Welcome Back Party

All the post-incident cleanup was done.

Mahariku-san had successfully unlocked the ability to play her second character, Odd Jobs had declared an end to Outlaw Mode, and peace returned to the town of Suriad.

So.

After another day passed, we gathered again at the Odd Jobs building in Suriad. Quite the turnout, too, with eleven people crammed in.

Two characters each from our side made six, plus Mahariku-san's group of five.

We'd gotten together to throw a little celebration, but maybe we went overboard.

"It is a bit cramped, I'll admit."

"Well, everyone's here."

We took a breather while sipping regular tea. The kind without wrung-out sock juice in it.

Now then, it was finally time for Mahariku-san to start her second character.

Those of us who'd already unlocked ours watched on with knowing grins.

Fo fo fo, come, join us on this stage…!

"For starters, the second character works like the initial scenario selection where you pick from a list, and the choices are shared among all players on a first-come-first-served basis, yo."

"Same as with the first character, then… Maybe I should go ahead and pick while I can."

"One thing to keep in mind: you can't return to your first character until you either clear or fail the second character's scenario, yo."

"… Yes, that was on the Wiki too."

"I'm the one who posted it, yo."

"Much appreciated."

"By the way, there's one more surprise, yo… but it'd be a spoiler, so I'll keep it secret, yo."

"Fufu, how exciting…! The gameplay changes too, right?"

"It does, yo."

Mm-hm, mm-hm. I was looking forward to seeing what kind of second character Mahariku-san would go with.

"I'm leaving things to you while I'm away, Ichi."

"Yes ma'am! Leave it to me. I'll make sure to grow the company!"

"No? Maintain the status quo, please. I want to be the one to grow it."

"Yes ma'am! That was presumptuous of me! Orders received!"

Good. Didn't seem like Ichi-chan would go rogue with Outlaw Mode on her own.

If another "Save Suriad from Crisis" type mission popped up, that'd be a real problem.

That said, the real question was how many minutes it'd take for Mahariku-san to come back from our perspective.

"Well then, I'm off! Let's see… I think I'll go with this combat-oriented scenario."

With a pshun, Mahariku-san vanished.

… Why does Mahariku-san disappear, though? Could she actually be a spirit without a physical body, unlike the rest of us…? While I was mulling that over, I noticed Ichi-chan's Halo had become more elaborate.

It was the Halo that had been floating behind Mahariku-san's head just moments ago.

"Wh-what is it? Is something on my head?"

"… What's going on here?"

"So Ichi-chan was the real body all along?"

"Then Mahariku-san was… a ghost with a physical form?"

That would explain why she vanished while the rest of us didn't.

Mahariku-san was fundamentally an intangible, ghost-like being. A genuine spirit possessing Ichi-chan.

… Maybe any of the other employees would've worked, too. Everyone was here today, so all the numbered girls were present.

Well, I guess it was like how Miitei-chan's clones don't get Halos either.

"Alright then, Ichi-chan and everyone. Let's start preparing Mahariku-san's welcome back party."

"Should we put up decorations, yo? Like those paper chain things?"

"Success or failure… which will it be? Well, I figure Mahariku-shi will pull it off."

"Huh? But she only just left."

"Wait, Ichi! If it's Mahariku-sama, if it's our president, she can save the world and be back in no time!"

"Should we help with the preparations too?"

"If we use Inventory, the food won't go to waste, so prepping in advance should be fine."

And so, the party preparations began.

Oh, Penpen's grilling steak? If it's just cooking meat, Miitei-chan can handle that, so how about baking a cake too?

… However, contrary to our expectations, Mahariku-san didn't come back even after two hours.

Right, I'd forgotten. Mahariku-san's time flowed at a completely different rate from ours!

After all, thanks to the Restriction Release Code, time was flowing at 10x speed for all of us. So even if Mahariku-san came back after one hour on her end, that'd be ten hours from our perspective!

Feeling bad about getting Ichi-chan and the others' hopes up for nothing, we disbanded for the time being and agreed to reconvene that night.

I wonder what kind of girl Mahariku-san's second character will be. She'd mentioned something about a combat-type scenario, so probably a vanguard type.