I had to excuse myself from the tea party with Bea and returned to the dorm to meet with Katja. Something came up, and I had to go right away. We’ll spend some time together later.

  Does Katja have questions about the other world? Is it the PSF? Did Ayumu return? Probably not with the message she sent.

  “Katja? You there?”

  The dorm was empty save for Katja, who was sitting at the table while polishing her sword.

  “Oh… You got here faster than expected. Give me a minute.” She picked up the pace when I sat across from her to wrap up her work. A cloth slowly slid through the blade from bottom to top. With the press of a button, the various parts of her sword clicked into their place one after the other.

  Now it its compact form, Katja put the sword and maintenance supplies away.

  “Done.” She looked back up. “What about yours? It’s been a few days since the mall. Want me to take another look?”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I haven’t used it since then, so it should be fine.” She does the maintenance for all our weapons and likes to ensure they’re always in the best condition. If we let her, she’ll overdo it, so it’s important to tell her no every once in a while.

  “So, Katja, what did you want to talk about? The message you sent sounded serious. Do you have more questions about the portals or the other world? Did I guess it?”

  “No… That would be serious, but I still don’t know what to think about it.” Her eyes wandered off. “I don’t know what questions I would ask. That’s how I’d put it.”

  “Take your time… I already told you everything you need to know to get the gist of it, so I don’t know what else to say either. Just ask whenever you want. I’ll do my best to answer.”

  I casually shrugged my shoulders. But if it’s not that… “What did you want to talk about then?”

  “Well…” She dragged out her words. “There’s just something I’ve been thinking about, and I want to hear what you think… In your opinion, what does it take to be a good leader?”

  “A leader?” Is this the type of thing I’m gonna get asked in a few years in job interviews? Wait, don’t I already have a job? “I have no idea if you ask me all of a sudden…” Nope. Nothing’s coming to mind. “I don’t know. Why are you even asking me?”

  Katja stared for a moment before saying anything.

  “Because of how you’ve been doing lately.”

  “In what way? What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been a great leader lately. I know leadership at the House is not well defined, but you performed the role quite well. Better than me even. You’re getting along with everyone, and you’re even supporting the others with their personal problems, aren’t you? It’s great. Some would say that’s the mark of an excellent leader.”

  “Y- you’re exaggerating…” Quite the embarrassing thing to say to my face. “I just try to be friendly with everyone. Doesn’t make me a good leader. Have you seen how I handle serious matters? It’s not great. Just like the other day…”

  “You’re worried you were too reckless, huh? But if that’s the case, I’m no different from you. And I’ve been doing this far longer than you. I should have been able to make a decision that wouldn’t have put you and Narumi in danger.”

  While her face remained calm, there was regret behind her words.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Iroha, if anything ever happens to me, I want you to take my place. We have a duty to protect civilians, but as the closest thing to a leader we have, I also have a duty to protect the others. I’m not sure how you’ll do with civilians, but I’m sure you’ll do a better job protecting the others than I do. Can you do it?”

  “Uhh… No…?”

  My response surprised her so much she was left blinking in silence. Like, what else am I supposed to say? If something happens to her? Is she expecting something to happen? She’d be better off telling us so we can help her.

  Besides, after how much I’ve been dragging others into my own problems, I don’t have what it takes to lead anyone… “I mean, if you’re worried you’re not doing a good job, so am I. I’ve been getting you all into trouble more than anyone else.”

  “Th- that’s not something you should be worrying about…” Katja was unsure of what to say. “You’re not causing trouble for anyone. At least I don’t think of it like that… You can be relied on when you want to. That’s good enough, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” I’m not convinced, and I’m not accepting responsibility for something so uncertain just yet. “You know, I think you don’t need to worry too much about leadership. Like you’ve said, we’re versatile about that, aren’t we? Isn’t it fine if it stays that way? Hecate, Carol, and Narumi are all trustworthy girls. They can make their own decisions.”

  “It’s not that I disagree, but…” Katja faintly blushed. “I’m not the best person to be saying this, but we have a tendency to put others above ourselves here. Isn’t that scary? Can we trust they won’t put themselves in danger? I know how ironic this sounds coming from me…” I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “If you put it like that, I completely agree… That is terrifying…”

  *Bzzztt…*

  A phone vibrated and interrupted our conversation. My conversation with Bea was interrupted by Katja’s message, and now her conversation was interrupted by a call.

  “Sorry, Iroha. Give me a minute.”

  She felt no need to keep me out of the loop and took the call right in front of me. She brought her phone to her ear, and from the pleasantries, I figured it was a call from Shinji.

  “A strange creature was spotted in town? Mhm… I see… Don’t worry, we’ll head out right away!” The call ended, and she put away her phone. “Get ready, Iroha. We’re moving out.”

  “Ready whenever… Is it Ayumu?”

  “I don’t know, but we should hurry!” We both got up from our seats and rushed to get ready. The heat must have been getting to our heads since we were about to do something we’d regret again. Luckily, Katja stopped us in time with a funny yet guilty look on her face. “Wait… Let’s gather everyone first… We never know…”

  “Ahahahaha… Yeah… We gotta learn from our mistakes sometimes…”

  …

  Our suspect was spotted southeast of the house, in the central part of Three Records. It served as a transition area between the very dense east district and everything else. Still denser than where my apartment and the Dorm were.

  The squad walked around blocks filled with residential apartments and offices on the streets, which, as always, were empty. I don’t know if the drought of people out in the street we experience in our area reaches down here, but at least during work hours, that seems to be the case. Prime beach hours too.

  “Any new reports, Katja? It’d be nice to know what we’re looking for at least.” That was Carol, taking it easy.

  We all were, truth be told. With no one outside, we walked in a group along the sidewalk without worry, probably looking like a group of friends heading somewhere to hangout.

  “No such luck. Sorry, just keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

  “It’s okay! Aren’t investigations like this fun sometimes?” Narumi was walking backwards ahead, brimming with energy. “It’s exciting when you don’t know what you’re gonna find. There’s a chance to find something cool whenever we turn a corner. Like… Right now!”

  We turned the corner, and there was actually something there.

  “Looks like you weren’t wrong… How did you do that, Narumi? Black magic?”

  “I- I didn’t do anything! That’s not a creature, right?”

  “No…” What we found along the red bricks of the sidewalk were small green puddles. Arranged into two alternating rows. “But it probably belongs to some kind of creature… They look like footsteps from a small creature. Some kind of four-legged slime monsters?”

  That was the idea I proposed, and none of them had a better guess. “You might be right… You seem knowledge about these kinds of things. Watch out for small crevices, and let’s follow the footsteps.”

  A few more steps, and the footprints led us to a turn. A small access between two tall buildings.

  “It’s time, isn’t it?” Hecate hugged her briefcase as it turned into a sniper. All our weapons clicked into their deadly form as we lurked around the edge of the wall.

  “You and I will go in first, Iroha. Carol, you come right behind us, and you two support us as necessary. Count of three, ready?”

  Three, two, one. “Now!” We rushed in. Weapons in hand. Whatever is here, we’ll make quick work of it!

  Our target was right there. A green creature shivering in the middle of the narrow passage.

  “What the hell?” Carol’s reaction spoke for all of us.

  The creature we were looking for was there, but that creature was not a monster. It was a cat. Soaked in green paint and shivering from cold.

  “Pffft! There’s no way we came all the way out here just for this… This is way too funny!”

  “Ahaha… We probably did…” I made my sword retract and cautiously approached the animal. “It’s just a cat, isn’t it? It’s not gonna transform at the last second, right?”

  “Now that I think about it, there was a can of paint sticking out from a bush near the footsteps.”

  “Huh?! And why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Carol shot an annoyed glance at Narumi.

  “Well… I got too focused on the footprints… Oops…” We all did. None of us noticed the can.

  The closer I got the more obvious it got. Yep… “It’s a dud.” I reached out and lifted the poor thing. I got my answer as soon as I touched it.

  “There’s no way…” Carol ran up to my side. “You’re right! What the hell? Who reported this? They’re just wasting our time!”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I still sense danger from it.” Hecate giggled, keeping her distance. “A danger to my dress.”

  “Ha ha! Very funny! Just who the hell sent us this report? We should pay them a visit since we’re already out here!”

  “Calm down, Carol.” Katja seemed like she wanted to take the cat from my hands and I let her. “The number of strange sightings skyrocketed since what happened the other day. People are really jumpy right now, so we should count ourselves lucky that this is the first false report we’ve received.”

  “Whatever you say… Since there’s no monster, that means we’re done, right? Let’s get out of here.”

  That was a bit of a letdown… “Sure… You can go back by yourselves. I’ll find a way to get this cat back to its owner first.”

  We could go home, but there’s no way we can dump all the work on our precious Katja…

  “Wait… We’ll give you a hand.”