Chapter 225 - We Can't Wean Ourselves
I steady my breathing, shifting my body's rhythm into combat mode.
I feel the blood rushing to my limbs and my muscles swelling up tight.
I whispered to Angelica, "What colors are they?"
"Colors?"
"On the radar displayed by the Perception skill, what colors are the owners of those footsteps showing up as?"
"Ah, I see—one is a pale red, and two are gold."
One villain and two police officers?
What kind of combination is that?
...The person responsible for framing Sugitani-san, and the two police officers acting as their guards...?
"So the big boss showed up right away? That's quick, and it helps!"
Before I could even finish speaking, I kicked off the floor with force.
With a Bago! sound of the floor being pulverized beneath my feet, I leapt in a straight line.
Next, I kicked off the wall, turning at a right angle on a trajectory that seemed to defy the laws of inertia.
There they were.
The targets—three small figures.
First strike wins; if I just dive straight at them like this... wait, for the masterminds of a police organization, all three of them are a bit too young, and besides, they're all women with cute appearances, which means could it be—
"Crap, I'm accelerating too much, I can't stop!"
Sorry, please dodge! I shouted as I charged toward the trio of women.
—I was diving with everything I had toward Erin and that duo of female police officers who arrested me.
"...Wh-?! The Hero...!?"
I tried to apply the brakes as much as possible, but even so, I couldn't slow down completely.
I pinned the three young women to the floor, and we tumbled down in a tangled heap.
It would be fair to call it a disaster.
No, rather, it was more like being caught in the act.
I felt a somewhat soft sensation in my hands, my face seemed to be resting on someone's chest, and hair with a sweet scent was fluttering against the tip of my nose.
It was an absolute sexual crime.
...It was unavoidable.
I truly, truly believed that the evil police executives had made their appearance.
I can only imagine that an villain appearing at a level displayed in red would be someone like that.
Damn it, Erin is from the Mage Race, after all. It seems that because Demon Races and Mage Races are inherently evil as a race, they are displayed in red regardless of the individual's personality...!
"This is a re-arrest."
"It is."
Beneath my body, I could see the female officers nodding to each other.
Are my charges increasing again?
"It's a misunderstanding... Hm? This fullness that feels like a fourteen-year-old's body is Erin. Hey, you, say something to help me out."
"...The moment you identified me by the feel of my bust, I think you've escaped being found guilty..."
Though I was re-arrested on the spot after sitting up, I was reluctantly released once I told them I had rescued Sugitani-san.
"Your superiors are waiting over there. Why don't you hurry along to them?"
Perhaps snapped back to my senses by those words, the female officers rushed off in a hurry.
Good grief, I'm finally free.
I sat cross-legged on the floor and began the task of observing Erin. It seems this cat-eared witch girl has increased her Attributes again.
"What's with that outfit?"
For some reason, Erin was currently sporting a police officer look.
She was dressed in a navy blue uniform, sitting in a girl-style crouch while holding down a knee-length skirt. Add to that a rounded hat, and she was a perfect "Acting Chief of Police."
When a girl with light blue hair and eyes wears such clothes, it looks nothing more than some idol doing cosplay.
"...These... those women lent them to me. ...When I transformed into human form, they hurriedly made me put them on."
"I see."
When Erin in cat form transforms into a human, she becomes a naked girl. It's only natural they'd lend her clothes out of pity.
"By the way, how are those police officers able to move normally? I'd think it wouldn't be strange if they got caught up in the infant regression."
"...In the beginning, they were regressing into babies. It was a struggle to bring them back to their senses."
"You can't use [Dispel], can you?"
When I asked how she brought them back to normal, Erin for some reason flushed her cheeks and made a gesture as if clutching her chest.
Just what did you do?
"...It was hard... Both of them called me 'Mama' while begging for milk..."
"How did you settle that?"
"...I satisfied them."
"In what way?"
"...I can't say."
"Eh, now I'm really curious."
"...I can't say."
"Even if you just tell me a little—"
"...I can't say."
Perhaps it's better not to ask. It's what they call a woman's heart.
"...The people of this country are susceptible to the infant regression debuff. Everyone falls easily..."
"Does nationality have anything to do with resistance to baby regression?"
"It does."
Erin nodded, saying it does indeed.
"...Mental interference-type magic... doesn't completely manipulate the opponent. Magic isn't that omnipotent. It merely loosens their reason and draws out what the target desires in the depths of their heart. ...It might be close to a state of intoxication."
"Whoa, hold on, if that's the case, then all Japanese people are a dangerous race harboring a desire to act spoiled toward their Papa and Mama despite being at an age where they shouldn't."
"Exactly."
She nodded twice in agreement. Are we really such a peculiar race?
"...Probably because the weaning age is early."
"Weaning... you mean weaning from milk?"
"...Yes. For races that engage in agricultural life, weaning is early everywhere. ...Because they can make weaning food from grains, it has become a culture for mothers to stop breastfeeding quickly. Human children naturally want to suckle even after they are three years old or older."
"In modern Japan, if someone hasn't weaned after age three, it would be an abnormal situation."
"...Early weaning is the abnormal situation for a living creature. ...That's why children of agricultural races grow up thinking, 'I wanted to spoil myself with Mother more, I wanted to suckle more.' Because they grow into adults while suppressing those wishes, they easily regress into babies under the infant regression debuff. ...Races that lead hunter-gatherer lives have late weaning, so that doesn't happen. For those races, I have to use different debuffs."
"Huh."
It was trivia that seemed useful but wasn't, truly trivial trivia.
"...As a user of debuffs, this kind of knowledge is a matter of life and death."
"True."
So mental interference-type magic isn't omnipotent, but rather something that merely drags out desires buried in the depths of the heart, huh?
If so, if one wanted to force someone to do something they truly hated, just how much energy would it consume? What kind of technique would one need to use?
While thinking about such things, Erin and I headed toward Sugitani-san and the others.
We can't keep talking about weaning forever, after all.
We have to escape this place quickly and discuss what comes next.