Reborn as the Villain in a Forbidden Game

Chapter 10: Outing (5)

For about 30 minutes after that, I was stuck listening to this kid named Misaki."Munch, munch. This is so good. Give me another one."

"No. Buy your own."

"But I don't have any money right now."

"Ugh... fine, here. Eat up."

To be precise, I had to listen to her while she shamelessly stole my lunch. If I didn't comply, she'd start bawling. Thanks to her antics, I learned a few things about her: Misaki was a loner with no friends, and I got a glimpse into her family situation.

"So, you're from a famous exorcist family, and you're so talented you can see and talk to ghosts in everyday life?"

"Yup!"

There was definitely something off about her—that much was clear.

'Is this some kind of Jujutsu Kaisen situation?'

Her story sounded like it was ripped straight out of an exorcism anime. The problem was, I couldn't just brush it off as a child's fantasy.

[First Scenario Progress Rate: 5%]

'What's happening in front of me is already unreal enough.'

I'm already weird myself. Who am I to call someone else weird? Besides, from what I remember, there were two games in the Ero Villain series that involved yokai. One was about running away from female yokai in the neighborhood, and the other was the opposite—a tights-wearing exorcist defeating yokai in the neighborhood.

'Wait a minute...'

If I recall correctly, the main character's name in that game was definitely...

"Your name's Misaki, right?"

"Munch, munch. Uh-huh. Why?"

"Then, what's your last name?"

"Oh! Right. It's Tachibana. Tachibana Misaki."

It was Tachibana Misaki (橘氏 美咲).

I couldn't help but be shocked when I heard her full name. For one, the main character in the game wasn't a high school girl—she was more like an elementary schooler. And second...

'This little kid is going to grow up to have that body?!'

It was mind-blowing to think that the character who made people go "wow~" was like this as a child.

As I sat there, stunned, Misaki noticed my expression and asked, "What? Is there something weird about my name?"

"No, it's not that..."

"Hmph! Then why are you making that face? I even told you my last name, which my grandpa said not to share with anyone. Especially since you gave me food."

"Huh? He told you not to tell anyone your last name?"

That caught me off guard. In Japan, it's pretty common to call people by their last names unless you're close. Why would he tell her to keep it a secret?

"Yeah. He said if people—or ghosts—who hold a grudge against us find out our last name, they can attack us. So, we're only supposed to reveal it when we're facing an enemy or after completing a mission."

Seems like there's some kind of tradition in exorcist families.

Wait a minute...

'In the game, Misaki's goal when she first appeared was to defeat the yokai that destroyed her family, right?'

And now that I think about it, the main character's last name was never mentioned during the game. The only time she said her full name was at the end, right before fighting the final boss and after defeating it, when she shouted her name to declare the mission complete.

I didn't think much of it back then, but it turns out there was a story behind it.

'Ero Villain, those crazy bastards.'

What kind of ero game has this kind of hidden lore?

No, actually, if I think about it, Ero Villain has always been like this.

'They always seemed to have their own stories that players didn't know about, right?'

But what does this have to do with this world?

"What are you thinking so hard about? Oh, and by the way, we've been talking about my name, but you haven't told me yours!"

No, that's not what I need to worry about right now. What's important is...

"Ah, right. My name's Takuya. Let's be friends from now on."

"R-really? You don't think it's weird that I'm a yokai or that I don't share my last name?"

"It's fine. I've met way weirder people than that."

The fact that her family is rich.

'I was wondering how to get the initial investment to buy Bitcoin.'

If I play my cards right, I might be able to score a sugar mama.

Even an allowance would be fine. If she's from such a well-off family, the scale is completely different from mine.

I thought to myself, wondering how to get closer to this little kid—no, my future sugar mama.

About an hour passed.hought about the boy—no, the man who looked more like an uncle—and muttered.

"Who is he to carry such a heavy karmic burden of killing (殺業)?"

The karmic burden of killing is something one accumulates by taking lives.

Even the greatest samurai of the Warring States period only carried a few hundred karmic burdens.

But that man...

[He had thousands, maybe~]

He carried a karmic burden of death in the thousands.

That was something absolutely impossible for an ordinary human.

But that wasn't the only thing that piqued the great yokai's interest.

Thousands of lives were not unheard of. Emperors and shoguns of the past had carried such burdens.

What intrigued her most was...

[Who is 'that woman' hiding behind his thick karmic burden of killing?♪]

It was the woman hiding behind his karmic burden, staring at her with a murderous gaze.

Thinking back to that moment...

Shiver!

Even she, with powers close to a god, felt a moment of fear.

[Should I investigate separately~?]

Nyotengu was deeply curious about who it was.

***

[Yokai are invisible to ordinary people. You need a special 'eye' to see them.]