Chapter 9: A Livestream Solution

Chihaya Sayo wandered down the street in a daze, watching in fascination as the crowds went past.

She felt the emotions inside every single person around her as clearly as if they were her own. Weariness. Anger. Joy. Urgency. The whole stream came rushing over her like a river in flood, and her naturally idle temper started rolling on that same current. A fear and confusion she could not name climbed up her heart all over again.

It was a shapeless dread of what lay ahead.

After that morning’s incident, the maid café was out of the question. What was she to do from now on? Look for another job of the same sort? Or…

Robbing a bank, maybe? She was a Spirit after all, wasn’t she? Taking a little something from a cash machine wouldn’t cause her any trouble.

She let out a short laugh, and a little of the fog in her chest thinned.

She knew that she currently possessed the power to change practically anything. And she also knew she would never use that power beyond the bounds of common rules. She could not say why. Perhaps it was because…

Hmm, never mind. How she would pay for food and lodging was a question for later. With her present looks, a job that only required her to show her face would come easily enough. She had rare spare time to enjoy the morning in Tengu City, so…

Her thoughts were interrupted by the feel of her palm pressing against a rather flat stomach. She swallowed hard and let her eyes slide sideways to the roadside convenience store.

Chihaya was not someone who ate breakfast. It was just that the roast sausage she’d tasted had woken a hunger she’d never paid attention to before.

Damn her own resolve. She had been a little repulsed by the idea at the time, but the food itself was innocent, so she might as well have taken one bite just for the taste.

With her decision made, she went into the store and headed for the clerk behind the counter. At the sight of that polished, professional smile, the woman’s inner mood bloomed in front of Chihaya like a pie chart. Weariness made up three parts of it, anger a full five, and every other feeling had been squeezed into the remaining two and was still being crushed smaller.

Exhaustion and rage. That was the everyday state of a wage-earner, wasn’t it? Even with a belly full of fury, she had to wear a smile for the customers.

“One roast sausage, please.”

“All right. Just a moment.”

The clerk’s smile kept its pleasant fixed shape. Half her thoughts, though, were on the sausages rotating inside the hot glass display, and her mouth seemed to be talking to someone through the earpiece wedged in her ear.

From what Chihaya overheard, she was quarrelling with a boyfriend.

Whatever. It had nothing to do with her. Better to give her attention to this “emotion” ability. Ordinary Spirits didn’t have such a thing, did they? Yet she could plainly see people’s moods.

Or maybe the power came from her angel, tied to “emotion” somehow. She would ask Mitestin when she had a chance.

“You bastard!”

The clerk, all smiling a heartbeat ago, had pulled her slender arm back and brought it swinging down on the glass heater.

[Crack!]

A long fissure split across that sturdy panel.

A rush of hot air streamed out through the crack and licked at the woman’s arm, yet she seemed to feel nothing. She stood stiff, glaring at Chihaya.

“Excuse me, but my sausage…”

“Sausage? To hell with the sausage! My man ran off on me, and I’m done working! Want one? Then roast it yourself!”

The wave called anger had taken full hold of the clerk. She shouted at Chihaya without restraint and started throwing everything she could reach around the tiny shop, as if she meant to drain every last drop of it from herself.

A violent impulse rose from Chihaya’s gut: put Mitestin to work and tear that screaming mouth right off the woman’s face. On her fingertip, the ring gleamed with excitement.

“Sorry.”

She drew a few deep breaths, forcing the murderous urge down, then kept her eyes low and left the store.

Had she stayed one second longer, she was afraid she would have killed the clerk.

****

Chihaya finally cooled down and made her way home along the most deserted back streets she could find.

In only half a day, one kind of accident or other had kept breaking out around her. A man had leapt into the middle of a lane and cut up a fruit seller’s stall with a knife; someone else had tried to throw themselves into the river. Even she, slow as she was, could tell that these things had to do with her.

“Mitestin… am I influencing people’s emotions? Same rule as before.”

Mitestin gave a happy blink, then went silent.

There it is, then. Reading people’s moods was already strange enough, but it now seemed I can do more than read them. Change them. In that case, wherever I walk I could turn the place around me into a pocket of hell. Such an ability is too vicious for comfort.

Does that mean I can’t set foot among humans until the problem is solved?

“Mitestin, do you know a way to fix it?”

The ring gave no answer. It appeared to be thinking the question over. Or possibly thinking over its owner’s intelligence.

Makes sense. That was too complex a problem for Mitestin to handle. Whatever it knew, it could only answer yes or no.

So… the one road to a living that I had, working for wages, is blocked by my own passive power? If I want to keep going, it’s the bank, then.

Or turn to Ratatoskr? Even as a Spirit, I don’t understand my own body. They might be able to figure it out. At least there’d be a chance they could do something about it.

She let out a groan and collapsed onto her bed, staring blankly at her phone as she scrolled aimlessly through it.

Maybe she ought to find a way to earn money online. Comics, music, novels? This world did not have any of the huge hits from her last life, so if she quietly worked as a copycat writer, she could support herself comfortably enough.

Except…

Her drawing was stuck at the level of a kid in the last year of kindergarten. Her writing was loathed by both people and dogs. She had one decent voice, but not a trace of musical talent.

Being a copycat author took some ability of its own, and the five grams of brain she was born with had personally butchered that path for her.

So is she really supposed to wiggle her rear in front of a camera for money? The shame alone would be unbearable.

What if…

[Um, Shido Itsuka…]

Almost the instant she sent the mail, Chihaya withdrew it.

Yesterday she had said to Shido, with some swagger: “I’m sure I’ll be the first to find a real solution.” Something to that effect. Eating her own words and bowing her head today would be far too mortifying.

Mitestin had no idea, and she could not swallow her pride to ask Ratatoskr. If she had to find someone, then…

Her eyes lit up. She slapped a hand against her own nearly broken forehead.

The Second Spirit, Nia Honjo! How had she forgotten about her? Nia owned the angel Rasiel, the scripture said to hold all knowledge. If anyone could tell her everything she wanted to know, Nia could.

The problem was, Nia in this period was still held by Westcott. Rescuing her would mean going up against Ellen Mira Mathers, the world’s strongest magician.

Honestly, Chihaya had little confidence in herself. She had no idea what rank her own strength stood at, but she knew Ellen’s. It was Ellen who was acclaimed as the strongest magician on the earth, DEM’s top combat asset, a monster who could press most Spirits to the ground and grind them flat.

Even so, with Mitestin at her disposal, losing a fight did not have to mean failing to run away. Probably it wasn’t too hard. Right?

Hmm. No. She couldn’t make a decision like that, not after thinking it through. Deep down she was still just an ordinary person, and no cause on earth was worth throwing her life away. If she ended up in DEM’s hands, the worst sorts of torture would follow…

“Sometimes I really do respect Shido. He’s plainly afraid of dying. It plainly has nothing to do with him, and yet he still rushes at danger without caring, just to save a Spirit.”

Chihaya laughed at herself and looked out the window at the sky.

And me?

I hold a Spirit’s power, but I’m cautious about everything. I won’t take a single risk. Not even…

“Say, Mitestin. I’m a good-for-nothing, aren’t I?”

Mitestin said nothing in reply. It merely slid its slim band along her finger in a gentle rub.

“Don’t you try to comfort me. I’m useless, right? I can’t even feed myself now. Why don’t you go out and work, Mitestin, and take care of me?”

In answer, after what felt like a long deliberation, a coil of black fluid slowly drew itself out of the ring, slipped across the gap under the door, and crawled… toward the neighbour’s storage cupboard.

“Wait! Stealing is absolutely out of the question!”

Chihaya snatched the paw-like tendril back in a hurry. Robbing a bank was one thing, but the family next door had little enough money. Letting her own angel steal their small savings would load her with guilt she could not bear.

She ground her teeth, sprang up off the bed with a sharp kick of her legs, and opened the aged computer that had barely kept up with the times. She began to register an account on a live streaming site.

Fine, then. If streaming was the way, she’d stream. Not that she needed to wiggle anything to make money. A woman of high character like herself could keep her virtue intact… and earn her living standing up on both feet.

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