Time for a Game Plan

Her…

That’s what struck me the most.

Not that Mineruva knew her. There was no reason to be angry with her for keeping painful things to herself.

The part that hit me was the weight of the way she said this. The sheer thought of her having to prepare me to face her was too much.

How I should’ve set a course in Leclaire and gotten to know the System, knowing that every rule could be so easily rewritten by this one person…

I also moved closer to Mineruva there at the table.

I knew she needed us because she felt guilty, and besides, we had helped each other a lot in the past. Especially her helping me, for which I owed her more than I could ever repay.

“Is she…” Rumel turned to me gently while Lupa tried to say some words to Mineruva. “Is she actually thousands of years old?”

I answered quietly, mostly because I didn’t want to dampen the moment, but also because I could barely speak myself.

“Right. She stopped aging… But I’m glad she’s still herself after all that time. Her lovable, chaotic self.”

There was no way I was going to waste a single thought on what could’ve happened if she had become a Demon too.

“Michio-kun,” Lupa turned to me, her hands still wrapped around Mineruva. “Is this ‘her’ who you talked about earlier when you got here?”

Oh boy, I resisted the urge to answer with all my might! I was dreading what we were going to get into. Something that might have the power and the interest to turn this world upside down.

We had to go forward either way, and lay all the pieces on the table. It was the only way we could make a move against her.

So I told them what happened in the alley. My assumption that the Birdman was being controlled, the fight with him as he tried to escape, and the way I recklessly allowed the dark magic to take over.

“Why did you do that?!” Lupa interjected instantly. “There must’ve been another way! I could barely stand when he grabbed me, I felt the darkness overwhelming me!”

“But did you see anyone in the darkness while he held your hand?”

She flinched. “N-No... I didn’t.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have either, but my talking must’ve been useful. She knew that I was aware of her, that’s probably the only reason I could see her: a shadow of a woman in a big hat. She let me, just to give me a taste before locking me out and made the Birdman disappear.”

I practically hacked her. The Birdman was her double-edged sword. I used him to track her—the source—down. She didn’t show any fear when I reached her, but was clever enough to cease the connection.

“So she’s a Demon,” Rumel nodded firmly, with fearsome determination. “Everything that happened today, my arrest, trial and death-sentence, was because of her.”

To put it in other words, she was a corrupt Master Profile NPC, and also a master hacker, since she could make anyone her puppet. Currently, the only good news was that it was quite obvious if someone had gone under her influence.

They’d be able to wield dark magic, superhuman movement, lack any remnant of their previous selves, and finishing them off would mean coming closer and closer to her.

“Mineruva?” I turned to her. “If I don't ask too much, could you tell us about her?”

She had calmed down now, but was still flushed, her hair covering her eyes as if she didn't want us to look at her.

But not anymore.

She smoothed her loose strands with her hand, and with that, the desperation vanished from her face. All that remained was pure truthfulness.

“Her name is Silaghi Terminus. She was one of my friends before she turned into what you saw. She came from Karpathy and was an adult when her abilities awakened, causing her stop aging.”

So this was common among them.

Mineruva didn’t have to get lost among normal people, there must’ve been a whole community of Master Profile NPCs who, thanks to the System, lived as long as she had.

“Silaghi was a master in psychics. She could access people’s minds, influence them, and even fight with weapons, unlike me. She was meant to heal others, but instead she began to manipulate and corrupt others, and then, dark magic empowered her.”

“After she did, could you find any trace of her?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“After she became a Demon, like everyone else, she started wreaking havoc. Every empire agreed to exterminate the Demons, and killed them over several crusades. I thought she died too.”

An understanding silence settled over us while we were surrounded by the joyful guests. All we could think about was what it must feel like to lose a friend twice.

The first time a part of her, the second time everything.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” Lupa pulled herself together. “I can’t imagine what you must feel, only hope that we could help you overcome it.”

“Thank you for your kindness. This means the world to me right now,” Mineruva said calmly, smiling lightly, which faded when she continued. “The fact that Silaghi is alive means that she’s the strongest of the Demons, playing mind games to get what she wants.”

“What she wants…” Rumel mused, tapping her fingers on the table. “Do we even know what she wants?”

I wondered about that too.

Mineruva had mentioned the ends that drove the Demons, but that was just vague.

Chaos? Endless bloodshed? World domination?

All checked off on the cliché villain checklist.

There must be a better reason behind this.

“Political chaos, most likely,” Lupa thought aloud, her eyes staring in thought. “She killed three important people to demonstrate the North’s motives, and the letters left beside them suggested espionage. With this, she made the Empire distrust itself.”

“That would mean she's working with the North,” I came to the conclusion. “But doesn’t that sound stupid? I mean, everyone hated Demons, I bet even the North did. And now they’re suddenly teaming up with one?”

“This bothers me too,” the knight-girl said. “There are only tribes in the North: of goblins, pigmen, giants and so on. I highly doubt they’re united enough to decide to wage war on the Empire, yet everything points to it.”

“Unless…” Rumel began, already having a clue.

Unless what?

“Unless she wanted it this way,” Mineruva interjected, and the air froze. “Since we know that all the evidence other than the letters was false, it’s not hard to guess that Silaghi fabricated those too to incite a false conflict.”

I would never have guessed that. Seriously, putting the Demon-thing aside, anyone would’ve thought it more reasonable that the letters were real and Silaghi was working with the enemy.

Maybe because it would’ve been too easy to believe.

Instead, we had to take into account that it was all a lie and she was messing with us AND the entire Empire on her own THE ENTIRE TIME!

“This only makes things worse...” Lupa said, perfectly guessing my thoughts. “I can’t believe she’s causing chaos like this! Single-handedly fabricating whatever she wants with magic and minions! Seriously, what’s the point of an unnecessary war that we’d come out victorious anyway?”

SNAP!

Rumel’s fingers cracked the air like a whip, and her eyes lit up with a cheeky smile.

“Who says she’s working alone?”

“Wait, didn’t you just say ‘unless’?” I asked. “Didn’t you mean that her working with the North is a sham?”

“Of course I did, silly!” she scolded kindly. “But that doesn’t mean Silaghi has to act on her own! What if she acts for someone who benefits from this war? Someone who is, say, in favor of war?”

Oh no.

She waited for reactions. Mineruva nodded quite proudly as if she was her pupil, while I was immediately pissed out of my wits, already scrambling to piece the puzzle together to find the clue.

I asked Lupa for an answer, doubting myself, but she was silent too, her mind racing.

Dang, I knew it. We’re thinking of the exact same person.

◆ ◆ ◆

That night, when it became clear what was in store for us tomorrow, I was far too anxious to sleep, even though my body already felt heavy.

After dinner and hours of talking, one of the maids kindly came up to us and gave us the keys to our bedrooms. Rumel already had hers and we were given the rooms next to it.

We all went up the stairs together when we felt it was time to have a rest.

I stopped at my own door, unlocked it, then looked back at the girls before I let myself in.

“Good night, everyone! I’ll wake everyone up in the morning and we’ll get started,” Mineruva said goodbye before disappearing into her own room.

The others said goodnight too and went inside.

Yeah. Good night to us. We’ll need it.

Inside my cozy room, I sat on the bed for a while and listened to the silence before deciding to sleep—wondering.

Were we right?

Could Silaghi really be working for someone so obvious?

◆ ◆ ◆

“No way…”

Lupa realized how overlapping the past events were, but refused to believe it.

“Consul Magne is a general, and also my boss! He mustn’t have anything to do with this, not knowingly, anyway!”

“The problem is, everything goes in Silaghi’s game,” Mineruva said. “Consul Magne may not be aware that he’s being aided by a Demon, but we must consider the possibility that they’re working together.”

How did I not notice until now?

It was the three dead, Consul Berro, Hamil and Cameron, who opposed Magne’s hot-headed pro-war plan the most.

Silaghi had them killed, perhaps because she read Magne’s mind, who thought of them as an obstacle. With them gone, he was now free to convince the Senate that they had to prepare for war. Out of everyone, he profited from this the most.

Lupa had to take time to process this. She leaned on the table with her fists clenched and opened her mouth to speak several times, but only on the umpteenth try did she manage to begin.

“I… I must talk to him! It’s a bad idea, but before we do anything, talking is our best chance. I need to interrogate him, and I already know the right questions to ask, and I’ll know if he's lying. He’ll think I’m a traitor, but I have to try!”

Before anyone could react, a hand swung up and then a voice.

“I like it!”

What?!

“Really,” Rumel looked over at me and Mineruva, ears raised, tail wagging. “Let Lupa-sama question him while we protect her. If he doesn’t know anything, I’ll help put him to sleep with my tea. But if he does know…”

“Then we’ll fight,” Lupa finished, agreeing with her.

Geez, did they really decide that so quickly? Girls could be scary sometimes.

“It’s feasible.” Mineruva said.

“Is it?!”

“Certainly. But it doesn’t make it any less dangerous,” she replied. “And we can only succeed if we are careful and don’t rush it.”

Oh, great! I wasn’t the only reckless one in the group anymore!

Mineruva put her hands on the table.

“If we’re going to risk a confrontation with anyone, be it Magne or Silaghi, we need to be prepared for everything. We must practice fighting.”

“A training then?” Lupa asked routinely. “I’m pretty good at that.”

You may be, but not me! I never liked PE! My teacher was horrible!

“How could I be of help?” Rumel asked, a smug look on her face as she pulled out her claws.

“By not getting into the fight directly. We barely managed to get you out of danger, and won’t risk putting you back. So you’ll stay with me and train how to use your tea and herbs to your advantage.”

“Cool!”

Mineruva turned to me last, and shot me a face that made wish I was still in my good old bedroom in Tokyo.

“Michio-sama, you and Lupa must train with weapons. Now the System gave you a physical body instead of leaving you invisible, but even so, you still can’t pick up a sword.”

Dang, that hit hard.

Only a nod came out of me, as two voices battled inside me at once.

I couldn’t believe that they would teach me how to sword fight, but that meant I had to play with lethal weapons!

“Uhm... okay, I’m in. But do we know how long the training will take?”

“Until you and I are able to attack with the utmost precision,” Lupa replied, as if it was a no-brainer. “We don’t have to be the best, just the most precise, which basically means enhanced reflex.”

This didn’t help at all.

Once I realized that we had to train for who knows how long, and that I had promised myself that I wouldn’t log out until we dealt with everything, I suddenly felt sadness wash over me.

“Michio-sama?” Mineruva asked, reading me like an open book. “Why are you asking exactly?”

What she was meaning was ‘Don’t you have the time? Is there something we could help with?’.

This was the last thing I wanted to confess, and now was the worst time to bring it up.

How could I explain this to be taken seriously?

“Well... You know, I can’t exactly stay in Leclaire forever. I have someone in my world who’d like to visit me soon. Sachi, my childhood friend. We haven’t seen each other in a long time and agreed to meet on Saturday afternoon. And... today is Thursday on Earth.”

I felt absolutely shattered, but everyone just kept quiet, so I carried on.

“I’m afraid if I don't see her then, she’ll be worried about where I am. Not to mention I can’t wait to meet her and have a good time. But I also don’t want to leave you here to go up against Silaghi without me, so… I honestly don’t know how we could do this. To get the best of two worlds…”

“Sachi seems like a nice girl,” Mineruva reassured me, her voice nothing like I expected. “We can arrange for you to meet. Right, Lupa-sama?”

“Certainly. We’ll prepare and execute the plan until then.”

“But two days won’t be enough for anything!”

“Oh, nonsense!” Lupa said. “To learn how to attack and defend with basic precision? Perfectly enough time.”

Perfectly enough?!

Rumel was lost in thought, swaying on the bench.

“Sachi must be lucky to have you as a friend. I’d love to meet her too.”

Thus, it was decided, although even before sleep, tired as I was, I could hardly believe it.

They understood me. As stupid as it seemed, we went ahead according to Lupa’s plan and my time limit. The two worst possible factors, but everyone was fine with it!

Maybe I hadn’t appreciated how much they’d grown to me and vice versa. Best friends in need, or just a couple of quirky people making wrong decisions like a team in a competitive game.

Now we had to prepare for a literal boss fight together in two days to stop a fake war and to make sure I get home in time.

What’s this if not teamwork?

I wasn’t ready for anything, that much was clear, but I was grateful to all those who were kind and trusted me enough to help when I really needed it.

Eventually, I laid down in bed and pulled the blanket over me, giving in to sleep.

Not ten minutes passed and I was fast snoring.

I’m not revealing much when I say that both deep sleep and dreaming were integral to the full sensory experience provided by the System. I had the same feeling as if I was back home, nothing was unrealistic or buggy.

I had some weird dreams though, mostly of tough moments from today.

One was with me, the Birdman and Silaghi. I found myself in the alleyway at sunset, grabbing the thief’s hand, expecting the dark magic to engulf me. But instead, I heard the familiar voice from behind me.

“You wouldn’t want that, would you, Creator?”

The other was us at the Imperial Court, at the moment the Judge Supreme ordered Rumel’s execution.

"Here in the presence of the Senate, take her head!”

One of the escort knights slashed with his sword, but there was no miss this time. Nobody was there to rescue her. No Lupa, no Mineruva. Just my powerless self against it all.

It was a never-ending rewind of nightmares, and only seemed to end when I was finally waking up, feeling the bed under me again.

Except that at the same time, I felt something incredibly heavy on my stomach, as if a whole car had been put on top of me.

I woke up shaking, sweating and a little dizzy from the disorientation, but I couldn’t sit up.

“Sorry about that!” a stunned voice called to me. “I’ve been waking you up for ten minutes! It’s like you haven’t slept in ages, how could you not hear me?”

Somehow I managed to pull my numb hands out from under the blanket and cleaned my eyes.

I could already see light—it must’ve been morning.

But what the heck is this weight?

I think I saw Mineruva standing next to my bed, eyebrows raised, her mouth about to open in explanation. That’s when I noticed that she was holding the Soul Index in her hand, the pearl glowing wildly.

“Grrr...?”

I stiffened at the sudden growl and gulped.

Lifting my head up, I came face-to-face with the two-ton jade-glowing Tanuki sitting comfortably on my chest, staring straight into my soul, all smug.

“GODDAMMIT, SERIOUSLY?!”

◆ ◆ ◆

Minutes later, I sat on my bed with my hands folded, face still puffy. The Tanuki was called back to the Soul Index and I was free to move on my own.

Mineruva was squirming around a bit, blinking at me. She definitely wasn’t used to being shouted at in the morning.

“I told you I’m sorry!”

In hindsight, I didn’t blame her.

“Couldn’t you wake me up any other way?!”

“Hey, I did say I’d wake everyone up, and the others are already awake! Does everyone in your world sleep like rocks?”

I clutched my quilt and got up. I figured I’d vent my frustration by making the bed, not wanting to leave a mess for a maid to clean.

Even a good night's sleep comes at a price.

“Only when we haven’t slept well in a while,” I shook my blanket and pillow wildly as if they had insulted me until they looked decent. “I woke up last night to the Birdman, and the day before, I stayed up late perfecting the System. Remember, to me, Leclaire came into existence only two days ago.”

She opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind and let it go with a sigh.

“I'll find another way next time, but you'd better get to bed early.”

I managed a subtle smile.

“Roger.”

As she then stepped away from the door, I noticed two cat ears poking into the room behind her, chuckling.

Rumel and Lupa stepped in the next moment, all dressed. One in her casual outfit, the other in armor and her signature purple cape.

“Ready to go?” they asked.

I looked at the four of us as we were about to embark on something dangerous, and I had to ask one last question before I gave in.

“Are you sure about this? I mean, surely there must be a less dangerous solution to this…”

Unfazed, Lupa leaned on her unsheathed sword as if it were a staff.

“As a knight, whatever we choose, I’m prepared to face whatever comes our way.”

“Guys, I wouldn’t be here without you! If you’ll let me, I’ll return the favor, simple as that.”

Mineruva then took my hand, catching me off guard.

“All our moves so far have been risky, this one’s no different. We know what to do, and everything will be fine.”

It was hard to say anything to this, but I didn’t need to.

Slowly, my doubts began to fade.

“Okay, so where are we going? Won’t Tara-sama worry if we’re gone?”

Mineruva gave a good laugh, then let go of my hand, getting ready to teleport.

“You’ve been to where we’re going! And we’ll be back by dinner anyway, so don’t feel sorry for your tummy!”

“Hold up, that’s not what I meant! I—” I stopped halfway through, realizing I was getting nowhere. “Fine, I’m ready.”