Can Someone from a Tradition-Ridden Village Pull Off a Narou-Style Story in a Modern Dungeon? ～The Higher Being Behind Me Is Way Too Much of a Final Boss～ - Chapter 114:
-Thank you DCRangeRange, Dean Dexter and Cannedbread
Follow me on Patreon via Linktree https://linktr.ee/Mnotia-
There was no emotion in that reunion.
Without exchanging more words than necessary, Senano dashed deeper down the hallway.
Her destination was the living room——the guitar case propped against the wall.
(Why at a time like this...!?)
Had they aimed for the moment Nene was absent, and was she their target? There were many things to consider, but all of them could wait.
What she had to do now was one thing.
(There's an outsider in ZONE who isn't an Enri Bearer. That alone gives us justification to suppress them. After that, I just need to make a big commotion and get Master's attention!)
Using Hibari, she would buy time until Nene arrived.
Senano had concluded that was the optimal solution here.
Suppressing the intruder by herself was nearly impossible.
So she reached for the guitar case.
"Hibari, hurry up and wake——"
"You're as hasty as Muscle-chan."
"!?"
A white hand crawled over her outstretched hand from above, matching her reach for the guitar case.
The owner of the voice and hand was, needless to say, Fuefuki.
"Fuefuki!"
"Good call not trying to brawl with me bare-handed! I'll give you a gold star! But you really shouldn't turn your back on me, okay? I'm a calamity-lord-class, after all, you know?"
(Fuefuki is a calamity-lord-class...!? I knew she was one of the persons of interest, but I've never heard that before.)
Seeing Senano freeze in shock, Fuefuki looked up at the ceiling as if realizing something.
Then she covered her face with both hands.
"Ah, I said it... Sorry! Can we just pretend I didn't say that!? I wanted to announce it at a cooler moment...! I'm a beautiful girl who looks great in the moonlight, right? So if possible I wanted to announce the calamity-lord-class thing then, like, ta-da!"
"Wh-what is wrong with you?"
Fuefuki spun her words as casually as if talking to a friend.
Her hand had already left Senano's, and she wasn't even looking at the guitar case.
Seizing the opening, Senano tried to open the guitar case again——.
"I said, no good (lol)."
In a light tone, with a voice that carried no sense of danger at all, Fuefuki had at some point placed both hands on Senano's cheeks and was peering into her eyes.
Like scolding a child, she stared into her eyes and etched the words into her.
"Senano-chan, you make decisions fast. So fast it's a little off-putting. You're top class even among S-ranks. ...Ah, but the top one is Muscle-chan. With her, it's not so much fast as her existence and the act of killing are directly connected. That's scary. Don't end up like that, okay Senano-chan? Let's stay friends. That way we're both happy, right?"
"Let go of me!"
"Yes, yes, I'll let go. You're so angry. Want some ice cream? Ah, you don't? Okay, then I'll just eat it myself."
Chatting one-sidedly, Fuefuki moved to the sofa.
Then she took out ice cream and began eating it, as if showing it off to Senano.
"Mmm, this one's a winner. I'd been avoiding it because of the packaging, but you really should try things before judging."
"...What are you after?"
She had been made to understand fully that she couldn't use Hibari.
Knowing that all she could do now was talk, Senano reluctantly moved to a position across the table.
Her face still clearly showed wariness, but perhaps pleased that she was willing to talk, Fuefuki took an ice pop from the plastic bag and rolled it across the table.
The red ice pop rolled slowly and came to a stop exactly in front of Senano.
"I said I didn't want it."
"Just eat it, I said. Or are you so scared that even an ice pop won't go down your throat?"
"...Tch."
After deliberately clicking her tongue loudly enough for Fuefuki to hear, Senano tore off the wrapper and shoved the ice pop into her mouth.
Then she bit down with all her strength.
"Whoa, wild."
"Tell me what you're after, now."
"Geez, you're so impatient. This time Muscle-chan isn't here, so we can take our time talking."
"...Could it be you're the one who sicced that on Master?"
"Correct! Yes, an extra gold star for you."
Fuefuki rolled another ice pop.
This one was blue, like the sky.
"Man, what a pain. Muscle-chan is basically always near Senano-chan, you know. You're really treasured, and she's really on guard, huh."
"What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said. That thing inside you is quite something, you know?"
With a gesture of poking her own chest, Fuefuki said it.
Senano immediately understood what she meant by "that thing."
"...You're after the calamity-lord-class inside me."
"Oh, don't get the wrong idea. It's not the calamity-lord-class; I want to be friends with Senano-chan. And I'd like to give you some advice too."
"Ha, as if I'd take advice from you."
"Your calamity-lord-class is acting up again, you know? This time Muscle-chan and Ei-chan are caught up in it too."
"...Huh?"
The sound of cicadas outside the window seemed to grow even louder.
Those words, so shocking and unimaginable, violently shook her brain.
"What do you mean...!?"
"You're still only shallowly connected to your calamity-lord-class. That's why your control is loose."
"Stop beating around the bush and tell me——"
Before she could finish, Fuefuki leaned forward and climbed onto the table.
With both hands, she formed something like a frame and held it up toward Senano.
"There you go. Is this what you wanted?"
The next instant, something flickered inside the frame.
No, it was not the frame; it was a phenomenon that occurred inside Senano's mind.
The moment she saw the frame, what flooded into her brain were so many memories of 『today』 that counting them would be absurd.
They began from arriving in this town, and always ended with making up.
Though there were slight changes in the process and scenery, the scenes, all composed of the familiar 『today』, were as if the same footage was being shown to her again and again.
"Ah... m-my head! What is this...!"
"Yeah, actually I'm the one who has the right to say that. And Muscle-chan and Ei-chan have the right to say it too. I really wish you'd give us a break."
From the images poured into her mind and Fuefuki's words, the clever Senano quickly understood the phenomenon and its cause.
The reason for the pallor of her face had already begun to shift from headache to self-loathing and a sense of responsibility.
"Th-this was my doing...?"
"To be precise, it's the calamity-lord-class inside you. Well, if I had to name a cause, it would be you making up with someone."
"Making up...? But I just... with Ei...!"
"Kids tend to feel that their first present or their first friend is special. The same goes for you and the calamity-lord-class. To you, Ei-chan is someone precious. And to the calamity-lord-class, the emotion born from making up with that precious person is valuable. That's where things meshed together."
Fuefuki thrust reality at Senano with a friendly smile.
Even so, she seemed as if she were enjoying a friendly chat.
"The calamity-lord-class is happy when you make up, so it keeps repeating it to make you happy. It's a good kid, isn't it? Just stupid."
"No way... I..."
"It's a shock, right? I get it, Senano-chan."
Before she knew it, Fuefuki was sitting beside Senano.
Senano made no move to pull away from Fuefuki, only staring at the blue ice pop that had rolled in front of her.
"So I thought I'd help you out. If it were just a matter of dealing with the usual Aberrant Entities, you could just do Collection or processing together with Muscle-chan and Ei-chan. But this time is different, right? Because an Enri Bearer in a position to monitor a calamity-lord-class pseudo-medium went out of control and caused a major accident."
"...Th-that's..."
"It's the truth, right?"
Placing an arm on Senano's shoulder and leaning against her, Fuefuki picked up the blue ice pop and began tearing the wrapper.
"This will create a justification for the upper management to recover Ei-chan. That's bad, you know, since I hate the Enri Agency. ...You'd hate it too, right? Having Ei-chan taken away. The way they treat people there is practically as weapons, you know?"
As if letting the words seep into her mind, like a snake slowly constricting with no escape, Fuefuki whispered gently.
"I think Ei-chan would be happier staying with Senano-chan."
"..."
"So to save Ei-chan, just a little with me, okay? Just this once, just once, won't you team up with me?"
"...I..."
"Don't worry, there won't be any damage and no one will die. We'll just swap the reason and cause of this anomaly with something a little different. The result won't change. In fact, revealing the truth would bring about a far more miserable result, you know?"
"!"
"You've worked hard all this time. You don't want to ruin it all in a place like this, right?"
"B-but if my calamity-lord-class really did go out of control, I have to report it to the Enri Agency and have it dealt with right away..."
Senano's heart was already wavering badly.
What had kept her reason tethered to the end was her pride as an Enri Bearer.
"Oh?"
Fuefuki saw through that with ease.
She had seen many such Enri Bearers before.
That was exactly why she knew.
The final push for times like this.
"Then I'll tell you something special. Actually, Ei-chan's ancestor was once used up by the Enri Agency like a worn-out rag and died."
"...What?"
"They made them handle the Night Kagura all by themselves. As a result, they died. ...Oh, that reminds me, the Night Kagura is coming up soon! That's why you and the others are training here, isn't it!"
Getting excited all by herself, Fuefuki clapped her hands.
Then she held out the blue ice pop once more.
"I think lies that protect someone are necessary."
"..."
Senano couldn't answer.
She had no right to answer.
But.
"——Haha, then I'm counting on you."
The hand she reached toward the ice pop was her answer.
-Thank you DCRangeRange, Dean Dexter and Cannedbread
Follow me on Patreon via Linktree https://linktr.ee/Mnotia-