ch1-ch20 · 015-ch14

Chapter 14

That day, after returning from Shinjuku Tower.

I — Kuri Mio — was on the verge of having my heart break.

I went home, didn't eat dinner, told my mom "I'm tired, I'm going to rest," went into my room, and the moment I felt relief, my body stopped listening to me.

I'd Awakened and become able to use magic. I worked hard, and now I could use what they called low-level magic.

Hiyori invited me (though Mom doesn't know) and I started doing exorcist work too.

Fighting evil spirits and demons — sometimes I got into tough spots. But I wasn't scared.

I gained experience. When I turned eighteen, I could go to Shinjuku Tower too.

I got hurt before. It hurt. There were times the smell of monster blood made me nauseous.

Mom watched my stream at first and worried, but lately she's been busy with work and doesn't seem to watch anymore. Since Dad died, she's gotten busier. I made peace with it — it can't be helped.

I could overcome anything.

I'd get used to any scary thing, any hard thing.

Thanks to the exorcist work and Shinjuku Tower adventures, I could steadily increase my magical power. I actually felt myself getting stronger.

Selling the magic stones and drops I got from defeating monsters, I'd panic at seeing an amount too high for a student to have.

I spent a lot of money on equipment and tools, aiming for even higher floors...

It's only been a few months since I started climbing Shinjuku Tower, but my days have been fulfilling.

And then today, I almost died.

If that old man — Yamana Saito-san — hadn't saved me, I would have been eaten alive before Hiyori could help.

The weight and feel of the Gray Wolf pinning me down still lingers on my body.

I was dead. If the old man hadn't come, I would have died.

If he'd been even a few seconds later, I'd probably be dead.

The moment I realized that, my body went wrong.

I couldn't move. The shaking wouldn't stop.

A fear I'd never felt before tormented me.

The gun rod in my hand wouldn't leave my grip. Even though it was already broken and useless, I still couldn't let go. I didn't know why, but my body kept shrinking in on itself. My legs wouldn't stop trembling.

"Why... why is this..."

As my shaking body curled up even tighter and the hand clutching my weapon touched my body, I remembered the feeling of being carried by the old man.

That's right. The old man. The old man who saved me. Look at that old man.

Then maybe I'll be able to move a little.

Forcing my trembling body to move, I grabbed my phone and started searching for the name I'd been told before we parted — "Yamana Saito."

I found his channel right away.

He only had two stream archives. That meant he'd only entered Shinjuku Tower twice. I'd heard about it, but it was true...

I started watching from his first stream.

Was he what you'd call a pugilist? He took down monsters powerfully with punches and kicks. Those arms were the well-trained arms of an adult man.

I'd been carried by him. By those powerful arms.

As I watched the archive, I saw him using magic here and there.

I thought he was a pugilist, but he seemed to be a magic warrior.

He fired unaspected magic bullets, taking down flying-type monsters.

The power felt a little weak, but the monsters were still taken down for sure. His control was perfect, too — every shot hit. He fired magic bullets as if they were being drawn into his targets.

It didn't look like only his second conquest at all.

His movements were those of someone used to using magic.

I noticed that watching the old man gradually drove away my fear.

Seeing a young man get rescued — seeing him get carried just like I was — I overlapped with it.

And then my fear-ridden body returned to normal.

I watched today's stream too — the old man's second adventure.

Watching the old man fight was somehow reassuring.

My heart gradually calmed down.

It was weird — feeling reassured by watching a strong old man.

But thanks to the old man, I was back to my usual self.

As I kept watching the stream, a different, small sense of discomfort emerged.

What was it? Watching Yamana-san's magic, I felt something strange.

It took several viewings, but I finally noticed the source of the discomfort... As a mage, I couldn't afford to overlook it. The impact was that significant.

"What is this...?"

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the stream archive on my phone. ◇ The next morning.

Ichijō Hiyori was in her high school classroom.

She was an adventurer and an exorcist, but normally, she was just a cheerful high school girl.

"You had it rough yesterday, huh?" "Are you okay!?" her classmates called out. She'd answer back with an airheaded, goofy demeanor, like "Yeah, it was seriously messed up."

Sure, yesterday's incident might have been the biggest pinch she'd been in since teaming up with Mio.

But maybe because she'd been in even worse pinches during exorcist work, she was taking it pretty lightly. Still, Mio had been really, really close.

Sending her home without any aftercare had probably been a mistake, she thought.

But she couldn't talk about that with her classmates.

It wasn't something that talking would fix, and it would only make them worry needlessly.

Kuri Mio came to school.

The moment Hiyori saw her face, she panicked. Mio's eyes were hollow and her dark circles were terrible.

Her gait wasn't like her usual self, either. Her usual sharpness was completely gone.

She probably hadn't slept. Sending her home had been a bad idea after all.

Hiyori had seen it plenty of times. Exorcists who could no longer fight.

The cause wasn't always major injuries. Fear could easily break a person's spirit.

Realizing her own failure, Hiyori was genuinely panicked.

She hadn't noticed her partner of the same generation was in this state!

"M-Mio-chan. Your face looks terrible, but, uh..."

She didn't know how to say it. She was faltering.

"...Give me some time during lunch break."

With hollow eyes, Mio said that and quickly went to her own seat.

Ah! This was bad. Her face had no life in it at all.

Forget Shinjuku Tower — she wouldn't even be able to do exorcist work anymore.

"It's over——..."

Hiyori looked up at the ceiling, fully aware of her mistake, and sank into depression. ◇ Lunch break. At the edge of the school building.

Hiyori and Mio gathered in a secluded spot where no one passed by.

When they had private conversations, this was always the place.

Hiyori hung her head, afraid of the ultimatum Mio was about to deliver.

She'd been thinking all morning about how to change Mio's mind, but there was no way to make things right. You can't force people who don't want to fight to fight.

That was why she didn't know what to do. She fretted helplessly.

Mio, on the other hand, had hollow eyes and was facing Hiyori, but wasn't really looking at her.

It had been really close. Mio's mental wounds were truly deep.

Hiyori hesitated, not knowing what to say, but finally spoke to Mio.

"Uuuh, Mio-chan. About yesterday..."

"About yesterday..."

"I'm really sorry...!"

"Look at this..."

Hiyori bowed her head as hard as she could. In response, Mio shoved her phone screen in her face.

On the screen was Yamana Saito's channel on Tower Tube.

"What are you doing? Watch the video."

"Huh, wha — ah, okay."

The phrasing was so unlike Mio's usual self that Hiyori panicked and looked at the phone, just as Mio instructed.

What was playing was a stream archive of the adventurer Yamana Saito — the benefactor who'd saved Mio's life during yesterday's Shinjuku Tower conquest.

"Watch closely. The way Yamana-san fights."

It was basically a video of a well-built old man fighting.

His movements were so refined it was hard to believe he'd just gotten his adventurer license.

Hiyori's theory was that Yamana Saito was a former soldier. Her intuition told her otherwise, but still, that combat-hardened feel could only mean he was an adventurer or a soldier.

That said, the weapons he used were ordinary, and he didn't seem to use any amazing magic. Compared to the streams of top-tier adventurers that Hiyori watched for study, his looked inferior.

"Hmm. I think he's impressive, but is there something that stands out to you?"

"Where are you looking? Right here."

What she pointed at was the scene where he hit a Giant Bat with an unaspected magic bullet. The way he traced a beautiful arc and landed the hit gave the impression he was very practiced with magic.

"A beautiful magic bullet. High accuracy too, yeah. I think it's impressive."

Hiyori answered from a position of looking down on it. Mio, lightly disappointed by that attitude, continued.

"That magic bullet just now — he generated it, then held it mid-air, and then fired it."

"What? No way, that can't be right. Doesn't it just look that way?"

As someone who wasn't good with magic and focused on close combat, Hiyori couldn't understand why Mio was so surprised.

Generate a magic bullet, hold it for a while, then fire. It sounded simple, but even if Hiyori couldn't do it, wasn't it something Mio, a mage, should be able to do?

"At the very least, I can't use magic like that, and I've watched plenty of top mages' fighting styles — none of them could do this!"

Despite herself, Hiyori was surprised to see Mio speaking with such rare passion.

She was usually such a cool-type beauty.

"I don't really get it, but what do you want to do, Mio?"

"...I want to talk to him."

A fire of will lit in her eyes.

Whether from lack of sleep, her eyes were puffy and her dark circles were severe.

Maybe Hiyori's prediction had been right after all.

And yet, her eyes were blazing.

Hiyori recognized that look.

That night, in the park, when she'd asked Mio "are you ready to fight?" — she'd had the same expression.

Mio's will to move forward was still alive and well.

In that case, Ichijō Hiyori's job was to support her partner.

"Then let's go say hello — and thank him too."

"Yes!"

Mio's face said "that's what I wanted to hear."

Hiyori's shoulders drooped at that expression.

"And here I was worrying for nothing... Honestly..."

Hiyori grumbled, remembering the anxiety she'd felt from this morning until just now.

"Did you say something?"

"I said it's fine to meet him, but your dark circles are really bad."

"...Let's do something about that before we greet him."

Well then. That adventurer old man had come to help because his nephew contacted him.

She didn't know who the nephew was, but she knew he was a younger student at the school.

They'd get a lead and find the person who was supposedly Yamana Saito's nephew.

Surely that nephew would know his address. ◇ A first-year classroom.

No matter the era, school afternoons were always noisy, and that day was no exception. Asai Kenji was having casual conversation with his classmates.

The hot topic these days was Shinjuku Tower.

Yesterday was especially insane and incredible. The achievements and the crisis of Ichijō Hiyori and Kuri Mio — the senior students who were the whole school's admiration. And then his uncle, arriving to save them in the nick of time.

He'd heard his uncle — who'd been missing for thirty years — had started adventuring, but he never imagined he'd be that strong. For Kenji himself, having his uncle treated like a hero by his classmates and friends made him happy.

As they were chatting excitedly about that after school, the hallway outside the classroom got noisy.

No, it was always noisy, but this noise was different from usual.

"What's up?" "No clue." The classroom door.

The cause of the noise was standing there.

Ichijō Hiyori and Kuri Mio.

"Umm... you're Asai-kun, right? I've got a little favor to ask."

"Come with us."

Ichijō Hiyori and Kuri Mio were both beautiful.

Hiyori was a beauty with a bright smile, and Mio was the cool-type beauty.

Peak looks, and on top of that, they were adventurers who fought in Shinjuku Tower.

Strong, cool, and beautiful.

Facing the two who were rated that way, there wasn't any jealousy or anything. They were treated like celebrities at school. Most of the school admired them. With the two who reigned at the top of the school's social hierarchy showing up, of course there'd be a commotion.

And now, those two with their overwhelming presence were standing right in front of Kenji.

Both of them were smiling, but the pressure was intense.

Mio in particular was radiating an unusual aura. Maybe it was that adventurer pressure thing.

They were upperclassmen, so the younger students who had no connection to them could only freeze.

Hiyori and Mio stood on either side of Kenji.

"Sorry for interrupting."

"We're borrowing him."

Kenji's classmates gestured "go ahead, go ahead" with their hands.

Hiyori grinned.

"Well, let's go."

Hiyori forcibly made Kenji stand up, linked arms with him, and dragged him away.

It might sound enviable, but his partners were adventurers who'd reached floor eight of Shinjuku Tower despite being high school students. They commanded strong admiration, but also strong fear.

The sight of Kenji being led away was atmospherically close to "Dona Dona."

Where was the little calf being sold off?

Kenji's classmates could only stare blankly at the sight of him being taken away by the school's idols. ◇ Later, Kenji would tell his classmates:

"Hiyo-chan-senpai and Mio-paisen were both insane. I was stupid nervous... Don't even remember what I said..."

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Thank you for reading.

Today also marks a two-chapter update.

Another update is planned for 8 PM.

Thank you very much.