EP.3.5 Daily Life After the Mission
EP.3.5 Daily Life After the Mission
The next morning, we finished all our preparations to leave as planned, and now only the actual return trip remained.
However, in Yata's case, if there was still something left to do, she'd decided to join us later.
"I'll wrap it up fast and be back, so wait just a little while for me, dear husband♡"
The second Divine Beast War nearly broke out because of Yata whispering in my ear with that seductive voice of hers, just like before...
Somehow, I managed to stop it. Tia and I were now watching the scenery pass outside the train.
"The view's great, isn't it?"
"Kyuu-it!!"
"A quiet and peaceful everyday life really is the best."
"Kyuu-ii."
"By the way, did you also enjoy last night's little outing?"
"Last night's outing? That's... huh?"
When I turned around slowly, Miho was grinning from ear to ear.
But that wasn't really a smile of excitement.
Her pupils were trembling.
"Ah, you knew...?"
"Of course I did, I have every last move my husband makes completely tracked! Those twenty years I spent solely observing my husband weren't just for nothing, you know?"
I was fucked. It seemed I had seriously underestimated Miho's obsession.
"Miho! Look, it's, you know! I didn't do anything immoral...!"
"I know everything, so it's fine."
"Huh? You know?"
"Yes, I hate to admit it, but that birdbrain does have a use after all. To think she'd eliminate my husband's enemies in advance."
Miho had spent all this time tearing Yata apart, yet now she was actually acknowledging her?
Had the sun risen in the west today?
"Even so, the fact that my husband had a secret rendezvous with another woman at night doesn't change, now does it? Right?"
And suddenly she was turning it around on me like this?
Miho seized my right hand, a lewd smile spreading across her lips.
A strange sense of déjà vu hit me...
"My husband, lately you've been spending less time making love to me, or so I think. What would you say to that?"
"I-is that so? I thought it was plenty, though...?"
"No, it's too little. So little that even using all twenty-four hours wouldn't be enough."
"Twenty-four hours is literally a whole day, though?"
"Yes! So that's precisely why you were in the wrong to spend an enjoyable time with another woman when even sharing love with me all day would fall short... wasn't it...?"
A lascivious and chilling madness surfaced in Miho's red eyes.
This was a disaster. Her eyes were saying she was going to render me useless and helpless.
We were inside a train, so there was nowhere to run. Besides, a mere human like me could never escape Miho.
"So you'll have to do it right now, our communion♡"
"M-Miho? You haven't forgotten we're in a moving train, have you...?"
"It's fine, my power will ensure the people around us can neither see nor hear us!!"
Back when I was a kid, I'd thought at least once about wanting to be invisible...
Strangely, the idea no longer appealed to me at all.
"Help! Help!! Help!!!"
"No matter how much you scream, it's useless. So now, please be a good boy and caress and stroke me, my husband...♡"
The train journey back to Central City.
Instead, it became an endless journey of madness and debauchery.
***
"Was this mission that difficult? You look quite exhausted."
"No, that's not really the case, I just... how should I put it, something strenuous happened to me..."
What had happened on the train had drained every last ounce of energy from me.
This had been the most exhausting return trip yet.
"I won't pry any further, then."
"I'd be grateful if you didn't."
Even if he did ask, it was something I could absolutely never tell him.
"So, what's the outcome of the mission?"
"The cult leader who established that new religious group wasn't a Divine Beast."
Before I parted with Yata, she had strongly impressed one thing upon me.
"My husband, no matter what happens, don't tell that director guy anything about me."
"Why? Is he some kind of sinister mastermind with shady connections? Something like that?"
"No, nothing like that. But to him, my ability would be a treasure. If he found out, he would exploit me for all I was worth, and I do not want that."
"True... Given how obsessed he is with profit, he absolutely would."
"So keep my existence a secret. I don't want to follow anyone other than you, my husband."
"Yeah, got it."
That was how I ended up filing a false report with my superior.
I didn't really feel any pangs of conscience or anxiety about lying.
Even subordinates were entitled to keep a secret or two from their bosses.
"Is that really true?"
"Yes, and although I can't say it was ordinary, it wasn't a dangerous religion either."
"You seem to know quite a lot of detail?"
"I attended one of their gatherings personally. It really wasn't that sort of criminal religious group."
"Then what about the rumors related to prophecy?"
"They were just predictions. You know the old sayings—frogs croak before rain, ants move their nests before rain. They based their forecasts on signs like those."
"Is that so..."
"You seem awfully disappointed by that?"
"If she had truly been a Divine Beast of prophecy, I planned to win her over and profit from her predictions. Of course I was disappointed."
The more I saw of Yata's prophecy ability, the more astonishing it was.
To be able to see through the core nature of someone she'd never even met this perfectly...
"Anyway, I suppose we can consider my first mission to have ended successfully?"
"Aah, you did well."
"So what's the next mission?"
"There is none."
Huh?
"None?"
"Aah, there's no separate mission to give you right at this moment. You're free to do as you like until I call you back tomorrow."
"That can't be right. Isn't it the case that agents are essentially slaves who know nothing but work...?"
"I'm not sure exactly how you've been viewing the government until now, but there's no way the nation's top agency would run itself like some sort of black company, is there?"
The words, You have no conscience, rose to my throat, but I swallowed them.
I held my tongue. At least I had been given an entire day off.
"So I am free until tomorrow?"
"Aah, I don't care what you do... but, will you be all right?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your move."
Now that he mentioned it, I was supposed to move to the capital city, wasn't I?
"Your family has already completed their move and is safely under government protection. You should start yours as well."
"If the move is already finished, wouldn't my family have sorted out my luggage for me?"
"What are you talking about? Your work from now on will be secret, so you can't live together with your family."
"This is the first I'm hearing of this, though...?"
"Oh dear. It seems your family did not tell you. Your belongings and clothes are in a temporary government storage unit. Collect them, then go to this address."
The Director slid a sheet of paper across the desk.
It held a map of Central City marked with a red star.
"That is where you will be living from now on. Go quickly and unpack your things."
"Then my time to actually rest...?"
It was already well past lunchtime. If I started unpacking now, it would be evening before I finished.
"If you finish moving quickly, won't you then have time to rest?"
Do you not have a conscience, sir?
***
What awaited me after my first mission was a house, a forced move, and forced independence.
The unexpected situation left me staring into the abyss...
"Euh-heung~♪"
"Kyuu-iit~!"
My two companion animals seemed extremely pleased.
"You two look happy."
"Yes! It feels as though we have moved into our newlywed home, does it not?"
"Kyuu-it!"
"Alright... if the two of you are happy, then that's good enough for me."
Still, the move was not entirely bad.
At our old home, I had to watch my family whenever I spoke to my Companion Animals, and all three of us had been crammed into my small room.
Moving was a one-time nuisance. Once I endured it, a home of my own awaited me.
"Let's finish unpacking fast and then rest up well today."
"Yes!"
Fortunately, all the belongings that needed unpacking were mine.
In other words, this meant it wouldn't take that much time.
"That's about it for now, I guess?"
"I'm all finished over here too!"
Contrary to my expectations, we finished the move before six.
It must have been thanks to how helpful my two companion animals were.
"Alright, then let's head outside now."
But the move wasn't completely finished.
There were quite a few pieces of furniture we were short on, and we also needed a lot of supplies for my two companion animals to use.
To fill in those gaps, I decided to stop by the department store and buy whatever we needed.
"For starters, let's head to the department store and eat dinner first."
"Sounds good!"
"Kyuu-iit!"
Having to order three servings' worth of food all by myself at a restaurant was embarrassing.
Still, because the two of them had worked so hard, I'd been able to finish unpacking my things quickly, so I could endure this level of embarrassment.
After our meal came the exciting shopping time.
I was broke and normally couldn't afford much... but at least for today, impulse buying was acceptable.
The black card in my hand would cover everything.
"Well, wouldjya look at that sheen. So that's the so-called black card, ain't it."
The card I had squeezed out of Director Edwiner. With this, I'd heard I could buy anything.
From furniture to electronics, groceries, household goods, and whatever else—even if I swept up everything we needed, this black card would forgive it.
It would even tell me to splurge more.
"Tia, Miho. If there's anything you want to buy, you can buy as much as you want! I'll allow it!"
Of course, it was not me but this card allowing it.
"A-ah, then there's something I really wanted to buy!"
"What is it?"
"This!"
What Miho brought over was a palm-sized box with the number 0.01 printed large across its surface.
"U-uh, Miho? This is a condom..."
"Since you said I could buy as much as I want, buying twenty more boxes should be fine too, right?"
"No, that's not it! Why are you buying this?!"
"Obviously, I'm buying it to use it? Ah! Or could it be that my husband is more fond of not using one?! Then you should have told me so earlier...♡"
Miho blushed red and looked bashful.
Inside her fantasy, she was apparently already doing all sorts of things with me.
"Yeah, sure, buy as much as you want..."
I could simply remove them when we paid at the register.
I left Miho, lost in her daydreams, and this time I went over to Tia.
"Tia, isn't there anything you want to buy?"
"Kyuu-it!!"
Tia strongly appealed to me, saying of course there was.
When I followed her, we arrived at the stuffed animal section.
There, Tia picked up a small rabbit plushie and hugged it tight.
"Kyuu-it!"
The baby dragon beamed, telling me this was what she liked.
How cute.
"So that's the one that caught your eye! Then of course I'll buy it for you."
"Kyu-uu!!"
If I could keep seeing Tia's happy smile like this, it felt like I could easily buy her as many plushies as she wanted.
Just when I was thinking that.
"Kyuu-uit!!"
Tia suddenly opened her mouth wide.
The teeth that jutted out from Tia's gaping maw stood up razor-sharp.
"Hwa-uh...?"
Right then and there, the baby dragon chomped down on the rabbit plushie and tore it apart with her mouth.
Before it was even paid for, the pitiful rabbit plushie was ripped in half, spilling the cotton inside.
"Kyuu-i...?"
Tia, who had been munching on the upper body of the torn rabbit plushie, seemed to realize it tasted bad and spat it back out.
And then she went off to look for a different animal plushie...
"It's fine, I'll just pay for all the damages."
I decided to let Tia do whatever she wanted, too.
The black card would cover it anyway.
"I'd better go look for something I want to buy myself, too."
Leaving my two companion animals be, I browsed around various sections of the department store.
I wandered here and there, but since I normally didn't have any particular hobbies to speak of, there wasn't much I wanted to buy.
"Any chance there's something good?"
Then I happened across the video game corner.
There was one game there that caught my interest.
"Ah, that one looked pretty fun."
[Ruin the Divine Beast Forest!]
It was a game where you smashed a village to pieces alongside cute, charming characters based on Divine Beasts.
In the past, I'd been burned by a game asking about my parents' well-being and therefore had little interest in games, but relatively recently, I'd watched my little sister having a lot of fun with this game, and it had made me want to try it.
Just as I resolved to buy it and reached out my hand to grab the very last remaining copy—
"Oh!"
"Ah!"
My hand bumped into the hand of a woman.
"Sorry!"
"No, my apologies!"
Huh? This voice and face sounded and looked familiar.
The woman apparently thought the same. She flinched and began to stare at my face, and only after a long moment had passed did she and I simultaneously let out sounds of sheer shock.
""You...! You are!!""
The woman who had hidden the egg in the forest where I first met Tia on that previous day.
The very one who had been captured and harshly mistreated by the terrorists. She and I had encountered each other in an unexpected reunion in the game corner.