bakemonoremy

Guest translation by Soup

Akiomi: It all started with Kagehira Mika-kun. As you already know, he is an orphan who lived in an orphanage in Kansai during his early childhood.

In the orphanage he grew up in, he is looked up to as a kind of hero for his illustrious work as an idol.

All of the children in the facility admire that kid— Kagehira Mika-kun.

They want to be like him.

If that were all, it’d be a good story, filled with idol-like hopes and dreams.

But of course, reality is so much more— we don’t live in a fairytale, you know.

First of all, there was an outburst of people who admired Kagehira-kun that wished to move into the facility he grew up in.

Kagehira-kun seems to frequently return with fanfare to his hometown’s orphanage to assist in caring for the kids who move in there.

With that in mind, the amount of people coming to live in the orphanage has increased because they want to meet Kagehira-kun.

He’s truly a local celebrity in his hometown, like a hero—so much so that the number of people who applied to move into the orphanage was a tad surprising.

Kagehira-kun himself seems to be unaware of his influence.

That’s precisely why that kid advertised his orphanage without concern on TV programs and such, talking about where he was raised as if it was a paradise.

Naturally, Kagehira-kun meant no ill intent, but the orphanage can only hold so many people.

That type of facility has no adequate arrangements to make money in the first place.

The more children they have, the more the management suffers from pressure.

The faculty didn’t have enough hands to go around, and the interested applicants began to complain that “it wasn’t like the paradise we expected,” so the orphanage’s reputation has taken a nosedive.

To make matters worse, something akin to a cram school for idols was built in the neighborhood of the orphanage for the children who want to become idols like Kagehira Mika-kun.

The orphanage was seemingly pressured by the voices of those aspiring children and the public, so they forged a business partnership with the training cram school. It seems that they’ve invested quite a fortune into it.

However, that training cram school in itself is the product of underhanded fraud, and as a result the orphanage has been scammed out of a large sum of money— they appear to have fallen into a great amount of debt.

Kagehira-kun needed money to save the orphanage, the place he called home.

For that reason, that child became active in the sort of vulgar work that is so unlike Valkyrie’s.

What? Yes, as I said, Kagehira-kun has done nothing wrong.

He never wanted to harrow his home facility, nor deceive the children who admire him so much.

Besides, none of the jobs he’s been doing are questionable— it’s honest work.

He is not actually involving himself in any crime, even if his work seems nothing like what Valkyrie would do.

However, there have been sort of half-truths circling the public, made by the fraud who deceived Kagehira-kun’s orphanage to escape the investigation.

As a result of that, it appears that a strange skepticism has befallen Kagehira-kun.

Of course, he was proven innocent and wasn’t accused of any crimes.

But Double Face, in the first stage of their investigation, had no way of knowing that.

So because Double Face didn’t have any knowledge on the matter, they suspected Valkyrie, and played this absurd game to wring information out of them. This absurd game would result in Double Face and Valkyrie fighting in the future.

I'm sure you saw it yourself, but on the day of the Antique Market, those two units clashed upon the stage.

It seems the public considered this development an enigma, wondering “why are these two units fighting?”, but for those involved, that course of events was simply inevitable.

Valkyrie had done nothing wrong, and yet they were still beaten down— it’s only natural they’d hit back.

As a teacher, it’s my job to tell them to stop their fighting.

But I unfortunately understand how they feel. Because I, too, was an idol.

Things have been more peaceful nowadays, so it seems everyone forgets this, but...

Originally, being an idol was basically all about kicking down your rivals, and a single winner seizing all of the glory.

They used to be such wild creatures, a herd of barbarians who’d take everything they wanted with brute force.

That’s why I wanted to become the "barrier" to protect the lovable people from being attacked by such barbarians.

Ah, I got carried away; all in all, that’s why Kagehira-kun had been earning money: to help the orphanage.

Itsuki-kun noticed that child’s hometown was suffering and couldn’t let it go unnoticed, so he made his move.

Itsuki-kun had done something troublesome.

Kagehira seemed to have no hand in the situation, and I believe Itsuki-kun likely acted on his own.

Itsuki-kun hung his head low even to Saegusa-kun, who he has quite the contempt for, and began to make suspicious movements.

Doing so stirred up trouble— he caught the eye of Double Face, who had then misunderstood him to be involved in fraud, and was targeted as a result.

So it was an accident.

I suppose it’s possible to say that Valkyrie had done wrong for acting suspiciously, but Double Face, too, would also be in the wrong for attacking Valkyrie when they had only seemed suspicious.

Thoughtless children that have acted as rash idiots... That’s how I see this particular case.

It’s certainly a stupid situation to laugh at, but by no means was it an “evil” criminal act to be punished for.

Being an idiot is neither evil nor a sin.