The Escape Takes a Rest

It had been about half a day since they’d crossed the desert at the center of the continent and boarded a train. When they arrived at Momo’s chosen destination, Akari became strangely excited.

“Honestly! You are such a meanie, Momo.”

Her voice a full octave higher than usual, Akari clapped Momo on the back, her insults lacking their usual bite.

“I mean, I knew you were a big jerk, you know? Obviously, I knew that. But this is just crossing the line! Really, why didn’t you say so sooner?!”

“Is that right? You’re one to talk, now that you’ve dropped the Goody Two-shoes act.”

“But come on!” Akari gestured dramatically at the town they’d arrived in and raised her voice even louder. “You should’ve just told me we were going to a hot spring!”

She was practically bouncing up and down. Momo glared at her coldly as if to say that her excitement in itself was unbearably annoying, but a native Japanese person’s love for hot springs, carved into their very DNA, wouldn’t be cooled so easily.

“It’s such a wonderful surprise that I almost like you a little more now!”

“If I thought it would make you like me more, I would have chosen someplace else.”

Akari hummed a cheerful little tune, oblivious to Momo’s unamused reply.

Since Momo had changed her usual route so drastically, this was Akari’s first time coming to this town. In other words, out of all the many time loops Akari had experienced, she had never before seen the famous hot spring locale.

Momo’s shoulders slumped in visible regret at having made Akari happy.

“I’ve made a serious miscalculation… Why would you get so excited about some stupid warm water coming out of the ground anyway?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Weren’t you supposedly taught all about Japanese culture in your training as an Executioner?! You’ve got to know something this basic, geez!”

Akari was practically foaming at the mouth as she began extolling the virtues of hot springs.

After all, she had primarily been living life on the road since she came to this other world. Even a chance at a hot shower was a luxury as far as bathing went. Akari hadn’t enjoyed a warm bath since the one she’d taken with Menou in the port town of Libelle.

“You’re so disinterested because you don’t know how wonderful hot springs are, Momo. Ah, the sheer bliss of soaking in steaming hot water…! And natural hot springs have even more benefits, like mental rejuvenation, clear skin, perpetual youth… You can even boil an egg in them to make onsen tamago! Hot springs aren’t just healthy; they’re also delicious!”

“I’m sorry to interrupt when your brain is clearly being boiled, but we didn’t come to this town to soak, you know.”

“Huh?”

Akari’s body, which was bouncing around in excitement, suddenly froze. Her eyes widened in shock, still sparkling at the thought of hot springs.

“Wh-what do you mean? Since we’re here, we must relax with a nice, long bath to show our respect. Anything less would be an insult to hot springs everywhere… No, to the very gods who created them, who would be sure to punish us. The only thing to do in an onsen town besides taking a bath is to eat a tasty onsen tamago, you know?”

“No, I certainly do not. We’re here to escape my darling and to train that useless lump you call a body while we’re at it. I don’t give a single damn about your dumb steaming pond.”

“Train?”

While the hot springs were still bubbling up in Akari’s brain, Momo dismissed her ideas as thoroughly worthless and explained her intentions for this stop. Evidently, rest was not on the menu.

“I had a lot of questions after hearing about your time loops, but I noticed something… No matter what time line, you’ve done very little fighting, right?”

“Huh? Well, yeah, I’m not really big on combat…”

“Hah. No wonder you’re so absurdly weak despite having a Pure Concept.”

Akari fell into a depressed silence.

Momo and Akari had clashed once before traveling together. Akari had possessed the element of surprise, yet she’d still struggled to gain the upper hand. Had they continued, Momo likely would’ve grown accustomed to Akari’s conjurings and taken the advantage.

Akari’s natural disposition simply wasn’t inclined toward violence. On top of that, she had absolute faith that Menou would protect her if she got in trouble and the advantage that she wouldn’t die thanks to her Pure Concept of Time. Frankly, she did not need to fight.

She couldn’t die and had the option to start things over. These qualities had fostered an overly lax attitude that prevented Akari from getting any stronger.

“So that’s why you’re always dragging my darling down… To put it mildly, wouldn’t we all be better off if you died?”

“…Why do you have to be so hurtful, Momo? If you’ve gotta say stuff like that, you could at least sugarcoat it.”

“Because I hate you, and I want to make you feel bad.”

Momo’s tone was so light that it barely even sounded like an insult anymore. She loathed Akari, and Akari felt the same way toward Momo. This was an absolute truth, a mutual understanding between them.

Yet now Akari was giving Momo a genuinely wounded expression.

“I get it now. You’re nasty to me because you despise me…”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

“…which means, since Menou was always nice and sweet to me, she must really love me.”

“Are you familiar with the term customer service?”

As Akari got carried away with a self-serving interpretation of reality, Momo grabbed her shoulder and dragged her back down to earth.

“When you’re on the job, you have to be polite to everyone, no matter how foolish they are. My darling must have had a hard time dealing with you for the last two months, I’m sure.”

“…Oh yeah? Then, since you’re mean to me on the job, I guess you’re still just an inexperienced child, huh, Momo?”

“…Yes, I suppose. I am still an assistant priestess, so I lack my darling’s level of professional behavior. When I see an idiot, I can’t help treating them like one…you idiot.”

As had become typical, the pair was starting another verbal battle, each searching for the other’s weak points to deal damage whenever possible. Neither stood to gain anything, but they kept polishing their techniques nonetheless, making any reconciliation between the duo all the more hopeless.

There was no point in continuing this unresolvable quarrel, so Akari reluctantly raised a different question to Momo.

“What exactly do you mean by training me?”

“It’s simple. You just need to get accustomed to using your Pure Concept powers in combat. We should think about the most effective ways to do so, too.”

Akari blinked in surprise at Momo’s suggestion.

“But Menou told me never to use my Pure Concept unless I have to.”

“It’s a little late for that.” Momo shot the other girl a droll look. “Pure Concepts carry the risk of turning into a Human Error, yet you already use yours all the time, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah, I guess… But since I’ve already used it so much, doesn’t that mean I shouldn’t push my luck?”

“Well, about that. Your Pure Concept doesn’t seem to erode your mind nearly as quickly as it does for any Otherworlder I’ve heard of.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. It’s a very dramatic difference compared to any example I know. Maybe it’s because your mind is already so dense that it’s hard to damage?”

When Otherworlders used their Pure Concept powers, they consumed their own memories.

For instance, the Null boy who’d been summoned along with Akari was affected so drastically by a single use of his Pure Concept that it changed his entire personality. But Akari, who was constantly employing conjurings on a global scale but hadn’t turned into a Human Error yet, still possessed a firm grip on herself.

“Pure Concepts create conjurings far more powerful than any other kind. Please learn to use it in battle as well. If you get proper command of your Pure Concept, most humans won’t stand a chance against you.”

“Yeah, maybe… But you know my conjurings aren’t free, right? They erase my memories.”

“Well, we have a simple point of reference for that. Your recollection of your world, of Japan, should disappear first. By rough estimation, as long as you haven’t forgotten Japan entirely, you should still be fine, and your memories with my darling won’t disappear.”

“Mmn, I guess so… Are you sure you’re not up to something, Momo?”

“Hmmm?”

Akari was very reluctant to use her powers more than necessary, especially after Menou had repeatedly warned her against it. As she hesitated, Momo glared at her with utter contempt.

“I’m proposing this for my darling’s sake, yet you refuse even to try. If your memories from the other world are more important to you than my darling, I guess that’s fiiine? Maybe your attachment to her wasn’t quiiite as strong as I thought.”

“Excuse me?”

Something snapped, and rage burned in Akari’s eyes.

“I don’t know what you mean, Momo. My feelings for Menou are about a hundred times stronger than you realize, just so you know.”

“Go ahead and prove it, then. Listen closely, you useless girl! If you bothered to train a little, you’d be able to save my darling someday instead of just letting her rescue you all the time!”

“Fine! I’ll do it, just you watch!”

The Menou-shaped bait worked perfectly. Immediately, Akari’s motivation shot through the roof.

The scent of sulfur was strong in the mountain town’s air.

It was famous for its natural hot springs, and wooden inns, restaurants, and other attractions lined the streets. A train station served as a spot on a line connecting several major cities, which helped the town prosper as a tourist area.

There was an outpost for the knights of the Noblesse, who were in charge of keeping order in the area, and a small church to indicate the presence of the Faust. Otherwise, it was populated with Commons citizens.

As a combination health resort and sightseeing locale, the settlement enjoyed a steady torrent of visitors. This also meant it sometimes provided a hideout for criminals and taboo perpetrators who needed to avoid attention.

The man known as the Recruiter was one such criminal.

Occasionally, those who worked in shady businesses had a falling out with a group. Some might botch a job and find themselves banished, while others might have fled and lost a place to call home. The Recruiter’s objective was to gather these pariahs and find them suitable jobs.

The man called the Recruiter initially belonged to an ideological group known as the Fourth.

All citizens of this continent were separated into three castes: the Faust, the Noblesse, and the Commons. These strata and their rules were the foundation of the world order.

The Fourth lit flames of discontentment with the caste system that had existed for so long.

They agitated the dissatisfied Commons, fanned the inferiority complex of the Noblesse, and once assembled many to take on the Faust.

For a time, the Fourth grew so explosively that they even threatened to take over the Faust’s holy land, but their activities died down when their leader, the Director, was captured. As a result, many skilled members of the Fourth were left without any employment prospects.

It was then that one man took on the duty of harboring the people of the Fourth, and he made a profit by charging a fee for offering temp workers. He started a hot spring inn as a cover that ended up becoming a legitimate business, but his primary profession was still as the Recruiter.

The present era was challenging for former Fourth members. He endured quietly without revealing himself until one day, when his patience was rewarded with good news that seemed to clear up the fog.

The Director, the founder of the Fourth, had been freed.

He had been detained in Grisarika Kingdom, a major power in the east. After stirring up chaos on the continent, he’d been sentenced to execution. His release could never have been official. Word was spreading like wildfire that someone had helped him escape.

However, the Recruiter remained skeptical about whether the Director had truly been freed. The information was far too perfectly timed for the Fourth.

Of the nations scattered across the continent, Grisarika Kingdom was particularly infamous. Recently, their archbishop, Orwell, was discovered engaging in taboo and was formally put to death as a result. Not wanting to get his hopes up prematurely, the Recruiter was cautiously gathering information.

A request to visit from the Director himself.

The messenger who delivered this news was a young girl in a kimono.

She wore her dark-indigo-tinted hair in a long braid. Speaking in an unhurried drawl, she informed the man that the Director was safe and would soon make a personal visit.

Tears of joy streamed down the Recruiter’s face. Now the restoration of the Fourth could begin. He was wholeheartedly preparing to welcome the Director…

And then a priestess in white robes arrived in town with a black-haired girl in tow.

Having worked in the underworld for so many years, the man was immediately suspicious.

It would be far too optimistic to assume that they were here for nothing more than tourism. It was far too conspicuous to be a coincidence. Members of the Faust, who practiced honorable poverty, were unlikely to indulge in a frivolous sightseeing trip unless it was part of a pilgrimage.

No, they had to be there for the Director.

The man could not simply turn a blind eye. Using his connections as the Recruiter, he gathered up a few combatants and issued an order:

Dispose of the priestess girl who’d come to investigate.

Upon receiving the order, the fighters quickly formed a plan.

They were active in the field and very familiar with all kinds of dishonest work. Some were adventurers who had fallen to more shadowy endeavors, while others were researchers who had been driven to the darkness by their thirst for knowledge. But one thing they all had in common was that they’d long since abandoned any pretense of decency that would make them hesitate to kill young women—especially if one of them was a priestess.

There was no need to challenge her head-on. They had the home field advantage, so waiting for a moment when her guard dropped was preferable. Since the target had entered a hot spring inn, striking while she was bathing seemed perfect.

Sure enough, the black-haired girl traveling with the priestess was gleefully exclaiming “Hot spring! Hot spring!” During check-in, her attitude toward the priestess had been sullen at best, but now she was obviously in high spirits at the prospect of a warm bath.

The priestess had a small frame and childish features. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old. Her wearing priestess robes instead of a nun’s habit despite her youth meant it was safe to assume she was a natural prodigy. But since the robes were white, it was clear that she still had a ways to go.

The fighters smirked. This was going to be easy.

One of them, who was working as an inn employee, suggested that the two girls try the open-air bath during the afternoon. It was outside of normal operating hours, but the suggestion was meant to ensure that the pair would be alone.

Once the young women followed this recommendation and entered the bath, an armed man entered the changing room.

Priestesses were skilled practitioners of conjurings, but they had to use a vessel to invoke them.

Be it a crest conjuring or a scripture conjuring, these techniques were based in materialogy and crestology. Guiding Force was a great power drawn from the soul, but it wasn’t easy to produce its full effects without the tools to control it properly. The mightier the conjuring, the larger and more complex the medium required.

Guiding Enhancement was an exception that could be invoked with only one’s body, but the man was capable of that much himself.

Humans with weapons were inevitably stronger than those without.

No matter how skilled a conjurer this priestess was, she would be at a disadvantage when stark naked.

This went without saying, but the assailant still felt the need to spell it out because he was breaking into a women’s bath.

What’s more, the priestess was a presumed teenager. The shock and embarrassment of being attacked in the bath were bound to slow her reaction. The man estimated that he would defeat her before she could launch a counterattack.

Having entered the changing room armed with a weapon and this flawless logic, the man called his target’s face to mind. The black-haired girl clearly couldn’t fight, though it was a mystery why she was accompanying the priestess. The best approach would be to take her hostage to threaten the priestess.

As the man thought over his battle plan, he decided it would be best to ensure that the priestess couldn’t recover her weapons no matter what, and so he took the girls’ clothes out of their dressing room cubby.

Just then, the door that led to the open-air bath slammed open.

“Whyyyy do I have to take a bath with yooou instead of my dear darling?”

“Cut it out. You’re going to ruin a perfectly good hot spring if you keep—”

They must have entered the bathing area, realized they’d forgotten something, and returned to get it. As the black-haired girl stood there with steam rising from her skin, she locked eyes with the assailant who had infiltrated the women’s changing room.

“……”

“……”

There was an almost painful silence.

The black-haired girl was wrapped in a towel from the chest down.

Her bare limbs were sleek and smooth. The fabric could barely conceal her ample chest as it absorbed a small amount of perspiration from her cleavage. A single drop of water slid down the curved line of her thigh.

A faint plip sounded as the bead of liquid struck the ground.

The man regained his senses with a start.

His mind had gone blank at the unexpected development for only a moment. This was a warrior who had gone to tread the line between life and death countless times. His skills were not so meager that he would be deterred by the sudden appearance of a lovely young woman. He hadn’t anticipated his target would come back into the dressing room, but perhaps this was the perfect opportunity.

If he took the black-haired girl as a hostage, it would be far easier to capture the priestess who was still in the bath. The man stepped forward to seize the girl.

“P…”

The girl’s eyes clouded with embarrassment and burned with rage.

She aimed her index finger at the assailant like one might with a gun. As the man watched in bewilderment at her strange attempt at a threat, Guiding Light gathered in her outstretched fingertip and formed a conjuring.

Cold astonishment washed over the man. How was she invoking a conjuring without any Guiding vessel? What’s more, this was a conjuring construction he had never seen before. His mind struggled to comprehend what was happening before him, rendering his physical response a moment too late.

“Panty thieeeef!”

As the black-haired young woman shrieked, an unusually powerful conjuring lanced forth from her finger.

One of the would-be assailants was taken away by knights.

His attempted surprise attack in the open-air bath had failed. One of the targets had caught him in the changing room and managed to stop him somehow. Ultimately, he was arrested by knights under suspicion of stealing underwear.

The men the Recruiter had gathered were all part of the Fourth. They had undergone rigorous training to fight the priestesses of the privileged class someday. It was painful to have one of their fellows treated as an unsavory criminal, but at least it meant their marks remained ignorant of their true intentions.

It was better that the girls believed they had stopped a simple sex offender in the act than to have them suspect their lives were in danger. To keep the targets’ guards down, their captured comrade had swallowed his pride and bravely declared “I am indeed a panty thief” when the knights hauled him off.

As for the girls who had reduced a proud warrior to a common pervert, they were now strolling around the hot spring town together.

The pair wore matching yukata as they walked, perhaps intending to take a full-on hot springs tour. One of the assassins who was blending in as part of the staff had suggested that they wear the rented garments, citing it as part of the fun of a hot spring town.

“This place has super-Japanese vibes, especially with these yukata. The rooms at the inn all have tatami mats, and the buildings are wood. The whole village is so rustic… It’s almost shockingly similar to an old-fashioned Japanese settlement. This might be the first time I’ve been to such a familiar-looking locale. In a way, you could even say it’s more Japanese than modern Japan.”

“Mm-hmm. So this is what you’d call Japanese? Perhaps the local culture was strongly influenced by some lost lambs. There are mountains all around us, right? Until the train station was built, their community must have been isolated for a long time. People claim this town is surprisingly rich with history and ancient customs. The buildings may even be remains from ancient times.”

“All Japanese people love hot springs, y’know. And some are extra enthusiastic about ’em, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a person like that had a hand in this village.”

“Perhaps this entire street is a remnant of the ancient civilization, then.”

The two girls absentmindedly chatted as they walked.

They had easily dodged one dangerous encounter in the open-air bath at the inn, but there were still more perils surrounding them.

The first surprise attack had failed. It had been unwise to attack the young women alone, even if the attacker hoped to catch them when their guards were down. Thus, the next ambush was based on strength in numbers.

An attack on the main road would draw too much attention. So the group of assailants sent in a consort who worked in the area. The young man, a well-known lecher, was told to entice the girls and lead them into an unwatched alley.

The young fellow approached the pair, his pleasant air and attractive features on full display. Nearly ten skilled assassins were waiting in the narrow street where he was to guide them. Even if she was unusually capable, that had to be more than enough to dispose of a single priestess.

“Hello, ladies—”

“Die.”

“Die?!”

The handsome man couldn’t hide his surprise at the immediate rejection.

It was the priestess girl who’d replied so bluntly that it was painfully obvious she had no intention of continuing the conversation. She made an openly disgusted face, tossing her pink pigtails over her shoulder.

“Yes, just hurry up and die, please. I have no interest in small fries like you. Your very existence irritates me. Begone with you, and tell them to send someone a little more worth the trouble of defeating next time.”

The young man, who believed he generally had a way with women, had to fight to keep his face from twitching at such an unexpected insult. What kind of twisted society would cause a young girl to earnestly wish another person’s death simply because he spoke to her?

The consort swallowed the urge to reply that he wouldn’t be talking to such an immature brat if he wasn’t getting paid to do so.

Meanwhile, the black-haired girl looked on pityingly.

“Come on, Momo. Telling him to die is a little bit extreme…”

“I-it really is! Ah-ha-ha, your sense of humor sure is—”

“At least keep it to a nice Go away, you creep.”

“Oof…!”

The handsome man thought the black-haired girl was siding with him, but it turned out to be an ingenious trap. The word creep was a severe blow to his relatively high confidence in matters with women. Still, a man who made his living as an escort wouldn’t let a slight injury to his pride crush his spirits completely.

Rejection was second nature to a pickup artist. It was perfectly normal to be ignored at first. Trial and error were all part of the process.

Still, in this particular case, he’d been hired to get results. The amount of money offered was enough to make him reluctant to back down easily.

He hadn’t failed yet. The young man gathered his inner strength.

The pink-haired girl already looked irritated that he seemed intent on speaking to them again, but then her face brightened, as if she’d hit upon an idea. The handsome consort waited to see if she might offer up a topic of conversation and was surprised when she pushed the black-haired girl forward.

“If you’re trying to pick us up, then here, you can have this healthy specimen. I can’t think of a single use for her, so feel free to go off somewhere together and do whatever you like.”

“Momo?!” the black-haired girl shrieked in surprise.

Even the veteran consort had never experienced a woman blatantly selling off her friend to him before. He had no idea how to react.

The girl being offered was equally brazen. No sooner had she realized that her companion was betraying her than she pursed her lips and glared sharply at the pink-haired young woman.

“Just because you’re tiny, flat, and unlikable doesn’t mean you should jump right to that. For all we know, this guy might be into that! In fact, he’s gotta be, or he wouldn’t have started with you. Hey, mister! If you have any pride as a pedo, you’ll take this girl instead!”

The sudden accusation made the consort’s face go dead serious; he happened to prefer older women.

“I am not a pedo.”

“Come on, no need to be shy!”

He should never have taken this job.

As the man silently cursed himself for suffering the accusation without denial, each girl kept trying to give the other away. Thankfully, he somehow managed to get them to follow him to the alley, though it required an unbelievable amount of effort.

As soon as they arrived at the dead-end backstreet, the ten-odd men appeared and blocked the exit.

“Yesss, just in time—”

A fist smashed into the consort’s face, cutting his words short.

“I told you to die, remember?”

Since they were out of view, Momo immediately opted to use violence. Her first victim was the handsome man who had led them to the alley. First, she struck him squarely on the nose. She grabbed his sleeve and threw him to the ground as he staggered back. Then, just as the wind was knocked out of him when he hit the ground, Momo mercilessly and repeatedly stomped on his face.

The man groaned in agony a few times, but even that soon stopped. The priestess looked down coldly at the unconscious body and said, “…Now my shoes are dirty.”

After ruining another person’s face, that was all she had to offer.

The damage to his handsome features was bound to harm his future as a consort.

Momo kicked him off to the side of the alley with alarmingly practiced ease, then looked around slowly.

“I thought you were just a pickup artist, but…this isn’t half bad.”

As she spoke, the luminous glow of Guiding Force surrounded Momo’s body.

A shiver of fear ran through the group of assailants.

Guiding Enhancement. A Guiding Force manipulation technique that raised the user’s physical prowess.

Priestesses of the Faust were strong. By nature, they had to be adept enough at manipulating Guiding Force to operate the complex Guiding vessels known as scriptures. There were rumors that the path to being chosen as an official priestess was even more complicated, including combat training in the Wild Frontier.

The men in the alley were aware of this, for those who worked in the criminal underworld studied their mortal enemies.

But the amount of Guiding Force that the girl before them was using to enhance herself was visibly next-level. It was a sign that she had more combat power than the average priestess.

This was not good. Making a snap decision, the men attempted to flee. They had wisely concluded that their ambush based solely on overpowering their targets with numbers would not be enough.

Unfortunately, Momo was already behind them.

It had been a mistake to choose a dead-end alley to trap their target. As Momo moved nearer, she slammed her fist into the ground.

A dull crash echoed through the small street.

The tremor that ran through the ground left no room for doubting the petite girl’s might—spiderweb-like cracks spread from the point of impact.

Guiding Enhancement alone shouldn’t have been enough to produce this level of superhuman force. The men froze in shock at the show of superiority.

“If any of you try to run, I’ll be happy to introduce you to my fist like I did to that piece of trash.”

How could a teenage girl be so merciless? Why did her eyes not contain a single trace of compassion, a virtue supposedly touted by her church? And hadn’t she just caused major collateral damage to a home, making her something of a criminal herself? The assailants had many questions, but most dared not to voice them.

“Wh-what do you mean, if we try to run?” one of the would-be attackers inquired cautiously. “What should we do, then?”

It was clear that their group of ten was no contest for Momo. Still, she made no move to torment the men. This had to mean that there was something she wanted.

If they complied, would she let them walk away? The man who had posed the question certainly hoped so.

“If you can attack that dimwit there and win, I’ll let you go.”

Akari, who hadn’t been granted the kindness of having any of this explained to her beforehand, stared at Momo in utter disbelief. Her gaze seemed to ask, Are you all right in the head?

“I told you to learn to use your powers in combat, didn’t I? At first, I thought this was nothing more than a bad pickup attempt, but I’m pleased to see that there was more to it.”

“…Wait, Momo, is this why you wanted to go out?”

“Of course. Strutting around unguarded was bound to attract some idiots.”

The men twitched. Had their target seen through their plan of attack from the very beginning? It was inconceivable.

However, they still didn’t understand what Momo wanted. They’d tried to launch a surprise attack, but one of their marks had commanded they go after her companion. No average person could understand the logic behind Momo’s suggestion.

“Since the effects of your conjurings are so strange, it doesn’t matter if you can’t control them too precisely. Just try some things out in real combat.”

“Umm… I’m not very good at regulating it yet, though…”

“It’s fine. You only need to keep practicing. Even if you waste some Guiding Force, it will work out, probably.”

“W-wait!”

It was a plan that obviously valued firepower and force over finesse. The men frantically tried to stop her.

“It’s dangerous to misuse Guiding Force without the proper training! Especially if there’s Guiding Force discharge?! That’s not the kind of thing a noncombatant should try!”

He was right.

This was absolutely the most reasonable response. It was a basic precaution detailed in any manual on Guiding Enhancement or other techniques. Guiding Force was an energy produced by the soul. Conjurings were precise techniques that used that power.

There were plenty of exceptions, however.

“Really?”

“No need to listen to a criminal’s opinion.”

Momo, who had very little concern for Akari’s well-being, gave an irresponsible go-ahead signal.

The men steeled themselves. This was a far cry from what they’d expected going in, but they had no other choice. Their only hope was to protect the black-haired girl being fooled by this vicious priestess and run like hell.

The Faust really were a nasty bunch. Full of righteous indignation, one of the men reached out to save Akari.

When he grabbed her arm, she automatically pulled back.

“Eek!”

Unlike the short scream that came from her mouth, the results were anything but small and cute.

For just a moment, Akari’s entire body shone with Guiding Light, and then the man who’d seized her detected a strange conjuring he was unfamiliar with. A moment later, he soared into the air.

All eyes in the alley followed the man as he flew in a perfect parabola.

This was the result of Akari swinging her arm too swiftly to be visible to the human eye. She flung the man so hard that gravity did little to stop him from rocketing skyward.

Then he fell back down with a gruesomely loud SPLAT.

It was an extremely painful-sounding noise. Fortunately, the man didn’t stay conscious long enough to suffer from the impact. He dropped too fast for any attempt to protect himself and could have easily struck his head and been killed instantly. He was fortunate enough to land in such a way that he simply fainted and rolled across the ground, however.

“Ohh…” The black-haired girl looked embarrassed. “S-sorry about that… I guess I didn’t hold back my [Acceleration] enough…?”

Akari was one who apologized for her mistakes. That wasn’t exactly helpful in this particular situation, but it was still better to say sorry than not.

“L-look, Momo. I really don’t know how to moderate my powers. Is this truly okay? Aren’t we kinda…committing a crime here? Like, I sorta feel like we’re the bad guys right now.”

“It’s fine. There’s no need to hold back. Aim for maximum output and maximum results at all times, please.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Of course I am. All self-defense is legitimate, so it doesn’t matter what you do to criminals.”

Clearly, Momo had no concept of “overkill.” Judging by the confidence with which she made this statement, it was evident that she genuinely didn’t care what happened to the men.

“Still, the amount of power you produce really is something. I suppose that’s inevitable with all the Guiding Force you have…but we have the perfect test subjects here. Just keep trying out whatever you like.”

The men shuddered at being designated test subjects.

They were the ones who initially sprung an ambush, yet now they found themselves the lab rats of a vicious experiment.

A so-called holy woman who suggested violent experiments on humans was a disgrace to her kind. But no one here really thought of Momo as a holy woman anymore. The men realized she was still an assistant priestess despite being more powerful than any typical one because her mental state drastically lowered her rating.

To their own misfortune, they were wholly correct.

“H-hey, priestess! Don’t you feel any guilt about what you’re doing?!”

“Guilt, you say…?”

Momo repeated the man’s accusation as if it was a completely foreign concept.

“Hmm? I don’t quite understand. Why should I feel any remorse about cleaning up garbage? Guilt is a negative feeling when you’ve done something wrong, isn’t it? My actions are justified, so I’m fine.”

The men were at a loss for words in the face of such emotional detachment.

They had been trained to keep a level head, just as she had. Empathy only got in the way when one had to get their hands dirty or make cruel decisions. Thus, the assailants had deliberately trained their minds to be cold and inhuman when necessary.

Yet the girl in front of them was a different story entirely. She didn’t hesitate to hurt someone. Some rare individuals derived pleasure from inflicting agony, but that didn’t describe this girl accurately. She simply used any violent means she deemed necessary, with no emotional response either way. It wasn’t that she was suppressing her human emotions; she was merely as merciless as a conjured soldier carrying out its orders.

Was this the result of being raised under the church’s indoctrination? The strangeness of it all struck fear into the men’s hearts.

Normally, one felt reluctant to hurt another. Becoming an emotionless killing machine was impossible. This young woman must have been born different. The environment she’d been raised in had been utterly isolated.

“Now then, shall we get down to it?”

“Hrmm… Well, if it’s for Menou’s sake, I guess I have no choice.”

As a storm of unstoppable violence rained down upon the men, they were profoundly and painfully reminded of just how cruel the Faust could be.

Nearly ten more would-be attackers were taken away by knights.

They were charged with attempted assault after a failed pickup attempt and deemed a foolish group that was thwarted by girls who were nowhere near adulthood.

They likely wouldn’t have been arrested for a proposition alone, but the fact that they had attacked a priestess was a heavy crime. The knights did their duties with an almost unusual level of efficiency and sentenced the men to be punished, not wanting to incur the wrath of the Faust over something so trivial. The discipline was simply to be branded as would-be pickup artists. Although this was lighter than the sentence for kidnapping, it was painful for the seasoned warriors to be treated as common pests.

The Recruiter’s only remaining assailant was the one undercover as an inn employee.

Thinking of his comrades being interrogated at the knights’ station and lectured for trying to pick up young girls at their age, the incognito ruffian gritted his teeth.

He and his comrades were vanguards of the Fourth, warriors who fought for freedom. It was far too demeaning for them to be dismissed as idiots who gave in to lust. Better to suffer an honorable death on the battlefield than meet one’s end being treated as a sex offender.

“I think your aggressive nature is rubbing off on me lately, Momo.”

“You’ve always been a dangerous girl with an affinity for violence. Or don’t you remember that you tried to surprise attack me first?”

“Hey, I was just being nice. I tried to do it without hurting you out of the goodness of my heart.”

“That’s a strange definition of goodness. Are you sure you’re all right? Did you lose your common sense along with your memories?”

“I don’t want to hear that from you of all people…”

As he worked at the inn, the man’s murderous feelings toward the carefree girls grew ever stronger.

They had dragged his allies’ names through the mud, yet they were clearly unbothered. The final assassin decided on a nighttime assault to reclaim honor for his fellow Fourth remnants.

There was no need for a complicated plan of attack. He was a genuine inn worker. Years of hard effort had earned him the trust of his colleagues, so he could move freely through the inn without drawing any suspicion.

He would enter their room while they slumbered and kill them in their sleep.

It was a simple plan—so much so that it was surely airtight.

Soon, night fell and brought sleep with it. With the Master inn key stolen from the office, the man silently entered the girls’ room.

The two young women who had driven his comrades into shame and despair were resting peacefully in the faintly moonlit room.

The priestess girl slept with the utmost propriety. Her blanket was drawn up to her shoulders, and she was breathing softly and steadily. There wasn’t a hair out of place.

Meanwhile, the black-haired girl was the exact opposite. She had kicked off her blanket and tangled herself up in the sheets, clinging to her pillow with a bit of drool at her lips and murmuring “Heh-heh, Menou…” in her sleep.

It was a slovenly sight, to say the least. The obi holding her yukata closed had loosened in her sleep, revealing a great deal of pure-white skin that shone faintly in the moonlight. Under normal circumstances, it would’ve been lascivious enough to make one sweat.

Yet the assailant only felt infuriated to think that this sloppy fool and her friend had brought his comrades to ruin.

He reached out for the black-haired girl’s throat. Using Guiding Enhancement, he could snap her neck and be done with it in a matter of seconds.

It’s over for you. Now die.

With fervent anger, he began to close his hand around the sleeping girl’s throat.

The next morning…

Akari woke up completely unharmed and exclaimed in indignation.

“Aaargh! What the heck is wrong with this inn, huh?!”

She was angry enough to forgo her usual reluctance to wake up because of the man who was frozen like a sculpture by her bedside.

“First a panty thief, then a bunch of pickup artist creeps, and now a guy sneaks into my room at night… How many sex pests can live in a single town anyway?! This is messed up!”

It was a rare occasion that Akari, normally a sleepyhead, snapped awake so quickly. Her cheeks were puffed up with rage at having to turn in a criminal first thing in the morning.

“A tourist town shouldn’t be this unsafe!”

“Yes, very shocking.”

Momo, who had more or less figured out the situation by now, answered absentmindedly with a yawn.

After being given another ne’er-do-well, the knights and other citizens alike all expressed their sympathies. “Oh dear, so many people targeting a pair of pretty young girls traveling alone!”

“Maybe you’re giving off a pheromone that attracts criminals?” Momo suggested. “Even I’ve never been assaulted three times in one day, as I recall.”

“You don’t seriously think this is my fault, do you?”

“Well, I do think you’re a troublemaker…”

Momo knew full well that the offenses were due to the Fourth. She even had information that this inn was managed by a shady businessman called the Recruiter.

That night, Momo’s eyes had opened as soon as the man entered the room. She watched through half-closed lids to see if Akari would die at least once, but just as the man’s hand was about to brush against her skin, the Suspension conjuring automatically activated, much to Momo’s horror.

“I can hardly believe you made an automatic conjuring trap.”

“Yep. Usually, I can get my powers to do whatever I want, more or less. That includes automatic traps or whatever.”

If anyone touched Akari while she was sleeping, they would instantly find themselves on the receiving end of Suspension.

Incidentally, her main target was Momo. She used her Pure Concept to set unconscious defenses to punish the other girl just in case she tried anything while Akari was sleeping.

“Is that right…?”

Momo nodded with a carefully neutral expression, but internally she let herself grow warier of Akari. She had assumed from the girl’s overall blithe attitude that she couldn’t achieve more than simple conjurings on an enemy in front of her. That had been dead wrong, however. Conjurings that automatically activated under certain conditions usually required a great deal of preparation and forethought. If Akari could accomplish it without even trying, she was more dangerous than Momo had believed.

“And what if you had accidentally rolled over and touched me because of your poor sleeping habits, hmm?”

“…I—I would’ve dealt with it somehow. I can always just deactivate the conjuring,” Akari replied, well aware of her sleeping habits. If anything, she might have even been hoping that her willful negligence would lead to such a development. She couldn’t say as much aloud, of course.

“S-so what are we gonna do today?”

“Good question. I suppose for now…”

“For now?”

Momo shrugged.

“Shall we take a morning dip in the hot springs?”

The pair’s hideout on the run was swiftly becoming a pleasant vacation.