Chapter 29: It’ll Be Alright, as Long as You’re Not Dead, It Can Be Healed.
Charlotte and Momoko were steadily getting stronger, and Kazuma was pleased with their progress when an electronic sound blared from his pocket.
Realizing he had a call, Kazuma took his terminal out of his pocket and first checked who it was.
Displayed on the screen was Alicia.
Kazuma’s face lit up at the name he hadn’t seen in a while.
“Hello, it’s been a while—”
“Kazumaaaa—!!!”
The sheer volume of her first word made Kazuma instinctively hang up the phone.
“Whoops… It was so loud, I accidentally hung up.”
A ringing echoed piercingly in his ears, and Kazuma, covering his ears even though it was no longer necessary, hesitated whether to call back.
But he didn’t need to worry for long.
Alicia called back right away.
“Hello…?”
“Ka—”
Determined not to make the same mistake as before, Kazuma instantly covered the receiver with his hand.
Even so, Alicia’s voice leaked through, making him realize just how tremendous her lung capacity was.
Furthermore, Kazuma was somewhat overwhelmed by a torrent of questions.
However, since things wouldn’t progress at this rate, Kazuma steeled himself and answered the phone properly.
“Ah, uh, Alicia. Could you lower your voice a bit?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just got a little excited.”
“It’s fine, I’m not mad or anything. Still, it’s been a while. Have you been well?”
“Yep! Thanks to you, Kazuma! It’s just, I’ve been busy until now, so I couldn’t really contact you.”
“Busy? What happened?”
“You know, that guy who attacked me? Besides him, there were a lot of escaped prisoners, and I was capturing them with King and the other Gifted.”
“Is that so. Could it be that the escaped prisoners… had awakened new Gifts?”
He didn’t want to think about it, but Kazuma speculated that, like Anthony who had attacked Alicia, they might have awakened a second Gift.
“Exactly. I heard from Stephen, but it seems the Ivera Church was involved in this incident. Most of the escaped prisoners apparently received capsule-like drugs from a group wearing Ibinom’s Masks.”
“Whoa, whoa, seriously…?”
His worst fears had come true, and Kazuma clutched his head.
The enemy could easily augment and increase their forces.
In contrast, their side couldn’t strengthen their forces so easily.
Even if they increased their numbers, their strength would be different from Gifted who possessed two Gifts.
That said, from Kazuma’s perspective, no matter how many enemies increased, they wouldn’t be a match for him.
Indeed, unless they summoned a Demon Lord from another world or something, he would never lose.
“By the way, are there any side effects?”
Kazuma asked Alicia if there was anything like, taking it would definitely kill you, or leave some kind of aftereffect on bodily functions.
“We don’t have the drug, so we don’t know the details yet. However, as far as they’ve examined Anthony’s body, it seems there were no particular side effects.”
“That’s insane! The Ivera Church!”
“Our researchers said the same thing.”
Kazuma praised them, thinking they were brilliant, even if they were enemies.
He could only admire the Ivera Church for creating a drug that awakened a second Gift without any side effects.
“More importantly, Kazuma! I heard you’re marrying Shar! Is it true?!”
“Eh? Marriage? Me and Shar? Hahaha, no way. That’s not happening.”
“Really? I heard from Stephen that you’re living with Shar right now, aren’t you?”
“Ah, that part’s true. But we’re at Ivy’s place, so it’s not like we’re alone together or anything.”
“Oh, I see!”
Alicia was visibly pleased, but she quickly realized another fact.
“(Wait. If he’s at Ivy’s, that means he’s greeted Kazuma’s adoptive mother, Ms. Honoka, right? Doesn’t that mean it’s like, parent-approved! Shar beat me to it!)”
Kazuma asked Alicia, who had suddenly gone quiet, what was wrong, but she was too preoccupied for that.
She was feeling flustered about Charlotte likely having already greeted Kazuma’s mother before she did.
“Kazuma! Can I go too?”
“Hm? Are things settled on your end?”
“Yep. My role is over now. I’m on vacation at the moment!”
“I see. Well then, if you get Stephen’s okay, I’ll come pick you up.”
“Okay! I’ll go ask him right away!”
Just when he thought the call had abruptly ended, Alicia called back only a few minutes later.
Apparently, she had rushed quite a bit.
Kazuma, understanding this well, chuckled and answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Kazuma! I got his okay!”
“Got it. In that case, come to the rooftop of the hospital where you were admitted, Alicia. That’s the only place I know there.”
“Okay! I’ll be right there!”
Hearing the clattering sounds over the phone, Kazuma smiled, imagining a scene like a large dog excitedly greeting its beloved master.
A short while later, Alicia arrived at the rooftop of the hospital where she had been admitted after being seriously injured in Anthony’s attack.
When she reported this to Kazuma, he appeared before Alicia, who was on the phone on the hospital rooftop.
“Yoohoo~”
“Kazuma!”
More than being surprised by his Teleportation, Alicia’s face broke into a joyful smile at seeing Kazuma again after so long, and she leaped at him, throwing her arms around his neck in an embrace.
“Whoa there. It’s been a while, Alicia.”
“It has been a while, Kazuma!”
Alicia, caught by Kazuma, gave him “chu, chu” kisses on both cheeks as a greeting, in a Western style.
“Oh, ooh…”
“Fufu! I actually want to kiss you on the lips, but we’re not in that kind of relationship yet, are we!”
“(Isn’t this… the finish line?)”
Kazuma couldn’t look directly at Alicia’s smile, which shone with such dazzling radiance.
Nineteen long years and a bit, including his time in the other world.
Kazuma, who had remained a virgin and never had a girlfriend, was confused, wondering if Alicia might be his destined partner.
The current Kazuma could easily see through a Honey Trap.
Just because he could see through it didn’t mean he wouldn’t fall for one, but at least Alicia was showing him pure affection.
Kazuma, not being that dense, gently pulled Alicia away and looked at her with a serious gaze.
“A-Alicia! M-Me and—”
“Mr. Satsuki!!!”
The moment he was about to make the confession of a lifetime, Stephen arrived on the rooftop with impeccable timing.
Like a broken doll, Kazuma turned his head with a creaking sound towards Stephen, the Class-A war criminal.
Stephen, faced with eyes as black as an Ichimatsu doll’s, let out a small shriek.
“Eek!”
“What do you want, Stephen? Depending on the circumstances, I might just…”
Kazuma cracked his knuckles with a gokiri sound, completely entering a combat stance.
“N-No, it’s just… there’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Who is it? I’m telling you now, if it’s the President or someone like that, I’m refusing.”
“…Yumemiya Sakura. A woman known as Japan’s worst criminal.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Well, I suppose not. After all, the incidents she caused were never made public.”
“Don’t tell me, the Ivera Church?”
“No, that’s not it. She’s a former cabaret club hostess.”
“What did you say…?”
“And her professional name was Hatsune Kaguya. You’re quite familiar with this name, aren’t you?”
“W-W-Whaaat! Why is that woman in America?!”
When he was once interrogated by the National Defense Force, Kazuma had met Hatsune Kaguya, also known as Yumemiya Sakura.
His impression of her at that time was the absolute worst.
He had seen through her, realizing she would be incredibly troublesome if she became an enemy, and was an opponent he had been extremely wary of.
“Kazuma… Who is that woman?”
“Ah, yeah. Honestly, she’s a woman whose face I never want to see again. She’s a villainess with a Brainwashing Gift.”
“Eh!? Why is someone like that in America?”
“That’s what I want to know too. Why, Stephen?”
“To put it simply, she escaped from a Japanese prison during the recent Ibinom attack and used her Brainwashing Gift to seek asylum in America.”
“No way, if she tried something like that, wouldn’t they normally be completely messed up by her Brainwashing?”
Her Gift, Brainwashing, is extremely heinous.
She can manipulate others as she pleases.
It’s the worst kind of Gift, allowing her to do anything without getting her own hands dirty.
“Indeed, her Gift is extremely heinous, but America can’t be taken down that easily. We surrounded the ship she was on when it entered the harbor and tried to apprehend her immediately, but…”
“Did you get hit by her Brainwashing?”
“There was some of that, but she came down from the ship herself. She said she wanted to seek asylum in America.”
“And so, you accepted her?”
“At first, we intended to refuse, but due to a fact we heard from her own lips, we decided to accept her…”
“And what was that?”
“The Gift of Shindo Makoto, who is said to be the leader of the Ivera Church.”
“…I see. Well, that certainly makes sense to accept her. But once you’ve extracted the information, isn’t she useless?”
“We haven’t been able to get it out of her yet. She keeps deftly evading our questions. We were just thinking of requesting Japan’s Satori, Shinonome Momoko, to be dispatched when you showed up.”
“Bad timing, huh…? But why didn’t you tell me right away?”
“If it was a request from the country, you would refuse, wouldn’t you?”
“You know me too well…”
He couldn’t forgive having his confession interrupted, but upon learning the shocking truth from Stephen, Kazuma stopped blaming him.
“So, what do you want me to do?”
“She’s extremely interested in the Crimson Knight. So, would you meet with her?”
“I see…”
She was someone he’d rather not meet if possible, but if she knew about the Gift of the Ivera Church’s founder, that was a different story.
The Ivera Church absolutely had to be crushed.
They had laid hands on his family and friends, so Kazuma had decided there was no reason to forgive them.
“Alright. I’ll go meet her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t ask after you’ve already requested it. I had decided never to meet her again, but if she has information about the Ivera Church, that’s a different matter. I want to crush those guys too.”
“Eh, ehh…? Kazuma~. Weren’t we going back to Japan~?”
“Sorry. Just bear with me for a little while.”
“Muu… If you say so, Kazuma.”
Alicia, who had been looking forward to going to Japan with Kazuma, was dissatisfied that Stephen’s information had interfered, but she swallowed her discontent, thinking it couldn’t be helped if it was for Kazuma’s sake.
“Just to be sure, I’ll check, but you haven’t been Brainwashed, right?”
Kazuma didn’t know what level Sakura Hakanai’s Brainwashing was, but he tried giving Stephen a strong stimulus with an electric shock.
“Agh!?”
As Stephen immediately collapsed, Kazuma cast Recovery Magic on him and helped him up.
“That was sudden and cruel!”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t know what Brainwashing felt like, so I tried stimulating your brain just in case.”
“If you’d made one wrong move, I would have died… No, wasn’t I dead just now?”
“You’re fine. It’s what they call shock therapy; you didn’t die.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“It’s true. Though you were on the verge of death.”
Though half-doubting, Stephen judged from Kazuma’s expression that he wasn’t lying and got up.
“Let me tell you, even if you’re Brainwashed by her, you act no different than usual, so it’s impossible to tell. The only way to know is if you’re completely obedient to her words; that’s proof of Brainwashing.”
“Then, maybe you were asked to bring me to her?”
“Huh?”
“One more, a strong one.”
“Gughaa!?”
In the other world, he had basically killed anyone who was Brainwashed.
When killing them wasn’t an option, the only way to break it was a drastic treatment like giving them a strong shock.
In conclusion, Stephen hadn’t been Brainwashed at all.
After all, he hadn’t met Sakura Hakanai face-to-face, so he couldn’t have been Brainwashed.
However, Kazuma, unaware of this, continued to give Stephen electric shocks several times.
“Hey, is he okay? Isn’t Stephen going to die?”
Alicia, looking worriedly at Stephen, called out to Kazuma.
“He’s fine. As long as he’s not dead, I can heal him.”
“Oh, I see! Then that’s a relief!”
However, upon hearing Kazuma’s words, Alicia stopped worrying.
No one tried to save him.