At this rate, I was worried Nozomiya might start serving space food. It was getting further and further away from a normal cafeteria as it was. Their main menu right now was food from the age of gods, for one thing. Well, if it tasted good, maybe that’s all that mattered... But I hoped that someday I would get to eat something that tasted good there, too.
“Thank you for the meal!”
We all finished our fancy dinner feeling very satisfied and put our hands together to show Rain how grateful we were. Since Rain and Shirley didn’t know anything about Earth manners, they looked a little confused by the gesture.
After dinner was free time. And when you had free time at an inn like this, there was only one thing to do: play games. But...
“Rekka, want to play cards?” Satsuki wanted to play a card game.
“Let’s tell each other’s fortunes!” Tsumiki had a fortune-telling book.
“Do you know how to play chess, Rekka?” Rosalind had a chessboard.
“W-Wait. Guys, I can’t do all of this at once.”
Everybody had something different they wanted to do.
“Oh, my. May I join you?” Rain asked.
“Shirley, you should join us, too,” Tetra said.
“Really? You’d let me?”
With Rain and Shirley joining in, we all had a great time explaining the rules to them and setting up games tournament-style to account for the sheer number of people we had playing.
▽
At about 11:00 P.M., we decided to take a break and each go have a bath.
“Man, my head hurts...”
After all I’d done today, I was pretty wiped out, so I went to go take a load off by the window and enjoy the view.
“Whoa! This chair’s soft!”
The chair I sat down in was designed to look like a mermaid. It looked like it was made out of marble, but it felt like cushy foam.
I opened the window to take in the night air. Looking down, I could see all the artificial lights below in Ryugu Palace City. The town was still bustling at night, but the noise didn’t reach all the way up to Ryugu Palace. As I stood at the window, I realized how calm it was outside.
“I wish there was some wind... Nah, I guess that’s impossible.”
I’d almost forgotten we were inside an undersea dome.
Whoosh...
“Huh?”
There was suddenly a breeze sweeping across my cheek. There was oxygen in the dome, so maybe it was circulating from some kind of climate control system?
“Can I sit here?”
“Oh, hey, Shirley. Sure, make yourself comfortable.”
“Thank you,” Shirley said as she took the chair opposite mine.
“You taking a break, too, Shirley?”
“Yes. I don’t know if I’ve ever had this much fun in my life.”
“That’s right. You said you have a full-time job, didn’t you? Do you not have time to play?”
“Well, it’s not that, but...” Shirley chuckled and looked away. “I said I haven’t been on a lot of trips, but this is actually the first one I’ve ever been on. So I really don’t know what you’re supposed to do at a resort like this.”
“I see.”
“It would’ve been great if I had a friend to come with, but I don’t, so... I guess I was really lucky to run into you guys. You’ve made this so much fun, Rekka.”
Shirley was almost a year older than me, but she said she’d been working for a long time. I was still just a student, so I couldn’t imagine a work environment like that.
“Work must be really hard, I bet...”
“I suppose. But I don’t have any problems with my job, you know? What I’m doing right now is going to make a wonderful world for us.”
“Huh?”
“Oh, my,” R suddenly said.
Wait, why was R nodding at Shirley with a sympathetic look on her face? Don’t tell me... I glanced back at her.
“Yup, you guessed it. Looks like Shirley’s a heroine.”
Seriously?
I mean, sure, Hibiki told me to watch out for anything that seemed strange, and meeting a girl at a fancy inn was definitely a special event, but... seriously?
“So, what’s this wonderful world going to be like?”
“Oh? Well, let me think... It’s an ideal world where it’s always warm like spring. You can always be with your friends like this, and nobody ever has to hurt each other.”
“I see...”
“Yeah, I’m working really hard to make that world a reality.”
While I might be able to help with the friends part, a peaceful world of permanent spring sounded more like a fairy tale than any reality I’d ever heard of. Well, I guess if there were planets of endless summer like Berano, we might be able to find a springtime one if we looked hard enough.
Either way, I didn’t have the first clue how to go about resolving this story. Could a high school student like me even help her? I guess just the fact that we’d met each other like this meant I probably could. One way or another. In that case...
“So, I guess this is your first step towards an ideal world, huh?” I offered her my hand.
“Um... what?”
“A handshake. Do you not do those in space? You both take each other’s hand and shake lightly. It’s a sign of trust.”
“Trust?”
“Yeah, and maybe friendship, too. We’ve eaten together, played together, laughed together... We’re friends now, right? So I’m the first person to be part of your ideal world. Or, wait... Since you were there already, maybe I’m number two?”
I laughed a little, but Shirley’s eyes went wide. She timidly took my hand. I shook it a little and smiled at her.
“Your dream’s really huge, but if there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me. I’ll do anything I can.”
“...Thank you, Rekka.”
After a moment’s astonishment, Shirley pushed up her glasses and smiled.
Anyway, a warm, peaceful world, huh? If I lived there, I might get to relax... No, for some reason, that seemed like it was impossible. And that reason was probably the girl from the future who was floating next to me.
I helplessly chuckled a little, and Shirley looked confused. Wait a minute. Shirley wasn’t the only girl we’d met here.
“Does that mean Rain’s a heroine, too?” I whispered my suspicions to R.
“No, it looks like Rain isn’t a heroine.”
“Really?”
I mean, it would be really bad for me if every girl I met turned out to be a heroine, but...
Suddenly, something flew into the room from the open window.
“Coo, coo coo!”
“...A turtle?”
It looked like a flying turtle. Was it some kind of space turtle? The noises it was making were surprisingly cute.
“T... Tu...”
“Huh? Shirley?”
“NOOO! A TURTLE!” Shirley screamed and took a small gun out of her pocket.
It was shaped like a smaller version of the medical gun I’d used to defeat Bahamut. Before I could ask any questions, Shirley was pressing the barrel—the needle—right up against the head of the turtle that had landed on the floor.
“Coo?”
Fwoosh!
She pulled the trigger, and the contents of the syringe instantly emptied into the turtle.
“Coo...”
The turtle suddenly froze like it had turned into a statue.
“Sh-Shirley?! What are you doing?!”
“Uwaaaaah! No! No turtles! Anything but turtles!”
Shirley then ran to the corner and curled up into a ball. She was in tears and mumbling to herself.
“Oh, my! Mr. Turtle froze!” Rain heard the noise and was shocked to see the frozen turtle.
I eventually calmed Shirley down enough to find out that she’d fired something called a “Time Stop,” which shut down a living creature at the cellular level. I managed to get the antidote for the Time Stop from her,
then used it to get the turtle moving again so I could let him back outside.
“It’s okay now, Shirley.”
“Th-Thank you...” she whimpered, her eyes still full of tears.
“Now, let’s forget about this unpleasantness and play a game! Break time’s over, you two!” Iris insisted.
She pushed us back into the center of the room, and the games began once more.
▽
Before long, it was past midnight. We were all tired enough by then that we finally decided to call it a night, but...
“...How did this happen?”
At the moment, I was sleeping in my futon in a room with ten times as many girls as boys... No, actually, there was no sleeping involved. I CAN’T SLEEP LIKE THAT!
At first I planned on sleeping in the hallway, but Rain politely explained that that wasn’t an option. Yeah, I guess you couldn’t exactly do something like that in a high-class inn.
And so, I reluctantly got into bed, surrounded by ten girls after we added Rain and Shirley, but let me say it again: THERE WAS NO WAY I COULD SLEEP LIKE THAT!
“So, Rekka, who are you going to jump in bed with?”
“Nobody! What are you talking about, R?”
“Oh, I thought that’s why you were still awake. Anyway, that fight to decide who got to sleep next to you was just brutal, wasn’t it?”
“...I don’t even want to think about it.”
Even this dumb conversation with R felt like a blessing when time seemed to be passing so slowly. It must’ve been two or three hours after we’d turned out the lights, and I was still wide awake. Just when I was wondering when dawn was going to come in this undersea world...
Rustle rustle.
S-Somebody crawled into my bed?!
“Wh-Who’s there?!”
I didn’t want to yell this late at night, so I tried to say it as quietly as possible in my surprise as I lifted the covers.
“I-Iris?!”
Staring back at me was a twin-tailed girl I knew well.
“Stay still...”
I was too surprised to move anyway! But what on earth was going on here?! I mean, R had just said something about jumping into bed with someone...
No, no, no! Wait! Why would Iris want to come be in the bed with me? I had no idea how to react, and it only got worse when she started to pat down my body.
“I-Iris, wait...”
At this rate, she was going to touch me in a place that I really shouldn’t be talking about! Just when my confusion reached its peak...
“What the heck are you two doing?!” Satsuki screamed as a blast of wind knocked Iris and the futon to the corner of the room.
Then the lights came on, and I could see exactly how mad Satsuki was. It was scary.
“Rekka, what are you doing with Iris?”
“Nothing! I did nothing! Iris suddenly crawled inside my futon...!”
“I see... She tried to get ahead of everybody else, did she? Heheheh...”
No, never mind. It wasn’t scary. My childhood friend’s smile was absolutely terrifying.
“W-Wait, is Iris okay? You knocked her back pretty hard...”
“Don’t worry. For the first blow, I held back. I might not for the second, though.”
“Please do! Iris isn’t made of steel—”
As I tried to calm Satsuki down, somebody crawled out of one of the other futons.
“What’s going on here? What did I do wrong?”
“...Iris?!”
It was the girl who’d caused all this fuss.
“Huh? What?”
She was asleep? But Satsuki had just blown her clean across the room... And wait, hadn’t Iris let down her hair before she’d gone to bed? Did that mean that the girl inside my futon... was an imposter?!
Both Iris and I gasped as we looked towards the corner of the room where the fake Iris (?) should have been, but she wasn’t there.
“What’s going on? You’re making an awful lot of noise.”
“Sir Namidare? Is something wrong?”
Rosalind and Suzuran were both awake now, as well. Hibiki, Harissa, Tsumiki, Rain, and Shirley all were shortly after, too.
“...Hm?”
Tetra was the only one unaccounted for, and when I looked over to her futon, it seemed like the lump underneath it was twice the size it should have been.
“Satsuki...”
“Yeah...”
We both nodded at each other and tore the covers off the futon together. When we did...
“Ugh... It’s bright.”
“Ugh... It’s bright.”
There were two Tetras inside.
“Huh? Why are there two Tetras?”
“Huh? Why are there two Tetras?”
The two Tetras looked at each other in shock as they mimicked each other word for word.
“What’s going on here...?” I was stunned myself.
“Well, the obvious assumption is that one of them is a fake,” R said rather nonchalantly.
“One of them’s a fake, huh? But which one...”
“Rekka, I’m the real Tetra!”
“No, I’m the real Tetra!”
They looked and sounded exactly the same.
“Tsumiki, can you tell which of them is real?”
“Huh? Don’t ask me!”
So even Tsumiki didn’t know, huh? Hmm... What made Tetra unique? I closed my eyes, pretending to think.
“Hey, Satsuki, can you turn off the lights?” I said after a moment.
“Sure.”
When I could tell through my closed eyes that the lights were off, I opened them again. Of course, it was dark now, but I could see two glowing orbs in that darkness.
“So you’re the fake!”
“Huh?”
I’d closed my eyes to accustom myself to the darkness beforehand. Thanks to that, I was able to quickly leap towards the fake Tetra—the one whose eyes weren’t shining—and grabbed her.
Slam!
“Gyah!”
I’d grabbed her so hard that she fell down and hit her head on the floor, knocking the disguise “she” was wearing right off.
“You... You’re the dine-and-dasher we caught this afternoon!” I gasped, staring down at the man now underneath me.
“Oww... Would you get off me? I’m not a huge fan of being held so closely by a man.”
“Neither am I!”
Whatever...
“So... Raul, was it? What are you doing in my room?”
“I went to the bathroom and just happened to walk into the wrong room on my way back,” the dine-and-dasher—Raul, apparently—said without batting an eye.
“Liar. If you just got the room wrong, you wouldn’t have had to do... that.”
Gyaaah! I just remembered how it felt when he patted my body down! Ugh... I feel sick.
“He’s probably a thief. There’s no way some dine-and-dasher could afford to stay at a fancy place like this,” Satsuki said.
Great. So he’s a dine-and-dasher and a thief. Talk about a scoundrel.
“Oh, no, missy. I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about me. I am the Great Phantom Thief Raul the Baron. I would never stoop to stealing pocket change from a bunch of kids.”
“Great Phantom Thief?” That was quite a title he’d given himself.
“The Great Phantom Thief Baron? No way...”
“Hm? You’ve heard of him, Iris?”
“Yeah. About 500 years ago, he was a legendary thief who hit places all across the galaxy. Or something like that.”
“That’s right, little lady. Yours truly,” Raul said with a smile.
That sounded... extremely implausible.
“Right. Sure. So, you’re some great phantom thief, huh? I suppose that explains how you managed to pull off a Tetra disguise.”
“That’s right. I can change the size and structure of my skeleton as well as alter my appearance, so I’m a master of disguise.”
“Wow, that’s amazing.”
“So, what do we do with this man?” Rosalind finally asked.
“Well, he didn’t actually take anything, so we can just hand him over to the hotel staff and have them handle it, I guess,” I said with a shrug.
“Then I’ll lead you to the annex. At this hour, the staff should all be in their rooms,” Rain volunteered.
I took her up on the offer and followed her to the door.
“I see. Then Suzuran and I shall accompany you. We don’t want him trying to escape,” Rosalind said.
“Leave it to us,” Suzuran added.
And so the four of us got changed and dragged Raul to the annex. It was a three-story building. The first floor was filled with storerooms while the second and third floors were quarters for the staff. They were each connected with a walkway to the main building where the customers stayed. Since we were staying on the third floor, we didn’t have to go down any stairs, so getting there would be easy, even if it wasn’t quiet...
“So... Rekka, was it? Man, I tell you... That Suzuran girl and that Rosalind lady are really something. You’re just surrounded by all kinds of lovely women. I’m so jealous!”
“...”
“So, which of the girls do you really have your sights set on? Satsuki, your childhood friend? Or Hibiki, the tomboy? Or do you go for the well-endowed type? In that case, you must like...”
“Show some decency!”
Raul hadn’t stopped talking since we’d left the room, and just listening to him was exhausting. Not to mention if anybody here was into big breasts, it wasn’t me! It was the girl floating next to me!
“Sheesh. I’m glad he’s not trying to escape, but I didn’t expect him to be so obnoxious.”
“If you want to entertain a girl, you need to be cheerful and conversational with a bright smile. So, Rosalind, if you’re not seeing anyone now, why not date me? We can get married in a few years. How’s that sound?”
“Unfortunately, you’re not my type.”
“What a shame!” Raul said, trying his best to look genuinely shocked.
“By the way, is there anything you like, Suzuran?”
“I like to watch bugs and flowers. Why?”
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 5 Page 5