This place was a bar. And a bar was one of the places to go to mend a wounded heart. I served him a cocktail with a much lower alcohol content and a smoother taste. Detective Kumano accepted it with a shaking hand, then began sipping at it a little at a time. Apparently he had calmed down a bit after getting all that off his chest first.
“Master, would you listen to what I have to say? Please listen to what I have to say.”
“Mmm, I’ll listen to it all.”
After that, I stayed up through the night accompanying Detective Kumano as he spat out breath that smelled strongly of alcohol together with the bitterness and the agony that had been accumulating over the years.
It was a truly blissful time where I got to truly act out the image that I had of what a bar master was like.
⚔
“Speaking of which......”
Several days after the marriage interview, Kaburagi had called Baba-Nyan to her house. While showing off the chuuni theses that she had accumulated over the years, she also took this opportunity to question Baba-Nyan about the magic system in her world. On the antique table that the two of them were sitting around were piles and piles of documents and whiteboards filled corner to corner. Baba-Nyan was happily sipping on the orange juice and fruit punch that Kaburagi had served her.
By this point, the two of them had already finished their discussion regarding the rise in prominence of the Weapons That Can Kill Demon Lords for Sure (the name from Baba-Nyan’s homeworld for the platinum weapons) and had already moved onto the beginning of the decline of the demon lords. Suddenly, Baba tilted her head and asked, “......Is Sago’s barrier impervious to all?”
“......Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason, I am asking only out of sheer curiosity. In terms of attack power and range, he far surpasses the demon lords in my world. Thus the thought arose in my mind, ‘what of his defense?’” asked Baba-Nyan while shoving away the shiratama bits and jelly pieces in her fruit punch, eating a mouthful of only the fruits and cupping her cheeks in bliss.
“Well......”
The flow of the conversation was completely natural, and Baba-Nyan’s attitude seemed completely open and innocent. However, a small alarm went off in one of the corners of Kaburagi’s mind.
Kaburagi had not been present during that time when Sago confessed to Baba about the setup, when she snapped, and when the two of them came to an understanding. She had only heard about it afterward. Due to that, a tiny seed of doubt had actually remained in her mind. She wondered if it was really so easy to move on from the anger and bitterness that follows from a dream several hundred years in the making being trampled and denied outright.
Kaburagi had faith in Sago’s eye for people, considering how he had found herself and also the outstanding talent that Shouta-kun had proved to be. The fact that he was placing his trust in Baba-Nyan surely meant that she was truly worthy of it.
However, the seed of doubt was buried deep within Kaburagi, and it whispered to her. No matter the person, everyone was liable to misunderstandings and mistakes. This seed made it impossible for her to deny outright the possibility that Baba-Nyan was actually still harboring a deep hatred of Sago, and that she was probing around in search of a way to kill Sago with a guaranteed method.
The appearance of Baba-Nyan enjoying only the fruit bits from the fruit punch, seemingly without a care in the world, was exactly that of an innocent little girl. However, she had exceedingly convincing acting skills, such that it was impossible for Kaburagi to be sure whether she was serious or not. Thing was, Baba was of an incredibly long-lived species, hailed from a completely different world, and was different from Earth’s humans in so many ways. Therefore, Kaburagi could not discern whether she really had such a huge heart that she could swallow down the anger of several hundreds of years, or whether she was just pretending to be assuaged while secretly waiting for the perfect opportunity to have her revenge.
If the fire of Baba’s anger had truly already subsided, saying something that could be construed as doubting her could very well fan those fires back to life again. In addition, she was one of their comrades in Amaterasu, and she had scruples doubting a friend. But with that said, Kaburagi could not just ignore the alarm in her head either.
After having bought about 3 seconds of time by vaguely hemming and hawing for all these thoughts to run through her mind, Kaburagi matched Baba-Nyan’s carefree tone while answering, “As far as I know, it’s absolutely invincible. His barrier is deployed automatically without him having to remain conscious of it and even poison and radiation is ineffective against it.”
That was a lie. Sago’s barrier would get disengaged when he slept, and poison was as effective against him as any normal person. The only truth in her response was the claim that radiation did not work on him.
However, if Baba-Nyan was truly probing his defensive capabilities for the sake of taking revenge against Sago, then this lie should serve as an effective deterrence. After all, Kaburagi had practically just offered confirmation that the only way to get to Sago was through a PSI drive.
If Baba-Nyan had really asked her question out of curiosity alone, then this matter could just be laughed away as an exaggeration meant as a joke.
Regardless of which it was, it wouldn’t be a problem either way.
“Is that so? This power of telekinesis truly never ceases to astonish me with what it is capable of. Kaburagi, this drink is extremely delicious. However, I am unable to bring myself to like this shiratama and this jelly. Could you consider leaving them out next time? So then, returning to our topic from before—”
Baba-Nyan casually moved the conversation along, returning to the historical account of how the demon lords in her word had fallen from power. The way she told it, like a master storyteller who causes all listeners to wait for the next word with bated breath, eventually caused Kaburagi to become thoroughly engrossed. After a while, the tiny alarm in Kaburagi’s mind went silent......until it was forgotten altogether.