After finishing breakfast, we headed straight to the Demon King's place.
The Demon King was probably still asleep, but the goal was to pick up Oni-kun, who'd been standing guard.
When meeting the reincarnators, Oni-kun's communication skills were absolutely essential.
The difference between having Oni-kun there and not having him was night and day when it came to mission success rates.
So we made our way to where Oni-kun was.
I swapped Oni-kun out for Mela.
I hadn't explained anything beforehand, but Oni-kun — gotta give him credit — figured out what I was trying to say just from my gestures.
So I was able to smoothly extract Oni-kun and leave Mela in his place as the Demon King's guard.
The slightly "Wait, I still have to work?" face Mela made at that point — yeah, I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that.
Whatever's going on inside, I love how responsible you are and how you always see every job through to the end when someone asks you to do it.
It's incredibly convenient for me.
Anyway, preparations are in order. Time to crash the reincarnators' gathering.
...Do I really have to crash it though?
I'm not feeling it.
Meeting the reincarnators who know
Just that alone makes me not want to go, and on top of that I'll inevitably have to open my mouth to explain things.
What is this, some kind of punishment game?
Ugh, I don't wanna go.
Don't wanna go, but gotta go.
...Wait, do I really?
Come to think of it, do I actually have any obligation to explain the situation to the reincarnators?
What if I just kept quiet and let them stumble around without knowing what was going on?
Is that viable?
Yes!
"Oni-san. You're not thinking anything naughty, are you?"
Guuh!
Are you a esper!?!
Mm, mm, mm...
Haaah.
Fine. No choice. Oni-kun called me out, so I'll just have to steel myself and go in.
And so we arrived at the treehouse where the reincarnators were holed up.
Cramming a large group of reincarnators into one place must be cramped and honestly unfair to them, but it's way easier for us to manage that way.
They were supposed to be separated by gender inside, so there shouldn't be any issues.
The guards were in place too.
Consensual? Don't know, don't care.
Maybe it's just my mood, but the door felt incredibly heavy as I opened it.
Ahh, once I open this all the way, the reincarnators will be right there.
Depressing. Not gonna die or anything though.
On the other side of the door, Kusama-kun and Ogiwara-kun were tied up with rope.
*Click.* Huh?
Huh?
HUH!?
I instinctively slammed the door shut, but what the hell was that?
A hallucination?
Was there really some high-level user out there capable of making even me see things!?
To confirm it wasn't just a misread, I carefully opened the door again.
Sure enough, there were Kusama-kun and Ogiwara-kun, bound and gagged.
...Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Umm, yeah.
I'll give them a hundred steps of leeway and say the being-tied-up part is... fine, I guess.
Kusama-kun and Ogiwara-kun were both agents of the Shingengyou cult.
Kusama-kun was the one who attacked this elven village — in other words, one of our own — and Ogiwara-kun was a spy who'd deliberately gotten captured by the elves to leak intel from the inside.
From the other reincarnators' perspective, they were traitors, so capturing them for interrogation made total sense.
...It did, but why were they tied up facing each other in what looked like a hug?
Normally you'd tie people back-to-back, right?
Wasn't the direction backwards?
Both Kusama-kun and Ogiwara-kun were turning their faces away like crazy, but their faces were still pressed together.
If the angle were just a little different, they'd be kissing.
And why were the girls watching this with dreamy expressions on their faces?
It felt like if anyone had a camera, they'd start snapping photos.
The only sane people were the teacher, former class president Kudou-san, and Kushitani-san.
Oh, wait, no.
The teacher was going "Oh my, this really isn't appropriate—" while peeking through the gaps between the fingers covering her face.
Kudou-san was wailing something incomprehensible like "It's fine! It's allowed because it's 2D! In 3D it's absolutely not okay!"
In conclusion, Kushitani-san was the only truly sane one!
Umm, what, this, what?
"Wakaba-san! Help me!"
While I stood there dumbfounded at this bizarre scene, Kusama-kun locked eyes with me, and the next instant he was crying out for help.
He must've been really desperate — his voice sounded like he was about to cry.
Hey, don't dump this on me here!?
Kusama-kun's voice drew the attention of nearly everyone present straight to me.
Don't!
Don't look at me at this confusing timing!
Don't look over here!
"No way."
"Wakaba-san?"
"Wait, really?"
"The real deal?"
The reincarnators whispered among themselves while staring at me.
From their midst, one person stepped forward to represent the group.
It was Kudou-san, the former class president.
"It's been a while — is that the right way to put it? You are Wakaba-san, right?"
That wasn't actually the case, but saying so here would complicate things, so I shut my mouth and nodded.
When I confirmed it, the teacher visibly panicked.
"For reference — the person behind you is Sasajima-kun, correct?"
"Mm. That's right. It's been a while, Class Pres."
"Yes."
At Oni-kun's calm greeting, Kudou-san dropped her stiffened shoulders as if the tension had been wrung out of her.
But she quickly pulled herself together and turned her attention to the other person.
"And you, by process of elimination, would be Negishi-san?"
"That's right."
When the vampire girl confirmed it, the reincarnators behind Kudou-san started buzzing.
Catching bits of their conversation, most of them were expressing shock at how much the vampire girl had changed.
Kudou-san clapped her hands — *bang!* — to silence the murmuring crowd.
"So? What exactly is your purpose for coming here?"
Kudou-san asked with her wariness fully on display.
I mean, that wariness was understandable.
The reincarnators who'd been imprisoned in the elven village knew the Imperial Army had attacked.
But after that, they had no idea what was going on — they got hit with my spatial isolation, and before they knew it, they were locked up like this.
What was going to happen to them from here on out?
What on earth had happened?
They knew nothing, and now three fellow reincarnators had suddenly shown up — the timing alone was enough to put anyone on edge.
As for the rest, they seemed more confused than anything.
Kudou-san, along with Tagawa-kun, Kushitani-san, and Urushihara-san, were on guard.
The rest were overwhelmed by confusion.
"I want you to know — we have no intention of doing you any harm."
Before I could say a word, Oni-kun spoke up.
"I know the teacher may not believe me, but we are not your enemies. Please, just believe that much."
At Oni-kun's earnest plea, the room fell silent.
Several of the reincarnators darted glances toward the teacher.
But the teacher, seemingly unaware of their looks, was opening and closing her mouth with a confused expression.
She was probably trying to say something, but the words just wouldn't come out.
"We came here today to talk. All of us — we need to have a conversation."
Oni-kun declared this as he looked around at everyone.
Not a single person voiced objection.
Told you — bringing Oni-kun was absolutely the right call.
"Um, excuse me. Before all that — could someone please untie us?"
"You idiot! Read the room!"
Kusama-kun made his pathetic plea, and Ogiwara-kun scolded him for it.
"...Since we can't exactly stand here forever, why don't we sit down and talk?"
Kusama-kun's air-break comment killed whatever tension remained, and Kudou-san suggested this while relaxing her shoulders.
Unfortunately, Kusama-kun and Ogiwara-kun were left exactly as they were.
Kudou-san: Proselytized her fujoshi religion, but only in 2D — 3D was outside her jurisdiction. However, there was obviously no 2D media in the elven village, so the other girls she'd converted immediately defected to 3D, leaving the founder herself inexplicably sidelined. How did it come to this.