Chapter 88

She looked up at his face. “…Didn’t you say you were going back to Earth?” “I never said that. I thought I told you I would never go back.” “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” Arian would never forget those words he’d whispered to her as he’d hugged her tightly. “But you just said, ‘So this is good-bye’…” “Oh.” Shinichi finally pieced it together and showed her the object in his right palm. It was the strange little box that played music and videos—a smartphone. “I’m saying good-bye to this. I was going to send it back to Earth.” “I thought it would be a lost opportunity, since Rino likes its…music and games, but I couldn’t stop him if that was what he wanted.” Arian cocked her head to the size, puzzled. “…Why?” “I wanted to make sure my parents and friends knew I was doing all right in another world.” Shinichi replayed the video of himself he’d just been recording. “Hi Mom. Hi Dad. It’s me. I’m in another world right now, and—” “I thought they might find it easier to believe if I showed them a video.” On the screen, Shinichi cast a spell and made a flame appear over his hand as he explained his current situation—mainly that he was doing well. “I don’t want to go back to Earth now, but I’m sure my parents have been worrying about my disappearance and thinking I died in a ditch or something.” Shinichi scratched his nose bashfully and paused the video. “According to His Majesty, he can send my smartphone back to the place where I got summoned. We’ll be lucky if it gets back in one piece, but it’s better than doing noth—Uh, what’s wrong?” Arian was looking pale. The next moment, she went bright red, flying into a blind rage at the maid. “Celes, you lied to me! I thought my heart was going to stop!” “All I said was that this room with the magic circle had been used to summon Lord Shinichi. I never said he was going to leave.” “Then why won’t you look me in the eyes!” As they blamed each other for jumping to conclusions, Rino cried tears of joy. “Waaah. I’m so relieved…” “You’re so dramatic. You know I never break promises,” said Shinichi. “Yeah. You said we’ll be together until death do us part.” “Wait! Is that what I think that means?!” asked the Demon King. “Give it a rest, and just accept their relationship.” Regina held back the helicopter parent from pouncing on Shinichi. The human boy smiled at the chaotic mess and held up his phone. “Would you mind taking a video with me? It’ll help my case to show I’m in another world.” “Sounds fun!” exclaimed Rino. “It’s for your mom, right? …Wouldn’t it be better to show her the faces of her grandchildren?” suggested Arian. “Our pervy hero,” said Celes, “always thinking the lewdest thoughts.” “Come on, my husband’s going to be finished with the magic circle soon,” urged Regina. “Shinichi, I have yet to accept you as my son-in-law!” growled the Demon King like a dog standing its ground even after losing the fight. He let Regina handle everything else, and Shinichi double-checked the amount of storage he had left on his phone. “You’ve been through thick and thin, old friend… Oh, I still have this?” “What is it?” asked Arian curiously. “Blackmail for the knight hero.” Arian peered at the phone, and Shinichi showed her the foul video of the first heroes he defeated. He wanted to treasure it as a memory. “…Delete it.” “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if it went viral on Earth?” “You are so dirty,” Celes snapped, and Shinichi grudgingly deleted the video. In that moment, in a land far away, the former hero and knight Ruzal—Shinichi’s first enemy—suddenly felt a strange weight lifted off his shoulders. Shinichi turned the phone’s camera to the three girls more important to him than Earth. He wanted to give a proper good-bye to his parents. Shinichi Sotoyama’s mother, Youko Sotoyama, came into possession of this exact phone, half a day after he went missing. It all started in the morning. After Youko saw off her son and husband, finished the chores, and took a little break, she received a phone call from Shinichi’s school. “Shinichi has disappeared from campus. Do you know where he is?” asked the somewhat panicked voice of Shinichi’s young homeroom teacher. “Disappeared?” Youko cocked her head to the side. Apparently, Shinichi had arrived at school as always. He’d greeted his friends in class, but then no one could find him after that. They thought he went to the bathroom and thought nothing of it. Except he still hadn’t come back after homeroom or when they started their lesson. The teacher thought that was strange and decided to contact his mother. “Shinichi has his…quirks…but he’s a very serious student. He’s never ditched class, so I’m worried something might have happened…” “Uh-huh.” Compared with his homeroom teacher, his mother’s response was blasé. She knew her son was the kind of person to calmly call himself an ambulance with his good arm even when his other was broken in a car accident. She knew he wouldn’t die without a fight, even if he did end up in danger. “It’s not even the anniversary of the day Nozomi died. Where would he ditch school to go?” Youko managed to console the homeroom teacher before hanging up. She spent the rest of the day lazing around and watching movies, but Shinichi didn’t come home even as it got dark out. She got another phone call from the homeroom teacher. “Sorry to bother you again. Has Shinichi come home yet?” “Not yet. And I suppose he didn’t return to school, either?” “I’m sorry… But he did leave something behind.” “All right, I’ll come pick it up now.” Youko hopped on the bus, thinking about how that homeroom teacher was always apologizing for everything, and headed toward the high school. There, she was handed Shinichi’s smartphone. “This was the only thing left on his seat.” “Uh-huh…” “You don’t think he was kidnapped, right?!” The homeroom teacher started to weep. “Impossible,” said Youko firmly. “If that boy was kidnapped, he’d sweet-talk the criminal into joining him in a more lucrative venture.” “O-of course.” The homeroom teacher thought Youko was making a joke to cheer her up and offered a weak smile. Youko was being 100 percent serious. When she took the phone, she had a feeling that something was off. Was it always this dirty? She’d bought it for Shinichi only about a year ago, and he’d been really careful with it. Now it had a lot of scratches all over, and the charging port was black like it’d been burned. The phone strap she was certain had been on it was gone. It’s hard to imagine it would be nearly inoperable in only a day… Youko elected not to say anything, since it would just make his teacher fret even more, and left the high school. She went back home and found her husband had already returned from work. She told him what happened and plugged the phone into a charging port. Her eyes opened wide in surprise. “What? It’s not locked?” Shinichi was so particular about his privacy that he’d installed facial recognition locks on his phone. He was always chuckling about how the hardest ones to crack were the best ones to hack. He would test out its recognition capacities by trying to unlock his phone with photographs and 3D models of himself. He eventually went with the best one. It was unlike her anxious son to leave his phone unlocked and its contents viewable to anyone. “Hmm. Can I look at it?” “It’s his fault for skipping school and making us worry. It’s fine. Let’s take a look,” urged her husband. Youko swiped through the phone and noticed something stranger: Most of the apps had been removed from the homepage—videos were in their place. “I think it means we should watch these,” Youko guessed and hit play. The video was recorded in a room built from stone, as if he was in some castle, and showed the face of their son, though he looked stronger than before. “Hi Mom. Hi Dad. It’s me. I’m in another world right now… Sorry if I made you worry.” ““…What?”” they said, mouths agape as they listened to their son’s fantastical message. They could hardly believe it when he explained he’d been summoned by a demon king to another world a year ago. But his phone was so dinged up, it looked like it’d seen a year’s worth of adventures. Even his face looked more mature. “Hmm… I wonder if time flows differently there.” “Youko, that’s not really the issue here,” her husband said, but Youko’s guess wasn’t far off. Earth and Obum were in different universes, which meant their time wasn’t in sync. On top of that, the Demon King had used a spell he called Return Home, which sent something back to the location it was when it was originally summoned—in space and time. After vanishing for a mere second from the classroom, the smartphone had returned to its original location—while a full year had passed on Obum. Of course, Youko wouldn’t have any way to know that. Besides, something more interesting was happening now in the video. “H-hello, future mother-in-law! It’s nice to meet you. My name’s Arian. I’m very attached to Shinichi, and—” “Rino here! I’m close to him, too! We take baths together and sleep in the same bed! “My name is Celestia, Lord Shinichi’s maid. Please call me Celes.” It seemed three beautiful girls—very interested in their son—were trying their best to make a good impression on their potential in-laws. Youko couldn’t stop herself from breaking into a smile, though she remained uncertain about the whole thing. “He might have sweet-talked the heck out of them. I wonder which one he likes the most?” “Look at him, dammit! I wish I was surrounded by young, hot women.” “……” “W-wait, honey! Those Valentine’s Day chocolates were totally leftovers from the girls in the office! And that dinner was just for business! I would never cheat on—Gaaaaah!” Youko crushed her husband’s balls with her foot and looked at the video, which seemed near the end. She smiled, sighing through her teeth. “How can you leave us to fend for ourselves in our old age…? But as long as he’s happy…” Ever since the day his childhood friend had drowned in the ocean, she’d noticed her son had changed, only ever showing anyone a fake smile. Seeing him with those girls from another world, grinning from ear to ear like he was actually happy, left her with no complaints. After Shinichi sent his smartphone back to Earth, he asked the Demon King and Regina to erase the magic circle. He headed upstairs with the three girls. “I feel like a weight has finally been taken off my shoulders.” He looked up at the blue sky and stretched out his back. Arian’s face clouded over. “Was it the right thing to do?” It wasn’t like they couldn’t redraw the magic circle, but erasing it would significantly reduce the success rate of Return Home. That meant Shinichi wasn’t ever going back to Earth. Shinichi turned to the girls who looked so concerned. He flashed his teeth. “It was for the best.” He had originally been summoned against his volition and had accepted the challenge of taking on the heroes for fun. Now there were too many things he cherished in this world. He had no desire to return to Earth. With the final good-bye to his parents, he was ready for the magic circle to be gone to cut off any lingering doubts. Shinichi explained that to the girls, then remembered something. “By the way, did you need me for something?” They’d come rushing to the lowest floor of the castle, which was usually unoccupied. He could only assume they needed him or the Demon King. “Oh, umm…” “Shinichi, which of the three of us are you going to marry?” Rino bluntly asked. “Rino?!” Arian exclaimed in nearly a shriek. The Demon King’s daughter had come in swinging. Rino smiled innocently. “Mommy’s holding Daddy back. If you’re going to say it, you have to say it now.” The only reason Regina had bothered to hang back in the basement was to help her daughter; it wouldn’t take that much time for the Demon King to erase the magic circle on his own. “Rino, you’re scaring me!” Arian started to tremble violently. Celes implored him. “Please answer. Wasn’t it part of the reason you sent your smartphone back to Earth?” “Ah, you got me,” Shinichi admitted, then shyly opened up about what was in his heart. “I’m sorry for putting this off. I knew how you felt about me, but I stayed silent because I wasn’t confident enough. Sorry.” “I’m sure you were only thinking about the future. You don’t have to apologize,” Arian assured him. She was happy he had held off until they were in times of peace, because it meant he wasn’t just looking for physical pleasure but loved the person enough to make him want to be with them forever. Shinichi smiled in self-contempt, thinking her evaluation of him was far better than he deserved. “I’m just a scared chicken that couldn’t make up my mind until I eliminated all threats, set the stage, and got rid of lingering doubts.” Shinichi was finally aware of why he lacked self-confidence. “I was scared I’d lose someone again.” Sometimes, the scythe of death swung between two people, cutting you apart forever. Even if you loved them. This irrational, inevitable fear had been eating him up inside. “Part of me thinks I should never love someone again…” Shinichi smiled in self-contempt again, slowly looking around at the three girls’ faces. They had already become so important to him. He didn’t want to lose any of them. That was why he hadn’t been able to take that final step, making him a total coward. “I don’t want to lose any of you, so I’m going to give you your answer now.” He took a step toward the agitated girls. “Shinichi,” implored the half-dragon hero. She was so simple, it worried him sometimes. Her personality was a difficult one, but she was the most honest person he’d ever met—hands down. “Shinichi,” said the Demon King’s daughter. She’d started to show her darker side as of late, but her smile lit up countless lives like the sun. “Lord Shinichi,” beckoned the dark elf maid. She was expressionless at first, coming after him with her barbed tongue, but over time, she’d started showing him a cuter side. It was because he loved these three girls that he stepped forward and told them his choice. “Arian, I promise to make you happy. Will you continue to support me by my side?” He took her hands, which were trembling from nerves, and squeezed them firmly. “…Are you sure?” “You’re the only one for me.” Shinichi smiled as Arian looked up at him with uncertainty. “You know I’m nothing but a weak coward. My cleverness is the only thing I have going for me. But with your support, I could defeat a god.” They had taken this world in their hands with his intelligence and her strength. “Arian, give me your everything.” “Shinichi…” His confession slowly settled in her heart. Tears flowed from her blue eyes. She didn’t wipe them away, offering a messy smile. “I already told you. I give you my life, my heart, my everything.” Take it, she seemed to urge, closing her eyes and tilting up her chin. Shinichi let go of her hands, and she waited for his arms to wrap around her… Instead, he passed by her. “…Huh?” Arian snapped her eyes open to see Shinichi cradling Rino’s small hands. “Rino, I will be with you until I die. Will you be my guide in life to make sure I never take the wrong path?” “Yes. I want you to tell me if I make a mistake, too, without holding back.” “I promise.” “First, I want you to tell me how you actually make babies!” “…How’d you know I lied to you?” “Hee-hee, it’s a secret! I’m so bad.” Rino smiled cutely, like a little imp. Shinichi felt a little scared but stroked her head gently. “…What?” Arian was confused as she watched him, but he was already moving on and holding Celes’s hands. “Celes, we have a bright future as a married comedy duo!” “Why are you joking?” She clawed at him. “Owww! It’s just… I feel shy trying to tell you how I really feel…” “Seriously. What do you think of me?” “The best maid I could have ever asked for.” “…That’s unfair.” Celes was caught off guard by his serious confession, and her tanned cheeks flushed pink. “……” Arian stood there watching what was going on, no words left in her now. Shinichi smiled uncomfortably, then walked directly to her and gripped both her shoulders. “And…um… I’m not sure how to say this, but…you’re the number-one girlfriend!” He couldn’t live without his number-one little sister or his number-one maid. He was choosing to have his cake and eat it, too. Arian faced the self-proclaimed weak coward, eyes glaring gold in anger. “You dirty bastard!” She smacked him across the cheek with all her might. “Gah!”