chapter3 · 039-ep39

Episode 39: And Then, the Next Morning

Thud—

A dull sound.

My fist sank into the man's torso.

【Achievement Unlocked】

【A: As an Enchanter, without applying any enchant to another person, deal damage equal to 20% or more of the maximum HP in one strike to a hostile Awakener with a combat Job, using only self-applied enchants】

【World-First Reward will be granted】

【Reward: Shock Grant】

"Ghk...!"

The man's body bent into a C.

He staggered several steps backward.

It landed.

Landed deep.

The Achievement Unlocked display floated at the edge of my vision.

I saw it.

I got it.

Twenty percent or more of maximum HP.

I'd really fulfilled that ridiculous condition.

And a World-First Reward had appeared too.

Reward.

Shock Grant.

I wanted to know.

Wanted to know so badly.

But not now.

I had no room to check it.

The man hadn't fallen yet.

Mibu was behind me too.

This was no time to open my Status.

Lowering my left hand, I held back the breath that wanted to turn ragged.

My fist hurt, and my wrist did too.

And my MP was normally in bad shape.

Endurance, Agility, Strength.

Using Enchant Echo to stack all three.

Then double-stacking Strength enchant.

I'd known it was possible in theory.

I'd tested it too.

But doing it in a real fight was something else.

It felt like something inside my body was getting shaved away all at once.

Just standing took a little out of me.

But.

The man was holding his stomach.

The ease he'd had until now was gone.

"...That hurts."

The man groaned low.

His knees weren't on the floor.

He was unsteady.

His breathing was disturbed too.

But he hadn't fallen.

He was normally standing.

No.

Not normally, maybe.

It had hit him pretty hard.

But his eyes still said he could fight plenty.

Damn.

Fighters really were strong.

Or rather, just from looking at him, this guy seemed to have high raw combat power too.

On the other hand, my blow had taken a lot out of me.

And it still didn't finish him?

"An Enchanter... seriously?"

Still holding his stomach, the man looked at me.

"That wasn't a support Job's punch."

I thought so too.

I couldn't deny that.

If someone asked whether this was the proper way for an Enchanter to fight, it was probably pretty far off.

If a teacher... no, more precisely, Nanami-senpai, my mentor(?)-figure, saw me, I had a feeling she'd get mad.

"Himura-kun."

Mibu spoke.

Close by, a little behind me.

A position where she could move at any time.

A distance where she could fight at any time.

Before I knew it, Mibu was standing there for me.

We should probably do the rest together.

Mibu probably thought so too.

Honestly, if someone told me to do the same thing by myself again, it would be pretty hard.

Maybe the man understood that too.

His gaze moved between Mibu and me.

"Coming at me together?"

The man twisted his mouth.

"Fine by me. That girl there is an Awakener too, right? If one's an Enchanter, the other isn't just an ordinary high schooler either."

Mibu didn't answer.

She stood quietly ready beside me.

I had tested enough.

How far an Enchanter moving to the front could go.

I'd learned that.

I got the Job-Exclusive Achievement too.

So from here, I normally wanted to prioritize safety.

I steadied my breathing.

Should I apply Endurance next?

No, if the man targeted Mibu, I needed Agility too.

I wanted to apply Strength for one more blow, but MP was heavy.

Or rather, I was almost out of MP already.

Yeah.

There were way too many things to think about in battle with this Job.

It was just when I was thinking that.

A digital chime sounded from the man's pocket.

A ringtone.

The man frowned for a moment.

"...At a time like this?"

Clicking his tongue, he took out his phone.

The moment he looked at the screen, his brow moved slightly.

Apparently he knew the caller.

"What?"

The man held the phone to his ear.

I couldn't hear the voice on the other end.

Only the man's expression kept changing.

"...Huh?"

His eyes narrowed.

Then his gaze went not to me, but Mibu.

"This girl?"

The man fell silent for a moment.

The next instant, his mouth twisted.

"Representative Mibu's?"

The air around Mibu changed.

Only a little.

But I understood.

Mibu held her breath.

Keeping his eyes on Mibu, the man spoke into the phone.

"Seriously? Then I definitely can't let her go."

Apparently the person on the phone said something.

A wrinkle appeared between the man's brows.

"You want me to let her go?"

His voice was low.

"She's Mibu's daughter. If I take her back here—"

His words stopped there.

The man was silent.

Several seconds.

Naturally, I couldn't hear the voice on the other end.

His mouth twisted into a different shape than before.

"...Hey, hey."

A little more silence.

The man looked at Mibu.

"You sure that's true?"

Apparently there was an answer on the other end.

The man clicked his tongue.

He looked dissatisfied, yet somehow not entirely unwilling.

"...Fine."

The man ended the call.

Then he returned his phone to his pocket.

"You got lucky."

Saying that, the man looked at Mibu.

"No, that's not it."

An unpleasant smile appeared on his mouth.

"Don't think you got off easy, little lady."

Holding his stomach, the man slowly left the room.

The meeting-room door closed.

And only knocked-over chairs, disordered tables, and the two of us remained.

I didn't move for a while.

Neither did Mibu.

We waited until all sound had disappeared.

Probably not even one minute passed.

But it felt absurdly long.

"...Did we get away with it?"

I said quietly.

Mibu didn't answer.

That silence felt like an answer too.

I looked at the fallen chairs.

The shaken tables.

A marker rolling on the floor.

What was this wrecked space?

"Let's go."

Mibu said.

"Yeah."

There was no reason to stay here long.

Or rather, someone could come again if we stayed.

With that thought, we left Meeting Room Seven.

There wasn't anyone in the hall.

It was so quiet that it didn't feel like there had just been a secret meeting, eavesdropping, and a battle here.

We went down the stairs.

We left the building.

It was evening outside already.

There were ordinary people in front of the station.

The fact we'd been fighting an Awakener in a rental meeting room until just now suddenly started to lose its sense of reality.

Mibu and I walked side by side.

Mibu didn't say anything.

She looked like she always did.

But somehow.

Just a little.

Her profile seemed downcast.

"Mibu."

"What?"

"...No."

I didn't even know what I had intended to ask.

Are you okay?

That would be easy to ask.

But there was no way she was okay.

The man had left.

Mibu hadn't been taken away.

That was good.

It should have been good.

But that man had said unsettling things until the end.

『Don't think you got off easy.』

And someone on the phone knew about Mibu.

Knowing she was Representative Mibu's daughter, they had made that man back off.

It was also certain that Takatsuki had been talking with shady people.

It wasn't like everything had become clear.

But there were enough unsettling things lined up to make me sick of them.

There was no way Mibu could be okay after that.

Thinking that, I couldn't ask anything at all.

"It's nothing."

"I see."

Mibu didn't ask any further.

At the intersection in front of the station, Mibu stopped.

"We'll part here today."

"Yeah."

"Himura-kun."

"What?"

"Thank you for today."

Mibu said that.

Her voice was as it always was.

Quiet and calm as always.

But somehow, it felt a little distant.

"No. Not at all."

"I see."

I somehow didn't want to part like this.

So I let out a slightly deliberate breath.

"Also, I'm still not over the fact I came because you said it was a date and it turned out to be tailing someone."

"Another time."

"Don't brush it off with 'another time.'"

Mibu narrowed her eyes just a little.

Maybe she smiled.

At least, it looked that way.

But she immediately returned to her usual expression.

Then she walked toward the ticket gates.

I watched her back go.

It was a slender back.

But it usually looked straighter.

Now it looked a little distant.

It was over.

I wanted to think that.

That man had backed off.

Mibu hadn't been taken away.

We made it back safely.

Normally, that should have been the end.

But I couldn't think it was.

And then, the next morning.

That feeling was right.

When I opened my phone before going to school, familiar words were in the SNS trends.

【Representative Mibu's Daughter】

【Underage Awakener】

【Rental Meeting Room Trouble】

【Suspicion of Private Use of the Awakener Development Program】

I froze for a moment, staring at the screen.

Cold sweat ran down my back.

I opened the trend.

There was a video.

A wrecked rental meeting room.

The image quality wasn't very good.

Probably indoor security footage.

There was almost no audio.

Or perhaps it was processed, because I couldn't hear it well.

What it showed was Mibu saying something to me.

Me stepping forward.

Me facing the man.

And then.

The instant I punched the man in the torso.

That was all.

It didn't show the man attacking first.

It didn't show how much I had been attacked.

It didn't show what Takatsuki and the others had discussed in that room.

It didn't show why Mibu had been there.

Only a video that made it look like Mibu Iroha said something to me, I stepped forward, and I punched the man was being spread around.

The post said this.

『Representative Mibu's daughter has an underage male Awakener attack an adult man?』

『Suspicion of private use of Awakener Development Program participant』

Various other posts and comments flowed past, getting shared.

"No, you can't tell from this video alone. It could be cut before and after."

"But it's a fact that he's punching the man."

"So Representative Mibu's daughter was taking a Program participant around?"

"Is this what on-site accompaniment means?"

"It's creepy that it doesn't show what the man did first."

"It's normally a problem the moment Awakeners are fighting outside."

"A system that makes children fight was impossible from the start."

"What are they doing with the Awakener Development Program among themselves?"

"Jumping to conclusions when it might be self-defense is dangerous."

"If this is what the proposer's daughter is doing, Phase Two should be stopped for now."

Opinions were split.

People who suspected.

People who were angry.

People who found it entertaining.

People trying to look at it calmly.

There were all kinds of voices.

But none of that mattered.

Whether the man had attacked first.

Why we had been there.

What Takatsuki and the others had discussed.

You couldn't tell anything from that video alone.

You shouldn't have been able to.

Yet the facts it showed were clear.

Mibu Iroha was there.

Representative Mibu's daughter was there.

I, an Awakener, was beside her.

And I punched the man.

That alone was enough.

Truth wasn't needed.

Representative Mibu.

Mibu Iroha.

The Awakener Development Program.

All of it was being tied together through a single clipped video.

I clenched my phone.

On the screen, my fist sank into the man's torso.

Again.

Again.

As though that were everything.

And beneath it, only the number of comments kept growing.