“Is something the matter?”
“No, my apologies. This is something like a code used for a game. Would it be alright if I took a picture of it?”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Thank you very much!”
Aoi-san’s mother looked slightly puzzled, but what we had been after was the string of letters and numbers written on the sticky note.
Whether that sticky note was still there had been a huge gamble—but it looked like we’d won.
This gave us a chance to turn the situation around, if only a little.
“Well then, thank you for your time.”
“Of course. Please come visit again anytime.”
After obtaining what we’d come for and chatting with Aoi-san’s mother for a little while, we left her family home.
“I’ll definitely visit again. …Um, before I go, may I ask one strange question? Even if proving Aoi-san’s innocence causes your family to become the center of attention again… you’d still rather have her innocence proven, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course. Isn’t that obvious?”
“…You’re right. Sorry for asking something so strange. I feel exactly the same way.”
Aoi-san’s mother answered without a moment’s hesitation.
Over the past four years, she’d undoubtedly been stared at by reporters and countless curious onlookers, and had probably endured more than her share of cruel words.
Even so, together with her husband, she’d continued fighting all this time, believing in their daughter’s innocence.
I’ll make sure those feelings reach Aoi-san.
Before leaving, I located a quiet spot nearby where almost no one ever came, so that I could easily return here later.
After checking something on my smartphone, I activated my Unique Skill and returned to the other world.
“K-Kakeru-san… h-how did it go?”
“Kakeru, everything alright?”
When I returned to the mansion, Aoi-san and Yuuka were waiting for me.
Aoi-san, in particular, looked incredibly anxious.
For four years—even longer than Yuuka—she’d prayed constantly that her parents were safe.
“Both of your parents are still living at home. They’ve continued fighting all this time because they believed in your innocence.”
“…!”
“Dad… Mom…”
Tears spilled from Aoi-san’s small blue eyes.
The same thing had happened to Yuuka and me.
Finding out your parents are safe really is one of the happiest feelings imaginable.
You should never forget just how precious it’s simply to know your family is alive and well.
“K-Kake… th-thank…”
“Yeah… I’m glad.”
She couldn’t even get the words out through her tears.
But I could tell exactly what she wanted to say.
She’d worried about her parents every day for the past four years.
Unlike Yuuka or me, she’d also been carrying the burden of a false criminal accusation.
Her concern for her parents must have been many times greater than ours.
“U-Um… I’m sorry about earlier.”
“Don’t worry about it. I cried too when I saw my parents again.”
“I cried my eyes out when Kakeru saved me too,” Yuuka said with a smile. “There’s nothing embarrassing about it.”
We waited quietly until Aoi-san had calmed down.
She looked like a young elf girl, but mentally she was a woman around my age.
She seemed embarrassed that she’d cried so openly in front of us.
But just as Yuuka said, crying because you care about your parents is never something to be ashamed of.
“I’ll say it again, but your parents—and your home—seemed to be doing alright.”
“Th-Thank you so much!”
Like Yuuka, Aoi-san had become quite wealthy in this world through her magic research.
If her family had been struggling financially, I’d planned to tell them she’d lent me money before she died and leave them a few gold coins.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like they urgently needed money right now.
Besides, even if I’d offered them gold coins outright, I wasn’t sure they’d accept them.
…I really needed more Japanese yen that I could actually spend freely.
“I used the login ID and password from that sticky note, and I was able to log into the site.”
“Thank goodness! Yes, these are definitely the right files!”
I logged in on my smartphone and showed Aoi-san the data I’d downloaded.
These were the pieces of evidence she’d collected to protect herself, along with audio recordings documenting the workplace harassment and sexual harassment committed by her superior.
The files had been stored in a free online cloud storage service, so they could be accessed and saved from anywhere.
The only problem was that Aoi-san had forgotten the combination of username and password needed to log in.
Well, that was understandable.
She’d suddenly been reincarnated into another world and thrown into complete chaos.
Besides, if you rely on your computer’s autofill feature every day, it’s easy to forget your passwords.
…Although sticking your login information to your laptop with a sticky note is admittedly a pretty terrible security practice.
She’d also kept copies of the files on her laptop itself, but there was no way her mother would have let me rummage through the contents of her computer.
So this had worked out perfectly.
“This is wonderful,”
Yuuka said.
“If we upload these recordings and evidence online, we should be able to clear Aoi’s name.”
“I hope so… But it’s been four years. Even if we release everything now, I don’t know whether people will believe it.”
She had a point.
If this evidence had surfaced immediately after Aoi-san’s death, it would have become headline news and spread across the internet in no time.
But releasing it as-is after four years would probably attract very little attention.
There was even a good chance her former superior wouldn’t face any consequences at all.
“I agree,”
I said.
“Simply uploading these files now probably won’t be enough to convince many people that you’re innocent.”
“But…”
“I have one idea.”
I’d once said that skills like video editing and programming were completely useless in this new life.
I take that back.
It looked like the skills I’d been forced to develop while working at that black company might finally prove useful… at least a little.
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