“This wouldn’t have happened if Aiko had been a more reliable teacher.” “Why didn’t she bring the kids back home sooner?” “How come she wasn’t able to broadcast her location to anyone for a whole year?”
Those were the kinds of things people had started saying. Most of them didn’t even really care about the safety of the students; all that was driving them was malice.
“I’m glad she didn’t quit her job,” Sumire said softly.
“There’s no way I was going to let that happen,” Hajime said, frowning angrily.
Despite the constant bashing both in person and on the internet, Aiko had remained strong. A normal person would have crumbled under that much criticism, but Aiko had survived numerous deadly battlefields back in Tortus, so she was made of much sterner stuff. Of course, things had still been tough for her. Luckily, Hajime had been there to support her, both emotionally and with spirit magic.
In truth, Aiko had been fully prepared to be fired from her job when she’d willingly stepped into the scapegoat role to protect her students. Maybe after things settled down and the public forgot all about this event, she might be able to find a small rural school somewhere no one knew her and resume teaching, but she’d been certain she wouldn’t be able to continue teaching at her current school. After all, Hajime and the others weren’t the only class she taught. There were other students in her school that she cared about just as much, and she didn’t want to cause them or her coworkers any trouble.
Indeed, she’d been ready to quit if her boss hadn’t fired her, just so that peace could return to her beloved students a little bit faster. Despite everything that had happened, Aiko was still committed to her students above all else.
“I did the same thing I did to make everyone believe our fake story to make sure she could keep teaching.”
“That whole disseminating magic through the internet and TV thing? What exactly did you do?”
“Brainwash the world, basically.”
“You what?!”
Shu and Sumire both covered their ears with their hands, unable to believe what Hajime had just said. Meanwhile, Yue and Tio just laughed.
“So, I had Yue use her Divine Edict. It’s a special kind of magic that can influence people’s souls.”
That was the same spell Ehitruje had used to decimate Hajime the first time they’d fought. But after he’d possessed Yue’s body, she’d stolen his own signature move, as well as all of the other magic he’d developed, so she was capable of using it herself.
Indeed, the reason everyone from Tortus had no trouble understanding people in Japan was because Yue had imprinted Language Comprehension onto everyone’s souls.
Yue gave everyone a peace sign as Hajime said that. The gesture was so cute that Sumire started snapping pictures of her again. This time, Yue turned to the camera and winked, so she was clearly leaning into this rather than being put off by it.
Thank you for your fanservice! Sumire thought, pumping her fist as she kept on tapping her smartphone.
Meanwhile, Shu nodded at Hajime, asking for further clarification. His wife had been completely captivated by Yue, but he still wanted to know the rest of the story.
“Ahem! Anyway, I created Artifacts that could transmit Yue’s Divine Edict over regular radio waves, then stuck them to radio towers all over the country.”
He’d had his classmates help with this endeavor, and they’d all been busy running around the country for the past few days. Of course, they’d gladly agreed to help when they’d learned it was to help their beloved Aiko-sensei.
A certain Abyss Lord had accomplished a great deal, easily sneaking into TV stations and some very highly guarded locations without anyone noticing his presence. At this point, he was probably the most knowledgeable person in the world about industrial espionage. He’d also put his own voice recordings into the Artifacts he’d set, so there were times when you might hear “Bwa ha ha ha ha! The Demon Lord’s right-hand man has emerged from the darkness to conquer you all!” on multiple TV stations at once, or when someone opened certain webpages. The most famous Demon Lord in Japan was, of course, Oda Nobunaga, so people were starting to think his ghost was haunting the airwaves or something.
“Anyway, just watching TV or listening to the radio will get you imprinted with Yue’s Divine Edict and make you start to think that everyone, including Aiko, was a victim and that it’s the cult that kidnapped us that’s truly to blame.”
“Whoa...”
“I also uploaded a video titled ‘Emergency Broadcast!’ that I had Aiko show up in. The actual contents of the video aren’t really important, but I made it easy to show up on video sites’ front pages and anyone who watches it will also have Yue’s Divine Edict imprinted on them.”
Hajime had made use of his and Aiko’s Language Comprehension ability to upload the same video in every major language, so now everyone on the internet was discussing how Aiko seemed to know over a hundred languages.
Everyone who saw the video also became subconsciously sympathetic toward Aiko and the other students and lost interest in flaming any of them.
“Truly, magic and the internet are the most powerful combination in the world. Heh heh heh,” Hajime said with an evil chuckle. Sumire and Shu both stared at him, their expressions stiffening.
“Oh, come on, don’t give me those looks. This is the world’s fault for turning my teacher into a punching bag and trying to make her out to be the bad guy. They’re just getting what they deserve.”
It wasn’t as if Hajime’s plans were bringing anyone misfortune either. If anything, he’d made sure not to make anyone unhappy. He was quite proud of how considerate he’d been, all things considered. As a result, he didn’t feel the least bit of guilt about mentally manipulating the entire world. In fact, he figured everyone should be thanking him, even though what he’d done was something truly befitting an evil Demon Lord.
“Father, mother, please forgive him. He’s just doing this to protect all of us!” Yue said, desperately trying to defend her future husband.
“Y-Yeah, you’re right. Ai-chan definitely didn’t deserve the flaming she was getting online either,” Shu said.
“The other parents also told me they were grateful they stopped being hounded by the press.”
Of course, everyone else had also assumed Hajime had done something outrageous to make it happen, so it did sting at their conscience a little.
Still, thanks to this and all the other measures Hajime had taken, they’d all be able to return to their normal lives fairly quickly. Of course, they’d have to figure out how to catch up to the school curriculum and make up for all the time they’d missed, but they were working through those problems one at a time. From the looks of it, they’d be starting special remedial classes in December, which was a month and a half out. It was the schedule the school administration had come up with to appease the calls of the public to let the kids return to their normal lives as soon as possible.