Arc 1 - Chapter 4: Sigma Tower (1/4)

"I was wrong to finish the deodorant on Rie and Neko." He should have saved deodorant for Sharley and sprayed it on him to get rid of the bad smell. He was trying to carry a one hundred and eighty centimeter child on his back with the smell of shit on it.

"I don't know how Rie was going to carry that." Remembering that she had made a superhumanly high jump, he thought she could carry it more comfortably than he could.

For Yu, who had no use for weights, the sudden task was causing him back pain. At least he was thinner than Yu, and if he were heavier he would have to drag him.

"I'm curious, why did you all choose to wear white clothes when it was obvious you were going somewhere dirty? Are you a religious cult or something? You said something about a god."

Yu stayed away from such organizations, as his older sisters often told him to stay away from cults, movements, protests and all other various political and religious activities. Here, too, he didn't want to go against his older sisters and secretly hoped that Rie would say no.

"I would say I belong to one or two official organizations."

She was a little bit disappointed him with the answer. He wished Rie was a secular person like him.

"And I'm not obsessed with white, but the reason I wear it is for magical protection. It's a pain to clean when it gets dirty, of course." At Rie's justified complaint, Yu nodded in agreement from the back of the group.

Whenever Yu soiled a white garment, it would remain dirty. No matter how much he washed it, it was impossible for Yu to get the stains out. He had bought all the cleaning products advertised on TV, but nothing worked.

So Yu decided not to wear white. He even started buying black undershirts to avoid dealing with stains.

"Neko probably dressed like that because she didn't know we were coming here. I told her to wear something different, but sometimes she doesn't listen."

"It seems children are the same in both worlds." It was hard to convince them to do something when they didn't want to do it.

"That idiot you're carrying dressed like that because he was trying to imitate my mother."

"Neko, you're making too much of things. Sharley is my student."

"But mother, thou should be able to see his feelings! Please don't keep that thing around any longer."

It made Yu laugh that Neko was still using 'thou' to her mother.

"Taking apprentices is the rule of the Wizarding Academy, I have to train someone."

Yu was curious when he heard the name 'Wizarding Academy' but Neko continued before he could ask a question.

"I could have been an apprentice!" Neko folded her arms in reproach.

"I don't choose my apprentice, you know."

"Hmph!"

How long had Neko been reproaching her mother for her apprentice? But Yu agreed with her, if one of her older sisters had a boy who liked her and running around with her, he would have been annoyed too, and he would have made his annoyance known.

"Your clothes are a bit different too. Especially your shoes," Rie said.

"If that's what you think of what I'm wearing, what would you think of what's in my bag?"

Yu's clothes were now torn and covered in blood from the fall. It made him sad that he would never be able to wear them again, as there were no tailors in their era who could sew them like the modern era machines.

Neko was carrying Yu's bag. She could only wear it on one shoulder because one of the handles was broken, and she was clearly uncomfortable with it. But the fact that the bag was too big for her made her look cuter.

But the real reason for Neko's discomfort was not that she had to carry a bag that was too big for her on one shoulder, but because it belonged to Yu. When Neko refused, saying it was 'dirty,' Yu replied, 'Are you in a position to judge this?'

Yu's bag was cleaner than the girl who had come out of the sewer, and under pressure from Rie, Neko had to agree to carry it, albeit in disgust.

"Clothes that are normal in my hometown. Your clothes also seemed strange to me when I first saw them," Yu said. He was still examining Rie and Neko's clothes.

Neko's outfit could be called modern, he wouldn't have thought it strange if he saw such an outfit in his world, but Rie and Sharley were dressed like they were going to a cosplay event.

"Can I ask you something? You haven't explained where we're going yet." Yu had tagged along with Sharley on his back, but not because he had a purpose for where they were going, but because he felt that staying by their side was the best option he could choose for now.

But whatever the purpose, they were traveling together now and he needed to know where he was going and why.

"We are going to a place called Sigma Tower. It's a school, a library, a museum and an observatory."

"Something like a university," Yu said. Since Rie had mentioned an academy, it could be connected to the Sigma Tower. The next question was, why were they trying to sneak in here?

"They were expelled from the academy as a result of a conspiracy and they're trying to sneak in to get the evidence to prove that they were framed, is that the story?" The scenario in his head sounded familiar.

"Maybe they're from a rival school and they're trying to steal something very important from this school. Maybe they are going to set up a conspiracy!"

He wondered why they were going there, but hesitated to ask. If he went there, he would probably find out what they were up to, but what if he found out something he shouldn't? What if some people try to kill him because he learned an information he shouldn't know?

"Am I going to spend the rest of my life with Rie to protect me from assassins? I mean, one look at her and I'm, I mean, I'm kidding myself, but it's not a bad idea."

He looked at the white-haired witch walking in his front. He didn't think he would be unhappy spending the rest of his life with her, at least for now, if he judged by her appearance.

"Don't even think about it," Neko said.

The girl must have had a 'my-mom-liked-by-someone sensor', for she understood Yu's intentions even though her back was turned.

"Sigma Tower is an organization of several towers. The biggest tower is called Sigma, so the whole area is named after it. Maybe it would be more accurate to call it the Sigma Academy instead of the Sigma Tower. Of course, there is also the Wizarding Academy in the south and it may not use the name of the academy because it doesn't want to compete with it."

"May I also ask why we went there?" Yu didn't want to hear information that could put his life in danger if he found out, but if there was an idea that could put his life in danger, he thought Rie wouldn't mention it, so he asked.

"They have connections to a place called the Wizarding Academy. Maybe my second or third theory is right and they work for the academy in the south."

Apart from his theories, the reason they were going there could be a personal matter that Yu hadn't thought of, and if she didn't want to say it, he couldn't do anything but respect it.

Even if it was Rie's actions that had caused it, he wasn't going to blame Rie if they got in trouble because following her willingly. He guessed that something could happen to him because of the place they were going to now, but he kept moving forward by his own choice.

"I need to pick something up."

"What is it?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you."

"Destruction in the city, murder and now theft? Are you a crime machine, woman!" Rie's actions were turning her into a hardened criminal. "I hope the police system of this world is not as sophisticated as it is in my world, I don't want my name involved in a robbery."

It was a crime-ridden adventure, one that Yu would never have gone near under normal circumstances. If all witches were like Rie, Yu could understand why witches were frowned upon by society. Maybe Rie and the other witches were good people at heart, but their actions certainly didn't have good consequences.

Since he hadn't been forced to follow Rie, he wasn't going to press her to find out why they were moving forward.

"By the way..."

He didn't know how to get to the point. He hadn't interacted with many people in his life, and the ones he did, he was intimate with very few of them, and while he was more or less popular at his school, he hadn't tried to get close to girls.

He was comfortable with girls because he had older sisters, but he had never tried a relationship with a girl before, so even if he liked Rie, he had no idea how to approach her.

Rie's situation was different from the people he had known so far. He wanted to be more intimate with her than he had been with his classmates, but he didn't think it would be right to have the comfort he had with his older sisters.

"So Sharley is just a student..."