Chapter 80

By the time I arrived, the two girls and the members of “Epic Seeker” had moved into a secluded back alley with little foot traffic to avoid making a scene.

In the shadows, one of the girls was cornering our members.

“Enough! Just take us to Palinchron already!”

I rushed into the alley and raised my voice.

“Hold it! If you want to talk, talk to me! I’m the Guild Master of ‘Epic Seeker,’ Kanami Aikawa!!”

I shouted at the top of my lungs to draw their attention toward me. As intended, the girls shifted their focus. Their eyes widened, looking at me as if they were seeing something impossible.

“Eh…? Wait, what? Christ…?”

The girl with the braided hair turned toward me, her face blank with shock.

It seemed I had succeeded in getting their attention. Still, to be safe, I barked at them once more.

“Palinchron is my subordinate! If you have business with him, I’ll be the one to relay it! Now, get away from my members!!”

In response to my second warning, the androgynous girl in the back spoke up.

“Ch-Christ!? It’s me, Dia!!”

“Dia.”

Presumably, that was a nickname for Diablo Sith.

But something was wrong. Ever since I arrived, these girls had been calling me “Christ.” Even though I had introduced myself as Kanami Aikawa, they kept repeating that name, just like Snow did.

“Fine. So your name is Dia. Regardless, please step away from my people.”

I had plenty of questions, but ensuring the safety of my members came first. I gestured for them to back off.

The braided girl distanced herself from the members as instructed, appearing lost in thought. However, the one calling herself Dia ignored my request entirely, shouting as she walked toward me.

As she got closer, I noticed it. Diablo Sith was missing an arm. She was a one-armed mage.

“Christ, what are you saying!? Forget this, let’s just go home!”

“Go home…?”

I had no idea what Diablo Sith was talking about. For starters, they had my name wrong, so there was no common ground to be found.

“What have you been doing all this time!? If you were safe, why didn’t you come to Gliard!?”

“Stop right there! Dia, was it…? Don’t come any closer…!”

Sensing that Diablo Sith might not be in her right mind, I drew my sword from my “Inventory” and took a stance.

The moment she saw the blade, her body froze. At first, I thought she had flinched at the sight of a weapon, but that wasn’t it. She pointed at my sword and muttered something.

“Th-that… Christ… where is my sword…?”

“Your sword…? Look, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. First of all, my name isn’t Christ. You must have the wrong person.”

I concluded that this was a case of mistaken identity and pointed it out.

“The wrong person? There’s no way I’d mistake Christ for anyone else. You’re the one who isn’t making sense. Hey, Christ, stop joking around. This is too cruel, even for a joke… Without Christ, ‘I’ am… I’m…!!”

Despite my correction, Diablo Sith continued to edge closer with a cramped, desperate smile on her face. I shivered at the sheer wrongness she radiated and reflexively shouted for her to stop.

“Y-you’re dangerous! Don’t come any closer!”

Both her abilities and her behavior were extremely high-risk. The way her eyes were gradually losing their light sent a chill down my spine.

Halted by my shout, Diablo Sith kept firing questions at me with hollow eyes, as if she were clinging to me for dear life.

“…Hey. Why are you pretending not to know me? No, why that sword? Where is my sword? Hey, what happened? Did you throw it away?”

Her face was smiling, but her eyes were overflowing with a sense of tragedy. She looked completely confused, faced with a reality she couldn’t accept.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I’ve never even met a girl like you before.”

“…Eh? What?”

Once I confirmed that my members had escaped to a safe distance, I gave her the honest truth. Hearing that, Diablo Sith’s expression began to crumble.

“I’m not this ‘Christ’ person. I am ‘Kanami Aikawa.’ I need you to speak to me with that in mind… Otherwise, I have absolutely no idea what you’re trying to say.”

Breaking into a cold sweat at the fact that this girl—who was essentially a walking powder keg—was going into shock, I spoke to her gently and slowly, trying to keep things peaceful.

However, in response, Diablo Sith seemed to lose her very soul and sank to her knees.

“Ugh… uugh… A-again ? I’m… ahh, am I being thrown away again…?”

“Hey, just calm down. It’s not like I’m refusing to listen. If you just slowly explain your situation, then—”

“Ugh, hic! Uuugh, uwaaaaaaaaahhhhhh—!!”

And just like that, she burst into tears.

“Wha—!? Why are you crying!?”

“Waaaaaaah! Sob… waaaaaaaaaah—”

“P-please don’t cry. Look, I don’t mean you any harm. I’ll even put my sword away. See?”

I was completely bewildered by Diablo Sith’s sudden outburst. Based on her stats, I had assumed she was a powerful person with plenty of mental composure, but the reality was the exact opposite. Her heart was so fragile it made me feel foolish for charging out of the office in such a panic.

“Uh-oh, you made her cry. Now you’ve done it.”

The braided girl who had been watching from the back, Lastiara Huzya, stepped forward when she saw her companion break down. She stroked Diablo Sith’s head while teasingly pinning the blame on me.

“I’m the one who made her cry!? I don’t understand any of this! Who on earth are you people!?”

“Who are we? Hmm, let’s see.”

Unlike Diablo Sith, Lastiara Huzya seemed perfectly composed. She took her time to choose her words after hearing my demand, answering slowly.

“Yeah. We’re your companions.”

The way Lastiara Huzya looked as she said that was beautiful. I thought it might just be because of her otherworldly appearance, but that wasn’t it. Her beauty wasn’t just visual. The strength in her voice, her lack of hesitation—above all, the sheer weight of her words made her look stunning as she answered.

There was a certain solemnity to it, like a life-defining answer found after years of searching.

Hearing her words, I felt a strange surge of excitement, and my face began to flush.

“C-companions…?”

It was a nonsensical answer.

There was no way these girls and I, meeting for the first time, could be companions.

And yet…

Lastiara Huzya looked me straight in the eye and said the word “companions” without a hint of falsehood.

It was more fantastical than a scene from a fairy tale, more divine than a painting in a museum. There was a subtle, solemn power in her gaze, the kind that could convince you that black was white.

I could feel my heart rate quickening.

My cheeks grew hot.

An unidentified emotion was burning within me.

“Yeah, I’ve mostly grasped the situation. I can ‘see’ things, you know. So, I’m not going to ask ‘Christ’; I’m asking you, Kanami. Hey, what happened to Maria?”

However, that heat cooled in an instant.

“—!? H-how do you know Maria’s name?”

“I’ve said it before: it’s because we’re precious companions.”

I was shocked that my sister Maria’s name had come up. At the same time, I felt a surge of fear.

Few people knew Maria’s name. Since we were “Foreigners,” we hadn’t spent much time here, and I had fundamentally decided that I would be the one to stand in the spotlight.

Yet this girl knew about Maria, whom I had kept hidden in the shadows.

“Companions? Why would you people be companions with my sister!?”

“S-sister? Hmm, that sounds interesting, but you’re under some really troublesome mental manipulation, aren’t you, Christ…?”

Realizing that my sister, who was more important to me than life itself, might be in danger, I reflexively raised my voice.

In response, Lastiara Huzya used words like “mental manipulation” and “Christ.”

I had been told something similar before.

And I knew that the person who told me was currently hiding in the shadows behind me.

“I told you, who is ‘Christ’?! Snow! What is this ‘Christ’ thing!?”

“…P-please don’t drag me into this.”

Responding to my question, Snow emerged from the shadows with a troubled look on her face.

Lastiara Huzya looked at her and spoke with curiosity.

“Snow? Snow Walker? Why are you here?”

“I-I mean, it’s not like I want to be your enemy or anything. H-here, Kanami, repeat it. The thing I told you to remember!”

Snow was speaking with an unusually clear and brisk tone.

Apparently, she was terrified of this girl with the abnormal power.

“R-repeat it?”

“The night Kanami joined the guild!”

She was trying to make me remember that night. The day she had claimed I was “Christ,” just like Lastiara Huzya was doing now.

“Wait, do you mean the talk about me being manipulated by Palinchron…?”

“…That’s the one. I warned him properly. It’s not my fault. In fact, I’m doing my best here.”

Once I confirmed the answer, Snow relayed it to Lastiara Huzya.

“Hmmmm…”

Lastiara Huzya placed a hand to her mouth, lost in thought.

It was clear now. Snow and Lastiara Huzya were acquaintances. And they shared a story that I knew nothing about.

“No, guilty. You’re definitely using Christ as an excuse to slack off in life, aren’t you?”

“Eeeh…”

Lastiara Huzya took a step forward with a smile, and Snow took a step back.

“Wait, I won’t let you lay a hand on Snow!”

Sensing Snow’s fear, I stepped between them and leveled my sword.

“Heh… You’re protecting Snow and pointing a sword at me? I see—that’s pretty cool. You really love changing which girl you protect, don’t you, Christ? Wow, impressive. You’re just like a ‘Hero’.”

The moment I put Snow behind me, I felt the mana radiating from Lastiara Huzya intensify.

Her smile remained, but a vein seemed to pulse on her forehead.

“I’m telling you, I’m Kanami Aikawa! Ka-na-mi! I’m the Guild Master of ‘Epic Seeker,’ Kanami! I’ll never forgive anyone who lays a hand on my guild members!!”

I let my own mana flare up in response, countering Lastiara.

I switched my “Dimension” to the combat-oriented “Dimension: Gladiator” to process the surrounding environment. I decided that if this girl so much as twitched toward Snow, I would restrain her without holding back.

In the background, the other guild members I had summoned were beginning to gather.

Sensing their comrade was in a pinch, everyone was entering a combat stance.

Taking in the sight, Lastiara Huzya let her massive mana subside and exhaled.

“Sigh… Still, with this many interruptions, I guess I’m at a disadvantage. It was outside my calculations that Christ’s stats would have grown this much. It’s hard to break Christ’s magic while trying to be careful. And if things heat up and Dia gets serious, this town will turn into a wasteland. Hmm, what to do…”

The levels of the “Epic Seeker” members weren’t low. Most of them were veterans specialized in combat.

Yet, even while surrounded by these experts and facing their hostility, Lastiara Huzya was calmly deep in thought.

That level of composure was terrifying.

As I kept a cautious eye on her movements, the girl who had been sitting and crying stood up.

Wiping her falling tears with her sleeve, she clung to Lastiara Huzya.

“Ugh, hic, uuu… H-hey, Lastiara… Christ is just being manipulated, right? Everything he just said was a lie, right? It has to be! I-in that case, we have to save him! We have to save Christ soon! If I don’t save him, the pain is just too much to bear! A-ahh, Christ… no matter what it takes, no matter what I have to sacrifice, I’ll sa—”

“Chop.”

“Ouch!”

Lastiara Huzya mercilessly knocked Diablo Sith unconscious with a hand-chop. She then picked Diablo Sith up in a bridal carry and spoke to me.

“I feel like if we fight here, everything will go exactly as Palinchron wants… So, we’re pulling back for now. For now, anyway…”

Then, she continued with a faint, almost bashful smile.

“Thanks to Christ, I was able to become myself… I was so happy. So this time, I—not as anyone else, but as myself—will definitely save you…”

Her tone was incredibly gentle.

At the same time, it was a weak voice that seemed ill-suited to her high stats.

I couldn’t fathom what was in her heart.

I, who didn’t even recognize the names they were calling me, had no words to offer in return.

Seeing my silence, Lastiara Huzya’s face twisted into a grin as she threw out one last parting remark.

“Well, setting that aside, you’d better remember what happened today! Once this is all over, you’re going to have to listen to a hundred of Dia’s selfish requests! And for the record, I’m pretty angry too. Anyway, that’s it for today. Bye-bye!”

The moment she finished speaking, Lastiara Huzya leaped.

While carrying another person, she jumped several meters into the air, kicked off a building wall, and landed on a roof. Then, she began sprinting across the rooftops.

“Wh—! She’s fast!”

I moved to give chase, then hesitated.

I was probably the only one who could catch up to that speed. Even Snow was doubtful.

If I chased them, it would inevitably lead to a fight between me and those two. I didn’t want to go poking a hornet’s nest against two monsters with such bottomless talent.

Instead, I limited myself to following them with “Dimension: Multiple.”

While explaining the situation to the gathered guild members, I continued my magical tracking. The limit of my pursuit came when the two girls crossed into the southeastern nation of Gliard.