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She pushed down the disappointment in her chest.
Miko Yotsuya looked at Max, her eyes full of curiosity and a hint of hope."So… how do you manage to stay calm in front of those evil spirits? Aren't you scared at all?"
"That's… paid information."
Max grinned mischievously.
"Eh? Paid?"
Miko froze, blinking in confusion. Then, after a second, she frowned a little—careful, hesitant."Um… how much?"
Seeing she'd taken it seriously, Max's smile widened even more, a teasing light in his eyes."Not much. Just… one hundred million yen."
"…What?!"
Miko's eyes went wide.A hundred million?! How's that not expensive? Even if she sold herself, she couldn't afford that!
"Heh-heh~ "😀😀"
Max couldn't help but laugh at her stunned expression, his grin full of amusement.
"Wait—you…"
Hearing his laughter and seeing his face, Miko finally realized it.
He was messing with her!
She let out a tiny sigh, both speechless and helpless.
Max chuckled and added, "Just kidding. The real price isn't much. Buy me a cup of milk tea, and I'll tell you."
"See? Pretty reasonable, right?"
At that, Miko immediately nodded. "Okay, deal! Now tell me."
Max had managed to act completely calm around evil spirits these past few days, without a single hint of fear. There had to be a reason behind it.
If she could understand that reason, maybe she could stop being scared too—maybe even stay calm when she saw them.
"Deal," Max said with a lazy smile. "Actually, it's simple. You just need the strength not to be afraid of them."
"Huh?"
Miko blinked blankly.
The strength not to be afraid of evil spirits?That… didn't explain anything!
"Wait a second!"
After a moment's pause, she caught on to the key point.
So Max wasn't scared because he had that strength?
Don't tell me—
Her eyes narrowed slightly, suspicion and awe mixing in her gaze."Who… exactly are you?"
Someone who could handle evil spirits…An exorcist, maybe?
But he'd said before that he'd never met one.
That only made her more curious.
If Max really could deal with evil spirits, maybe she could ask him for help.
Max raised a brow and smiled faintly. "Curious, huh?"
Miko: "…"
That smug smile of his made her want to say "no," but she swallowed it down."…Yeah. I'm curious."
Her tone was calm—her face didn't show much emotion—but that was just her nature.
Max noticed that, smiling knowingly.
He understood her type. Most of the time, her expression was flat and composed—quietly rational.
And it was exactly that temperament that had saved her when she first encountered an evil spirit. She'd managed to keep her face steady, stay calm on the outside, and survive.
Like the saying goes:Looks calm on the outside, panicking like crazy on the inside.
That described Yotsuya Miko perfectly.
Even if it wasn't a very nice way to put it, Max couldn't help but find it kind of cute.He would've liked to see her flustered face, maybe even teary-eyed from fear.
Too bad that wasn't going to happen—at least not here at school.
When he'd arrived at the school gate that morning, he'd quietly released his spiritual sense, scanning the entire private academy grounds.
To his surprise, there wasn't a single evil spirit around.
In the world of "Mieruko-chan," evil spirits were practically everywhere.
But this world… was different.
Multiple universes had fused, changing things. The number of spirits was way lower than in the original world, and there were even strange new rules in play.
When that clawed spirit had targeted him before, Max had realized it couldn't even enter his apartment—as if something invisible was blocking it.
In the original world, normal people couldn't see spirits, but spirits could touch them.Here, it wasn't like that.
If an evil spirit didn't know someone could see it, it couldn't touch that person at all.
Like that time when the clawed one had passed straight through Max's body.
As these thoughts passed through his mind, he turned back to Miko's curious stare and smiled.
"Me? Just think of me as… a psychic."
"A psychic?!"
Her eyes widened again.
A real psychic? That actually made sense.
Then she remembered—she could see things normal people couldn't. Didn't that make her one too?
Maybe she wasn't that different from him after all.
After a moment of thought, she asked softly, "So, Max… your power lets you see spirits, but it can do other things too, right? Like… exorcising them?"
Max had already admitted he could see them, but she wasn't sure about the rest.
He smiled and nodded. "Yeah, you could say that."
"You can really exorcise them?"
Miko frowned slightly. She wasn't convinced—she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.
And spirits were terrifying. If he failed… she didn't even want to imagine what would happen.
"Of course," Max said with an easy nod.
Then, his tone shifted, a deeper smile curling on his lips."Miko, you don't want to keep living like this, always scared out of your mind, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
His words made her instinctively wary. There was something odd about the way he said it.
Max's smile didn't fade."Miko, do you want to overcome your fear of spirits?""Do you want to stop feeling powerless and terrified?""And finally… do you want to gain the same exorcising power that I have?"
He sounded almost like some cult recruiter.
"What did you just say?!"
At that, Miko couldn't stay calm anymore—she shot to her feet, her heart pounding.
He can give me the power to exorcise spirits?
She almost thought she'd misheard him—but no, she hadn't.
Max's calm smile confirmed it. "I said, do you want to have the power to exorcise spirits, just like me?"
"You can really do that?"
Her eyes widened again, disbelief warring with a flicker of hope.
Max didn't answer—he just smiled at her quietly.
"…"
After a long pause, her heartbeat finally steadied.Temptation was stronger than hesitation.
"So… what's the price?" she asked softly.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
She knew that much—nothing came without a cost. Even praying at a shrine required an offering.
So how could something like this be free?
Still… even knowing that, she had to ask.
Because she'd had enough of living in fear of monsters no one else could see.
"....."