Corpse disposal over the phone was not on his list for today.
[Konrad H] You killed it, you deal with it.
Glad the dragoness was safe, but he was still on the clock—with a casualty of his own.
[R Kaede] Ur mean.
[R Kaede] What if I eat it? Will it taste bad?
Konrad shivered. She was a dragon after all. But he could only imagine her as a cute schoolgirl chomping on a femur for some reason. Not a picture he wanted to see.
And let's not even think about how many watchlists their texts put him on.
No, first things first. Lucifer's lackeys were after them now.
He was safe, but the bastard wanted Kaede and Yuki dead. He explained the basics to her.
[R Kaede] Fine. Stay, then.
[R Kaede] I'm a big girl, but she can't defend herself.
Big. Yeah. Especially in her dragon form—
Terrible drumming or not, it turned out she recovered more of her magic than she'd let on.
Was Konrad the only one struggling?!
[Konrad H] Good. Keep me posted, tho.
[Konrad H] And turn on your location.
And that was one crisis averted.
Now for the guitar.
He couldn't help but shudder every time he looked at it. If the owner fired him for this, he'd want the borrowed acoustic back, too. How would he regain any more mana then?
And not that he looked forward to it, but—
Was that band showdown still on the menu for the next weekend?
"Can't believe that happened," Yuki-san muttered out of the blue. "He said angel, right? And you, like, zapped him?! Like BAM. With a freaking lightning bolt, and the guy kept going."
Not the kind of shock he expected.
Wasn't she way too excited?
"It was a stun gun," Konrad lied. "It's not always effective. And you can't believe everything random strangers tell you. Have you noticed someone following you lately? Like, a stalker."
Because the timing was too perfect, right when he figured something important out.
"Stun gun, my ass, I'm not stupid," Yuki scoffed, hands on her hips. "Where is it, then? Gimme."
Great. She even ignored his question.
He could have conjured an illusion to put her at ease, as long as she didn't want to touch it. But that cost mana, too, however little. And now his recovery was anything but settled for the future.
That said, since Lucifer messed with her head, and he had to fix that somehow—
He might as well come clean.
"Promise you won't freak out," he sighed.
Where did he even start?
"Listening, Kohai-kun," she said, crossing her arms in a futile effort to look serious.
"Screw it," Konrad grunted. "Worst case, you'll think I'm a chunibyo. And I wish I were. But the truth is—I'm not from this world. Or, no, that's not exactly it. I am, in a sense, but—"
Yeah, he was already overthinking it.
Another deep breath, and he gave a quick rundown of everything he could think of.
Starting with the most relevant part.
But of course, Yuki-san had her own idea of what was important and what wasn't.
"So, like, you're actual nobility? Should I call you Kohai-sama now?!"
"Please don't. It's not like I was born into it—or, guess I did? Stuff happened, and somehow I ended up as the Duke of Halaima. It's a backwater place, though, ransacked by the Church."
He'd still rather talk about that than explain Lucifer's role, though.
He didn't understand the scope of it, either.
"Every angel has insane powers. For example, my wife can stop time."
"Your wife?!" the girl yelled. "And we've been flirting here like it's no big deal."
Yeah. He took a mental note not to mention his harem, then. Besides, he had a wife, but somehow, it felt like he had another one? And the one he couldn't remember—
Could it have been the same girl Yuki-san got her memories from?
Lily? Or Lilith? The name was still floating in his head.
"I suspect Lucifer has a power over minds. He let me keep a lot of things from my past life, but some things he made me forget for good," he explained. "In your case, he replaced everything."
Which was odd, to say the least.
Why bother if Konrad couldn't even remember that person?
No. Whenever he found an answer, it only led to even more questions.
At least the girl was too overwhelmed to complain.
"So the anime we watched together, and the stuff, this—whatever I'm feeling for you. They belong to someone else?" Yuki-san asked in the end. "But then, who am I?"
He shook his head.
"Sorry, I'm as confused as you are."
"And that lightning bolt? And all this weirdness—you do know about that, right?"
Well, at least she didn't let it get her down for long.
What could he even say to that?
"Yeah, well, it's magic," he noted. "It's stuff I learned in Kasserlane, and I guess it works here, too. But it's harder to fuel my spells on Earth. The only way I've found so far was—"
His voice trailed off, eyes dropping to the ruined guitar again.
Yuki gasped.
"Are you for real?!" she yelled, as if the previous attack and her counterfeit memories no longer mattered. "Like, to do magic, you have to rock out?!"
"Huh? Uh, sure."
That was one way to put it. Konrad didn't have the heart to correct her—nor the time to do so.
Everyone's timing was impeccable today.
Sorakumo-san chose this moment to enter, too. And of course, the first thing he noticed was the ruined guitar at their feet. Why couldn't that damned chime give him an early warning?!
"What on Earth happened here?" the old man asked, his jaw hitting the floor.
Not again.
He spent an hour trying to explain the basics to Yuki-san. To do the same to her father?
Wait. She wasn't about to say something weird, right?
"Oto-san," she chirped, skipping ahead before Konrad blinked. "You're not gonna believe this."
Yeah, shit. Why did he tell her everything?!
"Let me guess, you dropped it again," the owner groaned before taking a closer look. "No, that wouldn't do this to a guitar. Something hit it from the top? With what force?!"
"It was a kid," Yuki-san yelled.
Huh?
"Some delinquent playing with a freaking steel ball," she said. "If Kohai-sama weren't here, it might have caved in my face, too. But he ran before we called the police."
Hold on.
"A kid? You saw his face?!"
Wait.
"He wore a mask," the girl lied as if it were second nature. "And you didn't put up those cameras, so we'll never know what his angle was. This is all that's left."
She picked up the guitar and the steel ball that hit it.
"What the hell's wrong with that kid? So you called the cops? Did they take fingerprints?" The owner asked, then shook his head. "Forget it. They'd only make an even bigger mess."
Konrad blinked. So he wasn't fired?
And Yuki-san didn't sell him out, either.
That was close. He never expected her to think faster than he did.
Sorakumo-san was still mourning the guitar, though.
"Even if I fixed it, no way we could sell it now," he said. "Halstadt-kun, lend me a hand. You needed something for that band thing anyway, right? I'd hate to let it go to waste."
It was his turn to drop his jaw.