Campione: Strongest# 417: The Crawling Chaos Cracks a Joke

Kazuhiko Asagami knelt on the tatami mat, his palms and forehead pressed firmly against the floor. Beads of sweat dripped from his entire body, he looked as if he’d just been fished out of the water.

A moment ago, he had confessed everything, holding nothing back. Of course, in his retelling, he’d done his best to downplay his own role in the affair.

‘I didn’t know I had it in me...’ Kazuhiko thought grimly. Now, all he could do was wait for his fate to be decided. This feeling of his life being in another’s hands was terrifying.

‘Hiss, that was a close one. My little girl was almost sold off. Good thing i gave you a heads-up... For that, Haru, can I get a few more manga volumes?’ Nyarko, crawling on the floor, snickered.

Haru ignored the shameless, silver-haired pervert in his mind and narrowed his eyes. “A marriage alliance with the Ryougi family, huh...”

The Ryougi family, the local powerhouse of this City... it had to be that young lady who’d famously declared, “If it’s alive, I can kill even a god.”

Wait a minute. He was a God, and he was alive... Haru had the sudden, unsettling feeling that he was about to be cut into seventeen pieces.

‘The Ryougi family? Is there something special about this human family? Why are you so emotional about it?’ Nyarko asked, surprised.

“Go read your manga!!” Haru snapped.

‘Don’t be like that~ Tell me!’ A cloyingly sweet, pleading voice echoed in his mind.

Haru’s lip twitched. He strode across the soft, beige tatami mats and stopped before the collapsed figure of Masahiko Asagami.

Looking at the ‘epileptic’ patient, who was twitching and foaming at the mouth, Haru impassively lifted his finger.

‘Wait a minute!!!!!!!!’ Nyarko shrieked.

“Ahem, what the hell are you doing?” Haru cleared his throat and said with a displeased expression.

‘You’re not going to just kill this guy, are you?’ Nyarko asked with suspicion.

“What else?” Haru’s brow twitched. To make a move on his Fujino, even if he hadn't succeeded, the thought alone was enough. Why not kill him? To extinguish evil at its source was only logical, right?

‘Tsk tsk tsk, do you even know how to live? Do you know what pleasure is?’ Nyarko smacked her lips, a teasing look on her face.

“What the hell?” Haru asked, his expression strange.

‘No sense of style at all. How have you survived for so long?’ Nyarko sighed, her expression practically screaming, ‘Son, I’m very disappointed.’

“Sorry, I haven’t even been born for a hundred years,” Haru said, putting his hands in his pockets, his tone sarcastic.

‘Ugh—! Fine, watch and learn~’ Nyarko’s face stiffened. After a moment’s hesitation, she lifted her slender, pale arm and, in a pinched, theatrical voice, she announced.

Plop! Plop! Plop! Plop!

A large, blackish-red shadow suddenly appeared beneath Masahiko Asagami. Then, countless octopus tentacles shot out from the shadow, dragging the epileptic youth into the darkness.

Gnash, creak, crack, crunch.

A blood-curdling chewing sound slowly echoed, like a large rodent feeding.

“—!!!!”

Kazuhiko’s pupils constricted. He stared in horror at the shadow, his heart in his throat. His pants, which had already been soaked from his earlier incontinence, were now thoroughly drenched.

“The arts of the Cthulhu Mythos... the aesthetic really is terrible,” Haru said, his lip twitching, a humorless smile on his face.

‘Though a flash of black light would have been enough, don’t you think this is much cooler!!’ Hearing this, Nyarko immediately bristled, like a little girl whose favorite toy had been insulted. She waved her pale hands wildly, her face a mask of indignation.

“Your taste is terrible...” Haru was already too tired to comment on the Outer God’s aesthetic sense.

Splat—!

A figure, covered in a white liquid, was spat out from the ground and, with a thud, landed before Kazuhiko Asagami.

“...” Looking at the ejected figure, Haru’s expression suddenly turned a ghastly shade of greenish-purple.

“Ta-da!!! The young lady of the Asagami family is born!!! Let her go to the marriage alliance!!!” Nyarko’s teasing voice echoed in the air.

Hearing this voice, Kazuhiko trembled, his face turning a sickly green. He almost recognized it.

Then, hearing the words ‘young lady’ and ‘marriage alliance,’ his expression turned strange. The naked young woman before him was indeed a one-in-a-million beauty.

Wait a minute...

This appearance, the feeling between the eyebrows... why did it look so much like his older brother? Kazuhiko stared at the mysterious bulge, his expression a twisted mask of horror.

“Do as I say!!” The Outer God’s whisper sounded in his ear.

“Yes!!!!” Kazuhiko’s pupils constricted, and he roared, his voice hoarse.

“Nyarko!!!!!” Haru covered his eyes, his voice filled with a deep resentment.

Damn it, damn it, one moment of carelessness and this crazy person had created a cross-dressing big shot.

He was going to go blind!

“Hahaha, he wanted a marriage alliance, right? He can go himself. Oh, by the way, a friendly reminder, that thing between his legs is detachable. Want to try it?” Nyarko’s crazed laughter echoed through the heavens.

“Get lost!!!”

————

In an inner room of the Asagami residence.

“Mom, I made three new friends at school today,” Fujino said, sitting on the floor, a cheerful smile on her face as she chatted with the middle-aged woman beside her.

“Mm, mm.” The woman, who bore a slight resemblance to Fujino, smiled and listened to her daughter’s stories, nodding from time to time. Though she was smiling, her wine-red eyes were filled with a deep, maternal love.

Clank—!

The sliding door was slowly pushed open. The sound startled the mother and daughter, who were in the middle of a conversation. Haru’s figure slowly appeared before them.

“This should be our first meeting, right? Mrs. Asakami,” Haru said with a smile, looking at the black-haired woman before him.

When he had taken over Fujino’s care, he had informed her biological mother. In fact, this woman had been a great help in Kanzou Asagami’s ‘disappearance.’

After all, as a protective mother, how could she not have known that Kanzou was feeding her own child forbidden drugs to seal her supernatural abilities?

The moment she had a chance to resist, she had naturally cooperated to the death. Of course, the initial trust was largely due to the effect of a suggestion spell.

“It’s Mr. Haru. My daughter has been in your care this past month,” Mrs. Asakami said, respectfully performing a kneeling bow.

“It was nothing. By the way, Fujino will probably be staying at home for a while. And of course, so will I.”

Haru walked up, crouched down, and with a sweep of his large hand, he pulled Fujino into his arms. His hand slipped into her black nun’s habit and, caressing the loli’s delicate skin, he chuckled softly.

Mrs. Asakami ignored his liberties with her daughter and said with a smile,

“It would be my honor!”