I took Rina to a non-emergency clinic and waited beside her bed until she woke up.
"Wh-what…?"
She looked left and right, not knowing where she was or what had happened to her. At first, her expression held deep dread and regret, as if she thought she had been drugged and messed with by the men who would offer help, at a cost.
But that didn't happen.
"Inoue-chan! You're awake."
My voice caught her attention and she looked at me, at first confused, then her eyes widened in realization. "M-Mister Foreigner…?!"
"My name is John— Vasco Johnathan, by the way. Also, don't get up so quickly! You had just suddenly collapsed after I watched you take that call, so I took you to a nearby clinic. You're in a hospital."
Rina took another look around and calmed down after a few minutes. "I… I see, you are V-Vasco-san.. ... I— I didn't actually go there, right…?"
"You don't have to worry about anything like that, Inoue-chan. I have it all taken care of. Those men won't call you anymore."
In fact, they won't even be able to trick another girl again, since they've been burned so deeply, their soul was destroyed. They can't even reincarnate. Serves them right.
"They won't…?"
She looked relieved at first, but that relief turned to deep concern the next moment.
"My Mother…!"
Oh, yeah. Her sick mother and her hospital bills are the reasons Rina was going to sacrifice herself. Such a pure-hearted woman.
"Inoue-chan… I don't think your mother would ever want you to risk your life like that."
Rina gripped her blanket hard, her little knuckles turning white. "How… What else was I supposed to do…? There's no time, and I can't even afford to go to school… get a job and then start paying for Mother's medication…!"
A tough bind, indeed. All too common, unfortunately. I'd like to say that I can fix this Earth's problems, but I wish to be selfish for just a little while. I need a break from being a Hero.
"You don't have to worry about that, either. Your Mother is doing just fine now. In fact, want to go visit her?"
"Huh?"
While I had altered Rina's memories somewhat, I went to her Mother's hospital while Rina was out cold. Her mother actually had double cancer. The breast cancer she started with had spread to her lungs, and the doctors hadn't caught it, yet.
That is, until I used my healing magic to cure the lung cancer and suppress the breast cancer. She isn't fully cured, as that would raise questions, so I simply made it seem like the cancer treatment was starting to work better.
Still, my healing magic isn't enough to cure a cancer that's already so deeply rooted. I'd have to touch her soul directly, which means she'll know I was the one who actually cured her.
After Inoue was checked out and given the all clear, I walked with her to the hospital where her mother was.
When we got to the sixth floor, Rina rushed to her mother's room and froze in place when she saw her. Rina's mother was staring out the open window into the bright night sky. She had a peaceful and happy smile on her face as she turned and looked at her daughter.
"Ah, Rin-chan. I didn't know you were going to visit today."
Needless to say, Rina's mother was also a beautiful woman. According to her medical records, she was 35 years old, yet she didn't look a day over 25 despite all of the cancer treatments.
Rina rushed to her mother's arms and gave her a gentle hug with tears in her eyes.
"Fufufu~ Silly child. Why don't you introduce me to your boyfriend first?"
With that little joke, Rina stood straight up with a blush on her cheeks and protested her mother's claim. "M-Mom! He— He's not my boyfriend!"
"Oh, was I wrong? Sorry~ I had only assumed because you brought him here with you. Such a shame, he's such a handsome foreigner!"
"Haha! Thank you for the compliment, Inoue-san. It is nice to meet you." I performed the standard Japanese greeting bow with a small smile on my face.
"My! So polite and knowledgeable about Japanese culture! Are you sure you aren't my daughter's boyfriend?"
"Mother!"
At Rina's embarrassment and insistence, her mother stops teasing her and laughs it off. I excused myself from the room so they could talk in private.
I waited for a while, until Rina exited the room and looked at me nervously. "Eto… Mother wants to talk to you…"
"Is that so? Alright."
Eavesdropping on a private conversation between normal people isn't my hobby, but I did hear Inoue-san yelling angrily. I could tell it was anger out of deep love and concern, though. Rina probably told her about what she almost did and what I claimed to have done to help her.
I altered her memories, but I wonder what she actually saw.
I enter the room alone and close the door. Inoue-san just looked at me like a gentle mother would look at her son. She kinda reminded me of my own mother… I miss her, but it wasn't like she was alive when I got isekai'd, so there's no point in thinking about that.
"Hello, Inoue-san. It's nice to meet you." I greeted her once again and she simply giggled to herself.
"I heard you helped my daughter out. Prevented her from doing something stupid. But, I have to ask…"
Suddenly, her tone went from gentle to almost demonic. It even caught me off guard by the sheer amount of bloodthirst I felt from her.
For some reason, I'm reminded of my mother again…
"What family do you work for?"
…Huh?
"Sorry? I don't know what you mean."
"Don't play dumb with me, boy. From what foreign family do you work for? The Russians? The Chinese?"
Oh. She thinks I'm from a foreign Mob Family. I mean, with Rina almost getting sexually assaulted by Yakuza, and me getting involved, it could be reasoned that I was part of a crime family.
"Inoue-san. I don't belong to any crime family, Japanese or foreign."
I'm more surprised that Inoue-san seems to have deep knowledge of Yakuza and Mafia… and the guts to stand up to a person whom she thinks might be one, despite being bedridden.
For what seemed like forever, Inoue-san just looked into my eyes. Then, just as suddenly as she became scary, Inoue-san relaxed and rested her head on her pillow.
"I see. I can tell you aren't lying. Still, I need to know your true reason for saving my daughter's life."
Thinking that this would take a bit of time, I sat down on the chair next to her bed and sighed. "Truthfully? I thought she was a beautiful girl who needed to smile instead of cry. I bumped into her while I was walking outside and asked her what was wrong."
"And that's when she collapsed and you brought her to a clinic? Then you claimed to speak to the men trying to prostitute her and dealt with all of her problems with them just like that?"
She didn't believe me for even a second. That's probably why she thought I belonged to the Mafia.
"You don't believe her story. I don't blame you." I chuckled nervously.
"Of course not. Such a fairytale ending to the issues in our life can't possibly happen just because a stranger just so happened to bump into her."
She looked at me for a long while before asking me again, "Are you going to tell me who you are?"
I shook my head and smiled. "No. All you have to know, is that I'm not a dangerous person to good people like you and your daughter."
"What, so you're just some Hero, are you? Perhaps it was you who suddenly eased my cancer? It was going to kill me in just a few months and nothing was working. Suddenly, I'm better, my daughter was saved, and you appeared. I'm not stupid."
She knows I did something. Rina is a bit too naïve, or perhaps just so preoccupied with the deep-rooted problems that she isn't thinking about it clearly. It seems being so close to death, Inoue-san has a sort of intuition for things like these, especially when it has something to do with her child.
"Maybe what you're thinking is right… maybe not. But, I guess what I'm gonna do now isn't gonna help my case. Hehe."
I stood up and walked closer to Inoue-san's bed. She didn't even flinch and instead, glanced at the door, she was more concerned about Rina than what I might do to her.
"Don't worry, I'm just gonna help a little."
I put my hand on Inoue-san's sternum and focused my healing magic deep into her soul.
In the Other World, cancer was actually an affliction of the soul. When the soul cracks just a little, it ripples throughout the body and negatively affects the physical body. It produces tumors that turn into various types of cancer. What I'm doing is healing that crack.
Usual Earth cancer treatment doesn't actually cure the cancer, it simply cuts out the weak flesh that was most affected by the ripples, or in the case of radiation treatments, it reinforces the affected area instead of sealing the crack.
It's the same case here, on this Earth. Inoue-san's soul was cracked, and it damaged her breasts and lungs.
I sealed the crack but left the affected cells in her body. This way, it will heal naturally and make it seem like the treatment got rid of the cancer.
"What… what did you do?"
She could probably feel that something in her was fixed; her soul.
"I just got rid of your fear. Now, you can spend as much time with your daughter as you want."
When I touched her soul, I could feel her emotions. Most of what I felt was love and fear. Both of which involved her daughter. Her love for Rina and the fear of leaving her to fend for herself as Rina slowly got involved with unsavory people.
"My fear…!"
Inoue-san immediately surmised what I meant by that and she looked at me in utter shock. The Emmitt I felt in her eyes when she first looked at me was replaced by a new, slight fear, but mostly curiosity.
"Really…. Who are you?"
I shrugged my shoulders and turned around to leave. "I'm just a guy who came to like helping folks."
•••••
•••••
"This fucking game…! Such a bullshit boss fight! No wonder it got a low consumer score!"
I tossed my controller on the bed and sighed as I looked at the 'You Died' on my monitor screen. The game was as if Dark Souls was made by Ubisoft working with EA to create the most diabolical 'hard' game.
It wasn't hard, it was just bullshit. And buggy.
"At least the world I was sent to wasn't at all like Dark Souls. I would have become such a different person if I were…"
I chuckled to myself as I imagined myself suffering through a real-life version of Dark Souls. I'm lucky I was sent to a high-fantasy world that wasn't a dark void of pain and misery.
As I mused on my lucky life, my phone rang and once I saw who was calling, my mood immediately improved.
"Hello, Rina-chan!"
[H-Hello, Vasco-san! How are you doing?]
Rina, Inoue-san, and I had exchanged contact information after that first hospital visit. I wanted Rina to be my first Idol, so I insisted she call me once she made a decision.
At first, Rina thought it was suspicious of me to offer such a thing, but Inoue-san was supportive. After she read the contents of the draft contract that I totally didn't just create then and there… Inoue-san was even more supportive.
Basically, Rina would be a V-Tuber Idol and Streamer who has total control of her own schedule and a guaranteed salary for the year.
[Really, Vasco-san…! I can't just accept that crazy amount of money…! I'm not sure I even have the qualities of an Idol…!]
And, of course, Rina protested the salary. I wasn't gonna take 'no' for an answer, so I simply declined her refusal.
"Your mother said that you had always wanted to become a singer, right? Why not just sign the contract? It's your dream, isn't it?"
[B-but…—!]
I heard a muffled slam of a table in the background and Inoue-san's voice.
[Really, Rin! Just take the offer! Vasco-kun is a good man and he'll take even better care of you in the future!]
As soon as she was able, Inoue-san demanded to be discharged from the hospital, despite the doctors wanting her to stay so they could figure out what exactly happened to her cancer. She would have none of it and threatened to sue if she wasn't promptly released.
Inoue-san isn't a woman you want to mess with…
"Come on, Rina-chan. You aren't going to get another opportunity like this one… Well, you can, because I'll always offer it to you, but… You know what I mean!"
[…]
Rina was silent on the line for a long while before speaking up in a fragile tone.
[…Okay… Where should I go…?]
It was the same words she used when on the phone with those dead Yakuza. Though, instead of sounding like she gave up on life, it sounded like she found a new reason to live it. Her stifled crying was of joy instead of hopelessness.
"I'll send you the address by text. See you soon."
I hung up the call with a satisfied grin and booted up my totally normal equipment and computers. Technically, all of the hardware and software was possible to make on this Earth without my magic, it was simply too advanced for this age. Not advanced enough to seem out of place, but it was definitely up there.
I'll get no complaints from any possible investigation, plus, I can always patent it and sell it to other companies in order to keep a healthy competition going. That's for the future, though.
"Hmm… looks good. Tracking is good, no lag, no jittering of the model… Alright. Now, for Rina's virtual model."
Rina is a beautiful woman, with short brown hair cut into a slightly messy bob, and big brown eyes that made one think she was just a normal, innocent girl.
Yet, she was a 19-year-old girl, who dropped out of school when she was 16 to work multiple part-time jobs to help her ailing mother. A girl who nearly met the worst end to her life. A girl who was immensely lucky that I just so happened to be here.
Since Rina was not a social girl due to her past of overworking and dropping out of high school, a sociable and bubbly-looking Gal would do nicely. Her virtual self has to be one that will hook audiences. It's gotta capture a gap moe.
I made her model 5'5", a few inches taller than what she is in real life. Long and wavy blonde hair tied in a high ponytail with pink ends and bright blue, starry eyes, a small beauty mark under her left eye, and a cute little nose that was slightly reddened, as if it were a little cold outside. The model's lips were full and faintly shined with pink lip gloss.
Her model wore a cropped pink sweater that said 'CUTE' in a bold white text and tilted slightly. The ends of the sleeves had glitter, too. For her lower half, she wore high-waist jean booty shorts and white thigh-high striped basketball socks that she wore at the calves and a pair of pink and white untied Jordan 1s. With nails that were long and pink with glitter on her fingers, she held a microphone.
She looked like a typical, bubbly, and stylish gyaru gal you'd see in a lot of anime. Of course, this was only what Virtual-Rina would wear starting out. I already had numerous other clothing items for Rina herself to choose from, just so that her avatar's appearance doesn't get boring, being the same every stream.
"Perfect timing."
At the buzz of the doorbell, I open the front door of the building and allow Inoue-san and Rina inside. On the intercom, I directed them to take the elevator all the way up to the top floor.
A few moments later, the elevator doors opened and both women walked inside.
"Whoa…! This is a huge studio!"
The whole penthouse was changed with my magic. It's an open floor design with no walls at all. There were only the private bathrooms and the lounge that had proper walls.
"My… How much did all of this cost?"
After only 2 weeks, Inoue-san looks much healthier than when I first saw her. If she looked like a sickly 25-year-old woman then… Now, she looks like a healthy 20-year-old. You'd have no idea that she already has a full-grown daughter. They look more like sisters, genuinely.
Wait… if she's 35 years old… That means she had Rina at 16. No wonder she's so protective of Rina… her own life must've been very hard.
"Please, sit down on the sofa over there and I'll go and get the original final draft copy of the contract. Feel free to use the vending machine, it's not programmed to take any money."
Once I gather the contract I set it on the table and slide it towards Rina, who was sipping on her canned iced chai.
Before Rina could pick it up, Inoue-san snatched it from my fingers and read it over. Even if she encouraged Rina to sign an Idol contract with me, she still wanted to make sure. It's not like she doesn't trust me, but I think it's just one of her habits as a Mother.
She read the paper in its entirety, which wasn't that long, and the contract was filled with lots of restrictions on my end and filled with freedoms and benefits on Rina's end.
"This contract… is tremendously one-sided, heavily favoring Rina. Are you sure you want her to sign it?"
Without hesitation, I nodded my head. Inoue-san just glanced at Rina and she flinched under her mother's gaze. Rina put down her chai and stiffly stood up.
"V-V-Vasco-san! Before I sign anything…! Eeh…! I mean— I want to see if you ap—approve of my singing…!"
Ultimately, Rina wanted to be an Idol Singer, not necessarily a V-Tuber. As per the contract, all Rina had to do was be an entertainer, whether she wanted to play games, or sing was up to her. And she definitely wanted to sing.
If she genuinely has a good voice and a talent for singing, then I'll happily cast just a tinge of magic to help her singing potential. If she's not good at singing, I won't help her on that end.
"Alright. Go ahead, then. There's a microphone on that desk, there. It's already connected." I pointed to the microphone on my computer desk and gave her the go-ahead.
Rina nervously picked up the microphone and turned around, silently muttering something that the microphone didn't manage to pick up. I could read her lips, though, and she kept saying to herself, 'You got this…!'.
It took a few minutes for Rina to calm down, and soon, she let her voice fly.
Even without music, her melody was perfect, and her notes were spot on. There was no voice crack or hesitation in her tone. It was almost like she was in her own world. Instinctively, I cast an analysis magic on her and the Potential Rating the Magic gave to her voice was… SSS Class?!
That's actually incredibly appalling. In the Other World, the highest I saw was my own rating for Mana Control being S Class. To find that high a level of potential in such a mundane world was crazy. I don't even have to magically boost her potential.
Her voice also felt a bit familiar… She sounds like Ado.
Yes, Rina is going to be the greatest singer on (this) Earth, for sure…