Sasaki and Peeps - Volume 4 - Chapter 1

<Summary of Events Thus Far>

Sasaki was the kind of worn-out office worker you could find anywhere. He was about to enter his forties working at a midsize company in Tokyo.

But when he bought a cute silver-colored Java sparrow at a pet shop, the bird turned out to be a wise, illustrious sage who was reincarnated from another world.

This tiny sage granted him powerful magic and the means to pass between worlds.

Sasaki named the sparrow Peeps, and before long they began crossing to the otherworld together.

The two of them, a corporate drone in a dead-end job and an exiled former sage, both exhausted by their lives, immediately hit it off and began a business venture selling modern goods in the otherworld—all in order to secure a laid-back, relaxing life.

There, in Peeps’s former world, Sasaki was blessed with many fortuitous meetings.

Viscount Müller (now a count), the noble lord of the land and a former acquaintance of Peeps; Lady Elsa, the viscount’s daughter; Mr. Marc, the merchant who purchased the goods Sasaki and Peeps brought; and Mr. French, the cook who made them delicious food.

Having gained their support, Sasaki and Peeps’s business quickly took off.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, Sasaki ran into someone on the way home from work with mysterious powers who turned out to be a psychic.

Mistaking Sasaki’s otherworld magic for psychic powers, an organization recruited him—the Cabinet Office’s Paranormal Phenomena Countermeasure Bureau—and he began working there.

This new job came with a much more substantial paycheck, and Sasaki was all smiles. Now with more money, he was able to buy more stock to sell in the otherworld.

But such smooth sailing didn’t last.

While doing business in the otherworld, Sasaki became embroiled in a power struggle involving the noble and royal classes. What’s more, a neighboring country rallied its formidable army and launched an invasion headed straight for the town where he and Peeps first began their business. In order to protect the town—and all the people they’d met—Sasaki and Peeps rose to the occasion.

Working together, the pair solved all sorts of problems—they took on tens of thousands of approaching enemy soldiers all on their own, managed to rescue a prince stranded in enemy territory, recovered an acquaintance held captive by a political enemy, and won over a noble from the opposing faction.

But back in modern times, Sasaki’s work at the Paranormal Phenomena Countermeasure Bureau proved challenging.

His senior at the bureau, whose orders he followed on-site, was a belligerent girl still enrolled in high school, while his direct superior was a career government official with a lot of suspicious secrets. And his junior, Futarishizuka, for whom he was responsible, was an old lady in the body of a little girl.

Unable to rely on Peeps for support, Sasaki made use of the magic he acquired while training in the otherworld to survive a series of battles against psychics. With his silver tongue and sharp skills, he took out several high-ranking psychics and survived multiple life-or-death situations.

But that wasn’t all. A child calling herself a magical girl with a grudge against psychics staged repeated, one-sided attacks on the bureau as Sasaki struggled to mediate between the two sides. Ultimately, he revealed his otherworldly magic to her and wound up in the role of “magical middle-aged man.”

Eventually, with Futarishizuka’s cooperation, Sasaki and Peeps secured a means of converting valuables from the otherworld into modern currency. Sasaki continued his magical training, using it to great effect against psychics and magical girls alike. His free and relaxed retirement seemed within reach.

But then a new force rose to block their path—they learned that a death game had begun in modern Japan.

Sasaki ended up embroiled in a proxy war between angels and demons, where he found his next-door neighbor in quite the situation. Stuck without Peeps’s help, Sasaki risked his life to rescue her. And that’s when he learned about a fourth faction—unaffiliated with psychics or magical girls.

Furthermore, thanks to a little too much alcohol, Peeps leaked evidence of Lady Elsa’s visit to modern Japan all over the internet. Social media exploded in excitement over a video of her talking with a Java sparrow.

Of course, Sasaki’s boss wanted to know all about it. With Section Chief Akutsu suspicious of his subordinate’s true identity, Sasaki leveraged his knowledge of the chief’s backroom deals—information he received from Futarishizuka—to level the playing field.

But that comfort wouldn’t last.

Looking for Sasaki, his various acquaintances gathered at the hotel he was using as a base. His neighbor, Lady Elsa, Miss Hoshizaki, and the magical girl—four young women with vastly different backgrounds—have finally come face-to-face with one another.