Where and When Shall We Meet?
The message window that suddenly popped up left me flustered for a moment—then Rebecca’s eyes gradually slid shut as she lost consciousness.
Thud—
I caught her just before her head cracked against the bed rail.
I whipped my gaze toward Akikira; she rushed over at once and checked Rebecca’s condition.
“…She’s simply fallen asleep.”
Akikira let out a long sigh.
“What… exactly did you do?”
I hesitated over whether I should answer, yet it seemed better for her to know.
“It’s a sword that erases magic. An item once used by a hero a hundred years ago.”
“What? How could something like that even…”
“It probably wasn’t that kind of sword originally. Someone must have laid a curse on it—aimed at whoever inherited the blade, to keep them from using magic.”
I lifted Rebecca as she was and laid her properly on the bed.
“That poison looked like it would become medicine for Rebecca.”
“A sword that erases magic…”
Akikira murmured while drawing the blanket over her.
In the meantime I checked the message window again.
Endings 17, 18, 19 closed.
Including the previously closed Ending 16 — four in total.
All routes sealed except the True Ending.
Compared to the time Amelia’s final ending slammed shut all at once, this was short by exactly one.
So the finishing blow still remained, did it?
Closing three endings in a single stroke naturally earned me coins as well.
+150
Total: 200
And above all—
[Simulation] ability acquired!
You can now view summaries of choice results.
Simulation?
Once again it looked like a privilege tied to dating-sim mechanics.
If I made a single choice—said one thing or performed one action—I could know the outcome in advance.
Dating sims were games of selecting options, so choosing one at a time was ideal, yet…
This was the same as peeking into the future.
“This feels like a total cheat…”
And that still wasn’t everything.
Endings remaining until Stage 4 Privilege: 3
Even the next stage still waited beyond that.
I still wondered whether it was right for only me to keep growing this way, yet of course the reward wasn’t unwelcome.
Power clenched into my fist of its own accord.
“Hey, thank you for today…”
Akikira started to say something, then changed course.
“Do you have any plans tomorrow?”
“Nothing urgent. Why do you ask?”
“I need to keep an eye on Rebecca today, so it won’t work, but if you have time tomorrow…”
She gently tucked the golden hair that had slipped free while she rushed behind her ear.
“I was thinking the two of us could share a drink… or something.”
“……”
What the hell, System.
Open an ending right now.
I activated the Favorability Scouter, then somehow suppressed the urge to look at Akikira and forced a dry cough.
I must not accept.
“Well… earlier you said you’d listen to the rest of the story later. If that hasn’t changed…”
Barely holding back the grin that kept trying to break free, I turned the problem over in my head.
Alcohol.
Having a drink.
Welcome news, sure, but…
Why had I never considered Akikira—whose age and looks were exactly my type—as a conquest target in the first place?
Precisely because of the alcohol.
This drunkard’s drinking habits were absolutely vile.
Her hobby was picking people up the way others picked up stray cats whenever she drank.
She scooped up the protagonist’s heroines.
She even scooped up the protagonist himself.
She had done it to Rebecca, and she nearly would have done it to Laward if I hadn’t stepped in.
If I accepted, we would almost certainly meet at a bar.
A drunkard plus a bar—classic combination.
Was it really safe for me to set foot on this drunkard’s home ground?
Wouldn’t I get hit by domain expansion?
While I fretted I stole a glance at Akikira’s face—and damn, she was pretty enough to make a man swear.
But I needed to get a grip.
This was inside a dating-sim game.
Whether harem or romantic comedy, in this genre and at this timing the common sense move was to lose all sense of the situation and refuse.
If I refused, Akikira would only grow thirstier and more curious about me—
“Alright. Where and when shall we meet?”
Damn it.
The next day.
Today I was going to drink alone with Akikira.
The meeting place was a small bar in District 6 that she frequented often.
Number 6. The very bar one could glimpse in Lucia’s ending.
I sat at the counter-style table and waited for her.
“Hello.”
At last a calm voice reached me from behind.
“Did you wait long?”
I turned; Akikira in casual clothes gave a light little wave.
Over a white shirt with two buttons undone she wore a leather jacket.
Below she had on pants that clung to her thighs, and the contours normally hidden by her gown were on bold display.
In the gown the eye was drawn upward; today it was the opposite.
Not quite on Rebecca’s level, yet her makeup and accessories showed far more care than when she was simply the school nurse.
Her beauty was so moving I could have filled two full pages of A4 describing exactly where and how she looked, but at that point I simply pulled out a chair for her.
Naturally it was something I would never have done on an ordinary day.
“This is a place I come to often, but strangely there’s no one here today. Even though it’s Friday.”
She spoke while glancing quickly around the room.
Just as she said, there were no other customers.
Only a bartender in a neatly pressed suit quietly polishing something.
Well…
Because this was my establishment…
I had prepared everything before Akikira arrived.
I had told the Houndry guys—myself included—that we had two guests to treat and to scrub the place spotless without a word of complaint.
“This is the first time. Everything else is fine, but maybe because other people know a good thing when they see it, the place is usually packed.”
“That’s… lucky, then.”
As she said, the bar was popular.
The Houndry guild, its name a blend of “Hound” and “Winery,” had originally been famous for its liquor, or so I had heard.
“Order anything you like. Don’t hold back.”
“No—today I’m buying. You helped me, after all. That’s why I wanted to meet outside.”
“Looking at the menu, the prices are rather steep.”
I spoke as if seeing the menu for the first time.
“That’s exactly why I chose here. I can’t treat you to cheap stuff.”
A single bottle here cost about as much as Veronica’s weekly wage after a week of back-breaking work, yet Akikira flipped through the menu with the air of someone who had already made up her mind.
“If you insist, I’ll order as I please.”
Proving she truly was a regular, she ordered two glasses from the bartender with easy familiarity.
Two weeks’ pay for a maid working at a magic-tool shop vanished in a single stroke.
“Then I’ll accept just one glass. From the next one on, it’s my treat.”
“From the next? Are you already setting up the next appointment?”
“I mean from the next glass.”
And so one glass became two.
Continuing that way, one bottle became two.
With her cheeks flushed bright red, Akikira began to make a drunken fuss.
I had expected it, so I let every word go in one ear and out the other.
If there was any slightly useful information at all:
“I used to work at the Magic Tower too.”
For reference, everything that follows is my free interpretation of Akikira’s thoroughly slurred pronunciation.
I never expected to be suddenly handed a listening comprehension test, but anyway.
“The Magic Tower?”
“I researched there for quite a long time. My major was healing magic.”
“How did someone like that end up…”
“How did I end up as something like an Academy nurse? I caused an accident, left, and my career went to absolute shit. When I got out I was already old enough and had nothing else to do, you know? I seriously considered becoming a delivery person.”
I carefully guessed that the accident had something to do with alcohol.
And as I had felt when Veronica told me similar stories, just what kind of lives did the mages of this world lead?
Succeed and you become an innovator; fail and you deliver packages.
“I never imagined something like Rebecca’s case would happen.”
She spoke while slowly swirling the ice in her glass.
“It was after I left, but I had no idea they were doing that kind of thing in secret in the same place…”
Her gaze seemed fixed on the brown liquid in the glass, yet her eyes looked unfocused.
“I think high-ranking people were involved. Otherwise it never would have been possible.”
“High-ranking people…”
“Yes. And very, very, very high ones.”
Akikira’s voice rose steadily as she spoke.
“Is living with Rebecca because of that guilt?”
“No. Completely coincidence. Meeting Rebecca, I mean. And it happened after I left, like I said.”
She exhaled a sigh and slumped forward onto the bar top.
Because of that, her slim waist showed through the gap of her rolled-up shirt.
Why am I looking at this?
“You seem quite drunk.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Let’s head back around here. Two hours have already passed.”
“No, I…”
Akikira shook her head and dropped her glass.
Thud—
I caught it with perfect timing and set it back on the table.
“Ah, I dropped it again…”
“Again?”
“No, no.”
Ah.
She must mean the teacup in the infirmary.
Back then the sensation would have been very… different from being drunk on alcohol.
She must have been terribly startled, and terribly sad.
I handed her the coat and stepped outside.
“About where your place is—I’ll at least walk you to a well-lit area.”
“You’ll take me to the main road? You don’t seem the type at all, yet somehow… you know about that too.”
“Can’t be helped. It’s already night, and this neighborhood is rather…”
Even though I’m the owner…
“…dangerous.”
“Then I won’t refuse. Thank you.”
Akikira nodded stiffly and took the lead.
Whether she was leading or I was simply propping her up was hard to say.
I had only meant to go as far as the main road, yet somehow we ended up in front of Akikira’s house.
“Please go inside. The conversation was enjoyable.”
At that she looked back and forth between my face and the mansion gate.
Once, twice—then:
“Want to come in and have just… one more drink?”
“What?”
“I feel like it’s still a little lacking. There’s some alcohol at home too. It won’t be the same as the place earlier, but…”
At this hour.
To her house.
Together?
No. No way.
This was crossing the line.
In every sense the atmosphere was sliding into dangerous territory.
Even if we quietly played Halli Galli at Akikira’s place, it still wouldn’t feel like the proper thing to do.
Walking into the home of a teacher who taught the students I sponsored—didn’t that picture look a little wrong?
It would look as though my goal from the start had been Akikira, that kind of development.
Here, truly taking a step back was the correct move.
“Alright.”
Ah, damn it.
Clack—
The mansion door closed.
For someone who had once worked at the Magic Tower, the place was a modest, ordinary single-person household.
I had heard that women living alone sometimes left men’s shoes by the entrance as a deterrent, yet Akikira had nothing of the sort.
She grabbed me the same way she had snatched my wrist at the Academy and pulled me into the room.
“I really didn’t think you’d actually come in.”
Then she shrugged off her jacket and tossed it aside carelessly.
“I thought you were the type without that kind of sense. Looks like I was wrong.”
Next her hands moved to her snug pants.
So we weren’t playing Halli Galli after all.
Yeah.
What did it matter if I lost my holy power?
What did it matter if I became incompetent starting today?
Hadn’t I raised the protagonist and the heroines well enough by now?
I had won the Dowon Festival championship and blocked seventeen out of thirty endings.
Already more than half.
Couldn’t I treat even this moment as a hidden reward?
I had resolved the Rebecca matter as well, so the kids’ business could wait a little.
From here on was adults’ time.
“All done. Hehe.”
Having finished with the jacket and then the pants, she slowly closed her eyes, so I closed mine as well.
At that exact moment—
A sound like a snake sliding through my ear, shaaak, spread through my skull.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. I just heard the voice of a bastard I failed to kill as a hallucination, but it doesn’t particularly matter.”
“Hmm… I don’t know what that means, but keep going, okay?”
-This is a chance to devour two Knight Commanders.
“What?”
“Ah—again, it’s nothing. Another bastard’s voice just showed up, but it doesn’t matter. Please continue. Do it.”
The snake and the fox of the Death God Cult. Next—
-I thought of you as a brother. Everyone calls you Brother, but I meant it. Commander.
Chris.
-How long do I have to keep doing this shit? The brothers and sisters who died yesterday are walking toward me today to kill me. Daywin, say something. What am I supposed to do now? What can I even do?
Blash.
-I’m sorry for leaving this position to you. Truly, I’m sorry. I ruined everything. And I’m really sorry for only apologizing now.
The commander who had stood between Blash and me.
-You are neither holy nor even a knight. But that is precisely why it is you. What the knight order needs now is neither honesty nor faith. Please be cruel and cowardly—and win.
Even the Bishop.
“Huff… hah…”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Just…”
I staggered to the terrace door, opened it, and stepped outside.
The cold night air made me feel a little better.
With nothing left to support her, she collapsed onto the bed the moment I slipped free.
And she fell asleep just like that.
I made certain she was truly out, then struck a match on the terrace.
-Please speak, Lord Karma.
“It’s been quite a while since I gave the order, yet there’s still no answer.”
-I’m sorry. However, just as you instructed, I have caught the fox’s tail. Once I find decisive proof, I will contact you again.
Yeah…
That must be it…
Not yet.
I still could not afford to lose my purity and become incompetent.
Those bastards were still alive.
“I’ll… kill them all…”
-I-I’ll correct myself! Just that…!
Hot rage surged up from my chest.
My eyes stung.
“Soon… soon… I’ll slaughter every last one of them…”
There had never been a moment I hated the Death God Cult as fiercely as I did right then.