I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 13

by Namekojirushi

  “What...?”

  I guess now I knew what she wanted from me, but this was rather strange. She wanted me to make her lose at something, huh?

  “I don’t really understand.”

  “I meant exactly what I said. And if you can’t manage to win against me, I’ll do terrible things to the people around you,” she laughed with a wicked grin.

  “Terrible things...?”

  “That’s right. As long as I can speak, no matter how cruel and heartless, inhumane and atrocious, unthinkable and inconceivable the words... I’ll talk until I have nothing left to say.”

  “...!”

  To her, putting something into words was the same as making it happen.

  “So what will you do? I doubt you’ll refuse me. You’re the type of guy who would throw everything into taking care of a bomb threat with nothing to go on, after all.”

  That felt a little underhanded... But either way, I had no choice but to accept her demands for now.

  “All right, I g—”

  “Oh, and if you’re confident enough, I don’t mind if the challenge is something perverted.”

  “As if I’d do that!”

  “So you’re not confident, hmm?”

  “I can’t hear yooooouuu!”

  She must have found it fun to pick on me, as she was still grinning wickedly. Damn it! I didn’t stand a chance against someone like her, even though I knew she was just trying to provoke me...

  “Fine! Since you insist, I’ll make you lose as much as you want!”

  “So you’ll go with a perverted challenge after all?”

  “NO!”

  I really was bad at dealing with this...

  “Anyway, I accept your challenge. However, you first have to give Mio and the others back.”

  “Very well. You may have them back.”

  Again, according to the mysterious power of her words...

  “Kyah!”

  “Wah!”

  The very next moment, Mio and Rachelle fell back into their seats.

  “Huh? What happened to us?”

  I could practically see the question marks hovering over Mio’s head, but she didn’t seem to be hurt or anything.

  “Ooo...”

  I peeked under her hat just to be sure, and I found a very dizzy-looking Poppy.

  “Rekka.”

  Upon hearing my name, I turned around to see R with a solemn expression on her face.

  “I’m sorry. My fixed coordinate function was forcibly terminated, temporarily removing me from my position. My canceler works against most magics and psychic powers, but hers appears to be capable of great interference.”

  An ability so powerful that even R, an advanced lifeform from the future, feared it...

  “Now, shall we begin the challenge?”

  “Yeah...” I said with a nervous gulp.

  ▽

  Now, even though I’d agreed to challenge her, coming up with something on the spot wasn’t easy. Thankfully, however, we were in the middle of a festival. There were countless activities I could challenge her to here.

  “First up is a shaved ice eating contest!”

  “Oh, do they still sell shaved ice in the autumn?”

  Touko was impressed by the wrong thing, but she accepted the challenge readily. I honestly didn’t think it was the right season for shaved ice anymore either, but it was cheap and easy to sell. It did feel pretty nice after working up a sweat walking around all day, too.

  “Okay, whoever finishes eating first is the winner.”

  “Understood.”

  Touko and I stood facing each other, shaved ice in hand.

  “Do your best, Rekka! I’m cheering for you!”

  “G-Good luck!”

  Rachelle was frantically waving her hands in a show of support from a short distance away. Poppy was also cheering for me, but in a quiet voice from under Mio’s hat so no one else would hear her.

  “U-Um, then...” Mio mumbled as she took her place between me and Touko.

  We’d asked her to act as a referee, so she’d be overseeing the match.

  “Begin!”

  She then swung her raised hand downward, signaling the start.

  “NomRRRRAAUGH!”

  I quickly shoveled as much shaved ice into my mouth as I could, and my frozen brain made me groan in response. This was the real challenge of a shaved ice eating contest. Now, to see if Touko could do any better...

  “Wow, you’re pretty fast,” she said in awe as she leisurely watched me eat.

  The spoon in her hand hadn’t budged an inch. Was she even going to try? I had to wonder, but I soon got my answer...

  “I guess I’ll just eat mine in one bite,” she said.

  Then, true to her word, she lifted her spoon and ate all of her shaved ice in a single bite.

  “H-Huh?!”

  What on earth just happened...? I hadn’t taken my eyes off of her for a second, yet I had no idea how all her shaved ice was gone. The spoon shouldn’t have even been able to hold all of it at once... But I’d also just seen her do it. I was terribly confused.

  “Aah... that hit the spot!” Touko furrowed her brows with a laugh.

  She was probably holding back her brain freeze just like I had been a few moments earlier. It wasn’t as though she had physically turned a heap of shaved ice into a bite-sized amount, nor did she simply make the shaved ice disappear... She’d eaten it all in one bite, just like she said she would.

  “She’s distorting the laws of causality... What an amazing power.”

  R put a name to the phenomenon, but I didn’t need her to do that in order to realize Touko’s power was truly incredible.

  “Now that puts you at zero wins and one loss. What will you challenge me to next?”

  “...”

  Well, I hadn’t expected to win so easily. There hadn’t been a limit on the number of challenges set, so I had intended on using the first few rounds as bait to test the waters of her mysterious power.

  “All right, next is...”

  ▽

  Next up, we swung by Nozo-mini.

  “Another eating contest? How unexciting.”

  “What can I say? I’ve always been a rather dull guy,” I replied lazily as I walked through the curtain to Nozo-mini.

  “You came back, Rekka!”

  Lea welcomed me warmly when she saw me enter, but a very sulky Tetra standing right next to her had a different reaction.

  “Who’s this, Rekka?”

  “Ah, this is...”

  “Hello. I’m Touko Iwazu.”

  Touko introduced herself before I could finish my sentence, taking Tetra by the hand and shaking it emphatically.

  “Er, um... It’s nice to meet you,” Tetra replied, somewhat taken aback.

  She was probably stumped trying to reconcile Touko’s ostentatious outfit and her friendly demeanor. But as that was going on, Tsumiki walked over too. Rather than sulking like Tetra, she was straight up glaring at me.

  “...And? I heard you went to Juumonji High yesterday. Did you ensnare another new girl while you were there?”

  “Please don’t put it that way... Anyway, I only met Touko today.”

  “You only met her today, yet you’re already close enough to go around the festival together?”

  “No, no, no. It’s not like that.”

  “You see, I’m in the middle of a challenge with Rekka Namidare,” Touko explained, unexpectedly offering me a helping hand from Tsumiki’s sharp attack.

  “A challenge?”

  “That’s right. And if he wins, he’s entitled to whatever he wants with me as a reward.”

  “WHAT?!” the other girls all yelled in shock.

  “That wasn’t the deal!” I protested.

  “Ooh, I felt a wonderful surge of love energy just now!”

  And, of course, Rachelle was basking in the chaos like she hadn’t a care in the world. She made an interesting counterpoint for the aloof and deadpan R, so I g
uess it kinda all evened out in the end.

  “Love energy? The angel sure says interesting things,” remarked Touko.

  “Hey now, despite all appearances, whether or not I get love energy is a matter of life and death for me, you know? Why, before I met Rekka, I was on the verge of starvation...”

  “Hmm...”

  Touko half-listened to Rachelle’s rant about love energy as she sneakily leaned in close to whisper to me.

  “Hey, is this girl actually a real angel? I thought she was just a cosplayer at first, but her wings and halo don’t look like any costume.”

  “Can’t you just figure it out with your power?”

  “There are ways, certainly. But if you just tell me, then I won’t have to resort to something so pointlessly cruel.”

  “Er, yeah... She’s a real angel.”

  “My, how amazing! Come to think of it, back when I made the girls disappear in my shop, you called out to someone named Poppy, too. Where is she?”

  “...”

  Touko apparently hadn’t spotted Poppy yet. She’d definitely used her power to make her disappear earlier, yet she didn’t know where Poppy actually was? What did that mean?

  “Poppy’s a fairy. Right now she’s hiding under Mio’s hat. It’ll be trouble if anyone finds out she’s here, so if you have to peek, do it discretely.”

  “Certainly.”

  Touko nodded, then lifted Mio’s hat a little and excitedly proclaimed...

  “Goodness, a real fairy!”

  Her surprise seemed genuine, indirectly confirming for me that she really hadn’t known where Poppy was this entire time. That had to mean the power of her words worked exactly as she stated them, whether or not she was aware of the consequences. That was pretty brutal.

  Tactics like ambushes only worked by taking an opponent by surprise. In other words, the key element was the opponent’s lack of awareness... But if Touko’s powers could work on targets she didn’t even know were there, I’d never be able to fully catch her off guard. I’d have to think of another way to win. And as I was turning that over...

  “Eek!”

  I suddenly heard a small yelp. I turned around to see what it was, and lo and behold...

  “Ow, ow, ow...”

  “Wuh?! H-How did I get bigger?!”

  A human-sized Poppy was sprawled out on top of Mio, both of them on the floor.

  “H-Hey, what’s going on here?!”

  “What? It would have been difficult for her to enjoy the festival like that, so I simply made her a little bit bigger.”

  “Y-You can even do something like that...?”

  “But of course,” Touko said nonchalantly.

  “Wow, thank you so much!” Poppy happily bounced on her heels as she thanked Touko over and over again.

  Her excessive gratitude drew a little attention, but it seemed no one had actually seen her get bigger, so no one really questioned anything. After that...

  “So, what did you guys come here for?” Tsumiki asked, impatiently tapping a serving tray against her shoulder.

  “Oh, that’s right. We came to have a contest,” Touko said, clapping her hands together as she turned to look at me. “What’s it going to be this time?”

  “This time...” I said, pointing at Tsumiki before declaring the terms of our challenge. “We’ll take turns eating Tsumiki’s cooking, and whoever lasts longer wins!”

  “So the aim is to hold out the longest? Does that mean this is a binge eating competition?”

  “No. If anything, it’s a battle of stamina and your will to live.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?!” Tsumiki demanded, kicking me square in the pants.

  “Sorry! I’ll thank you for this later, so just play along for now, okay? Please?”

  “Ugh... Since you’re so insistent, fine,” Tsumiki finally agreed, albeit reluctantly.

  While I felt a little bad, I knew the only way I could combat an exceptional power was with another exceptional power. And Tsumiki’s cooking certainly fit the bill. Anyone who ate it unprepared immediately suffered great physical and mental consequences. Sometimes there were even explosions involved. The only people who’d ever eaten more than a plateful of it and survived were Lea, Corona, and the poor fool that had been playing the part of Tsumiki’s taste tester for months—me!

  Not ten minutes later, Tsumiki walked over to us with a large, heaping tray of a mysterious substance. The mysterious substance—what I referred to as dark matter—bore no resemblance whatsoever to food. Needless to say, it was about as appetizing as you’d imagine. First of all, it was wriggling for some reason. And though I was staring directly at it, I couldn’t clearly discern its shape. My sense of smell was completely befouled in less than three seconds, and my tongue lost all sensation shortly thereafter. And I hadn’t even bitten into it yet, mind you. This stuff was just that destructive. Surely it would make even Touko cower...

  “My... Shouldn’t this be blurred out?”

  “Hey! What are you saying my cooking looks like?!”

  Or not. She was just chatting away with Tsumiki, which I have to say I found rather strange. As far as I knew, beyond wielding the power of words, Touko was a perfectly normal human. Yet she hadn’t even batted an eye at the black, wriggling mass on the table. Meanwhile, I was already sweating nervously.

  “Well, I’ll dig in now.”

  “?!”

  I was just sitting there trying to come up with an excuse to go after her, but then she up and volunteered to go first anyway!

  “Let’s see here...”

  Without showing fear or faltering, and without saying anything that sounded like she was using her power, Touko chowed down on the dark matter.

  Munch, munch, munch... Gulp.

  “It has a strange texture.” And that was her only reaction after cleaning her plate. “But it was yummy.”

  Upon hearing those words, everyone in the room—including Tsumiki—was stunned into astonished silence. I think the two words running through everyone’s heads simultaneously were, “No way.”

  “Now it’s your turn, Rekka.”

  “R-Right...”

  I was pressured into picking up my chopsticks.

  “...”

  I tried poking at the dark matter and heard a faint groan (?) in response. I still refused to believe this stuff was actually food. Moreover, I couldn’t believe anyone other than Lea thought it was good. It’d be one thing if she’d used the power of words to make it good, but I hadn’t heard her say anything like that. Could it be that the dark matter looked as gross as ever, but actually tasted pretty decent nowadays? No, there was no way... Still, even if there was a one-in-a-million—no, a one-in-a-billion chance, then... I convinced myself that I might be about to witness a miracle, and...

  “Hom.”

  I dug in.

  ▽

  “You’re now at zero wins and two losses. But more importantly, are you all right?” asked Touko, her arms folded.

  “...Somehow,” I muttered, staring at my own ghastly face in the mirror in the nurse’s office.

  To think I would pass out after one bite despite all the resistance I’d built up...

  “How did you eat that crap without using your power, Touko?”

  All I’d heard her say was that she would go first.

  “What? It’s simple—I did use my power. I used it while you were being kicked and apologizing to that Tsumiki girl.”

  Ah, so that’s what happened. It was true I’d been too occupied at the time to be keeping a close eye on Touko. No wonder I hadn’t noticed her using her power.

  “Incidentally, what did you say?”

  “That you, Rekka Namidare, would suffer all of the effects of the next thing I ate.”

  “You jerk!” I yelled without thinking.

  I was wondering why the dark matter had taken so much more of a toll on me than usual, but that would explain it, huh? I’d basically taken twice my share of suffering. Go figure I
passed out.

  “Hahaha, this is your own fault for trying to make an innocent girl like me eat that stuff.”

  “Grrr...”

  Unable to argue, I fell silent.

  “You may have nothing to say, but you should feel bad for Tsumiki,” R said with an exasperated look.

  Well, that much was true. Still, I’d had no choice but to resort to Tsumiki’s dark matter, although... I guess that was kind of R’s point.

  “By the way, where did Mio and Rachelle go?” I asked Touko.

  “Oh, I told them I’d look after you so they could go explore the festival at their leisure. That fairy girl was itching to go anyway.”

  “I see.”

  Poppy finally had the chance to enjoy the festival properly now that she was full-size, so of course she wanted to go check everything out while she could. Mio had rearranged her busy schedule to come here for the day, so I wanted her to enjoy it as much as possible too. I’d feel bad if they both spent their limited time looking after me.

  “Thanks for doing that, Touko,” I said gratefully.

  “Don’t worry about it. It was no big deal,” she replied with a laugh.

  In that moment, she didn’t seem like the kind of person to threaten people into challenging her. She’d even been nice to Poppy earlier without anything in it for her, so she couldn’t be all that bad of a person deep down, right?

  “Well, then,” she said. “I think it’s time for the next challenge now.”

  “Right.”

  I slapped my cheeks to pump myself up. I’d known this from the beginning, but in a way, Touko was my most formidable foe yet. She’d yet to show any sign of a weakness. But before I could even set myself to figuring that out, there was something else I still didn’t understand.

  “Hey, Touko,” I called out to her as we walked down the hallway.

  “What is it?”

  “Why did you want me to challenge you?”

  After the bomb threat and body swap incidents, it was clear that Touko had singled me out as her target from the beginning. There had to be a reason for that, but what was it?

  “My fortune.”

  “Your fortune?”

  “Yup. It’s my hobby,” Touko said with a smile. “Is there someone in this world who could win against me? If so, where are they? When I looked into my future for those answers, it led me to you. Then I located you and set up various little tests for you. I wanted to see if it was really possible.”