Draw Your Blades! There's a Lolicon!

Several minutes later.

"So, because the Blood Moon descended today, you couldn't get home in time and ended up... trapped on Mistveil Street? And an Evil Spirit almost ate you, but this boy beside you saved you?"

Jones hesitantly pieced together their situation, looking thoroughly exasperated.

Hana Ye sat obediently beside Lin En, her eyes wide as she submitted to the questioning.

Of course, although he was admittedly a little scary and might very well be some kind of monster, he had saved her life. She absolutely wouldn't reveal his secrets.

"Are you sure?"

He eyed them suspiciously.

Hana Ye widened her eyes, stole a glance at Lin En, and said,

"O-of course! Everything I just said was true! We were walking along perfectly fine, and then your people suddenly surrounded us! It was really scary!"

Jones took a deep breath. "And what was that about liking men?"

Hana Ye blinked and said,

"Was I wrong? My sister told me her captain had always secretly been in love with..."

"In love with whom?"

The surrounding Exorcists all leaned in, listening blankly.

Bang-

A gunshot rang out.

Black smoke curled from the revolver Jones had drawn at lightning speed after firing a shot at random.

Jones gritted his teeth and held up the gun. "Anyone who hears about this dies!"

The Exorcists immediately backed away at top speed, nodding with (꒪Д꒪)ノ expressions and clapping their hands over their ears.

"..."

But without a doubt, anyone who could spill such an earth-shattering secret and provoke such a violent reaction from their captain had to be a genuine human.

They had almost reflexively killed her as a monster!

Jones took a deep breath.

Of course he knew Hana Ye.

She was the younger sister of one of their members, as well as the young lady of the [Yuzhi] family.

But a little girl wandering around with a naked man in the middle of the night looked suspicious no matter how he viewed it.

His stern gaze turned to Lin En beside her.

"Are you sure? Hana Ye, your sister is on my team. I have both a responsibility and a duty to protect you. But him, a man wrapped in nothing but a bedsheet in the middle of the night... Hana Ye, don't be afraid. We're all Exorcists here. If you've been abducted, please tell us..."

After all, no matter how he looked at him, the man hardly seemed respectable. He looked more like some lolicon who lured girls away in the dead of night.

Click-

With a flick of his thumb, he exposed half the blade from its sheath and said in a low voice,

"We'll make sure you get justice!"

Because around here, a lolicon... was grounds for drawing your blade.

Lin En said in exasperation, "Are you kidding me? Even doing a good deed makes me suspicious? Tell the truth! Tell him what our relationship is!"

Hana Ye immediately jolted, clasping her little hands with a (.;ﾟ;:anger:;ﾟ;.) expression as cold sweat poured down her face.

C-could she really tell the truth?

If she told them how he'd suddenly grown taller than several people stacked together, with a mouth bigger than an Evil Spirit's and eyeballs covering his body, wouldn't Jones and the others kill him as a monster even if he wasn't one?!

Although he didn't seem to care in the slightest.

"Um... um..."

Finally.

She gulped, widened her eyes, and said,

"H-he's actually my boyfwiend."

"..."

Silence fell all around them.

Lin En froze too.

Then he instantly grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, hoisted her up, and looked down at her.

"Boyfwiend? When did I get demoted? Didn't you just say you wanted to be my wife?"

Hana Ye: "!!!!"

Everyone: "!!!"

Click, click, click-

Just as we thought! There's nothing more to say!

(▼皿▼#)!

Draw your blades, everyone! To think we'd run into a lolicon abducting a little girl in the dead of night right here! That's punishable by death! No further explanation needed!!

Draw your blades!

"Wait!!"

Hana Ye hurriedly stepped in front of Lin En, spreading her arms with an o(≧口≦)o expression.

"No! It's not what you think!! Don't listen to his nonsense! He just likes joking around!! We're actually really good friends! And he really did save me!! As for his clothes... well, of course... of course they got torn apart while he was fighting the Evil Spirit!!"

"By the way, what's your name?"

"Lin En."

"That's right! Lin En is a really good friend of mine o(≧口≦)o!!"

"..."

A deathly silence fell over everyone.

A few minutes later.

"I don't know exactly what your relationship is, but since Hana Ye has vouched for you, we'll leave it at that. However, I still have to give you a warning."

Jones took a deep breath, wrote solemnly in his notebook, then tore off a slip and handed it to Lin En.

"Whether you're a lolicon or not, I hope you won't do anything inappropriate. We have a strict criminal code here, and anyone under..."

Smack-

Hana Ye snatched it away with a (;≧д≦) expression and stuffed it into her pocket.

"Got it! We got it! You talk too much!! Can we go now?!"

"Where are you going?"

"Up ahead, of course!"

"No."

At those words, Jones immediately extended a hand, shook his head solemnly, and blocked their path.

"The road ahead has been sealed off. If you're going home, take another route. Gear Street is under strict lockdown right now. No one can pass until we know what's happening."

Hana Ye widened her eyes and said,

"Um... what exactly happened?"

A magic circle that huge.

She really had never seen one before.

Jones took a deep breath and said,

"We only just received the news ourselves. If the information really is accurate, we may not have a single peaceful day for a very long time... no, you could even say there's a huge question mark over whether we'll survive at all..."

A chill immediately ran through Hana Ye, and her hair stood on end.

"I-is it that serious...?"

Lin En hesitated and said,

"Has something really powerful descended?"

After all, Hana Ye had just told him that large-scale exorcism circles like this were used against exceptionally terrifying monsters.

Jones gazed toward Gear Street, his eyes grave.

"Well, there's no harm in telling you. Something this big can't stay secret anyway... to be honest, if the information is correct, what descended this time is very likely an..."

"Ultra-Ancient Great Demon?!"

After hearing him out, Lin En and Hana Ye both cried out instinctively in shock.

Jones nodded, looked toward the enormous magic circle in the distance, and said gravely,

"That's right! I haven't seen him myself, but the Spirit Bell rang nine times, confirming the great demon's existence. A being of this level poses a serious threat to our survival. If this proves true, it won't just affect this place. I'm afraid every nearby city-state will be plunged into a massive catastrophe!"

"Our Demon Suppression Corps has already mobilized."

"But the great circle is complete. If a major battle really breaks out, we'll do our best to contain it within the Spirit Realm and keep the real world safe. Our people have already fought their way in."

Lin En went rigid.

"Are you sure?!"

Jones nodded and took a deep breath.

"I don't know, but one of our members heard it straight from that monster's mouth. He was contemptuous and vicious. After humiliating our member, he simply swaggered off, issuing us a declaration of war."

He narrowed his eyes.

"And his parting words were that he would eat everyone in our city, then use this place as his lair to spread calamity throughout the world!"

An image instantly surfaced in Lin En's mind: a terrifying, twisted figure brutally humiliating a little girl in the street, then cackling sinisterly as he proclaimed his ownership of the world.