Chapter 23 — Interlude: Why Are You Using Such an Annoying Method?

"And now I've been left behind again!" Hanakawa wailed.

Yogiri had refused to let him travel with them. On top of that, he was a stranger to the others and Rick's group had felt no obligation to take him along either.

"W-Well...at least it seems this place is safe for now, so I guess I'll go look for somewhere a bit calmer..." Compared to ordinary people, Hanakawa had a considerable amount of power. His physical characteristics were significantly higher than most, and he had the ability to heal from any wound in an instant. As long as he kept his greed in check, he should be able to make it as some sort of discount Hero. If he found a desolate, faraway village, he could hunt the monsters lurking around it to curry favor with the locals. Even his dreams of building a harem weren't impossible.

"That's right. I was still a member of the party that took down a Demon Lord. Asking for a slight boost to my status isn't a very big deal! Well then, let's first investigate the basement of this tower. Takatou seemed entirely uninterested, so there may not be much in the way of rare items down there, but you never know."

Although he had been dragged there against his will, he had guessed what this place was from listening to the conversations around him. The tower must have been built to seal away the Dark God. That meant there might still be something left over that was worth looting. Hanakawa possessed a skill that let him carry an unlimited number of items; no amount of treasure would be a burden to him.

Just as he had decided to head down to the basement, he sensed someone behind him and turned around. A young boy was standing there, and although he looked totally exhausted, there was a mad light burning in his eyes.

Hanakawa immediately dropped to his hands and knees. Perhaps because he had done it so often, he slid into the position relatively smoothly. His instincts were screaming that while this creature looked like no more than a child, he was incredibly dangerous. Hanakawa would do everything in his power to obey him.

"Hey, what happened here?" As the boy stepped forward, the floor beneath his feet cracked and shattered. He must have been furious. All Hanakawa could do was pray that his anger wouldn't be directed at him personally.

"U-Umm...that's right! This was all done by a man named Yogiri Takatou! Everything, all of it, every single thing was his fault! That's the truth!"

This boy must have been one of the Dark God's spawn. Hanakawa had assumed that Yogiri wiped them all out, but apparently that wasn't the case. He had no idea what his former classmate had been thinking, but it may have been something as simple as this "boy" not directly intending to kill him at the time.

"Even Orgain's death?"

"Yes!"

"And all my companions?"

"Yes!"

"And my lord's death as well?"

"Yes, yes! All of it! It's all his fault! It had nothing to do with me; I just happened to be here by coincidence!" Hanakawa pleaded pitifully. Fighting was entirely out of the question, but even running away seemed impossible right now. There was nothing he could do but beg for mercy.

"That's a bit hard to believe."

"I realize that, but...!"

"Still, I don't understand exactly what's going on right now. Can you explain it more clearly?"

"Very well! Understood!" Hanakawa pressed his face into the ground.

First Rikuto with his harem, then Aoi running him ragged, and now this spawn of the Dark God seemed poised to do the same. But anything that happened twice could happen three times, or even four. As long as he was alive, there was still a chance. For now, Hanakawa would simply have to be obedient and see where things went.

There was a way out for him somehow. He decided to hold on to that hope.

 ◇ ◇ ◇

In a room in Sion's mansion, four Sages had gathered around a circular table.

"We've lost contact with Aoi," Sion reported.

At their last meeting, they had decided that one of the candidates Sion had summoned, Yogiri Takatou, was a problem. He had likely been involved in the disappearance of Lain and the death of Santarou. They didn't know for sure that he was responsible, but he was only a Sage candidate, and his death would hardly be a loss, so they had decided to get rid of him just in case.

Imagining that he might possess powers on par with those of the Sages, they had sent Aoi, who specialized in hunting rogue Sages, after him. If he was just some fool who had stumbled across an exceptional power, she was the perfect choice to deal with him. However, they hadn't heard a word from her since she'd left Hanabusa and headed for the canyon.

"Seriously, whether it's Lain or Aoi, I can't see either of them dying. We did see Santarou's body, so I agree, that one is hard to ignore," said Yoshifumi, a seedy-looking man whose leather pants and studded jacket made him look like a common thug, although he was indeed a Sage. In fact, he was the emperor of the land of Ent. Unlike most Sages, he directly ruled over the area under his jurisdiction.

"There are signs of large-scale destruction in the canyon," Sion replied. "The landscape itself has completely changed. There were rumors that a Swordmaster lived there, but I find it hard to believe that Aoi would pick a fight with him. If she had, I doubt she would have made it out unscathed."

"But we have no idea where this Takatou guy is, right? So there's nothing we can do but leave it for now."

"Wait, you're the one who summoned him, aren't you, Sion?" The next to speak was Alice, a girl in a golden dress. Although she styled herself as a princess, unlike Yoshifumi, she wasn't actually connected to a royal house. Sion didn't understand it, but Alice adamantly insisted that she was a princess through and through. "Is this something you should be pushing off on others? I feel like you should take some responsibility and deal with it yourself."

"I suppose you're right. Luckily, we know the locations of the others who were summoned alongside him, so they may have had some contact with him. Very well, then. I will continue to share information about the case, but from now on, I'll take care of it personally."

Aoi failing — or encountering any difficulties at all — had totally defied Sion's expectations. Obviously, she had been completely wrong about this one candidate, but there was little she could do now other than solve the situation herself.

"Ahh, actually, we're starting to run quite low on Sages, aren't we?" Jumping into the conversation as if he had just remembered something was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young man.

As his appearance suggested, he was not Japanese like the rest of them. His name was Van, the true grandson of the Great Sage. All of the current Sages referred to themselves as "Grandchildren of the Great Sage" but for those like Sion, it was only a title. Van had actually been born in this world, and had a true blood connection to their leader.

"Yes, that's why we've been summoning candidates repeatedly to try and fill in the gaps. It seems we aren't producing much in the way of results, though."

"But why are you using such an inefficient method? If you want more Sages, shouldn't it be an easy process?" Van stared at them with blank amazement. He really believed that finding replacements was an easy task.

"It's not that simple. That's why we've been trying out so many different methods. Are you saying you can get us more Sages?"

"Sure, I'll give it a shot. I just need to find replacements for Lain and Santarou, right?"

"Actually, as many as you can find would be great. The recently invading Aggressors have been fairly strong, after all."

"All right, I'll try to find some, then."

At Van's light-hearted reply, Sion's expression grew troubled. If he could create viable Sages so easily, it would make the rest of them look like idiots for going through all the trouble of summoning candidates from other worlds. But at this point, they would just have to wait and see how he fared.

"Fine, I'll leave that to you two, then," Yoshifumi said. "But honestly, why do you even care? Why not just let the Aggressors do as they like if they aren't in your territory? Our job is to fight the Aggressors in the areas that are under our jurisdictions...the rest is none of our business, is it?"

It was a fair point, but if the number of Sages continued to decrease, eventually that burden would shift to the rest of them instead. It was best to deal with the issue as quickly as possible.

"Maybe so, but if we just let those areas be, the people there will be in trouble." Even if it was outside of their own territories, the people in the regions threatened by Aggressors would be left to die. They couldn't just ignore that.

"Yeah, about those empty areas..." Yoshifumi continued. "It was left kinda vague last time, so let's clear this up right now. I want Lain's territory."

"Excuse me, I also want Hanabusa!" Alice interjected, raising a hand energetically.

"Screw off, bitch. It's nowhere near your jurisdiction!"

"Oh really? That's rich coming from the guy who's stuck on an island! It's a whole ocean away from you!"

Hanabusa was the closest thing in this world to a modern Japanese city. Since the majority of Sages had come from Japan, it was a highly desirable location to them.

"And what's with that mook-like fashion you've got going on?" snorted Alice. "You look like such a small fry! Like you'll be wiped out within seconds of hitting the field!"

"The fact that you don't get it is exactly why you're a brainless tart! And what's with that floaty look you've got going? No princess in the world looks half as ridiculous as you do!"

"You wanna go a round?! My Imperial Guard isn't just for show, you know!"

"Bring it! My Four Heavenly Kings will crush you!"

"Ha! Four Heavenly Kings? I guess if the boss is a small fry, the underlings would be no exception! Sounds like they'll die quick!"

The mounting tension between Yoshifumi and Alice was showing no sign of easing.

"Very well," Sion interjected. "I will decide on a course of action here. Let's split Lain's territory between you. If we cut it in half, that should be fair, right? I'll let you two decide where the halfway point is."

Predictably, the resulting discussion immediately devolved into another heated argument.

"Well, please work it out yourselves later on."

Fed up with their antics, Sion forcibly removed them from the room. Aside from Sion herself, the Sages present at the meeting were merely illusions. As the owner of the room, Sion had the authority to cut off their transmissions at any time.

"I'll give you a shout if I manage to make some more Sages," Van stated before he too disappeared. He didn't seem to be at all interested in the matter of the unclaimed territories. She didn't know why he had even come to the meeting, but he had a tendency to drop in on a whim like that. It may have been nothing more than a way for him to kill time.

Seeing that the meeting had finished and that Sion was now alone, her attendant, Youichi, stepped inside. "If Sages are meant to do whatever they want, how did you end up saddled with managing the decreasing number of Sages and the unclaimed territories?"

"I guess that's just my nature. Grandfather told us to 'do as we will,' so that's what I'm doing. No matter what's going on, I always end up trying to bring some sort of order to it."

"So, what are you going to do about that Yogiri guy?"

"Let's see...we still don't have a good idea of what he actually is. You said he was maybe using some sort of Instant Death magic..."

"I talked to the lord of Hanabusa, but he didn't really understand what Yogiri was doing. The little information he was able to offer was totally useless. Why don't we try asking the other candidates from his class?"

"I'd prefer not to interfere with them beyond the bounds of their missions...ah! How about this?" Sion clapped her hands together as an idea came to her. "Let's summon someone who knows Yogiri from back in Japan!"

"Can you do that?"

"I still have the data from their transmigration left over, so I can probably narrow it down well enough. Let's give it a try."

Summoning magic was ordinarily an incredibly difficult task, but it was second nature for Sion. After all, she produced magical energy just by breathing, so she was always overflowing with power.

Sion stretched a hand outwards and a magic circle appeared on the table before her, linking that spot to the other world. It was like making a trap door that connected the two locations. The process created a tunnel leading from this world, which rested at the lowest possible energy potential, to another one higher up. All she had to do was wait for someone to fall into it.

She had set up the trap in a specific location based on the information she currently had about Yogiri Takatou, but the chances of actually snagging someone related to him were fairly low. There was a high probability that nothing would come of it, but she had the magical energy to spare, so there was no reason not to try.

"Wait, Sion, can't you just summon Yogiri himself? That would make getting rid of him awfully easy."

"Unilateral summoning is rather challenging for someone in the same world. This trans-world approach is possible due to the difference in energy needs between our worlds. Ah, we've got something."

With the sound of a string being plucked, someone appeared on the table. It was a man in a white coat.

"Success?" Youichi asked.

"Who knows? We'll have to ask him and find out."

The man in the coat looked extremely bewildered. That was to be expected, though. From his point of view, the world around him had suddenly transformed, leaving him in a new and strange place.

"Hello. My name is Sion, a Sage. I am the one who summoned you here."

"Sage? Summoned? What are you talking about?" The man seemed to calm down slightly upon hearing her voice.

"I called you here to ask you about a boy named Yogiri Takatou."

The moment she said the name, the man began to panic, even more so than at the moment of his summoning.

"Summon — wait, is that why ＡΩ suddenly disappeared? Is this a different world? No, that's definitely possible. After all, we have no idea where he originally came from. If there are other worlds, then maybe that's where the source of his power is...but then the energy source would be..." Though he had been alarmed at first, he seemed to immediately accept his situation and began muttering excitedly to himself, pulling a cell phone from his pocket.

"Ahahahahaha!" The moment he looked at the screen of his phone, he began to laugh maniacally. "This is another world?!"

"That's right," Sion replied, taken aback by his bizarre reaction. Normally, she would have expected him to take longer to accept that fact, and to be more distressed when the realization hit.

"He's here! I've got his signal again! Of course, there's no way he could die! And you're the ones who brought him here?! In that case, you are our saviors! You've literally saved our world! On behalf of Japan — no, on behalf of all humanity, please accept my heartfelt thanks!"

"What do you mean?" Youichi asked with a frown. Though the man in the white coat didn't appear to be completely insane, they had no idea what he was rambling about.

"Of course, that just means this world is now in danger! Dammit! Why me? Why did I have to be brought here now that my own world is safe?! Look, the seal has even been removed! Do you have any idea what that means?!"

"ＡΩ, first gate release confirmed. Taking Level C precautions. Self-destruct sequence initiated. Warning. Please step at least five meters away. Beginning countdown. Ten...nine...eight..."

A machine-like voice was emanating from somewhere on the man.

"No, please, help me! I don't want to die! Please, return me to my world!"

Sion and Youichi watched, dumbstruck, as the countdown quickly reached zero.

The moment it did, the man's head exploded.

Pieces of skull and chunks of brain matter sprayed outward as his body slumped over on the table. Naturally, he died instantly.

"What the hell was that?!" Youichi mumbled, unable to comprehend what they had just seen.

"I have no idea...but I suppose summoning any others would be meaningless."

In truth, she hadn't been overly concerned with this Yogiri Takatou before, but Sion was now starting to get a very bad feeling about him.