Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
After school, Seiji returned home and had a video chat conversation with Hana to explain what just happened to her.
"An artificial intelligence with its own independent will… you're really not joking with me?"
"I'm not."
The cat-eared hat girl folded her arms.
"Artificial intelligence is a top-level research project, and an independent artificial intelligence is the penultimate goal of all researchers! You actually said that you managed to meet a wild one on the street…"
"I didn't just meet her randomly on the street."
"I was just making an analogy! What you just said was basically the equivalent of a bunch of pay-to-win players charging ridiculous amounts of money to their accounts but still not being able to draw an SSR card, but a random bystander like you drew only once and pulled an SSR card. That's just how ridiculous it is, do you understand!?"
"Although it's quite ridiculous, just think about it. Similar things will happen elsewhere as well, such as at the lottery." Seiji rubbed his chin.
Hana was rendered speechless.
While she felt that she was unable to counter Seiji's words, something still seemed not quite right to her!
"I can understand that it's astonishing how Anna came to be born, but that's just how it is. I can only accept and then deal with it." Seiji paused for a moment before continuing his explanation.
Hana fell silent for a moment after she finished listening.
"If the Watajima Family finds out that 'Anna' is so incredible, they definitely won't give up," Hana stated.
"Perhaps they only view 'Anna' as a cell phone game with great potential," Seiji commented.
"Even if they thought so at first, what you two just did… for a Yin Yang Master like you to go and fight them with your Spirit-branded Retainer will raise their doubts."
"I also think that I might have been too forceful… but looking at it from another way, won't it also make them afraid to make another move?"
Hana fell silent once again.
"I intend to observe the situation and adapt as necessary. If it really looks bad, I won't force myself," Seiji told her honestly. "I told this to Anna and Kazuhiko Haiga as well."
"Will you request assistance from our older sister Yui if you're unable to protect them?"
"I shall ask her if she's interested in protecting them. If she is, I'll let her deal with it."
Hana frowned. "How unseemly."
"This has nothing to do with being unseemly." Seiji felt that what he was doing was only natural.
And so, two days' time passed.
Nobody came to do anything about this incident.
It seemed that the Watajima Family had given up on Haiga and Anna. But out of an abundance of caution, Seiji still asked Haiga to remain inside the safe house for a while longer.
Haiga wasn't dissatisfied with this at all. After all, he was also an otaku. He didn't really care as long as he had a computer, the internet, and food delivered right to him. It didn't matter at all to him if he didn't step outside for long periods of time.
Little Anna assisted Hisashi in making financial investments. In just the past three days, they earned a significant amount of money.
Hisashi indicated that the artificial intelligence Anna was godly when it came to making solid investments!
"If Lady Anna has sufficiently powerful enough hardware, it'll only be a matter of time before she controls the entire financial world of Sakura Island!"
"That's why I only had her assist you instead of directly doing everything herself… I leave it up to you to protect Sakura Island's financial industry, my dear First Knight."
"This is too heavy of a responsibility for me!!" Hisashi howled pitifully in Seiji's cell phone.
Conquering the world was meaningless to little Anna, so she wouldn't do such a thing… probably.
If she truly went berserk one day, Seiji could only hope that humanity would properly do their best to survive. Maybe someone named John Connor would appear to save the day?
Just kidding.
Seiji believed that there would be a power out there which could stop little Anna. The world couldn't be underestimated, as humans were quite strong.
Making too much money with financial investments in a short period of time would certainly attract attention. He trusted that Hisashi would be able to control it well.
Meanwhile, there was also the matter of investigating the mysterious drug.
The Juumonji Group managed to find out that this drug, which was named "Bliss", was being sold by the even more powerful Kitani mafia group. They were unable to investigate any more than that.
As for Natsuya… Seiji received a call from her on Saturday night and learned the result of her side's investigation.
"The drug providers call themselves the 'Messengers.' They're definitely part of some Spiritual Ability user faction," the student council president told him. "The Messengers that we found were able to evade any investigators that found them. We'll have to either send out stronger people to investigate, or try to catch one of the Messengers in order to find out anything more."
Messengers that sold "Bliss"; put them together and you would get "Messengers of Bliss". …This name sounded rather chuunibyou to Seiji.
"What do you intend to do?" Seiji inquired.
"I intend to report this to my family and have them deal with it," Natsuya replied.
Let the Yoruhana Family deal with it… indeed, Seiji figured that there was no reason for him to personally intervene.
"Could you tell me if there's any new information about this?"
"I'll tell you everything that I'm able to."
What that really meant was that perhaps her family would cover this up as a top-secret matter. Seiji understood.
If this was found out to really be related to the Soul World faction, it would definitely become a top-secret matter.
The Soul World faction caused such trouble in the mystical society, and was regarded as the prime suspect behind causing the Midnight Incident, bringing about the existence of Spirit Worlds and causing ordinary people to Awaken. So, information on the Soul World faction was now tremendously valuable, just like precious treasure.
"By the way, did you manage to get a sample of the drug and analyze it?"
"Yes, but nothing came of the analysis."
"I'm quite concerned about the drug's side effects. If it's the same type of Spiritual Power draining drug as Okubo Yoshiaki's…"
Seiji and Natsuya both recalled what happened with Okubo Yoshiaki and fell silent.
"…I hope that it won't become something even worse."
"Yeah…"
Even if there were dark currents flowing, life still continued on.
An important holiday was almost about to arrive. This was a holiday where all boys would feel either loved or hated by the world, a holiday filled with both bliss and cruelty...
Valentine's Day!
On this day, no matter if the boys wanted to or not, they would clearly understand just how worthy they were of existing… to the girls.
Perhaps there were a few boys that truly didn't care about Valentine's Day. However, they would be the type that already realized they would receive nothing as worthless losers.
Even more boys pretended not to care at all. But actually, such boys inwardly desired, struggled, and even screamed for attention.
There were also boys who were certain that they would receive something and felt reassured. These boys would be quite calm and confident in themselves. Some would even feel prideful about being superior to other boys… Although they all had different ways of thinking, these victorious would all enjoy Valentine's Day and watch the other boys around them fail.
Kazufuru Ooike was such a boy.
For a popular, excellent student like him, Valentine's Day wasn't even a "trial" like it was for many other boys. It was more like a day of "checking his rewards." It was just as if there was a test that he knew he'd score well on. The important part to him was just how well.
There was one opponent he absolutely didn't want to lose to—Seigo Harano!
Even if Kazufuru didn't want to think about or admit it, he knew that he was slightly inferior to Seigo Harano in every area. Not only was Seigo better than him in physical appearance and strength, Seigo even defeated Kazufuru in the area of test scores that he was so proud of during the final exams!
Losing to Seigo in grades as well gave Kazufuru a huge impact.
But what Kazufuru was more concerned about was Seigo's connection to student council president Natsuya Yoruhana.
Previously, Seigo Harano took a break from school for several days at the exact same time as Natsuya Yoruhana. The times that they were both absent from school were basically exact overlaps.
This happened last year as well. Were they together during the times that they were absent together? Was there something between them? Kazufuru got more and more worried as he thought about it.
Not having become friends with Seigo Harano at the beginning was what he considered the greatest mistake of his life. In fact… it might even be the most foolish mistake of his life!
Kazufuru had already regretted it and tried to fix things. Yet, it was too late now. Ever since that time, Seigo treated him as only an ordinary classmate. Seigo was friendly with him but also distant.
Since it was impossible to become friends anymore, they could only be opponents.
During this Valentine's Day, Kazufuru Ooike didn't want to lose to Seigo Harano… no, he couldn't lose!