Chapter 372: I, Yukari, Am a Beacon of Positivity
Seeing the wariness and unease flicker across Ahri's stunningly delicate features, Kaguya offered a reassuring smile. "No need to worry — she's one of us too, actually. One of our Moderators, even. Think of her as my boss."
Even after Kaguya's explanation, Ahri's unease didn't fully fade.
Those cluster of crimson "eyes" lining the gap's edges were simply too unsettling to shake off easily.
Still, she let some of her guard down. In her current state, she knew perfectly well that if this newcomer had wanted her dead, there'd have been nothing she could do to stop it.
And the fact that she hadn't been killed meant this black-haired girl — the one who'd introduced herself as "Kaguya" — was, for the moment, the only person in this whole mess she had any real reason to trust.
So if Kaguya said there was nothing to worry about, that this was simply one of her own arriving, Ahri decided to take her at her word.
A few moments later, Ahri watched a blonde "girl" step out of the strange gap — someone whose looks and figure were nothing short of breathtaking.
Not quite as young-looking as Kaguya, perhaps, but this parasol-carrying blonde "girl" didn't look a day over twenty, going by appearances alone.
What Ahri had no way of knowing, of course, was that this "girl" had actually been alive for several thousand years — calling her an old hag wouldn't have been an exaggeration in the slightest.
The moment Yukari stepped through the gap, her eyes landed immediately on the group's newest arrival — the nine-tailed fox spirit, Ahri.
A flicker of mild surprise crossed her clear, striking eyes as she murmured, half to herself, "Same species on paper, but this one feels like a completely different breed of fox from my Ran. Ah, well — nine tails is nine tails, I suppose."
Yukari's own shikigami, Ran — the "dowry maid" Ryū never seemed to stop bringing up — was likewise a nine-tailed fox spirit, same as this League of Legends world's Ahri.
Nine tails made you a nine-tailed fox spirit, full stop. No further qualifications needed.
Nothing wrong with that logic whatsoever.
At least, that's how Yukari saw it.
"Yaraya~ra. Looks like little Kaguya's gotten along quite well with our newcomer — none of that early wariness left, I see."
Yukari mused this aloud, then paused before continuing, "Those uninvited guests from a moment ago, by the way — rule-breaking reincarnators from the Sacred Ground, though their strength wasn't anything to write home about."
Her gaze settled on Ahri — covered in wounds, though most of them fairly well treated by now — and she asked, curious, "Newcomer, your own strength should be nothing to scoff at, being a nine-tailed fox spirit and all."
"So how in the world did six such laughably weak rule-breaking reincarnators manage to run you down this badly? You're seriously injured — bled out enough that it shows."
Kaguya cut in with a resigned aside. "Yukari-nee, you're a genuine top-tier powerhouse. Of course the newcomer, however strong she might be in her own right, can't hold a candle to you."
"Honestly, even the Admirals or an Emperor from the One Piece world would look like small fry standing next to you, Yukari-nee."
Yukari's face lit up with sudden understanding, nodding along in full agreement. "Mm... little Kaguya makes an excellent point. And I have to say, that particular brand of flattery feels very good indeed."
Ahri: "..."
She couldn't shake the growing impression that this blonde "girl" was — compared to the black-haired Kaguya, at least — considerably less reliable.
And this was the person calling herself a Moderator of this so-called "Dimensional Chat Group," Kaguya's own supposed superior, no less?
Something about that pairing felt more than a little backwards. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense the other way around?
Just as Ahri's thoughts started drifting further down that particular rabbit hole, Yukari's crisp, pleasant voice rang out again. "Newcomer, you can stop worrying now — those six rule-breaking reincarnators? Already dealt with, every last one of them. And I even turned a nice little profit doing it. Lovely."
A reincarnator's watch was worth 500 Points a piece — six of them added up to a tidy 3,000 Points, which for Yukari, having dumped nearly everything she had into mirror-space magic, counted as genuinely welcome pocket change.
Add in the 15,000-Point reward for the invitation quest itself, and the two payouts combined would land somewhere around 18,000 Points once everything was finalized.
That was no small sum for a youkai sage currently sitting on a grand total of 2,000 Points.
With 18,000 more coming in, she'd be looking at a balance of roughly 20,000 — plenty enough for another round of reckless spending. Delightful.
Ahri had no idea what exactly this blonde "girl" meant by "profit."
She still didn't have anything close to a clear picture of what the Dimensional Chat Group actually was, either.
All she knew for certain was that both this "Kaguya," and this self-proclaimed Moderator of the group, were... genuinely strange individuals.
And this blonde "girl" had just casually announced that all six of her attackers were already dead!
Which meant her own life-or-death crisis had just been... resolved, out of nowhere, without her lifting a finger?
Ahri felt her thoughts sliding into a fog. She'd been ambushed by six humans without warning, having done nothing whatsoever to provoke them — and yet they'd come after her like she was some sworn enemy of theirs.
Careless as she'd been at the time, she'd fallen for some strange technique that had left her power crippled, barely able to fight at even fifty or sixty percent capacity.
That was how she'd ended up on the run, cornered and bleeding — and then, in the middle of her flight, these two girls had simply appeared before her, like saviors sent down from the heavens themselves.
Everything that had happened today was simply too much to process all at once, and Ahri found herself struggling to keep up.
Once she'd managed to gather her scattered thoughts, she found herself circling back to what Kaguya had said earlier.
Timid, she finally asked, "So... you mentioned wanting to recruit Ahri into your organization. Could you tell me more about it?"
Kaguya answered with a smile. "Tell you about it? Honestly, why don't you just join first — you'll get a much better sense of what the Dimensional Chat Group actually is that way."
"Don't worry, we're nowhere near evil. If anything, we're a pretty positive bunch. Genuinely! Isn't that right, Yukari-nee?"
Yukari nodded along enthusiastically. "Mm, absolutely. Especially your humble narrator here — this magnificent youkai sage is basically the walking embodiment of positivity within the Dimensional Chat Group!"
"..."
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