Chapter 42: Ehh!? Is This a Honey Trap?!
The National Defense Force decided to play its trump card.
The man who had been questioning Kazuma left the room under the pretext of taking a break. Left alone, Kazuma restlessly looked around, staring at the surrounding walls and then at the ceiling.
Incidentally, his phone had been confiscated before he entered the room, so he didn’t have it. If he had, he would undoubtedly have been sending his friends a joking message saying he was currently undergoing interrogation.
“(Hmm. No change in the surrounding activity. They probably suspect me, but they don’t have conclusive proof, so they’re wondering what to do, I guess.)”
After a while, the door to the room opened. Kazuma, thinking the interrogation was finally resuming, turned his face with a gloomy expression, only to freeze at the shocking sight.
Standing there was a female doctor wearing a white coat, the kind you’d only see in dramas or movies.
Moreover, she was dressed in a strangely alluring manner, so provocative that one’s gaze would be irresistibly drawn to her.
“(W-w-wha—!? Don’t tell me this is a Honey Trap! The National Defense Force is resorting to such a simple method?! Well, yeah, I guess, throughout history, beautiful women—or rather, femme fatales—have been used to ensnare men, but still! Is it really okay? For the esteemed National Defense Force to set up a Honey Trap for a mere student!)”
Even Kazuma, for all his composure, was shaken by this, and it was transmitted to those on the other side of the wall.
“Irregularities in pulse, heart rate, and brainwaves! He’s agitated!”
“Well, that’s to be expected…”
“He’s finally showing a normal reaction.”
“If he’d remained calm through this, we might have had to restrain him for an entirely different reason.”
The adults were relieved that Kazuma showed the same reaction as an ordinary young man, rather than just an ordinary student.
Be that as it may, the newly arrived female doctor approached Kazuma with a model-like gait and greeted him.
“Nice to meet you. My name is Hatsune Kaguya. It’s a pleasure.”
As Kaguya, an unbelievably beautiful woman, offered him a handshake, a shiver ran down Kazuma’s spine.
“(Th-this woman! She’s the same type as those women from the other world! The kind you absolutely must not get close to! It’s not that she’s good at manipulating people. She’s the type who revels in watching men fall for her on their own…)”
Kazuma, who had been a Hero in another world, had overcome numerous hardships. Of course, Honey Traps were among them.
And he sensed that Kaguya before him was an existence close to the monsters he had encountered in that other world. Kazuma desperately tried to maintain his composure in front of someone he absolutely wanted to avoid.
“H-hello there~”
“Ufufu. Are you nervous? Your voice is trembling a little.”
“Hahaha~. Well, um~”
“Oh, right. I thought you might be thirsty, so I brought some water. Here, drink this.”
For the time being, Kazuma acted like a young man his age. Not as if he were nervous, but rather as if he were captivated by Kaguya’s beauty and shyly averting his gaze.
“Heart rate, pulse, and brainwaves all remain irregular. He’s probably flustered by her.”
“That’s normal…”
“Well, this is a reaction within our expectations. The real issue is what comes next.”
After the handshake, Kaguya sat down in front of Kazuma, flipped through a report, and fell silent for a while. Kazuma realized the report Kaguya was holding was related to him, but he kept quiet, thinking it would be troublesome if he spoke up.
However, Kaguya, noticing his slight eye movement, smiled at Kazuma and placed the report on the desk.
“Is this what you’re curious about?”
“Eh, well, I mean.”
“Fufu. It’s alright. This is material about you. It was given to me beforehand so I could learn what kind of boy you are.”
“Ah, is that so.”
“More importantly, perhaps you weren’t thirsty? It seems you haven’t touched the water I gave you earlier.”
Kaguya pointed to the plastic bottle she had handed him earlier. The bottle, sitting on the desk, hadn’t even been opened.
“Sorry. I’m just a little nervous.”
“Relax, relax. Here, drink some water and take a deep breath.”
As told, Kazuma opened the cap of the plastic bottle and drank the water, gulping it down audibly.
“(Nngh!? Is this poison? No, it’s not. Some kind of drug? A truth serum? Or maybe sleeping pills? I don’t know, but as I thought, they spiked the water~. Well, it’s not like poison resistance—or rather, status ailments—have any effect on me, though.)”
Just as Kazuma thought, the water had been drugged.
However, it wasn’t something harmful to the human body. It was merely something that would slightly reduce one’s cognitive abilities.
“You must have been very thirsty. But it’s alright now. I won’t bully you like the previous person did.”
As Kaguya spoke in a meltingly sweet voice, Kazuma’s wariness was at its maximum. He no longer saw the woman before him as human, but as a demon wearing human skin.
“(The previous guy was way kinder! Damn it~! I can’t believe the National Defense Force would go this far!)”
If this were the other world, he would have instantly cut down everyone around him by now. After all, being given poison was tantamount to being attacked by an enemy. In that case, there would be no need for mercy.
“He drank the water.”
“Yes. The rest is her domain.”
Those watching from the other side of the wall nodded in satisfaction. They were convinced that he had already fallen for it.
The reason for this was her, Hatsune Kaguya’s, Gift.
“Ufufu. Well then, shall we talk a little first?”
Saying that, Kaguya looked intently into Kazuma’s eyes. Naturally, Kazuma also looked into Kaguya’s eyes, but it was then that he noticed something strange.
“(Geh!? She’s interfering with my mind! This woman, could she be a mental interference-type Gifted?! Domination? Or hypnosis? Maybe charm? No, that’s not it. This is brainwashing…!! You gotta be kidding me! Are they really stooping this low?!)”
Kazuma, who was resistant to all status ailments, sensed that she had interfered with his mind in some way.
This was bad. Very bad. What was so bad about it was that brainwashing, hypnosis, charm, and the like had absolutely no effect on Kazuma.
However, the National Defense Force didn’t know that. In other words, if it became clear that Kaguya’s brainwashing wasn’t working on Kazuma, the National Defense Force would undoubtedly restrain him, or at the very least, become suspicious and pursue the matter further.
“(This is baaad… I guess I’ll have to pretend it worked on me.)”
Even if he were to pretend it worked, Kazuma didn’t know what a brainwashed person acted like. No, to be precise, he did know, but he didn’t know what state a person brainwashed by her would be in. In other words, he didn’t know the correct way to act.
What kind of state was it? Lifeless eyes, a dazed condition? Or perhaps a state where one’s will was clear, yet they were completely obedient to her words?
Kazuma, not knowing which was the correct answer, was quite flustered.
“(Damn it. I don’t know what state people brainwashed by her end up in! This is bad, bad, baaad!!!)”
Unaware of Kazuma’s inner turmoil, Kaguya, assuming he was brainwashed, asked him a question.
“Hey, are you the Crimson Knight?”
“…No, I am not.”
Kazuma answered devoid of emotion, mechanically, and expressionlessly. Wondering if this was the right way to act, he broke out in a cold sweat internally, praying that this was correct.
“…………Could you try raising your right hand for a moment?”
“(What’s with that pause! As I thought, it was too much of a stretch!)”
Kazuma, judging that she had probably realized he wasn’t brainwashed, continued to pretend he was under Kaguya’s control for the time being. What would she think of Kazuma, who raised his hand as instructed?
“(Hmm. He looks like he’s brainwashed, but… it’s not usually this doll-like. Could it be that he’s pretending it worked?)”
Kaguya was suspicious of Kazuma’s strange reaction. The people she had brainwashed before were not as emotionless and doll-like as he was acting. They were more human-like, more normal.
“That’s enough. Lower your hand.”
“Yes.”
Watching Kazuma lower his hand as told, Kaguya smiled bewitchingly.
“(Ufufufu… What a very interesting boy. To think my brainwashing doesn’t work on him.)”
She became convinced that her brainwashing was ineffective on Kazuma. After that, Kaguya asked a few perfunctory questions before following instructions and leaving the room.