku, and Fuma Nagi. Would it really be safe, though? Maybe it was because I’d known them since they started their training, but I felt a little nervous at the idea.

“Those three girls really are improving,” Tsubaki reassured me. “In terms of their fighting prowess, they have been training under Lady Moroha and Lord Takeru every day, so they are already much stronger than your average knight. In addition, Homura has her Mystic Eye, Shizuku has her superior abilities of disguise, and Nagi has various tools for assassination.”

Wow, the girls have been growing up, huh?

Not that their ages were much different from mine. Still, if Tsubaki was vouching for them this much, then it had to be fine.

“All right, then, I’ll have those three infiltrate the place. Though, I’ll send Bastet and Anubis to accompany them as support.”

“They are the black cat and dog Gollems, yes? I see. That way, they will be able to collect information without appearing suspicious.”

Bastet and Anubis were Gollems designed by Doctor Elluka, but recently, they’d been left with nothing to do, so they’d just been wandering around the town. They’d been assisting with gathering information and patrolling, at least, but if we wanted to investigate something, those two could do it without drawing suspicion. Bastet was a smart kitty, and Anubis was...well, he could be a bit slow sometimes, but he was friendly, and could easily pass for a regular dog.

Having revealed their locations to the other countries, all we had left to do was destroy Papillon. Take down the drug dealers and the number of victims would decrease. We couldn’t let the wicked god’s curse spread any further.

I took out my phone to contact the ruler of Gardio for assistance.

◇◇◇

In western Gardio, not far from where Isengard used to be located, sat the coastal town of Brenn. Before Isengard’s destruction, the town was a prosperous stop-off point for trade, with freight carriers and horse carriages frequently going back and forth between the countries, but the fall of Isengard brought another division of the land, casting a dark shadow over Brenn’s prosperity. For a city on the frontier, it was doing well for itself, but there was no denying that the quality of life for its citizens had taken a direct hit.

Traffic decreased all at once—all visitors to Isengard would stop off at Brenn first, but no curious travelers would make that journey anymore. With unemployment rates rising, and resources only decreasing, many took to crime, and as a matter of course, those who would control that crime only increased.

Even the lord of the land had been bought off by those criminal organizations, thereby ignoring any wrongs they committed. As the trustworthy previous lord died of disease, his younger brother had taken over, but...had the previous lord really died due to natural causes?

“The rumors surrounding the previous lord are as one would expect—rumors of if the underworld plotted the assassination of the previous lord in order to put a puppet ruler they could control in place.”

The time was early evening. In an inn overlooking the streets of Brenn, Bastet had urgently gathered everyone to pass on her information.

“Apparently, Papillon formed an assassination squad after its fracturing. It is hard to brush it off as simple hearsay.”

Upon hearing Bastet’s report, Kirigakure Shizuku, one of the three kunoichi sent from Brunhild, placed a hand on her chin in thought, long hair gently swaying.

“Perhaps the previous lord’s death was planned by Papillon, after all.”

“In all likelihood, that is the case. As remote a location this may be, how else could they gain complete control over it?”

As Shizuku nodded to herself, the droning sounds of a different group of people uninvolved in the conversation reached her ears.

“Oh, Nagi! I was gonna eat that!”

“Should’ve been faster, then!”

“Hang on, girl, gimme a piece too!”

“But you’re a Gollem, aren’t you? You shouldn’t need to eat.”

“It’s ’cause I’m such a high-spec Gollem, y’see! Something like that’s no big deal!”

“Then I’ll give you this, okay?”

“Yahoo...! Hey, this is just the bone! That’s animal abuse, y’know?!”

“But don’t doggos adore bones?”

“Pfft, then you can have mine too!”

“Shut up already!” Shizuku and Bastet both shouted for the noisy table in the corner to quieten down. They were far more serious about their work than the carefree three accompanying them.

“Aww, c’mon, lighten up. Gonna end up missing the forest for the trees if you tire yourself out so quick,” Anubis was quick to throw back.

“Oooh, look at you giving a good piece of advice for once, doggo. Listen to him, Shizuku, you should relax a bit,” Homura added on.

“Hey...”

“You are all too relaxed! Are you even aware of how serious this mission is?!”

“I said hey...”

“You too, you stupid mutt! Quit indulging them! I will tell on you to Fenrir if you keep this up!”

“Wha—?! Hey, that’s unfair!”

“Is that not Papillon over there?”

All arguments came to an abrupt halt. When they looked to the side, Nagi was standing by the window, staring outside. The rest of the group swiftly sidled up to the window and caught sight of men dressed in black illuminated by the streetlights.

“There’s no doubt about it. That’s Papillon,” Homura confirmed, using her Mystic Eye to catch sight of the black butterfly embroidered in their cuffs.

“Finding our target on day one? We’re so lucky!” Nagi celebrated.

“I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use... Well, it’s true that it keeps us from wasting time. Bastet, Anubis, can we count on you?”

“Leave it to us. Let’s go, you idiot mutt!”

“Don’t you start calling me that too, sis! Dogs are man’s best friend, y’know?!”

The two Gollems swiftly leaped out the window and gave chase along the roofs.

“We will keep gathering info. We must investigate what Papillon’s leaders are like.”

“Good idea. I’ll do a sweep of the pubs,” Homura said.

“Then I’ll go to the entertainment district!” Nagi volunteered.

With a nod, the ninjas all left out the window as Bastet and Anubis had, disappearing into the night.

◇◇◇

“This the one?”

“Yeah. If you look here on his arm...”

One of the men dressed in black rolled up the sleeve of a homeless man collapsed on the ground. The man let out a groan, but otherwise didn’t resist the manhandling of his body.

“I see. So it’s begun.”

Dark gray scales were beginning to grow along the man’s arm.

“Bring him with us. It’ll be troublesome if he mutates in public.”

“What a pain... Can’t we just deal with him here, bro?”

“Orders from above. We’re not supposed to kill them.”

The leader of their group lit a cigarette as he watched his men lift the homeless man by the legs and drag him away. The smoke he puffed out dispersed in the cold night air.

“What good is there in keeping someone like that alive?” his subordinate asked.

“Who knows? Probably as a guinea pig for some experiment? Might as well make use of him how we can.”

His interest in the matter was entirely nonexistent. The moment he’d finished his smoke, the leader crushed it under his shoe.

“Let’s go.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The men exited the back alley and walked off into the night, unaware that a black cat and dog had witnessed everything that just transpired.

◇◇◇

In a pub known as the Silver Shark that was located in the south of Brenn, rough crowds of men were once again getting plastered on the cheapest of alcohol. Such a place attracted all manner of people, from fishers who went out to sea, to cranky shipwrights, to shady merchants. They weren’t joyously celebrating, however, but rather venting their anger and grievances.

“HUH?! Say that one more time, you bastard!”

“Sure, I’ll say it as many times as I need to!”

And that right there was the signal that another brawl was about to begin. The rest of the patrons screwed up their faces at the familiar sight, but they weren’t going to bring it upon themselves to put a stop to it. The only one nervously hovering was the master of the bar, knowing that a fight inside the establishment couldn’t end well for them. If they got too aggressive, it would start causing issues for the other customers too.

Having reached the end of his patience, a small young man stood up and walked toward the fistfight.

“Shut the hell up, you old farts.”

When the young man thrust out the palms of both of his hands toward the pair, a smile still on his face, they both went flying through the air despite their muscular builds and out through the door. The ones who hadn’t been watching looked up in confusion, while those who had seen exactly what went down had their eyes wide in a very different kind of confusion.

The young boy returned to his seat as if nothing had happened, then spoke to the suspicious merchant sitting opposite.

“Sorry, where did you leave off?”

“Oh, yeah, uh, I was just talking about Papillon’s hierarchy...”

The merchant had become more aware than ever that the boy in front of him was not ordinary whatsoever. In fact, calling them a boy wasn’t even correct—they were a girl.

Homura, one of Brunhild’s intelligence officers, had managed to cut down her targets to this comparatively loose-lipped merchant in the bar in her search for more info. Her frustration at the noise of the arguing pair had led to her unintentionally standing out, but it seemed to have made the merchant all the more willing to spill the beans, so it all worked out in the end.

“There are several elites underneath the boss with four of them designated as division heads. They’re all split into one of four groups: field ops, underground trade, reconnaissance, and counterfeiting and smuggling.”

“What’s this field ops team?”

“They cover anything that requires muscle, like being bodyguards, intimidation tactics, or debt collecting. Apparently, they’ll carry out assassinations too if the price is right.”

According to the rumors, the previous ruler was assassinated by Papillon. With this, Homura had no reason to doubt that was the truth. Assassination actually came under the work description for ninjas on occasion as well. Thankfully, Homura had never had any such mission given to her, but she had heard the stories from some of the elder ninjas from Eashen.

What she had also heard was that taking on such commissions came with its own risks, less from the assassination mission itself, and more because of the chance of being targeted by the one who had put in the request.

If the assassination was successful, the only ones with the knowledge of the perpetrator were the client and the one who carried it out. In other words, the assassin now had info they could hold over their client’s head. There were many stories of ninjas who had been killed by their clients in order to keep them quiet.

Homura couldn’t be sure how it worked in Papillon, but if it was an assassination that would be especially bad if made public, the one who carried out the assassination might have already been dead.

I would never accept a request like that, Homura thought to herself, but when she considered how nonchalant her current master was, she realized that he’d never make her do something like that to begin with. A smile crept onto her face as it became apparent to her how unfounded her worries were.

“Which division’s spreading the gold drug?”

“...Why are you asking that? I’m not here to judge, but don’t stick your nose into shady business like this. I get it—you’re strong, but if you make yourself a target to them, you’re a goner.”

This merchant was a kinder man than Homura had initially thought. Seeing this man who looked so unbelievably suspicious actually worried about her made her feel like he’d probably get so much more business if he just made an attempt to look less shady.

Homura placed a silver coin on the table in front of the merchant.

“...Couldn’t tell you the specifics, but I personally think it’s either Delloria, the one in charge of underground dealings, or Bilis, the one in charge of counterfeiting and smuggling,” he said, as he dragged the coin toward himself. He then downed the rest of his now-lukewarm ale. It seemed pretty clear he had some kind of connection to Papillon.

No one in this town could be involved in trade and not be mixed up with Papillon. In fact, even the establishment Homura was in right now probably had to pay protection money to them. If they didn’t, they’d have been run right over by now.

“Delloria of underground trade or Bilis of smuggling and counterfeiting, hm...”

Given this was tied to dealings with the wicked devout, her mind immediately went to underground trade, but the dealing of the golden drug would also be tied to smuggling.

“Thanks, gramps. You were a massive help.”

Homura laid down another silver coin, then got up from her seat. Her meal cost was included.

Having managed to bag some good info, the kunoichi was in a good mood as she left the building. But shortly after she began walking away, a bunch of tough-looking guys appeared and circled her.

They weren’t Papillon. Among them were the two drunks that she’d kicked out earlier.

“She’s the one! Shitty kid going around like he owns the place!”

“Oy, you lot! Pin him down!”

Apparently, they had come for revenge—after making sure to bring their friends with them first, naturally. The men all jumped at Homura at once, but in the next moment, a rapid-fire cacophony of punches rang out, and every last one of them fell to the ground, eyes rolling into the back of their heads.

“Huh?!”

The two who had been the cause of all of this hadn’t gotten involved in the dogpile and were simply standing to the side in shock. They hadn’t even been able to see what had happened.

“If you wanna beat me, you’re gonna have to bring ten times more people than this!”

Homura dashed right up to the two men, then used the same move as back at the bar, but this time, without holding back. The two men went flying, knocking over the fence and water buckets by the nearby stable, and landed right in a pile of horse manure.

Curious onlookers had peeked out the bar to see what all the noise was about, but by the time they caught sight of the two unconscious men covered in poop, Homura had already disappeared into the night.

◇◇◇

“Are you an idiot?”

“Ow! How you wound me!”

Shizuku’s response to Homura’s report was immediate. Homura exaggeratedly clutched at her chest at the sudden insult.

“Why are you drawing attention to yourself? Maybe if I have you write ‘ninja’ one thousand times, you will finally remember what you are.”

“It was just kind of inevitable, I think...”

“If there are people causing a scene, you ignore them. Simple, don’t you agree? They were not picking a fight with you specifically, correct?”

“Well, no, but...”

The two men were arguing so loud that Homura couldn’t hear what the merchant was saying, so she went to put a stop to them without thinking. Though, the scolding from Shizuku was enough to have her reflect. Perhaps she had maybe been a bit too short-tempered in that instance.

“You did get us some good information, though, so I will give you some credit.”

Homura, Shizuku, and Nagi were all gathered in their room in the inn, Bastet and Anubis still to return.

“What about you, Nagi?”

“Oh, I went to the entertainment district. Walked past quite a few suspicious people!”

“Like, Papillon kind of suspicious?”

“No, not in that way. Suspicious as in the ‘they’d been taking drugs’ kind of way! They were all unsteady on their feet, their eyes were empty, and they kept muttering about wanting drugs.”

They looked as if they had taken the gold drug. It had clearly spread more than they had initially anticipated. The moment the victims ran out of money for more, they would likely run straight to crime. The drugs had the ability to dull one’s sense of reason, after all.

“I thought about giving them the antidote, but...”

The three kunoichi had been supplied with several antidotes for their mission, but given how few had been supplied to each country, they were more than aware of how precious they were.

“You were right not to. Ignoring the fact that they were already at late-stage symptoms, we cannot use such a precious medicine on whoever we find. And even if we cured them, if we do not solve the root of the problem first, they would likely end up going back for more, regardless of what we do.”

“Yeah, I know...”

Though Shizuku was being as logical as she could, she couldn’t deny the frustration she also felt. They had the means to save the people, yet they couldn’t afford to use it. Logically, she knew there was a good reason for that, but that didn’t stop the part of her that wondered if it was truly okay to simply leave the victims be.

Shizuku shook such pointless thoughts out of her head. She was on duty right now, so she had to fulfill the mission she had been assigned.

At a sudden knocking on the window, the three looked up and saw Bastet and Anubis, who were blending into the dark so well that it was as if they were one with it. They must have come back along the roofs.

Nagi opened the window for them, and the two quietly hopped into the room.

“Whew! I. Am. Pooped. Could that lot stay still for two seconds?”

Anubis gave his front legs a big stretch.

Do Gollems even get tired? Homura thought to herself with a tilt of her head, but she chose not to say anything.

“We have discovered that Papillon is not just dealing the drugs, but also gathering the bodies of those with late-stage symptoms,” Bastet reported.

“What? It...is unlikely that is for treatment, yes?” Shizuku asked.

The black cat nodded.

“When the curse inflicted by the drug progresses far enough, the body begins to metamorphose. The victim completely loses any of their rationality, and can no longer recognize who they are. The antidote could potentially save them, but...”

“What would Papillon need with them?”

“When a body completely mutates, they form an octahedral crystal that Papillon calls a ‘cursestone’ inside their body. That is what they are extracting from them.”

The three girls tensed up at Bastet’s report. They were extracting the stones from their bodies—in other words, those people were no longer alive.

“Those cursestones can be used as a replacement for a Gollem’s G-Cube. They can acquire a core that is stronger and more impressive without any of the usual hassle. It is of little surprise they are taking advantage of it.”

They were continuing to exploit the victims right up until their deaths... No, even after their deaths. Anger filled the hearts of everyone present.

“Not everyone mutates, though, right?” Nagi asked.

“According to Doctor Babylon, those with high magic resistance or those who still hold much hope in their heart are much harder to curse. Curses prey on the negative energy in one’s heart, so the more negativity they feel, the easier it is to cast it on them,” Bastet explained.

Nagi couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could keep hope in such an environment. Hope was as good as dead in this town that Papillon controlled.

“In any case, first we need to find the drug’s source. If we tail both Delloria and Bilis, we should be able to find something. Bastet, Anubis, the two of you would be most suited to this mission, but I will need you to split up this time,” Shizuku said.

Homura frowned as she turned to look at the dog beside her.

“Is this stupid mutt really gonna be okay without Bastet...?”

“What was that for?! There’s no one better at acting like a dog than yours truly! Woofity woof!”

Acting like a dog? You basically are a dog, the kunoichi all thought to themselves.

“I feel a little uneasy about leaving Anubis by himself, so it might be best that one of us accompanies him,” Shizuku suggested.

The three girls all turned to look at each other. There was no denying that whoever had to go with him would have pulled the short stick. This was going to be a pain.

“Rock, paper...!”

“Gosh, you’re all treating me like some criminal here,” Anubis dejectedly muttered as the girls passionately fought to avoid the job.

◇◇◇

There was a street in the northern part of Brenn lined with high-class establishments, quite opposite to the general image of the town. Manastones lit up their neon signs at night, serving as a light trap for the wealthy customers in the area. It was a stark difference from the cheap bars in the south.

But that was a given. Each of the establishments on that street was invested in by Papillon themselves. They were used as locations for Papillon to meet their trade partners, and to carry out transactions not fit for public view. One such transaction was currently being carried out in a brothel known as Nightmare.

No matter how much freedom Papillon had gained upon wrapping the ruler around their finger, if the knights of the capital were to catch wind of what they were doing, they would be in deep trouble. While the possibility remained that disguised officers could infiltrate Brenn at any moment, they needed locations to carry out their dealings safely and privately.

“These are the goods we promised. Now the payment, if you please.”

“But of course. Here you are.”

A box containing a dull blue octahedral crystal and a leather pouch with a considerable number of gold coins inside were exchanged over the table. The moment the exchange was complete, the one receiving the box clutched his purchase to his chest and swiftly left the room.

Immediately thereafter, a large mustachioed man with a cigar in his mouth came out from another door. The slender man with slit eyes who had carried out the transaction got up from the sofa and bowed his head.

After sitting down where the customer had been, the mustached man crushed the finished cigar in the nearby ashtray and picked up the leather pouch left on the table, feeling its weight.

“Surprised they’re so willing to dish out this much cash for a tiny rock like that,” he remarked.

“For a Gollem engineer, there is nothing more desirable. And for a researcher, this is a material with many unknowns. What could be more enticing?”

“Hah! Greedy little shits. Well, keeps us running, so whatever floats their boats.”

The coins inside jangled as the man haphazardly tossed the pouch back onto the table and pulled out another cigar from his case. When he cut off the end with a cigar cutter, the employee beside him politely came over and lit it for him.

“And? Where’s the goods?”

“Right here, sir.”

The slender man placed a small case on the table. When he opened it, there were about a dozen glass test tubes lined up inside. Each of those test tubes had a dark gold liquid inside of it. The mustached man grabbed one of the test tubes and held it up to the manastone chandelier.

“This is a more concentrated version of the golden drug made by adding the cells of a special monster,” the slender man explained. “When we conducted experiments, however, injecting it into a subject’s body managed to forcefully mutate them, but they lost all reason in the process, so a core was not formed.”

“So they’re all duds, then.”

“The ones who were injected gained strength that surpassed even Gollems, and they appeared to lose all sense of pain as well. In that regard, it was not entirely a failure.”

“What good’s a soldier that can’t use his brain? If they’d produced cores, we could’ve at least taken those and found some way to make use of them.”

The man returned the test tube to the case. The slender one closed it again and continued speaking.

“No, I believe we may actually have a way to use them. Consider attending a party for the upper class and stealthily injecting a guest with this.”

“They’d suddenly turn into a monster and the place would be in complete panic in two seconds. You know what, true. If things went well, we’d be able to remove annoying pests from the picture. That what you’re saying?”

“Indeed. There is no guarantee it would work, of course, but it was more an example that its usefulness depends on how you use it.”

The mustachioed man, leader of the counterfeit and smuggling division of Papillon, Bilis, fell into deep thought. Certainly, the chances of it working were slim, but being able to create a creature they could sacrifice at will could prove to be pretty useful somewhere. They could wreak havoc without drawing suspicion to themselves. The only issue would be that whoever ended up being injected would attack indiscriminately, so it could end up with the messenger very much getting shot.

“Still got room to improve it, yeah?”

“Yes. We are currently investigating if reducing the concentration allows the subjects to keep their rationality.”

“Then keep it up.”

“Sir.”

The slender man politely bowed as the employee informed him of the arrival of a guest.

“He’s here, huh?”

Bilis’s main purpose in being here was not to receive a report on the new drug sitting in front of him, but to do trade with the person who had just arrived. After the slender man removed both the coin purse and the medicine case, the employee guided the visitor in.

“Pardon the intrusion.”

Some of the employees, upon seeing their guest for the first time, clearly looked horrified. No one could blame them—he was simply that creepy.

The newly arrived man was wrapped in a black robe and had the skull of a goat covering his face. His voice was that of someone elderly, and in his hands he held a metallic black scepter.

Graphite, one of the wicked devout, sneered underneath the goat skull.

◇◇◇

“So that’s Bilis?”

“Apparently. Or at least, that’s what his men were saying.”

Though the mustached man was too far away for a regular person to see, Homura was able to make use of her Mystic Eye, watching as he boarded a carriage. Though not entirely clear due to how dark it was, she could tell that he was a massive, well-built man around his early forties. Embroidered on his collar was a small black butterfly with a gold outline.

Despite her superior sight, though, Homura couldn’t hear what they were saying from this distance, which was where Anubis came in.

Having lost the round of rock-paper-scissors, Homura had no choice but to be the one to dogsit the Gollem, and so, the two were assigned the task of monitoring Bilis, the leader of Papillon’s division of counterfeit and smuggling.

Bilis had been going all around Brenn on a Gollem carriage. Each time he moved location, Homura and Anubis would cautiously follow over the rooftops, being careful to not get spotted by the people of the town below.

The Invisibility Cloak, currently on loan to the girls from Brunhild’s intelligence division, was a cognition-disrupting cloak that could also be used as camouflage to blend into their surroundings. It was the kind of technology used in the mirror armor of Yumina’s Frame Gear.

It would be hard for them to be detected with that in their possession, but Homura still kept a distance just to be on the safe side. Though it was able to inhibit detection from regular people, those with a strong instinct were perfectly able to see through it. It would be for the best that they remained cautious.

“A brothel this time, huh? Why’s the guy keep zoomin’ all over the place? This is such a pain...”

“I don’t really know, but given what he’s involved in, he probably has a lot that he wants to keep secret, don’t you think?” Homura replied to the grumbling Anubis, making sure her eyes remained on the target.

Honestly, Homura had just said whatever came to mind, but she was more correct than she realized. Despite his rough appearance, Bilis was the cautious sort, and he would change the location for every single transaction. There were even times he would change the location as late as the day before.

Smuggling had become a natural part of Brenn, but that didn’t mean it was something to be witnessed by the general public. Bilis would choose his trade partners seriously, and if he deemed them even the slightest bit suspicious, he would immediately cut them off.

The thing Papillon feared most was having the scene of the crime be discovered.

Ever since the new emperor ascended the throne in Gardio, he had carried on the wishes of the previous emperor and focused on continuing to build friendships with other nations. As those relations improved, the trade between countries only increased, and as a natural consequence of that, inspections of anything crossing the borders were growing stricter.

Under those circumstances, it was only natural that there was an increase in those who engaged in smuggling and trafficking, and therefore an increase in those who would regulate and oversee such illegal trade.

There was no way for them to tell where any of the empire’s dogs might be lurking, so Bilis’s caution was not unfounded. Given his nature, this was technically business as usual for him, though.

◇◇◇

“Here’s this month’s.”

The man with the goat skull sat down on a chair opposite and planted a leather pouch that was about the size of a puppy’s head on the table. Bilis pulled the bag toward himself and confirmed the contents. It was filled with a powder that glowed a dark gold.

It was the gold drug that had become a large source of Papillon’s income.

Bilis had attempted to analyze the structure of the drug to try to make some of their own, but none of their research brought them any closer to figuring out its makeup, so eventually, they gave up. Given who was supplying them with the drug in the first place, Bilis was certain that it wasn’t anything particularly legal, but if he had permission to sell and make use of the stuff, he had no issues with that. Of course, he made sure to never drop his guard, but this kind of relationship was fine...for now.

When Bilis closed the pouch, one of his men stepped forward from beside him and laid an attaché case on the table. Inside were numerous large transparent lumps about the size of softballs. Thin grooves ran along their surfaces, creating strange geometric patterns.

“Each of these is from unique legacies, yes?” the goat skull man confirmed.

“Yeah. Made sure they were all from different models, just as you asked.”

The old man picked up one of the crystalline spheres and examined it closely. It was a Q-Crystal, the part of a Gollem’s body that acted as their brain. But if all of these were truly from legacy Gollems, its value would be immeasurable.

Gollems were made up of their G-Cube—their energy source—and their Q-Crystal—their brain. So long as both of those were kept safe, a Gollem could make a full recovery regardless of the amount of damage to their body.

Many Gollem engineers would agree that the Q-Crystal was far more important than the G-Cube. A Q-Crystal retained a Gollem’s acquired knowledge, experiences, and fighting abilities, after all. To put it bluntly, if the Q-Crystal was intact, you could use any old G-Cube to bring them back. They would just lose their memories and their performance might end up a bit more lacking than before.

On the other hand, if only the G-Cube was kept safe, even though its power and performance would be retained, the ability to control those parts of its body would have to be trained from scratch.

Q-Crystals were already valuable, and that value skyrocketed when it came to legacy Gollems. Legacy Gollems were survivors of an ancient Gollem war, and that experience and knowledge was not something that could be easily acquired. So then, how did Papillon manage to acquire such precious items?

Given that they ran the black market, it wouldn’t be difficult for them to locate any, even if it might cost them a pretty penny, but there was a way to acquire them without needing to fork over the cash: just steal it. Kill the master, disable the Gollem, and take out the Q-Crystal. Sure, it was a crime, but Papillon was a criminal organization to begin with.

“We can get you the G-Cubes as well, if you’d like.”

“No need. We only need their Q-Crystals.”

Bilis frowned at that response. A legacy Gollem’s G-Cube and Q-Crystal were generally linked. If you installed a Q-Crystal without its G-Cube, its performance would drop so much that you wouldn’t even be able to use its Gollem Skill anymore. It made no sense to not also want the G-Cubes if they were going to make new Gollems with those Q-Crystals.

What were they going to do with the Q-Crystals alone? Bilis had no idea.

Deciding he would rather not wake a sleeping lion, Bilis chose to forgo that line of questioning and instead paid attention to whatever commotion was going on in the back of the store.

Just as one of his guards put his hand on the hilt of his sword, the door slammed open with massive force and an imposing man of nearly two meters barged on in.

“Yo, sorry for the rough entrance.”

“Brass...!”

Bilis frowned at the man who suddenly entered. He had dark skin and a shaved head, with the right half of his face covered in tattoos and his left decorated with a large scar running from the bridge of his nose to his cheek.

It was Brass, another division leader of Papillon who led field ops.

Bilis clicked his tongue, glared at Brass, and said, “I’m in the middle of a meeting right now. If you need me for something, ask later.”

The two could barely be said to be on good terms. Bilis looked down on Brass’s aggressive methods of getting everything he wanted through physical force, killing anyone who was in his way with no thought of what came after, while Brass viewed Bilis as a cowardly bastard for his meticulous and cautious planning.

Brass ignored Bilis’s admonition and instead sat himself down diagonally opposite Graphite.

“And who would this fine gentleman be?” the wicked devout inquired.

“Name’s Brass. I’m a division leader of Papillon, same as this dude here. Pleasure.”

Brass introduced himself to Graphite with a wild smile on his face. Bilis couldn’t help but disapprovingly click his tongue again.

“Been tryin’ to catch you for ages now. You’re the one supplying the drug, yeah?”

Brass dragged the leather pouch on the table toward himself, confirmed the contents, and his smile widened.

“You say ‘for ages,’ but we haven’t exactly been hiding from you.”

“You might not’ve been hiding intentionally, but this asshole over here loves keeping his trade partners secret, y’see. Took a hell of a long time to finally track you down.”

Brass sneered at Bilis. Since Bilis was the one in charge of dealing the drugs, the other executives weren’t directly involved with its trade.

The gold powder originally made its way around Isengard with the rumors that it was effective against goldflower pox. Its effects and distinctive properties caught Bilis’s eye, and so he hunted down who was distributing it, leading to the negotiations that had brought them to this point. It had become such a source of money for Papillon that no one could feign ignorance about it.

Bilis knew that the other executives had started digging upon realizing how lucrative it was, but the last thing he expected was for Brass to be the first to track him down. He couldn’t hide his annoyance at the fact.

“Lemme cut straight to the point. Hand over the method for making it.”

“Brass! Are you that shameless to steal the business opportunity that I found right in front of me?!”

Bilis’s men immediately put their hands to their swords. Brass’s men did the exact same in retaliation, so the room immediately took on a dangerous air.

Graphite lifted his scepter and banged it against the floor, cutting through the tension that now hung around them.

“I would appreciate it if you did not move things ahead without the dealer in question. You cannot make this drug whether I tell you or not.”

“Really now? If you ask me, I think we could give it a good bash if we get our hands on some goldbugs,” Brass responded.

Graphite flinched.

“Goldbugs” were the mutants that had appeared on the continent. Many of them looked like insects, so they naturally ended up acquiring such a name. The gold drug was made by taking the wicked god’s curse inside mutants, amplifying it, compressing it, and then crushing it into powder.

Not all mutants disappeared at the time of the wicked god’s death. A handful had entered hibernation, while others had been sealed by barriers or replicated by the wicked devout themselves. In rare cases, there were monsters such as Ropers or Slimes that consumed the mutant, transforming it into a different species altogether. Brass was not entirely wrong when he said that even Papillon could make the drug if they took advantage of that.

“Well then... I must commend you on making it this far. It appears we might have underestimated you.”

“We’ve heard there were some folks over in Isengard doing something suspicious. Some rumors were starting to spread that there were demon-like Gollems carrying around gold monsters. Those are the base for the drug, right?” Brass interrogated, a sneer still on his face. That little tidbit of information was something Brass had managed to get out of the leader in charge of recon.

The wicked devout had the Ark as their headquarters, but that didn’t mean they had no other bases scattered about the continent. Barely anyone approached Isengard nowadays, so it was a suitable location for them to carry out various experiments they didn’t want others seeing.

It seems we were a little too lax, however, Graphite sighed to himself. Tangerine was in charge of that area, so his expectations for an appropriate level of caution had never been high to begin with, but that was still bad.

“There are two of those goldbugs still left at the research labs in Strain and Allent, right? All I need now is the method.”

“Brass, you’re not...?”

Bilis couldn’t help frowning at Brass’s words. This was the man whose creed was to take literally everything he wanted by force. There was no way he wasn’t intending to capture Graphite.

He couldn’t help but feel like Brass had swooped in and stolen his prey, but he wasn’t entirely against the idea given he’d been thinking to himself that he’d end up forcing Graphite to reveal the method one day. Bilis had just intended to let him stay free for a little longer while he determined how much danger would be involved.

The men surrounding Brass drew their swords. Now that they were at this point, Bilis could do nothing to stop him. Despite his complaining, he wouldn’t interfere with something that would bring benefit to Papillon.

“Consider this piece of advice my thanks for how much of the drug you’ve supplied for us: it’s in your best interests to tell him what he wants to know. This guy is more than happy to use torture or even drugs to get the truth out of you,” Bilis said, almost as if pitying Graphite. He didn’t even think of mentioning how he’d probably be erased the second they got the info they needed out of him. He could at least be given a peaceful death if he told the truth without hassle.

“Hoh hoh hoh. This old codger is grateful for your warning. I really thought we could have a fruitful relationship. What a pity. I had hoped we wouldn’t have to cut you off.”

“Huh?”

Brass thought he had misheard for a moment. What was he on about? They were the ones about to cut him off, not the other way around.

Graphite slowly and deliberately removed a bracelet that was made of animal tusks strung together like a rosary and threw it onto the table. That alone caused the bracelet to burst into pieces, tusks scattering all across the room.

“What are you...?”

Bilis narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but Graphite ignored this and simply banged his metallic black scepter into the ground.

“Come forth, O Darkness. Bring Out My Desired Skeleton Soldiers of Days Past: [Dragontooth Warrior].”

After Graphite chanted the incantation, the scattered fangs instantly turned into Skeleton warriors one after the other. They weren’t just any old Skeletons, though—they had reptilian skulls like a Lizardman and held round, dark gold shields and warped, single-edged swords.

“Magic?! You were a magician all along?!”

“It took you far too long to figure that one out.”

Magicians were rare on this side of the continent. Regardless, magic was understood as a concept, and magic-based technology from the east was slowly becoming more prevalent.

Ordinarily, those on the eastern continent would put up a simple barrier during potentially dangerous negotiations; it was seen as common sense. But given there was no barrier here, it became possible for Graphite to use his summoning magic without interruption.

The Papillon guards immediately went to attack the Dragontooth Warriors. They were one of Brass’s elite field operations squads, far stronger than your average knight, and more than willing to use cowardly tactics that knights did not utilize if it meant winning the fight. They had the skill to kill the opponent in an actual fight. These Dragontooth Warriors were a little different from the human enemies they were accustomed to, but the bodyguards’ swords were able to aim around their shields without issue.

“Wha—?!”

However, the moment they hit the collarbone, their swords would go no further. The Dragontooth Warriors ruthlessly swatted away their weapons. One of the bodyguards was cut clean in two, guts splattering all over the place.

“Now then, since your negotiations with little old me have broken down, I have no reason to hold back any further. I suppose I might as well have a little fun.”

When Graphite banged his scepter against the ground again, miasma seeped up from the slaughtered body before suddenly gurgling as it dissolved into nothing but bones.

“What is going on here?!”

The bones that had been separated began to rattle. Suddenly, they were attracted to each other like magnets, returning to their original shape and slowly standing back up. The newly born Skeleton picked up its sword and attacked its former teammates, slashing down one of the guards. Graphite banged his scepter against the ground, and the meat on the body melted just as the previous one did, creating a new Skeleton soldier.

That was the moment Bilis realized they had made a massive mistake. They weren’t the ones using Graphite, Graphite was the one using them. The wicked devout could have cut them down whenever they so pleased. The only reason they hadn’t was because they hadn’t felt like it was necessary.

If he had known it would come to this, he should’ve just killed Brass himself when he started to do his own thing. Do that and apologize and maybe they would’ve stood a chance. Bilis only felt heavy regret at his inaction, but he couldn’t turn back time and redo it all.

“Grugh!”

A Dragontooth Warrior stabbed its sword into Brass’s throat right in front of Bilis. For a man who had absolute confidence in his power, it was a pitiful end indeed.

When Brass’s body fell to the ground, Graphite once more banged his scepter. The man who had once been an executive of Papillon transformed into a monster of only bone, then turned his blade on Bilis...

◇◇◇

“Seems preeeeeetty noisy in there. They got a bit of a problem customer or something...? Wait, Homura, look!”

Homura had been dozing off while waiting on a roof from where the brothel Bilis had entered was visible, but she was ripped out of the dreamworld when Anubis frantically shouted at her.

“Whoa?! What, what’s going on? Huh?”

The kunoichi rubbed at her sleepy eyes and looked toward the brothel in question. It seemed there was some commotion going on inside—people were fleeing from the establishment. She activated her Mystic Eye to try to get a better view of what was happening.

“That’s...!”

A Skeleton with a draconic skull appeared from the entrance as people frantically ran away. It was slashing down those it could with its curved blade one after another. Black miasma then appeared out of nowhere, covering the slain customers before immediately dissolving their flesh and turning them into nothing but bones that became the base for another new Skeleton soldier. Those newborn soldiers would then attack even more of the fear-filled crowd, leading to a chain of tragedy.

“They’re turning into Skeletons?! But how?!”

“Couldn’t tell you, miss, but, uh...this might be a little too much for our paws to handle!”

While watching the panicked crowd only grow more hysterical, Homura’s phone went off. She frantically pulled it out of her pocket. If it was from the grand duke or Tsubaki, she needed to report the situation right away.

“Huh?”

Seeing who was phoning, Homura frowned a little. It wasn’t her master or her boss, but it wasn’t someone she could ignore either.

“Hello? Hm? No, I’m on a mission right now... Oh, um, you see...I’m in Gardio...”

Homura turned her back to Anubis and quietly summarized what was going on to the one on the other end of the line. She decided she might as well ask them to pass on the circumstances to her master or boss.

“What? You’ll help? It...sounds fun? B-But you haven’t gotten permission from the grand duke! It isn’t a problem? Oh, I see... Yes, yes... I’ll, um, I’ll be waiting...”

After hanging up, Homura’s head creaked robotically as it turned around to face Anubis, eyes empty.

“Wh-What’s up, Homura? Who was that from?”

“It was from Elze-sama...”

“Huh?!”

Since she was skilled at melee combat, Homura would sometimes serve as Elze’s sparring partner, which led to them exchanging phone numbers. In fact, the reason Elze had phoned her originally was to ask if she was free to have a little match, but...

“She said they’re gonna come over here right now...”

“You wanna say that one more time?”

“Since she knows where you and Bastet are, she can come here with [Teleport], apparently...”

“Sorry to keep you waiting!”

“WHOA!” the two exclaimed in fright. The people in question suddenly appeared on the same roof as them instantaneously.

“Wow, they are being quite violent down there, they are.”

“We can’t just ignore this. Let’s go save them.”

“We’re gonna get worked to an early grave like this...”

“Were you trying to make a joke, Sakura?”

Behind Elze stood Yae, Hilde, Sakura, and Sue. They were all the wives of Homura’s master, and that meant they were Grand Duchesses of Brunhild. This wasn’t somewhere for such esteemed ladies of their country to come out on a picnic.

“Since we didn’t get to help with that stampede the other day, I’ll use today to work out all this energy!” Elze enthusiastically yelled, tapping her gauntlets together.

Homura was fairly sure that their objective and the means to carry it out had already drastically changed from the original mission, but she chose not to say anything. Not like it would’ve done anything, anyway. Besides, there was no denying that these reinforcements were strong.

Nevertheless, Homura chose to phone her boss; she would get in trouble later if she didn’t inform anyone. It was a wise decision, if she dared say so herself.

◇◇◇

The city of Brenn was in absolute pandemonium. The Skeletons appearing left, right, and center were attacking every crowd they came across.

Undead were actually very uncommon on the western continent. Cremation was a much more common way to handle the deceased on this side of the world, so zombies and ghouls would rarely appear. Compared to the magically developed east, the concept of the resurrection of the dead was not something the average citizen on the western continent gave much thought to. Fire was believed to be a sacred light that deterred monsters and helped guide the souls of the dead to heaven.

Those in the upper echelons of society would have a regular burial largely due to the legends that remained of revival medicines or resurrection arts, but generally, people on that side of the world were cremated, and only their bones were buried in graves. That was why, when hearing the word “undead,” most in the west would think only of Skeletons with their skin already peeled off.

Undead were monsters created from humans whose souls were unable to return to heaven, and so they latched on to their old bodies instead. They were left aimlessly wandering the land because of their inability to return to where they should be.

However, this change was not something that happened immediately; it would happen over an extended period of time. Turning into Skeletons immediately after being killed like what was happening in Brenn was impossible. Nothing that was occurring in the port town was normal. It wasn’t strange that people were in such a panic.

Skeletons killed the people, and those people turned into Skeletons of their own. The number of Skeletons only continued to increase, and it was becoming more and more difficult for the town guard to hold them back.

“EEK!”

When a Skeleton tried to attack a woman who had fallen during her escape, a right fist flew in from nowhere and pulverized the core in the Skeleton’s breastbone.

“Crusher!”

It wasn’t just the core she shattered, however, but every bone making up its body.

After defeating that Skeleton, Elze immediately rotated her body and slammed a backward roundhouse kick into another. The heel of her greaves hit right on the core. Delivering attacks with such pinpoint accuracy allowed her to take down Skeletons one after another without exerting too much energy. The girl was more than happy to show off her moves to the swarming hordes of monsters.

“C’mon, come at me with all you got!”

“She is very lively about all of this, she is,” Yae remarked.

“Probably because she hasn’t really had the chance to fight in person like this recently.”

Yae and Hilde slashed down Skeletons while they spoke. Their weapons being made of phrasium meant their blades slashed through the Dragontooth Warriors like they were tofu. Rather than aiming precisely for the core like Elze, they found it far easier to slice the Skeletons into small pieces, then crush the cores under their feet.

The three ninjas were once more made painfully aware of their difference in strength compared to the grand duchesses as they watched the girls hum cheerfully while they took down the Skeletons appearing one after the other.

“Why do the towns we visit always seem to end up having Skeletons appear in them...?” Homura despaired.

“I know, right?”

“This is only the second time, you two. Do not act as if they appear because of us.”

The last time they had gone to Sandora on a mission, to the city of Astal, it was Crystal Skeletons that had attacked them instead.

Do we attract Skeletons or something? Homura wondered to herself, hoping they didn’t as she cut down another of them.

Right at that moment, a bright voice suddenly spread through the town. It was like someone’s song was pouring down from the heavens, bathing everyone in its light.

When Homura turned around, she saw Sakura singing on the roof they’d all been previously gathered on. She was using the [Speaker] magic that her phone had built into it in order to add a musical accompaniment to her voice.

Wait, Sousuke Mochizuki was also up on the back of the roof playing the piano. What was going on? How did he get a whole grand piano up there? Homura’s confusion remained unanswered, however, as the tempo of the song suddenly picked up and a soulful voice began being emitted in return.

The Skeletons falling victim to the song suddenly began moving much more sluggishly, and their response times were becoming much slower. Had the grand duke been here, no doubt he would’ve said, “Well, yeah, no wonder they’re being affected—they’re undead, after all.”

The song that Sakura was singing was originally a famous hymn, but it had been arranged as a gospel song in later years. It was used during the climax in the sequel to a Hollywood film about the commotion caused by an unconventional fake nun.

Drive the dark of doubt away, fill us with the light of day.

As the song stated, the Skeletons’ power weakened, while Homura and the girls were only strengthened. The support effects from the singing spread through the area.

“Come forth, O Light! Radiant Resurrection: [Regeneration]!”

Sue’s light magic overlapped with Sakura’s vocals and enveloped the surroundings. A man whose arm had been lopped off by a Skeleton while protecting his wife was bathed in that light, immediately regenerating his missing limb. A different man who similarly lost his leg in order to protect his child had his body also restored to normal.

Healing magic able to regenerate body parts was an extremely advanced ancient magic. Given Sue’s age, it seemed impossible that she would be able to use such high-level magic, but she appeared to have a talent for light magic, and after reading a magic codex in Babylon’s library, she ended up being able to use it right away. Even Leen, who had her own strong opinions on the topic, was rendered speechless.

In a land where mages were rarely seen, missing limbs being restored was a miracle that left the locals crying tears of joy as they watched it unfold in front of them.

“Our own team is just as extraordinary, huh?”

Our grand duke’s wives all have a bit of a screw loose, Homura thought to herself, swallowing those disrespectful words before they could escape her lips. She had no idea if they’d ended up so insane after becoming his wives, or if they became his wives because they were so insane.

“Still, just what happened here? It does not seem to be because of a stampede...” Shizuku questioned as she shook off the Skeletons that were continuing their assault.

The undead generally wouldn’t get mixed up in stampedes, since they wouldn’t ever have emotional outbursts or feel extreme fear when faced with danger, so nothing would compel them to be swooped away by the panic. That said, it wasn’t completely unheard of for the undead to attack in groups. Sometimes, the dead who shared a strong resentment would rise from their graves together and attack the living as an army known as an Undead Legion.

According to Homura, the Skeletons had begun flowing from the brothel that the executives of Papillon had entered. That would lead to the assumption that the cause of this mess was tied to them in some way...

As if to answer Shizuku’s question, the brothel in question blew up in a spectacular manner.

“Huh?!”

Something slowly rose up from the rubble. It was a large four-legged winged Dragon made entirely of bone.

“A Bone Dragon...!” Shizuku’s voice croaked out upon being faced with what could very well be called the symbol of death.

Dragons were renowned for being the strongest living creatures, but they only became even more troublesome when they returned from the dead. Undead like Dragon Zombies were not so agile due to the carrion still hanging on their bodies, but Bone Dragons were nimbler than they appeared, since they weren’t impeded by flesh.

What was more, even though they were just bone, they were able to fly in the air and breathe fire. Those abilities of a Dragon were not generated by their bodies, but were produced with mana. And since they were undead, they would never tire and never sleep. They would remain in the world until they completed their goal.

The Bone Dragon chased the fleeing crowd as it destroyed the town of Brenn. But among those fleeing bodies was one who stood solidly in its path.

“Glad you’re an undead that can take a beating for a change.”

Elze covered her body with energy. That, mixed with divine spirit, made it appear as if she were cloaked in a platinum light. Elze’s divine trait was the ability to infuse her body with residual divinity as a battle garb of sorts. Put in simple terms, it was a simplified version of Touya’s Apotheosis. It was an ability that boosted one’s physical abilities to the limit and created a sturdy armor of energy around the user—in the case of a melee fighter like Elze, it was like she had been granted both a divine sword and shield in one.

Elze kicked off the ground after enhancing her legs with [Boost], allowing her to jump all the way into the air toward the Bone Dragon so fast that it was as if she had been fired from a bow. The Bone Dragon reacted swiftly to Elze’s assault, opening its mouth wide and breathing fire in her direction.

It was reported more than once that being completely encased in a Dragon’s breath would leave not even one’s bones behind. The citizens of Brenn watched on in despair, but as if to laugh that off, Elze appeared out of the flames with her fists raised and fired a full-power right straight punch between the Bone Dragon’s eyes.

“Get wrecked, you stupid pile of bones!”

With a tremendous crash, the Bone Dragon crumbled into dust. For the undead, divine power was a dangerous poison. It literally sunk into the Dragon’s bones, causing the Bone Dragon to disappear from the world.

Seeing the symbol of despair be defeated so easily, the three kunoichi renewed their impression that their duchesses were crazy.

“Oh my. I did think my minions were having more trouble than anticipated, but it was the little upstarts from Brunhild, hm?”

All of a sudden, an old man cloaked in a black robe who was wearing a goat’s skull appeared on top of the rubble of the brothel. He held a metallic black scepter and was looking over in their direction with glowing red eyes.

“How strange of us to meet in such a desolate port town. Or perhaps this is the guidance of the wicked god? Is he telling me to let off some steam?”

“Pretty bad guidance if he is. The guidance of a wicked god will only lead to your destruction,” Elze retorted. Graphite showed no anger to that, however, instead only flashing an odd smile.

“I cannot deny that. However, could that not also be called the truth of the world? Whether man or woman, young or old, rich or poor, diligent or lazy, all of us will perish one day. In that case, do you not think that granting destruction to those who lament over such inequality would be their true salvation?”

“You just sound insane.”

“I would much rather view it as a difference in opinion. Death is a wonderful thing that is always right next to you. I’m sure you would all view it much differently if you died once yourselves.”

“We refuse.”

Elze pushed off the ground and ran with great force toward Graphite. But before her fists could make contact, a Dragontooth Warrior leaped into her path and was punched into smithereens instead. Its head, which had been spared in the attack, opened its mouth wide and went to bite down just like a crocodile.

Elze managed to backstep right in the nick of time, but that was followed by arrows of Skeleton Archers closing in on her from all sides.

“Hmph!”

Elze thrust her left fist into the air, causing a tornado to appear around her that disabled all the arrows heading straight for her.

“My, they don’t call you the War Queen of Brunhild for nothing. You really are something else.”

Graphite ripped off his jeweled necklace, threw it to the ground, and then raised his scepter. Black miasma leaked from the weapon and enveloped the jewels he had discarded moments before. What followed was the pale figures of female ghosts crawling out from the jewels in pain.

“You’re kidding me...!”

Elze, who had been taking everything very easy a moment before, froze up the moment she saw the pale ghosts. When it came to the undead, she was especially weak to wraiths, so she found it mentally difficult to deal with ones that materialized in spiritual bodies. Her gauntlets were enhanced with light magic, so it wasn’t as if she couldn’t hit them, but such a deep-rooted fear couldn’t disappear so easily.

When she unconsciously took a step back, the female spirits let out a tremendous screech. Their voices gave any humans who happened to be nearby a sense of intense grief and unsalvageable despair, enough to lead them to suicidal ideation.

“Banshees!”

Banshees were evil fairies whose frightening cries drove those around them into the depths of despair. They were originally harmless fairies who would only appear to announce one’s death, but there were rare cases of some who fell to darkness.

Elze was able to fight against the voices, but the same couldn’t be said for the citizens in the area. Those who could hear the cries of the Banshees were screaming, shedding tears as their faces distorted in pain. If this continued, they would ultimately take their own lives due to the pure despair, no doubt leading to their own transformations into Skeletons.

When Elze stepped forward to put a stop to the Banshees, Sakura’s voice echoed out from behind her in an attempt to cancel them out. She was now singing a German version of the song she had been singing before.

Sakura’s song of joy clashed with the Banshees’ song of lament, pushing through to light up the people’s hearts with hope instead.

“OoooOOaaaaAAhHHhhH!”

The Banshees were pushed back by Sakura’s song. Yae and Hilde took that opportunity to jump out from behind Elze and slash them in two. It would usually be impossible to physically slash a spirit, but the pair’s blades were so enhanced with magic that they could cut through them easily.

The slashed Banshees wailed in despair at their death as their bodies disappeared. The jewels scattered over the ground cracked at their defeat.

“It has been a long time since I have had to exorcise a ghost, it has.”

“Yae, those aren’t ghosts. They’re technically fairies.”

Fairies were spiritual beings too, so was it so wrong to call them ghosts? Well, regardless, Yae swung her katana down, slaying these ghosts or fairies or whatever they were.

“Hm?”

Yae halted the swinging of her blade and tilted her head.

“What’s wrong?” Hilde asked.

“No, it’s just...I feel like I slashed not just this Banshee, but the one in back too, I do...”

She was sure that her slash had become a shock wave that hit the Banshee in the back, but perhaps she was just imagining that.

Feeling a strange power start to leak out from her body, Yae suddenly realized something.

Ahhh, I see. So that’s what this feels like.

When Yae lightly swung her katana toward a Banshee that was a fair distance away, it cut clean in half. In fact, not only the Banshee, but also the stone wall of the building behind it.

“Hmm. Is this my divine trait?”

Yae could make her slashes go where she willed them. It wasn’t a case of turning them into shock waves—she was literally having her attack cross space, slashing anything on the way there in the process. Deeming dimensional cleave a good way to refer to it, Yae released a further flurry of slashes at all the Banshees in the area.

The moment Yae sheathed her blade, the Banshees all vanished at once.

Hilde stood there stunned at the sight for a moment before she suddenly returned to her senses.

“Yae! You woke up to your divine trait?! That’s unfair!”

“But it was not as if I controlled this, I did not...”

Hilde hounded Yae out of frustration upon having realized what she had just done. Even though there was no way for them to do anything about individual differences in manifestation, it was still frustrating all the same.

Given that Yae seemed to be able to cut through space itself, it was reasonable to assume that it could cut through basically anything. The problem was the difficulty in specifying the range. Precise control would be necessary to not slice through that which she wished to leave untouched.

“This is quite the exhausting ability, this is...”

“Oh, yeah, when I first acquired mine, I felt the same. Don’t worry, you’ll start to get used to it,” Elze said with all the pride of someone who had been first. Hilde began uselessly swinging her sword around, hoping she, too, would wake up to her ability.

“I see what Indigo means now when he calls you lot our natural enemy. I should remove you from the picture sooner rather than later,” Graphite said.

“Do it if you can,” Yae declared, slashing her sword at Graphite. Her dimensional cleave almost definitely should have cut where Graphite was standing, yet he remained there unfazed, not a shred of panic to be seen.

“Hm?”

Yae tilted her head quizzically before then trying to slash two, three more times.

“I cannot cut him...?”

“No, you are. I don’t quite understand how it works, but it is a splendid show of skill. You are simply cutting me so cleanly that my regeneration is too quick to be seen by the naked eye.”

Yae frowned at the explanation. It was said that if you cut your finger with a sharp blade, the tissue would remain closer together and therefore heal faster. Was that what he meant?

The man with the iron mask they had defeated not long ago also had similarly impressive regenerative abilities—his arm grew back after being cut right off. This old goat skull man must have been the same.

“It still ruins my clothes, though, so I must ask that you cease.”

Graphite shook his arms and legs, causing pieces of his robe to flutter down. It was also sliced along his chest, revealing his skinny ribs. They might have ended up seeing his lower half if the clothes hadn’t been tied up with a rope around his waist.

I’m so glad I didn’t cut vertically, Yae thought to herself in relief.

If that was the case, though, it just meant that she had to mincemeat him so fast that he couldn’t regenerate in time. Yae held her sword at her waist as she entered into position. A power different from mana welled up from deep inside her, a platinum light coating her body.

I can definitely slash him into pieces.

With overflowing self-confidence, Yae began to pull her sword out from its sheath...when suddenly, a hand was placed on said sheath, putting a stop to her attack.

“That’s enough, y’know.”

“Karen?!”

Without warning, the goddess of love had appeared. Her smile was as carefree as ever as she wagged a finger in her face.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Yae, don’t forget that you’re Touya’s ward. You can’t use divinity to defeat that guy or you’ll be violating a divine rule, y’know? If you do that, the god of destruction will come and the world will go boom! Y’know?”

“Boom...”

“I-It’ll go boom?”

Elze and Hilde both seemed a little shocked at Karen’s vague explanation. Touya had explained it to them before, but Karen spoke about it as if it were the most casual affair possible. Admittedly, from the gods’ perspective, just one world being gone probably was as simple as a small boom! But still...

“Anyway, you can’t use your divinity here, y’know? Okay?”

“Mmm... I understand, I do...”

“Are you done blathering?” Graphite asked, hands leaning on the top of his scepter as if he were taking a leisurely break.

“Indeed,” Yae responded. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Why, there is no bother. I simply wanted to buy some time, that was all. Thanks to you, I made it.”

Graphite sneered as there was a sudden explosion from elsewhere. Being so sensitive to sound, Sakura immediately pinpointed where it came from. What she witnessed from her position on the roof was one of the lighthouses at the docks toppling over into the sea from its base. That lighthouse was then crushed by a massive golden arm that stretched straight out from the water.

The massive one-eyed Gollems, the Kyklops, began appearing one after another from underneath the ocean and began stepping foot on the harbor. Fishmen, Four-Armed Gollems, and Rock Titans followed at their feet.

Elze climbed up to the same roof as Sakura and spotted a familiar shadow floating not far behind. It had a goat’s head, a bat’s wings, a muscular human torso, and an owl’s lower body. It was one of those Demon Lords that Touya had fought on the night of the coup d’état in Regulus. However, something about it was greatly different: its whole body was mechanical. Not in the sense that it was completely turned into a machine, but that the mechanical parts had been fused with the creature’s natural flesh. Many demons fused in the same way were floating behind it.

The mechanized Demon Lord and its minions were beginning an assault on Brenn.

“Let’s try this one again, shall we?”

Graphite tapped his metallic black scepter on the ground.

“SAVE UUUUUUUUUSSSSSS!”

There were no longer only Skeletons romping along the ground, but also mechanical demons flying in from the air. To the citizens of Brenn, it must have looked like hell incarnate. Homura began to panic, more than aware that their numbers would never be enough.

“Don’t worry. We’ve called our own reinforcements,” Sue reassured her from nearby.

“What?”

When Homura turned around to look at the duchess, she instead saw a [Gate] and knights clad in silver armor flowing out from it, accompanied by Knight Gollems. They weren’t Brunhild’s knights, though: theirs was the armor of Gardio.

“Knights of Gardio, protect the citizens! We will not let these cruel invaders have their way!”

Standing at the front of the knights, issuing a rousing call, was Lancelet Rigg Gardio, the Empire of Gardio’s young emperor. Homura and the other ninja girls let out a sigh of relief when they saw the familiar black hair and white coat of their master.

◇◇◇

Oh god, there really are Skeletons and demons crawling about everywhere.

After receiving a call from Sue and Tsubaki explaining the situation, I got in contact with the emperor of Gardio, and then finally arrived at the port town through a [Gate] with a group of Brunhild’s knights. It wouldn’t have been a good look to send through foreign knights without asking for permission first, so I ended up a bit delayed. I had already been making plans with the emperor to storm Papillon’s base—we were just waiting until we had all the intel we deemed necessary first. But unfortunately, it seemed we had to put that on the back burner for now.

With this many citizens mixed in among the enemies, AoE magic was definitely out of the question... There was a risk of them getting caught in the blast radius and causing even more panic. While I was trying to decide on the best course of action, a Skeleton came bumbling toward me with sword in hand, its jaw rattling away.

I shot its skull with Brunhild, but it immediately began regenerating.

Guess I have to target it straight at its core.

“[Apport].”

I pulled only the Skeleton’s core to my hand. Having lost its life source, the undead being fell apart right on the spot. I dropped the core to the ground and crushed it with my shoe. This really was the easiest way to deal with this type of creature.

Crash!

This time, it was one of the mechanical demons that made its descent in front of me. Its long arms and legs were built like a Gollem’s, while its body was that of a demon’s. They were like those Cydevils from before.

“Whoa, calm down!”

The Cydevil’s outstretched hand detached from its wrist and began flying toward me. I managed to dodge it in the nick of time, but the wires that attached the body parts pulled the hand back to its arm, setting it into place. A wire rocket punch, huh?

Brunhild might not have been able to do much to the mechanical parts of the Cydevil’s body, but I shot three of her bullets right into its fleshy torso. They successfully struck around the chest and stomach, but it didn’t look like it had much effect. There was blue blood flowing from the gunshot wounds, though, so I had at least injured it, but it was countered by its thick muscles.

“Can you handle what comes next, though?”

“GREEE?” it let out in what almost sounded like confusion.

The moment the Cydevil took a step toward me, it exploded, its torso shredded in half.

Hell yeah, I knew an explosion from inside would be too much for it.

The demon appeared to have died after being annihilated by the [Explosion]-enhanced bullets I had shot at it.

That said, demons were resilient. It was a bad idea to assume one was dead without confirming first. At the end of the day, demons were basically just servants of the wicked god. They both preyed on the negative emotions of humans as their energy source, and they loved a good sacrifice. What was the difference, really?

According to Moroha, demons were also known as vestiges of the wicked god, which when you changed your thinking, sort of made the wicked devout a type of demon.

“The stuff they’re pulling off is demonic enough. Basically the same thing if you ask me,” I commented to myself.

I fired shots at two more Cydevils that were nose-diving toward me from the sky. After a beat, they both exploded into a rain of meat and blue blood.

Remind me not to shoot them when they’re directly above me...

I used [Fly] to get myself onto the roof where Sakura was. Looking out at the docks, I realized the Kyklops were starting to make it to land. Well, this certainly wasn’t good.

“Target lock: Kyklops.”

“Searching... Targets locked.”

“Invoke [Gate] beneath their feet.”

“Understood. Invoking [Gate].”

The Kyklops that had made it to land began falling into the newly created holes one after the other. The ones still in the sea were teleported away together with them to an area a little bit away from the town. It was an open field with no inhabitants, so a bit of chaos and destruction wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“Sue, Sakura, can I leave those ones to you guys?”

“You sure can!”

“Okay...”

Sue and Sakura instantly disappeared, chasing after the Kyklops with Sakura’s [Teleport]. After some time passed, a large golden Frame Gear and an accompanying light-red Frame Gear appeared far beyond the town.

“Cannon Knuckle Spiral!”

I heard Sue’s shout of her skill through my phone together with the loud impact of the Kyklops being punched by her mech’s fist.

Suddenly, there was a massive explosion followed by a bunch of gold powder floating into the air. I froze in shock.

Is that divine venom?!

Wait, no, sorry, diluted divine venom. It had basically no effect on those of us with divinity. Those who were our wards would still experience negative symptoms, though, even if it didn’t kill them. To steal the words of Sakura, it made them feel like they were “forced onto a roller coaster right after stuffing themselves full, and then got catapulted right into a pool of bugs.”

It wasn’t something they couldn’t tolerate, but it still felt bad, both physically and mentally. And to make matters worse, the output of the Frame Gears also decreased. Doc Babylon had said that their modifications would stop that being as much of an issue, but...

“Don’t worry. Sakura and Sue definitely have the suits we made on them. Us too,” Elze reassured me. When I jumped back down below, she activated some app on her smartphone and then aimed it at the sky.

“[Equip]!”

A ball of light shot up into the air before it immediately came back down and enveloped Elze. When the blinding light settled, she was standing there with the aforementioned pilot suit on.

What’s with the sudden magical girl transformation?!

“It’d be a pain if we had to keep getting changed like normal, right? That’s why we asked Doctor Babylon if she could make a system that lets us transform.”

Elze’s face was covered by her helmet the whole time she was explaining, and the black visor was lowered so I couldn’t see her at all. Compared to the version of the pilot suit I’d seen before, this one had her gauntlets still equipped. Plus, the gray coloring from before was now red.

“We had its defense upgraded too. It’s much tougher than some shoddy makeshift armor now.”

The shoulders, chest, and lower back were covered with something that looked akin to phrasium armor. With them having personal colors now, it really did feel like we were forming our own team of Power Rangers.

Two more blinding balls of light were suddenly emitted, and when I looked toward their source, I noticed that there was now a purple and an orange ranger. It must have been Yae and Hilde. Both of them had some kind of attachments around their waists, probably the sheaths for their swords.

“I really do think these suits are a bit too tight, I do...”

“I agree. I appreciate that they’re easy to move in, though.”

The girls also had their visors over their faces, so I couldn’t see their expressions, but they were squirming in clear embarrassment. Yae’s assets certainly did make her curves stand out...

“Touya-dono, I would appreciate it if you would stop staring, I would...”

“Oh, crap, sorry...”

Oops!

Even spouses should show the appropriate manners to each other. I shouldn’t look so brazenly like that.

“A-Anyway, is the divine venom having any effect on you? Do you feel ill at all?” I asked, seeing the gold powder make its way over here.

“No, not even a bit,” Hilde confirmed. “I have no issues moving either.”

“Indeed. We will have no issues fighting like this, we will not.”

Seemed like the Puretree filter was working its magic. It was essentially a thin barrier surrounding their bodies, so I’d hope it would work.

“Sorry to interrupt your little flirting session, but I would recommend you not turn your back to the enemy, y’know?!”

I turned around when Karen suddenly spoke up and saw that the wicked devout on top of the rubble had started to morph into something strange. Several bones began protruding from the back of the old man with the goat skull. Those bones, which were long and had several joints, looked very much like the legs of a spider. I was pretty sure I’d seen something like that in a movie recently: a superhero gained spider powers and then looked like that when wearing a special suit from one of his fellow superheroes. This one had way more legs, though.

The tips of the bones looked as sharp as blades. The goat skull man was floating in the air held up by those bone legs.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Grand Duke of Brunhild. My name is Graphite, necromancer and alchemist of the wicked devout.”

Hmph, a necromancer, huh? No wonder he’s using bones and demons.

“I wish I could’ve faced you after I had made all of my preparations, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I will simply entertain you with everything I have.”

Graphite took his metallic black scepter and began waving it in the air. A pitch-black miasma emanated from its tip, then started crawling along the ground like the smoke from dry ice.

“Everyone, pull back!”

Elze, Yae, Hilde, Anubis, Bastet, and the three kunoichi all immediately created distance between themselves and Graphite, out of reach of the miasma.

Huh? Where’d Karen go?

That woman would always appear and disappear as she willed.

The miasma Graphite released from his scepter surrounded the Skeletons, their figures disappearing into the black fog. But when that fog cleared, a whole army of Skeleton Knights encased in pitch-black armor was standing there, wielding similarly colored swords and shields. It was the birth of a sinister army from literal hell.

“GRAAAAAAAAAGH!”

That sound came from the mechanized Demon Lord up above us.

They can’t give us a break, can they?!

“Touya, we’ll hold them off here! You handle the demons!” Hilde shouted over to me.

“I suppose that would be best,” I said, then nodded and jumped into the air with [Fly]. Given the fact that they were airborne, I would be the best combatant here. Best we fought where our abilities were most suited.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

A Demon Lord, huh? Hadn’t seen this thing since the coup d’état in Regulus. This one was much bigger than that little shrimp, though. Plus, its limbs were mechanized. It had been turned into a cyborg just like its kin, though it got slightly better treatment with its gold hands and feet.

The red eyes of the Demon Lord emitted a strange glow before suddenly firing red laser beams toward me. It was a move I’d seen before, so it was easy enough for me to dodge it, but the moment I pulled out Brunhild to retaliate, the other demons around the Demon Lord fired the exact same eye lasers.

“You’re kidding?! [Prison]!”

Dodging such concentrated fire would’ve been way too tough, so I erected a [Prison] barrier around me instead to tank the blast. Damn things couldn’t keep their gazes off of me. It was tough being popular.

“Now it’s my turn.”

I pulled out a sword from [Storage]. On the surface, it looked like a regular phrasium broadsword, but...

“Take this!”

With just a press of a button and a swish of my sword, the blade separated into segments, becoming like a whip as it wrapped around one of the demons. When I let go of the button, the wires keeping the blade together pulled back to their original position, making it take its sword form again. Shredded by the retracted blade, the captured demon fell to the ground in pieces.

I had taken the idea of Frei’s whipsword and fashioned a new weapon for myself, just made of phrasium instead. Once I got used to it, it would be pretty efficient for fighting waves of enemies.

I cut down all the demons that came at me. Mechanical limbs were nothing against phrasium—it was as if my blade were cutting through paper. Each one I cut up fell down below.

“Stop getting their blood all over us!” I heard Homura shout from the ground.

Oops, uh... Sorry ’bout that.

“GRUGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The Demon Lord raised one of its arms and went to punch me, but naturally, it was blocked by the [Prison].

“GRAGAGAGAAA!”

The Demon Lord kept striking the [Prison] again and again, as if it would do anything, as if it could—

Crack!

I had been so confident just two seconds ago. And yet, there that sound was. The sound I didn’t believe I would ever hear.

“GWORAAAAAAAAAGH!”

The [Prison] shattered at the same time that I jumped backward.

It broke my [Prison]?! Damn it, that means its limbs have to be made from mutants!

The mutants who were wards of the wicked god had some of his divinity within their bodies. And as rotten as that power was, it was still divinity. [Prison] wasn’t enhanced with divinity by nature, so of course they would break it if that was what they were born from. Usually, when a mutant’s core was broken, though, its body would dissolve into sludge. Had they found some special way of creating them that prevented that? We made phrasium from the bodies of Phrase, so could they be doing something similar with mutants? Were they making a kind of demonic metal? Demonium, so to speak.

Though they had the power of mutants, if I enhanced a [Prison] with divinity, that should be enough to block their attacks, but me using any of my divine power risked breaking the rules...

Damn, sure does suck that the other side is allowed to use divinity, yet we aren’t! Just a little unfair, no?!

Strictly speaking, the rule was that I couldn’t use my divine powers in a way that would greatly influence the world, so for all I knew, it was fine. But there was no way for me to know how the gods I wasn’t acquainted with would take it. My body was already accepted as being that of a god’s. If I used my divinity, I’d have no more excuses. I didn’t have so many screws loose that I would bet the fate of the world on a feeling that it might be fine.

“I’m not gonna lose just ’cause I can’t use my divinity, though. Kougyoku, go ahead.”

“My liege.”

“GYAAUGAAAAAAH!”

In a flash, the Demon Lord was enveloped in the flames of hell. It writhed in pain within the blaze and plummeted to the ground. I had secretly summoned Kougyoku and had her attack from behind.

What a cowardly move, you say? As if I cared about such things with demons.

After falling out of the sky, the Demon Lord rolled about as if trying to put out the flames burning its body. Everyone had already retreated far enough away from under me that I could use my next attack without worry; I pulled out a regular old gigantic rock I had been saving in [Storage].

“[Gravity]!”

I lightly touched the rock, activated [Gravity], and sent it hurling toward the Demon Lord with thousands of times the weight.

“GYAOOOAAAAAAGH!”

A thud and a splatter that would make one’s insides churn resounded through the area.

Demon extermination complete. Except for the small fry, that is.

“Luli.”

“Yes, my liege.”

This time, a large Dragon as blue as sapphire appeared beside me. She flapped her enormous wings, breathing out fire all the while, incinerating the mechanized limbs of many of the Cydevils.

“Luli, Kougyoku, I’ll leave these demons to you.”

“Yes, my liege.”

“I’ll burn every last one to a crisp.”

Deciding to leave the aerial enemies to the Heavenly Beasts, I returned to the ground. The transformed Sango and Kokuyou had begun their attack on the Skeleton army with the ninja girls, Bastet, and Anubis riding on their backs. When I’d called out Luli, the other Heavenly Beasts had excitedly volunteered to come out and assist too, so I’d ended up summoning all of them. Kohaku was headed to where Elze and the other girls were.

Kokuyou was slashing the Skeletons in half with his water cutter, while Sango was using her massive feet to squish them. I felt like I was watching a kaiju movie.

“Luli, Kokuyou, look after them for me.”

“Yes, my liege.”

“Leave it to us, darling!”

Having put my trust in them, I turned and ran toward where the girls were. When I made it to the collapsed brothel, I saw Elze, Yae, and Hilde in their pilot suits along with Kohaku fighting against Graphite’s Skeleton Knights. The Skeletons didn’t seem all that strong, but their cores were completely protected by the armor, and it was clearly making it tough for them to fight back.

Graphite, on the other hand, was letting off a metallic glimmer that was the same as the Skeleton Knights and had transformed into something that resembled a giant spider crab. Instead of pincers, however, he wielded what looked like a massive scythe. His human upper body, which held his scepter, was sticking out of the crab body.

Was this a crab version of an arachne? We had an arachne among our knights; they were a race of demonkin. This crab thing just looked like a kaiju.

Can’t stand around here forever. Time to start the hunt!

“Pierce through, O Light! Sacred Illumination: [Holy Ray]!”

A laser burst forth from my palm straight toward the giant black spider crab relaxing on the rubble. It wasn’t an attack using divinity, so this was fine, right?

“Take this: [Jet]!”

That spear of light should have been unavoidable, yet with a light swoosh of Graphite’s scepter, a black fog sucked in the laser like a black hole.

He can do that?!

“Blaze, O Fire! Blazing Penetration: [Burning Lance]!”

This time, I threw a gigantic lance of fire at the old man, but yet again, he absorbed it whole with the weird black fog.

“It’s useless, I tell you, useless. Magic does not work on me,” the crab Graphite laughed.

Magic didn’t work on him? If this worked on the same principles as [Absorb], then...

“This is bad!”

“A little present for you.”

From that fog came countless black arrows.

“[Prison]!”

I immediately surrounded everyone with a barrier. The arrows didn’t pierce it, but a lot of them had managed to lodge themselves inside the walls. There were already cracks starting to form.

That was close! If I had been any slower, we’d have been done for.

Since those arrows could damage [Prison], that had to mean there was wicked divinity inside of them. These bastards really were a pain! He would absorb any magic used on him with that fog of his and turn it into his own. That was why magic was useless against him. In fact, it wasn’t just useless, he’d fire any magic we used back at us in an even stronger form. Presumably, those metallic black parts of his crab body were a more solid version of the fog. Was he like a pseudo Phrase? In that case, physical attacks were the way to go.

“Everyone, get away from him!”

All of them reacted immediately to my voice and jumped away. Once I had confirmed they were far enough, I opened a massive [Gate] above Graphite.

“Get crushed!”

A bunch of rubble from the destroyed buildings in the surroundings went crashing down onto his head. Literal tons of rubble rained down on Graphite and the surrounding Skeleton army, completely crushing them. By the time all of it had been released, there was a towering mountain of rubble left behind.

“Did...we do it?” Yae cautiously asked.

No, Yae! Don’t jinx it!

Just as I thought that, the crab Graphite burst out of the mountain of rubble as if to prove my worries right.

“HA HA HA! Quite the clever strategy there! Now, allow me to repay you in kind!”

Graphite swung down the scythe he held in two of his crab hands. A shock wave ran through the ground toward us from the impact. We managed to avoid it, but it cut straight through a building behind us and split it in two.

Tch, that’s got some real power behind it.

“TAKE THIS, TAKE THIS, TAKE THIS!”

Shock waves rushed toward us again and again. They weren’t impossible to dodge, but it did mean we would struggle to get any closer. If we even tried, we were immediately blocked by more shock waves. He was clearly trying to avoid close-quarters combat.

Could we manage to approach it if we forced our way through using [Shield]? But the other side was using a form of divinity, so it was possible the [Shield] would get destroyed. No way we could take such a dangerous gamble.

When it comes to physical attacks from afar...

I pulled out Brunhild from my belt and fired it at Graphite. The bullet hit without issue, but it was easily repelled. Not that I was surprised, of course. That thing got crushed by rubble and came out looking as good as new, so obviously a stupid little bullet wouldn’t do anything.

Then how about we charge into him with more than just a stupid little bullet?

“Sue, you ready?” I confirmed over the phone.

“Ready whenever!”

“Hm? What are you...?”

“[Gate]!”

Graphite was sucked into the earth together with the rubble. The second that happened, I teleported to where I had sent him: the piece of land where Sue and Sakura had been fighting the Kyklops. The first thing Graphite would have seen after being teleported was a gold titan driving a massive fist into him.

“Cannon Knuckle Spiral!”

“What?!”

The high-speed rotating golden fist of the Ortlinde Overlord charged at the flabbergasted Graphite. He attempted to dodge, but it was already too late. Those tenths of a second of hesitation proved fatal, and the black crab got a face full of fist.

“GHBWUH!”

Together with a muffled cry, the huge crab burst into pieces. It was the strongest physical attack in our arsenal. No way he could put up a fight.

And yet...

“You...! What a cowardly trick...!”

Graphite rose from the crushed shell using his scepter as a cane.

Even that didn’t kill him?

Thanks to the wicked god’s divinity, the wicked devout all had exceptional regenerative abilities. The dude with the big meat cleaver had his whole arm regenerate in front of me, for example.

Was the sacred treasure really the only way to beat these guys without directly using divinity?

“What’s the plan? Shall I assist?” a small voice piped up from beside me.

“Hang on a sec...” I quietly responded. “Not yet.”

Kuon had actually been here the whole time under the cloak of [Invisible]. He was right beside me even now. I’d had him hide his presence before we came just in case the diver helmet guy was here again. If he was here, the wicked devout could easily escape with teleportation magic the moment they detected too much of a threat. The plan, if that was the case, was to have Kuon use the sacred treasure to take him by surprise and seal his magic. Best case scenario, we’d defeat him too.

If we could just defeat their primary means of escape, we could infiltrate the Ark without having to worry about it getting away. I really had thought he’d show up after we’d injured Graphite this much...

Was Graphite not as injured as I thought? Had he not been injured so badly that the diver helmet guy felt he had to step in? Had they had a disagreement of some sort? Or perhaps there was a reason the diver guy couldn’t come here?

He hadn’t come to help the guys with the meat cleaver and spear either, even though he had before. To be honest, it had always been questionable how much they really viewed each other as comrades.

I guess it would be a waste to give up a chance to put an end to one of them, though.

“Actually, change of plans. Kuon, can I count on you?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Whew, guess there’s no other choice now, huh?” Silver said. “Now that’s more like it!”

Why do I always end up more nervous whenever that damn sword speaks...?

I dispelled the invisibility magic, revealing Kuon beside me. In his hand was the silver crown, Silver, who took the form of a shimmering blade. A little metallic sphere about the size of a baseball was floating around him like a satellite. Kuon raised his free right hand into the air.

“Sacred Treasure Equip.”

The platinum-colored sphere unraveled into threads and changed shape as it wove itself into Kuon’s hand. It now took the form of a single-edged sword, but it had a trigger, cylinder, and muzzle on the blade; it was a gunblade, same as my Brunhild. I had originally planned for it to be a normal sword, but since Kuon already had Silver, I decided to spice things up a bit.

What was different about it compared to Brunhild was that it was a sacred treasure and that it couldn’t swap between its gun and blade forms. It was more like it had a sword as its foundation with a gun form attached to it. Its size adjusted to fit Kuon, so it was more like the size of an adult’s shortsword.

Kuon held the gunblade in his right hand, and Silver in his left.

Huh? Does he intend to dual-wield?

Yae, Yakumo, and Moroha would probably be able to manage, but would Kuon...? Well, I would be there to support him if I needed to, so it would all work out somehow.

“Sue, Sakura, could you bring the Kyklops closer to us?”

“Leave it to us!”

“Okay...”

The Ortlinde Overlord and the Rossweise were currently contending with the Kyklops. When I looked off in the distance, I could see Gerhilde, Schwertleite, and Siegrune coming toward us from Brenn. With five of them here, they’d be more than fine.

“Who is that child? When did he get there? Fine, I will simply use my trump card.”

Graphite took off the large necklace made up of fangs hanging from his neck as well as a bracelet of similar design, dumped them on the ground, and then forcefully banged his scepter down. The moment he did, that same old black fog emitted from the scepter, enveloping the fangs. That fog began to take shape, eventually forming the head of a Dragon. Naturally, it was not one made of flesh but of bone, its neck protruding from the fog.

Then, suddenly, another similar Dragon head popped out, and then another.

“It’s a Hydra!” I exclaimed.

“You insolent fool, don’t even compare it to such a sham of a serpent. This is Tiamat, the wicked king of Dragons. Thou shalt revive the corpses of thy brethren in thy bosom.”

“Grrrrr...!”

A five-headed Dragon made of bone appeared from within the fog.

Damn, pretty big, isn’t it?

What was this about being the king of Dragons, though? Was that not Luli?

《Luli, you done over there?》

《My liege? Yes, most of the demons have been incinerated. Is there something I can assist you with?》

It seemed it would be fine to call them over here. I summoned Luli over to get her thoughts on Tiamat.

“What?! This creature is...!”

Luli immediately had a shocked reaction upon being faced with the Dragon.

“Do you know them?”

“Yes. This is the Wicked Dragon King Tiamat. Though they are considered a Fiendrake, they are a Wicked Dragon that was said to reach even the strength of a Heavenly Beast. How pitiful... To have such a revered being be revived in this unsightly manner.”

So that made them the king of the Fiendrakes? If they reached the heights of a Heavenly Beast, did that mean they matched Luli in strength? And now that they were enhanced with the power of the wicked devout, it could be that they were even more powerful than Luli now...

“Graaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

Suddenly, the five heads of Tiamat spat out breaths of fire all at once. No, not just fire, but water, wind, light, and dark too. It was aimed not at me and Kuon, but straight at Luli.

“How insolent!”

Luli spat out her own breath toward it. The five breaths and the single large one clashed, vying for dominance. A few seconds passed of the two Dragons battling before Luli’s breath started to overpower Tiamat’s. Tiamat could no longer keep its assault up, and Luli’s breath managed to strike the Dragon made of bone directly.

Tiamat staggered a little as they were hit by Luli’s breath, smoke coming from where they were hit.

How were they not instantly burned to the bone? Uh, wait, they’re already bone. How were they not burned to ashes? How much defense does this thing have?

“I will take this beast on. Allow me to grant it release once more.”

“Please.”

After leaving Tiamat to Luli, I took out Brunhild and fired it at Graphite. Using the crab-spider legs he had growing out his back, he scuttled to the side and avoided my bullets.

“Strike true, O Light! Sparkling Holy Lance: [Shining Javelin]!”

I immediately followed up with [Shining Javelin].

“I already told you that magic won’t work!”

Once more, black fog absorbed my magic.

Yeah, I know, dumbass. I fired it at you so you wouldn’t move.

“Hey man, it’s flattering and all, but I dunno if it’s such a good idea to keep your eyes on me like that.”

“What?”

By the time Graphite realized that Kuon had managed to approach him, it was already too late. He frantically raised the black fog as a shield, but it vanished like a puff of smoke being blown away.

“Hm?!”

Graphite blocked Kuon’s sacred treasure with his scepter. The loud crack that rang out was audible even from where I stood.

“Impossible! You managed to damage Jet?!”

“Perhaps it was a knockoff,” Kuon retorted as he swung Silver in from the side. Graphite threw off the sacred treasure with his scepter, then jumped backward. However, Kuon immediately followed up by pulling the trigger of the sacred treasure, releasing a bullet of light.

“Guh?!”

The bullet shot right through Graphite’s foot. Not a single drop of blood spilled out of the large gouge, but there was no sign of it closing up either; his regenerative abilities weren’t working. That bullet was a whole chunk of divinity, so of course it wouldn’t allow for regenerative abilities gained from the wicked god to take effect.

“You brat...! Just who are you?!”

“Unfortunately, I was told not to tell my name to strangers, so I’m afraid I can’t answer you.”

Kuon’s right eye shone a red-gold. It was his Mystic Eye of Compression.

“Take this! First Seal Release!” Silver called out. When the glowing Silver touched one of the crab legs, it blew it up into pieces. That must have been the crown amplifying Kuon’s abilities. He was surprisingly useful.

“Curse you! Don’t think you’ve won this!”

Graphite held up his scepter, but unlike before, no black fog was released. Instead, all that began to surround him was a thin mist.

“Why?! Why can I not use Jet’s power?!”

That was the Divine Neutralization ability of the sacred treasure I had created taking effect. So long as Kuon was nearby, that scepter would be rendered completely useless.

“Nrgh!”

Graphite threw his crab legs around like swords, sending shock waves hurtling toward Kuon. The fact that he was managing to use them at all meant it had to be a magic attack that wasn’t using divinity. Those shock waves were clearly being used to create distance between him and Kuon, but Kuon was dodging the attacks with ease. His right eye was currently orange-gold, which meant his Mystic Eye of Precognition was active. He could predict exactly what was about to happen, and exactly where the shock waves would come from.

Having avoided all the attacks, Kuon approached Graphite once more. Graphite’s crab legs moved to block the sacred treasure coming in from the side, but just like a phrasium sword—no, even more so than a phrasium sword—it was too sharp to be blocked. The sword slashed right through the legs and straight into Graphite’s main body.

“SHYAH!”

“Ah!”

A tornado of flames suddenly enveloped Graphite, forcing Kuon to jump back. That fire continued to burn Graphite himself. Suicide by self-immolation? There was no way. I was pretty sure I saw that old man sneer at me from behind those flames.

“I see. So you were the one who defeated Hazel and Orchid. You had quite the card up your sleeve. Still, don’t think this is the end.”

Kuon wasn’t actually the one who’d defeated the previous wicked devout, but there was no need to explain that.

Graphite’s body continued to incinerate, and when the meat had been completely reduced to ashes, a metallic black Skeleton with the skull of a goat was left standing there.

That bastard. The second he realized he couldn’t use the wicked god’s divinity, he immediately swapped to condensing it inside his body instead.

He must have been gradually diverting the divinity into his bones during the fight, turning himself into a complete undead. That metallic black body no doubt had tremendous durability thanks to that. Still...

“[Slip].”

“Nwooogh?!”

The scepter that Graphite held slid forward with Kuon’s magic. His feet also slid at the same time, and he fell forward in an unsightly heap after losing his balance. The scepter clattered as it rolled its way over to Kuon’s feet. Holding it down with his foot, Kuon swung down the sacred treasure.

“What?! No, stop!”

“I refuse.”

No matter how sturdy or hard those bones were, there was no need to take down the main body to defeat a wicked devout. All you had to do was destroy their wicked vessel, the source of their power.

Kuon swung down his sword and shattered the metallic black scepter into pieces.

“Guh?! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The goat-headed Skeleton reached out to Kuon as he lost his metallic black sheen. The bones gradually turned into a dull gray and crumbled into dust, while his shattered scepter dissolved into a sludgy black liquid.

Did we finally win?

Tiamat, who had been fighting Luli, also clattered to the ground as it fell apart into a mountain of bones, most likely because Graphite was no longer around to supply it with energy. It looked like the girls were basically done dealing with the Kyklops too. The monsters roaming in the town were pretty much cleaned up by the knights of Gardio and Kohaku’s group.

At least we’d confirmed we could use the sacred treasure without worry. Though, that diver helmet guy hadn’t come to help, after all. Given the same happened with the spear-wielding kid, this guy really must not care for his companions...

Hm?

Sensing something strange, I took out Brunhild, aimed it at the black shadow I could see in the sky, and fired. After a bit of time, a small machine fell down to the ground and burst into pieces.

Is this...a Gollem? A bird Gollem?

It had been watching our fight... No, had it been monitoring us? Since when? I stuffed the bird’s remains into [Storage] so I could ask Doc Babylon to give it a look later.

I haven’t messed up, have I? Have the wicked devout found out about Kuon and the sacred treasure?

It wasn’t that we hadn’t come up with contingency plans for exactly that scenario, but...

“Father? Is something the matter?”

“Nah, it’s nothing. Good job.”

I patted Kuon on the head, then headed off to help the girls finish off the Kyklops.

Realism was the norm in this world, but what Linze had drawn here was more akin to a manga style. She’d probably been influenced by the manga from Earth that she had been reading. Linze said that she had never drawn before back when we first met, which meant she’d gotten this good after only a few years. Was she a genius?

There were a bunch of magical girl drawings in the sketchbook as well. They were incredible.

“They really can transform if we make use of the system that Doc Babylon created. I wanted to make these for them before they have to return to the future.”

I wasn’t doubting that we would be able to give them transformation sequences, since the girls already had their own for the pilot suits, but was there any reason for them to wear the outfits in the first place? They didn’t strengthen them in any way, right? And they weren’t supposed to be disguises either. In fact, did they need an actual system in order to transform? Couldn’t they just get dressed normally?

“Do you not want to see the children in these outfits?”

“I do,” I replied immediately. What parent wouldn’t? They were all adorable, so there was no way they wouldn’t suit them.

Linze pointed at one of the costumes in the sketchbook.

“I’ve made nine pairs of this design here for now. Though honestly, it’s still lacking some of the details.”

“Cool... Wait. Nine pairs?”

As in, Kuon had one too? These were magical girl costumes, right?

“There’s no need to worry. Kuon will pull it off,” Linze declared with full confidence.

“Stop right there! Don’t put him through that!”

Yeah, Kuon had a feminine face because he’d inherited Yumina’s features! But as small as he was, he was still a boy. There was no way he wouldn’t get embarrassed about having to wear girls’ clothes. I knew for sure as his father.

“The most important thing when deciding on a costume is whether or not it suits the person. Gender has little to do with it. In fact, aren’t there boys in Earth books who are known as ‘femboys’?”

Crap, Linze’s eyes were serious. If I didn’t do something fast, Kuon was going to be forced to dress up as a girl. I had to stop my son from being traumatized at such a young age! Though...if Kuon wanted it, maybe it would be fine? Even putting the idea of cross-dressing aside, it wasn’t that strange for a boy to want to dress up in something cute. If that was the case, then I had to learn to be more understanding as his parent. I would make my decision after confirming his thoughts on the matter.

I wasted no time in calling the boy over and explaining the situation.

“So, do you want to wear these kinds of clothes?”

“No.”

Oof, an immediate shutdown. And with such a huge frown too. Linze immediately tried to persuade him, though. “I think you’d look adorable in this, Kuon!”

“I do think the clothes are cute, but I do not particularly wish to wear them myself.”

“Yumina would be overjoyed to see you in this! Think of it as a way of showing your love for your parents!”

“Oh, I’m certain she would be happy, but I still do not particularly wish to wear it myself.”

Kuon retaliated against Linze’s fervent persuasion with his usual polite smile. There was absolutely no room for debate here.

Linze finally gave up and let out a dejected sigh.

“I made nine whole costumes too...”

“Then why not give mine to Allis? Wait, then we’d need one for Leylle as well. You can make just one more, can’t you, mother?”

“Of course I can!”

Linze might have lost Kuon, but this new suggestion had filled her with gusto. She was fine with anything so long as it involved making outfits, huh? I wouldn’t deny that I wanted to see our kids in the costumes as well. I was starting to understand the feeling of parents that wanted to dress their kids up.

Clearly wanting to strike while the iron was hot, Linze grabbed Allis and Leylle, pulled out a measuring tape from somewhere, and began taking their measurements. She was way too used to this.

“Hmm, what would make for a good transformation item? A magic staff? Or maybe we should make it more girly and go for a compact mirror? We could also go for a curveball and have it be a perfume bottle...” Linze muttered to herself, completely lost in her own world.

I closed my eyes in despair. This was going to take a long time.

“You’re hurting her, quit it.”

“Noooooo!”

Elze flapped her hands around in frustration at being made to let go of her daughter, while Elna sighed in relief at being freed. This mother really had to learn to not be so aggressive with her affection.

“You’re gonna make her hate you if you keep being overbearing, you know?” I whispered from behind so only Elze could hear. That immediately put a stop to her struggling.

“E-Elna, I’m really sorry, okay? I was so happy, I just...”

“No, it’s okay. I’m happy it made you that happy.”

What followed was Elze’s excited squeal.

“Eln— Gwuh!”

I grabbed Elze by the collar the moment she tried to jump on her daughter again.

Why is the mother so much more of a hassle than the daughter?

Linze was chuckling awkwardly at our exchange, before her phone started vibrating in her skirt pocket.

A phone call? From who?

“Hello?” Linze answered. “What? They’re ready?! Yes... Yes, I understand. I’ll go pick them up right away!”

Elze and I looked at each other in confusion at Linze’s sudden joy and excitement. Linze ended the phone call and looked over at us.

“It was from Doc Babylon. They’ve finished the transformation items for the kids! Touya, could you take me up to Babylon?!”

Was this to do with that whole magical girl thing we were talking about before? Had she been serious?!

“Come on, let’s go, let’s go! Hurry!” Linze said, yanking my arm.

“Wait, hang on! Ow, ow, stop pulling so hard! I’ve got it, I’m going!”

I couldn’t fight against Linze when she was this worked up.

This girl’s deadly serious.

After being somewhat forced to open a [Gate], we teleported up to Babylon.

◇◇◇

“So the transformation item is that bracelet?”

“Yup. We considered the idea of a compact mirror or a perfume bottle, but we decided on this. Those kids’d probably lose ’em otherwise.”

I couldn’t argue back against Doc Babylon’s words. Quite a number of them had dropped their phones when they arrived in this world.

“How do they use them?” Linze asked.

“If they say the key phrase while flowing mana into it, the clothes stored inside will be swapped with the clothes they’re wearing at the time. I made sure the requested effects will also happen when it’s used.”

Effects? What kind of effects? This really was a transformation item. So many people could only dream of having something like this. If you stored your pajamas, formal clothes, and casual clothes in here, you’d conveniently be able to change your outfit as you needed.

“I’m surprised you were even able to make something like this...” I muttered.

“We happened to have a fast-change artifact in the storehouse, so we took that and modified it a little. It works similarly to the girls’ pilot suits.”

Having something to base it on would make it easier. It would be easy to duplicate using the workshop, as well.

“What should we have the incantation be, then?” Linze asked excitedly, practically huffing as she zoomed up toward me with one of those bracelets in hand.

Is this something to get that excited over...?

“Uh...why not just something like, ‘Transform!’ Short and sweet, no?”

“No, that won’t do.”

“Won’t do at all.”

Linze and Doc Babylon both sighed in disappointment at my answer.

Come on, it’s not that bad!

“Listen here. That may be okay for a boy, but for a girl, it completely lacks impact. We have to make it something flashier,” Linze lectured me.

What impact? Who are you trying to impact with it? Us?

“What about ‘Twinkling Heart Babylon Wave!’?”

“Oooh, so you went for the cool route. I think something that imitates the sound effects works too. Like ‘Pimupimu pipirun! Pirurururu! Pamupamu papareru! Parurururu!’”

Pimu...what?

Help, I think something’s wrong with my wife. She’s starting to sound crazy.

“Your daughters will be the ones transforming, so why not just ask them directly?”

“Good point! They can choose from a list!”

Linze pulled out her phone and started typing what looked like incantations into it. Were there really that many options to choose from? The two were completely ignoring me as they kept coming up with new ideas, while I remained there greatly perplexed.

◇◇◇

“[Twinkling Heart Babylon Wave]!” Steph cheerfully chanted the transformation incantation and thrust her arm with the bracelet up into the air.

So we went with Doc Babylon’s idea after all?

A ball of light jumped out of the bracelet and enveloped Steph. The light around her neck burst into a ribbon, then shoes, then a skirt. Steph’s outfit changed with every burst of light. Even her hair morphed from her side ponytail into pigtails. One last big flash of light was emitted, and Steph was standing there in a yellow magical girl outfit, holding a small staff.

“You look adorable, Steph!”

“Hee hee hee hee!” Steph giggled and bashfully fidgeted at Sue’s unrestrained praise. She definitely was adorable, no denying that.

“Do those clothes do anything special for the wearer?” I asked Doc Babylon, who was looking satisfied beside me.

“They come equipped with both physical and magical resistance. It’s way better than your average suit of armor. We also infused it with cognition disruption, so acquaintances won’t be able to recognize who they are.”

“Hm? But can’t we tell that it’s Steph perfectly fine?”

“Hey, you do realize you’re comparing your and your wives’ magic resistance to that of normal people, right? Even the court magicians of other countries are affected by cognition disruption, but it barely has any effect on you guys.”

I hadn’t realized it was so difficult for cognition disruption to affect us. In fact, it didn’t affect us at all. It would have to at least be on the level of my or Quun’s [Mirage].

I looked over at Allis and her ice-blue outfit, and Leylle in her similar mint-blue outfit. Ende was taking pictures from afar, his face the picture of frustration as he watched the three Phrase girls praise the two—he wasn’t able to approach because Leylle was there. It was clear that the cognition disruption wasn’t working on him either.

While I was lost in my thoughts, the other kids began transforming one after the other.

“T-[Twinkling Heart Babylon Wave]...?”

The embarrassment was practically radiating off of Yakumo as she said the magic words. Her costume was the same as Steph’s, but was a light purple instead. Her usually straight hair had changed into loose waves.

A change of hairstyle makes for a fresh look, after all.

“It suits you, Yakumo, it does.”

Yae nodded approvingly. Yakumo’s face turned red as she nervously pulled at the bottom of her skirt.

“I think this skirt is a little short, though...” the girl muttered.

“Don’t worry about it. The cognition disruption will stop anyone from remembering if you happen to flash your panties,” Doc Babylon said as she gave her a smooth thumbs-up.

“That doesn’t make it any better!”

Yakumo usually wore a hakama, so she might have felt a little uncomfortable wearing something like a skirt.

“If you really don’t like it, I did make sure to install leggings as additional equipment. Just tap the blue crystal on the side of your bracelet.”

“Tell me that sooner!”

When Yakumo did as Doc Babylon said, the area around her waist momentarily sparkled before revealing some short leggings sticking out from under her skirt. The girl let out a sigh of relief. As her father, I also felt better about this. Even if there was cognition disruption, that only worked if the person didn’t have high magic resistance, right?

I wasn’t so bothered by the thought of my wives or the Phrase girls seeing, but the thought of Ende seeing them...!

Maybe I should gouge his eyes out while I’ve got the chance.

Apparently, having had the same thought, Ende sent a message to Allis telling her to put on the leggings too, especially because she was way more active than any of the other kids... She was much more likely to leap around everywhere.

Ten new magical girls were finally born. Though technically, they were already magical girls even without transforming. Everyone was wearing a similar outfit, but the details were what distinguished each of them.

“If we just gave them all the same outfit with the color being all there was to differentiate them, it would be like any old uniform, so I made sure to obsess over the details,” Linze proudly stated.

“You did, huh?”

I felt the passion in her words, but I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it. It was fine, though. Everyone looked cute, after all.

“I kinda want to see the kids try them out for real now, honestly.”

Those words of Doc Babylon’s were exactly what I didn’t want to hear.

Look, now Linne, Allis, and Steph have all latched on to the idea...

“If you really want to, why not have a practice match with the knights?” I suggested, making sure to suggest a safe option right off the bat. Linze looked less sure of it, though.

“Touya, can you not call out some monsters or something?”

“Are you crazy?”

If I called out monsters, I’d be the mastermind!

Just as I was still reeling at Linze’s unreasonable suggestion—though I was sure she’d been joking when she said it—Doc Babylon said something just as casually that led me to being no less exasperated: “I can call some out.”

So you’re the mastermind.

It fit her, honestly. She was like some evil scientist, after all.

“Remember that digital space I used with you guys once before? It can call out fake monsters. It was originally a training tool for security officers, but if I mess around with the settings, I could probably turn the intruders into regular bad guys.”

“Is this that amusement park experience you made us go through once? Is that really safe?”

“Of course it’s safe—you saying it wasn’t safe when I let you experience it before? If things really get dicey, it’ll forcibly eject you. You can manually set the training stage and scenario too.”

Linze was nodding along to the scientist’s explanation. She was totally into the idea.

“In other words, you can adjust the location somewhat as well? So you could make the scenario that they have to defeat the bad guys who are infiltrating the castle, or to defeat the bad guys messing up the town?”

“Sure can. I can make it both safe and thrilling. This was originally designed for training, after all.”

“I see. In that case...”

Suddenly, an impromptu meeting began between Doc Babylon and Linze.

This is gonna take a while...

Deciding to leave them to their own devices, I joined the other parents, who were taking part in a photo shoot with all the girls dressed up in their magical girl outfits. Those smiles were as wonderful as ever.

◇◇◇

“Wait, this is actually pretty cool...!”

Seeing Doctor Babylon’s garden diorama up in the lab, I couldn’t help but be amazed. Brunhild’s castle town was perfectly recreated—the only thing missing was the townspeople. Well, there were people, but the vibrancy of the real thing was missing. I wasn’t sure why—maybe they were holograms—but they looked like actors in a black-and-white film.

“There can be issues if you make things too realistic. Though if I’m honest, I just didn’t have the time to get around to it. Thinking about how long it would take to put in the data for each individual civilian gives me a headache.”

I could imagine, and really, I wasn’t going to ask her to do that much for something that was only intended to be a children’s training exercise. Color aside, the townspeople were walking around the town and having fun, just like the real deal. As fake as they might have been, it was easy to mistake them for actual living human beings.

“What kind of training are you even going to make them do here?” I asked the girls.

“We thought up a lot of scenarios, but we feel it might be best to teach them restraint,” Linze said.

“Restraint?”

At my confusion, Linze and Yumina both started explaining.

“Their power is not the same as a regular person’s, so they need to learn how to hold back.”

“If they go too far against a monster, the most they’ll do is render parts unusable, but if they were to accidentally go too far against a human, then the result could be much worse.”

“Oh...”

I understood what they meant now. Our kids were definitely strong, but one wrong step and things could go very wrong very fast.

If it were against criminals who had committed heavy crimes, like bandits or raiders who would plunder and slaughter, I didn’t personally think they needed to hold back—but then what if they accidentally killed someone who had committed only a minor offense like running off with someone’s stuff or leaving a restaurant without paying? We had healing magic in this world, so as long as they didn’t die, we could do something about it—ignoring the fact that the medical fees could be pretty high, that is. But that still didn’t make it okay for them to go all out.

“I see. So you want to teach them how to arrest criminals?”

Hilde nodded in understanding.

“I think Yakumo would be able to disarm an opponent with the back of her sword, I do... Or, wait, perhaps she would end up breaking their bones, she would...”

Yae simply frowned at her inability to find a defense for her daughter.

“Linne could most likely apprehend them with [Gravity], but...I can also see her putting too much force on them and squishing them...”

“Steph too, even though I think she could use [Accel] for more than just tackling people...”

Linze and Sue both looked just as conflicted as Yae did. Theirs were certainly the kids that seemed the least likely to be able to control their strength.

“If they’re learning how to capture criminals, do their outfits have something special installed?” I asked.

“Beyond the cognition disruption, the clothes themselves also have slash resistance, blunt resistance, heat resistance, cold resistance, and magic resistance. Oh, and also has an effect that lets your body feel lighter. As for the staff...”

Doc Babylon took a short pastel pink staff and pushed it into Tica. A small noise was emitted, and a ring of light captured the gynoid.

“Master?”

“As you can see, you can also capture people like this. You do have to be able to touch them, though, so if the target is moving, they might easily escape your grasp. It means it becomes necessary to immobilize them first.”

Damn, that seemed like it would be great for our patrolling knights to have on hand. It could become a replacement for handcuffs.

“You can also hold the perpetrator up against the wall and use it, and it’ll secure them there.”

A second ring of light wrapped around Tica and attached her to the wall.

That’s useful.

She tried to escape, but she couldn’t budge an inch.

“Master, why are you capturing me?”

“Because we’re about to go visit the kids. Dangerous creeps need to be secured.”

“You set me up!”

Tica began wildly moving her head back and forth to try to escape.

Jeez, she’s desperate.

No wonder Doc Babylon set her up like she did. Weren’t the Sisters developed using fragments of her personality, though? Wouldn’t that mean she was just as bad deep down...?

◇◇◇

“Let me explain the rules,” Linze said as all the children gathered around her in the courtyard. “A group of suspicious people will be released into this makeshift Brunhild. The villains will vandalize the town and carry out all manner of crimes, so your mission is to apprehend them. If you kill...or, well, eliminate them, you’re out.”

After the explanation, Linne immediately raised her hand and asked, “We’ve just gotta capture them, right? Don’t need to hand them over to the knights?”

“Yes, we’ll deal with them after you apprehend them. You just need to capture them and then leave them there. If you don’t capture them properly, though, you won’t get points, so be careful.”

“There’s a point system?” Quun asked this time, also raising her hand. Linze hadn’t even mentioned a point system until now, so of course the kids were confused.

“The training will work on a point system, yes. Your points will decrease if you damage the town in any way, inconvenience the citizens, or eliminate the bad guys. They’ll increase if you successfully capture them.”

“What happens if we get lots of points?”

“They’re like reward points. The one with the most points will have any wish granted by Touya.”

“Any wish?!” the children’s voices all harmonized. Any was maybe a bit far. I wasn’t some big Green Dragon or anything. I prayed they didn’t ask for anything that went way beyond what I was capable of—the last thing I wanted to have to do was tell them I couldn’t grant their wish. Oh, and I wouldn’t take any wishes to give them more wishes.

Now that the talk of a reward had pumped the kids up, Linze explained the rules again. Catch the bad guys and you’d get points. Kill the bad guys and you’d get them taken away. Destroying the town in any way would also deduct points. If the bad guys successfully carried out any crimes, they’d all lose points. If their point total went below a certain threshold, there would be no reward. That would become the incentive for the kids to keep capturing the bad guys even if their personal total was high.

“Um, so for example, if I used a paralyzing bullet and it missed and hit a wall instead, I’d have points deducted?” Quun asked.

“Not by a lot, but yes, that would count as a point deduction,” Leen answered. “If you’re able to catch the bad guy with that, though, it might end up being a net positive.”

Unfortunately, even as professionals in this kind of thing, accidents did sometimes happen, no matter how much you tried to avoid them.

Incidentally, magic attacks being used in populated areas would also lead to a deduction in points—you were essentially being a nuisance to the civilians in that scenario. It was terrible for me to feel this way, but I would be pretty thankful if the kids racked up so many minus points that none of them got a reward... Though, if I wanted them to grow, we needed them to learn restraint. What a dilemma...

“Shall we begin?”

“Yeah!” The children all cheered in unison as they were sucked into the little diorama. At the same time, a bunch of hologram windows opened up around the device, showing what was going on inside. It really was identical to the real thing. The only difference was that the citizens were all black-and-white.

The kids appeared right in the middle of that fake town. They were all looking cautiously around them, surprised by the familiar location stretched out before them.

“Release the bad guys!” Doc Babylon exclaimed as she swiped a finger across the screen and a different window showed the bad guys tied up. Or at least, what she called the bad guys. Their whole bodies were covered in some tight black fabric, and they had masks over their faces... More than bad guys, they looked like certain Combatmen who would yell, “Yee!”

“Heh heh heh, let the games begin!” she cackled, an evil smile spread wide on her face as she tapped the screen again and screams erupted from the town. The enemies had begun wreaking havoc.

“You really are the evil mastermind...”

Though, really, the worst they were doing was eating fruit from stalls without paying, or arguing with shopkeepers, or chasing girls around. No large-scale crimes. Not that that changed the fact that they were crimes that shouldn’t be overlooked, of course.

“You do know these are the types of crimes currently plaguing many towns, right?”

“Exactly. Many dropout adventurers will commit acts such as these.”

As Leen and Yumina said, rougher towns tended to be crawling with these types of crime, and it wasn’t as if Brunhild was free of it either. Naturally, the citizens themselves didn’t carry out such crimes, but thugs from outside sometimes would. Honestly, those were the types that you had to be able to hold back for—bandits and wanted men were the ones it was fine to cut down.

“Th-Then let us split up and take down the bad guys,” Yakumo called out.

“Heh heh, I’m not gonna lose!” Steph enthusiastically responded, clenching her fists.

“Let’s do this! [Twinkling Heart Babylon Wave]!” Linne was the first to call out the magic words, thrusting her bracelet toward the sky, resulting in her being wrapped in a cocoon of light. With little pops of light, she reappeared in her blue magical girl outfit. “If you’ll excuse me!”

Like a rabbit, the girl leaped up and across the roofs.

“Hey, that’s not fair! Leylle, we’re going too!”

“O-Okay, Allis.”

Allis and Leylle transformed into their own outfits and followed suit.

Could you at least use the paths? You know, on the ground?

Linne running across the roofs was displayed on a different screen. Apparently, there were cameras automatically following each one of the children.

“Found you!”

“Nyee?!”

From atop the roofs, Linne spotted a bad guy rampaging through a market, sending vegetables flying everywhere.

They really did make their cry so familiar...

“Take this!”

“Nyee?!”

Linne jumped down and kicked the bad guy as they picked up another wooden box filled with vegetables. The fact that she didn’t use her special [Gravity] kick to increase the weight was probably her own way of showing restraint.

The vegetables scattered everywhere as the bad guy collapsed to the ground. At that same moment, they vanished into balls of light.

I see. Guess this is what happens when they commit overkill.

“What?! That was too far?!”

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? The bad guys have high physical strength, but I’ve set it so they’re real squishy in contrast. If you don’t control your strength, they’ll drop dead super easily, so better watch out.”

“You could’ve told us sooner!” Linne howled up at the announcement. Even if the villains hadn’t been set to be so squishy, if a regular person had taken that kick, they would have definitely broken some bones. Breaking bones was a bit far for simple disruption of business, no? Or...maybe not? For the shopkeeper, their business was a matter of life and death, so...

“Since you eliminated that bad guy, that’s minus points for you, Linne. Oh, and since you ruined the vegetables too, that’s another slight deduction.”

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” Linne exclaimed, then immediately bent down to start picking up the vegetables and return them to their boxes. Some were so bruised that there was no way they would sell anymore.

Definitely worth a point reduction. It’s not good to cause a hassle for the townspeople.

Though the point reduction likely wasn’t by very much.

“Oh, Linne...” Linze quietly sighed. One of Linne’s problems was her lack of consideration for the small stuff, but if she was made to consider her actions, I was sure she would improve with time. Maybe.

“Nooo, you can’t just send them flying like that, Steph!”

I looked over in Sue’s direction and saw Steph in her yellow magical girl outfit, tackling a bad guy into the distance. He went so far that he collided with the far wall, disappearing into light at the impact.

Man, over here too? Our kids are so bad at holding back...

“Yes! Good going, Elna!”

On the other hand, Elze’s daughter was the first to successfully capture a villain. She had immobilized them with [Icebind] and then simply tapped them with her staff to deploy the light ring.

Elna got the first point, huh?

On the neighboring screen, Quun was confronting a villain, not with her staff but with a weirdly shaped gun.

“Capture!”

“Nyee?!”

A throwing net blasted out of the gun toward the bad guy. It landed right on top of them, sealing their movement, allowing Quun to walk up and tap them with her staff to capture them.

“Heh, that makes one point for me!”

“Should that count...?” Leen questioned, tilting her head.

“Hmm... I feel like it’s moving away from the idea of learning restraint, but she did apprehend the criminal properly, so maybe...” Quun wasn’t learning to hold back her own strength like this, she was entirely relying on her weapons. Though there was no denying that anyone could apprehend criminals with ease using that gun. For now...I’d accept it. I mean, she wasn’t cheating or anything.

“Oh.”

I suddenly heard Yakumo and Frei’s voices in unison from a different screen. Yae and Hilde were standing in front of it, the latter with her face in her hands, the former looking up to the sky in despair.

“She is putting too much strength in, she is...”

“She doesn’t need to thrust so hard that she sends the enemy flying...”

Apparently, Yakumo and Frei had misjudged their strength entirely. Of course, that was enough to defeat them, deducting points from their total. I was kind of surprised. Both of the girls would often spar with the knights, so I had assumed they knew how to hold back their strength.

Actually, was their training with the knights the kind where you stopped right before you hit them? In that case, I guess it made sense that they never really learned how to control their strength from there.

The girls ended up annihilating many of the bad guys after that, but they gradually got the hang of it, finally learning how to reduce their strength to a level where they merely knocked the enemy unconscious.

“Arcia’s really managing to take down bad guy after bad guy compared to the rest.”

“That’s because control in cooking is essential, after all,” Lu proudly stated. “From controlling the heat to controlling the level of spices, this is nothing new for her.”

Could those really be called the same thing? Did she mean because you had to toe the line for both? I wasn’t sure...

“Grand Duke, would Yoshino lose points in this case too?” Sakura asked as she watched her daughter take out her keyboard and begin playing a lullaby.

“Hm? Ahhh... Yeah, probably a bit.”

Due to Yoshino’s performance magic, the bad guys fell asleep right on the spot, allowing her to capture them with ease. There was nothing wrong with that. The problem was that she had put the other townspeople to sleep in the process. That would come under disrupting the people. But it was difficult for anyone to capture large numbers of criminals without accidentally causing a bit of a commotion, so I couldn’t see her getting too many points deducted.

“Leylle, he went over there!”

“Y-Yeah! Prisma Wall!”

“Nyee?!”

The bad guy running in front of Leylle suddenly bumped into something and fell. When I looked closer, I noticed that there was a transparent wall. Was it a crystal wall? He must have slammed right into it. Allis caught up and used her staff to apprehend them.

Nice, they caught them without any minus points.

“We did it, Leylle!”

“I’m so glad...”

The girls cheerfully gave each other a high five. They really were like sisters.

“I’m glad it looks like they’re having fun.”

“They’re both so cute. I’ve gotta record this.”

“Yeah. We should preserve it forever!”

Melle, Lycee, and Ney were all overjoyed at their achievement. Even Ende was recording the screen with his phone. I already told him I’d give him the edited footage later, though...

“Everyone seems to be getting used to it now. They’re capturing the bad guys much easier than when they started,” Yumina commented as she watched the screens.

Even Yakumo and Frei, who had been completely unable to control their power before, succeeded in knocking them unconscious at least half of the time. Linne seemed to be learning as well. Quun, Arcia, and Elna were all safely taking them down as they had been, and Yoshino... Well, she was still accidentally getting the townspeople wrapped up in her performance magic...

With Allis and Leylle still successfully taking the bad guys down, that left only one problem child.

“Grrrrrr, why did they disappear again?!”

“Steph...”

Steph pulled out yet another [Prison] tackle and annihilated another bad guy. Sue remained worried as she watched her daughter.

A tackle would be pretty hard to control the strength of.

Steph was light, so if she didn’t add some force with [Accel], she couldn’t quite make her tackle strong enough to do anything significant.

Kuon, who was currently standing beside Sue, called out to Steph.

“Steph, can you hear me?”

“Kuon! The baddies keep disappearing! I can’t catch them!” Steph wailed. It was a lot to expect of such a small child to know how to control their strength. It might have been best if I’d asked for the settings to be adjusted a bit...

“Listen to me, okay? [Prison] itself was intended as magic to capture enemies. There’s no need for you to tackle them.”

“OH.”

“Huh?”

His words were so obvious, yet even me and Sue couldn’t help but let out a noise at the realization. Steph didn’t quite seem to understand, though.

A bad guy chasing a girl down the street just happened to pass by Steph at that moment.

“Um... [Prison]?”

“NYEEEEEE?!”

A rectangular [Prison] that looked almost like a coffin materialized around the bad guy, and then they both fell with a bang. Steph bounced over and tapped him with her staff, capturing him in the ring of light.

“I did it!”

“Congratulations, Steph.”

“Thank you, Kuon!”

That tearful face from only moments before had completely changed into a wide smile as she cheerfully charged into the next bad guy. Kuon couldn’t help but give a satisfied smile at the sight.

“What a girl... Hm? Why are you looking at me like that?” Kuon frowned in our direction. Our big grins had been caught.

“Oh, nothing at all! I was just thinking how good of a big brother you are.”

“Yes, exactly. I’m so proud to have you as my son. You’re so kind, always thinking about your family.”

“Indeed. You gave splendidly precise advice! You make a good older brother, Kuon!”

Showered in our praise, Kuon turned bright red as he whipped his face away from our direction. Was he embarrassed? He was usually so composed. I was happy he was a big brother who cared so much for his sister too, especially ’cause I couldn’t do anything for my own little sister...

I wanted to bring my kids to Earth once we’d dealt with the wicked devout, and I hoped I could introduce them to Fuyuka then. Though it would be a bit weird—their aunt would be younger than them. Then again, the kids were from the future, so did that technically still make her older? Time shenanigans really were convoluted.

Now that Steph had learned how to capture the bad guys, everyone was managing to build up their points. In the interest of fairness, only Doc Babylon was aware of their scores. We didn’t even know how many points you received for a successful capture, or how much you’d lose for eliminating the villains. If it turned out the points lost for eliminating the bad guys were greater than the points for catching them, that would mean Steph would have a hard time catching up after all those points she lost at the start.

Still, it didn’t mean it was impossible for her to win. [Prison] was the most suitable Null magic for capturing enemies. She could completely turn the whole match around.

“But, you know...while I know that all the crimes these bad guys are committing are meant to be considered light crimes...”

“I know exactly what you’re thinking right now. How severe is peeking or groping girls?”

“I don’t think killing someone who did that should result in a point deduction even if they were to hit them as hard as they could.”

Leen, Linze, and Sakura were all narrowing their eyes at a bad guy who was running around peeking into public baths and feeling up girls before then running away. Why did I feel like I was being criticized as a man even though I had nothing to do with this? I’d never even peeked or felt up a girl before... Wait, that was a lie. I’d peeked multiple times before, but not because I was trying!

Realizing I shouldn’t let my panic show, I concentrated on watching the kids capture more of the bad guys.

“By the way, how does this all actually end?” Lu suddenly asked.

“Hmm... Maybe it’s about time for me to release the big bad,” Doc Babylon muttered to herself. What big bad? They weren’t about to suddenly become gargantuan and attack the town like in a good ol’ hero show, were they?

A new villain appeared in the main street.

Oh, they look different this time. They’re wearing a white coat. Hang on...

“Hey, that’s the exact same coat as mine.”

“I wanted to make them feel like a boss character. I stopped at just the coat ’cause I realized it’d be kinda bad for your image if I made it look exactly like you.”

This was already bad enough for my image! Was she saying I looked like a final boss just because of my jacket?!

“Unlike the previous villains, this one will fight back, so you better watch out. Catch the big bad and the game will come to an end. Good luck out there!”

“It retaliates? You made sure this’ll be okay, right? It’s safe, yeah?”

“I mean, this is an experiment to test this all out, isn’t it? C’mon, don’t look so worried. I made sure that it wouldn’t actually try to injure anyone. Just watch.”

How was she meant to pull that off? Was its weapon some silly paper fan or something?

“There he is!” The first to come face-to-face with the big bad was Linne. She made a mad dash for him, swinging her staff. The moment he saw the girl, the big masked bad with his white coat pulled something out of his pocket.

Is that...a gray Brunhild?

When he pulled the trigger, some glowing cobweb-like thing shot out of the gun, covering Linne.

“Huh, what is this?! I can’t move!”

Linne, now stuck to the ground with the web, desperately struggled to break free.

Honestly, she, uh...kinda looks like a bug caught in a web...

The fact that it was my own daughter in there didn’t help how bad it felt to watch.

“That glowing web won’t disappear until a set amount of time has passed. Linne, you’re on the bench for now, I’m afraid.”

“Nooooooooo!”

So that was what she had meant when she said that it was programmed to attack in ways that wouldn’t hurt the kids: it was using a more advanced form of Quun’s net gun.

The capturer becomes the captured... A little ironic, really.

The big bad left Linne struggling on the ground and began his escape.

Hey, he totally just felt up a girl’s butt on the way out.

“He just felt up a girl like it was normal...”

“It almost feels like I’m watching Touya do it...”

“Hey, don’t drag me into this!”

Linze and Elze were suddenly subjecting me to unjustified defamation. For some reason, the big bad was doing the exact same crimes the smaller bads did. Why would you not make it do something more dramatic? Actually, wait, that would spell even worse trouble for me...

My feelings were left in a complicated mess as I watched the big bad causing a ruckus in front of shops, starting fights, and peeking into all the baths it wanted.

“He even peeked...”

“I swear it looks just like Touya...”

“Hey, I’m starting to feel like this was created maliciously.”

“Nahhh, you’re just imagining things!” Doc Babylon said, laughing like crazy to herself all the while.

I’m not stupid! I can see who you modeled that after!

“[Prison]!”

While I was getting mad at Doc Babylon, it was suddenly Steph’s turn to take on the big bad. She instantly went for her signature magic. There was no way it could escape a whole prison! Or at least, that was what I thought, but all it took was a headbutt and the thing shattered.

“No way?!”

“He can destroy a [Prison]?!”

“He’s the final boss! It’d be no fun if he got caught too fast, right?”

That damn scientist made some weird setting, didn’t she? The garden was essentially a pseudo-space—the scenery and people could be considered illusions. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to think she could set the parameters so that a [Prison] could be broken.

The big bad fired his Brunhild once more, sticking Steph to the ground just as he had Linne.

“Noooooo!”

Steph had the exact same reaction as Linne; they really were sisters. The big bad swiftly made his escape, but he made sure to not forget to look up a girl’s skirt as he went.

C’mon, dude, you’re gonna make me want to run away...

“Found you!”

“We won’t let you escape!”

It was Yakumo and Frei’s turn this time. Stepping in front of the big bad, they gripped their staffs in their hands just like swords and dashed for the villain. He bounced back before shooting a web right where he had been standing. The moment both girls set foot on the glowing web, they were stuck in place and toppled forward.

“I can’t move!”

“Grnnnnnngh!”

Was that light net basically like birdlime? You know, why did they even charge into something that was clearly so suspicious, anyway?

“Prisma Rose!”

“Nyee?”

As the big bad tried to escape from the scene, Allis and Leylle attacked from above. The crystal vines that emitted from their hands wrapped around him and caught him tight.

But the next moment, he disappeared into particles of light and rematerialized elsewhere.

“Did that not count?” I asked.

“They probably squeezed him too tight,” Linze said.

This was so difficult. Personally, I didn’t care if they beat up that defaming asshole.

Having reappeared right beside where it had been taken down, the big bad aimed his Brunhild at Allis and Leylle, who had failed—or in some sense succeeded—in their surprise attack, and fired another sticky net. The two girls ended up stuck to the nearby wall, and the villain went to make his big escape.

Until suddenly, he fell to the ground as if he’d suddenly lost all his power.

What just happened?!

“Down we go.”

Yoshino suddenly appeared and lightly tapped her staff on the big bad’s back, capturing him in the ring of light.

Of course, Yoshino’s lullaby!

It turned out Allis and Leylle had fallen asleep too. To think the final boss wasn’t resistant to sleep.

“Good job, Yoshino. You did good,” Sakura proudly said, a smug look on her face. Yae and Hilde on the other hand were giving their biggest angry frowns.

C’mon now, friendly competition only.

“And that marks the end of that. Game, set, and match. Good job, you guys.”

A buzzer suddenly rang out, and the kids were all returned to the courtyard. The game was finally done. I wasn’t sure if I could confidently say that they had learned how to show restraint, but at least it looked like they’d enjoyed themselves.

The biggest problem now was that I had to listen to the wish of the victor. Who’d actually won in the end? Yoshino, since she caught the final boss?

“I’ll start from third place, then,” Doc Babylon began. “In third place, we have Yoshino. You caught the big bad, but you racked up too many negative points to steal the win.”

She was third, huh? I was surprised. Though, it was true that Yoshino kept putting the townspeople to sleep when capturing the villains. If that had been a real mission, that could’ve been dangerous. A thief could very easily sneak into a shop while the shopkeeper was unconscious. Figuring out how to put a specific target to sleep instead of indiscriminately affecting everyone present would be something for her to work on.

“By the way, Quun was in fourth place. You were doing great at the start, but you started observing the garden halfway through, didn’t you?”

“Mngh... Once I started thinking about it, I just couldn’t stop...”

Rather than catching the villains, Quun had been much more preoccupied with understanding the garden’s systems and had swapped to observing the location in the second half. The fact that she still got fourth despite that was incredible if you asked me.

“Second place was Elna. You took your time, slowly but surely catching a lot of the bad guys—you had no point deductions either.”

“Great job, Elna!”

“Hee hee...”

Elze hugged the bashful Elna tight. Even when the big bad had appeared, Elna chose to steadily focus on whatever villain appeared in front of her rather than ignore them to chase after the final boss. A steady pace had planted her in second, but then what about first?

“And the winner is...Arcia! Not only were you precise, but you were fast, pulling you into the lead at a good pace. Even when the big bad appeared, you kept catching the small fry. The thing that really separated you from Elna was the speed at which you moved from one bad guy to the next.”

“Saving time is a key part of cooking, after all. You have to always consider how to move efficiently.”

Arcia was relating it to cooking, but were they even connected? Like, at all? Then again, if you weren’t efficient with your methods, cooking anything could take forever and you’d just end up with something that tasted bad instead. In the sense of being efficient, it was the same idea.

Still, the champion was Arcia, huh?

I’m a little afraid of the kind of request she’ll make...

◇◇◇

“Whoooaaa! It’s so shiny and new! It’s amazing!”

“I’m glad you like it.”

Arcia’s wish had been to get her own kitchen, so I worked with Doc Babylon to create a small compact kitchen that she could keep in her smartphone’s [Storage]. It was a kitchen cabinet in the shape of an L, with a large table attached to it. It also had three magic stovetop burners, a magic oven, a stainless mithril sink, and marble countertops layered with [Protection] so dirt never had to be a worry.

A large water spellstone capable of taking in the mana in the environment served as an endless water source, and it was made so that you could use teleportation magic to funnel the tap to wherever you wanted. We had also installed a magic ventilation fan that would absorb any smoke and convert it into clean air, allowing her to cook even when inside a building.

The pièce de résistance were the premium cooking utensils made of a mix of phrasium and mithril. The chopping board was made of phrasium so the phrasium knives wouldn’t slice straight through.

This whole kitchen could be called from Arcia’s [Storage] anytime, anywhere. Personally, I think we did a fantastic job.

“Ugh... I want one too!” Lu muttered in envy. I thought she would say that, so we’d actually prepared one for Lu as well; I just wasn’t giving it to her today. Why not, you ask? Well, because my daughter now had the opportunity to look so incredibly smug in her new kitchen. It was meant to be her reward, after all.

“I’m going to make something right away! Father, do you have any requests?”

“Hmm... How about gratin? And gyoza? And maybe...roast beef?”

I kept glancing over at Lu, deliberately requesting food that would take far too long to prepare alone.

“Gratin, gyoza, and roast beef... Mother, could you help me out?”

“W-Well, since you asked so nicely! All of those take so long to make, right? Working together would be much more efficient!”

Lu excitedly entered the little kitchen space. She seemed really happy about getting to try out a new kitchen. I’d give it about a week before I gifted her with one of her own.

“Let’s start with the gratin! Mother, the white sauce if you please!”

“Leave it to me!”

I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of the mother-daughter pair having fun in the new kitchen as I sat down on one of the nearby chairs.

Gratin, gyoza, and roast beef... Would I even be able to eat it all...?