Epilogue: Yuichi’s Battles Really Will Continue, Apparently

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.

He thought back on what had happened in the classroom the other day — Yanagisawa must have noticed Yuichi throwing the tactical pen.

He let Aiko go on ahead and the two of them moved to a corner of the hallway. From here, as long as they kept their voices down, no one would be able to hear them.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” Yuichi asked.

“Chiharu Dannoura.”

“Wait, what?”

“You know her, right?”

“Sure I do, but what about her?”

“Break up with her.”

“Huh?” Yuichi was at a loss for how to respond.

“You know I love Chihiro!” the boy declared.

“No, I don’t! This is the first time I’ve ever talked to you! And I can’t break up with her, anyway!”

“I see... I’ll have to resort to force, then.” Yanagisawa’s eyes immediately narrowed. Yuichi felt his malice like a tangible thing.

“No, I don’t mean it like that!” he said impatiently. “I can’t break up because we’re not dating. We’re not romantically involved.”

“Really?!” Yanagisawa’s face lit up immediately. He was apparently the extremely simple type.

“What in the world made you think that we were?” Yuichi asked.

“Chiharu told me that you were in her harem.”

“That’s defamation of character. I’m inclined to sue.”

“I know you’re surrounded by women all the time. The thought of Chiharu ending up with a playboy like you... but I guess there’s no fear of that, right?”

“None at all. So, you and Dannoura know each other?”

“We were childhood friends,” Yanagisawa said. “Both our families run old dojos, and they get along.”

“Oh, well, I’ll do whatever I can to help!” Yuichi said.

It was annoying having Chiharu talking about him being in her harem. Maybe if he could get these two together, that would stop.

“Really? After I ambushed you? Wow, you must really be a good guy! I had no idea!”

“Well, we’d never talked, so I guess you wouldn’t.”

“Talk to you another time! I’d better go.” Yanagisawa left Yuichi and went back into the classroom.

“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious,” Yuichi whispered in relief.

A voice spoke up behind him. “It’s not happening, by the way.”

Yuichi looked in the direction of the voice. Ende was standing there, wearing the uniform of Seishin High School.

“Um, why are you here?” he asked.

“I transferred.”

“That was fast!”

“Well, it was easy enough.”

“So what did you mean, ‘It’s not happening’?”

“Events are going to unfold around the two of them so that Chiharu ends up fighting Yanagisawa... at least, that’s what it says in this book. Want to read it?” Ende offered him a paperback she was holding.

“One of your books about the future, huh? But it’s not set in stone, right?”

“Guess not. The smallest things can change the future, so they’re not actually that reliable.” But even as Ende said that, Yuichi couldn’t help but feel like it must be their destiny to fight.

As he was stewing over what to do, the warning bell for the start of class sounded, and Yuichi raced into the classroom.

During lunch break, Yuichi headed to the cafeteria to buy himself a meal.

He was buying some bread when he found Shota Saeki at his side.

“You didn’t bring a lunch, Saeki?” Yuichi asked.

“Nah... actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Sure thing. What’s on your mind?”

Shota sat in the seat in front of Yuichi in class. The guy could probably talk to him at any time, so there was something strangely cryptic about his behavior.

Yuichi and Shota both bought bread and headed for the courtyard, where they found a bench and sat down.

“So, what is it?” Yuichi asked. “Something we can’t talk about in the classroom, I guess?”

“I’m not quite sure how to start. It might not make any sense, and you might think I’m crazy, but...”

“Go ahead, try me. You know how my sister is. I’m used to people saying crazy things. No matter how weird it is, I won’t make fun of you or anything without hearing the whole story.”

Shota was a pretty cheerful guy, but he wasn’t the type to make up something outrageous. Yuichi felt confident in promising that he could hear him out to the end.

“I was visited by aliens.”

“Uh?”

“You are making fun of me!”

“No, I wasn’t making fun, it was just a really surprising thing to hear,” Yuichi said. “Keep going.”

“Yesterday after we finished practice, aliens showed up on the field.”

“Okay, I’m not making fun of you, but what made you think they were aliens?”

“The UFO, I guess? They came in a flying saucer.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then aliens came out.”

“What did they look like?”

“Just like Earthlings. Their skin was a little bluer, I guess. It was night, though, so I’m not totally sure.”

“And these aliens came all the way from space to visit Seishin High’s athletic field? What did they want?”

“Yeah, you are making fun of me!”

“No, I’m not. So, these aliens. What did they want?”

“Apparently they came to invade Earth.”

“Sounds like Earth’s done for, then,” Yuichi said. “I don’t know where they came from, but there’s no way we can fight anyone who has space travel technology.”

“Actually, from what they said, there’s a sort of space federation type of thing out there, and they’re a part of it, which means they’re forbidden from going to war. Instead, they want to settle it with a small-scale competition with a specific set of rules.”

“I feel like I’ve heard this somewhere before...”

“So now we need to play soccer against aliens,” Shota said. “I don’t know what to do. It feels weird having the fate of the Earth riding on my legs.”

“Yeah, that sounds tough.” Yuichi didn’t know what else to say.

“Well, I really did meet aliens, but when I hear myself explain it, I’m not sure I believe it either. Thanks for hearing me out to the end anyway.” With that, Shota stood up. It seemed like getting to say it all aloud had let him sort it out in his mind.

“Hey, can I come to watch your match?”

“I’m not sure. They might not let outsiders watch...”

“In that case, could you put me on the team, even if it’s just as a reserve player?” Yuichi asked. “It’s not that I doubt you, I’m just curious.”

“Well, it’s not a regulation match, so there are no particular requirements on who can play. I’ll check.” With that, Shota left.

If yokai and gods existed, maybe it wasn’t that strange that aliens might exist, too, Yuichi thought.

As he was returning to his classroom, he was approached by a pale-looking Tomomi Hamasaki. “Terrible news! They’re holding the Fakes Grand Prix, and the prize is—”

“Nope, still don’t want to hear your story.”

“Hey! What do you mean? This time it’s serious! I need your help!”

“I’ll hear you out some other time.”

“You’d better! Come by my restaurant later!” Tomomi’s expression was more serious than he’d ever seen it. Yuichi made up his mind to stop by Nihao the China on the way home, then returned to his seat.

Just as he did, An Katagiri approached him. She must have been waiting for him to return.

“What is it, Katagiri?” he asked.

“May I have a moment?”

Not waiting for a response, An took Yuichi’s hand and dragged him against his will to the roof.

“What is it?” Yuichi asked once they were up there. “You don’t usually try to talk to me.”

“I can’t find Takuro! Do you have any idea where he might be?” He’d never seen An so flustered before.

Takuro Oda was Yuichi’s friend from middle school. He’d started dating An in high school, which had given them fewer chances to talk, but Yuichi still thought of him as a friend.

“Dunno. How long’s he been missing?” The guy hadn’t come to school today, but Yuichi hadn’t been terribly worried. He’d assumed he was just in bed with a cold or something.

“I haven’t been able to get in touch with him since last night,” An said. “More precisely, since 7:00 PM.”

“How do you know that?”

“I call him every hour on the hour. He answered the 6:00 call, but...”

“That’s a little scary, you know.”

“Have you heard from him?”

“No. Actually, you do magic, don’t you? Can’t you use that to find him? Spells for finding people and things are pretty typical, I thought.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?”

“So you tried it, huh? Let’s see, then... Maybe he got sick of you and went to another witch for help? There’re these things called barriers that—”

“I’ll kill you.”

Tangible malice swelled in the air around him.

The “malice” that Yuichi felt was an expression of an opponent’s urge to kill. It was usually something he could read subtly from how someone was acting, but this was on a whole other level.

This was a pure, unequivocal desire for blood. Yuichi had no idea where it was coming from.

Man, she really is scary...

He didn’t think he’d lose if he had to fight her, but in a fight against vaguely defined magical abilities, he’d have to do a lot of fumbling around.

“But thank you, anyway,” An said, turning to leave. “I never considered that he might have found a way to escape my magic. I guess it’s a sign of how panicked I was.”

“Hey!” Yuichi called out to her.

“What?” she asked, turning around.

“If there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

“I thought you hated me.”

“Yeah, but this is about Takuro,” he said. “It’s different. Besides, I have a feeling that if I leave you to your own devices, a whole lot of people are going to die.”

“I see. I’ll think about it.” With that, An left.

Yuichi descended the stairs to return to his classroom, but as he got into the hallway, he was stopped by Yurika Maruyama.

“What is it, Maruyama?”

“Hey, wanna join my hero club?” Yurika asked abruptly.

“Huh? I thought you lost your Divine Vessel.” Yuichi had assumed she wouldn’t have any more power without it.

“Oh, my being a Hero has nothing to do with Divine Vessels,” she said. “Apparently it’s just a thing I was born with. I lost my Monk and my Goof-Off, so I’m down to a Hero and a Warrior. So I’m recruiting more party members!”

“Um, what does the ‘hero club’ do at school?” he hedged.

“We dungeon-dive and increase our levels!”

“Please ask someone else.” It sounded like a huge pain in the ass.

After class, he met up with Aiko and Natsuki to head for the club room. When they entered, they found Kanako Orihara slumped at the table. She seemed to be agonizing over something again.

“Is club off again today?” Yuichi asked trepidaciously.

“Oh, yes. It is. Your sister did come to school today, but she said she had something to take care of and went home early...”

“I see. Orihara, are you thinking up material for your novel?”

If she was, he didn’t want to get in her way. He was just about to turn and go when Kanako shook her head.

“Not today. There’s something else on my mind... can I tell you about it?”

“Sure, though I’m not sure we can be of any use,” Yuichi said.

“Um, my mother came home...”

He’d heard that Kanako got along very poorly with her mother, who had divorced her father and left home. Her mother was actually the reason she’d tried to kill herself a long time ago.

“Oh, it’s about your mother... what did she have to say? I thought she divorced your dad and left home a long time ago?”

This was sounding like it was going to be a really heavy conversation. The thought of it made Yuichi want to bolt.

“Actually... she told me she comes from an isekai!”

“...Uh?” Yuichi said in shock. This development was completely unexpected.

“I was really surprised!” Kanako cried.

“Yeah, I’m pretty surprised myself...”

“So am I,” added Aiko.

“Same,” Natsuki chimed in.

“Apparently she’s royalty, and people tried to kill her when she was very little, so she fled to this world!”

“And so she wanted to get it off her chest?” Aiko asked.

Yuichi was wondering the same thing.

“Apparently things have cooled off in her decades away, and now she wants to go home,” Kanako said. “She said she needs my power to do it, though, so I’m not sure what to do...”

“I see,” Yuichi said. “Um, I’m not sure if I can help with this... uh, but if it seems like I can, let me know. Though personally, I don’t know a whole lot about isekais.”

“Okay,” Kanako said. “I’m sorry to tell you about something so strange. I’m going to stay here for a while and think, so you can all go home.”

With Kanako’s permission, Yuichi left.

“An isekai, huh? I wonder what it’s like...” Aiko mused, sounding like she was turning over possibilities in her mind.

“I don’t know. Well, I was worried when she brought up her mother, but I’m glad it wasn’t anything too heavy.”

“What if I were to tell you something heavy?” Natsuki asked.

“Where did that come from?” Yuichi asked.

“It’s about what happened to me before I became like this. May I describe for you, in minute, poetic detail, the tale of a girl whose family was murdered, and who fell into the life of a serial killer?”

“Uh, I really wish you wouldn’t...”

“I see.” Natsuki sounded triumphant for some reason.

“Why are you acting so smug, Takeuchi?”

Yuichi reflected for a moment on the fact that they hadn’t had any proper club meetings for a while. But then he reminded himself that their club meetings had never exactly been proper to begin with.

After club...

Natsuki headed for the station, and Yuichi and Aiko were walking home together.

They had to be careful because of what had happened that morning. They wanted to avoid running into that courtesan lady again. So they went home on a different path from usual, until eventually, they reached the residential district.

Aiko’s house wasn’t far away. But just when he was thinking it was safe, another woman appeared before them, different from the one from this morning.

“Hello. You’re Yuichi Sakaki, aren’t you?”

It was a student from his little sister Yoriko’s middle school. He surmised that much from the fact that she was wearing the same sailor uniform.

“Yeah, who are you? A friend of Yori’s?”

“My name is Akane Otori. And yes, though she’s less my friend and more my rival. There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”

“What is it?” Yuichi asked. If she was a friend of Yoriko’s, it would be hard to turn her down. He decided to hear her out, at least.

“Would you please go out with m—”

Just then, Yoriko came running up to them and blindsided Akane with a punch. Her continued momentum sent them both rolling together to the ground. They rolled all the way to a nearby open lot, and Yoriko straddled her, ready to pound on her.

“Stop!” Yuichi grabbed Yoriko’s fist. He knew she was strong enough to kill her if she tried.

“Oh, Big Brother,” she said. “What is it?”

“That’s my line. What’s going on here?”

“I was thinking of making it so you’d never have to look at Akane’s face again.”

“I know you’re friends, but you should still choose your words better.”

“We are not friends!”

Yuichi put his arms around Yoriko’s waist and lifted her off of Akane. “If not, that goes doubly so.”

Yoriko acted very unsatisfied about being lifted, but she was also smiling happily.

“Let’s ask Akane, then,” Yoriko snapped. “What was all that about?”

“Oh, when I asked him to go out with me, I didn’t mean I wanted him to be my boyfriend. I meant that I wanted him to marry me.”

“That’s even worse!” Yoriko flailed her arms and legs in the air.

“I see. Then the Otori clan is after Yuichi Sakaki, as well.” Yuri Konishi appeared.

“What the heck is it now?” Yuichi exclaimed. One girl after another kept showing up. He was starting to feel dizzy.

“That person is the third daughter of the Otori family. The Otoris are chicken anthromorphs. Avians, you might say. Though in my opinion, they act a bit high and mighty for mere chickens...”

“Oh? What was that you said, peasant?” Akane spat. “Are you after Yuichi, too?”

“I beg your pardon,” Yuri shot back. “I am the closest woman in the world to Yuichi Sakaki! That means I am the closest to becoming heir to the Sumeragi family!”

It sounded like this was the heir-to-the-anthromorph-family-that-controls-Japan battle story. Now that he’d determined that, Yuichi moved quickly.

“Okay, let’s leave the anthromorphs to their business and head home!” Yuichi took Aiko and Yoriko and ran off.

Having finally made it home, Yuichi stomped up to his room and threw himself into bed.

“What is with today?!” It had been one strange story after another, and he was starting to feel incredibly drained.

“Yu!” Mutsuko arrived in Yuichi’s room. She must have gotten home a bit earlier than him.

“What?” Yuichi responded sulkily. He was really tired. He wished she would let him rest.

“I thought it was probably about time I let you know!” Mutsuko declared.

“About what?”

“About the catastrophe.”

“The hell is that?”

“There’s gonna be an ultimate catastrophe that’ll turn the world upside-down! All the training I’ve been giving you has been for that!”

“Huh? What did you say?” Yuichi was starting to wish he could pretend he hadn’t heard her.

“Killing that Evil God means you’ve come pretty far, but you’re not there yet! You need more training to get more power to become the man who can save the world. That’s right! I’ve biased you too much towards speed in the past! You need some muscle training, and weapons training, too! Oh, electronic warfare is gonna be important in the future, too. Of course, I can probably handle that part myself, but you should at least learn the basics! And—”

As usual, she was living in a fantasy world. Yuichi let it all go in one ear and out the other.

It seemed that even after losing Soul Reader, Yuichi’s days of normalcy weren’t going to return. If anything, things had actually gotten even worse.

Well, that’s just who my big sister is. Apparently, he’d just have to keep going along with her.

Letting out a sigh, Yuichi steeled himself for what was to come.