As we ate and made small talk, Sion took her turn asking me a question.

“Yohan, may I ask you something too?”

“Sure. You don’t have to ask permission every time, either.”

Sion spoke cautiously.

“... Could you tell me why you didn’t stay in the game world, as Gremory suggested?”

Apparently, she was curious why I’d destroyed, without hesitation, a world where I could live like a king amid endless indulgence.

It was a question that required no thought, so I answered immediately.

“Because I’m sane.”

It wasn’t a moral issue about the countless lives trapped in that false world.

“I only managed to corner Gremory because she let her guard down, and because I had magic to cheat with. She might have bowed to me for the moment, but given time, she would’ve figured out a countermeasure. Staying there would’ve been a stupid way to make myself a slave. And...”

Above all, it wasn’t my thing.

“Happiness someone else gives you is happiness they can stop giving you at any time. No matter how badly I want it.”

I picked up a cherry tomato, chewed and swallowed it, then continued.

“I’m not interested in having someone else decide when I laugh or cry.”

Getting scolded at work or bowing my head was fine. There was no helping that if I wanted to earn a living.

That wasn’t letting someone else push me around. It was ducking my head for a moment to protect my livelihood.

That was life in society.

... But having my life itself controlled by someone else was an entirely different matter.

The most pathetic time of my life. When I was five.

I tried to ingratiate myself so I wouldn’t be abandoned, and failed.

I went outside holding her hand. She let go whenever she pleased, and I was abandoned at an orphanage.

Experiencing that humiliation as a powerless child was more than enough.

Even if I had to crawl along the ground, even if it was the tiniest scrap of happiness, I had to seize it with my own hands.

Not cling to someone else and wait for them to give it to me.

“... Sorry. I went on a bit, trying to sound profound.”

I gave a light laugh and brought my explanation to an end.

“It was just a ridiculous offer, and it didn’t sit right with me. That’s all.”

Sion shook her head slightly.

“Not at all. My question could have sounded as though I was suspicious of you... Thank you for answering honestly.”

Our small talk continued like that.

Eventually, we finished the pasta and decided it was time to clean up.

“Thanks. That was good. You must be tired too, so thanks for going to the trouble of cooking. I’ll clean up. Get home safely.”

“Not at all. I enjoyed it too, and I did this to thank you. I’ll take care of the cleanup as well.”

With that, Sion cleared the plates from the table, even washed the dishes, and went home.

... She was someone in the Special Response Section I had to be wary of.

But cooking for me and doing the dishes did make me like her a little more.

After Sion left, I stroked Grizzly’s head as it emerged from the grimoire.

“Gyaaa~.”

Grizzly: good at going “Gyaa~ Gyaa~,” good at eating.

I remembered Sion crying with an embarrassed expression inside the locker.

[“G-gyaa... Gyaaa...”]

Budget Grizzly (Sion): cooks, does the dishes.

“Ha...”

“Gyaa?”

The stupid thought made me laugh before I knew it.

‧

‧

‧

Sion’s studio apartment.

“Whew...”

Dressed in pajamas, Sion stepped out of the bathroom, toweling her wet black hair.

After leaving Yohan’s home, she had reported what happened inside the game to the Special Response Section. Told to get some rest, she had returned home and washed up.

Then she flopped straight onto her soft bed.

‘I should dry my hair properly...’

Her lovely, composed black eyes blinked softly with fatigue.

“...”

Less than a day had passed in the real world, but so much had happened.

Suddenly, she remembered what Yohan had said while mocking Gremory in the game.

[“Next time, check your weight class before opening your mouth, you pelican.”]

She searched for pelicans on her phone.

One of the pelican images in the search results made her laugh involuntarily.

“Ha... Pff... Hehe...”

It showed a pelican opening its beak at a seated, resting giraffe, while the giraffe remained utterly unmoved.

Sion got out of bed and took out her hair dryer.

There was a lot to think about...

But for now, she would rest for tomorrow.

* * *

The Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures.

Although it belonged to the government, the organization from which it originated was a martial family of exorcists, and the family’s head also served as director.

As a result, it had the distinct air of the director’s private organization operating under the government.

And now, in the bureau director’s office.

Shin Doryong, director of the Bureau of Anomalous Phenomena Countermeasures, head of the Shin family, and Shin Sion’s father, narrowed his eyes at the old-fashioned woman before him, who looked young for her age.

“Why won’t you take a second wife if necessary and father a son to carry on the family?”

He looked at his aunt, Shin Sehui. She spoke to him without restraint.

“You’re still hale and hearty. Have another child. If the woman’s the problem, take a new concubine. You like chasing skirts, don’t you?”

“... I have Sion. I have a perfectly good child by my first wife to inherit my assets. Why would I have another?”

“A girl born to a frail woman.”

Shin Doryong’s cold black eyes narrowed, his gaze darkening.

To him, Sion was the child he had made with his beloved wife. That was why he had no need for another child—a boy who would stand in Sion’s way.

But explaining that at length wouldn’t accomplish much...

His low voice rang out.

“Aunt, do you want a beating?”

“...?!”

Sehui’s eyes widened at those shockingly vulgar words, so disrespectful to his elder.

But she couldn’t raise her voice and shout, “How dare you!”

Shin Doryong was, in fact, the unfilial brute who had beaten his own father in front of every relative, insisting that he would marry that frail, cursed wench.

His words effectively ended the conversation. Shin Sehui left the director’s office with her face twisted in displeasure.

“...”

She had raised the matter for the family’s sake, but being beaten by her nephew would wound her pride.

... And she didn’t like pain.

Once Shin Sehui left, Team Leader Park, who had been waiting outside the door, entered cautiously.

“Director, I’m here.”

“Right. Did you bring the material I asked for?”

“Here it is.”

Team Leader Park placed the material on the desk.

It contained a photograph and brief profile of Yohan, a civilian collaborator with Special Response Section Team Three.

“So this is the guy who was glued to Sion for a week inside that uncanny game?”

“Yes. Six days, to be precise, Monday through Saturday.”

“... Look at the vicious fucking eyes on him. Looks like a psycho.”

Shin Doryong spoke with evident displeasure as he examined Yohan’s photograph.

“Bastards like this act all sweet and kind in public, then beat their girlfriends behind closed doors. Then they whisper, ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘You’re all I have,’ ‘I love you.’”

Setting aside Shin Doryong’s slander and wild speculation...

Team Leader Park looked between Yohan’s photograph and Shin Doryong, then spoke without thinking.

“... He does oddly remind me of you, Director.”

One of Shin Doryong’s eyebrows shot up.

“What?”

What kind of conversational tactic was it to say he resembled someone he’d just called a psycho?

Team Leader Park hastily added,

“No, I didn’t mean that. He just looks oddly like you when you were younger. Just his appearance. Just his appearance!”

Shin Doryong squinted at Yohan’s photograph with a frown.

“How?”

Then he carelessly tossed it onto the desk.

“Whatever. He’s a grimoire owner, so don’t provoke him with unnecessary surveillance or attempts to control him.”

... Still, he did give an order as director.

“Sion says she’ll handle him. Leave it to her.”

* * *

A secret temple in the region where the ancient Babylonian city of Uruk once stood.

A beautiful song echoed through the dreamlike temple.

And then...

CLOP, CLOP.

As the sound of camel hooves began to echo within the temple, the people joyfully stepped aside to make a path.

“Ahh—.”

In her temple, they bowed with happy faces and awaited her.

FLUTTER.

Pure white doves took flight inside the temple.

She wore a golden crown adorned with white lace.

CLOP, CLOP.

A camel carrying a beautiful red-haired woman walked down the path the people had opened.

Gremory, the fifty-sixth of Solomon’s seventy-two demons, displayed no arrogance at their worship.

“There’s no need for every one of you to kneel like that.”

She smiled as she spoke in a gentle, benevolent voice.

But the people, feeling Gremory’s loving concern for them, bowed even more joyfully and praised her.

“Ahh... Great One.”

With no other choice, Gremory moved to the seat of honor her worshippers had prepared.

When the camel folded its legs, she sat leaning against it. Just then...

“Hmm?”

Her beautiful red eyes caught sight of something approaching on the breeze.

It was a red hair.

“This is...”

She remembered. Some time ago, a human had come to her, saying they wanted to create a place where people could happily enjoy love. She had lent them her magical power.

Seeing it return like this, something must have gone wrong.

Gremory reached out to reclaim her magical power.

But instead of being absorbed immediately, the red hair circled above her hand.

It was as if it were asking her to look at something.

“Hmm?”

So she looked into the memories the hair carried.

As the memories unfolded, her delicate brow furrowed.

“...”

Frankly, the false world called [Harem Academy] wasn’t to her taste.

The academy itself wasn’t bad, but she couldn’t understand what was fun about tormenting and killing humans.

Some demons did enjoy that sort of thing, but Gremory couldn’t understand it at all.

She felt nothing but malice, not love.

Cruel, tedious memories devoid of any meaning.

But at one point, her red eyes widened.

“...!”

She burst into laughter like a young girl.

“Ha—hahahahaha!”

Gremory wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and thought of the man who had mercilessly crushed and mocked her avatar in those memories.

“Hehe~.”

Yohan.

To say he had enough love... What an arrogant, servile, bold, wretched, beautiful, ugly man.

Gremory’s red eyes gleamed seductively as she smiled.

Her heart fluttered.

She gently caught her index finger between her lips and bit it.

Ahh... Yes. She wanted to teach him love.