Chapter 26

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Bookwalker

Author: Agitomi Akumi
Translation: rinrinu

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Moving a fountain pen with a scratching sound and tidying up official papers one after another, Kyouka was about to pick up his seal when he suddenly raised his head.

“Captain, you have a guest, but……”

The somewhat bewildered sounding subordinate’s voice could be heard from the other side of the door.

There were no scheduled visitors. He frowned and hurried to the reception room, wondering if something was wrong.

When he stepped into a room near the entrance of the military station, that was only used when visitors came, there was a person there he recognised well.

“……Yurie?”

As soon as she saw Kyouka appear, Yurie, who should have returned home just now, stood up and clung to him tightly, as if she were about to fall over.

“Young master, Miyo……!

“What happened?”

“M-Miyo……Young master, Miyo was-”

“Yurie, calm down.”

“I-I can’t. Hurry, if you don’t hurry then-, Miyo will be-”

Yurie, who was normally a calm person, was very disordered, and it would have been hard to have a normal conversation with her right away.

“Calm down, it’s alright. It’s okay to take your time.”

“Miyo was-”

“Miyo was what?”

“K-Kidnapped……”

Swallowing the words “no way”, Kyouka groaned. It was what he had expected, but it should have been the least likely possibility. He’d hadn’t thought he’d be that foolish. 

He managed to get a distraught Yurie to sit in a chair and listen to him.

“Did you see anyone before Miyo was kidnapped? Someone from the Saimori family, or perhaps even someone from the Tatsuishi family?”

“W-we didn’t see anyone. We planned to go straight home.”

“What about the amulet? Weren’t you carrying it with you?”

“……That’s, well the truth is-”

──After they left the young master, they noticed it was gone.

Yurie’s hands and voice were trembling a lot. If she had checked her belongings properly this wouldn’t have happened, she only had herself to blame.

Kyouka exhaled to stop the violent emotion that seemed to swell up to the point of explosion.

That amulet had the effect of making her invisible to other people’s shikis.

It wasn’t able to protect her from physical force or the human eye, so it was no more than a peace of mind, but it was useful for the people who used shikis for surveillance rather than living humans.

“……tch.”

His frustration at being powerless grew.

He put his power into a large number of palm-sized blank pieces of paper he had already taken out from his breast pocket, releasing the simple shiki he created throughout the town, searching for Miyo’s whereabouts. However, the capital was vast. This method not only took time, but was also too unreliable.

Nine times out of ten, he could discover the culprit. But with the evidence about the situation currently insufficient, there was no way he could make a move. It would be good if he could pin down the location with the shiki, but it probably wouldn’t be as convenient as that.

It was possible for Kyouka to enter the enemy territory all by himself. However, if he did that without any conclusive evidence, he would be the one to lose his footing. He wanted one more deciding factor.

Even though he wanted to go right now and get Miyo back, he was irritated by the fact that he couldn’t.

“Captain~? You’ve got another guest.”

For a brief moment, a slow voice interrupted the heavy silence that had covered the room.

“Who is it?”

Kyouka asked him in a flat, emotionless voice, looking completely unperturbed, and Godou, who had rudely let himself in, pointed behind him and said “look”.

There was a person who was totally unexpected. 

He clenched his fist tightly to endure the pain.

“I understand it’s unreasonable for me to ask for your help like this. But, please. I can’t save Miyo on my own……”

Kaya’s fiancé, Tatsuishi Kouji, stood there with a wry face, looking like he was about to cry.

---

He swore he would protect Miyo.

In order to do that, he purposely chose to become Kaya’s fiancé and be the next head of the Saimori family. 

What was the actuality? Kouji bit his lip so much it bled, while jolting in the car Kyouka was driving.

The events he explained to Kyouka at the Anti-Supernatural Special Duty military station, that he himself regretted over and over again, vividly came back to Kouji’s mind.

Kaya was acting strangely. She brought up how she wanted to switch places with her half-sister, and if he refused, saying it was impossible, she would go to the Tatsuishi house and talk to Kouji’s father.

Because she was acting too suspiciously, he followed her, and Kaya and his father began having an alarming discussion.

“Well then, if your sister says it’s okay.”

“Yes. If it’s her wish, Kudou can’t not listen. The engagement will be cancelled. As for Miyo, if you tell her, won’t she give in right away?”

“That’s true! I’m sure your mother will also help you. Your older sister is going to be brought to me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well then, I’m sure it will turn out well,” Kaya said, joyfully clapping her hands.

“What a stupid thing-! What on earth are you both thinking?!”

Kouji hurriedly interrupted, and their cold gazes pierced him.

“What are we thinking? Didn’t I already tell you earlier? I’m stopping my sister’s marriage and taking her place. You said it yourself, right? I need father’s permission. But that seems like it’s impossible, so I’m asking Uncle for a different method.”

“Impossible…”

He looked at his father with a feeling of disbelief.

“It’s to be able to obtain Miyo. It can’t be helped.”

“Don’t interfere with other people’s families, didn’t you say that before……?!”

Long ago, whenever he tried to save Miyo, he was stopped by his father every time. He said not to meddle in other families’ situations.

Aren’t his father’s actions now the opposite of that? 

His father sighed at Kouji’s point.

“At that time, the Saimori family mistreated Miyo, so there’s no way they could have seen her worth. If you don’t give her up sooner or later, it will become troublesome when I obtain her.”

“……Huh?”

What the hell is this?

“It was more convenient that Miyo was isolated, in order for them to not realise her value and close her off.”

“…………”

In other words, you’re saying that to obtain Miyo for himself, he deliberately didn’t offer her help and continued to watch on the sidelines, giving a plausible reason for it?  

When he understood exactly what his father had done, his anger went beyond its peak, and for a short while he was stupefied. Then, he lost his cool completely, and immediately turned bright red.

──He won’t forgive them.

But it wasn’t possible. His father couldn’t know that Miyo was in so much pain and suffering that she couldn’t even smile. Deliberately leaving her like that wasn’t something a human would do.

He was furious even at himself at the thought of all the time he’d spent up until now listening to such, such evil things. His whole body felt like it was boiling.

The window in the room cracked with a sharp snap.

He couldn’t control his emotions. The anger violently raging inside Kouji started overflowing, and he began affecting the real world with his rampaging abilities.

“……I won’t forgive you.”

“Kouji, it’s pointless. Cut it out.”

“I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say!”

The table, chairs, shelves, and other furniture in the room all simultaneously made a rattling sound.

“Kaya, you should go home.”

“Uncle.”

“As soon as I clean up here, I’ll visit your mansion.”

“I understand. Leave the matter about my sister to me, ‘kay?”

Kaya glanced over at Kouji and then quietly left the room, as if she had lost interest.

The door closed, and at the same time the items inside the room floated in the air, defying gravity.

“I won’t let you do whatever you like with Miyo anymore……!”

With Kouji’s shout, the items floating in the air approached Minoru with a tremendous speed.

Telekinesis. A basic ability to move objects without direct contact or the use of tools. Kouji’s original power was barely enough to make one chair float, but it was clearly a lot more powerful than that now.

If it hit, the likes of a human body would easily shatter and be blown away.

But Minoru stood there, not even changing his expression.

“It was surprising you had this much power. Although I suppose the size and quality of abilities can be somewhat influenced by emotions.”

Minoru lightly raised one hand, and all the items that were approaching and just about to crash into him suddenly stopped. Then, they slowly landed in place.

“Why? Move……! Move!”

“You fool. You haven’t been trained as an ability user, there’s no way you can win.”

Kouji’s powers that had been surging through the room like a storm had already become calm again, and showed no response, nor sign of a response.

The anger inside of Kouji still hadn’t in the least bit cooled down, but he wasn’t able to produce power beyond his original ability like he had done earlier.

“Damn it……Why, why?”

Why am I so powerless? Proudly saying I’ll protect Miyo, but at the critical moment being useless because of my lack of ability ── it’s just like I’m a child that was trying to act brave.

It was frustrating, but there was nothing he could do about it. He began to cry.

After that, made to surrender by his father, Kouji was restrained, tightly bound with a technique, and confined to his room.

Miyo would have been caught by his father’s subordinates and already sent to the Saimori residence by now.

He couldn’t do anything. Even though he knew she was in danger, he couldn’t even stop just his father.

From the very beginning, Kouji himself shouldn’t have been so on the fence.

Kind? No. He was an indecisive, cowardly, good-for-nothing. He hadn’t done anything until it had become this hopeless situation.

“I’m such……an idiot.”

I should have chosen sooner. If I wanted to protect Miyo, then I should have made a proper effort.

It’s too late to regret it now. Kouji, who had no training as an ability user, had no way to get to the Saimori mansion, and even if he did, it would just be a repeat of earlier ──.

Just then, the door to the room, that should have been locked, opened.

“In that case, do you want to give up?”

His older brother that appeared, saying joking words as if he was making fun of him.

He got angry at his brother; who’s showy appearance made him look like some kind of playboy.

“I’m not giving up. I’m going to save Miyo.”

His older brother laughed at Kouji’s reply that was filled with determination, as if it were somehow amusing.

Then, with skills he’d acquired from somewhere, he easily undid his father’s technique that had restrained Kouji.

“How did you……”

“If you’ve got time to care about that kind of trivial thing, don’t you think you’d better get going?”

Turning his back on his irritating smiling and nodding slightly, Kouji rushed out of the room.

---

“We’re almost there. The situation won’t change even if we hurry, Tatuishi Kouji.”

While driving the car, Kyouka chided Kouji, who was sitting the passenger seat, in an emotionless voice.

“You’re awfully calm, aren’t you? Even though you don’t know what kind of things your fiancé might be going through.”

Kouji replied curtly.

The profile of Kyouka driving was extremely composed, and with his frozen expression he didn’t seem like he was worried about his captive fiancé at all.

Kudou Kyouka certainly was perfect. There was nothing about him that even seemed like a weakness, or a flaw. You couldn’t even make a comparison, but no matter how hard he tried, both as a man and as an ability user, Kouji couldn’t even come close to matching him.

However, was it really such a good thing to leave Miyo in the hands of this man? Firstly, what did he even know about Miyo? Did he know about her deep sadness and loneliness – her emotional scars?

Going to help like this was nothing more than a show.

(If this man abandons Miyo.)

At that point, he’d have no choice but to kill Miyo and then die himself. He’d been thinking about it for a long time. That was the most certain way to give Miyo peace. He was aware it was selfish of him, but he couldn’t come up with any other way.

However, it was not long after that that he was informed that his readiness to die was unnecessary.

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TN: Phew! What a ride huh? This chapter gave me a bit of trouble! Which leads me to a fairly important note I should mention, we’ve officially branched off the webnovel version! I actually realised while doing this chapter that the webnovel and the light novel seem to be slightly different, (from what I could see, the order of some paragraphs etc. were switched around a bit – I think for the best) and since the webnovel is no longer available, I’m going to take the light novel as the definitive version that the author wants us to read. Nothing really changes, as I was only using the webnovel raws as a guidepost for chapter length (hence why I didn’t realise the differences sooner), but I will hereby be ignoring even that, and just posting as many pages per chapter as I feel works. This also means that chapters now won’t have titles, and I can’t say for sure how many “chapters” there will even be, as I have discovered the webnovel is, in fact, the first 3 volumes of the light novel all in one, and the first light novel actually only has 6 official chapters. We are nearly at the end of the first book, but I do intend to buy the next two books and translate them, too. This will take me some time, as I have to sort out the ebook file so I can copy+paste it, but I do intend to do it (unless the story takes a serious nosedive into badland, in which case…..we’ll see). I am also aware that the 4th volume (not covered by the webnovel) has been released recently, but I haven’t got any concrete plans to translate it at the moment (it didn’t seem to have great reviews). Again, this is pipeline, as it will take me a while to sort out and translate the first 3 volumes – but I thought I’d let you all know where we’re at! (and how actually I was wrong about the webnovel+light novel being exactly the same….).

Long translator note aside – I am so excited!! I received my first two ko-fi donations and I can’t tell you how happy it made me! Genuinely, whoever it was that sent that I love you and thank you so much! I actually received one of them on my birthday, the 5th of November, and it was such a pleasant surprise to wake up to! I know money isn’t the be all end all, but I greatly appreciate you guys sending something to support me translating this.

Actually, I found it kind of funny in a way, because one of my music transcriptions (Sixth Station) is super popular and yet, in all the time it has been uploaded (which is over a year), not a single person has given me a tip/donation for it. Yet I’ve only posted two chapters of this novel for a short while and I’ve already received 2 ko-fi donations (at time of writing) and so many lovely comments! You have no idea how grateful I am for the support, from a £1 donation to a £25 donation – to even a just warm-hearted comment from those of you unable to give money, seriously, you guys are the best! (⁀ᗢ⁀)

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