Chapter 316: How Much?! (Patreon)

"I never thought something so bizarre could actually happen. If you weren't all here beside me, I'd think I was dreaming."

Outside the infirmary, the group who had left Miyabi and her mother to themselves sat on the sofa, waiting patiently.

Belle, meanwhile, clutched her little head and quietly marveled that the world held such outlandish things.

A moment ago she'd found it all fascinating, but that was just the gawking-at-a-show mindset. Only now that it had sunk in did she realize how absurd it really was.

"It's actually not that bad. They may be ghosts, but there's some scientific basis for it. Nobody's just bothered to research it."

Twiggy, sitting beside her, tried to calm Belle down. She wasn't particularly surprised.

She had already studied the two laborers she'd dragged back—no, talked back. To her, so-called ghosts were just a rather unusual form of Ether energy aggregate, and the research data had given her plenty of fresh inspiration.

"Anyway, Hoshimi Miyabi and her mother's situation is settled for now. But Geno, isn't there something you need to tell us?"

"?"

The sudden change of subject caught Geno off guard. He hadn't expected Twiggy to turn the conversation on him like that.

But he recovered quickly and hurried to deflect.

"What does that have to do with me? I've got nothing to tell."

"Really?"

Twiggy's gaze sharpened. Those golden-orange eyes were locked on him, and the other two looked just as curious.

"What kind of riddles are you two even talking about? I'm getting confused."

The encrypted conversation between Geno and Twiggy, two certified riddlers, was giving Belle a headache. Yanagi Tsukishiro beside her, however, had already figured something out.

"It's about Tailless, isn't it?"

"Exactly. Geno said it himself earlier: to take over Tailless, you have to sacrifice the previous wielder's soul, or at least a sufficient Ether energy aggregate."

As she spoke, Twiggy glanced at Geno again. Her gaze was sharp as a needle, and he instinctively looked away.

"But you all saw it. In the earlier incident, this guy swung that blade and faced down that monster and even the small Hollows. So here's the problem: how did you win Tailless's approval?"

Hearing this, Belle finally caught on.

Right! When Hoshimi Miyabi performed the inheritance ritual, it took the life of Hoshimi Misako and a small part of her own soul. So what had Geno paid to use Tailless?

It couldn't possibly be Miss Miyabi's soul, could it? Right now Miss Miyabi and Aunt Misako were in there enjoying their family reunion. Totally impossible.

Which meant...

A bold idea flashed through Belle's mind. In the manga and videotapes she loved, whenever the protagonist gained power, he always paid some unbearable price. Could it be...

While Belle was still busy with her wild theories, Twiggy stared at Geno without a flicker of expression.

One look at her and Geno knew there was no escaping this time. He raised the white flag.

"Fine, fine, I surrender. I'll confess, okay?"

He knew a confession now might earn him leniency, while hiding it any longer would probably end in coercive interrogation.

Dead either way, and picking his own way to go was the more humane option.

So he began explaining to everyone why he could use Tailless.

"Actually, I completed the ritual too. It's just that the soul I sacrificed was my own."

"Your own?!"

At those words, all three women cried out. None of them had expected Geno to use his own soul as the sacrifice.

"How could you be so reckless! How do you feel now? Is your body okay? What's your condition?"

The moment Twiggy heard he'd paid with his own soul, she blew up. She sprang to her feet and flew to his side to check him over, the ring on her hand glowing nonstop.

"Calm down, I'm fine. See? I'm perfectly okay. I didn't use my whole soul, so don't worry."

He pushed her off, but she still looked worried, so Geno stood and turned a couple of circles to show he was as healthy as ever.

"You do look fine, but it's your soul! Are you really okay?"

Belle was still worried, rubbing her little hands together.

Geno carried on.

"It's fine, really. Miss Miyabi went all those years missing part of her soul too, didn't she? Losing a bit of soul isn't as complicated as you think."

"A bit? How much is a bit?"

Twiggy pounced on the one word that sounded unimportant but was anything but.

Geno sheepishly held up a single finger, grinning awkwardly at her.

"One tenth? Well, that's not so bad."

"Uh, half."

"How much?! Half?!"

Her voice shot up several notes. Geno felt like his eardrums might burst, but he still tried to calm her down.

"Easy, easy, don't get so worked up. See, I'm fine, aren't I? So giving up half a soul is really no big deal—I'm sorry!"

As he talked, Twiggy's expression grew more and more terrifying. In the end instinct won out, and he dropped obediently to his knees.

"Is 'sorry' supposed to cover it? Weren't you so tough? You had the guts to offer half your soul as a sacrifice, so why are you cowering now?"

Twiggy was beyond furious. What was going on inside this man's head? Why would he do something so dangerous?

The air between the two of them grew heavy, and she started lecturing Geno without pause.

Belle and Yanagi Tsukishiro, the spectators, just stood off to the side. They had no idea how to break it up, so they simply watched in silence.

"What do we do now?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure either."

Both had sharp minds and plenty of social sense, but they truly couldn't find a reason to interrupt.

After all, if they were in Twiggy's place and someone they cared about that much treated himself so carelessly, they'd be angry too. Maybe a hundred times angrier than she was.

So Twiggy lectured Geno one-sidedly for another half hour, until at last his savior arrived.

The infirmary door behind them swung open. Out stepped Hoshimi Miyabi, still wrapped in bandages and moving a little stiffly, carrying Tailless.

"What's all this... some kind of training?"