Chapter 18 — I Like to Keep Things Neat and Tidy

"Yes, I am indeed Hanakawa, and of course I remember you. Please allow me to take my leave!"

She had come to an empty tavern and spoken directly to him, so trying to slip by unnoticed was pointless. He decided instead to bet on the possibility that she had just happened to be there, and had just happened to recognize him.

"Oh, and where are you going?"

But of course, he lost that bet. As expected, she had come specifically in search of him.

"Well, you see, we are looking for information on the Underworld. As you may notice, there's not much to be gained by staying here, so we've decided to go ask somewhere else —"

"Ah. Well then, why don't I tell you about it? I'm sure I could provide most of the information you need." As she spoke, Sion walked into the empty tavern and took a seat at a random table. She clearly had no concerns about Hanakawa trying to make a break for it.

"Maybe if we run now..." Perhaps they could disappear into the crowd gathering outside, he thought.

"Give it up, idiot." Lute wasn't so optimistic. "Nothing good will come of making someone like her angry. You'll just have to sit down for now." It seemed to Hanakawa that, despite his strong front, Lute was pretty shaken.

"Umm...are you perhaps implying that you can't beat her?"

"Yes."

"After all that talk about how powerful you are as a spawn of the Dark God, you can't even beat a single woman?"

"Why are you being so annoying? I've never overstated my abilities. She's just on an entirely different level."

"In that case, my plan of escaping in the confusion while Master Lute, spawn of the Dark God, fights the Sage Sion is all for nothing!"

"Don't try to get me wrapped up in this. I have nothing to do with it."

"Are you sure you aren't starting to develop feelings for me? 'Dammit! I screwed up! At least you...have to survive...!' Something like that?"

"My objective is to resurrect my master's younger sister and avenge him. I don't have time to be messing around with your stupid games."

"B-But...a Sage has come to visit me specifically, so maybe this isn't something I need to be so pessimistic about..." Still, Hanakawa couldn't help remembering that Sion had killed the bus driver on a whim. He had no idea what might set her off. Just having a conversation with her was plenty dangerous.

That being said, forcing her to wait any longer was equally hazardous. Hanakawa reluctantly sat down at the table with Sion and looked at her timidly. Though she was smiling, he had no idea what she was thinking.

As he was wondering what to do, Lute sat down beside him. "Don't get the wrong idea. If she thinks we're together, there's a chance she'll attack me if I try to leave, that's all."

"Oh, and now you've turned tsundere!" Hanakawa turned to Lute, his eyes sparkling. "In that case, I can even forgive your lack of genitals!"

"If you keep saying stuff like that, I'll leave you alone with her."

"Sorry! I'm really sorry! Thank you for staying!" Hanakawa sincerely apologized at the prospect of being left alone, then finally turned to the Sage. She was sitting there quietly, so he decided to start the conversation himself. "Umm, perhaps this is just me being too self-important, so I feel I should make sure just in case, but is it possible that you came here specifically to find me?"

"That's right. I came here to ask you about Yogiri Takatou."

Hanakawa promptly launched into an explanation of everything that he knew about Yogiri: the times he had witnessed his power in use, the story Yogiri himself had given him, and everything that had happened at the tower. He spat out all that he knew, not holding a single thing back.

"I see. This is the first time I've heard that he can detect killing intent, too."

"Hey," Lute interjected, "what do you plan on doing with this Yogiri?" The boy was his target, after all. It made sense that he would be interested in the Sage's objective.

"Who knows. I've been worrying about what to do with him for a while. Getting rid of him seems like the most efficient option, but I feel there's some benefit to be gained from keeping him alive as well."

"You don't have to do anything. I'm going to kill him."

"Master Lute! How dare you speak like that to a Sage!"

"Yes, well," Sion replied, unbothered by the hellspawn's attitude, "I'm not sure I can expect much from an underling of the Dark God that Yogiri himself killed."

"What?!" Lute shouted, standing up.

"Ah, even without my plotting, Spawn vs. Sage looks like it's going to happen! But if it happens here, I'll get caught up in it too...so let's calm down! Let's settle this peacefully!"

"Oh, don't worry, I won't waste my time fighting here," Sion said, making her lack of interest plain.

But as Hanakawa sighed in relief, another shiver ran up his spine — she was pointing a hand at him.

"Uh, umm, what are you doing?"

"I've heard what you have to say, so I figure I'm done with you."

"Uhh, perhaps I've misunderstood, but is there a need to kill me just because we're finished talking? I am still a Sage candidate, aren't I?"

"But you've gone off on your own, so it doesn't look like you have any intention of becoming a Sage, do you? I have a very methodical personality, and I like to keep things neat and tidy. Leaving leftovers around just creates unnecessary stress, don't you think?" Sion said with a pleasant smile.

"Haha. And unnecessary things should be eliminated immediately, right? Like cutting off all your worldly desires...hey!"

Sion's hand began to glow. Hanakawa squeezed his eyes shut, certain that he was about to die...but what he felt was neither a blazing fire nor the sensation of his body being torn apart. Instead, he'd been enveloped by a gentle warmth.

Hesitantly, he opened his eyes to find that he was covered in whipped cream.

"What is wrong with you?!" Lute shouted at the Sage. It seemed the spawn had protected him somehow.

"Well, that's certainly interesting," Sion observed. "I thought a heat ray would be enough to incinerate him, and for you to turn it into whipped cream was unexpected. But if I know you can do that, then —"

"P-P-Please, wait! The Underworld! Didn't you say you were going to tell us about the Underworld?!"

"Oh! I totally forgot!" Legitimate surprise came over the Sage's face. "So, what did you want to know?"

"Well, we were wondering where the entrance was, and things like that."

Hanakawa felt like he should find some way to drag the conversation out, having come so close to losing his life, but he didn't have the composure for that now. Merely keeping the conversation going in some way was the best he could do.

"There are an awful lot of entrances around the city. You can buy a ticket at any tavern."

Hanakawa blinked in surprise, caught off guard by such a simple answer.

"Entry to the Underworld is restricted," she continued. "The taverns act as sales windows for tickets with which one can gain entry, so try just asking at one." There were numerous entrances to the Underworld, each with its own unique characteristics. The prices of the tickets varied too.

As if that was the end of the conversation, Sion stood up.

"Uhh, perhaps I shouldn't say anything, but am I free to go?" It was unfortunately Hanakawa's personality to ask questions when he knew he should keep quiet.

"Sure. There's no point in telling you about the Underworld if I kill you right afterwards."

Sion made her way out of the tavern. Having decided to kill him on a whim, she had apparently decided to spare him on a whim as well.

Lute slowly lowered himself back into his chair. His expression was strained, a cold sweat pouring down his face. "Dammit, what the hell is she?! That's ridiculous...what on earth was she thinking?!"

"And why did I have to get covered in whipped cream? Who wants to see that?"

Hanakawa just couldn't stop himself from whining about the most irrelevant things.

◇ ◇ ◇

The Sage candidates had split themselves into shifts, taking turns progressing through the Underworld. Throughout the day, the vanguard would push forward, exterminating any monsters that they encountered. At night, the defense teams would secure the gains they had made during the day.

Tomochika remained with Group One, which was one of the front-line teams responsible for exterminating monsters. Yogiri, however, spent the majority of his time lounging around the mansion. On the rare occasion someone needed insects killed, they would call on him.

When the vanguard teams returned to the surface, they were free to do as they liked with their time. So when night came, Yogiri and the others would get together to share what information they had on the situation. They decided to meet at a hotel they'd discovered before having reunited with their classmates.

The meetings consisted of Yogiri, Tomochika, Ryouko, and Carol. They had only been selected because they knew about Yogiri's power, of course, but people were already spreading rumors about them.

"So, what exactly do you do during the day, Takatou?" Tomochika asked.

"There's nothing to do, really, so I just play games or read books."

"That's...somehow unsatisfying after all the time I've spent killing monsters." Since she was fighting on the front lines, she found it hard to accept that Yogiri was just relaxing back in town.

"No, having Takatou do nothing at all is for the best, really! Please keep doing your best to sit around and do nothing at all!" Ryouko offered.

"Don't encourage him. How is he supposed to be a functioning member of society like that?"

"Hahaha, hasn't he already been forced to join society?" Carol added with a laugh. And it was true; they had all been thrown into the limelight upon being transported to this world. They couldn't simply relax like they could have done back in Japan under the care of their parents.

"I'll take care of him!" Ryouko exclaimed. "We can't have Takatou doing anything! I'll take care of everything he needs, so that we can make an environment where he doesn't have to do anything at all!"

"What's gotten into you?!" Tomochika snapped.

"So, you want me to be a bum? I think that's a bit much for me."

Yogiri's refusal made Tomochika feel a little better. She had been worried that Yogiri might be happy to accept a life where he didn't have to do anything at all.

"How's the situation in the Underworld looking?" he asked.

"We've made it to the end of the fifth level, so tomorrow we'll start on the sixth."

For the Sage candidates, progressing through the Underworld wasn't particularly difficult. Basically, all they had to do was keep moving forward. Using Munakata's X-ray vision, they could easily find the shortest and most direct route to the edge of the level.

First, they used the supplies they brought to set up base camps on the edge of each level. Even setting up a simple shack wasn't something that an amateur could do easily, but luckily, they had someone who specialized in that area. One member of the class with the Carpenter skill was enough to get everything done in no time at all.

Along with a candidate who possessed the Transporter class, they could make headway incredibly fast. The Transporter connected the doors of two buildings to allow for instant teleportation between them. Thanks to those two skills, the students didn't even need to find the entrance to lower levels. After reaching the edge of one level, they would just make a building, reinforce it, then drop it down to the next level. While there were some risks for the first group teleporting in, it was orders of magnitude faster than searching for the actual entrances to each level.

But even with the shortcuts they created, the swarms of monsters attacking them remained unchanged. And the farther down they went, the stronger the monsters became, slowing their progress even more.

"If the seventh level is the last one, then we're almost done, but..."

"Yeah, our deadline of one month is almost up, but even at this pace it seems like we'll just make it in time." In spite of Yogiri's doubts, Carol was optimistic.

"Well, even if we fail, Sion will probably show up. So it doesn't matter to me either way." If she was going to appear, Yogiri figured it would be when their time ran out.

"I don't know about that. She said she would turn us into livestock for producing magical energy if we failed, but do you think she'll really bother?" Carol asked.

Tomochika thought that expecting the Sage to leave them alone even after their time ran out was a bit unlikely.

"And what about that Eroge guy dying?"

"Right, Ushio actually is dead. Munakata and Yatate's story was a bit vague, but we have enough witnesses from the scene to confirm it. Munakata said the killer was Shinozaki. Apparently, she's going to take us all out one by one as revenge," Ryouko reported.

Ushio's death had been a sobering discovery for the class. It was the first time anyone from their group had died.

"Wait, isn't Shinozaki dead?"

Tomochika knew that Ayaka Shinozaki was one of the four people who had been left behind as bait on the bus. She was the first one to be attacked, impaled through the chest. Tomochika hadn't checked to see if she was dead, but it was hard to believe anyone could survive such an experience.

"Yeah, she was," Yogiri confirmed. He had been the one to put the bodies of the other two students back into their seats, so he was even more certain of it than Tomochika was.

But if that was the case, what was going on? Tomochika couldn't even begin to guess.