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THE BOISTEROUS TRAIN RIDE

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*****

The Interworld Train departed the 877th World with the ghosts on board.

Arcelia immediately began the hearing process, and Rob, nursing a hangover, was forced to help out whether he liked it or not.

The ghosts were, to put it mildly, noisy. The moment Pamela left to greet the other cabins, they started acting up.

Rob couldn't sleep, and the noise was pounding against his hungover brain.

「Yeah! It’s my time now!」

「...Narrow... boring.」

「The times are changing, aren't they? To think a train like this would cross worlds... may I dismantle it?」

「I'm hungry— I wanna drink— sweets are fine too—」

「Hey there, cutie—」

The ghosts were behaving exactly as their lingering attachments dictated in the cramped passenger cabin. One show-off even appeared, spreading his arms and leaping straight at Arcelia.

「――Please stay quiet. Your hearing hasn't started yet.」

However, Arcelia didn't move from her seat, casually parrying him with the 「Shackles that Capture Evil」 held in one hand.

「For real?」

The ghost shouted.

The moment the shackles touched the ghost's wrists, they clamped down firmly on both of them. Arcelia simply rolled the ghost onto the floor and, combining them with another set of hand-shackles, tethered him to the table leg.

The show-off ghost was stunned that Arcelia’s unique ability could restrain even a non-corporeal entity, but his expression changed quickly.

「...Nnngh.」

He muttered something with a strangely flushed look on his face. Arcelia tilted her head, not understanding the meaning, but Rob found it amusing, thinking the guy had some deep-seated vices.

The investigator's cabin—and since it was right next to Pamela's room—seemed to have been used to pack in the more difficult ghosts, but Arcelia didn't care at all and continued the hearings.

「――I'm so sorry!」

Sensing the commotion, Pamela came running in.

「No, there is absolutely no problem.」

「Look, everyone, apologize too. I'm really, really sorry.」

As Pamela drooped her wolf ears and apologized to Arcelia with a mortified expression, the ghosts saw this and quieted down with guilty faces. The ghost tied to the table leg was even performing a *dogeza* (kneeling bow), though who knows where he learned that.

Deciding it was fine, Arcelia released the ghost from the table, though she left the hand restraints on.

「Please don't worry about it. Helping a senior with her work is only natural.」

「Se—se—senior? That is completely unnecessary!」

Pamela shook her head, as if to say the very idea was preposterous.

Arcelia was thirty-one, and Pamela was twenty. While Arcelia was older in years, in terms of her career as an investigator, Pamela was nearly ten years her senior.

Pamela had been scouted by the Alliance at age ten, her future bright due to her immense unique ability. She had worked as an investigator while attending school.

However, she had never been able to improve her control over her ability. Because of that, by the time she began working as a full-fledged investigator, she had been relegated to the 877th World, which was essentially a dead-end post.

Though, personally, she hadn't realized at all that she’d been demoted.

「Arcelia-san, you're the one who got the huge promotion, going to pick up the Hero who slew the Demon King!」

Pamela stared at Rob with sparkling eyes, her fluffy tail wagging vigorously.

Arcelia didn't know how to answer that.

She was just the only one who could respond immediately. That was all it was.

「――You're cute, you're a wolf, right?」

Suddenly, before anyone knew it, Berta was sitting next to Rob.

「――Waaaaaah!」

Pamela jumped up in surprise.

Even if she had been demoted, she was still an investigator. She recognized Berta at a glance as the wanted criminal known as the "World-Crossing Witch," and she was horrified.

Berta stared at Pamela, looking bored.

「...You're cute, you're a wolf, right?」

For some reason, she said it again.

「Awa, awa, awa, awa, awa...」

From beside Pamela, who was shrinking under the glare, Arcelia extended the 「Shackles that Capture Evil」.

However, Berta dodged them easily and sat right down on Rob's lap as if wrapping herself around him.

Perhaps because she was floating, there was almost no weight, and Rob forgot his hangover, his mood improving at the softness.

「――Oh, my Queen!」

The shackled ghost jumped at them with a look similar to Rob's.

「...Naughty behavior is a no-no, okay?」

The ghost froze in mid-lunge, just inches from touching Berta.

「Aggh.」

A few strands of hair had entangled the ghost, restraining him and tightening around his throat. Berta was lazy and not highly capable in combat, but she was capable of interfering with the non-corporeal world, not just the electronic one.

「...Nnngh.」

The pressure was about the same as being strangled by an average woman, but the ghost once again wore an ecstatic expression.

Unlike Arcelia, who didn't understand why he was happy, or Pamela, who had noticed the meaning and turned bright red, Rob just chuckled, thinking, *What an idiot.*

Berta tossed the ghost aside and hung from Rob's neck, whispering into his ear.

「Do you want to be tied up too?」

Rob made a slightly troubled face.

「...I'm more of the 'tying up' type, if anything. Though I've never done it.」

Berta said, "Oh my," and rested a finger on her chin, then smoothly offered both hands to Arcelia.

「Don't make them too tight, okay?」

Arcelia didn't understand what they were talking about at all, but with a suspicious look on her face, she put the shackles on Berta.

「How's this?」

Berta showed off the shackles on her wrists as if to flaunt them.

「What do you mean 'how's this'? To begin with, why did you even come here?」

「Aren't you cold? I came to hear your answer from the other day.」

Berta's invitation from when she infiltrated the armed luxury liner. A life of wonderful decadence.

「Ah, that. It doesn't sound bad, but I know full well I'd be discarded eventually.」

「You have a strong will, so it'll be fine. You won't fall, even while devouring me. If you don't like it, I won't do anything bad, either.」

Like a devil seducing an angel, Berta tempted Rob.

「Hmm.」

Rob was wavering significantly.

「Please save that for after you've atoned for your own sins.」

Arcelia pulled Berta away.

「I haven't done anything, have I?」

「Please prove that in court.」

「Well, fine.」

Berta looked away, bored, and found Pashe there.

「...Hmm, the texture isn't bad either. I don't care what it is, as long as it's not a wolf.」

Pashe, the Mecha-Platypus, seemed somewhat happy as its smooth, metal bill was stroked.

「But, how did it end up like this? Especially these eyes. I doubt it can see much, can it?」

When Berta muttered that while staring at Pashe, Arcelia looked a bit apologetic.

However, that wasn't entirely Arcelia's fault.

Pashe would sometimes follow Rob when he went to the lounge. There, it was pampered by all sorts of people, and as a result of the drunken Rob showing off half-remembered facts about platypus ecology, it had been tweaked little by little by people from various worlds.

A flat bill. A dachshund-like torso. Short limbs with webbed feet. And even a flat tail. It was a patchwork of different metals, and the bullet holes stood out a bit, but it had become a magnificent platypus.

However, only the crushed bullet embedded in its eye wouldn't come out.

「Don't do anything too reckless, okay?」

Saying that to tease Arcelia, who was bad at magic, Berta picked up Pashe and tickled its belly with her finger.

—*Ka-pa-pa-pa-pa!*

Pashe writhed in the ticklishness, but in the momentum, the embedded bullet popped out, and the bullet hole lit up with an orange light, just like an eye.

「There, that's better.」

Berta looked up at Rob, as if to say, *Praise me?*

「That helped. So, what are you going to do now?」

「Well, I've been caught, so won't I just be hauled off to some station?」

Berta glanced at Arcelia.

「...Yes. I believe it will be about three stations from here.」

「Then I'll stay here until then, okay?」

「That won't be—」

「Should I just escape?」

Arcelia widened her already large eyes further but reluctantly accepted Berta's request. She had permitted it thinking there wouldn't be any major harm, but that night, Arcelia was already beginning to regret it.

When Rob finished the hearings and went to bed early, Berta had slipped inside.

There were just Rob and Berta sleeping in the narrow bed, but the ghosts watching them started to make a scene.

「A—a—are you kidding me, doing that in front of me!」

「The times have changed. For a man and woman to be so shameless... hasn't it started yet?」

「...Exciting.」

「No way? Seriously? Kyaa— are they in that kind of relationship? Or is it just a casual thing? Kyaa—」

「Is this what they call 'leaving it alone'... Nnngh.」

As if to say she couldn't focus at all, Arcelia slumped face-down onto the table.

「I'm so sorry... awawa... wha, wha, what should I do?」

Pamela from the next room had flown in, hearing the commotion, but Arcelia was face-down on the table and wouldn't make a peep, and Rob and Berta were in bed together.

No longer knowing what to do, Pamela just stood there in a panic.

And so, while being tossed about by the noisy ghosts and Berta, the Interworld Train arrived at the next station three days later.

*****

A light-hearted chaos.

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