“So the culprit can even change someone’s gender?”
It seemed like nothing was out of bounds with this enemy.
“But Harissa made a cute boy, didn’t she? Although, her being a boy would be troublesome in terms of my mission.”
“...Yeah.”
“Anyway, that only leaves one more oddity. How about you stop complaining already and get your butt to your class?”
“Understood.”
At R’s urging, I slapped my hands against my knees and stood up. Remotivated, I started walking towards my own classroom. It was already past two o’clock. It was nearly three, actually. If all the oddities were planted with the people I knew, then the last one surely had to be with Satsuki and the others. There wouldn’t be an issue if I found it, but... No, there was no point in thinking about that anymore.
When I got there, I entered our classroom which had been rebranded as “Maid Cafe Vampire” for the festival.
“Welcome!” all the girls shouted as I stepped inside.
I was surprised by their perfectly coordinated greeting.
“Ah, if it isn’t Rekka!”
Then one girl in particular jumped out from the crowd to greet me personally. It was Iris. The uniforms for the cafe were inspired by both vampires and maids, so the somewhat gothic outfit had a great deal of emphasis on the color black. I had seen what the maids wore at Rosalind’s mansion plenty of times before, but this was different. It suited Iris quite nicely.
“Well? Am I cute?” she asked, twirling around elegantly as she held her skirt.
“Yeah, really cute.”
“Yay!” she cheered, her twintails bobbing up and down as she bounced in joy.
“Hmph, it’s an outfit of my own design, after all. Of course it would be cute.”
That was where Rosalind chimed in, speaking proudly of her handiwork. She was also wearing the cafe uniform, which naturally looked quite good on her too.
“Rekka,” Satsuki then called out. “Come have a seat over here.”
“Ah, sorry. I shouldn’t stand in the doorway and block traffic.”
At her prompting, I took a seat. Maid Cafe Vampire seemed to be relatively successful, with a fair amount of customers still around even past peak hours.
“Wh-What would you like to order, m-master?”
“Hm?”
Satsuki was asking for my order with a bright red face, so I tried to laugh it off to reassure her.
“It’s all right. You don’t have to treat me as a customer too. Isn’t it embarrassing?”
“I-It is, but that’s not...”
“Hm?”
I’d seen her blushing when greeting customers earlier, so I’d assumed she was having the same trouble with me... Was I wrong?
“She’s probably just embarrassed about calling you master,” R said with a sigh from where she was watching in the air.
“?”
I mean, my guess wasn’t that far off... Why did she seem so exasperated with me? Whatever. For now, I ordered a drink.
“C-Coming right up.”
With her face still red, Satsuki left the table to fetch my order. When she walked away, both Iris and Rosalind approached the table where I was sitting.
“Rekka, have a chat with me!” Iris cooed.
“Um, are you sure?”
“Yeah, yeah! It’s almost my break, anyway.”
“Fancy that,” added Rosalind. “It’s almost my break as well.”
The two of them then took seats next to me.
“I worked reeeally hard today, you know? I wish you’d been here to see it, Rekka!”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I had patrol duty and all that,” I said, pointing to my armband as an excuse.
“There were sooo many customers! We were sooo busy!”
“And it was all thanks to me,” huffed Rosalind as she crossed her legs and leaned back smugly in her chair.
“You did put a lot of effort into helping out with the cafe, setup and all.”
“Hmph, it was nothing.”
While the words coming out of her mouth were more modest than usual, her expression was still as proud as ever. I wished she would use that passion in her regular school life... At least, that’s what I was about to tell her. But when I realized I wasn’t particularly passionate about school either, I had to hold my tongue.
“Hey, you two! What are you slacking off for?” Satsuki returned, carrying my juice drink on a silver tray, and scolded Iris and Rosalind on sight.
“But it’s already break time!”
“Our break starts at three, you know? There are still three minutes left on shift.”
“Gosh, Satsuki. You’re always suck a stick in the mud.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“You should have more... Now, what was the word again? Chill, I believe? It won’t kill you to relax a little.”
“Not you too, Rosalind...”
The three girls went at each other noisily. Before I knew it, Maid Cafe Vampire was starting to sound just like our typical classroom. Y’know, business as usual. And with that feeling came...
“Why is that guy hogging all the maids to himself?”
“I can’t believe that blonde tsundere loli girl is already falling for him. No matter how you look at it...”
“Huh, is she? I can’t see anything through my tears...”
“Hey, wasn’t that guy with two other hotties earlier at Nozo-mini? Not to mention the little girls that surrounded him outside.”
“Argh! I’m losing my will to live! The world is so unfair!”
Yup, all the other guys in class were glaring daggers at me.
“Wherever Rekka goes, carnage is sure to follow, it seems,” said R.
I calmly sipped my juice as I wished for mercy.
“But, hmm...”
I had been observing the girls for a while, but I hadn’t spotted anything odd with the three of them yet. Maybe it was something that couldn’t be “spotted,” per se? Based on what had happened with Harissa earlier, I couldn’t write off the possibility...
Satsuki and Iris were one thing, but maybe there was something going on with Rosalind? After all, there was that incident a month ago where she’d grabbed me and I’d felt a little more than I expected... Wait, what am I thinking about?! I was supposed to be trying to find the oddity here, not staring at breasts.
I shook my head and checked myself. I tried to get back on track, but I still couldn’t see or find anything odd.
“Well... What do you think? It’s my first time wearing this myself, but don’t you think I look quite stylish even dressed as a servant?” Rosalind inquired, shooting me a rather flirtatious look all of a sudden.
My heart skipped a beat as I went speechless for a moment.
“Well, Rekka? Does it strike you?” she said expectantly, recrossing her legs.
Though Rosalind’s appearance was childlike, she was a vampire. She could be intensely bewitching at times like these. Not that I would ever say that out loud...
“Um, well, yeah... I think you look cute too.”
“Hmph, that’s not what I was hoping you would say at all,” Rosalind replied before leaning forward in her chair to get closer to me. “Do I have to call you master too to get what I want?”
She lifted my chin with a twist of her finger and met my gaze. Our faces were so close that I thought she was just about to kiss me, when...
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Satsuki and Iris both raged.
“I can’t believe how... how... how Rekka you are! You clueless jerk!” Satsuki fumed, grabbing me by the collar and shaking me furiously.
“And you, Rosalind! Don’t you dare try to steal a march on him right in front of us!”
“I don’t want to hear that from you, little Miss ‘I Kidnapped Rekka and Dragged Him to an Amusement Park in Space!’”
Iris and Rosalind both dramatically put one foot up on a chair and leaned in, glaring at each other as explosive tension
mounted between them.
“Hey, um, I’m sorry to interrupt, ladies, but... Your shift is over now. Would you mind changing so the next maids can use the outfits?”
Unable to just sit by as things escalated further, one of our classmates intervened by calling out to Satsuki and the other girls. I looked at the clock to see it was already past three. It was time for their break, but...
“No way! Today’s the day I show this babyface my true power!”
“Hah! I’d like to see you try, little girl!”
Iris and Rosalind weren’t budging at all. And while they were going at it, Satsuki was still trying to shake me to death.
“You’re always like this, Rekka! I’m the only one you didn’t compliment in the maid outfit too... Ooh, I’m so mad!”
It was like she was completely oblivious to everything else. She just kept shaking and shaking and shaking... Wait a minute.
“H-Hey, uh, Satsuki?”
“What?!”
“It’s already three, you know?”
“I don’t care about my break right now!”
Aha! That was it! There was no mistaking it. And it wasn’t just Satsuki, but Iris and Rosalind too. It was already three o’clock, but not one of them had said a word yet.
“Then I guess we’re calling off our date to go around and see the festival together?”
We’d had an agreement to meet at three when they got off their shift. And no matter how heated things got between them, there wasn’t any way Satsuki, Iris, and Rosalind would ever forget about it.
Bang!
There went that bursting sound again.
“...Wuh?”
“...Huh?”
“...What?”
Suddenly, the three of them had blank looks on their faces like their rage had instantly evaporated.
“That’s right, Rekka! We’re going to eat crepes right this minute! Let’s leave these two in the dust!”
“What are you talking about, Satsuki?! Rekka is going to see the bands play in the gymnasium with me!”
“Hold it, you two! Rekka is most certainly going to sample the new products at the mobile bakery in the parking lot behind the school building with me!”
In no time at all, the three of them were back to their usual bickering over me. Actually, wait a second... How was this really any different than before? They were just as fired up, including Satsuki being wound a little tighter than normal.
Well, all that really meant was that I’d get dragged around even more than usual as we went around campus... But eventually, at last, the first day of the school festival came to a relatively uneventful end.
▽
When I finally got home that night, I fell straight onto my bed the moment I got to my bedroom.
“Man, I’m totally wiped out... That was way more work than I thought it’d be.”
I mean, I’d expected to be tired at the end of the day, but the day had turned out to be much longer and much more trying than I had anticipated. After all the unexpected nonsense, I was dead tired. And today was only day one... Would I even live through tomorrow?
For day two, the plan was to go visit the Juumonji High part of the festival and see what I could do to help out there as an emissary of the festival committee. I’d already promised to meet up with Hibiki and the others in the morning, but now I wasn’t sure I’d ever make it.
“...”
As my thoughts turned to tomorrow, I reached into my uniform pocket and grabbed the note. After what had gone down today, it now read...
Dear Rekka Namidare,
Congratulations! You cleared the game.
Maybe you’ll actually live up to all my expectations?
Yours sincerely.
I’d been pretty vigilant all day, so the chances that anyone had swapped notes on me were low. But what? Did that mean the note had changed on its own? Either way, I’d ended up searching the whole school even after clearing the challenge just to be sure, but I never found a bomb. Maybe it had been a false alarm all along, but there was still something freaky going on.
“I wonder what the point of all this was...”
That was still puzzling me. Who was the culprit behind the letter? Why had they done this? There were too many unanswered questions, but I was way too tired to come up with any answers tonight.
“I’ll discuss it with Hibiki tomorrow...”
With that, I got up from bed and went to take a bath. Not with Harissa, mind you. Just so we’re clear, okay?
Chapter 3: A Banjo Twist
For the second day of the festival, I went to help out at Juumonji High School as planned. Granted, that didn’t really mean much. All I had to do was show my face at the student council there and ask if things were going okay. They said they had everything under control, so I didn’t even have to patrol like I did yesterday. Hell, that meant I’d actually get to enjoy the festival while I was here. President Momone knew I had friends at Juumonji, so maybe she’d set this up on purpose as a way of thanking me.
“I guess she has some compassion after all.”
That was probably one of the reasons she was so admired as the student council president. I mean, she was a total hardass, and I wished she’d cut me more slack, but still...
Anyways, I made sure to double-check with Juumonji’s student council and offered to help out again with any loose ends before I went to meet up with Hibiki at the school gates.
“Heya, Hibiki! Did I keep you waiting?”
“Nah, you’re still ten minutes early,” she replied, glancing up at the large clock on the school building.
“...”
“What is it?”
“Nothing... I mean, I guess you wear a uniform at school too.”
“O-Of course I do!” Hibiki yelled in a fluster. “Y-You’ve even seen me in it before, remember?”
“Ah, now that you mention it...”
That was... back during the Couples Afro Incident, I think? In order to lure out the culprit who was targeting couples, Hibiki and I had pretended to go on a date together. She’d worn her sailor-style school uniform to seem more feminine.
“Good grief... Who do you think I am?”
“Well, you know. You’re just always in street clothes whenever we meet.”
“Your school has blazers for both the boys and girls, right?”
“Yeah. Even Hoshikawa Middle School nearby uses blazer uniforms, so I rarely see the sailor kind.”
Hoshikawa was where Rain and Fam went to school. They were having a festival of their own next weekend, and they’d invited me to come check it out. Actually, speaking of them, I had to wonder if they were stopping by Mitsuhashi High’s festival again today... I forgot to tell them I’d be here instead. Well, Satsuki and the others will still be there, so I’m sure they’ll have fun even without me.
“Oh, it’s almost our designated meetup time. Who all’s coming today?”
“Chelsea and Ellicia, and Sherlyn too. Corona said she’d be bringing the spirit sisters Lyun and Sophie. Kiri and Zeta said they’d make an appearance too.”
“Wow, even Kiri and Zeta? I had no idea Kiri lived around here.”
“Well, you did meet her in Hokkaido, after all.”
Yeah, I’d just totally assumed she was a local. Apparently her sidekick Starmon had only teleported her there to defeat the kaiju that had shown up.
“If Zeta’s coming too, then there’s probably going to be another meeting for her show...” I grumbled a little unhappily.
Zeta, the director from outer space, was the creator of the show Legend of a Real-Time Hero: Galactic Great, which of course featured the main character Galactic Great... played by me. The show aired on an irregular schedule, but it involved me fighting secret evil organizations, space kaiju, and whatnot. Kiri was super enthusiastic about playing her companion role of Galactic Beauty, but she was already a superhero in real life. Me, meanwhile? A pleb like me was risking his life just to get into situations like that. Though
I guess I can’t complain too much... I’m only reaping what I sowed.
“That sounds exhausting, but... Good luck, I guess.”
“Thanks. I’ll do my best.”
With a sigh, I looked up at the big school clock just like Hibiki had earlier. It should be about ten right now...
Thump!
Just then, someone bumped into me from behind.
“Oh?”
“Huh?”
I shouldn’t say bumped, because it felt more like they crashed into me. The impact pitched me forward... straight into Hibiki. Just before we collided, I caught a momentary glimpse of a completely unguarded expression on her face from right up close. But there was no stopping the inevitable...
Thunk!
Our heads knocked together, and I saw stars as we tumbled to the ground. Everything then went black for a second, but I came immediately back to my senses after that.
“Owowow...”
I reached my hand out and rubbed my throbbing forehead. That was definitely gonna leave a mark... I tried to open my eyes, but the tears filling them made it hard to see.
“Hibiki, are you okay?”
“Yeah, mostly...”
Wait a minute. Our voices were...
“Huh?!”
“What?!”
Hibiki and I were both equally dumbfounded. It sounded like her words were coming out of my mouth and vice versa. Actually, come to think of it, why was she suddenly on top of me when I was the one who had fallen on her? I could feel my back on the asphalt and everything.
Confused, I wiped away my welling tears with the sleeve of my uniform. When I did, I realized it looked an awful lot like the sleeve... of a sailor uniform? I immediately looked up over it and saw a familiar face staring back at me. Actually, that’s an understatement. I saw my own face staring back at me, and the look on my face was one of utter shock. That makes two of us, buddy.
The only way I could think to explain this was if someone had suddenly shoved a mirror between me and Hibiki when we fell, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
“...”
I glanced down at myself, and there were... Unfamiliar lumps on my chest, shall we say?
Damn it, does that mean I have to accept it now? I gulped as I looked back up at the “me” in front of me.
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 13 Page 7