ED: It’s my time of the year to get absolutely wrecked by pollen allergies, so I’m not sure when the next chapter will happen. I’ll do what I can.
Translator: Rihn
Editor: Zioming
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Short Story 8: What Went on Behind the Scenes as the War Began (Backside)
Author’s Note: This is the last part of this short series. The title has some meaning, but it isn’t really that big of a deal.
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After Kino Aichi finished her report and left the office, Shippouin Kanna sighed deeply.
“As I thought, I still become nervous whenever I talk to Kino-san.”
“…Ahh, you mean because she’s so beautiful, right?”
“She does not seem to be aware of this fact herself, though.”
Igarashi Mei nodded in agreement. Kino Aichi is certainly short, and she’s not exactly well-endowed, however her beauty is at a level that would take even Shippouin Kanna’s breath away.
Her face, which is almost perfectly symmetrical, is like a Japanese doll’s, making it look nigh artificial. It’s no wonder then that people with immature minds of middle school students would be jealous of her appearance and want to ostracise her. After all, the reason why Kino Aichi was bullied in middle school was not because she was poor, but simply because she was way too good-looking.
Even after entering high school, Kino Aichi’s unapproachable aura remained unchanged, making her be shunned by most, but her beauty on the other hand was even said to be equal to Shippouin Kanna’s. No, she might have even outdone her in that respect, considering how Kino Aichi was evaluated based on her looks alone, while, when it came to Shippouin Kanna, people would also take all of her other strengths into account.
As a side note, one of the reasons why the heroes decided to follow Kino Aichi was because it was a chance for them to see the rare scene of her working together with Shippouin Kanna, a factor that should not be overlooked.
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Kino Aichi finished her duties, so she went back to her room, but those who remained in the office still had more work to do. Shippouin Kanna was reading the report that Kino had compiled during the final leg of her mission. At one point, her hand stopped in the middle of flipping a page.
“Kino-san… Once more…”
“What’s wrong? Did Kino do something again?”
Igarashi Mei, who was also doing paperwork next to her, asked.
“It’s written in Kino-san’s report that she has once again gained a new colour.”
“…!”
Igarashi Mei’s face turned sour.
At first, Kino Aichi’s blessing, ‘Colour Variation [Ten People, Ten Colours]’, just as its name implies, allowed her to produce bubbles in 10 different colours. However, she is now capable of using as many as 20.
Fundamentally, blessings don’t grow. Or, to be more precise, they don’t grow just because you use them. So, how do you grow one then? Well, as was mentioned earlier, you can only do so by absorbing the white haze that appears whenever a hero dies.
And in the case of Kino Aichi, whenever she absorbs it, the amount of colours she is able to use increases by one. Or, in other words, she has already witnessed the deaths of more than 10 other heroes.
So then why did she witness so many deaths, you might ask. Well, it’s because said 10 heroes were the ones who attacked her when she offered to help them escape Eludia before the war began. They were either supportive of the war, and judged her to be a traitor, or had an inferiority complex towards her, given her good looks, and attacked her simply out of spite.
“As usual, she shows no mercy, nor hesitation.”
As Shippouin Kanna muttered, to Kino Aichi, mercy was an utterly alien concept. And so, if someone were to attack her, she obviously wouldn’t show them any. As such, the reality of it was that she has already taken the lives of over 10 fellow heroes.
But then how did Kino Aichi, who severely lacks when it comes to personal combat power, manage to kill a hero who has a blessing that’s specialised for battle? Well, naturally, it was with a clever use of her own blessing.
For example, when a certain hero tried to jump over a river while in pursuit of the fleeing Kino Aichi, he failed to dodge the ‘Yellow – Paralysis’ and ‘Purple – Sleep’ soap bubbles that she left behind in the middle of the river, causing him to fall into the water below and drown while under their effects.
Yet another hero, having heard Kino Aichi’s proposal, decided to pretend to follow her, and then tried to attack her in her sleep. However, in doing so, he stepped onto a soap bubble that was hidden in the dark at the entrance to her tent, and fell asleep. And so, he ended up having his throat slit, just like the monster mentioned before.
Regardless of her personal combat power, Kino Aichi specialises in controlling the movements of others. And once their movements are completely blocked, no matter how strong they may be, they cannot escape death. Basically, she’s the embodiment of the fact that having low combat power doesn’t necessarily mean being weak.
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“Well, it’s not the first time Kino has been relentless, right? After all, she even forced us to come together as comrades.”
“…That certainly did happen.”
Although Shippouin Kanna is now the one leading them, it was Kino Aichi who originally created the group.
It was her, who, having judged that what she could do alone was limited, used her talents to search for other like-minded individuals, and gathered them together into a single group. As mentioned before, if it were for the sake of her goal, Kino Aichi would stop at nothing, and would achieve it by any and all means necessary. In a move that stunned Shippouin Kanna and the rest of her comrades, she even contacted Mizuhara Saki, with whom she was famously at odds due to the difference in the way they viewed Shindou Jin, and asked her for help without a moment’s hesitation.
“I was really surprised at that time. A beautiful junior, whom I had never met before, approached me with a serious face, saying ‘Don’t you want to help Shindou-sama?’.”
“Right? I was supposed to be secretly admiring him, but she saw through me at a glance. It sure was one heck of a surprise.”
Moreover, when asked how she knew, she only replied with: “I can see it in your eyes.”. Kino Aichi’s ability to sniff out anything and everything related to Shindou Jin is no doubt the most outstanding, even among all her comrades.
And so, when they were all summoned to another world, and Shindou Jin was exiled, it was her who quickly rallied all her dismayed comrades and established a chain of command with Shippouin Kanna as their leader. She might not be a particularly bright student, nor does she excel when it comes to leadership, but her drive, quick wits, and insight, all improve by bounds whenever Shindou Jin is involved.
“I still think it would be a better idea to let Kino-san take the leadership role…”
“But she doesn’t want it, right? Otherwise, she would have done it from the start.”
Although Kino Aichi could have become the leader of their group if she only wanted to, she has chosen to stay in the background instead. This part of her character was an interesting match with her blessing. And so, as a result, more than a few of their comrades have come to consider Shippoiun Kanna to be the face of their group, and Kino Aichi to be the one usually acting behind the scenes, even if Kino herself had no intention of causing this.
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“Okay, that was enough chit chat, let us get on with the paperwork, shall we?”
“I guess so. There’s a mountain of things we should do, and even more that we must.”
Shippouin Kanna and Igarashi Mei finished their talk and went back to their paperwork.
With most heroes abandoning Eludia Kingdom, the power balance between countries around the world would change drastically after the war. The loss of all their heroes by Eludia Kingdom, not to mention their eventual loss in the war against Kastal Queendom (already determined), would have a tremendous impact, and so would the acceptance of said heroes by Elgant Holy State in their stead. In particular, all contracts related to the heroes would have to be drastically revised, with the contracts between Eludia and the so-called ‘hero-supporting countries’ being the best example of this.
Having foreseen this, Shippouin Kanna and her team are currently working on preparing such documents for when they are needed after the war.
Although they only did it with Shindou Jin in mind, there’s no denying that they were instrumental in bringing all the heroes together, and sending them into exile. As such, they had unknowingly assumed the position of ‘heroes’ representatives’, and since, at the end of the day, this was all a result of their own actions, they could not afford to ignore the aftermath.
Fortunately or unfortunately, they are all capable and united by a single purpose. As a side note, in Elgant Holy State, there are growing voices saying that they should be made the standard-bearers for overthrowing the Demon King. Although they probably never would have guessed that the very people they were trying to have lead their cause, would of all things, be trying to cast away their blessings.
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Author’s Note: The theme this time was ‘the followers of Jin from back in his home world’. After all, given the story so far, there’s no reason to believe that he wouldn’t already have some back then. Also, there weren’t any in this group, but there were some boys he helped out as well. Honest.
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