The Nue had now become a monster with the head and legs of a tiger, the body of a tanuki, and the tail of a snake. It was definitely more dangerous than when it had the head of a dog. Just because it was a ferocious tiger, it was by far the most dangerous out of all the functions I had come across as a worker. What’s more, it even had a snake for a tail.
“Grrrr…”
The Nue slowly approached Saito while giving a growl.
“Isn’t this worse than before?”
“If it’s only this much, then it’s not a problem. But I’ll go back to explaining. Should I use this?”
Saito spoke as he reached into his bag.
Slowly taking his hand out of the bag, he held out a tree branch. The Nue had a big scowl on its tiger cafe. Hey, is this really okay?
“Look.”
Saito threw the tree branch away.
The Nue lowered its stance and sniffed the scent of the tree branch. Just as it crouched down, its expression became very relaxed.
“This is the power of silver vine.”
Saito said that proudly as he placed his bat on the ground. He bega to slowly approach the Nue and began stroking the tiger head.
“Alright, alright, COUNTA, COUNTA.”
The Nue was completely relaxed as it began to lie down, giving a Saito a wave as if telling him to do something. Only the snake on its tail shook its head, a little unsure of what was going on. Saito continued to process it while stroking the tiger’s throat.
“COUNTA, COUNTA. Oh, Takahashi, do you want to come over too? It feels good.”
I was wondering what Saito was saying, what was happening in front of my eyes was so abnormal that my eyes were going crazy.
“Eh, then, is it really okay?”
I gingerly approached the tiger and touch its throat. Oh, it’s soft. Since it was a feroucious animal, I thought its fur would be as hard as the hairs on a spider, but it was actually fluffy and soft. It had an addictive feeling to it.
“Is this what you call fluffy?”
“Fluffy? That’s a good term for it. Ah, this really is fluffy.”
At that moment, something cold suddenly touched the back of my neck. I heard a hiss in my ear. Turning around, the head of the snake was right next to me. My blood went cold at once. Not good, I was completely caught off guard.
The snake wrapped itself around my neck. I managed to get my arm in between it, but it was still horribly tight. I felt like my arm would break.
“S-Saito-san, p-please help me…”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I was careless. Give me a moment.”
Alright, Saito said as he stood up. Then, grabbing the snake’s neck with both hands, he began to silently tighten his grip.
The snake twisted its head and moved its mouth in an attempt to bite Saito’s wrist, but it couldn’t reach Saito, who was holding the base of its neck. After a while, its resistance disappeared and its body went limp as it relaxed. The force trying to strangle me weakened.
“INDIRECT, INDIRECT, INDIRECT, INDIRECT, INDIRECT, INDIRECT, INDIRECT.”
A ball of fire appeared from the snake’s limp mouth.
“ARRAYFORMULA.”
Saito quickly processed it.
“T-Thank you very much. I thought I was going to die.”
“My bad, I was playing around a bit too much. Let’s deal with this guy. COUNTA, COUNTA, COUNTA, COUNTA, COUNTA, COUNTA, COUNTA. There we go.”
Another ball of fire emerged from the tiger’s mouth.
“ARRAYFORMULA.”
The tiger and snake elements were gone, so all that was left was the tanuki.
※Reference Material
Manual on How to Fight Dangerous Animals (A “What if” illustrated book) (written and supervised by Tadaaki Imaizumi)