After that, everything to do with the Evil God was easily resolved.
Yuichi had assumed Hiromichi Rokuhara was dead, but he’d come back to life as part of the Evil God trinity. And when the core was destroyed, he had resurrected as a human.
He didn’t have any more of the Evil God’s power other than being a little tougher than an ordinary human. He was now extremely afraid of Yuichi, and probably wouldn’t try anything else after this.
The Divine Vessels had died with the Evil God, which also meant that the Divine Vessels War was over forever.
Ryoma Takei had lost all his power and was now hospitalized.
“In the old days, he might have been able to make a comeback. But not now,” Ende had said. “No readers are gonna want to hear about someone who lost that badly. He’s a failure as a protagonist. I feel a little responsible for his condition, so maybe I’ll look after him.”
Despite that, she didn’t really seem all that bothered by his circumstances. She really was a total creep.
At the school, the nonexistent “violent killer” was “arrested,” and the men who called themselves officers of the peace departed.
In the end, the worst that happened was that afternoon classes had gotten a little disrupted. Still, perhaps just for caution’s sake, they had been given a day off from school.
Given that the human race had nearly gone extinct, things had been kept pretty small-scale, all in all.
Meanwhile, the students, as usual, couldn’t keep their attention focused for long on things that were resolved, especially with second term finals about to start soon.
Yuichi was walking to school with Aiko as always. “I think I might finally be free from all the weird stuff!” he declared, feeling pretty elated.
“Really? I have my doubts about that...” Aiko responded, looking seriously dubious.
“Well, it’d be too much to expect everything to go away at once, but at least with Soul Reader gone, I probably won’t get involved in any new weird stuff...” Fortunately, even after Yuichi had beaten Hiromichi, the Soul Reader that had been stolen hadn’t returned.
“Um, I have a feeling Soul Reader wasn’t really responsible for any of this...” Aiko murmured.
“Really? I think it probably was—” Yuichi stopped as his eyes fell on a strange figure ahead of them.
It was a woman in an extravagant kimono, her hair full of traditional hairpins and decorated with flowers. Despite the winter cold, her kimono hung off her shoulders in an alluring way.
And she didn’t seem to be Japanese. Her eyes were blue, and her features seemed Western, too.
“Hey, don’t make eye contact with weirdos!” Yuichi warned Aiko, his voice low but clear.
The people on their daily commutes were giving the woman a wide berth, perhaps sensing that she was someone who might be dangerous to get involved with.
“Huh? But she’s staring at me really hard...” Aiko said.
It was no use. It would take severe willpower to ignore the woman after this.
“Mistress, it has been far too long since we last met.” The courtesan-like woman approached Aiko, her eyes shining.
“Um, may I ask who you are?” Aiko asked. In response, the woman suddenly started crying, as if she’d suffered a terrible shock. “Um, uh, I’m sorry, but I really don’t know who you are...”
“No, no! It is perfectly natural that Mistress would not remember me. It is I who am the fool for being so upset by something so trivial.”
“Um, please don’t grovel... I feel terrible!”
There was a courtesan standing in the middle of the road, weeping and bowing to a high school girl during the morning commute. It was a truly strange sight, and Yuichi couldn’t help but feel like he’d gotten mixed up in something again.
“Um, I seriously don’t understand any of this, but could we at least go somewhere away from prying eyes?” Yuichi said, getting the sinking feeling that this wasn’t going to be resolved easily. It was probably impossible to just ignore her and run away, but at least they could go somewhere where they wouldn’t stand out.
“Mistress? What ails your livestock?” the courtesan said. “It appears to be speaking without your permission.”
“Huh? What the...” Aiko stared blankly as if she couldn’t even understand what she was hearing.
“Did you choose him based on his appearance? Even so, he lacks discipline. I mean no offense to you by saying this, Mistress, but I believe he has little value as livestock. He is unworthy of you.” The woman’s expression suddenly shifted to a nightmarish one.
“Huh? What?” Yuichi didn’t know what to do about someone suddenly wanting to kill him for a reason he couldn’t understand. He was ready to deal with any danger at any time, but it was hard to keep his cool in the face of so sudden a shift.
“I am aware that it is impertinent for me to say this, but I cannot accept him by your side, Mistress!”
“Laura!” A dog cut in between the angry woman and Yuichi.
It was the wolfman, Nero, currently in his dog form.
“Oh? What are you doing here, Nero?” she sneered.
“Um, I have no idea what’s going on here. Can you please explain?” Aiko asked, bewildered.
“This is Laura. She is one of your retainers, Lady Aiko.”
“Oh, that’s right, I forgot I had those...” she muttered. He’d mentioned before that Aiko had twelve retainers.
“Yuichi! I shall hold things off here,” Nero barked. “Take Lady Aiko and go!”
“Well, if you insist. Let’s go!” Yuichi said.
“Huh? Are you sure we can just leave things like this?” Aiko protested.
“There’s not a huge difference between a courtesan bowing and weeping before a high school girl and a courtesan fighting a dog.”
Yuichi decided to drag Aiko back the way they came and take a different route to school.
They arrived at school, and just as they were nearing their classroom, someone called out to Yuichi. It was Kogan Yanagisawa.
“I need to talk to you. Is that okay?”
“Oh, sure...” They’d never spoken before, but Yuichi had a feeling he knew what it might be about.