The very next day after it was confirmed that the PSI drive could indeed deal damage to me, I immediately called Baba into the interview room located in the underground base. This was our second one-on-one within two weeks’ time.
Last time, I questioned Baba about the specs of the PSI drive and eventually issued the GO sign. This time, however, depending on how things went, I was resolved to put a stop to the development in the worse case scenario.
I intended to explain everything going on behind the scenes to Baba.
The best outcome would be her agreeing to join us on the set-up side. Honestly speaking, there was already too much to do for Kaburagi-san and me alone, to the point where we weren’t sure if we could recruit any more members into the organization. As a perfect example, now that Kaburagi-san was down for the count, I was having to shoulder on everything all by myself. With her ability to make PSI drives and her wealth of experience in politics, Baba could make for an extremely reliable addition to our team.
The next best outcome was, despite refusing to join the set-up team, her still agreeing to keep her mouth shut about us. I thought that this was the most likely scenario.
Kaburagi-san and I were both having plenty of fun being on the back end. In contrast, Baba had been so eager to embark on an adventure that she had even crossed worlds. Would she truly be happy being on our side of the curtain?
There was a possibility that she wouldn’t see the appeal of it. If that was truly the case, then there was no helping it. At the very least, I would have her maintain her silence, so that she doesn’t steal away the dreams of the general organization members.
She might have the appearance of a little girl, but she was a full-grown adult. And not just your run-of-the-mill adult, but a living, talking, breathing archaeological find of more than nine centuries in age. Regardless of how she felt, I wanted to trust that she wouldn’t expose the dirty truth to a pair of adolescents enjoying their youth and inflict severe trauma to their hearts. I wasn’t sure whether she would join the set-up team, but was relatively sure that I could get her to promise to maintain her silence.
The worst outcome would be heartbreak or rage. Baba had put everything on the line and discarded everything she had to come to this world. The fact that “it was all just make-believe!” was surely going to be an incredible shock.
Extreme heartbreak might cause her to hang herself.
Extreme rage might cause her to die from a fit of anger.
I hadn’t the faintest idea how to calm down emotions accumulated over several hundreds of years. If she allowed all her packed-up emotions to explode all at once, then I would not be able to handle it. Though I would still do the best I could.
If her anger led her to go mad or try to kill me with all caution thrown to the wind, then I would have had to keep her under house arrest until Kaburagi-san and I could come up with a countermeasure.
I very much wanted to avoid the pathetic development of me messing things up and waiting for Kaburagi-san to fix everything for me. The best way to avoid that would be to consult her before doing something this momentous, of course. However, despite having said that she’d recuperate in a week’s time, two weeks had already passed, and she had yet to be seen. There was no way I could bring myself to burden her with anything more when she was already so down from the significant mental trauma that she had received. That meant I had to deal with all of this by myself somehow.
......Up till now, I’ve been leaving all the coordination and negotiation necessary to keep the organization running up to Kaburagi-san without giving it much thought, but could it be that she’s been dealing with things like this all the time? Just this one matter alone is already enough to stretch me to my limits. How does she handle numerous issues like this at the same time? She really is incredible.
And therefore, Baba and I were sitting across from each other with a table in between once again, two weeks on. Baba was bouncing on top of the sofa, happily enjoying the soft and springy feeling. The child-like display seemed very fitting for her appearance, but I worried whether she was regressing in mental age. However, the more she had regressed and the more fun she looked like she was having, the greater the fall would be when the shock I delivered her slapped her to the ground.
I was no master conversationalist, but what I did have was earnestness. My best strategy was to be honest and frank, not holding anything back and not relying on any petty tricks.
As a countermeasure against the one in a million chance of the middle school students coming in, I used telekinesis to lock the door, and set up a telekinetic soundproof barrier. Then I jump-started the conversation. “Ahem. So, the reason why I called you out this time......”
“Yes?” Baba stopped bouncing, instead leaning forward with her jade-colored eyes glittering brightly. An “I’m having so much fun!” aura was emanating from every part of her body.
The sight almost made me lose heart.
Should I really tell this baba the truth? Wouldn’t it be too cruel? Surely it’d be better to let her continue dreaming...... But no, if I leave her be, I’ll die.
After gathering my resolve one more time, I said, “Long story short, everything so far has been a set-up. The demon lord and the hero are both a mere charade. I’m really sorry.”
“Nya?” uttered Baba in bewilderment, apparently having slipped back into her native tongue due to surprise.
I then dived straight into my explanation. “You’re probably having trouble understanding what I’m talking about. So I’ll start from ten years ago, the day when I abruptly awakened to my superpower—”
At first, Baba looked very doubtful, but that gradually shifted into astonishment. By the time I was almost done, she was so enraged that her white skin had turned thoroughly red.
“—And that’s why, for the sake of protecting my own life, I—”
“Y-You, ym, yo f kucu doiti! Csum csuerk cmohektfurer! Kufc! Kufc yo ssohlaue!!!”
Before I could finish, Baba kicked her sofa away and leaped over the table to grab my collar, pushing me down in the process. I hadn’t the faintest idea what she was saying, but I had a very strong feeling that she was cursing me with extremely foul language. I decided to quietly accept it all.
Whereas part of me watched on detachedly, thinking “Ahh, so she’s going the rage route. Well that sucks, it’s the worst one of them all,” another part of me wanted to cry too at the sight of the tears welling up from the edge of Baba’s eyes as she splayed saliva everywhere in her rage.
Ahhh, please don’t cry. I knew I shouldn’t have told you after all. But please forgive me. I don’t want to die either. The one in the wrong here is this shitty reality. Why did Baba come to this shithole of a world?