I’d heard her go “Gyaa~ Gyaa~,” and decided to get to work as a Ghostbuster, so I laid out my terms to Sion inside the locker.

“I have two conditions. First, protect my life as promised in the contract. Second, we beat this game my way. What do you say?”

The first was important enough to confirm again. The second was the real point.

Still wondering what the “Gyaa... Gyaa...” had been about, Sion nevertheless clarified my terms now that we were discussing business.

“... Does your method include using other people’s lives to gather information on how to defeat the uncanny?”

I looked down at Sion as she looked up at me. That was blunt. Still, it was better to get our misgivings out in the open beforehand.

“Of course not. You hired me to eliminate the uncanny and rescue those people, and I’ll do my best to keep them alive. ... Of course, if they go off on their own and do something suicidally stupid, I can’t help that.”

As I spoke, I shifted to get more comfortable in the cramped locker—and slipped.

THUD!

My hand landed against the locker wall beside Sion’s face.

“...”

“...”

... Somehow, I’d ended up pinning her against the wall with our bodies pressed together. Our legs overlapped.

Anyway, I went with the mood. Instead of avoiding those calm eyes that were always studying me, I met them head-on and made myself clear once more.

“If you protect me as agreed, I’ll save all twenty-five, including you. I’m not lying.”

I meant it. I was the most important person in the world to me. If Sion protected my precious life, I could save any number of other lives along the way.

... And this wasn’t a big deal, but seeing Sion’s face so close made me realize something. I gazed at the cold eyes in her calm, pretty face. Her eyes, to be precise. I’d thought they were simply cold and black, but how should I put it? There was a sparkle to them. An integrity.

‘... What am I even talking about?’

My own impression struck me as ridiculous, but that was how I felt. Yes, I thought I understood a little better why I was wary of Sion. Obviously, it wasn’t because of her eyes. Part of it was that she suspected I owned the grimoire <Mysteries of the Worm>, but...

Sion was fundamentally a different kind of person from me. Unlike me, a criminal magician, she was a good person.

At close quarters inside the locker, our calm eyes met—oddly alike, yet different. Sion spoke in a calm but gentle voice.

“Understood. Thank you for answering me. I’ll follow your lead, Yohan.”

Good. We had a deal.

“Then it sounds quiet outside now. Shall we get out and discuss the details?”

Sion listened for a moment before answering.

“Yes, let’s. She seems to have left altogether.”

So Sion and I stepped out.

“Yohan.”

She asked the question that had been bothering her.

“That... Gyaa... Gyaa... Was it some kind of test, or a ritual?”

“No, nothing like that. You seemed so tense, I thought it might help you relax.”

“...”

Realizing she’d been teased, Sion narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips together. The tips of her ears turned red.

* * *

CHIRP~ CHIRRUP~! CHIRP CHIRP!

I slowly opened my eyes to the sparrow sound effects coming from outside the window. For form’s sake, I said it once.

“... An unfamiliar ceiling.”

I got out of bed, did a few simple stretches, and looked around the room again. An ordinary room with a bed, a desk, and a bookcase. This was the two-story house at the address on my student ID, and according to the game’s setting, this was my room.

When I went downstairs to make breakfast, an unexpected sight greeted me.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

... Sion was making breakfast in the kitchen. Right. In the game, she was my younger cousin who lived with me.

“There’s a stamina stat. It seems your ability to act drops if you don’t eat or rest. I checked the refrigerator, and the food inside was ordinary, at least.”

I looked at the food laid out on the table. Toast, fried eggs, sausages, and salad. Simple, but not bad for breakfast.

“What do you put on your salad, Yohan?”

“I don’t mind either way. If anything, I usually don’t put dressing on it.”

As I picked up a cherry tomato and ate it, Sion nodded.

“I see. Tomorrow I’ll use a little less cabbage and add more tomatoes.”

“...”

... This was so unexpected that it felt awkward. Still, I appreciated her making breakfast, and there was no reason not to eat it.

“Thanks. I’ll enjoy it.”

After we finished eating, Sion set a stack of papers on the table along with some tea.

“As you suggested, I sent all the other players to the homes at the addresses on their student IDs. And this is my compilation of the walkthrough information the Special Response Section operatives gathered while attempting to romance the heroines.”

I read through the papers Sion had organized. Excluding Gremory, the student council president, there were five psycho heroines in total. They all shared absurd physical abilities and an inability to die. Even broken bones and bodily injuries healed quickly.

Several Special Response Section operatives had joined forces and tried to subdue a psycho heroine by cutting off her head, but apparently that had failed too.

Beside me, Sion explained the romanceable heroines.

“First, Moemi Momo and Sado Satsuki. You saw both of them yesterday, and both pose a physical threat to the player. Momo mainly appears on the morning route to school, at corners, or on stairs and attacks the player. Apparently, you have to survive that initial attack before you can romance her.

“Satsuki’s backstory makes her a descendant of a samurai family. One thing to watch out for is accidentally stepping on her shadow. She’ll cut you down for stepping on a samurai’s shadow. Apparently, when she gets a new sword, she also cuts the player to test it.”

Faced with this overflowing heap of information, I put the papers I’d been reading down on the table.

“Stop. I neither need nor want information about these cookie-cutter psycho heroines.”

There was no need to read or hear any more.

“At its core, a game should be made with at least some desire for the people playing it to have fun.”

My eyes narrowed.

“But all I feel from this shitty game is a malicious desire to fuck people over. Well, if it were an actual game, I could have some fun retrying even this piece of shit. But it isn’t an actual game.”

I had no interest in playing the clown on a malicious stage someone else had set for me.

“I have no intention of beating it fair and square.”

“Then how?”

“I told you. We’re doing this my way.”

Yes, my way. A magician’s way.

* * *

I wasn’t going to a school full of uncanny things pretending to be human.

PEEP! PEEP! PEEEEP!

Sion blinked.

“Yohan, what is this place?”

“A part-time chick-sexing job.”

Dressed in work clothes, I stepped among the chicks, took one in my hand, and spoke.

“Info Window.”

[Female]

Normally, the job required professional certification, but the Info Window made telling the sexes apart easy. Female, female, male, female, male, female, male. I sorted the chicks as though I were playing a minigame, finished the job, and checked the money I’d earned in the menu window.

I didn’t know whether this shitty game wanted to offer more freedom or was simply imitating reality, but it had quite a few part-time job activities, and the shop in the menu sold all kinds of real-world items.

I immediately bought some regular clothes and a white trench coat, took off the fucking [Harem Academy] uniform, and put on the coat.

“Let’s go. Next is a job at a flower shop. We’ll get hyssop and aloe there. We don’t have much time if we’re going to make holy water, magical incense, and a robe on Wednesday.”

Sion realized what Yohan’s strategy was. He intended to remake his magical supplies and use magic. Actually, that made perfect sense. She looked at Yohan in his white trench coat.

“... Understood.”

After all, Yohan was a magician. There was no reason for him to insist on conventional methods.

“According to the heroine information, though, we may cross paths with the track-team heroine at the moment. Let’s change our route.”

She immediately adjusted her support to suit Yohan’s approach.

* * *

Swallowing her nerves, Sion opened the door of the empty classroom where Yohan was waiting.

“Yohan, I’ve brought Moemi Momo.”

“Hah~! Sending your little sister to summon me to some secluded place like this! You’re the worst! If you try anything dirty, I’ll kill—”

Momo, the pretty girl with pink twin-tails, strode inside without hesitation to kill the player.

“... Huh?”

Blackout curtains covered the windows. Candles lit the dark classroom. And there stood Yohan in a white coat, atop a magic circle.

I looked at the psycho heroine with pink twin-tails. There was no need for clumsy attempts at conversation.

“Now, would you look at this?”

I immediately held up a circular metal pentacle cut from a copper plate.

[The Fifth Pentacle of Venus]

Its magical effect was to make whoever saw it fall in love.

“O king riding a camel, O adorned woman, O naked beauty, O she-goat, camel, and dove.”

I began the incantation at once.

“O spirit of Venus, answer my call.”

Yes, being without my grimoires was undeniably dangerous. But if you couldn’t do anything without a grimoire, you weren’t a magician. You were a grimoire stand. And I wasn’t a grimoire stand. I was the master of grimoires. A magician.

I was only a pushover when my magic wasn’t ready. Once it was prepared, most uncanny things were no longer a match for me.

Yohan’s shadow, flickering in the candlelight, grew and swallowed the room. And then...

BZZT! BZZT!

Sounds like a malfunction rang out from the body of Momo, the pink-twin-tailed psycho heroine.

POP! POP! POOOP!

“U... Unnh! I, I! I’m falling in love—!”

Her affection stat shot all the way to maximum, and heart-shaped effects burst out at the same time. Romance complete.

Watching this, Sion asked cautiously,

“... Does this have the same effect on people?”

“You think it would? Of course not.”

This was a special case. Magic wasn’t normally this convenient.

“No matter how fucking arbitrary this game is, it’s still a game. As heroines, they’re destined to be won over by the protagonist. All I did was use magic to skip the process and reach that result. If I used it on a person, it would probably just make me seem a little more appealing. And even that wouldn’t work if they disliked me to begin with.”

The dangerous uncanny entity that had killed Special Response Section operatives was now drooling.

“Unnh... Red-bean crumbs... ■☐♥☆##@!”

Sion had no idea what expression to make at the sight of it malfunctioning.