kscans

Chapter 111 - A Life Lived in Shame

When I think about it, this is probably the natural outcome. Children living in a society where values and social structures are becoming increasingly diverse. If you want to entertain them, you have to keep evolving. So it's not really surprising that toys reach a quality level that transcends children's boundaries and appeals even to adults. In other words, well...

It was incredibly fun.

I bought an embarrassing amount of toys and played overnight with them. Both the president and I were completely satisfied. After having lunch at the president's house, I returned home with my heart thoroughly fulfilled. The last day of Obon break. I'll just relax and do nothing today. Actually, I hadn't made any plans from the start, but if I felt unsatisfied, I was prepared to do something.

(But that wasn't necessary)

After showering, I changed into a jinbei and threw myself onto the living room sofa. I'd drink and lazily waste away the rest of my vacation doing nothing. My heart held no doubts. Since getting up was too much trouble, I teleported beer and snacks onto the table. Now I was all set. Just as I was fired up to laze around to my heart's content.

"What the hell..."

An electronic sound rang out from the smartphone sitting in the corner of the table. This wasn't someone close like Takahashi or Suzuki. I have individual ringtones set for close contacts. I wanted to ignore it, but if it was work-related, I couldn't. I clicked my tongue, reached for the phone, and checked the screen. The number displayed... I didn't recognize it.

"Hello?"


A young woman's voice... I didn't recognize it.

"Yes, that's right. Who is this?"


The Mutual Aid Society? I'm registered with the Tokyo branch. So normally any contact would come from there. If it's from another branch, especially Akita which has connections to me... I have nothing but bad feelings about this.

"Morita-san, was it? Why are you contacting me?"


There it is. Family, family again. A family member getting caught up in the supernatural world. It's not like I hadn't considered this possibility. Not because they're my relatives specifically, but because anyone alive could potentially get dragged into the supernatural world. I had taken some precautions though. Like supernatural repellent instead of insect repellent. But if it was too powerful, it might attract unwanted attention from weird things, so I kept it at normal levels. If something broke through that... sigh.

"I'll head over there right now, so please give me the details"


I quickly got ready and teleported to the Mutual Aid Society's Akita branch. They seemed surprised by my sudden appearance, but I didn't have time to deal with that, so I calmed them down. When I was led to the reception room, a man who seemed to be the branch manager began explaining while bowing his head repeatedly.

"Recently, a mobile-type alternate realm has been occurring, and we were tracking it..."

During their investigation, they discovered this at the site where the realm had been, and handed me a smartphone.

"When we examined the contents to identify the owner, we found Satou-san's name"

They thought it might be someone with the same name, but when they inquired with headquarters just in case it was me, it was a hit. They contacted me immediately.

"We also checked with the police, but no missing person reports have been filed yet"

"So it hasn't been long since they were caught up in this"

I checked the smartphone. The information registered inside was definitely from one of my relatives.

"Saki-neesan's kid, huh"

This was the son of my cousin who used to take good care of me when I visited my mother's family home. His name is Ayase Sakuya. I know him too. I've even changed his diapers. He's a high school sophomore now, working hard toward his childhood dream of getting into a good university in Tokyo.

"Thank you for the information. I'll handle the rest from here, if that's alright?"

"Y-yes... we've been having trouble tracking it ourselves, so we'd appreciate your help..."

"It's fine. Since this guy hasn't been missing long, the 'scent' is still clinging to him"

When an aberration creates an alternate realm rather than it occurring naturally, that aberration's personality seeps out. If I follow that scent... ah, found it.

"Well, I'm off"

"Please be careful"

After telling the branch manager that, I directly entered the alternate realm. Mobile types don't put down roots, so they don't become very large in scale. It was about the size of a large shopping center, so I quickly located the rescue target. I located him, but...

"He's fighting?"

I sensed the presence of battle. When I immediately headed there, I found a beautiful Akita-style boy with glossy black hair tied up, fighting against an aberration. His appearance was so feminine you could mistake him for a girl, but he was definitely male. Must be his sister's bloodline...

"Eh, Hero Uncle... san...?"

He spotted me and stared blankly. It can't be helped since he's an amateur, but in a place like this, that's a fatal opening. I eliminated the aberration that was about to attack and slowly approached.

"Yo, Saku-chan"

"Eh, eh, eh... what... eh, why..."

"Well, I'm sure you have lots of questions, but let's get out of here first"

I created a black sphere in my palm and casually tossed it into the air. Everything except me and Saku-chan was drawn toward the core, and the alternate realm vanished in an instant. After confirming there were no strange aftereffects, I took Saku-chan with me and teleported to the Akita branch's reception room.

"...? !?!!?!"

"Teleportation. You know, like you often see in manga?"

"I do, but... in reality, such a thing..."

"Didn't you just get shown enough unrealistic things?"

"T-that's... no, you're right! Explanation! W-what's going on? What's happening!?"

"I'll explain everything in proper order"

I calmed him down and began explaining the supernatural world, just like I had done before with Rika-chan and the others. Saku-chan is smart, befitting someone working hard to get into a good university. Even if he couldn't completely absorb it all, he understood.

"Hero Uncle, what should I do? What would be good for me to do?"

Saku-chan is quite a sensitive type. He used to use "boku" but changed his first-person pronoun so he wouldn't look unseemly in society, and grew his hair out as a kind of prayer. That's exactly why he's genuinely confused to his core by the current situation that exceeds his capacity. He can understand the circumstances surrounding him, but doesn't know how to deal with them. It would be cruel to blame him for that.

"If I force the issue, I could probably send you back to the surface world as is"

But I don't recommend that. If I return him like this, given Saku-chan's personality, he'll probably end up living in fear knowing that supernatural things exist. I think it would be more settling to let him touch the supernatural world, give him the power to defend himself, and then return him. When I conveyed my thoughts,

"I think so too. I can't pretend it never happened. Actually, that's not it. I'm aware of the aspects of myself that Hero Uncle mentioned. So I intend to gain that power. What I'm hesitating about is my dad and mom"

Eh? Ah, that's what it is. It seems that while I thought of him as a smart kid, somewhere in my heart I was still looking down on him as just a child. Even though he's confused, he can think about it to that degree... this kid is already walking toward the path of adulthood.

"I don't want to hide things from them anymore... but... if I tell them, they'll worry, right? I'll make them worry, right?"

"Well, yeah. They're parents. There's no way they wouldn't worry about their child having to stick their neck into a dangerous world"

Saki-neesan and her husband are both good people.

"What about Hero Uncle? What did Hero Uncle do?"

"Eh? Me? I... d-didn't tell them"

"Because you didn't want to make them worry?"

"U-ugh"

"Hero Uncle?"

When I stepped into the supernatural world, I didn't tell my parents anything. Part of it was because I didn't want to worry my parents who were overseas... that's part of it... but that's not all... Rather, that kind of thing was about forty percent... the remaining sixty percent was... I-I was afraid that if they knew about the money I could earn from jobs, they'd interfere with how I spent it...

"I-I... I..."

Hikaru was also reliable. But at that time, Rika-chan's situation was bigger for me, and besides, Hikaru was someone else's child. I was impressed with his parents about how reliable he was even in such times. But Saku-chan is different. Like me, he's seventeen... I was actually sixteen since my birthday hadn't come yet, but it's essentially the same period. Seeing a relative's child who got caught up in the supernatural world at the same time being so much more reliable than I was... It's not an inferiority complex. It's shame. I'm so embarrassed by my past stupidity I can't stand it.

"H-Hero Uncle...? A-are you, crying?"

On this day, I was made to cry by a high school student.