Now, after the entire operation has been completed on all sides, the three heroes reconvene in the halls…

“Issei!” I yelled out.

“M-kun!”

“Yo, guys!”

“Lee-san!”

“Lee!”

“Hold on, guys. Before we continue talking, we need to address something…” Lee donned a serious expression, “What the hell is that getup, kid?”

“I am the son of Sparda!” Issei struck a pose, “Pretty cool, right?”

“No, not at all.” Lee said flat out, “You look dorky.”

“Wha-?! Oh come on, you just don’t understand the appeal! Isn’t that right, M-kun?”

“Ah, yeah…” I dodged the question, “In any case, I’m glad you guys are safe and sound.”

If we ignore some scrapes and bruises, these two seem to be doing pretty fine, all things considered. Well, Lee’s face is quite red, but I imagine that’s just from him falling on his face after attempting the stunt he prided himself on. Issei’s gotten into a weird costume, but maybe that was just a disguise to trick the passerby guards?

“So, come on already!” Lee suddenly pressured both of us, “Spill the beans! What happened on your sides?”

“Right.” I suddenly remembered something, “We have an issue, the guard on my end already knew that I was coming.”

“He knew too?” Issei turned his head, “The same happened on my side, actually. I was this close to getting my head blown off the second I opened the trap door.”

“The heck’s up with that?” Lee furrowed his brows, “You think an inmate snitched or something?”

“No, we can’t be too hasty in making assumptions…” I reasoned, “Let’s proceed with caution from now on. It’d be bad if we start infighting.”

Now’s not the time for worrying, since we just completed an amazing mission. I’m glad that we managed to pick off the snipers from the watchtowers, but I’m even gladder that everyone is alive and well. Zero casualties are nothing if not worth celebrating in this situation. Now with this done, we’ve basically opened up a pathway to the outside. Then again, we’re still not in the clear yet, as we need to focus on finding an actual path, not to mention the correct moment, but at least now we don’t have to worry about dying at the very end to a well-aimed sniper shot.

“Right, I’m gonna go get Othelia!” Issei quickly turned around.

“O-Oi!” I stopped him, “What are you saying? It’s still too early to be letting her roam free! Just what will the guards think about the girl they left for dead suddenly frolicking about?”

“Humu, dear M-kun, you have no idea who you’re talking to…” He hid his face with the palm of his hand as he glanced back at me cooly, “If anyone has an issue with Othelia, then they’ll have to answer to old Ivory & Ebony here!”

“Whaaat!? You took another gun?!” I grabbed his hand, “Great! Give me one-!”

“Nooooooope! Sorry, but you’ll have to get your own~!”

While I was busying myself with trying to steal away Issei’s spare AFP, cursing him for being so tall, and myself for being this short, Lee could do nothing but stare at us from the background with an even more confused expression. In the end, after I finally gave up, he politely raised his hand before asking the question that must’ve been brewing for a while.

“Who the hell is Othelia?”

“Oh, right, we never did get to tell you, Lee-kun!” Issei seemed glad to get to elaborate, “She’s the girl I was talking about! The reason why I got myself caught and dragged in here. Get this, we found her in-!”

“Don’t tell me where, dumbass!” Lee forbid him from saying another word, “What if someone’s around the corner! Sigh, in any case, I thought you were making that whole story up.”

“Mnf!” Issei peeled off Lee’s palm from his mouth, “How rude! Am I really that much of an idiot to you? Have some more faith in your friends, kusojijii!”

“Ah, that damned language again!” Lee shouted back, “I don’t know what it means, but I know for a fact that you’re insulting me! C’mere, I’ll show you kuso!”

“That’s not how you use it, hey!” Issei tried fending the retired bandit off, but to no avail, “Crap, old man’s got some spunk in him! M-kun, save me~!”

“Sorry, you brought this on yourself.” I chuckled, “It’s as you said, friends should have some faith in each other, so I trust you to handle it!”

“Kono uragirimono…!!!”

The battle was hard-fought, but in the end it seems Issei’s frail attempts at fighting back were useless when compared to Lee’s countless years of experience as a rough and rowdy bandit. It was to be expected, but I must admit that I found myself rooting for the underdog partway through. It was just something about his “Never give up” attitude that struck a chord with me, but I guess there’s only so much you can do with confidence. Sooner or later, reality’s going to hit you like a truck, and you’ll have to resort to training if you really want to win any future battles from then on.

Even still, after some more flailing about, he finally called Uncle and they got back up as if nothing had ever happened to begin with. They laughed it off before burying the hatchet with a firm handshake. How manly, I’m almost driven to tears by this development.

“You were good, kid. You had me going for a second there!”

“Right back at you, ojii-san.” He shot back with a jab, “Oh, by the way, that term isn’t anything bad.”

“Seriously, you gotta teach us some of that mysterious language of yours!” Lee scratched the back of his head, “I’ve been around the world my entire life and still haven’t heard a single person speak it before!”

“No can do, I’m afraid!” He declined, surprisingly, “I’m sorry, but I promised a good friend that he’ll be the one I teach first when we meet up again someday.”

“Oh come on~!” Lee thought for a moment before coming up with a compromise, “Alright then! When we finally get out of this place, let’s all meet up with that friend of yours so we can all learn together! What do you say, Meil?”

“Sure, that is, if I don’t have an exam coming up, I’m sure I can come visit!”

“Oho, look at this guy getting ahead of himself!” Issei grabbed me over the shoulder, “But that’s fine, it’s good to be optimistic. Because without optimism, we wouldn’t have gotten this far to begin with!”

Glancing at each other and smiling, both Lee and I agreed with Issei’s sentiment. With this, we were now ready to begin the next phase of the escape plan, that being…!

“What the hell are you three doing out here?” A guard suddenly approached us, “Didn’t you hear the announcement? Come on, move it to the courtyard, we’ve some guests that are arriving.”

“Tch, this can’t be anything good…” Lee clicked his tongue.

“I have a bad feeling about this…” Issei had the same thought.

***

Put simply, I’m worried about what might be happening just outside. From the commotion, everyone’s gathered up in a line as if we’re doing morning rollcall, but you can tell that they’re all equally as confused and uneasy as we are, given that it’s now a lot closer to the afternoon than it is to morning.

“Alright everyone, settle down!” The guard gathered everyone’s attention, “Not an hour ago, four more guards have been killed. What’s more, the perpetrators are sick in the head too, as they appeared to have played with the guards’ dead bodies, throwing them off the spiral staircase and rearranging them post mortem.”

“Tch, no respect for the effort…” Issei murmured something next to me.

Hold on, did the guard just say that the perpetrator played with the dead bodies? That can’t be, I left the body where it was! Heck, I was so tired after Going Solipsistic that I didn’t even think to loot the guard for his weapon! Wait, it couldn’t be that he’s talking about Issei? Ugh, I can’t hear him at all, since we arrived last, we’re at the very end of the crowd.

“It’s obvious that our pleas to stand down have fallen on deaf ears.” The guard once again raised his voice, “Thus, we will be implementing some changes starting now.”

“Hm? Wait, what?!” I saw someone I couldn’t believe was there.

Walking with her usually prideful gait, her long blonde hair shining as she made her way onto the podium to join the other guards, everyone held their breaths as this lady began talking.

“Hello everyone, you may not know me, but I sure as hell know all of you.” She said pridefully, “For those unaware, I am Silvia Quartz, daughter of the deceased Shawn Quartz, and I’m here to whip this place back up into shape!”

“Damn, she a baddie.” Issei gawked at her appearance, “What’s such a pretty lady doing in a run-down place like this?”

“That being said, don’t expect me to waste too much time on you filth.” She hissed, “I’m here looking for one man and one man only – Deram Meil.”

“…” Issei glared back at me, “You lucky bastard…”

“This isn’t lucky!” I hastily explained, “This is horrible! She’s here to kill me, dammit! She’s the sole reason why I rushed to go to University in the first place!”

“Oh? I feel like there’s some lore you forgot to tell me about yourself, M-kun. Mind elaborating a bit more?”

“Ugh, it’s really not my fault. She’s just sick in the head in general, wanting to kill me for no reason at all.”

“So, we talking tsundere or yandere here? Odd, considering she’s the ojou-sama type.”

“Not the time, idiot! If she finds me, I’m dead!” I whispered in a fluster, “And will you stop romanticizing that damned witch already?! Besides, you already have Othelia, don’t you?”

“I wish to hold flowers in both hands.” He replied resolutely.

What the hell is up with this corrupt line of thinking again? Polygamy is a frowned upon act, I’ve read up on it myself so I know for sure! It’s the devil’s contract to get greedy and wish for more than one soulmate! God, first it was Lune, then Issei, just who is teaching them these things?

“Hmm, I dunno kid.” Lee suddenly joined in, “I’m on Slanted-Eyes’ side here. I kind of get the appeal of her. It’s the gap between your description and her outer appearance that make for a greater impact.”

“Uoooh! Ojii-san gets it!” Issei jumped for joy, “It’s the Moe Gap! I knew you’d get it!”

“Grr…! Why is it that you’re only smart when there’s a woman involved, you idiotic duo!” I struck them both on the back of the head, “Crap, someone’s coming!”

“Oi, you three have been making a ruckus this whole- hmm?” The guard that approached us seemed confused, “That’s odd, usually there’s three of you, where’s the tanned one?”

Ugh, that was too close! Thankfully I managed to hide by ducking in the crowd, but this shouldn’t have happened in the first place! God, these guys are taking it easy after the victory we experienced just now, but they don’t know just how much this woman has done to both me and the Grimhearts…!

“He’s uh, got a really bad case of diarrhea.” Lee made up a lie on the spot.

“What? Attendance is mandatory here, can’t you hear what that woman is saying?”

“Yeah, but he’s really shitting up a storm in there.” Issei added.

Damn you guys…! Quit making me look like a fool! And besides, I eat the same grub you do, so if I have diarrhea, it’d only make sense that everyone else would too! Your lying is terrible!

“Besides, we can’t really hear what that hottie is saying, since we’re so far out.” Lee said as he asked the guard to summarize it for them.

”Sigh, damned dogs…” The guard pinched the bridge between his eyes as he began, “Have you really not been listening to a word she said? She saw that Deram guy’s name on the list of inmates and immediately volunteered to start working here. Apparently, he’s one of the people involved in her father’s death, so she really has it out for him.”

“Ah, is that… so?” Both Issei and Lee glared back at me, “Well, that’s certainly not good. I hope she finds what she’s looking for.”

“Right?” The guard agreed, “Really makes you feel bad for her, the poor girl. Eh, even still, she arrived at the perfect time, given that her entourage will be subbing in for the lost guards.”

“What?!” Both of them jolted up from the guard’s words, “You mean… The snipers that have just died… will be replaced?”

“Yeah, she really is an angel, isn’t she?” He happily replied before going away, leaving us devastated.

Damn, of all the people to show up here and revert our progress back to zero…! Looks like things have just been turned up a notch. Not only will we have to do this whole thing over again, but this time I’m going to have to constantly be on the lookout for that damned Silvia so as not to get caught. This is going to be one hell of a cat and mouse chase!