“How did we end up doing this again?” Masashi has a blank look on his face as he flies Doran toward Fuhren the day after the monster massacre.

Mai who was lying on the couch with her head on his lap answered, “Because they convinced me when you took out the jet.”

“Yeah…That.” Masashi looks over his shoulders to see Hajime, Shea, Tio, and somehow even Kaori sitting on another couch watching some movie.

They’d already asked Masashi all kinds of questions about how he got the aircraft here and the TV and everything else.

Masashi answered what he could without divulging too much information as they all got bored and started watching some movies after months of no entertainment in this medieval world.

Their mission target Will on the other hand was knocked out and put at the side since he looked at Mai for more than a second, which annoyed Masashi.

“Your weakness to bunny ears needs to be done something about. All Shea had to do to convince you looked at you cutely while flopping her ears.”

Mai just turned her head around and looked away.

Masashi smiled helplessly and rubbed her head lightly.

“You know… I could get you real bunny ears with {BIOMANCY} when we get Metamorphosis magic and Evolution magic.”

“Really?” Her smile was like the bright sun, almost blinding Masashi.

“Yeah, they can be temporary or even permanent. Hell, I could make some kind of real bunny ear artifact that’s exactly like the real deal and can be taken off whenever.”

Mai’s smile widens as she jumps up to Masashi and hugs him tightly, “Why are you so good to me?”

“What can I say? I’m stuck with you for eternity.”

“Mm?” When Mai hugged Masashi, Yue, who was sleeping while leaning her head on Masashi’s arm woke up.

“Morning Yue.”

“I heard something about getting ears?” That’s the first thing Yue asks.

“Haha. Yeah. I’ll make real bunny ears for Mai after we clear a few more dungeons.”

Yue looks at Masashi, waiting for him to speak more.

“Don’t worry, Yue. How could I forget your cat ears?” Masashi rubs Yue’s head lightly.

“Umu, good.” Yue enjoys Masashi’s caresses.

‘You know… You give me a lot of shit for getting a harem with you being all faithful to your girl but aren’t you here doing the same thing that I’m doing?’ Hajime chimes in telepathically to Masashi as he also has the skill.

‘I’m a hypocrite. Bite me.’ Masashi says something that leaves Hajime speechless.

A few seconds later he continued, ‘Well, my situation with Yue is complicated. It’s not that I’m with Yue, she’s more of like a little sister or a daughter figure for Me and Mai but telling you that seemed like too much of a beta-male answer so I just owned up to it.’

‘You’re a weird guy, you know that.’ Hajime communicates with Masashi.

‘I know perfectly well. I don’t even have a specific fighting style yet. I do magic. I do swords. I do artifacts. I’m all over the place and still have no clue as to what direction I’m gonna be going. It’ll take years before I pick a direction.’

‘That reminds me. What’s with the revolvers that you made? You copied them off me.’

‘Hey, it’s not copying. I improved on the original design.’

‘Bullshit. That sounds like corporate propaganda to me.’

‘I let you hitch a ride on my jet.’

’That has nothing to do with you and you know it. It’s my girl’s fluffy bunny ears that got this ride.’

‘Mai and I are one unit. If she agreed, that means I agreed. So by extension, I’m the one who let you get on the plane.’

At some point, Masashi turned his head to glare at Hajime and Hajime turned his away from the movie and glared at Masashi.

“What are you both doing?” Shea asks from the side.

“Huh?” “What?” 

They’re both clueless that they’d been glaring at each other without actually saying anything which was very unnerving.

 “Oh yeah by the way. The Holy Church has already been destroyed. So, Shea, you don’t need to wear that collar all the time anymore. There’s no more persecution by the holy church.” Masashi dropped a bomb on Hajime and Shea.

“What!?” Hajime is surprised and a little anxious since he still hasn’t gotten the ancient magic from the divine mountain.

“What?” Kaori at the same time is surprised for a different reason altogether. She’s dealt with the holy church for a good while now and hearing that the place has been destroyed just like that left her feeling complicated.

“Don’t worry about the ancient magic there. You can still get it. That stuff’s still fine. I just destroyed the holy church’s upper echelons. The Heiligh Kingdom is still under the control of the pope, he wasn’t there when I reached the place.”

“What!?” Kaori like a broken tape recorder repeats the same word as before with the same amount of surprise.

“Is something wrong?”

“What do you mean that the kingdom is under the control of the pope?”

“Exactly that. The king’s mind has been taken over and is under the control of the pope who’s making wildly bad decisions under the name of the king for personal benefit.”

“We have to go there. The rest of the class is in the kingdom. Along with Lili, the princess of the kingdom. She’s my friend, I have to help her out at least.”

”Shush~” Hajime doesn’t know what to do so he pats Kaori’s head after Masashi’s telepathic prompt to do so and shushes her to calm her down.

Kaori had finally worked up the courage in Ur to talk to Hajime as he was about to leave with Masashi for Fuhren. She’d poured her heart out as Hajime rejected her as usual before agreeing to let her accompany her on his journey.

Kaori left Shizuku to take care of Aiko when Aiko and her group would return to the kingdom.

“Calm now?” Kaori nods with a red tint on her face.

“Huh.” Kaori takes a deep breath and continues. “I’m calm but we still need to go there.”

“I know. After we are done with the stuff in Fuhren, we’ll go to the kingdom to get the things sorted there.”

“Thank you Hajime-kun.” Hajime smiles awkwardly at Kaori’s blatant thirsty look.

“So, where are you guys going after Fuhren?” Hajime changes the topic and asks Masashi.

“Us? We’ll be taking the Guren Volcano Labyrinth next. I’ve stalled on getting space magic for long enough.”

“Masashi-san how about we join up with you guys on clearing that labyrinth? We were planning to go there next anyway.”

“I’m not-“

“Please~” Shea brings out the big guns and uses the move ‘act cute’ to convince the weak-willed Mai to agree to her request.

Then Mai uses the move that Masashi is weak to and pleads with him while acting cute.

“Sigh… Fine. If this keeps going on for longer people would think that I’m whipped.”

“You already are dude.”

“I will drop only you alone in the middle of the desert.” Masashi threatens Hajime who shuts up smartly.

“I don’t mind going there with you guys but I have a feeling that you’ll take a good long time to finish up with the stuff in Fuhren and then the stuff in the kingdom too. So I have an idea. I’ll go ahead and clear the Frost Caverns of Schnee to get metamorphosis magic first and then we’ll rendezvous at the Gruen Volcano. Is that fine with you guys?”

’There’s no way in hell I’m going to babysit them through the bullshit they’ll go through in the Heiligh Kingdom.’

“That’s fine too.” Shea is happy that they’ll be having some more help in clearing the labyrinths. They all have some things that make clearing the labyrinth a pain.

“Shea, you can take off that collar now. It’s not needed since we don’t have to care about the holy church anymore.”

“It’s fine Hajime-san. I like wearing the collar. It was the first gift that you gave me and I want to keep wearing it.” Shea rubs the collar lovingly.

“You sure? You don’t need to wear it anymore.”

“Mhm.” Shea nods, flopping her bunny ears.”

“So cute…” Mai chimes in from the side.

“Well if you’re going to be wearing it I’ll at least make it look stylish.” Hajime brings his hands to Shea’s neck and takes off the choker-like collar.

After adding some gems to it and slightly changing the design, Hajime puts the collar back on Shea which now looks more like a stylish choker.

Masashi eyes them both with a gentle smile. 

‘I’m glad you didn’t become like some kind of cold killing machine that’s hell-bent on achieving his goal while ignoring all consequences.’

‘Yeah. I was a lot like that when met you at the bottom of Orcus. It was your health potion that somewhat restored my personality enough that I listened to Shea I guess.’

’The health potion can’t do anything like that bro.’

‘Well, it might’ve been something else. But whatever it was, I’m glad it was there.’

‘Cause you got a cute bunny waifu?’

‘Haha. Yeah.’ Hajime chuckles a little.

Another hour later, “All right, we’re here. You guys can drop off here and we’ll move on to the next labyrinth.”

Masashi eyes Hajime, Shea, Tio, and Kaori as he subtly tells them to fuck off.