Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 8

by Ryo Shirakome

  He’d transmuted the ceiling, their surroundings, and their path to the tree, so unless the slimes could teleport he was relatively certain they wouldn’t run into anymore. Furthermore, thanks to the blaze he’d created, their view of the surrounding area was stellar. No other monsters could ambush them, and chances were most of the ones that might have had already been turned to dust by the earlier conflagration. Of course, that didn’t mean Hajime had any intention of lowering his guard.

  “Master, please don’t forget about me. I’m the only person you haven’t made a changing room for...”

  A timid voice interrupted Hajime’s thoughts. Up until Tio had been writhing in pleasure on the ground. Everyone had known she was there, but as she’d appeared to be enjoying herself, they’d ignored her. Even though she’d been the only one to overcome the trial at first, she’d ended up suffering from it the longest. It was rather sad. And so, Hajime glanced back at Tio.

  “Oh, you’re still here, Clarence-san?”

  “Ah!? M-Master, how long are you planning to act like that for? It certainly was a refreshing way of being insulted, but I’m beginning to feel somewhat... left out. Could you please return to speaking to me the way you used to? I much preferred it when you called me Tio.”

  “What are you talking about, Clarence-san? This is how I always talk to you. Oh, please refrain from getting any closer.”

  “Ah!? M-Master, I’m deeply sorry! I swear to never get ahead of myself like that ever again! Please, I beg of you, return to normal!”

  “.....”

  It was rare to see Tio beg or cry. She crawled to Hajime’s feet and threw herself at them. Hajime watched her with dead eyes. While Tio was still blushing a little, it appeared she really did find being called by her last name painful, as opposed to enjoyable. She wasn’t going into a panting fit at least. Hajime had expected her to derive pleasure from this too, but the fact that she didn’t meant he finally had a way to truly punish her. He grinned. Tio shivered as she watched the corners of Hajime’s mouth rise up.

  Am I perhaps doomed to suffer this fate forever? Tio nearly burst into sobs.

  “Masteeer. Please... call me Tio.”

  Hajime rejoiced upon finally discovering a way to truly punish Tio. Seeing her cry before him tickled at Hajime’s sadistic urges. For once he was witnessing Tio truly distressed, instead of enjoying her distress. Looking at it objectively, Hajime was quite the pervert himself considering how sadistic he was acting. For better or worse though, he didn’t notice it himself.

  “If you insist. Look, I already know you’re a hopeless pervert, but try to rein it in a little at least... Tio,” he added with a shrug.

  Tio’s eyes sparkled at the mention of her name, and she gave Hajime an innocent, childish smile. That smile was so dazzling, he nearly found himself captivated by it.

  Not only was Tio wise and knowledgeable, but she was also perceptive when it came to the feelings of others. Furthermore, she was constantly doing her best to get along with everyone, and never lost her cool. Her combat skills, courage, and decisiveness were nothing to scoff at either. She also had a strong sense of duty, and impeccable looks. If she hadn’t been a raging masochist, she really would have been the perfect woman.

  “Seriously, why are you so hopeless?”

  Is it my fault after all? Hajime thought sadly to himself. It was, of course. He was the one who’d driven a pile bunker into Tio.

  Yeah, I guess I can’t really deny this one. Hajime gave Tio a waning smile.

  “What’s wrong, Master?”

  “...It’s nothing. Anyway, you go change too.”

  “Mmm, very well... Though I would not mind if you were to change me yourself, Master. Feel free to clean me up as well, if you wish.”

  Tio gave Hajime an expectant look as he transmuted another changing room for her.

  What happened to reining it in? Hajime pulled a grenade out of his Treasure Trove.

  “Is that so? Well in that case, how about I blow all that dirt right off you?”

  “Ah!? I-I shall change right away!” Tio shook her heard and ran into the changing room.

  As he watched the failure of a dragon run off, Hajime was once again reminded that her “condition” was his responsibility. He smiled ruefully to himself and shook his head.

  Soon enough, everyone had cleaned themselves up and changed into fresh clothes. As usual, Kouki, Suzu, and even Ryutarou were depressed at their inability to overcome the trial. They hunched forward, as if carrying a basket of stones on their back, and black clouds followed them wherever they went. They remembered everything they’d done under the influence of the hypnosis. Tio had hypothesized that this trial of pleasure was one that was meant to test the bonds between comrades, and Kouki, Suzu, and Ryutarou’s reaction seemed to be proof that she was right. Kouki and Ryutarou were unable to meet Shizuku or Suzu’s eyes, and kept their distance. Suzu, too, was blushing bright red and hiding behind Shizuku. Shizuku tried to patch things up between her friends, but she was having a hard time thinking of something to say. Not only had she nearly assaulted her friends, but she’d also revealed her own perverseness. That kind of trauma wasn’t easy to recover from. There was no way to address the fact that they’d all nearly sexually assaulted each other without it being awkward. And naturally, Kouki and the others couldn’t help but feel guilty about it. Suzu especially. Not only had she nearly assaulted her friends, but she’d also revealed her own pervertedness. That kind of trauma wasn’t easy to recover from.

  “Suzu, let’s just forget all about this. There’s nothing you could have done. And the whole incident ended without anyone doing something they’d really regret, so it’s better just to never think about it again. I mean everyone has a few skeletons in the closet, right?”

  “Shizushizu...”

  “Look, even I’ve done things I’d rather not remember. There was this one time I went to the 18+ corner of a store and got into an argument about the girls on the cover of this one porn game! Just thinking about how the other guys in the store looked at me... is enough to make me depressed...”

  Incidentally, the cause of that whole affair had been Kaori. The person Shizuku had been arguing with was also Kaori. After that little incident, the two of them had been banned from the store. Quite a depressing outcome.

  Hajime and the others all looked at Kaori.

  “Don’t look at me...” she whimpered and covered her face in shame.

  “Shizushizu, you like porn games?”

  “No, I don’t! That was just an unfortunate accident.”

  “...Hahaha. I can’t imagine you ever arguing about a porn game, Shizushizu... Kukuku.”

  “I can’t believe you’d laugh at me like that, Suzu...”

  Despite her words, Shizuku seemed relieved that Suzu had returned to normal. Shizuku knew normal means of comforting Suzu wouldn’t have worked, so she’d reluctantly dug up one of the buried events of her dark past and tried to share in Suzu’s embarrassment. And from the looks of it, her self-sacrifice had paid off splendidly.

  Shizuku really was a master at looking after others. She didn’t even hesitate to throw herself under the bus in order to make them feel better. Hajime, Yue, Shea, and Tio all applauded Shizuku’s admirable efforts. Seeing that Suzu had recovered, Kouki forced himself past his shame and looked up at Hajime.

  “Nagumo... Sorry for causing you trouble. And thanks for stopping us.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the save, Nagumo. You saved our hides.”

  Ryutarou looked up and thanked Hajime as well.

  “Yeah, you better be grateful. Never forget the debts that you owe me. Because you’ll be paying them back by being my meat shields when the time comes. You better not try and skip out on me. Because I’ll chase you down to the ends of the earth if that’s what it takes.”

  Hajime sounded completely like a yakuza member shaking down a poor debtor. But he was deadly serious. If Kouki or Ryutarou tried to avoid repaying their debts, Hajime
really would chase them down to the ends of the earth. He wasn’t one to help someone he didn’t like for free. Kouki and Ryutarou smiled sadly at each other. They’d been swindled through and through by Hajime. Still, Hajime had saved them from committing a crime they knew they’d regret for the rest of their lives, so even if the debt was large, it had been worth incurring.

  “Yaegashi, Taniguchi, what’s with the sympathetic looks? You do realize you’re in the same boat as them, right?”

  “What!?”

  Shizuku and Suzu both jumped. Their faces fell, and their expressions matched Kouki and Ryutarou’s. They looked at Hajime as if he were a loan shark from hell. The camaraderie they felt at being Hajime’s debtors did a good job of wiping away any lingering awkwardness they felt around each other.

  The party resumed their journey and made it the rest of the way to the tree without any more attacks from slimes. Like every other large tree they’d seen thus far, this one had an opening leading into its hollow trunk. As usual, once they stepped inside the hollow closed in around them and a magic circle appeared at their feet. There was a familiar blinding flash of light, and the group was teleported once more.

  “Hm? We did teleport, right?”

  “Yeah... Hajime, look. There’s an exit.”

  The place they’d been taken to was the inside of another tree trunk. It looked identical to the one they’d entered so for a moment Hajime thought they hadn’t teleported at all, but then Yue pointed to the one difference between this tree and their old one. This time, too, everyone had safely been teleported together. Hajime’s Demon Eye didn’t sense any fakes. Meaning whatever was waiting for them lay up ahead. Hajime nodded to his comrades and stepped out of the tree trunk. What he saw shocked him speechless. After a few seconds, he finally found his voice.

  “This looks... just like Verbergen.”

  Yue nodded in agreement. Outside the tree, there was a single passage. But it was no normal passage. It was a giant tree branch that extended out from the tree they’d just exited. The branch was easily five meters wide. Hajime gazed back and saw the tree’s trunk was wider than he could measure. The fact that they were next to one of its branches meant they had to be a good way up in the air.

  Hajime looked around and saw that their branch entwined around various others jutting out from other trees, creating a web of crisscrossing wooden paths. Hajime had described it as the same as Verbergen’s aerial pathways, but Verbergen’s didn’t hold a candle to these. These were much larger, much grander, and much more complex. Their twisting patterns created optical illusions that made the maze of branches appear even more complex than it was.

  “I’m... pretty sure we’re still underground, but...”

  High above them, a stone ceiling covered the sky. At the very center of this underground space towered a tree so massive it appeared to be a pillar connecting heaven and earth. Its top wasn’t visible, meaning that it rose up above the ceiling. There was only one tree Hajime had seen that was that large.

  “Is that the Grand Tree?” Yue muttered.

  Shea nodded.

  “I believe so. This must be the space directly underneath the Grand Tree.”

  “But that means the part we saw on the surface was just...”

  Kaori’s voice trembled a little. The vast scale of the Grand Tree had shaken her. Tio scratched her chin and spoke her hypothesis.

  “I see... This is undoubtedly Uralt. If there are branches growing down here, then that would mean the tree’s roots lie even further underground. Meaning the part of the tree visible from the surface is little more than the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. To think there were things in this world that could surprise me even now, after all these centuries. I never dreamed the Grand Tree spanned such a distance.”

  “H-How big do you think it is in total?” Kouki asked timidly.

  No one had an answer. Everyone looked up at the ceiling, overwhelmed by the size of the tree. Though they couldn’t see through the ceiling, they could easily imagine it sprawling ever upward toward the surface. For a few minutes, everyone stood there in awed silence.

  The silence was broken when Shea’s bunny ears twitched. She’d picked up on something. Then, she strained her senses, trying to figure out where the sound had come from. She could just barely make out a faint, somewhat unpleasant rustling noise coming from below.

  Goosebumps rose on her arms, and she scrunched up her face in annoyance. Her ears and tail stood on end. Confused as to why her body was reacting like this, Shea peeked down over the edge of the branch.

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  “Hmm, it’s too dark to make out what’s down there... Maybe if I use body strengthening on my eyes, I’ll—”

  Shea used body strengthening to improve her eyesight, then froze in place.

  “What’d you see, Shea?”

  She didn’t respond. The hair on her ears and tail puffed out far more than it ever had before. In fact, her tail now looked twice as large as it normally did. Like the rest of her, it was also frozen in place.

  Wondering what could have gotten her so riled up, Hajime peered over the branch himself. The combination of Night Vision and Farsight allowed him to see the ground below with perfect clarity. But for once, that was a curse, not a blessing. Like Shea, he stiffened up.

  “H-Hajime? What did you see?”

  “Hajime-kun!?”

  “M-Master, are you alright?”

  Seeing Hajime get goosebumps made Yue and the others exceedingly worried. Hajime turned around, his neck creaking like a badly-oiled door.

  When they saw his expression, even Kouki and the others looked shocked. The arrogant, fearless monster of the abyss had gone white as a sheet. What on earth did he see?

  Hajime looked at Yue for a few seconds then muttered “Ahhh, I can feel myself being cleansed,” to himself.

  “...There’s a devil down there. A real, bonafide devil.”

  “Devil?”

  Everyone tilted their heads in confusion. Kouki, Ryutarou, and Suzu all muttered, “Well there’s definitely a devil up here at least,” simultaneously, their gazes piercing through Hajime. Hajime responded by glaring them to tears.

  “Umm, Nagumo-kun? By devil... do you mean that devil?”

  Shizuku spared a glance at Kouki, who was still in tears, before turning to Hajime. The image of the biblical devil flashed across her mind. Hajime picked up on what she was referring to and shook her head.

  “No, this devil’s way worse. The devil of hell’s nothing compared to this guy. You’ve all seen this devil before... The black devil that dwells in kitchen corners, I mean...”

  Hajime’s description only made Kouki and the others more confused. In response, Hajime pulled out a single Cross Bit and sent it down below. He then pulled up a small crystal display to show everyone what its sensors picked up on. Yue and the others crowded around, and as soon as the blurry image came into focus—

  “Aaah!?”

  There were dozens of them. And for each one that was visible, there were likely dozens more. The terrifying devils whose name started with C. They scuttled around the ground, spreading chaos in their wake. From shadow to shadow they crawled, these devils who were sturdier than any other living creature. Whether in Tortus or on earth, these devils possessed the unique magic capable of striking fear into the hearts of all. The bane of mothers and restaurant owners everywhere.

  Cockroaches.

  Down below, hundreds, no thousands, no millions of them scuttled about. It was a veritable sea of black. They surged and swelled, creating artificial waves in their artificial sea. The sound they made was one only cockroaches ever did.

  “H-How could you show that to us...”

  “Bleh, there’s so many of theeem.”

  The blood drained from Shizuku and Suzu’s faces. And lik
e Hajime, goosebumps had risen on their arms. Kouki and Ryutarou turned away with a groan, struggling not to throw up. Returning to her senses, Shea covered her ears with both hands and squatted down, trembling. Tio was in better shape, but not by much. Kaori, on the other hand, had completely fainted.

  “Hajime, burn it all down,” Yue muttered dangerously.

  Kaori’s eyes snapped open, and she sat straight up. Apparently, she agreed with Yue this time. Though there was fear in her eyes, it was joined by a burning hatred. She was the most eager to see these monstrosities punished.

  “I’m gonna disintegrate them all!” she whispered furiously.

  “I think we’d better not. Look at how many there are... What if some of them escape and come up to us?”

  “......”

  The thought of countless cockroaches rushing at them chilled them to the bone. Both Yue and Kaori lost any will to fight. Just imagining what could happen had broken them.

  “We’ll be fine as long as we don’t fall... I hope. Let’s just keep going and get out of here. If we stick around too long, they might come after us.”

  Everyone nodded, suddenly serious. Their expressions were much sterner than usual. The party advanced across the sturdy branches.

  Their first checkpoint was a spot in the distance where four branches met to form a large platform. They moved cautiously, afraid that the cockroach swarm would assault them at any turn, but they made it across multiple branches without incident. Soon enough, they’d arrived at their destination. The platform was about the size of a residential park, meaning it was large enough to take a short break on.

  “Now then, let’s see what we can find... See anything guys?”

  “Mmm... Not really.”

  “Nothing here.”

  “Nagumo. What if what we’re looking for’s on the other side of the tree?”

  As the group discussed where to head next, they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of flapping wings. The sound they’d feared the most. Judging from how loud it was, it wasn’t just a few pairs of wings either.