Chapter 189: The Plan to Save Old Hodell
Hearing Iwanaga Kotoko's muttering, Yuuki Asuna offered a guess.
"Could it be Billy Hope, the mental patient who never appeared as an enemy in the original game, the one who fused with the nanoweapon Walrider? Leader and I looked up pictures online before. Compared to people like Chris Walker and the Chef, his appearance really is much more ordinary, almost like a normal person. That fits the diary's description too."
"That's possible, but according to the original story, once that guy became Walrider's host, he gained power almost on the level of a god."
Asagiri closed the diary, put it away in his inventory, and said calmly,
"He should be sealed in the deepest underground laboratory of Kyozan Mental Hospital. In any case, we have no intention of going down there, so there's no point in thinking about how to deal with him. We should focus on our current objective instead. For example..."
He took out his phone, opened the Eye Icon app to confirm something, and then said softly,
"Let's go find Hodell."
"Hodell? That orderly?"
Iwanaga Kotoko frowned slightly, her voice filled with doubt.
"We've already more or less figured out why Kyozan Mental Hospital ended up like this, so why are we still looking for him...? Oh."
Halfway through, Iwanaga Kotoko suddenly understood. A sweet, knowing smile spread across her face. She exchanged a glance with Asagiri, and the two of them said at the same time with eerie synchronization,
"I see Hodell is a good man too. Why not recruit him as a Persona?"
"Huh? Hodell can become a Persona too?"
Seeing Yuuki Asuna's surprise, Asagiri replied as if it were obvious.
"Naturally. Otherwise, why would the system give me that special hint? Besides, don't you want to go see our old friend again? If you think about it, Hodell could even be called our matchmaker."
Yuuki Asuna sighed helplessly and could not help retorting,
"The way your brain works really is unique... You can call him your old friend if you want, but back then I was so scared I nearly fainted."
"He rescued us from the sea of misery. How can you be so ungrateful?"
"That's true..."
Hearing that, guilt flashed through Yuuki Asuna's eyes. Then she suddenly came to her senses and glared at him.
"I never said I wasn't going to find Hodell, so stop emotionally blackmailing me."
Asagiri raised an arm dramatically.
"Then let's go!"
"Don't get too excited yet."
Kato Megumi gently interrupted, as calm and composed as ever.
"This Dungeon has no time limit, and neither of you is in very good condition right now. Necro and I have also used up some stamina and mental power. Why don't we search this floor for more information first, wait until our condition recovers a little, and then go look for him? At the moment, we don't even know which part of Kyozan Mental Hospital this floor is."
"That makes sense."
Yuuki Asuna tried taking a step, only to find her left leg still weak. Suddenly, a thought came to her, and with the faintest blush, she whispered,
"I... still can't really use my leg. It would be nice if someone carried me right now..."
"Hah..."
Iwanaga Kotoko immediately looked disgusted.
"Your acting is way too bad, isn't it? Fine, then I'll carry you!"
"This..."
Just as Yuuki Asuna parted her lips, unsure how to refuse, Kato Megumi quietly added in her gentle tone,
"With the height difference between the two of you, Violet's feet would drag on the ground, wouldn't they?"
Iwanaga Kotoko's face reddened instantly. This time, she had nothing to say.
"So let Leader carry her instead, alright?"
Faced with Kato Megumi's soft but perfectly reasonable suggestion, Iwanaga Kotoko instinctively shrank back by half a head, despite already being the shortest among the four of them.
"Tch... fine."
Once Iwanaga Kotoko reluctantly agreed, she turned to Yuuki Asuna again and warned her with utmost seriousness,
"You are absolutely not allowed to use the darkness as an excuse to grope him or take advantage of him, okay?"
"Do you think I'm you?"
Yuuki Asuna shot back immediately. Then she moved behind Asagiri, put away her light armor and rapier in her inventory, changed back into the tracksuit she had been wearing when they first entered the Dungeon, and wrapped her arms over his shoulders.
Asagiri slipped his hands beneath her bent legs and easily lifted the tall Yuuki Asuna onto his back.
Yet after taking only two steps, he shifted his grip, moving his hands from beneath her knees to her round...
"What are you doing...?"
Hearing Yuuki Asuna's shy whisper by his ear, Asagiri chuckled lightly.
"This is the most comfortable and efficient way to carry someone, isn't it?"
"But... mm..."
Yuuki Asuna had only gotten halfway through her protest when she felt him lightly squeeze a certain spot. A soft sound escaped her lips before she could stop it.
Although Kato Megumi and Iwanaga Kotoko, walking in front, could not see what had happened behind them, they could easily guess from the noise alone.
"Sigh..."
Kato Megumi let out a quiet sigh, and a strange thought suddenly surfaced in her mind.
Could it be that, to these three, she was just part of some special play, an item brought along to add excitement, like Hat Mita's Purple Mood?
The instant that thought appeared, Kato Megumi suddenly froze.
Why did she just have such an absurd thought?
Could she really have been infected by Asagiri and Iwanaga Kotoko?
Was this... the terrifying contagiousness of the Abstract Holy Body?
...
Half an hour later, inside a locker room lined with changing lockers.
"This place seems relatively safe. Let's adjust our condition here first."
Asagiri leaned against the wall, then noticed Iwanaga Kotoko still looking deep in thought. Smiling slightly, he asked,
"Still thinking about Sakurakawa Rikka?"
"Yes..."
Iwanaga Kotoko nodded and sighed.
"Ever since I became the God of Wisdom, this is the first time I've encountered someone like her. There are indeed ancient legends of humans becoming half yokai through certain means, but I've never seen such a case in modern society. Her very existence breaks the boundary between the world of the supernatural and the human world..."
Kato Megumi tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear and sat down on a wooden bench in the changing room, speaking in her usual gentle tone.
"But according to Ms. Sakurakawa, she was also a victim of some kind of experiment, wasn't she?"
"That's exactly why I think she's dangerous."
Iwanaga Kotoko's expression turned serious.
"Forcing hundreds of children to swallow mermaid flesh and Kudan flesh is not something anyone could do easily. I've never seen either of those yokai with my own eyes. They're almost extinct now, more legend than reality. But whoever orchestrated that experiment not only found them, they actually captured them. And until I met Sakurakawa Rikka, I had never heard so much as a rumor about any of it. It seems the real world isn't nearly as peaceful as it looks."
"Should we kill Sakurakawa Rikka?"
The moment Iwanaga Kotoko finished speaking, Asagiri smiled and said it as casually as if he were asking what to eat for lunch.
"Even if that wasn't her main body, it must still be some kind of projection or split clone. As long as I use [Supreme Magic Bullet], it should be able to track back to the source and cut through her immortality at the root. We could just wait for her at the Kyozan Mental Hospital exit point and then... send her off properly."
"Send her off properly, huh..."
Iwanaga Kotoko seriously considered it, but did not answer right away. Instead, Yuuki Asuna spoke first.
"I actually don't think Ms. Sakurakawa has any real ill will toward us. If anything... she feels kind of friendly?"
"Hm? Why do you say that?"
Iwanaga Kotoko looked at her curiously.
Yuuki Asuna brushed her flaxen hair behind one ear and began explaining.
"Think about it. What we met before was only her clone, and at that time she had no way of knowing that Leader possessed an ability like [Supreme Magic Bullet]. Even if destroying that clone would make it harder for her to clear this Dungeon, it was still just a clone. Compared to the secret that she gained her powers by eating mermaid and Kudan flesh, losing that clone should be a much smaller price, right?"
She paused.
"And yet she still chose to tell us everything herself. I feel like... she might have been trying to warn us to be careful in the real world too."
"Now that Violet mentions it, that really does seem possible."
Kato Megumi recalled their earlier encounter. At the time, her presence had been fully suppressed by her exclusive talent, so she had not needed to speak at all. That meant all of her focus had gone into observing Sakurakawa Rikka.
"Ms. Sakurakawa doesn't seem like the sort of person who would impulsively expose one of our identities just because Leader called her real name and caught her off guard. If anything, it feels more like she was using that moment to tell us that someone in the real world already knows Necro's true identity, and that among those people, there are enemies."
Iwanaga Kotoko frowned.
On one hand, Kato Megumi and Yuuki Asuna's reasoning made a great deal of sense. On the other hand, she still could not shake her unease.
"But why? I am the God of Wisdom who guards order, and Sakurakawa Rikka is an existence that breaks that order. In a way, she and I should be natural enemies. So why would she go out of her way to warn us? And after the transaction was complete, she clearly intended to leave immediately. Was it because..."
At that point, the eyes of Iwanaga Kotoko, Yuuki Asuna, and Kato Megumi all turned toward Asagiri, who was leaning against the wall.
"Could it be because of your succubus constitution?"
"What succubus constitution? Don't slander my innocence out of nowhere."
Asagiri shook his head and laughed.
"Maybe she was simply completely charmed by my unique personal magnetism."
.....
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