Chapter 23: A Sudden Happening and an Old Canned Food 

The cleanup of the storage shed progressed surprisingly smoothly.

First, we dragged everything outside and separated the items into two categories: cursed and non-cursed.

Ideally, we should’ve sorted them into “things to throw away” and “things to keep,” but honestly, removing the dangerous objects first would make things easier for me to handle later by myself.

There was just one problem.

“There are WAY too many cursed objects in here!!”

“…Even I am beginning to grow tired.”

The shed was packed to the brim with cursed artifacts.

Broken Japanese dolls.

Shattered magatama beads.

Snapped swords.

Ancient wooden puzzles.

And countless other things that radiated enough bad vibes to make my skin crawl.

No matter how many items Raphiel purified one after another, more than half still remained untouched.

At this point, I was seriously beginning to suspect Grandpa had some kind of hobby involving collecting haunted junk and tossing it into storage.

And then—

An unexpected person appeared.

“Eight.”

“Hm?” I turned around. “Oh, Hinoka-san. What brings you here?”

“I sensed a nostalgic presence from this direction, so I came to investigate.”

“…Nostalgic?”

Hinoka slowly looked over the cursed items we had dragged outside.

For just a moment, her eyes narrowed faintly.

“Eight. There are several objects here I would like you to give to me.”

“I don’t mind, but which ones?”

“This shattered magatama. That broken mirror. And that snapped blade.” Her voice softened slightly. “They belonged to my younger sister.”

Hinoka’s younger sister?

Just as that surprisingly important-sounding topic surfaced—

“Hey hey, mister!!”

Eve suddenly shouted from deeper inside the shed.

“I found another katana!! And unlike the broken one from before, this one isn’t snapped in half!! It’s rusty though!!”

“…Could that be a military sword?”

“Huh? Military sword?”

“It’s a type of sword used by the military in my country decades ago. I can’t believe there’s something like this here too…”

The handle had almost completely rotted away, but after checking the tang, I couldn’t help smiling.

“Yeah. This belonged to my great-grandfather.”

“Your grandfather’s father?”

“Yep. It says ‘Tsurugi Toshikuni’ engraved on the tang. No mistake about it.”

Come to think of it, Grandpa once mentioned that my great-grandfather had been an officer in the old Imperial Japanese Navy.

Something like this probably belonged in a museum back on Earth.

But this wasn’t Earth.

“Hey hey, mister!! Gimme this katana!! I’ll sharpen it up and use it as my weapon!!”

“…Well, I guess a sword is happiest when someone actually uses it.” I nodded slowly. “Alright. You can have it.”

“Yahooooo!!”

“But!!” I immediately pointed a finger at her. “If you swing that thing around and hurt someone, I’m confiscating it immediately!!”

“Yeah yeah, I got it!!”

Excited, Eve spun around happily—

And accidentally bumped into one of the shelves.

At that exact moment, a wooden box sitting near the top tipped over and began falling straight toward her head.

“Eve-san!!”

“Wah!? H-Hey, you don’t have to yell like that. I already said I won’t point the sword at peop—”

Without thinking, I grabbed Eve from behind and pulled her backward into my arms.

A split second later—

CRASH!!

The wooden box smashed into pieces exactly where she’d been standing moments earlier.

…That was close.

Relieved, I let out a breath—

Then suddenly realized Eve and I were staring directly into each other’s eyes from extremely close range.

“U-Um… mister…”

“Ah. S-Sorry. The box was about to hit your head, so…”

“It’s not like something that small would hurt me anyway. I’m the Demon Lord, remember? You worry too much.” Eve looked downward awkwardly. “More importantly… your hand.”

“…Eh?”

“Your hand is grabbing my boob.”

My eyes snapped downward.

Sure enough—

My hand was firmly squeezing Eve’s chest.

Back when I accidentally grabbed Raphiel’s chest before, it had felt different somehow.

Eve’s was softer. More elastic.

WAIT.

NO.

THAT WAS NOT THE ISSUE HERE.

The instant I panicked and tried to pull my hand away, Eve suddenly grabbed my arm.

“…It’s fine if it’s you, mister.”

“Eh? W-What exactly do you mean by that…?”

“If you want to do it, we can do it right here.” Eve smiled teasingly. “Saintie can’t see us from this angle, and if we keep our voices down, nobody will notice.”

My heart started pounding so violently it genuinely felt ready to explode.

T-This was bad.

Everything was escalating way too suddenly for my brain to keep up.

“E-Eve-san, maybe don’t joke around like this…”

“I’m not joking though.” She pressed herself against me slightly. “Also… there’s something hard poking my butt.”

“T-That’s my smartphone!!”

“Ahaha☆ Liar.” Eve whispered mischievously. “Even though you know I’m serious.”

Then, while rubbing herself against me, she quietly muttered under her breath—

“If I use my charm to make mister fall for me, then I can monopolize all the delicious food and games… nihihi.”

“…You know, you probably shouldn’t say those thoughts out loud.”

“Ah. Oops.”

Unfortunately for her, I did not suffer from anime protagonist-level hearing problems.

I heard every word perfectly.

And just like that, the romantic tension vanished instantly.

“…Please help clean up the wooden boxes.”

“Ehhh? But I’m already getting bored of cleaning the shed.”

“I won’t buy you that controller otherwise.”

Right then—

“Eight. What are these?”

Raphiel approached while carrying several strange objects.

“There were many of them near where the Demon Lord found the katana.”

“These are… what exactly?” I tilted my head. “They look kind of like canned food, but they’re unusually bulky…” I snapped my fingers. “This is exactly what smartphones are for!!”

I pulled my phone from my pocket and searched the object online.

Then I discovered something unbelievable.

Apparently my “looks like canned food” impression had been correct.

These were canned portions of sekihan—red bean rice—that had once been eaten by the old Imperial Japanese Navy.

Yet another absurd relic had emerged from this storage shed.

“What is it? Food?”

“Looks like canned food from over eighty years ago. Apparently if it was preserved properly, it might still technically be edible.”

“Then let’s eat it!!”

“Eh!? No, I really think that’s a terrible ide—”

“Thanks for the food!!”

Before I could stop her, Eve pried open the can and stuffed the contents into her mouth.

…She actually ate it!?

“S-So? How is it?”

“Hm… the beans are kind of sweet?” Eve tilted her head thoughtfully while chewing. “But the texture’s dry and crumbly. It’s not bad, though. Your cooking is definitely better, mister.”

“Well… canned food is emergency rations, and it’s super old, so I guess that’s expected.”

After all that chaos, we somehow managed to finish organizing the shed.

“Phew… somehow we finished.”

“Yes,” Raphiel nodded calmly. “…Though you said ‘the first floor,’ didn’t you?”

“Ah. Did I forget to mention it?” I scratched my cheek awkwardly. “This shed also has a second floor and a basement.”

“…I no longer possess enough energy to continue purifying cursed objects.”

“I-I see. Then maybe we’ll handle the rest another day.”

At long last, the cleanup had finally reached a stopping point.

There had been a few… incidents along the way, but Eve had genuinely worked hard, so I should probably order that fighting-game controller she wanted later.

Still, the sun was already beginning to set.

Dinner preparations came first.

Thinking that, I headed back toward the house—

“Excuse meee!! I’m Mikaela, one of Raffy-chan’s friends!! Is Raffy-chan hereee!?”

“…Mikaela?”

A girl stood outside the house calling loudly.

She was an astonishing beauty with long pink-blonde hair and vivid blue eyes.

And behind her—

Stood roughly ten fully armed Holy Knights clad in the same silver armor Grana wore.

There were fewer of them than the Inquisition Knights before, but the pressure they gave off was absolutely insane.