Bodyguard-san wanted nothing to do with Yokoso-bossan’s hobbies. Bodyguard-san was completely happy with his new, quiet life—waiting by the register, leisurely putting purchased goods through the laser scanner. All he had to do was punch a few buttons and smile at people! Simple!

“No, no, you’re imagining things,” Bodyguard-san explained to the concerned customer. Muffled screaming was coming from the backroom.

“Please! No!”

Bodyguard-san sees nothing, hears nothing, knows nothing. He nodded to the concerned customer, who had broken out in a cold sweat.

“Anyone but Chiisei, anything but the 4-star—NOOOOO THIS GUY AGAIN!”

Yokoso-san is terrifying.

She dragged me to the back room and gave me free gacha pulls, no strings attached. Obviously, I used them all up to no avail. I asked for more, but then she said, “Only if you tell me what I want to know”. Obviously, I ended up spilling everything—“everything” was worth all of 500 pulls, which clearly wasn’t enough for something with a 0.5% success rate.

“Ara ara~ Akiino-san is involved in interesting things, huh~”

She leaned over to my figure crumpled down into an OTL.

“Do you want my help? Just say it~ Tasukete, Yokoso-san!”

I looked up to her with somewhat incredulous eyes.

“W- What’s your goal?!”

She straightened her back, casting her shadow over me, doing the ufufufu thing again while spreading a fan to cover her mouth.

“Commission me, would you? Okane da yo? Fufufu~”

No, of course, she wanted money. How couldn’t I see that coming? In the first place, what can she do…

Before I knew it, she leaned into my ear. I could hear her breathing and felt the air she exhaled—oh my god, you’re too close!

“I can do… anything~”

Ah. Yabai.

After some hyperventilating and making myself composed, presentable, and above all, mentally stable, I asked for some well-needed time and space—especially space—to think about how I could put Yokoso-san to work on things.

No, well, if you ask me why I’m okay with bringing her onboard, I’m also the same person who easily squeaked for the sake of 500 pulls. Compared to me, Yokoso-san could probably resist interrogation until 500,000 pulls.

No, I’m also not sure if interrogation resistance should be measured in gacha pulls.

Also, Yokoso-san definitely has some sort of trust in me, especially since I’ve been a patron ever since I found her store some years ago. That incident with Bean probably also made me look a bit more favorable, though I’d suspect that had always been—Bean—the case, coz the guy kept hitting on her even before since then. In that respect, Yokoso-san also had some stake in this, since the conspiracy was directly connected to Bean, so if she could strike back and spite him somehow, this would be the perfect low-blow to him if we could pull something off somehow.

I couldn’t really say it was all because of Bean and shared interests, though. As much as I’d tried to play the role of “inconspicuous regular”, even before Bean showed up some months ago, Yokoso-san had never skipped on paying me some extra 3 seconds of attention—or about 2 extra dialogue lines, depending on her mood—though I’m pretty sure she’s not actually interested in me. Probably. I might ask her about it some time.

Anyway, she’s talented and all, sure, but all I knew about her was that 1) she could read magic pre-activation auras without the aid of magic, 2) she’s skilled enough to run a store in the day and be a student at night, and 3) her interrogation skills be scary. I wasn’t really sure how these terrifying things could be useful. All of these things were what I knew about her in realspace, too, and I knew absolutely nothing about her in virtual space, so my decision-making was pretty hampered in that regard.

Fortunately or unfortunately, if I’m going to be working with her into the foreseeable future, it looked like we’re going to have to establish more trust than we had right now. I’m not entirely sure how to go about doing that, though. I wish I had some basic stuff in the backlog that we could do together—or that I could just entirely push onto her, but I’d feel bad about that—but all I really had going was the super plain-sounding “Defeat C-4 Corp” quest and nothing else.

Guh, my brain hurts. Looks like I’m just gonna consult with her for now. That’s pretty basic in itself, isn’t it?

“Ne, Yokoso-san, for your first commission…”

“Hai—sugoi!”

I waved a wad of cash around. Before she could snatch it from me, I pulled a sleight-of-hand and it disappeared. Her eyes turned round, fuzzy, and teary—I’m sorry, Yokoso-san, but years of my own sister’s begging eyes have made me numb to such mental attacks.

“I need some advice.”

“Tame no okane ni, what would you like to know?”

“First, go out with me—”

“Ah, how bold. That’s extra payment, you know?”

“…out of the store for a moment, damn.”

“How disappointing.”

Bodyguard-san nodded as we stepped out of the store and began walking around with no real destination. I really just needed a change of scenery to shake up my brain for a bit. First, though…

“Yokoso-san, there’s no need to follow behind me, you know? Rather, it’s somewhat impossible to hold a decent conversation like this, you know?”

“Ara ara~ I’m just being a proper yamato nadeshi—”

I took an abrupt step back so that we were finally walking in the same step—and I also didn’t want her to finish that word.

“A- Anyway, here’s the problem…”

She basically already knew all the drug cartel-level secrets, so the other, more mundane, specifics didn’t really feel like a problem to explain—though I left out the part where I was actually a Hero and I made up some B.S. about how I was just looking into cults in general coz I wanted to make my own. Well, I really did want to set up my own, though.

Yokoso-san chuckled.

“An Akiino wants to create a cult? Sugoi yo ne! I’ve never heard of something like that in my life!”

True, my family name tends to create corporations, not cults—but they’re basically the same thing, so hey!

“A- Anyway, we have to flatten C-4 Corp somehow…”

“Easy! Kono Bakiino…”

“Oi, what was that last part—”

“Firstly, their profit depends on the number of bettors, yes? Then, what are the bettors looking for?”

“…No, wait, before that—”

“That’s right! Excitement! This is entertainment! Bakiino, that’s your specialty, yes?”

“…I mean, yes, but, wait—”

“Then, all you have to do is to make the entire thing not exciting! Do you think people betting on horse races would find it just as exciting if the horses were just walking? ‘Where’s the thrill! Where’s the action!’ No, there will be no action! The cults will stop being exciting, and the bettors will leave—That will be our strategy!”

“…No, yeah, you have a point, but still, what’s with that way of addressing me—”

“Then! Let’s go!”

She yanked me along. I, Kaba Akiino, am now Kaba Bakiino.

“… Ne, wait, where are you taking me?!”