I Will Make Your Name Great (1)
"Shion-san. Here's the contract we talked about."
Ninomae held out a notebook as she spoke. Han Seoyeon took it, opened it, and ran through the contents at a brisk pace.
Having entered into a contract with a demon the night before, Ninomae had come to consult her on the terms. One could hardly discuss demons on a university campus, so they met at Seoyeon's home. Notebook delivered, Ninomae scurried over and sat down on the sofa at her side.
"Well? What do you think?"
"The terms themselves don't seem bad. It appears he wasn't lying when he said compensation for damages was the heart of the contract."
Han Seoyeon went on, tracing with her finger each clause Ninomae had copied into the notebook.
"Would you tell me how you understand the contract, Ninomae-san?"
That the agreement had been struck somewhat in their favor, and whether Ninomae actually understood as much, were two entirely different matters.
"Um... for the contract fee, Philotanuss-san takes a share of the faith my streams generate, and every time I use a spell from the grimoire he takes additional faith equal to that spell's cost. That's what he said."
"More or less correct."
Han Seoyeon nodded and closed the notebook.
"Faith and all the rest of it — it's easiest to think of the whole thing as a kind of MP. Each time you stream, your MP recovers after the share you signed away is skimmed off, and when you cast one of the spells listed there, the designated amount of MP is consumed."
Go into the finer print and there were clauses by which Philotanuss skimmed a brokerage fee from his own vassals on every such occasion... but none of that concerned Ninomae herself, so she decided to leave the explanation out.
"But is it true that even if I hadn't signed, some other demon would have taken the faith anyway?"
"Yes, that's correct. The MP comparison also accounts for the fact that you cannot exceed your maximum. Whatever overflows leaks away and is reclaimed by Etube."
"...W-wait a second. You don't mean—"
Whatever nuance she had caught in those words, Ninomae's expression stiffened ever so slightly.
"I imagine your guess is the right one. Etube was made by Mammon and Asmodeus. They came to an arrangement in which the former takes the revenue and the latter takes the faith."
Mammon the miser, and Asmodeus the head librarian. Names famous enough that even Ninomae knew them — demons counted among the Seven Demon Kings, bound to the Seven Deadly Sins themselves.
Great demons of that order, the masters of Etube...? Ninomae was struck utterly dumb.
"Demons keep pace with modernization as well."
"True enough... they even gave me a mobile version when I signed."
Ninomae gave a brisk sweep of her hand through empty air, and from the space where nothing had been, a thick book in a black cover sprang into being. A moment later she held up an application icon identical to the emblem on its cover.
"Honestly, the demon was far more at home with modern systems than I am, and I was raised by the Church. For all I know there are VTuber demons out there. We simply haven't met any."
"Ahaha, that's a funny thought... no, wait. They don't actually exist, do they...?"
In all seriousness, it was a plausible notion. The two of them looked at one another with peculiar expressions.
"...Shall we drop it? This is getting scary for no reason."
"Well, carelessly digging for the red pill is an NG in this line of work."
Once they started digging, the matter seemed likely to grow considerably complicated, and so in the end the two of them let the thought go.
"Anyway, I'm glad this grimoire looks so substantial. When they told me to pick one at random, I was a little worried I'd draw a dud."
Ninomae said it while fluttering through the pages, as if to steer the conversation elsewhere.
"If he keeps demons with abilities this varied and useful as subordinates, does that make Philotanuss-san an incredible demon?"
"Hm. About that. It may be more accurate to say the opposite."
"The opposite?"
"It is precisely because they possess powers that look impressive that they can be nothing more than subordinates."
Han Seoyeon indicated one of the pages as she spoke.
"Demons with so-called fantastical abilities — powers that resemble game skills — are, as a rule, creatures born not long ago. They came into being from the image of demons as they appear in modern fantasy works."
Just as Philotanuss had told Ninomae, thought and feeling become power in their own right. A single, firmly established image needs only the slightest catalyst to become an anomaly all by itself.
"By contrast, one doesn't readily picture the ancient demons of myth casting techniques like Fireball or Thunderbolt, does one?"
"That... might be true."
"The ones who recruited those young but useful newcomers on a massive scale are Belial's faction."
Having explained as much, Han Seoyeon rose from her seat.
"In any case, with this you too have become a proper anomaly, Ninomae-san. Allow me to give you a business card, to start."
She drew one from the drawer beneath the television and offered it over.
"Whatever else may come of it, you will not become an enemy of the Church. The Japanese government won't raise any objection either."
"Ah, thank you."
"Not at all. A character reference of this much is only proper."
They were hardly strangers. Han Seoyeon smiled faintly, and Ninomae clutched the card tight against her chest, as though it were something precious.
"Just in case, I ought to contact the Japanese diocese as well..."
Then, realizing there was no phone nearby, Han Seoyeon checked the hand she had been about to extend.
"I seem to have left my phone upstairs. I'll go and find it."
She said so and left, but her return was quite swift.
"You found it already?"
Seoyeon's house was nothing beside Yuri's residence, which belonged to another world entirely, but it was still quite large. A thorough search would have taken an age.
"The house is large, yes, but the part where I actually live is fixed. Most of it is empty, or rooms I use for storage."
She herself did not seem particularly fond of a spacious home. She hadn't bought the place to live in to begin with — it had been an investment, and she was only staying there because it felt wasteful to leave it sitting idle.
"I've found that a house isn't better simply for being large."
"You think so? Still, all else being equal, isn't a bigger room nicer?"
Ninomae tilted her head, as if she found it hard to agree. Setting aside the number of rooms, even the size of each one was greater than the place where she lived. How lovely it would be to live somewhere like this. A big two-story house in Tokyo — one could call it every ordinary person's dream.
"If I only had the money, I'd love to try living in a big house like this."
"Then would you like to?"
A brief silence fell. It had come out so naturally that, for an instant, Ninomae failed to follow.
"W-w-what...!"
"...?"
Han Seoyeon, for her part, did not seem to fully grasp what her own words had meant.
Then Ninomae's thoughts sank into a thick, clinging confusion. If she wanted that, she should come live here. At this rate it was nothing short of—
"Living together. That's what that is......"
A phrase that set her face burning even as she said it, for reasons she couldn't name. Ninomae knew perfectly well it hadn't been meant in that sense, and yet her cheeks flushed all the same. Perhaps it was the scraps of a girl's heart that still lingered in her, even at this age.
"Ah."
Only upon hearing that shy murmur did Han Seoyeon turn her own words over again. This was not a decision to make in the simple spirit of moving house. It meant taking another person into a private life she had lived alone. She pressed her fingertips to her brow. She had certainly been rash — neither a thing to mention lightly, nor a thing to decide lightly.
"......"
And then, all at once, she called those words back and looked at them again. The life Ninomae had likely pictured, she pictured as well: her ordinary days, with one more person added.
"I think I would find it quite enjoyable."
She opened her mouth again. Seeing Ninomae stare back at her with a slightly vacant look, she went on.
It was not a thing to say lightly, so she had considered it in earnest, and still she arrived at the same answer. One had to admit it was hardly an ordinary way of thinking. How many people in the world could say such a thing, in a moment like this, and mean it? Fortune or misfortune, there was at least one such person in the room.
No ornament, and no hesitation — only a sincerity she had just now arrived at, set down as it was. She said it because she truly thought it, and so, though her voice barely betrayed the feeling, the truth of it seeped through all the same.
"Ninomae-san?"
"Haaah......"
"...Ninomae-san?"
The result was something anyone but Han Seoyeon could have predicted with ease. She found herself face to face with a persimmon gone past scarlet into a deep, overripe crimson. Had it been the dead of winter, she might have seen white steam rising in soft wisps from that forehead.
"Ah — of course, this is only a suggestion. If it doesn't appeal to you, you're more than welcome to refuse."
Seoyeon added this, whatever she made of the reaction. Hearing it, Ninomae shot her a sharp glare. To be honest, it rankled a little: tossing out words that were embarrassing just to hear, while she herself remained perfectly serene.
What is this adorable creature?
But a glare depends on the one doing the glaring. Unfortunately for Ninomae, Han Seoyeon felt not the slightest threat in that look. When Seoyeon offered a faint smile at the sight of her, Ninomae smiled back without thinking, bright and helpless. A beat later she caught herself with a startled little gasp and locked her expression down, but it was already too late. Once someone had crossed into the category of a person she was close to, Ninomae was hopelessly soft.
"Ugh. Fine, I'll move in!"
"That is very happy news."
"But listen."
She went on, her face a little sullen.
"Please be more careful about what you say. If it hadn't been me, no one would have thought it strange to take that as a proposal."
"Hmm. It comes across that way, does it."
Han Seoyeon let a low, thoughtful hum escape her.
"Just imagine Charlotte-san saying exactly that to Mary."
"That is... ...hm. That is certainly TeeTee."
"That's what I'm saying!"
At last realizing that her remark had been peculiar in more ways than one, Seoyeon scratched at her cheek.
"Even so, it was what I truly felt..."
"Idiot. That makes it worse."
"Hmm?"
Unable to bear it any longer, Ninomae leaned lightly against the woman who looked as though she hadn't the faintest idea what was happening, and gave her a few soft little thumps with her fist. Setting aside a lethal dose of cuteness, it dealt no damage whatsoever — though the grievance Ninomae was nursing came through clearly enough. And because the other party was airing her discontent, Han Seoyeon had to expend considerable effort not to let a laugh slip out.