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“…Huh?” Kanata went rigid as he heard my words.

Seriously!? I can’t have him spacing out now! This really is a bad habit of his.

The simple way the people at the research institute, where we had his intelligence being measured¹, put it, was “In exchange for his smarts, his mind stops working when he experiences a shock that exceeds a certain level.”

Still, up to this point he had never encountered something shocking enough for him to freeze up, so I hadn’t worried about it.

“…Oh, dear? You ended up freezing up again, Kanata? Gah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Surtr laughed mockingly.

Again…? So, this wasn’t the first time today…? Sakura didn’t say anything about that.
…Guess I have no other choice.

I stood next to him and gave his butt a strong slap.
It has a nice feeling to it. Maybe he’s like me and has too many female hormones…? Wait, what am I thinking here?

While it wasn’t as soft as Mika’s, it was alright. Finally, Kanata came to his senses.

“Ow!? …Huh. Did you say ‘Level-Up Fiend’…?”
“Yep, that’s me.”

Just as an aside, when Kanata looked down at me with his round, cute eyes, his face seemed so lovely, you’d never think of him as a boy.

“Huh… no way.”
“You’re so smart, Kanata, I’m sure you get it. Now, who might I be?”

Immediately after frowning for a moment, Kanata’s eyes opened wide once more.

“It can’t be… Big Bro?”
“Yep, that’s who I am.”
“…Do you have proof?”

Proof, huh… he’s not wrong…
What would work here, I should pick something easy to understand.

“In your room, on the second layer of your bookshelf, there are two books titled ‘Bible of the Forbidden Black Arts’ and ‘How to contain the power in your right hand’ (written by a certain ‘K’)².”
“Okay, I get it. It’s you, Big Bro.”

Furthermore, as his older brother, I knew that there was a picture of Sakura with a big smile, one when she was happily eating a parfait, and one with both her and Kanata under an apricot tree tucked in the latter book. Easy to understand. But he could’ve just believed me from the start.

“Gah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What’s that? Are you guys related? Get ready to die, then!”

The Black God shot off another great blaze. Without even looking at it, I held out my sword. When the fire was about to reach us, it was sucked into the sword.

“Bro…! Why are you in this world…!? How much do you… especially about Mika-nee…! T-That’s right, Bro, Mika-nee was-”
“You called?” Mika asked him, her face suddenly peeking out from behind Sakura.

Kanata was lost for words.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaa-!?” he finally screamed.
“Ah-ha-ha…” Sakura gave a strained laugh.

We acted as if Surtr was just a bug outside of a mosquito net, but with me here, his magic focused fighting style was meaningless, so it wasn’t an issue.

“Big Bro… Mika-nee…! Oh… Bro…”

Kanata seemed close to breaking into tears.
I see, he loves me so much, he’s about to bawl. That does make me happy.

Still, I couldn’t have him cry right now, so I kicked him in the shin.

“Ow!? Gah… what was that for!?”
“We can get emotional about our reunion later! This isn’t the time to get all teary-eyed…”

At any rate, he was healthy, that was the most important part.

“…So? Is that thing really Shuu?”
“Yep, it’s him, Mika-nee.”

Mika glared at Surtr with a frown.

“Unbelievable…”
“True, but it really is him, Big Sis.”
“…Isn’t there something we can do?” she asked Kanata and Sakura.

They shook their heads.

“It’s true… We don’t know if there’s any way to separate Shuu and the Black God…”
“Shuu has been possessed, right? Can’t we… I don’t know, wake up his mind in there or something, like they do in mangas? Wouldn’t that be possible?”

We looked at each other.

“Well, we haven’t tried that yet…” Kanata mused.
“Let’s do that, then. Was there some reason for him to become possessed?”
“If you put it that way… there was.”

Sakura and Kanata, who seemed to have something in mind, told us in more detail than earlier about the wolfkin girl Rir. From what they said… she had been Shuu’s girlfriend. They left out some details for another time, but it sounded like she fell in love with him.

…How did he manage that? I can’t think of any reason for someone to fall for him… except for his strong sense of justice, his manliness, and him being gentle, athletic, and not exactly stupid³.

…At any rate.

She was killed by the Black God. Moreover, it was in a way that made resurrection with Sakura’s magic completely impossible. Therefore, Shuu had flown into a rage which led to him being possessed…

…Although, if there’s just a single hair left of her⁴, I can bring her back with an Amrita.

TL notes:
Seeing how easily Alim dealt with his brother’s mental freeze, it’s depressing to think how much could’ve been avoided if only someone had given him a good whack back in chapter 349. Oh, well, at least everyone’s caught up now and they can try to separate Shuu from Surtr and/or beat the god into submission.

1. Sounds like there’s more going on than just him being intelligent, if they went to a research institute to have his head checked out.
2. The original is 少年K (“Boy K”). Thanks to Kemm for explaining that this is likely an anonymization of Kanata’s name.
3. Sounds like his gender change skill’s mental modification is kicking in again.
4. Couldn’t they just have picked some ash from the throne room and brought her back with that before they left? Although it’s possible even Amritas wouldn’t have worked on that.

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