After the photographer’s Q&A session ended, a man walked in.
“It’s an honor to meet you, [Knight]. Or should I say, ‘Higakieta Hai’?”
The white-haired man standing before me possessed a strangely decadent air.
He seemed to be the photographer’s superior.
“I’m Isaac Westcott of DEM Industries.”
“...Hah.”
At that name, it clicked.
Isaac Ray Pelham Westcott.
That was the villain Kyung-sik had mentioned.
Back then, I’d thought his name was ridiculously long.
I’d missed most of the details, so I couldn’t remember much, but one thing remained clear: that guy was a villain.
And right now, he was almost certainly the one who had ordered my kidnapping.
“So, what do you want with me?”
I asked, channeling as much hostility as I could muster.
Isaac gave me a disappointed look, then turned to the photographer. “Does he hate me?”
“If you wanted him to like you, you should have used a different method.”
I was speechless.
He kidnaps me and then asks if I hate him?
Like the photographer said, if he’d used some other approach, maybe I could’ve tolerated it. But the moment he jumped straight to kidnapping, there was no way I wouldn’t despise him.
“What do you plan to achieve by kidnapping me?”
At my question, Isaac shifted his gaze from the photographer back to me. “The answer is simple. I just need your spirit’s power. To overturn the order of this world.”
“...Heh.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
He needed a spirit’s power?
Oh, this was rich. I’m not a spirit.
“Oh...? Laughing in a situation like this. Have you already gone mad?”
“Mad? No. I just think you’re ridiculous.”
There was no reason to tell him I wasn’t a spirit, so I swallowed the laughter and taunted him instead, searching for a way to escape.
Trying to extract a spirit’s power from someone who wasn’t even a spirit. How absurd could he get?
“Hmph. Think whatever you like.”
Isaac brushed off my provocation without a second thought.
Right. He wasn’t stupid enough to get angry over something like that.
I suppose that’s why he was so confident about obtaining a spirit’s power in the first place.
“More importantly, how should I make you despair? You’re far too composed right now. What do you think, Ellen?”
With that, Isaac began listing various torture methods.
“Would physical pain be the simplest? Sending electricity through you, lowering the oxygen concentration, pulling out your nails... Maybe I should pull out your teeth too?”
Truly gruesome suggestions.
But you know what?
I can’t feel pain.
No, to be exact, I can barely feel it.
The only thing I truly feel is searing pain, and even that isn’t particularly intense.
In other words, none of those methods would work on me.
“Ah, how about thoroughly crushing your dignity as a man?”
I almost reflexively crossed my legs at that.
Crushing my dignity as a man?
I didn’t know what else he had in mind, but the terror in those words was immense.
“Do you have any friends or lovers in this world? If so, what would happen if I killed someone close to you right in front of your eyes?”
“......”
At Isaac’s words, a scene flashed through my mind.
My mother’s and father’s photos sat side by side.
In front of them, incense burned in their memory.
A traffic accident that happened in an instant.
That accident had torn my parents away from me.
Maybe that was why those words shook me more than I expected.
Seeing my reaction, Isaac smiled.
“Ellen.”
“The person he seems closest to is probably Itsuka Shido. His reaction was the strongest whenever that name came up during the questioning.”
So that was the point of the Q&A earlier.
No wonder he kept bringing up the names of people around me.
I’d done my best to hide my reactions whenever I heard other names, especially the women’s.
But that only made it clearer that I’d reacted the most when Itsuka-kun’s name was mentioned.
I felt sorry for him, but there was nothing I could do in my current situation. All I could do was hope he was still wearing the [Ring of Favor and Protection] I’d given him.
*
At the same time, after her conversation with Shido ended, Miku was eating steak at a high-end restaurant.
“Ugh! Seriously! So annoying! So annoying!”
Miku exclaimed as she swallowed a piece of steak.
“Isn’t he an idiot? There’s no way a human, especially a lowly creature like a man, would value anything more than his own life...!”
Bang!
Unable to hold back her irritation, she slammed the table.
Then she muttered in a weak voice, “There isn’t one...! If there isn’t, then I...”
Seeing Miku acting strangely, a worried Yoshino spoke up.
“Sis...”
“...!”
At Yoshino’s voice, Miku calmed down and asked the girls she’d brought with her, “Hey, you three. Tell me honestly. What exactly is the relationship between that Shido person and Hieta? Is it really true that he’s important to him?”
At Miku’s sudden question, Yoshino and the others thought for a moment before answering.
“They seemed like really close friends.”
“They were always together. Hieta-kun was always considerate of Itsuka-kun, too.”
“Wow, that’s so sweet.”
After hearing the answers from Ai, Mai, and Mii, Miku grew even more confused.
Was that kind of relationship really worth risking your life for?
So she asked again.
“Then if Shido had to risk his own life to save Hieta, what do you think he’d do?”
This time, Yoshino answered.
“I-I don’t know what Shido would do... But I think he’d probably go save him. Because that’s what Hieta would do.”
Just as Yoshino said, Hieta had never hesitated to save someone else.
Especially if that person was close to him.
As if to prove Yoshino right, the Yamai sisters beside her added, “I don’t know about Shido, but Hieta would definitely do that~ That idiot would throw himself into danger like his own life didn’t matter at all.”
“Affirmative. He’s strange in his own way. And if Shido has a personality similar to his, he’d definitely go save him.”
At their honest answers, the prejudice Miku had held against men wavered just a little when it came to them.
*
While Miku’s prejudices were beginning to shake, Shido—with help from Mana and Kurumi—entered the first building of DEM Industries.
Kurumi was no longer by his side because they had split up after meeting Mana halfway.
Mana and Kurumi had separated from Shido to draw the guards outside and reduce the numbers within, but right before Shido could enter, he ran into another guard, forcing him to enter the building alone.
“Huff...! Huff...!”
As soon as he stepped inside, the remaining guards spotted him.
“An intruder?!”
“Who are you? Where did you come from—!”
“Tch!”
Shido immediately bolted in the opposite direction.
“Stop right there! If you don’t stop, we’ll shoot!”
“You’re already shooting!”
The guards opened fire the moment Shido started running.
Shido dodged the attacks and ran as fast as he could, but one guard deployed a territory and pinned him down, leaving him in a desperate situation.
“Gah... Damn it! I can’t get stuck here...! If only I had power... if only I had power...!”
Shido thought desperately.
If only he had the power to save Hieta, he wouldn’t be trapped in a place like this.
No—if he had power, Hieta wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place.
He felt pathetic, unable to move, paralyzed by his own helplessness.
But then, perhaps his thoughts reached the heavens.
Before Shido, Tohka’s angel, [Sandalphon], descended, shining brilliantly.
While the guards stared in shock at [Sandalphon], Shido seized the chance and grabbed the weapon.
Then he remembered something Tohka had once said.
“That [Sandalphon] was summoned by Shido’s wish. Then the one who can fulfill that wish is none other than Shido.”
Recalling the moment [Sandalphon] had first been summoned, Shido gripped it tightly and swung it with all his strength.
“Haaahhhhh!!!!”
The impact of [Sandalphon], propelled by Shido’s shout, was tremendous.
As an angel capable of cleaving a hill in half with ease, it was simple for Shido—even as an ordinary human—to devastate everything around him with a single swing.
However, because the weapon was so powerful, the strain on Shido was just as severe.
He was already exhausted after only one strike.
“Huff... Huff...”
After the swing, Shido paused to catch his breath.
In that opening, a guard attempted to plunge a knife into his side.
“Shido! Are you all right?!”
“Tohka?!”
Tohka appeared out of nowhere, sending the guard flying.
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