The room I was teleported into was filled with piercing black, but it still somehow felt like it was well-lit. There was a definite floor, and I’m pretty sure I could also feel the rough size of the room.

At the end of my vision was a girl in a black-and-red German-style trench coat. I think she was just a little smaller than me. Her gold-striped black hair extended past her waist.

 

Ah, she put on a helmet.

Eh, the chin strap, too?

 

She started sprinting towards me. That tiny figure soon enlarged, and she jumped and dived right at me.

 

I flipped on auto-evasion just in case, but it looks like I didn’t need it. She landed a few meters away from me and came to a sliding halt right at my feet. A perfect sliding dogeza…

Somehow, I feel like I get what’s happening here…

 

“Hero-sama! Please forgive us for our impudence, but please hear us out!”

Guh, knew it…

Before I could say anything, she cut me out again.

“We are the Christians Against Christian Revivalism, born to burn the tainted teachings of the Church of Christian Revivalism!”

 

Areh?

 

…

 

Eh?!

 

“E- Eto…”

“I am Cardinal Savannah! Please sign here and here!”

“Ha?!”

This girl just shoved a contract and affidavit in my face. Scary.

Eh? An affidavit? Don't you need a witness—Ehh?! Where'd that butler-type old man come from?!

But, I’m sorry, Cardinal… I’m not like those people who just agree to everything without reading the EULA!

I calmly took the papers into my hands and evaluated each and every line. I think I heard her click her tongue, but it’s not my problem.

It took me about 10 minutes to go through everything. I think those were some pretty tense 10 minutes for Cardinal Savannah, since she’s been inching closer and closer to my face. Cardinal-san, I can’t read if you’re this close…

 

“It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong…”

“So you’ll sign?!”

“Shikashi.”

“Shikashi?!”

 

I pointed towards one side of the room. The moment she looked, that part of the wall exploded, and Sister Eve rushed through the smoke. She performed a flawless combat roll. In one hand was a gun, and in the other—a pencil.

“Nani?! What’ve you done to Juan Inigo Montoya Mitsa?! Rather, you’re really a cold woman if you ruthlessly take out your husband like that!”

The Cardinal looked utterly shocked. It seemed she had complete confidence in Mitsa-san.

It’s not as if Sister Eve was invincible, though. She was covered in scratches and—a hickey?! Ah, well, if it’s the scenario in that movie, I guess that’d happen, huh?

Just as I thought that, my eyes met with Sister Eve's, and I felt a tremendous pressure crush my shoulders, and I quickly turned away. I swear, her eyes glared with a deep black lens flare…

 

Now that I’m looking at Cardinal Savannah properly, her gaze was fixated on the hickey as well. She was blushing quite a bit. I see…

“Return Hero-sama!”

Sister Eve’s declaration echoed throughout the room. Behind her, there was still shouting and gunfire. No doubt, I had been teleported into the heart of the Obstructionists’ HQ, and the Revivalists had come to pay a counterattack in kind.

“‘Return Hero-sama’… desu ka…”

Cardinal Savannah started cackling, eventually bursting into a frenzied guffaw. Completely catching me off-guard, she tore open her trench coat, revealing a bra.

Nani.

No, it’s not like it’s anything indecent. I have to retract my instant evaluation of her being an exhibitionist. Rather, who wears a bra outside their shirt?

 

“Behold! Battle Ready Armor (BRA) Mark II!”

 

She pressed a button, and steel plates started popping out of the bra and clacking around her form. Red lightning and an energy aura burst forth, and she completely turned into a techno-demon king. The cackling under her helmet was broadcast in lo-fi 16-bit compressed audio.

Imagine this: a demon king, but the wings are an incredibly aesthetic eagle wing-like jetpack, and there are mechanical hydra heads flailing around her back. There’s also metal spheres revolving around her, because of course you need things orbiting you.

Honestly, as far as demon kings go, she would rank among the lower-power types. She could probably blow a building away easily, but it doesn’t look like she can blow away a whole mountain. It’s that kind of thing.

 

“I see you’ve improved since the last time. Sister.”

Eh? Sister Eve just dropped a bomb there, didn’t she?!

 

“Baka…”

“What was that?”

“BAKAANEEEE!”

 

Agh, I can’t take it!

 

“MATTEEEEEEE!”

 

I raised both my hands into the air, invoking the special virtual magic: Holy One. It’s basically just a special effect that makes this really bright halo over me. I set the halo size to the maximum of 10 meters. This should get their attention.

The spheres that were violently whirling around Cardinal Savannah slowed to a halt, though they kept their orange glow, retaining their powerful charge. On the other hand, Sister Eve lowered a comically-large mechanical pencil. They both looked at me wondering why I’d suddenly butted in.

Though, this just proved that most of the reason why they were fighting was to recruit me and gain my favor. Anyway, I’m honestly really tired and I just want to go…

 

“If you don’t mind, I actually want to go eat dinner and think this over at home.”

 

The two looked at me with this ‘I don’t believe you’ face.

 

“No, I mean, look, I know it’s abnormal to just tap out right before the massive battle, but it’s already 7PM, you know?”

““AH!””

 

Oh? They didn’t know it was 7PM either, huh?

 

I started walking towards the hole in the wall. Though the gunfire was still going on, I could just invoke Auto-Evasion all-day, so I wasn’t worried. Rather, they were this dedicated to skip dinner just to fight it out, huh?

Ah, right! I have to contact the Cardinal-san later in case I made up my mind! I already have Director Vernier’s details, so I just have to ask the Cardinal for hers.

 

“Ah! Cardinal… Savannah, da ne? Can I have your contact details?”

“Eh? A- Ah… U- Unn…”

“Oi.”

“Eh?”

 

It looked like Cardinal-san understood, but suddenly, Sister Eve was eyeing me with a dangerous look.

No, I swear, it’s not like that!

 

“E- Eto…”

“Even if you are Hero-sama, I won’t forgive anyone who casually picks up my sister like that—”

“Bakanee-chan! It’s for business! Business!”

 

Cardinal-san. Arigatou.

 

 

Haaa, that was quite troubling.

I know Arc-san mentioned that there were many organizations, but I didn’t think they would be competing over the Heroes.

Ideally, I’d like to find more organizations and expand my choices, but in the first place, they’re sort of reclusive, and I don’t think I can waste time just looking for them without choosing any of them.

 

When I took a look at the contract that Cardinal-san gave, it also included an organizational primer, so I also got to take a look at their goals.

It looks like they wanted to “stop” the Revivalist Church, as if it was doing something wrong.

They’re under the impression that the Revivalist Church was gathering Heroes only to destroy them in the end.

Ideally, I should confirm this with Arc-san, but if I went back to the Revivalist Church, it’ll look like I chose them. I don’t want to go there just to use the church. It’d be too much of a let down for them, and I just didn't want to do that to people.

 

Hmm, let’s see…

If I take into account that I’m actually the first Hero ever, then that means that the later Heroes were more like corrections or counter-responses to Heaven’s enemies’ moves. In short, Heaven wasn’t omniscient, and even if they probably had a good idea at the time, they probably didn’t really know what the future held.

If that’s a fact, then what if later organizations were actually meant to correct errors made by earlier organizations?

I’m sure something like that was a thing, but I’m not so sure that it would happen exactly like what’s going on between the Revivalists and the Obstructionists. In the first place, I didn’t know the history of the Obstructionists as much as I did the Revivalists. I mean, I have been talking to the latter a lot more these past few days.

 

Ugh, I’m stuck again, huh?

 

Guess I’ll join the family for dinner again.

 

“Sugoi, you’ve never joined us this frequently before!”

My sister was hitting my back as if I was doing a good job.

“Sis! Something’s about to break!”

“Call~ me~ onee-chan!~”

She hit me to emphasize each word. Something broke, I’m pretty sure. Let’s go, healing magic~

“A- Anyway, I’ve just been troubled recently, that’s all…”

““Aha~ Kaba-kun is troubled~””

The parents were here. They prey on their children’s troubles, it seems. This ecosystem needs corrections.

I tried to eat my rice, but they afforded me no peace— no solitude from these two married weirdos who have been shyly glancing at me every 5 seconds.

I really, really didn’t want to tell them anything about it, though.

 

…

 

As expected, if someone glanced at you every 5 seconds—for 10 minutes—that’s a lot of glances. I could feel my SAN points going down faster than the water level in the Aral Sea.

 

“W- Well…”

““Yes?””

 

They both had kira-kira VFX around their eyes—ah yes, Php 2000 well spent.

As expected, I couldn't let Php 2000 just go down the drain like that.

 

“S- Say, if two employers both want you, but you can’t make up your mind, what would you do?”

O- Oh? Something… dangerous happened to their aura.

Oh my god, I’ve seen this before.

It’s their CEO aura.

“Mr. Akiino…”

While saying that, my mom pushed up her glasses. Wait, you don’t wear glasses, though? Ah, it shone.

“We taught you better than this…”

 

Eh?

 

“Specific! Be specific!” mom said, slapping bundles of cash into one hand. What’s with the cash?

“Ah! W- Well, say both employers offer equal perks, but accepting one means being in conflict with the other! S- So, I really don’t want to be in conflict with anyone, though!”

“Kuku, classic Kaba-kun…” my dad remarked, “You’re kind. Far too kind.”

“What are we going to do about this, otou-san? It seems we’ve paid far too little attention to our Kaba-kun’s education.”

 

Ehhh, they’ve started scheming in their own little world again.

There’s an actual magical isolation barrier blocking out sound and sight between us.

I managed to eat a few spoonfuls of dinner before the parental jury came back with a verdict.

 

““Kaba-kun!””

 

They becried, pointing at me.

The first one to speak was my mom.

 

“First off, it’s clear that your interests don’t even align with theirs in the first place!”

“Uh- Uhhuh…”

“The two are clearly in competition, whereas you want to create a Kaba-kun-friendly environment!”

“Wait, I heard something strange there.”

 

Skillfully ignoring me, dad spoke up next.

 

“Therefore! All you have to do is to become the third player in the market!”

“Eh? Wouldn’t that dilute everyone’s share, though?”

“Kaba-kun, you have much to learn…”

Dad shook his head.

“Kaba-kun, my son, did you not listen to your mother? You don’t even have the same interests!”

 

That’s when it struck me.

A bundle of cash.

That’s what struck me.

 

I had conflicting feelings about it. My mother's aim was inhuman when cash was involved. She pointed at me like a certain attorney.

 

“Raise your own armies, Kaba-kun! Force them back under the weight of overwhelming capital and social media influence!”

“Thank… you?”

After downing the rest of my dinner and skillfully bypassing my sister’s nth attempt at Magic-Powered High-Speed Patintero once again, I logged back into Metro Manila Online.

 

Honestly, I still couldn’t really comprehend what my parents were saying.

They’re so hyped about being supportive that I think half my brain was usually preoccupied by the fact that they’d let me set up my own company just for the kicks if I wanted one—maa, it's not like the main families who could rent a country at a whim, but that's just not practical at all.

Perks of being an Akiino, huh?

 

But… a third player, huh? Well, it’s true that I didn’t really want to find myself in a corporate grindhouse disguised as a cult…

 

Say, there was something weird about it all, though.

 

The premise of the Obstructionists’ existence was that their founder received a revelation that the Revivalists were actually evil.

Meanwhile, the premise of the Revivalists’ existence was that their founder received a revelation to gather Heroes together in one place.

 

If it’s just that, then I’d only be indecisive, but… Where’d all their money come from?

 

Setting up in Rejisu would be plenty expensive for an obscure cult like the Revivalist Church. The Obstructionists’ HQ also seemed plenty big when I walked out of there just a while ago.

If I had to hazard a guess, just by looking at their facilities and number of employees, then each organization should be eating up 100 million pesos per year on operating expenses alone. The capital expense should be in the 500 million range just by the sizes of their HQ’s and the sheer number of guns and technology each side had access to.

And each firearm was legally registered, too. That’s really expensive, what the heck.

Where was the money coming from? Why did they bother with firearms registration?

 

Shaking my head, I already knew where I was going next.

 

 

I met up with my strangely-reliable contact at A Shady Bar again.

 

“Watashi wa Tamago.”

“Hai, watashi wa have a job for you.”

“Watashi wa open for business.”

 

For now, I just messaged both cults that I’ll be putting off the decision for a few days to take care of… “part-time employment issues,” I guess?

 

 

Anyway, until Tamago-san came back with their investigation’s results, I’ll just go ahead and drown myself in virtual alcohol in an attempt to forget that I even said those words.

‘Watashi wa open for business.’

My sense of cringe is already halfway dissolved, huh…