"Won't you come to my house and sit for a while? Tamaki should be very happy."
After sending Yukinoshita Haruno away, Gokou Ruri extended an invitation to Asakura.
Speaking of which, wouldn't Hinata be unhappy?
"Forget it, it's getting late—" Asakura wavered for a moment, but finally shook his head. "I didn't lie to that eldest daughter of the Yukinoshita family just now; there's still a live performance in Shimokitazawa later that I need to see."
"When did Takuma-senpai start liking rock and roll?" the young girl asked curiously.
"I don't have any particular preference for musical styles... well, although high-end, elegant classical symphonies might make me fall asleep while listening to them."
Asakura scratched his cheek and replied, "Mainly because I promised Hitori a long time ago that I would attend their band's live performance after it ended."
"Forgive my bluntness, but Takuma-senpai is too soft-hearted—" Gokou Ruri sighed helplessly. "If you're always such a nice person, you'll definitely be led around in circles by bad girls in the future."
"Is that so?"
"The girl in the hotel before—" Gokou Ruri said abruptly.
"What?" Asakura didn't react for a moment.
"It's the girl with flaxen hair and honey-like eyes who is as tall as a porcelain doll and makes people quite angry—" Gokou Ruri described again.
"You could just summarize it as having a sweet appearance—" Asakura said.
He also finally realized that Gokou Ruri was talking about the girl he had rescued from the hands of the Pope of the Church of Happiness and Peace.
"What happened to her?"
"The extent to which Takuma-senpai modified her memory is different from the others in the banquet hall, right?" Gokou Ruri said directly.
"...Can you tell?" Asakura looked a little surprised.
"The color of the flames was different—" the girl said.
"It should just be your illusion, right?"
In fact, Asakura had also noticed the color of the [Candle] flames, but after a period of observation, he found that there seemed to be nothing special about these flames. Sometimes, even when the same thing was the target of the magic spell, the final flame color would vary.
"But Takuma-senpai didn't deny treating her differently, did you?" the girl said seriously.
"After all, having spent a little time together, I subconsciously went a bit easier on her..."
Asakura said with some embarrassment.
"But doesn't that bring a risk of exposure? To me, Takuma-senpai's safety is far more important than others' memories—" Gokou Ruri's expression was incredibly solemn. "What if the other party remembers..."
"You can rest assured on this; burned memories are burned. It's not that kind of vague 'deletion' claim; there is no possibility of them being recovered—" Asakura comforted her.
"Takuma-senpai is too gentle and kind. You should be a bit more Unwinged Angel when necessary."
"I don't have that kind of self-awareness."
After Asakura finished saying this, he thought of the guest room that was gradually becoming a mess.
He then fell silent: Sure enough, I should still be a bit more serious and indifferent like Yanagi Iri?
Although the other party wasn't exactly a bad girl.
"I'm sorry, I'm really not good at smooth talk, so please let me correct what I just said—" Gokou Ruri said solemnly. "I don't know what kind of karma Takuma-senpai is carrying, nor do I clearly understand what kind of burden Takuma-senpai is under, but even so, I can see that Takuma-senpai seems to be forcing himself. If possible, I hope Takuma-senpai can be more relaxed, or rather, live a bit more for yourself."
"I don't know where you got such a misconception, Ruri, but actually I'm not as formidable as you think—well, that's not right either, because I really am very formidable—" Asakura said, boasting about himself. "Although this period of time is indeed busier than I imagined, I haven't felt any strain... Having said that, thank you for being willing to care about me, Ruri."
"Won't you really come to my house to sit for a while?" the girl invited once more.
Asakura shook his head again. "Shimokitazawa is quite far from Chiba. Even the time it takes to drive there is enough for ice cream to melt."
"This way of measuring time feels a bit like something Yanami-senpai would use."
"That's really a huge insult to my character."
"Is Takuma-senpai's view of Yanami-senpai a bit excessive?"
"To put it another way—" Asakura changed his tone smoothly. "That's really a way-too-high expectation of my appetite."
"That doesn't sound like a derogatory term either."
"After all, besides food, that fellow is only interested in gossip. As long as she can spend a bit of her mind on other things, she wouldn't have become such a loser."
"Takuma-senpai is really strict with Yanami-senpai..."
Chatting about meaningless things, the Ford car slowly landed in front of Gokou Ruri's house.
After confirming there were no pedestrians around, Asakura exited stealth mode.
Gokou Ruri got out of the car, but she didn't head straight back to the house; instead, she stopped by the car door, hesitated for a moment, and asked, "Does Takuma-senpai have any plans for the summer vacation?"
"Isn't it a bit early for you to be planning that?" Asakura shook his head. "There's still half a month left. I don't have such a long-term plan."
Despite saying this, Asakura felt that his summer vacation would probably mostly be spent lying at home doing nothing.
After all, wasting time is the most luxurious enjoyment in life.
"I see... Well, if Takuma-senpai has time then, I hope you can go on a date with me—" the girl said with a faint blush on her face, but she still tried her best to stay calm and said, "I will show Takuma-senpai my Holy War!"
"Holy War?" Asakura was stunned for a moment, then realized. "Oh, Summer Comiket? I'm actually quite interested in that."
"Then it's an appointment."
The girl turned away happily, and even her footsteps became much lighter, showing a rare skip in her step.
Asakura looked at her back, shook his head with a lost laugh, and drove away.
Although the old Ford car didn't have an autopilot function—well, actually it did, it's just that there were some issues with the intelligence level of this thing; if you really gave it all the control, it would probably lead you into some strange small grove.
However, thanks to the fact that it didn't need to travel on crowded roads and could fly directly in the sky, as long as the direction and route were confirmed, it was almost a straight line, so he didn't need to spend too much mind on driving.
Adding to that, the island country of this era wasn't like when Asakura traveled through in his previous life, where drones could be seen everywhere; there was no need to worry about collision incidents, so now he even had the spare energy to open the system page to check the task completion.
"...As expected."
The task of slaying the Evil God was not completed.
This was also within Asakura's expectations. Although the opponent this time was an evil cult group, the ultimate enemy, those bugs, were not regarded as gods by the cult.
Even the Pope who knew the secrets—the middle-aged man—mostly used these bugs as tools and didn't have any reverence for them.
This led to these bugs being just simple bugs; even if they possessed some extraordinary abilities that regular parasites did not, they lacked any scent of "godhood" or "divinity..." so naturally, they didn't count as Evil Gods.
"It feels like I worked for nothing..." Asakura muttered.
However, he didn't have any regrets about his actions today. After all, if he hadn't stepped in today, there was no telling how those bugs would have spread.
But if one thought about it carefully, there were already some supernatural powers in this world (like the giant fox spirit type). Even if those bugs truly spread, they would likely be suppressed within a certain range by those supernatural beings. Thinking this way, even if the Mount Natagumo incident had allowed some mountain deities to escape, humanity might not have faced extinction.
Asakura: "..."
No, no, placing the future of humanity on a "maybe" was simply too dangerous; it was still better to take action promptly when encountering such things.
"Anyway, for now, I should stop thinking about these random things..." he rubbed his temples. "Going to Hitori's live is more important."
Ginza, the hotel was a mess.
After the Heavenly Flame extinguished itself, the fire trucks retreated to the second line. Under the direction of the police, a defensive line was formed, blocking the reporters from various TV stations who had swarmed like flies scenting blood.
Police officers still in training were assigned to block those reporters who were trying to infiltrate the hotel by any means to get first-hand news.
"Damn it, why did the police react so quickly today? Why are there so many people!" A reporter who had been driven away muttered indignantly. He tried to use "you are infringing on our right to interview and freedom of speech, I will expose you!" as a threat while shoving his camera into a police officer's face, but the officers didn't budge.
If it were a normal day, the other party might have yielded and let some information slip.
"It seems to involve some big figures, you know, those clans..." His colleague, however, didn't seem to mind the police's behavior and was simply writing in a notebook.
"The times have long changed; even a scandal involving the Prime Minister has been reported before..." that reporter said somewhat unwillingly.
"That's right, just 'Prime Minister scandals.' When have you ever seen reports on those clans? To take a step back, even if one is occasionally leaked by a colleague, don't you notice that they die in car accidents or commit suicide within seven days of the leak?"
"..."
Reminded by the other party, the reporter didn't seem as anxious anymore. He could only resentfully lead his camera assistant around the back to see if they could find any other news material.
Inside the hotel banquet hall.
"This is the most tragic scene I have ever seen in my life."
An old police officer adjusted his hat in disbelief: "It feels as if a dozen rhinos went on a rampage in here for several hundred laps."
"Do those mangled corpses look like they were trampled to death by rhinos?" a young officer behind him asked.
"Where would rhinos come from in Japan?"
"Uh, didn't you say rhinos..."
"That was just a metaphor."
"Then were they killed by the thing that went on a rampage?"
"Not exactly. According to the preliminary judgment of the forensic doctor, the cause of death for those bodies was burns." The old officer said dubiously: "It's like someone used red-hot iron wires to poke hundreds of holes inside their bodies... It's strange enough that they didn't die after being poked so many times."
He continued: "In fact, the few big figures who survived yesterday also have traces on them that look like they were burned by iron wires. Conversely, there were no actual fatalities among those who looked like they were ravaged by a rhino; only a few people had bruises on their bodies as if they had been hit by something."
"Could it be some perverted sadistic killer?!" the young officer showed a look of realization.
"Probably not..." The old officer shook his head.
To insert a red-hot iron wire into a person's body, and to insert a hundred of them at once to kill them, then pull the wire out and handle it so perfectly that not a single trace could be found.
If it were just one victim, perhaps there would be such a prolific killer, but now the number of discovered dead has already exceeded 10 people, and their deaths are almost identical, with the time of death being roughly the same.
Unless an organized criminal group appeared, otherwise such a situation would be unlikely to occur.
And those rescued survivors, although most were frightened and seemed dazed, many were actually quite conscious, yet they completely forgot what had happened. The situation could be described as bizarre to the extreme.
One must know that many people here could be described by the four words 'highly placed and powerful.' If they worked together, even a giant like the Yotsuba family could be challenged. Theoretically, there shouldn't be an existence that could threaten them to the point where they all tacitly avoided talking about the culprit despite suffering such abuse.
Furthermore, the monitoring and communication devices in the surrounding area suffered irreversible damage. Even now, using some recording instruments on-site still results in noise and image distortion.
"After working in this line for a long time, you will eventually encounter some cases that are difficult to explain with common sense..." the old officer said earnestly to his junior: "Just take this as a warning from me. When you encounter these cases, use the simplest method to close them. Never try to dig into the existence behind them."
"Over-investigating will only lead to self-destruction."