Chapter 88: Looks Like You Need Me After All, Don’t You?
“In other words, none of you know anything about where the Sea God’s sacred orb went. You’re merely a stray hero and his companions who happened to come here?”
After we explained our situation to the Sea God’s shrine maiden, with whom the conversation hadn’t quite been connecting, and then told her what had caused it, she finally grasped our circumstances.
That was the first thing she said afterward.
“…Why?”
What emotion was behind that remark?
Perhaps she wanted to deny something but didn’t know what she should deny.
Even if she wanted to blame someone for everything going wrong, nobody was at fault except her for carelessly losing the sacred orb.
“It’s a sad story, but Taketsuru, whom you so arrogantly summoned, is an ordinary hero with no connection whatsoever to your mistake, your history, or the sea monster. With that in mind, don’t you owe him a word regarding how forcefully you summoned him?”
When I brought up manners—or rather, the need to settle accounts properly—the shrine maiden suddenly came to her senses and bowed briskly to Taketsuru.
“I’m so sorry I got carried away pretending to be a superior being! I thought I had right on my side and tried to steer the conversation in my favor!”
“You’re more honest than I expected. Well, I don’t really mind.”
“And I know this is an impudent request, but if you have the leeway, could you possibly take on one little monster extermination job!? Only if you’d like to!”
“And far more flexible than I expected.”
After receiving a job proposal together with the apology, Taketsuru looked at me helplessly again.
Was I supposed to negotiate?
“Then I’ll ask you a question instead. Is that sealed sea-serpent monster the kind of thing we can simply kill? Or rather, can it be killed? If it was sealed, doesn’t that mean it couldn’t be killed? Wouldn’t it be better to find the orb and seal it again?”
“You can kill it, no problem. Well, even if you kill it, it basically sheds its skin and goes to sleep, so it’s effectively immortal. That sleep lasts for years, though, so after putting it to sleep, we can search for the orb in the meantime. Incidentally, it’s already beginning to wake up, so resealing it now would be difficult.”
“Your mistake was enormous, but your ability to recover after making it has a certain brilliance.”
I raised my opinion of the Sea God’s shrine maiden’s nerve just a little.
At the very least, once she made a mistake, she didn’t panic and stop thinking. She had enough presence of mind to try covering for the problem somehow.
“Incidentally, what happens to the town and sea if nothing can be done about the sea-serpent monster?”
“A tremendous amount of rain will fall around here, then after a while, a flood and tsunami will come simultaneously and swallow the town. Something like that.”
I lowered the opinion I’d just raised.
Her mistake was far too enormous.
Even as an ordinary summer seaside event you could find anywhere, a disaster that could potentially harm tens of thousands of people couldn’t be overlooked.
“Taketsuru, turning this down after hearing that would take some nerve. What will you do?”
“I can’t refuse after hearing that… If I ignored it and then watched news of a tsunami at university, I’d feel horrible.”
“It can’t be helped.”
Even I judged this to be a situation we had to address, not as ordinary people but simply as a matter of basic common sense.
That meant we should question her more thoroughly.
“Let me confirm something. Can’t the Sea God you serve handle it?”
“The Sea God is currently away attending some sort of gathering of water deities. Besides, if this were discovered, my evaluation would plummet, so if possible, I’d like to deal with it without anyone finding out.”
“I feel sorry for this sea, having someone like you protect it.”
“Tee-hee.”
I’d already given up on the modern world being more fantastical than expected, but couldn’t anything be done about modern Japan’s gods and their associates being more useless than expected?
Humanlike qualities might be a defining feature of Japan’s eight million gods, but there had to be a limit. This shrine maiden was starting to look like Kuwajima to me.
“Kirishiro, were you just insulting me?”
I ignored the auditory hallucination I heard.
“How strong is this reviving sea serpent? Even heroes have limits.”
“It’s beginning to wake, but it’s still half-asleep, so you can catch it unawares right now. It’ll be easy.”
“That’s a flag for failure. Don’t act carelessly.”
I’d asked about its strength, only to receive that complacent answer, so I shook my head.
I’d seen countless stories in the textbooks—light novels—where someone tried to defeat a sealed monster easily and failed.
Usually, something unexpected happened, and rather than killing it, they accidentally awakened it completely.
Even so, I intended to finish every event today.
If that proved impossible, revising the plan would be unavoidable, but for now, we had to challenge that unreasonable goal proactively.
Where would an ordinary sealed-monster event you could find anywhere fall among summer activities? Somewhere near the finale, perhaps.
“For now, collect as much data as possible on the sea serpent’s capabilities. We’ll draw up an extermination plan and decide on a course of action today. In the meantime, we have our own tasks to handle.”
“You’re not saying that and then planning to run away, are you?”
“If I weren’t an ordinary university student you could find anywhere, I might run. Otherwise, fleeing here is only permitted in the ‘ordinary boy suddenly chosen to pilot a giant robot’ pattern.”
“????????”
Meiko’s education had sometimes included giant-robot and battle series.
Back then, I’d wondered whether classic robot anime and kaiju works were appropriate as “ordinary teaching materials,” but if fantastical events of this scale could occur in the real world, Meiko’s education had clearly been correct.
I’d shallowly assumed she merely wanted to propagate the works she liked under the pretext of education so we could enjoy them together, but there had been profound foresight beyond my comprehension hidden within her methods after all.
As expected of Meiko. Her insight was overwhelming.
“Also, do you have any idea why the sacred orb disappeared?”
Assuming Taketsuru would fight the monster, what we wanted most was another combatant on his level.
In other words, finding the missing sacred orb would increase our fighting strength.
This was a pressing issue.
Even an ordinary university student you could find anywhere would have difficulty fighting a monster barehanded.
For the sake of the local residents’ safety, we had to use everything available.
“The cause, or rather… Um, you won’t laugh, will you?”
“I’ll decide after hearing it.”
Whether I laughed or became angry depended on the story.
The shrine maiden’s expression twitched as she honestly explained.
“It happened several nights ago. I was enjoying my hobby of dancing while allowing the orb to bathe in the moonlight. When I looked after I finished, the orb had vanished without a trace.”
“Then wasn’t it stolen while you weren’t looking?”
“I-It couldn’t have been stolen. I would notice if a human came close. It’s not as though a ninja whose presence was fainter than an ordinary person’s stole it.”
“I see.”
It appeared there were now more questions for the Kikkōryū clan.
Though at this point, I’d already worked out most of what had happened.
“Hey, Kirishiro. Wouldn’t it be faster to use your appraisal skill and resolve this situation already? This is one of those times when asking it would be quicker.”
“Hallucination.”
Taketsuru still belonged to the hallucination-affirming faction.
Perhaps sensing where the conversation was headed, that hallucination appeared despite not being projected onto anything in particular.
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“Me @ Apparently an Appraisal Skill★”
Comment: “Looks like you need me after all, don’t you? It’s fine, you know? You can depend on me.”
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I let out a scoffing “Hah” at its comment.
Hallucination, what are you talking about?
I only ever used you because doing so saved time.
Whether I could see you or not, the outcome of my actions wouldn’t change.
You did nothing more than shorten the process slightly.
I’ll say it plainly.
I don’t need you. I am Kirishiro Gouto.
I’m an ordinary university student you could find anywhere.
“I know where the orb is. The Sea God’s power is inside a watermelon at our villa. The culprit who stole it was Kikkōryū Terumi, and his motive was probably love at first sight with the Sea God’s shrine maiden.”
With this much information assembled, I had already understood nearly everything that happened here.
That included what the hallucination had withheld out of consideration for spoilers while teasing me with suspense.
“What?”
“What?”
──────
“Me @ Apparently an Appraisal Skill★”
Comment: “H-How did you know!?”
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Why was it surprised?
An ordinary university student you could find anywhere was a creature who, however dense he might usually be, could reach the correct answer at critical moments using the slightest hints.
In battle series especially, there was hardly a protagonist who couldn’t identify an enemy’s weakness during combat.
In other words, once I was given this many hints, it was only natural that I would reach the answer.