Chapter 52: Ayaka Looks Cute When She Tilts Her Head

The next morning, I woke up when Ayaka came to wake me, and we had cup noodles for breakfast together.

“It’s kind of unhealthy, isn’t it?”

“We should’ve picked up some vitamin supplements at the drugstore.”

More precisely, we had taken advantage of the chaos and helped ourselves to some.

“I did bring back a few, though. Yuu-kun, can you make some vitamin potions?”

“Hmm…”

“Let me see the vitamins.”

“Here.”

Ayaka handed me a bottle of multivitamins, so I analyzed them.

“Huh… Well, it’s not impossible to make something like this.”

My alchemy didn’t necessarily require physical materials.

Having the materials would make the process faster and allow me to create a better product, though.

“Really? As expected of you, Yuu-kun. You made shampoo and toner for me, too.”

Those had been products I’d intended to sell.

They hadn’t sold at all, though.

I’d been absolutely certain they would sell…

“I’ll try making some when I have time.”

“Please do. You really are dependable.”

“Am I?”

We finished breakfast in a good mood, got ready, and left the room.

Then we knocked on the door of the room next door.

“Takamiya-san, Kitaura-san! It’s almost time to go!”

“Wait a minute!”

Was it another missing sock?

“Mayumi, I found it.”

“Oh, good!”

We waited, and eventually the door opened and the two of them came out.

“Socks?”

“Nope, a hairpin.”

That certainly would have been difficult to find.

“It’s almost nine. Let’s go.”

Ayaka said that and headed toward the elevator, so we followed her.

“What were you doing after that yesterday? I could hear you talking until pretty late.”

Even after we turned off the lights and got into bed, we could hear their voices from next door.

Of course, we couldn’t make out what they were talking about.

“We were just lounging around in the room. Then Sis Linda came over, and we had a third round.”

They drank again?

That woman was our driver. Was she really all right?

“Did you and Kitaura-san drink, too?”

“Just a little.”

“Girls’ night.”

“Oh…”

Well, it wasn’t like those two were the type to drink excessively.

“What about you guys?”

Takamiya-san asked.

“We watched the sea at night.”

“The ships were really nice.”

Yeah.

It was nice being able to talk while looking out at the sea.

“I bet the atmosphere in our room was completely different.”

“Sis spent the latter half of the night talking about nothing but dirty jokes. The shirako sake thing really put me off.”

That was pretty bad.

We took the elevator down to the first floor and headed toward the dirty-joke-loving succubus and the Poison Goblin, who were sitting on a sofa near the entrance.

“Morning.”

“Good morning.”

“Hey. Thanks to Yuu, I didn’t wake up cold and stiff this morning.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Sis, are you okay? No hangover?”

“There might not be any police around to pull you over, but please don’t get us into an accident.”

“I’m fine. I’m resistant to poison, so I’m resistant to alcohol as well.”

Really?

“I’ve got a potion that helps with hangovers, too. Here, drink this.”

I handed Linda a potion.

“Thank you. Yuu-san, you really can do anything. Why don’t we develop some marvelous potions together?”

Those would definitely be some sort of indecent potions.

“No.”

“I see. Well, then, let’s go.”

We left the hotel and got into the car in the parking lot.

Naturally, we sat in the same arrangement as before.

“I think this route would be best.”

“Hmm, hmm…”

Elvis, sitting in the passenger seat, showed Linda the route on his tablet as they discussed the journey.

“Hina, we’re going to a hot spring today.”

“Looking forward to it. I want to look at the stars from an open-air bath.”

“You’re going to be surprised when you realize there are demons around.”

That Orc guy certainly surprised me…

“All right, then. Shall we get going? I’ll drive safely.”

Sis Linda downed the potion in one gulp, started the engine, and set off.

We drove through the town.

“Yuu, Ayaka, have you found any information about Minato or Riku?”

Kitaura-san leaned forward and asked.

“Nothing at all. I’ve continued searching around Hagi and checking tourist spots and the like, but I haven’t found anything.”

“Same here. I haven’t found anything on Minato either. In fact, apart from the incident in Hiroshima, I haven’t found any information that even seems as though it might concern one of our classmates.”

Information about the conflict between demons and humans was easy to find, but we weren’t having much luck finding the information we actually wanted.

“Same for us. Maybe they’re moving around secretly?”

“I think so. They were missing for ten years, and now they have Skills and Jobs… Even if they have nothing to hide, they probably wouldn’t want to attract too much attention, especially since the world has changed so drastically since we disappeared.”

We had gone from one fantasy world straight into another.

“Hey… How about we make sure our stories match?”

Huh?

“What do you mean by making sure our stories match?”

“We’re going to Tokyo from here, right? And we’re going to meet our parents. There’s a chance, however small, that the government or police could find us along the way, and then the situation might become a much bigger problem.”

We were planning to avoid that, but she had a point. The possibility wasn’t zero.

“So you mean we should invent an excuse because, if we say we were in another world, they’ll probably put us in a psychiatric hospital?”

“No, that wouldn’t work. We couldn’t explain where we had actually been. We should simply tell them the truth. Fortunately, given the current situation, it isn’t completely unbelievable. Demons have been transported here from another world, after all.”

That was true.

Before, they might have suspected we were on drugs or something, but the world was basically fantasy now, too.

“Then what do you mean by getting our stories straight?”

“Who we say is alive and who we say is dead.”

Oh… So that was what she meant.

“What am I supposed to tell Shouta’s parents? I’ve been to his house before, so they know me.”

“I’ve been to Mei’s house, too. I want us to decide now whether we’ll mention the others who died, including our teacher, or keep quiet about them.”

Alive or dead…

“Sorry. You can call me a coward if you want, but I don’t think I can tell them.”

“Me neither. I can’t.”

Kitaura-san and I looked at Ayaka and Takamiya-san.

“That’s a difficult question… Besides, even if we told them their child had died, would their families believe us?”

“We’re alive, after all…”

None of us wanted to tell them.

Well, that was understandable.

“Don’t tell them. You’ll only create another problem.”

Elvis turned around and looked at us.

“You think so?”

“No chance. At worst, they might think you killed them.”

“Come on, surely they wouldn’t think that?”

Why did we have to be told something like that?

“They would. Even if you didn’t kill them directly, they’d ask why you failed to protect them. Then they’d treat you like murderers. Eventually, they might start hurling abuse at you and saying things like, ‘You should’ve been the ones who died instead.’”

“They probably would. That kind of attachment is one of the greatest differences between humans and demons. You can pretend you know nothing if necessary, but it would be wiser not to tell them. Dealing with people like that could seriously damage your mental health.”

Linda agreed with Elvis.

“Yuu-kun, what do we do?”

“Leader.”

“Boss.”

Hmm…

No. I already knew the answer.

“I think it’s enough for us to know what happened to us.”

I nodded firmly and stated my decision clearly.

“Okay. Then that’s what we’ll do. This is Team Dropout’s decision.”

“Yeah. I do feel sorry about it, but that’s what we’re going to do.”

“What matters most is how we choose to live. We’re the people who couldn’t become heroes or saviors, after all.”

The other three nodded as well.

“Have you decided?”

Elvis asked for confirmation.

“Yeah. Like Elvis said, we’re going to focus on the people beside us.”

If we did that, the answer would naturally become clear.

“That’s a wonderful bond. Perhaps it’s another thing humans possess that demons don’t. Treasure it.”

“Sis, you always know how to end things on a good note.”

“I know how to wrap things up nicely.”

That’s exactly the kind of thing I mean.

And stop looking so smug. Face forward, driver.