Mob Kousei No Ore Demo Boukensha Ni
Nareba Riajuu Ni Naremasuka: Chapter #150
Translators: Nyx and Ririi Rain
Chapter 150:
Information Sharing (Part 3)
"I
understand. First, regarding what happened after you left to rescue your
father, Senpai――――"
With that preface, Anna began
to explain the events in chronological order.
She explained that as soon as
I rushed out alone, she and Oribe's first move was to go straight to my mother.
Their goal wasn't just
protecting my mother and Ai; they needed her to summon Hesperides and initiate
spatial isolation.
At that point of time, Anna hadn't
realized that incorporating the school building and the dungeon gate was
possible using the cross-space card. Therefore, spatially isolating Hesperides
meant she had been prepared to abandon the school building and the Calmed the
dungeon itself.
Originally, the plan to use
the school building was based on Angolmois starting from Phase 1 and relying on
Yuki's [Lord of The Territory] to ward off enemies.
However, with the unexpected
start from Phase 3 and my absence, those essential conditions completely
collapsed.
Anna
accepted that there was no other choice and resolved to cut her
losses—sacrificing the school building's facilities and the dungeon gate she
had worked so hard to Calm. But...
"That's
when you learned that an otherworld class cross-space card could absorb the
school building?"
I inferred.
"Yes.
It's embarrassing to admit, but the thought never even occurred to me. However,
when Senpai's mother asked if we couldn't just put the school building into
Hesperides, it happened quite easily..."
"I
was impressed. Truly the mother of Senpai,"
Oribe added with praise.
Though the two were full of
admiration, Mom had likely arrived at that idea precisely because she had no
knowledge whatsoever of cross-space cards.
We, having grown accustomed to
using structure-class spatial cards within the dungeon, never considered
incorporating existing structures into them.
But Mom, lacking prior
knowledge, could instead think, “It's this big, so surely it could fit one
or two school buildings inside?”
If the earlier B-rank monster
intrusion was misfortune born of ignorance, then this could be called good
fortune born of ignorance.
"After
that, well, Ai-san got snatched by the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and right after
that, we lost contact with Senpai, only to hear you somehow ended up fighting
Urashima Taro and defeated him without taking any serious damage. All these
kept us on tenterhooks..."
...Yeah,
it seems I caused you a lot of stress. I'm so sorry about that.
"Even
so, there we were, with no B-rank monsters invading, thinking we might just
make it through the first day like that, when..."
"
The report of my safety and the news of the surface's spatial isolation
arrived."
Anna and Oribe nodded in
acknowledgment.
"
At this time, we were operating under the assumption that Senpai would return
soon, so we kept your absence from everyone. However, with the surface being
spatially isolated…"
“So
you had no way to avoid announcing my absence, huh?”
While a short absence could be
covered up, the spatial isolation made my early return impossible, meaning the
truth would inevitably surface even if they tried to hide it.
Rather than risking the
cover-up being exposed and causing greater chaos later, Anna and the others
likely decided to make the announcement themselves.
“Fortunately,
with the arrival of Ares and Kannazuki-san...'s little sister, who possesses
comparable combat power, we were able to keep the chaos to a minimum."
I wasn't the only one ‘missing’.
To the public, the man known as Tsubasa Kannadzuki had also vanished.
Unlike me, a mere three-star
adventurer, the absence of my teacher—a professional adventurer—would have been
a massive blow to everyone’s morale.
Therefore, Anna decided to
make a big splash by promoting the presence of Kotori-chan as a twin sister boasting
strength equal to her brother.
Kotori-chan may not be a
professional adventurer (officially), making her status several ranks lower
than Teacher who was a pro, but Ares's presence filled that gap.
Even for those with no
interest in cards or adventurers, Ares is a legendary name from Greek
mythology.
His sheer presence was greater
than any random professional adventurer, providing a sense of security not only
to the evacuees but also to the new club members.
…But the price for that was
that Ares had to be framed as Kotori-chan's--by extension, Teacher's--possession
from the start.
No matter how high-level a
professional's team was, it was too much of a stretch to claim they had
acquired both Hesperides and Ares in such a short time.
However, if it was Teacher—who
had a former JSDF member for a sister and was a pro himself—you could just
barely make the excuse fly.
For that reason, Ares could
only be presented not as a loan from the Adventurers' Club, but as a trump card
that Teacher—a professional adventurer—had left behind for his little sister's
sake.
By pushing Kotori-chan to the
forefront to dispel everyone's unease, combined with the overwhelming aura of
Ares and, above all, her own undeniable beauty, Kotori-chan became a
charismatic figure rivaling Anna... no, for some, she even surpassed her.
Anna and the Teacher weren't
exactly ideologically compatible to begin with.
It was the moment a powerful
rival was born to challenge the power balance in school which, for better or
worse, had been dominated solely by Anna.
"........................"
I almost asked, “Couldn't
you have just had Teacher go back to his male form?” but I stopped myself.
Kotori-chan's appearance earlier
was answer enough.
Teacher's
reasons... well, I can guess that.
Meanwhile, Anna's reason for
allowing Teacher's TS (transformation) was likely because she didn't want the
‘Professional Adventurer, Tsubasa Kannadzuki’ existing in the school.
Teacher, as the undisputed top
adventurer in the school, both in name and skill, with good looks and a
friendly demeanor, he was clearly a superior existence above Anna and others.
Under these circumstances, it
was entirely possible that everyone would rely on Teacher more than Anna, the
club president.
If Teacher had been completely
on her side, Anna might have tolerated it, but given his past as a government
spy, his charisma was nothing short of a threat.
On the other hand, Teacher's strength
was an absolute necessity in my absence.
Hence, the gender swap.
If he’s not the man himself
but merely the ‘little sister’, his charisma is mitigated.
As for Ares, since Anna or
Oribe couldn't control him anyway, they had no choice but to leave him with
Teacher.
Kotori-chan's presence was
also a statement of Teacher's resolve that he was done being a government spy.
Anna likely weighed her
options, compromised where she had to, and decided that the current arrangement
was the best overall solution.
"From
then on, we spent the first week stabilizing our foundation: we began managing rations,
started distributing meal vouchers as a precursor to the ticket system I
mentioned earlier, and establishing a Security Force to handle both school
defense and maintaining order."
I see,
so she introduced the ticket system initially as meal vouchers. Clever
approach.
Introducing the ticket system
alongside paid services clearly signals her intent to use the tickets as a private
currency.
By starting with free meal
vouchers, she removed the initial resistance.
Besides,
since the evacuees were split between Mayoiga and the Winchester House, meal
vouchers were necessary just to track the numbers.
Under
the pretext of campus defense, she casually established a Security Force too. In many ways, Anna’s methods
felt far more meticulous and refined compared to my own haphazard management of
the refugees.
...Well,
in my case, I never really had any intention of managing them to begin with.
"
From the following week, as things settled down, we opened free entertainment
facilities like the library and gym to relief stress. We also simultaneously
introduced various committees to manage those facilities."
The
Security Force was simply designated as the Disciplinary Committee. Alongside the
opening of the library and gymnasium, they established the Library Committee
and the Sports Committee. They also created a Food Committee to handle daily
meal rotations and a Health Committee to manage the evacuees' well-being.
Naturally, these were all
groundwork for the paid services that would come later. But because these roles
were initially thankless, low-stakes jobs with no real perks, no one complained
about the committee system, nor did anyone speak up about the fact that they
were composed entirely of students.
No one noticed that using the
familiar ‘committee’ school terminology was a subtle way to deny adults any
room to intervene.
At this stage, they also
recruited volunteers to help with these activities. However, since the work was
completely unpaid at the time, only a few club members' families offered their
help, and not many people signed up.
"Also,
around this time, at Kannadzuki-san's suggestion, we followed a suggestion from
Kannadzuki-san to begin patrols of the surrounding vicinity and start rescue
operations."
Anna admitted that although
she was initially anxious about Teacher temporarily leaving defense duties, she
realized they needed to investigate the spatial isolation, check for the
appearance of new dungeons, and scout high-rank monsters in the vicinity, so
she authorized it.
Little did they know, this
would later invite the intervention of the Guild…
Judging
the time was right, we established the Commerce Committee and opneend a school store. Simultaneously, we also launched
paid services like a manga cafe, a movie theater using the audiovisual room,
and a coffee shop utilizing fruit grown in Hesperides. Management of these
services was entrusted to the existing committees like the Library Committee
and the Sports Committee."
By this stage, some adults
began to realize that the school’s operation was being monopolized by children.
But it was too late. If the
adults tried to say, "It must be hard for just you kids; shall we
help?" now, the students could simply shut them down with: "Oh?
You didn't lift a finger when it was all boring, thankless work. Why the sudden
interest now?”—leaving them speechless.
The adults felt ashamed for
having left everything to the children and done nothing themselves. At the same
time, they began to feel a sense of crisis and distrust toward the children who
seemed to be trying to exclude them.
Of course, Anna had no
intention of keeping the monopoly within the student body—specifically the
Adventurers’ Club—forever.
She planned to wait for the
right moment and then bring in cooperative adults, like teachers aligned with
the Adventurers' Club, into each committee as 'Advisors' or 'External
Collaborators'.
This was simply a declaration
of intent: "We are the ones primarily running this place."
Up to this point, everything
had gone according to Anna's plan. However, problems were beginning to arise.
"This
is where the number of evacuees Kannadzuki-san had been rescuing became a
problem.," Anna said.
By this juncture, the number
of people the Teacher had saved from the surrounding vicinity had already
exceeded five hundred.
At first, Anna had accepted
them out of sympathy for their pitiful state after being rescued by the skin of
their teeth. But as the numbers swelled to such extent, she was forced to
change her stance.
If evacuees continued
increasing at this pace, food aside, shelter would become a problem.
Ironically, Anna and rest were
grappling with the same housing crisis at the exact same time as me.
When Anna stated that they
could not accept any more evacuees, Teacher, likely realizing things were
reaching a breaking point, agreed.
"...However,
Kannadzuki-san continued to bring back people he had rescued anyway."
In the end, Teacher simply
couldn’t abandon the evacuees he found.
Anna's attitude rapidly
hardened towards Teacher, who kept bringing back evacuees as if mocking her.
The conflict between Anna and
Teacher naturally spread to the other club members and evacuees, splitting the
school into Anna faction and the Kotori-chan faction.
While many of the original
evacuees sided with Anna, believing further increases would lead to a worse condition,
a good number joined the Kotori-chan faction out of resentment toward
anti-authoritarian sentiment toward Anna's authoritarianism. Naturally, the
newly rescued evacuees sided with Kotori-chan faction, leading to a deadlock
between the two powers.
The standoff between the two
factions escalated and sharpened beyond the two figures' intentions.
The Anna faction revered Anna
as 'Her/Your Excellency' and advocated for a complete halt to the acceptance of
new evacuees. Some extremists even called for the expulsion of anyone who wasn't
a student or a student's family member.
The Kotori-chan faction
advocated for a democratic election system and a parliament. Their extremists
began demanding that the Adventurers’ Club's cards and magic items—including
Hesperides—be turned into public property.
"Even
I and Kannadzuki-san were taken aback. We never wanted things to sour this
badly. I realized that, without knowing it, I’d let the heat of the moment get
to my head..."
Anna murmured, looking
ashamed.
Even for someone as mature
beyond her high school freshman years as she was, maintaining composure under
such unexpected circumstances proved to be difficult.
"That
was when I, having deliberately standing on the side before, stepped in to
mediate,” Oribe chimed in.
Under the mediation of a
cool-headed Oribe, both quickly reconciled. They seriously discussed the way
forward.
The discussion, which lasted a
full day and night, resulted in Kotori-chan agreeing to stop outside patrols (as
she couldn't help but save people once she saw them in need). They also decided
to inquire with the Tachikawa Guild about accepting the evacuees Teacher had
already helped.
The evacuees Kotori-chan had
rescued were the core members of her faction. Getting them out of the school
would effectively mean defeat for Kotori-chan faction.
Though Kotori-chan's
reputation took a major hit for sparking internal strife within the school and,
in a sense, betraying her own faction (apparently, Teacher was trashed by those
who had joined Kotori-chan faction purely out of spite for Anna), the people
Teacher had personally saved didn't blame Kotori-chan. The clean-cut admission
of defeat actually boosted Kotori-chan's standing among some members of the
Anna faction. (Of course, Anna's clever manipulation behind the scenes goes
without saying).
Given that Kotori-chan's power
was still a vital combat asset, her continued stay was permitted, and things
settled down――
"But
that was when the real problem began," Anna said.
――or so it seemed.
"When
we approached the Guild about accepting some evacuees, they proposed evacuating
the entire school. ...All while dodging the request to accept a few evacuees
first." Anna further explained.
That
meant...
"In
short, they didn't want freeloaders. But if Hesperides came as part of the
package, that was a different story... that's what they basically meant,"
Anna further added.
"It
was utterly unacceptable demand. Naturally, we refused," Oribe said.
"Following
that, the Guild began to interfere with us in various ways," Anna
continued.
After negotiations broke down,
the Guild apparently started sending personnel over uninvited.
They would wander around the
school grounds, making remarks like, “Is it really wise for children to
decide everything?” or “You should rely on adults more,” and “Shall
we send some advisors from the Guild?” effectively fanning the flames of
the already dissatisfied adults.
"And
that’s when it happened. …The B-rank monster intrusion."
The people who had evacuated here
early didn’t truly understand the horror outside or the threat of the monsters.
The first B-rank monster
intrusion since the start of Angolmois—and the resulting casualties—left the
evacuees utterly shaken.
Seizing the moment, the guild
staff proclaimed with great fanfare:
―――― This place has decent
defenses for a private shelter, but its security is clearly unstable. Such
things wouldn't happen in a Guild shelter. If you move to the Guild, we can
provide various types of support, but your leader has refused us. Could you
perhaps try to persuade them?
Naturally, counter-arguments
like, "If it’s like that, why don't you accept a few people
first?" were raised. However, the Guild dismissed these by giving
plausible-sounding excuses such as, "Transporting people to the Guild
is also dangerous. We need preparations, and ideally, we'd prefer to wrap
everything up in one go."
Combined with the smoldering
embers of the Anna faction vs. Kotori-chan faction conflict, the fire of
discontent exploded.
Centered around the adults, a
Guild faction formed, and in opposition, centered around the students, an
Adventurers' Club faction emerged. This created a new dynamic: Children vs.
Adults.
But the students were
originally the minority. Even among them, some couldn't resist parental
pressure and were forced to switch to neutral or the Guild faction. As the
pressure grew day by day――――
"
That was when you returned, Senpai,"
Anna concluded the story.
Her expression was bright, as
if to say, "Now we've got the V(Victory)!"
"Hmm,
I see..."
I mentally organized the
events of the past month week by week.
・Angolmois
begins. I become unable to return to Tachikawa.
・Tsubasa
Kannadzuki exits, and Kotori Kannadzuki enters. A charisma figure comparable to
Anna emerges.
・Introduction
of the Security Force (later the Disciplinary Committee) and the free ticket
system (meal vouchers).
～Week
Two～
・Kotori-chan
begins patrols and helping people.
・Opening
of free entertainment facilities like the library and gym.
・Introduction
of the Committee System (Disciplinary, Library, Athletics, Food, Health
Committees, etc.).
～Week
Three～
・Introduction
of the school store and paid services (Commerce Committee, paid services
introduced for each committee). Distrust begins to rise among adults upon
realizing school operations are monopolized by the children.
・The
number of people rescued by Kotori-chan spikes and becomes a problem. Conflict
arises between the Anna faction and the Kotori-chan faction.
・Anna
and Kotori-chan reconcile. When they approach the Guild about accepting some
evacuees, they are refused and instead advised to evacuate the entire school
(targeting Hesperides). Negotiations break down, and the Guild begins
interfering.
～Week
4～
・B-rank
monster invade. Casualties occur, and commercial activities halt.
・Incited
by the Guild, conflict then erupts between the Guild faction (mainly adults)
and the Adventurers' Club faction (mainly children).
・The
Guild faction insists evacuation to the Guild is best, demanding Hesperides and
other cards as compensation. Due to their numerical superiority, pressure from
the majority Guild faction intensifies daily.
・My
return.
That's
about it. But this…
After reviewing the overall
course of events, I couldn't help but frown and mutter,
"...I
hope it’s not, but this isn't a setup, is it?"
***
Translator(s) note: Here’s where you can buy
the Author’s books:
[ANNOUNCEMENT]
We decided to have
a GOAL starting now:
IF WE
EARN $225/month for AT LEAST 3 MONTHS STRAIGHT from Patreon membership, WE
WILL ADD ANOTHER ADVANCED CHAPTER ON EACH TIER on our Patreon!
The advanced chapters are
based on the original schedule, and we make sure we stick to it on
Patreon, so you might get MORE than that! Please check our Patreon!
We set the “earning
visibility” public so you can always see it.
More people joining means
more advanced chapters for you Patreon members!
Previous chapter | Novel page | Next chapter
Please help
us out and get Advanced Chapters on our Patreon!
Or you can
keep our spirit up by buying us Coffee (人ゝω・）
