Epilogue
Part 1
From a hill close to the Phoenix temple, Sakuya had been watching the fiery affair in the sky.
“My, my, what a waste of time. I panicked and rushed here.” Breathing a sigh, she turned around to her own teammates. “Sorry guys, I guess I was being a bit paranoid. Kasumi’s safe. Let’s go back.”
“Is it okay that we’re not even going to pay Kasumi-chan, along with Jun-san, a visit?” a young woman in her party asked. “They’ve worked their a.s.ses off getting here.”
“I’m a weak girl. If we met up with them, I bet I’d get too emotional.”
“But…”
“It’s fine,” Sakuya smiled, turning around. “We have our own battles to fight.”
With her back turned to her old friends, she stepped forward.
That night, they reserved the largest inn in all of Payang and threw a huge party. They celebrated their victories over both the Illusionary Brigade and the glitched dragon, but most importantly, they celebrated Kasumi’s escape from danger. Gathered together in the room were not only the adventurers who directly took part in combat, but those who worked behind the scenes as well, numbering over a hundred in total.
Ryuka mentioned, “My battery has been recharged completely. And the quest has been completed. I never even experienced the death as punishment for failure… The phrase ‘Received the Phoenix’s blessing.’ is displayed in my event log. I think that the Phoenix’s blessing recharged my battery for me.”
Jun could not believe his ears.
“Maybe it’s a present from the Phoenix?” Kasumi said, smiling innocently. “It’d be nice if we could meet him again.”
As for Jun, however, he did not fancy having to go through such a troublesome ordeal a second time.
Even though we’ve resolved the problem… there are still many unanswered questions.
Like who exactly the Penglai Emperor was, what the Phoenix was, and the purpose of the quest.
And then, Alice revealed that it had been a bug in the system. She also leaked out a few internal terms, like “model” and “incarnation”, and she granted him the absurdly powerful Holy Avenger attribute.
Jun had even confirmed that Alice had powers akin to those of a GM.
But, who in the world was “that person” that she mentioned…
“Whaaaat? I’m seeing four Juuunnss.” Her cheeks bright red, Eri walked up to him, smelled strongly of alcohol. Jun got out of the way quickly, avoiding her attempted hug. “Aah, Juuun, stop running awayyyy!”
“For G.o.d’s sake… Who let this middle-schooler drink?”
“Mee!” Unsurprising, Yukaria was the one to raise her hand. “The mead is really sweet, so it just flows right down your throat.
“Sheesh, you…”
“Hey, heeey, quit running awayy.” Eri stubbornly continued chasing him. “Ahh, Kasumi-san, help me out…”
Turning around, Jun made eye contact with Kasumi, who had puffed her cheeks out.
“Huh, are you mad?”
“Not in the slightest.” Kasumi went “Hmph,” turned around, and took another gla.s.s from Yukaria. She downed the entire gla.s.s of yellow liquid in one gulp.
“Haha, you’re a good drinker!”
“Seconds, please.” Without moving her eyes, she pa.s.sed the gla.s.s over to Yukaria. She immediately had another gla.s.s prepared.
Ryuka grabbed Jun, still trying to escape Eri at that moment, with both of
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her arms.
“Where do you think you’re going, you good-for-nothing buffoon.”
“Are you drunk too?”
“Sorry. I won’t do anything to risk sensei’s scolding. It’ll just feed the s.a.d.i.s.t in him.”
“… Give me a break.”
After drinking three cups in quick succession, Kasumi turned to face Jun.
“Jun-san.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m pretty good at holding down my alcohol.”
“Really?”
“My b.o.o.bs are bigger than Eri’s!”
“… Enough, you’re drunk.”
“Yukaria-san told me! That, Jun-san, you like them big!”
“Okay, okay, got it. Now please lower your voice a bit…”
People began crowding around them. Isao and the others laughed. Of course, Yukaria had started it.
“Prepare for the consequences of your inability to read signals,” Ryuka murmured.
Jun and Kasumi slipped away from the banquet and walked around the same plaza as the day before.
“… I’m so sorry, I drank too much…”
It seemed as if the evening breeze had woken her from her stupor. Jun chuckled and uttered “Don’t worry about it,” to her. Her face had turned red in embarra.s.sment. “Aside from that… Sorry ’bout everything.”
“Huh, Jun-san, you shouldn’t be apologizing…”
“No. I was careless. I treated your life-and-death situation as a game… Maybe that was the server’s way of punishing me.”
Kasumi told Jun about how she met Alice. Though the naive Kasumi didn’t seem to have any suspicions about the girl’s peculiar tendency to appear and disappear randomly…
Even so, she seemed to understand that Alice was, in some way, related to Jun. “Alice-chan is one of your acquaintances, right, Jun-san?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I can’t really talk about her. Please keep her a secret even to Eri and the others.”
“Will do! Next time you see her, could you tell Alice-chan that I said ,”Thank you so much!” please?” Kasumi said, nodding meekly. She proceeded to form a fist with her hand. “But, I won’t lose to her!”
“Let me just point this out to you so you don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not very fond of her. She’s more of a contact that I have to be careful of.”
“… Is that so?” Kasumi tilted her head slightly.
“Even though she helped you out today, that doesn’t mean that she’s on our side. You shouldn’t trust her… Actually, that wasn’t the best way to phrase it. Kasumi-san, speaking as a friend, trust me on this.”
“… Yes.” Kasumi nodded, hesitating a little. “That’s right. We’re friends.”
“Yeah.”
Jun scratched the back of his head. He knew what she wanted to say. He knew what she was feeling, but yet the one who couldn’t take the first step was…
Sakuya/Kai.
Jun had still kept his relationship with her a secret from Kasumi.
Previously, he had thought it was surely still too early to talk about it. However, Kasumi Yukasaki was growing at a rate that surprised even Jun. Her technical skill, along with her mental strength. But now, maybe she would be ready…
“To tell you the truth, there’s one thing I really need to talk to you about.” Jun turned around and faced Kasumi. He looked into her eyes, gazing at the faint reflection of the magic street lights.
“It’s, important… right?”
“Yeah. I’ve been keeping it a secret from you the whole time… I… actually…”
Just at that moment, there was a loud zapping sound. The sound even reached Jun’s ear. It meant that he had a new message on his tablet. Back when everybody used their tablets as educational supplements, this feature was available through system updates. However, this time…
“Uh, Jun-san. What’s that?”
Jun peered into Kasumi’s tablet, and then hurriedly got out his own. Only one sentence appeared in the message window, but it was the same thing.
It became very noisy near the bar. Maybe Eri and the others received the same message. Or maybe even every adventurer did.
The words on the message window were very simple and hard to misunderstand.
— Blessed by the Phoenix’s spirit, secondary cla.s.ses have been unlocked.
151 days have pa.s.sed since the Birthday.