Chapter 15: It Seems Normal to Get Writer's Block from Working Overtime
As a man of his word, Hikigaya Hachiman made the Laundry Machine fly with incredible flair.
By the time he finally set the guy back down inside the Manseiya, the guy's hair had already been blown into a pompadour.
But that was just the surface. Even with the protection of Hikigaya Hachiman's power, the Laundry Machine still felt his ears ringing, his stomach churning, and a strong urge to vomit.
To make matters worse, he heard the other party teasingly ask, "Are you happy? Was that exhilarating?"
"I'm not happy at all!" Enduring the discomfort, the Laundry Machine took off his glasses and asked indignantly, "What exactly do you want?"
He stopped pretending to be a child.
However, he still didn't believe in anything like magic, no matter how miraculous Hikigaya Hachiman's performance had just been.
It was nothing more than the other party mastering some special technology; the technology of modern people would be seen as the power of gods in ancient times. So-called magic was just a collective term for things that were temporarily incomprehensible.
Kudo Shinichi could be considered one of the very few modern humans completely devoid of "witchcraft thinking."
As the ancestor of all supernatural forces controlled by humanity, witchcraft was born alongside human civilization; it is a part of civilization and a product of when humans began to distinguish themselves from beasts.
Compared to abstract rational thinking, the elements of witchcraft thinking are resonance, imagery, and combination. All three elements are concrete, and the process of thinking moves from image to image. This kind of thinking dominated the human brain for a long time. From the perspective of modern brain science, witchcraft thinking can be classified as right-brain thinking.
Therefore, even modern humans who theoretically possess scientific and rational thinking will unconsciously use this more primal way of thinking in their daily lives. This leads to their so-called rational worldviews actually wavering between rationality and witchcraft; subconsciously, they are very "irrational."
In this world, being able to properly control witchcraft thinking is the basic skill of a true Magician.
There are not many people with this ability, so there are also very few people who can become Magicians.
But people like the Laundry Machine are even rarer than Magicians because he is the opposite of ordinary people. Rational thinking takes absolute priority; no matter how irrational something is, he must forcibly interpret it rationally, otherwise, he won't feel at ease.
Thus, after being toyed with by Hikigaya Hachiman for a while, his definition of Hikigaya Hachiman merely rose from a "stranger" to a "mysterious person."
Unlike Nakamori, whose definition of Hikigaya Hachiman was a "miraculous person," he easily accepted irrational things in the popular sense.
It's not that this makes Nakamori appear stupider than the Laundry Machine; even if he were indeed a bit duller, at least that isn't the reason for him being dumber than the Laundry Machine.
In the eyes of Hikigaya Hachiman, who was crouching down again to play with the Laundry Machine, this wasn't a reason for the Laundry Machine to be smarter than others either.
"Relax, you don't have anything worth me having bad intentions over." He continued to talk nonsense with a smile.
"Not going to keep pretending to be a kid? I thought it was quite interesting."
The Laundry Machine's expression looked very unhappy.
"Although I don't know how you did it, joking aside, I need to go back immediately. Someone is in danger."
Putting on a serious expression, the Laundry Machine looked around with both eyes while speaking.
Hikigaya Hachiman even saw him secretly pinching himself. Did he think he was being hypnotized?
The Laundry Machine's personality is quite stubborn...
Hikigaya Hachiman suddenly realized that meeting the Laundry Machine in this manner wasn't actually very good. The Laundry Machine in this state was too rational; there was no good point of entry.
"Since you've put it that way, it's indeed not time yet."
After saying that, Hikigaya Hachiman issued a new command to the Manseiya.
Soon, wind began to blow inside the house, and it wasn't a small disturbance, as the several sleeping children were already being lifted by the wind.
The Laundry Machine was also blown up. He stared with his four eyes, watching the brats of the Detective League flying beside him while drooling in their dreams. Meanwhile, at the position of the ceiling above their heads, a dark circular hole was generating, sucking him and the brats toward it.
"Hey, hey!" The Laundry Machine grew anxious. "This kind of thing is going too far!"
He really didn't understand how the other party managed to make his brain accept such a scene. Wasn't this level of hypnosis too exaggerated?
Regarding the Laundry Machine's panic, Hikigaya Hachiman simply waved politely and gave a friendly reminder: "Think more about the dead ghosts who have accompanied you along the way; this isn't going too far at all."
Hearing this, the Laundry Machine only had time to show an expression of shock and bewilderment before being swallowed "splat" by the black hole.
Next were the naughty kids of the Detective League.
And after that, there was nothing more. The Manseiya finished its work, and silence returned to the room.
"Why did you send them away?" Ena asked.
She didn't think Hikigaya Hachiman had picked up his moral compass just because the other party was a child. Moreover, hearing the conversation just now, that child was likely a fake.
Transformation techniques are very common in the magic society, so Ena easily made such a deduction. The only thing that made her a bit unsure about this conclusion was that there were no traces of magical power on the other party's body.
"It can't be helped, the other party doesn't possess purchasing power yet," Hikigaya Hachiman stated his reason. "Even if he did buy something, he'd probably just buy some cheap goods. There's no profit in it; it's better to keep letting him grow in the wild."
"I see." Ena nodded, expressing her understanding, and then asked with a bit of slight anticipation, "There shouldn't be anything else to do these next two days, right?"
"What's wrong?"
"Recently, my heart hasn't been able to find peace, so I want to go to my former training ground. The mountains here are too quiet."
Hikigaya Hachiman thought for a moment and felt that she probably found the mountain environment here at Hinata Inn too monotonous and not "wild" enough.
Well, there are indeed fewer animals...
"Sure, when are you leaving?"
"I'll leave in a bit. I need to properly recover."
"Got it, I'll see you off."
Hikigaya Hachiman didn't stubbornly try to keep her from leaving. Cultivation is a good thing. Invincible-style stories are certainly exhilarating, but cultivation-style stories are more inspiring.
Hikigaya Hachiman himself practices martial arts daily as part of his routine.
Walking to the parking lot, the helicopter that had been transferred earlier but had soon become useless was already parked there.
After a few casual words, Hikigaya Hachiman sent Ena onto the aircraft, closed the hatch, and watched the helicopter take off.
He felt that he and Ena were becoming more and more like an old married couple...
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