Entering a Company From Another World! – Chapter 496

As Amelia-san and the others left in a taxi, I let out a sigh of relief and watched them go.

Then, I immediately stepped out of the building where I had taken shelter from the rain. It wasn’t that I wanted to get wet, nor did I have any urgent business.

“Just as I thought, they’re following me.”

I was being cautious of the person who had been behind Amelia-san. I had spotted them by chance. At first, I thought I was mistaken, but when Amelia-san and her friends were shopping, and I was with *my* friends, I thought it would be rude to interrupt them, and as I was about to leave, I noticed them.

A man was following Amelia-san and her friends. He looked to be about my age. I thought he might be a classmate and that I should speak to him, but seeing his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. His gaze wasn’t one of gentle affection, but rather the cold, observant eyes of an assassin. The more I looked, the more out of place he seemed in ordinary Japan. I couldn’t stop myself and, without pausing, I melted into the crowd to observe him.

“Good thing I don’t have plans later,” I thought, as I found myself discreetly stalking the man who was stalking Amelia-san and her friends.

In shops where the man wouldn’t enter, I’d go to a nearby store and keep watch from the entrance. In shops he *did* enter, I’d change my clothes and take every precaution to ensure my pursuit went unnoticed.

You wouldn’t notice him unless you looked very closely. In fact, I wondered how I had noticed him at all. He was so suspicious that I ended up subtly prompting Amelia-san and her friends to go home. That way, Amelia-san, who had taken a taxi, couldn’t follow. So, it seemed the man had shifted his target to me, the one who had made contact with them.

“What could his objective be?”

Without looking behind me, I entered a nearby convenience store. While buying an umbrella, I glanced towards the automatic doors, trying not to be noticed. The man who had been following wasn’t entering. Was he watching this convenience store from a distance? Or had he left with a different objective?

“Did Evia-san notice?”

I mumbled to myself as I left the convenience store with the umbrella I had bought. There was no one around.

Amelia-san and the others had stopped by a cafe, and Evia-san had been there too. She had spent quite a long time inside the cafe, but even so, the man hadn’t given up, and I could see him observing the cafe from a distance. I thought it unlikely that Evia-san wouldn’t notice such a gaze, but if she had, then her inaction was strange. To be frank, if it were her, she would have tried to eliminate any incoming trouble with all her might. Either way, her not doing anything upon seeing that man’s eyes seemed unnatural.

Still…

“Is there nothing I can do?”

There was nothing I *could* do. This wasn’t a company building, and outside, I was just a high school student. I couldn’t use any special powers in this world. I was just a high school student who trained.

I slowly opened my umbrella and began my journey home, keeping an eye on my surroundings. I watched my back, changed my route just in case, and periodically checked behind me with the mirrors found along the street as I made my way home.

“I’m home.”

Unlocking the front door, I uttered a greeting that I knew wouldn’t be answered.

An empty, dark space. I felt no presence of people, nor was there any change in the atmosphere. It was only natural, I remembered with a pang of sadness, that my unofficial guardian, who shares no blood with me, didn’t live here and instead resided with his new family at a different address.

Suddenly, I thought about what it would be like if this were the company’s Party Room. I imagined a lively, warm space where I could feel people’s presence. Or a Tokyo apartment, even a spacious one, that felt warmer than this place. I suddenly longed for that.

“Maybe I’m thinking strange things because I saw a strange person.”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and began preparing dinner ingredients while putting groceries in the refrigerator. I would make tomorrow’s lunch box and a meal for Minami’s room, preparing each efficiently and then packing them away. I worked on them one by one, considering the color, nutrition, and everything else, and placing them into airtight containers in the refrigerator. The work finished faster than I expected, and looking at the clock, it was already past dinner time.

“It’s already this late, I need to hurry.”

When I’m focused on cooking, time really does fly by. After putting the prepared lunch boxes in the refrigerator, I grabbed a larger container and headed for the door. My destination was a familiar apartment room.

Without ringing the doorbell, I used my spare key to enter.

“You’ve accumulated more trash.”

I frowned at the messy space, which was hard to believe was inhabited by a single woman. Without searching for the resident, I advanced with practiced ease, lightly sweeping the hallway. In this apartment room, the resident was operating multiple characters on a big screen, with a keyboard and mouse set in front of her. A heavy warrior, a light warrior, a mage, a cleric, a rogue, and an enchanter. It was an online game that Minami had been playing for a while.

However, her method of control was bizarre to the average person. She operated two mice and two keyboards with her left and right hands, and one mouse and one keyboard each with her left and right feet. Despite her frantically moving limbs, Minami looked up at me with a loose, dopey smile.

“Ah, Katsu, you’re late, gozaru. Because of you, we’ve already started our second run through the dungeon, gozaru.”

“Sorry, something unexpected came up.”

“Hmm? Something unexpected?”

Minami, noticing my arrival, didn’t stop her actions. She turned her head slightly towards me, while her characters battered a dragon on the screen. This was, according to Minami, training. She said it was practice for figuring out how to act in situations that closely resembled the world of her current company. Games, she explained, were convenient for imagining and commanding. You could fail and try again many times. By doing this, you could maintain motivation while practicing visualization in an enjoyable way. It was Minami’s secret intensive training that only I knew about.

As I tidied the messy table, I unpacked the package I brought and told Minami what had happened that afternoon. The suspicious-looking man of about my age who had been tailing Amelia-san and her friends.

“Was it a stalker for Amī-chan, gozaru?”

“Yeah.”

“And Evia-san was also there on the way, gozaru?”

“Yeah.”

As I prepared dishes, Minami, with her head turned away but her limbs moving busily, had an expression that didn’t match. It was strange to think this was happening in their small apartment. But from the tone of her voice, I could tell Minami was seriously considering what I had said.

“It was the right decision to send Amī-chan and the others home because you felt it was dangerous, gozaru. I can’t say for sure since I haven’t seen this suspicious man, but fighting should always be the last resort. Choosing to flee is the correct answer in modern times, gozaru.”

Minami added that information gathering was important, and as the dragon on the screen fell, she stretched her back with a groan. Furthermore, the next screen showed a new record, but she paid it no mind.

“Ah, if the leader had the same ridiculous firepower, it would have concluded much faster, but it wouldn’t be interesting if I used cheat codes, gozaru.”

Saying this, she stood up from her gaming setup and sat at the table where I had prepared the meal.

“Well, knowing you, Katsu, I’m sure you took a photo of that man, so show it to me, gozaru.”

She paid no attention to the meal prepared in front of her. I felt a sense of relief as her hand gently reached out, and I handed her my smartphone, displaying the best photo I could manage. She stared at it for a few seconds. Then, Minami’s fingers began to operate my smartphone. She was probably looking at other photos too.

“Does he look okay?”

“…He doesn’t look okay, gozaru. From what I can see, that is.”

Hearing her assessment confirmed my unease was not unfounded. From our long acquaintance, I knew that this woman in front of me was an excellent observer of people. If Minami said he didn’t look okay, then my feeling of a bad atmosphere was not mistaken. The photo returned to me had the man’s face zoomed in.

“He’s about your age, Katsu, so probably a high school student. Since he was following Amī-chan and the others, he’s likely a classmate or at least someone from the same high school year. I don’t know anything else, gozaru, but he’s probably one of the students who was summoned with Amī-chan and the others when they were summoned.”

Minami continued speaking, stating her thoughts fluently, then picked up the chopsticks she had prepared and broke off a piece of the freshly made egg roll.

“Mmm, this perfect level of sweetness is good, gozaru.”

Despite rating the situation as “not okay,” Minami showed no sense of crisis.

“Is it really okay?”

“Whether it’s okay or not, I don’t know, gozaru. In the end, we are powerless civilians outside. Even if we report it to the police, they won’t do anything if there’s no actual harm. I could warn Amī-chan and the others, but for now, he was just suspicious and walking behind them. If he claims it was a coincidence, it’s over, gozaru.”

“But isn’t it bad to do nothing?”

“Well, having a sense of unease about someone means it’s best to be on guard, gozaru.”

It was rewarding as the maker to see her eat so deliciously. Chewing a rice ball with mixed ingredients, I waited for Minami to finish chewing before thinking about what I could do.

“However, there’s almost nothing else we can do, gozaru. If we resort to force, we’ll be the bad guys in Japan. We can only wait and see, gozaru. Since Evia-san was there, I’ll investigate this man while confirming things. She probably noticed you too, Katsu, so she should contact you later.”

But Minami, sensing this, reached for a piece of fried chicken after telling me not to overexert myself.

“The biggest problem for me is which of Amī-chan and the others he was targeting, gozaru. If we know that, we can understand the opponent’s objective to some extent. And that will determine the company’s policy. If he’s targeting Amī-chan, the company will definitely act. If it’s one of the others, I don’t know, gozaru.”

“Does that mean…”

While eating, Minami stated unequivocally that the company would not protect anyone other than Amelia. I could understand the reasoning from both a logical and regulatory standpoint. But if asked if I could accept it, I couldn’t honestly nod in agreement.

“…It’s not like abandoning them, gozaru. Evia-san is involved, after all. She’ll probably resolve things in a good way.”

“Ah, that’s right.”

Minami’s chopsticks stopped abruptly. A bad feeling, a bad premonition. There were several unsettling elements, but…

“Katsu, can I have another piece of fried chicken, gozaru?”

For now, I turned my attention to my gluttonous childhood friend.

“You’ll run out of tomorrow’s portion.”

I warned her that she had started eating more lately.

Today’s word: Be sensitive to abnormalities.

Thank you for your usual feedback and corrections of typos. If you find this interesting, please leave comments, ratings, and bookmarks.

I am currently serializing another work: “Pandora Pandemic Panic – Pandora’s Box Has Been Opened Again, But We’re Fighting Back with Various Things at Our Secret Base!!” Please check that out as well!!