Side: Dungeon Survey Team

That day, with classes called off, even the teaching staff were absent from Kakeru's school — only a handful of people, the Chairman and the principal among them, had come in, and they were in the middle of talks with the people from the Bureau of Paranormal Countermeasures.

Meanwhile, the ones investigating the underground space that had suddenly appeared, here since first thing in the morning, were five men.

They too were on loan to the Bureau of Paranormal Countermeasures — four Self-Defense Forces personnel and one police officer. Their official designation was the Paranormal Space Survey Team, but inside the Bureau they were also called the dungeon survey unit.

For equipment, they wore SDF camouflage fatigues and Type 2 combat body armor. Their main weapon was the Type 89 assault rifle.

Their primary duties were patrolling the dungeons scattered across the country and, as in this case, investigating newly discovered ones. Limited to within a dungeon, they were also cleared to use firearms at their own discretion.

The five had been advancing carefully through the dungeon, wary of their surroundings, when a gunshot rang out.

"That settles it."

Amid the sound of a spent casing rolling across the ground, the team leader muttered with a grim look on his face.

What he'd brought down with a single round was the same kind of Lesser Goblin Kakeru had fought the other day. Shot clean through the brow, it had died on the spot.

While the four SDF personnel kept watch on the surroundings, one man began examining the Lesser Goblin. Filming it with a video camera, he recorded the details one by one — physical features like its height, the things it carried.

"Number nine, huh. What are they gonna do about it. In the middle of a town like this."

"Manage it on the quiet — that's the only option."

The men's expressions were grim, but they weren't despairing. It was a headache, sure, but not beyond managing. The hard part was keeping the dungeon a secret.

Not that they could afford to be optimistic, either. Even these men mostly patrolled the upper levels of the dungeons; the times they'd gone down into the lower levels could still be counted on one hand.

They rotated through the eight dungeons dotted across Japan, going down into them, keeping up the surveys and surveillance. It would be more accurate to say they simply had no time to descend to the lower levels.

"Come to think of it, the one who drove off a monster like these was a first-year in high school, supposedly. Pretty impressive. Reacting like that the first time he laid eyes on one."

"Some kid who's used to throwing fists, isn't he?"

"That's the thing — apparently not. He's testified he learned some self-defense, but they say he was a quiet student at school, too."

"Got nerves of steel, for a kid these days."

Their survey and idle chatter done, the men prayed for the Lesser Goblin's rest and pressed on. They had to gather the information needed to set the threat level before the day was out.

A private high school couldn't be shut down for days on end, and it would be just as hard to have men in camouflage fatigues coming and going all the time.

Their exploration had only just begun.

Side: Amahashi Kakeru

The second shop was another fairly well-known clothing store. I'd told them to make the rounds of a few more places and buy whatever clothes they liked.

I was on standby, carrying the bags. I didn't have much experience with this sort of thing, so it was a little novel. I used to come shopping with Grandpa and Grandma, but we hardly ever picked out anything fashion-related.

"That's menswear, you know?"

"It's fine, isn't it? Easier to wear than something that's tight across the chest, anyway."

As I was wandering around the store, I found Filia talking with Noctia, a troubled look on her face.

Ah — Noctia clearly didn't care what she put on, and Filia seemed to be debating whether to say something.

The two of them had figures so good that apparently there were few clothes that would fit. Filia, true to form, wanted to make her own, so we were planning to head to a shop that sold fabric and the like after this. Noctia, on the other hand, was picking purely for function, on the grounds that anything would do.

"In that case, I'll choose for you. I'm not saying you have to care how it looks, but it's better than standing out for the wrong reasons."

It seemed Filia had been wrestling with herself over it, but in the end she'd decided to speak up. Well, the magic items only kept them from being suspected — people still noticed them normally — so maybe that was the better call.

Was that just how the demon race saw things? Probably not, actually.

Around the time Filia started picking out clothes for Noctia too, Pricia and Sanctina came looking for me.

"Ah, there you are, Kakeru. I'd like a bit of advice."

"Sure. Go ahead."

I'd given them the bare minimum about clothes over here, but I supposed they were still at a loss.

Pricia seemed to like clothes that were easy to move in, and Sanctina preferred fairly loose-fitting things, but…

"What kind of bra is a good one? We didn't have these over there."

I had no idea what kind of face to make.

Where the two of them had led me was the lingerie section. I never expected Pricia to lean in and murmur something like that to me under her breath.

"You buy them to match the size of your chest, I think. You follow?"

The two of them looked down at their own chests and shook their heads. They'd only ever had things made to order, and didn't even know their three measurements.

Incidentally, Filia and Noctia had taken one look and figured there probably weren't any in their size, so they'd gone off to look for other clothes.

"Got it. Let's go to a specialty lingerie shop next. They'll measure you and teach you how to put them on, I think."

I'd told Filia the same thing this morning, but seriously, I'd be in trouble if they went around braless. Filia had said she'd manage somehow. Was she planning to make her own bras, too?

"Kakeru-san, I'm sorry. Honestly, I don't know what kind would be good, either…"

Yeah, same here. Now that I looked closely, there were all sorts of designs. Ones that seemed function-first, cute ones, sexy ones.

Reassuring Sanctina as she apologized, I had them buy the clothes they'd taken a liking to here for now.

Next was the specialty lingerie shop. I was on standby in the shop's rest area. I was anxious about whether they'd say something strange, but with a guy like me around, both the staff and the girls would have a harder time choosing.

The place somehow gave off a no-men-allowed vibe. Probably just my imagination. Women out shopping, a man waiting. I felt like some dad on his day off.

The first to finish, sure enough, was her.

"Noctia, did you choose some?"

"Yes. Anything's fine by me."

She'd had her size measured and picked out a few pieces of lingerie as recommended. The bill scared me a little, but skimping here was out of the question.

That was when Noctia came up close, as if to whisper in my ear.

"They told me that if you don't wear the right underwear, they sag. Though Filia and I don't age like the human race, so it's got nothing to do with us."

She told me this in a low voice that struck me as almost sweet, but it was a hard thing to respond to.

"Among the human race's royalty and nobility, there were some who preferred women of the demon or elf races."

So the public face and the private one differ, huh. Well, I suppose they do. I'd understood that over there until I was sick of it.

"To live freely, bound by no one. That's a hard thing."

Noctia looked like she was enjoying herself. From that profile of hers, I gathered just how harsh her life in that other world had been.

"Here, I think you can live more freely than over there. No — go ahead and live freely. There are laws you have to follow, but still."

The society was different, but even so, she'd be able to live the life she wanted more than she had as the Demon Lord back there. Our values were different, so I was a little worried, sure.

Then again, she wasn't the type to do anything careless. I figured she'd be fine.