Minimine’s gaze swept left to right, eyeing her forces with grave conviction.

Sitting on the edge of the floor bed were Jyn, Kalender, Lilia, and off to the side, slurping on stew, was Page. Minimine herself was standing at the foot of the bed, up against the wall with her arms crossed.

“I’ve alread talked to Jyn and Page,” she said through telepathy. Kalender nodded at this, and Jyn and Page didn’t miss this unsaid acknowledgement between Goddess and Champion.

Kalender eyed Minimine, and then Page, and then Jyn. His eyes lingered on Jyn for a second longer. It’d be better to tell her sooner rather than later.

For now, he had to make his stance clear—let everyone know that, for better or for worse, they were all on the same page about their mission now. They always had been.

“I’ve been making weapons for the Temple—”

“No way?!” Page blurted out. When she looked around the room, everyone else was just looking at her in mild surprise. “Wait, was I the only one who didn’t know? W-was I?”

Page desperately looked towards Jyn.

“I suspected it,” Jyn said, “but the Clerics in the safehouse confirmed it. Their weapons were of Kalender’s make, I’m sure of it.”

Page then looked at Lilia.

Lilia looked away. “Well, I always wondered where all those poor swords went…”

Page quietly laid down her bowl, cupping her face with her hands. “Seriously…” What a disaster—and she fancied herself a sneaky Librarian with top-notch powers of observation! Alas, not even Appraise could have allowed her to make this particular observation.

“You have always been in contact with Minimine, then,” Jyn said, looking at Kalender.

“Yeah.”

Jyn nodded. “I see.” Kalender couldn’t tell what Jyn felt about it, but it didn’t seem like there was any hint of disappointment.

“Kalender,” Minimine called. “The temple was attacked earlier today.”

Kalender snapped around with wide eyes. It took a moment before he could say, “Really?”

The reality of the situation didn’t inch closer—it leaped, and it was staring at him right in the face.

“Three demons,” Minimine continued. “The Inquisition believes a large-scale attack on Harmony is imminent.”

The message was clear: prepare.

“What can we do?” Kalender asked.

“The enemy has demons and a high-level cursed Follower of the ###### God. Shal-yen has already prepared to deal with enemies within the walls and for a possible siege. You are not expected to fight on the frontlines. That said, you must look out for yourself, avoid infiltrators, and survive.” She didn’t look good. “The demons have weapons that can shatter the soul. I cannot revive you in that case.”

Although Minimine was a goddess who could pretty much resurrect anyone and everyone as many times as needed, her experience fighting the god-killers meant that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Furthermore, the curse was something cast on the soul, and since her resurrection process was, essentially, just reconstructing the body and plugging the soul back in there, she wasn’t expert enough to remove the curse beforehand—Gaia wouldn’t be having this issue if she could.

It was a lot of information to take in. The fact that there were weapons that could render Minimine’s resurrection powers null and void wasn’t that surprising, and as long as they were out of the fight, they could lay low and avoid those demons in the first place. However, there was something Kalender couldn’t avoid asking about.

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‘Follower’ ? “Do you mean that guy…in the dungeon?”

Only Kalender and Minimine knew about him at this point, earning curious and cautious looks from the other three in the room. However, only Minimine knew the full extent of just how dangerous he actually was.

“All of you, beware of that man. His curse was strong enough to empty out the Temple of Civilas. Had Lyrica’s Sentinel not been there, Harmony would not be standing right now.”

‘Curse’ ? Apprehension gripped Jyn. Although Kalender was a good man, she still remembered the initial despair she’d felt like it was just yesterday.

Page’s hand met Jyn’s shoulder. Jyn looked over, nodding in appreciation of her concern.

“Worry not,” Gellar said. Although the new voice was familiar, they were still bewildered to hear it coming from an unconventional entrance. “And please keep a habit of closing your window.”

The demon hopped in. Unlike before, when she’d appeared as a doctor, her black cloak and shadowy appearance made it obvious why she was there.

Seeing Jyn and Page, however, she wanted to assuage their concerns first. “Although it’s possible to be ‘stolen away’ by a Cursed One of higher curse rank,” she explained, “Kalender’s curse is so ridiculously strong that neither of you need to worry.”

In fact, in Jyn and Kalender’s first encounter, Jyn and her squad had plastered their armor with twice the number of talismans than normally needed. Those talismans typically only caught fire and burned up like fuzes over the span of 30 seconds—more than enough time to overwhelm a rookie with the violence of heavily-armored numbers.

Kalender, however, had been able to start burning them off with just words from 10 meters away, and when Jyn made the mistake of closing the distance to arrest him, Kalender’s mere presence flash-vaporized all her talismans.

Had he gone and unleashed his power, Manager’s carefully planned operation to charm the Clerics and Priestesses of the Temple of Civilas would have paled in comparison to the speedrun that Kalender could have done.

“Um…” Lilia shyly raised her hand. “How about me?”

Gellar tossed over a pair of anti-charm bracelets. “Those are expensive. Please don’t use them to parry attacks.”

H-how did she know?! Lilia smiled politely and equipped her new accessories.

“I also have a message for Kalender from the Inquisition and Lady Amelia,” Gellar said. She took out a note and read from it. “ ‘We fully expect that Follower to use his powers to the greatest extent possible. If the worst comes to pass, we request and hereby authorize Kalender to remove his restrictions and charm affected women away from the control of the enemy.’ ”

Gellar burned the note to ashes in her hand, letting it fall away. “That’s all.”

“Excuse me,” Page said with a stern voice. It was so unexpected that Gellar had to take a step back.

“Y-yes?”

“I get that burning confidential notes is important, but please don’t spread ashes inside the room.”

“… Oh.”

… Page ended up forcing Gellar into cleaning the whole room.

We request and hereby authorize Kalender to remove his restrictions and charm affected women away from the control of the enemy—what the hell, was all Kalender could think. Just, well, he gets it, but it didn’t mean he didn’t feel bad just thinking about it!

“Hey,” Jyn called. He looked at her, and she scooted over beside him. “It will upset the enemy’s plans. To turn our own people against us—is this not part of the thing you said you despised?”

Oh. Yeah. “That’s right.” He nodded. “You’re right.”

“Kalender,” Minimine said, aloud this time. “It is also your mission.”

Yeah. That’s right. He reaffirmed it over and over in his mind—

Minimine interrupted his thoughts. “I meant, you’re also supposed to charm the whole world so no one else gets to charm them.”

Kalender and Jyn sort of just slowly looked up at the kid who’d said such a ridiculous thing.

But, y’know, Minimine had already said this—many, many months ago—and the memory of it intruded into Kalender’s memory, a memory he didn’t want to admit was even true.

“Isn’t there a better way?” Kalender asked. “Seriously? Charm the whole world?”

What, was he supposed to invent livestreaming in this world and turn the whole of it into his delusional fans? Wasn’t that so much worse, though?

“I’m really sorry,” Minimine said. “I can’t think of anything else.”

At this point, Minimine hadn’t yet found out about Three’s far more reasonable strategy. Had she known about it, she wouldn’t have suggested utter and complete unreasonableness to her own Champion.

For now, although Kalender begrudgingly took the path Minimine offered, that was only because they were yet to find another way. They held onto hope that they would chance upon the shining light of reason one day.

“That’s all,” Minimine said. “Now, you two can talk.”

Perhaps it had been the way Kalender had looked at Jyn for a moment longer. In that case, Minimine was surprisingly attuned to reading people, wasn’t she?

Kalender chuckled in mild embarrassment from being so easily read like that. For a brief moment, he looked at Jyn, and at the same time, Jyn looked at him.

With just that one look, they knew the other had something to say. The war was already here, and neither of them spelled their names with “regret.”

“Can we talk?”

…they both said.