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“There’s nothing in the aperture, but… I guess we can assume the vajra was in there?”
“Probably.”

The gaping hollow in the statue’s neck was empty. It felt like having the contents of a treasure chest turn out a huge disappointment.

“So, as we feared, the vajra is already…”
“It’s too early to give up! At least that’s what I’d like to say as usual, but we don’t have any clues…”

If even my brother was at a loss, then I didn’t have anything to contribute.

“Uhm, does that mean the evil god… has come back to life?”
“Not necessarily, Sakura. Remember, the other evil gods needed to fulfill some conditions to possess people to fight. If this one hasn’t met those requirements…”
“Now that you mention it, the first evil god we fought could only possess someone from the Mephilad lineage.”

Indeed, we might still have some peace of mind if that was the case. That is, if this evil god had some conditions to take over someone.

“In that case, we’ll have to narrow down these conditions first.”
“Do you have any idea, Kanata?”
“Let’s see… simply put, I can think of two.”

Two possibilities. Oh, could those be…

“You’re thinking of either relatives of King Rama or the one designated as the guide, don’t you?”
“You got it. If it’s the former then we don’t have to worry for some time, but if it’s the latter, we’re in trouble.”

Kanata looked serious. I decided to ask him why the latter would be an issue, though I already had a hunch.

“Why would that be so?”
“Come on, if we go over everything we’ve been talking about so far, then the samurai’s son became the guide in Anazumu and then returned here, didn’t he? In other words, the chance of a guide being on Earth is much higher.”

He was right, this sounded like trouble. Thinking back… Samaeyl did possess the corpse of Karua’s mother. If this evil god was able to take over a corpse and the one who took the vajra were to bring it to the corpse of the warrior who’d been spirited away, it would be checkmate¹. The evil god would be resurrected on Earth.

“When was the last time a guide was nominated?”
“Ah, Mika and I talked about that with King Rama.”
“Now that you mention it, we did… Nothing big seems to have happened, so let’s call Shuu and Rir over so they can join the discussion. Once they’re here, could you tell us again in detail?”
“Sure thing.”

______
___
_

“Woof~… Woof…”
“You fine…? Guess you are.”
“Woof!”

They hesitantly joined us. Kanata then gave them a concise version of what we had discussed so far.

“Still, it’s good nothin’ happened to Rir.”
“Woof, does that mean it was the vajra that controlled my body and not the statue?”
“Possibly.”

It was a reasonable conclusion. It made more sense that it was caused by the seal on the evil god in the vajra starting to come undone, rather than the statue itself.

“Anyway, Bro, could you inform us about the things King Rama told you so far? You only mentioned it in broad strokes so far.”
“Sure, I’ll do that.”

I told them everything the king had explained to us in as much detail as I could remember. Well, with Mika’s memory being a lot better than mine, I relied on her help for most parts.

“Woof, he made someone the guide on a whim?”
“Well, you can never tell what people with careless dispositions are gonna do,” Shuu replied. “Was the Bufura Kingdom okay, back then?”

I wondered about that too, but they probably had been. Or maybe, like in Yggdrasil right now, the other politicians made it work somehow.

“Say, Bro. The previous Guide was active around 100 years ago. He was an otherworlder from Anazumu’s perspective, his specialty was performances, he had an intense longing to return to his homeland, and he later moved to the Mephilad Kingdom following a clue… did I get that right?”
“I think so. Was there anything else, Mika?”
“No, that’s what Ayumu and I were told.”

Kanata put his finger to his chin. Not a moment later, he turned pale. It was unusual for him to be rattled to this extent by anything unrelated to Sakura. In other words…

“Did you think of something?”
“I did… or rather, it answered something.”
“I knew you could do it! So, what is it?”

He slowly opened his mouth but hesitated, as if being afraid to put it into words. Just what did he realize?

“Are you alright? If it’s hard to say, just whisper it to me and I’ll relay it to the others.”
“No, that’s not it… what do I do…”
“Kanata…? Are you really alright?”

Sakura rubbed the boy’s back as he was taking deep breaths. He really must’ve come to some conclusion. And he clearly had trouble putting it into words.
He’s still only an eight grader… maybe I put to much of a burden on him.

Sakura stopped rubbing his back and gently hugged him from behind. He looked like he had made up his mind and opened his mouth again.

“Well… I’m mostly certain at this point… I mean, I figured out who the previous Guide was. Do you want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“No matter how you look at it, it’s Mr. Mitsuo.”

TL notes:
If there ever was a chapter demonstrating how much Alim and Mika’s supposed intelligence (which was emphasized again and again by the school they’re attending being one of the most demanding) simply not being there, it’s this one.

They went and pretty much confirmed that Mephistophales is the Guide less than 20 chapters ago. They should have realized the trouble they are in the moment Kanata brought up the chance of there being a Guide on Earth, but… nothing.

1. The original is 積み (“pile”) which I assume is a typo and meant to be 詰み (“checkmate”).

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