The Melancholy of the High School Girl Light Novel Author?!

by Tsuyoshi Fujitaka

  “That’s true. The resemblance can’t be a coincidence,” Aiko agreed.

  Aiko had read the most recent chapter published on the internet, so it had been easy for her to understand it. There were some respects in which Yuichi, who had only read the one published volume, couldn’t keep up.

  “By the way, Takeuchi, have you read it?” Yuichi asked.

  “No, I haven’t,” Natsuki said without a trace of guilt.

  “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t... could you see the castle in the sky?” Yuichi asked, suddenly curious.

  “This morning, I could,” Natsuki said. “Before then, I couldn’t.”

  So at first, it had only affected those who had read Kanako’s book, but as of today, it was even affecting those who hadn’t. The phenomenon’s influence was definitely expanding. Was it a matter of time passing, or had something triggered it? He couldn’t be sure, but Yuichi felt that they had to resolve it ASAP.

  “At any rate, it’s clear that Orihara is involved, somehow,” Mutsuko said. “Which means the first thing we have to do is find her.”

  “Orihara didn’t come to school?” Yuichi asked.

  “Yeah, she was absent today,” said Mutsuko. “And she’s hardly ever late or absent!”

  “I guess the only place to look is her house, then,” Yuichi mused. She had felt ill on Sunday, so she might still be resting up.

  “I already sent Sakiyama at your sister’s request,” said Natsuki. “He said she wasn’t in her house.”

  “I really wish you guys would stop asking him for help...”

  Sakiyama was Natsuki’s subordinate, a large man whose hobby was stalking. He lived with Natsuki, and he could also drive a car, so Mutsuko used him whenever she needed to carry large objects around.

  “Maybe she was just pretending to be out?” Yuichi suggested. If she felt really bad, it was conceivable.

  “You underestimate my stalker,” said Natsuki. “He can easily infiltrate his target’s home and find them effortlessly, even if they’re hiding. He searched every inch of that house and reported to me that there was nobody there. Based on the lingering smell on her underwear and clothing, he was able to infer that Orihara had been in her house until late Sunday night. It seems her father hasn’t been back for some time, but he could smell the recent presence of another woman there.”

  “That’s terrifying!” Yuichi exclaimed. The encroachment of the isekai was certainly worth worrying about, but Yuichi still wondered if they shouldn’t do something about that guy first.

  “Sakiyama is still staking out her house, so we also know she hasn’t come back yet,” Natsuki added.

  “Terrifying!” Yuichi repeated. “Just call him back already!” It might lead to a tragedy if Kanako came home while he was still there.

  “But there must be a way to find her even if she’s not home, right?” Aiko asked. “Mutsuko, don’t you know any places Orihara might go?”

  Mutsuko was the one who knew Kanako best, so if she didn’t have any ideas, then they were out of options.

  “I can’t really think of anywhere,” Mutsuko said. “She likes isekai stories, so all I can think of is ‘she went to an isekai.’”

  “That’s not helpful at all!” Yuichi exclaimed. Even if she couldn’t think of anything, that answer was too ridiculous.

  “Places Orihara might go...” Aiko made a show of thinking, but nothing seemed to come.

  “Hey, can Sakiyama trace where Orihara went from her house?” Yuichi demanded.

  “Stalking” could also refer to the idea of tracking one’s prey, so Yuichi wondered if Sakiyama might have that ability, too.

  “...There are limits to how well he can trace someone he’s not obsessed with...” Natsuki offered, apologetically, after thinking it over.

  Yuichi felt glad that he couldn’t.

  “This situation seems to have something to do with her story, so maybe we could get a clue from that?” Aiko asked, in a tone that suggested they were running low on options.

  “I thought about that, but an isekai fantasy doesn’t make for very good reference, as far as concrete places Orihara could be...” Mutsuko replied, equally at a loss. “Still, even if the story’s no help, I feel like she has to be somewhere in the school,” she added with a sigh.

  “Why’s that?” Yuichi asked. He couldn’t begin to imagine what basis she had for suggesting that.

  “If Orihara is doing this, I have a feeling she’d have to be close by to get the phenomenon to spread to this degree,” Mutsuko explained. “There’s no way she’s a long-range power type!”

  Her declaration was firm, but Yuichi was dubious. He couldn’t imagine Kanako having that sort of power either way.

  “By the way, Sis, don’t you have cameras in the school? Couldn’t they tell you something?” he asked. Her extremely illegal actions might just come in handy this time. They could tell if Kanako had come to school by watching the recordings.

  “Oh, no, Yu,” Mutsuko admonished. “In the interest of privacy, I only stream real-time video! I never record!”

  “What kind of line is that to draw? And don’t act so proud about it, either!” Yuichi objected even as he stood up. “Anyway, standing around here talking isn’t doing us any good. You do your real-time monitoring here, Sis. I’m going to search the school.”

  “I’m going, too!” Aiko joined him on her feet.

  “Okay, Noro,” he said. “You’re with me. What about you, Takeuchi?”

  “I’ll check the new school building. Why don’t you two start with the old school building?” With that, Natsuki quickly left.

  The other two were about to leave when Mutsuko stopped them.

  “Hold on a minute! There’s a place where the camera’s acting funny! I’m not getting any picture!” she announced.

  “Where is it?” Yuichi asked.

  “The gym! They shouldn’t break down over just anything...”

  Yuichi remembered something about a gym in Kanako’s new story. She had said she’d only written the prologue, but that it had started in the gym.

  “If it has something to do with her story, then she might be there,” Yuichi said.

  With that, the three of them headed for the gym.

  The minute they entered, they noticed something wrong. It was cold enough there that they could see their breath.

  “What... is going on here?!” Aiko hugged herself, shivering. Their summer uniforms weren’t made to deal with cold like this.

  There was a white sheen over the entire interior of the gym, caused by a fog that seemed to cover everything.

  The stage was surrounded by a wall of ice that reached all the way to the ceiling. Yuichi thought he could see someone on the other side of that pale blue ice, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

  In front of the wall of ice stood a knight in armor on a horse. The armor he was wearing was the armor that had fallen from the sky the other day, and he was the man who had been checking the students that morning at the school building: Blue Sky Rochefort of the Twelve Hell Kings.

  “I knew it! I knew it was strange that the camera wasn’t picking up the gym!” Mutsuko pointed to the second floor catwalk. If there was a camera there, Yuichi couldn’t see it. “I made the camera small enough to make it hard to see, which must give it problems with durability. And it’s meant for indoor use, so I guess it couldn’t stand up to the below zero temperatures!”

  Mutsuko was usually eminently prepared for things that would never come up, but it seemed even she hadn’t taken the temperature of the gym into account.

  “Blue Sky Rochefort! Are you the one behind this?” Yuichi wasn’t quite sure how to address a character from a fantasy story, so he decided to just be direct. He had a feeling they were going to be fighting soon.

  “Indeed. And you shall not pass!” the knight declared. It was about 30 meters from the entrance to the stage. But his heavy, low voice reverberated through the gym, clearly audible.

  “I see.” Beside Yuich
i, Mutsuko folded her arms and nodded. “That means there must be something here!”

  “Um, could I ask why we can’t pass? We’re looking for someone!” Aiko asked loudly, with no sense of fear in her voice. As far as Yuichi could tell, she wasn’t afraid of Rochefort at all.

  Surprisingly, Rochefort did not hesitate to answer Aiko’s question. “If it is the girl within the barrier that you seek, then I cannot let you see her. Although it is unlikely that you will accept it, I shall tell you the reason why.”

  “Rochefort is an honorable person, so he’ll answer whatever you ask honestly,” Aiko whispered to Yuichi. She probably just knew him from the story, but she seemed to also trust him to a strange degree.

  “I am searching for the Demon Lord Lasagna, and I have determined that she is not here,” the knight explained. “Thus, I wish to return to my castle, but cannot do so under my own power. To return, I must have a spellcaster link our worlds. I was told that there were those who would find this inconvenient, and try to stop it. So I stand guard over the spellcaster here as I wait for the spell to complete. If you have business with the spellcaster, you may speak to her after the spell is cast.”

  “Rochefort sure does love to monologue...” Aiko said, with some strange understanding.

  But Yuichi knew they couldn’t wait for the spell to complete.

  “Sis, can I borrow those?” He pointed at the fingerless gloves Mutsuko wore, which he usually tried to ignore.

  “Huh? What do you want with your big sister’s sweaty old gloves?” she asked.

  “I don’t want those! I want their function that you’re always bragging about!” he shot back.

  “If you must!” she declared. “Which do you want, Mors or Renatus?”

  “You named them?! Ebony and Ivory, Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, whatever you call them, just give me both!”

  “Oh, c’mon... if you wore the ones I’d made you, you could’ve used them any time you wanted!” Mutsuko grumbled as she handed over her gloves.

  They were a little small, but Yuichi quickly put them on. “By the way, are you wearing your sabers today?”

  Hearing that those might come in handy, too, Mutsuko’s eyes snapped open wide. “I can’t believe it! Why did you have to ask that today, of all days? Ah, my sabers are out for maintenance on the one day Yu wants to wear them! I’m so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

  “I didn’t want to wear them, and I’m not going to ask about how you maintain them, or we’ll be here all day,” he said. Leaving Mutsuko to her self-recrimination, he turned to Aiko. “So anyway, Noro. I need some cash. How many 500 yen coins do you have?”

  “Sure, but have you even paid me back for the last time?” she asked.

  “I figured we were even after I bought the present for Yori?”

  “That wasn’t enough to pay it off. You really have to pay me back.” Aiko looked a bit frustrated, but withdrew three 500 yen coins from her purse and handed them to Yuichi.

  Yuichi gripped them in his hand, then turned back to Rochefort. The knight had been quietly watching their discussion.

  “Is it true that you’re honorable, and you’ll answer honestly to whatever I ask?” Yuichi asked Rochefort as he took one step forward, bringing his fists together.

  “If it does not speak ill of or harm another, I will answer,” the knight said.

  “How do I get inside?”

  “Hmm... what you are thinking of doing is not incorrect,” the knight said. “The barrier is maintained with my magic. If you can defeat me, it will naturally disperse.”

  Rochefort watched Yuichi prepare for battle. There was no pretense to his manner; it seemed he was simply telling the truth.

  And then, Yuichi stepped forward.

  Holding the bridle in his left hand, Rochefort turned the right hand to the sky. There was no warning given. He had deemed that Yuichi had crossed the line.

  Balls of ice appeared out of thin air, enough to completely coat the ceiling of the gym. They then began to elongate, forming spears of ice, whose chillingly pointed tips all turned towards Yuichi.

  “Sis! Stand back!” Yuichi shouted. Yuichi had assumed Rochefort wouldn’t be targeting the girls, but there were so many of the projectiles, it was possible they could be hit by stray fire.

  The second the spears were fired, Yuichi flew forward.

  As he ran, he watched them.

  Rochefort hadn’t fired all the ice spears at once. He must have been preparing a second and third wave, in case the first one missed. As the first wave fired, the ice spears of the second wave continued to train their sights on Yuichi.

  The first stage hit where Yuichi had been. The second stage shot off to where Yuichi was expected to be — Yuichi moved diagonally forward, accelerating to dodge those. The third wave, seeming to determine that they couldn’t get him by focusing on any point, just struck the ground randomly around him.

  Ironically, it was one of these wild attacks that was coming straight for him. Rather than dodging, he just charged forward, and knocked it away with the back of his hand. He was testing to see if Mutsuko’s gloves could deflect the attack, and it seemed their blade-resistance really did beat out the sharpness of the ice spears.

  Yuichi ran forward even more boldly. Knowing that he could block them increased his options exponentially.

  The spears in the air continued to refresh themselves. As if part of a floating phalanx, they simply appeared, one after another after another.

  Through the spears that fell like rain, Yuichi dodged, deflected, blocked, grabbed, smashed, and all the while continued moving forward.

  Occasionally a spear appeared from below, and these he dodged by instinct. As he got closer, the air grew colder, and that he simply powered through. Yuichi wasn’t so weak as to be frozen by a little chill like this.

  His opponent, Rochefort, never moved. He remained precisely where he was, right arm upraised. Was he hoping to protect the ice wall, or could he simply not move while using his magic?

  Continuing to keep the spears at bay, Yuichi made it within melee range.

  The rain of ice spears abruptly ceased; it wasn’t precise enough for Rochefort to safely employ so close to his person. But that didn’t mean Yuichi was out of the woods.

  Still gripping the reins, Rochefort flicked his left hand. It produced a pistol, as if by magic, pointed at Yuichi.

  Rochefort was a cuirassier. The main weapon of such knights in medieval Europe was the handgun, and he fired his without hesitation. Yuichi dodged to the side, and in that same instant, he threw the coins he held in his hand.

  The three flat discs pierced Rochefort’s left wrist guard. The gun flew into the air and bounced off the ceiling, and in that moment, Yuichi sprang forward. He dove at Rochefort, and struck his chest with his knee.

  There was a loud bang, and Rochefort lost his balance, but that was it. The defensive properties of the armor had negated Yuichi’s attack.

  Rochefort was falling off his horse. Yuichi, falling with him, lashed out to wrap his left arm around Rochefort’s neck.

  His right fist drew back with a punch.

  They hit the floor hard, and in that instant, he thrust his right fist forward.

  Yuichi’s fist pierced Rochefort’s armor, and made contact with his flesh.

  ✽✽✽✽✽

  As the battle began, the girls quickly escaped the gym.

  Then they poked their heads back in, to see what was going on inside.

  “Um... he’s using some magic on Sakaki that I’m sure he’s never seen before, but...” Aiko knew about Yuichi’s abilities, but it still surprised her. It was magic, after all. Normally, someone would be surprised by that; they might even be forced to hesitate. But Yuichi dealt with it like it all went without saying.

  “Even if it’s magic, if it’s not ‘Eternal Force Blizzard! Everyone dies!’ you can work around it, right?” Mutsuko replied. “Having ice flying at you isn’t so different from being fired at with guns, and from wha
t I can see, it’s actually slower than bullets!” Mutsuko’s words made sense, but still, it was a constant rain of icicles. There was nothing simple about it.

  “And then he just punched him in the armor... wait, did he punch through it? Armor shouldn’t...” It shouldn’t break that easily, Aiko thought.

  “Oh! Armor looks really sturdy, but it’s actually not!” Mutsuko said excitedly. “They have to balance defense and weight through trial and error, so even the heaviest armor is only about five mm thick. And armor got phased out since it couldn’t defend against bullets, so you know it can be broken through!”

  “Still, it shouldn’t be possible to punch through five mm of steel...” Aiko murmured.

  “The part of the gloves covering the proximal phalanges incorporates a special alloy! Yu borrowed them to use them against the armor from the start!” Mutsuko continued giddily. The more she explained, the more ridiculous it sounded.

  “Um... I hope Mr. Rochefort is okay...” Aiko said.

  Rochefort had fallen from his horse, and was no longer moving. Yuichi stood up, but just stood there beside him, not trying to do anything else.

  “What? Noro, are you worried about the enemy?” Mutsuko asked.

  “Well, um, I don’t think Mr. Rochefort is a bad person,” Aiko said. “At least as far as I’ve read the story...”

  Most of the Twelve Hell Kings who guarded the Demon Lord were bad people, but Rochefort didn’t seem to have ulterior motives. He was a simple, straightforward man.

  “I dunno what might happen next, but I guess we’d better get going!” Mutsuko declared.

  The mist that had filled the gym, and the icicles that had been stuck into the floor, were starting to disappear, now that they no longer had Rochefort’s magic to power them. Yuichi had won.

  Aiko and Mutsuko ran up to Yuichi.

  Yuichi looked down at the fallen Rochefort.

  “Well done...” Rochefort whispered, as he and his steed began to fade away.

  “What are you...” Yuichi looked at the disappearing Rochefort in surprise.

  “It seems I was a mere projection, from the start... there was no need for me to return to the castle at all,” the knight said. “I regret my loss... but the real me is far greater. If ever you must face him, be prepared.”