Chapter 15

Summary of the previous episode:

Unexpected middle boss, Kato-san

15 ~Lily's Perspective~

In order to decide how to handle Kato-san, we need to reset the situation here.

Naturally, this was my job, since I was the one who had caused the chaos.

"I'm sorry for losing my composure, Rose."

I bowed my head to my younger sister first.

"I wasn't calm. I let my emotions get the best of me."

"Lily-nee-sama..."

"I caused you trouble. I'm really sorry."

Looking back, from the moment Master was kidnapped, I had let my anger and anxiety towards that white arachne take over me.

Now, I can somewhat suppress my anger, but I think I caused Rose a lot of trouble during that time.

"It's fine."

Rose accepted my apology without any concern.

"Master wouldn't want to see you lose your composure here."

"Yeah, but I'll try to be more careful from now on."

I don't think I can remain calm if something happens to Master.

I realized this well through this incident.

I can't be like Rose.

However, even if I'm flustered, I can try to act rationally.

I can strive to be that way.

Let's admit it. I was immature.

Now that I've realized this, I need to grow from now on.

"Also, I want to leave all the decisions regarding Kato-san from here on to Rose. Okay?"

"Understood."

As if she had anticipated this, Rose smoothly accepted my request.

We are almost like sisters created by Master's power, so it's helpful that we can communicate quickly in situations like this.

"Is that okay?"

When Kato-san interjected, I shrugged.

"It's fine. Rather..."

"It's the reality of the situation."

When I hesitated, Rose took over.

"You have just 'crushed' Lily-nee-sama. The most suspicious sister, who was your biggest obstacle, can no longer be confident in her own judgment. Therefore, there's no one else but me to handle the situation."

Currently, I can somewhat accept the jealousy I feel towards Kato-san.

This is partly thanks to Rose, and although I don't want to admit it, it's also thanks to Kato-san.

However, I can't shake off the suspicion that my jealousy might lead to hasty judgments.

For example, if I decided here that 'we won't take Kato-san with us,' I would inevitably doubt whether my judgment was influenced by my personal feelings.

Given that I just caused trouble for Rose by being swayed by my emotions, I couldn't trust myself that much.

So, I'll leave this to Rose.

I'll still voice my opinions, but I intend to leave the final decision to Rose.

...Is this all part of Kato-san's plan?

When I think about it, a seed of doubt towards her seems to sprout in my suspicious nature.

"I don't want you to misunderstand."

Kato-san said with a tone that seemed to mix a bitter smile, as if she could see through my inner thoughts.

"I didn't do it because I thought Rose-san was softer."

That's true.

If I were the negotiator, there would be no chance.

With Rose, there's still a possibility of communication.

Hearing this, Rose might seem softer, but in reality, that's not the case.

She is fair.

She can make judgments without being swayed by emotions, unlike me.

That's why I can trust her enough to entrust this situation to her.

"Then, I'll leave it to you."

"Understood."

I stepped back and decided to watch the two of them face each other.

"Kato-san."

Rose was the one to break the silence.

"If you negotiate with me, there's a possibility you can come with us. Your judgment isn't wrong. In fact, I was already leaning towards taking you with us from the beginning. ...But,"

Rose paused. If she were human, she might have sighed.

"Isn't this the wrong approach? Even if you pushed Lily-nee-sama aside, if the result is that I become your enemy, it would be meaningless, wouldn't it?"

Although she seems calm now, Rose clearly felt anger when she saw me being overpowered by Kato-san.

Rose, being a wooden doll, is fundamentally rational and not familiar with the nuances of human emotions.

For example, she can understand that Master is suffering, but she can't understand what is causing his suffering.

However, that doesn't mean she has no emotions.

She has a bad impression of people who have hurt Master in the past, and she gets angry when I, her companion, am bullied.

If things had gone wrong, Kato-san might not have been able to negotiate with Rose at all.

Therefore, Rose criticized her for not choosing her methods carefully.

In a sense, Rose is angry for Kato-san's sake.

Rose's sincerity is directed towards both humans and familiars.

This kind of anger is something I, who view humans as enemies, don't have. She might be seeing Kato-san from a different perspective.

"There were other, more peaceful means. Couldn't you have chosen one of them, Kato-san?"

"For example, using Rose-san to persuade Lily-san—something like that?"

When Kato-san gave an example, Rose nodded in agreement.

"Sister was so angry that she might not have listened to me. ...No, she almost certainly wouldn't have listened, and after getting tired of our conversation, she would have rushed out on her own."

It wasn't that bad.

...Or was it?

I had completely lost my composure, and if we had continued talking for five more minutes, I would have headed to Master on my own.

"Lily-san looked like she was about to rush out."

Kato-san seemed to agree.

Thinking that it was that obvious, I felt a bit dejected.

"I couldn't let Lily-nee-sama go to that white arachne alone. I would have followed her immediately. But even if that happened, it would have been enough for me to carry Kato-san and follow. I didn't doubt her as much as Lily-nee-sama, and I had no intention of disobeying Master's orders."

"That's true."

Kato-san nodded in agreement with Rose's words.

"There was a high possibility of that. If you wanted to come with us, you should have taken a more peaceful approach."

Kato-san accepted all of Rose's points.

"But that wouldn't save the senior."

After accepting, she negated that option.

In other words, she knew everything Rose said from the beginning, yet she chose to do it this way.

"I could have asked you to come along in a peaceful manner. I don't want to hurt Lily-san, either. ...But that wouldn't be enough. We can't save the senior. Isn't that right?"

"That's true... but..."

Confusion was evident in Rose's voice.

We can't save Master. Yes, that's true. What Kato-san is saying is correct. However, how does that lead to her aggressive actions a few minutes ago? Rose doesn't understand, and neither do I.

In response to our confusion, Kato-san placed her hand on her chest and said,

"I don't have the power to fight. Therefore, I can't save Shima-senpai."

Kato-san is just a human without the power to fight.

There's no convenient awakening of cheat abilities.

She is just a human, and she can do nothing.

"But isn't that the same for you, Rose-san?"

After acknowledging her weakness, Kato-san pointed out a fact.

"The white arachne. It's one of those high-level monsters, right? You can't fight it. Whether you can escape is a matter of luck. It's an unbeatable monster. That's what you said, right? —Even if you're prepared to die, if it doesn't achieve your goal, it's just a waste, isn't it?"

Kato-san's argument was unassailable.

No matter how much we might be determined, if we don't have the strength, we can't rescue Master.

There are parts of this cruel world where determination alone won't do.

"Rose-san and the others can't save Shima-senpai. In that case, you're no different from me, who can't fight."

For example, if we had launched a frontal assault on the white arachne, as I had been doing until just a moment ago, we would have been crushed without a chance to save Master.

It would have been a literal waste of life.

After pointing out our powerlessness, Kato-san continued.

"But there is a difference between me and Rose-san. You have the means to fight. Even if you can't win, you can fight. If you can fight, there might be a way to save Shima-senpai, depending on how you do it. ...However, that's only if you don't launch a blind frontal assault."

This was a painful point.

In fact, we had been planning to attack the powerful white arachne without a strategy.

Thinking about it calmly, that's just absurd.

It's crazy.

It's normal to have a solid plan to ensure a successful rescue, and if that's not possible, to make an effort to increase the chances of success.

The fact that we couldn't do that... is entirely my fault.

I wasn't calm. I was angry.

Seeing me like that, Kato-san must have been at a loss about what to do.

Should she have tried to calm me down? ...No, that wouldn't have worked.

Even if Kato-san had added her voice to Rose's repeated attempts to calm me down, nothing would have changed. After all, I was about to rush out on my own in a few minutes. She didn't even have the time to persuade me.

In a way, we were like a mother in a panic trying to save her child who had fallen into a river.

She can't swim, yet she's about to jump into a raging river. Persuading her is impossible; she doesn't even understand what's being said. She's about to jump in. Even if you jump in with her, it will just add another body to the water.

In that case, the only option is to hit her on the head from behind to stop her.

Thinking about it, Rose might have noticed my precarious state.

But the option of 'hitting me on the head' didn't occur to her. It's understandable, as she, who doesn't understand human emotions, wouldn't have understood why I was in that state, and therefore wouldn't have known what to do.

On the other hand, Kato-san, being just a human, lacked the physical strength to hit us.

So she provoked me, got me to listen, and then crushed me with words that hit my weak points.

Thinking about it, I can understand and accept it.

...But as someone who was actually crushed, I can't help but feel a bit resentful.

"Just following me won't change anything. I thought that unless you two regained your composure, we couldn't save the senior. That was the minimum requirement. Even if it meant upsetting both of you and being left behind here, I couldn't compromise on that."

If I were to judge from a fair and emotionless perspective, Kato-san's actions might not have been the best, but they were better.

In fact, I have regained my composure. She has produced results.

There might have been other methods, but it's too much to expect the best choice in such a short time. If she had read the situation and 'hit us on the head' in a moment of impulse, Kato-san should be praised for her intelligence.

Thanks to her, we have regained our ability to think.

Indeed, the most important thing is to save Master, and if that can't be done, our lives would be meaningless. Therefore, a blind frontal assault is out of the question.

That's true, as Kato-san said...

...Wait, but isn't that a bit strange?

"Saving Master is meaningless if we can't do it, which is true from the perspective of a familiar like me... but why is Kato-san, a human, so worried about Master?"

Thinking back, Kato-san had been talking all along with the premise that 'it's meaningless if we can't save Master.'

As a familiar, I had no objections, but that was supposed to be the logic from 'our side as familiars.'

Kato-san is a human. Yet, she is acting according to 'our logic as familiars.'

While it's possible that she was just saying things off the top of her head, her actions to stop my reckless behavior, even at the cost of making a bad impression on Rose, suggest otherwise.

In other words, Kato-san, like us, wishes to save Master.

And she wishes it so strongly that she doesn't care about her own safety.

Thinking about it, there are other things that make sense.

For example, the timing of Kato-san's recovery from her almost shell-shocked state during this emergency might have been due to this reason.

She was worried about Master, who had been kidnapped by the arachne. She wanted to help. But we, the key players, were about to rush in without a plan, and it didn't seem like we could save Master this way...

She couldn't just stand by and watch.

If this thought had gradually revived her spirit and brought her to this point... the timing makes sense.

However, if that's true, it raises another question.

If she is acting on the same logic as us, it means that she, a human, has feelings for him that are comparable to those of us familiars.

This was my doubt.

That's why I asked.

My doubt was, at least in my mind, a legitimate one.

While I can only speculate now, I believe that if Master were here, he would think the same way.

But apparently, it was different for Kato-san.

"Why do you say that?"

Kato-san's voice was sharp, dripping with venom in every word.

"Is it wrong for me to be worried about the senior?"

It was a venomous anger.

"U..."

Faced with such raw emotion, I flinched.

Kato-san had never shown such negative emotions before.

Even when she crushed me, she wasn't raging.

Her hostility had always been transparent. She had been moving solely to achieve her goal—saving Master.

But this moment was different.

For a brief moment, she directed an intense anger at me.

It was a calm anger. Kato-san never raised her voice.

But beneath the calm, deep pain and sorrow were evident.

I must have said something very careless. I must have touched a deep wound, causing her to lose control.

"I... I'm sorry. I lost my composure."

In this brief moment, she regained self-control.

The anger was gone from her words.

"I'm sorry. I said something careless."

I bowed my head.

From what I could see, Kato-san seemed genuinely worried about Master.

I don't know why she has such feelings, but I didn't have the courage to ask again. I don't want to anger her unnecessarily, and I'm not that mean to pry into someone's private matters.

"Can we get back to the topic?"

It was Rose who broke the awkward silence between us.

She is always calm. She rarely loses her composure except when it comes to Master.

Kato-san seemed to have regained her composure and bowed slightly to Rose.

"I understand that you cooled us down. It was a bit rough, but I can see the reasonableness in it."

"Thank you."

"No, I should be the one to thank you. Thanks to you, we avoided a reckless frontal assault. However..."

"Yes, we're still at the starting line."

Kato-san's words were met with a solemn nod from Rose.

"That's true. Just regaining our composure won't help if we can't come up with a way to actually save Master. Unfortunately, I can't think of an effective strategy. Lily-nee-sama—"

Rose turned to me, and I shook my head.

"—Can't think of one either."

Rose turned back to Kato-san.

"You said you want to go with us to save Master. Do you think bringing you along will change the dire situation we're in?"

"That's not a simple matter."

Kato-san denied Rose's question.

"There's not much I can do. In fact, I can hardly do anything. I know I can't do much in this situation. ...But, just to confirm, is there any possibility of defeating that spider head-on with