“Yeah, something like that. I didn’t want to risk trying to forge foreign birth certificates, so this was the easiest story to use.”
“I feel bad for the government official you mind controlled to make those birth certificates... You’re sure there won’t be any side effects on him, right?” Sumire asked, glaring sharply at her son.
In order to get birth certificates for Yue and the others, Hajime had had no choice but to use magic on one of the officials who worked at a local government office. It was far better to get real documents than to try and forge his own, after all.
“Yeah, I used a special Artifact that Yue helped me make. Don’t worry, mom, it didn’t hurt him at all. In fact, as thanks, we used restoration magic on him to cure all of his chronic diseases.”
“Really? Well, in that case...”
“We even healed all of his coworkers. Right now, everyone in that office is the healthiest they’ve ever been. It’s actually caused a stir among all their friends, but it hasn’t made national news because everyone’s still preoccupied with us.”
“Wait, you didn’t just cast this magic on one or two people?!”
“Kaori’s the one who came up with the idea, and at the time we were too busy to cast pinpoint magic, so she just used restoration magic on the whole building. Now the locals are calling the place a sacred site that cures diabetes.”
“I’m glad they’re superstitious enough to just take this in stride.”
At any rate, according to Hajime’s story, Yue and the others had been sent to the cult headquarters right when the mysterious group had attacked them, which was why they’d been sent back to Japan with Hajime and the others. But since the facility they’d been raised in was gone now and they had no known relatives, they were staying with the Nagumo family because they trusted Hajime.
The other reason Hajime hadn’t wanted to give them foreign birth certificates was because it would have made it that much harder for them to remain in Japan. He’d needed the whole isolated facility setting because even if he could forge Yue and the others’ records, he didn’t want to mess with people’s memories and make them believe everyone had lived here the whole time.
That being said, the world wasn’t so simple that making up a fake cult to push the blame on and using magic to make everyone believe that was enough to solve all of the issues their sudden return had caused.
Unsurprisingly, they’d been the most talked about thing on the net since their miraculous return. People were making up all sorts of wild theories as the real explanation for what had happened, and of course, others were taking these rumors as ironclad facts and spreading them all over. If they’d just been outlandish rumors that looped back around to being true like “Those kids were definitely isekaied,” Hajime wouldn’t have minded. Unfortunately, the internet was a truly cursed place. People loved nothing more than being mad, and if there was nothing to be mad about, they made up things to be mad about.
“It was so annoying how people kept flocking to our door like flies. They were all so rude too,” Yue muttered angrily.
“Thank you for protecting our house while I was gone, Yue.”
Indeed, the horde of reporters that had been crowding around everyone’s houses had been quite a nuisance. What was worse was reporters had even gone to their school and the houses of distant relatives of the kids living out in the countryside or close family friends and neighbors.
Of course, there were reputable journalists as well who were kind enough to call and try to schedule appointments, but either way, their numbers were just too great. No matter how polite they were, getting hundreds of calls a day from different people got exhausting. Every single news channel was running stories about their miraculous return, including some foreign ones.
“They say rumors never last long, so I figured just using a bit of light suggestion magic and giving everyone Artifacts that hide their presence would be enough, but...”
The power of the modern information age meant that even with Hajime and the others out of the public eye, people were still finding “evidence” to corroborate whatever stories they wanted to believe. The police had fully bought Hajime’s fake story and released an official statement, but even that hadn’t stopped the internet mob.
“Hatayama-sensei—Whoops, I guess I should call her Ai-chan now that she’s part of your harem. Anyway, Ai-chan had it the worst of all... How’s she holding up now?” Shu asked gently, his voice full of concern.
Indeed, Hajime had already brought Kaori, Shizuku, and Aiko home to let his parents know they were his girlfriends as well. It had been quite a shock when the first words out of Aiko’s mouth had been “I’m sorry, I’m a failure of a teacher. I laid a hand on your son despite being an educator.”
She’d then dropped to her knees and started pleading for forgiveness.
Everyone in Hajime’s family was of the belief that if ever there was a problem, the ideal solution was simply to drop to one’s knees and apologize profusely. As a result, Hajime, Shu, and Sumire were all masters of the overly profuse apology, and even to them, Aiko’s sincere apology had impressed them.
Of course, as die-hard otaku, Sumire and Shu were both big fans of student-teacher relationships, so they gladly welcomed Aiko into the family.
Thus, naturally, Shu’s concern for Aiko was genuine.
“She takes her job a little too seriously, I think. I respect her for wanting to take the brunt of the public’s curiosity and protect all of you, but...”
Aiko was an adult. The only adult who’d been a part of the kidnapped group, in fact. On top of that, she was a teacher, so it was her job to protect her students. As a result, she’d been given the most attention of all and had to bear the brunt of the public’s malice.
Both the police and her bosses had called her in day after day to grill her on the details of what had happened, and the rest of society had been extremely cruel to her as well. The net had put her on full blast for “failing her duty as a teacher.”
“Mrrr, why does everyone think Aiko-oneechan is a bad person? They’re all dum-dums,” Myu said, shaking her head angrily, her freshly braided pigtails swinging from side to side.
“Ha ha, that they are,” Tio replied, patting Myu’s head to calm her down a little. She then turned to Yue and the others and said in a sad voice, “Myu’s absolutely right...but the world wants a scapegoat to direct their anger at.”
Sumire folded her arms and nodded in agreement.
Why Hajime’s class? How had the school allowed it to happen in broad daylight? How had no one noticed so many kids being kidnapped all at once? How had no one tracked down the culprits? What about the students who hadn’t returned? There were no satisfactory answers to those questions, so the public had looked for someone they could feel justified in venting their anger on...someone they could blame for letting this come to pass. Aiko simply happened to make a convenient target.