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Krrsssh!
I heard the sound of splintered glass falling to the floor. A man in a white lab coat tread over the shards as he approached. No, more precisely, he wasn’t touching them at all. He was wearing some sort of backpack with fire-breathing jet boosters, and using it to float right over them.
“I am Kult Graphimore, genius professor of magical science. I apologize for intruding so late at night, beings of another world.” The man grinned as he spoke, light gleaming off of his super sketchy-looking monocle.
“Hello. I would appreciate it next time if you would be so gentlemanly as to use the door.”
“Hrmm, yes... My apologies. I will be more careful in the future.” He was talking in a weird way, too.
Wait, did he just call us “beings from another world”? Then was this Kult guy from another world, like Harissa was? I’d never heard of “magical science” before.
More importantly, why did all these weirdos end up coming to visit me? Really, why...?
“So, yeah, what do you want with my house?”
I brushed the depressing thoughts out of my mind and grabbed the back of the chair. Whether I would throw it at him or use it as a shield depended on his next move. Since I didn’t know what he was going to do yet, I just waited.
“Hmph. What I seek is here.” Kult stroked his long moustache with a single finger.
“This is just a plain old, normal house. There’s nothing here a head case like you would want.”
“No, no, I assure you. I have a magical crystal ball that shows its bearer the location of things they desire.”
Kult pulled a spherical crystal the size of a volleyball out from his coat.
“And this dowsing pendulum shows me the way to what I seek.”
Then he produced a pendulum weighted with a blue jewel.
“With both of these, it’s impossible to hide anything from me. For instance...”
The eye that wasn’t covered by the monocle narrowed. In a low voice, he whispered something quickly. The pendulum in his hands slowly rose up, and the jewel at the end pointed toward Hibiki.
“The girl I’m looking for is right there.”
“!”
So he was after Hibiki. I still didn’t know what his endgame was, but at this point, it didn’t seem good.
“And now I will take her!”
“I won’t let you!”
I suddenly threw the chair at him.
“Aherm!”
Kult evaded the chair in mid-air. His boosters were surprisingly agile. I looked around for something else to throw, but Hibiki made her move first.
“Hyaaah!”
She closed the distance between her and Kult with remarkable speed. It was no normal run. It had to have been some kind of special martial arts movement style.
“Fuhh!”
She breathed in sharply, and then let loose with a forceful jump kick.
“Nwwoooooh?!” Kult screamed and just barely managed to dodge her. He used his boosters to move way back. Beads of nervous sweat ran down his face. “Hmph. I’m surprised to see a lady capable of moving that way.”
I was as surprised as he was. You could tell that she’d been training since she was little.
“I guess those with a great Fate Ratio aren’t easy to deal with.”
Fate Ratio? That was a weird phrase.
“I don’t know if this ‘Fate Ratio’ you’re talking about is referring to my bloodline, but...” Hibiki spoke without letting her guard down. “Don’t think for a minute that I haven’t made any preparations to deal with my cursed fate.”
She pulled something from her belt that looked like a stick. It chinked and glistened metallically as it extended to the length of a bo staff. It was like a special kind of telescoping police baton.
How has she not gotten arrested carrying around something like that? As I wondered about something ultimately inconsequential to the situation at hand, things escalated.
“Hmph. Then I’ll have to use my trump card,” the magic scientist from another world said quietly.
This time, he revealed a capsule with a beard mark emblazoned on it. The capsule was tiny, but it looked like a machine composed of incredibly delicate parts. Was this Kult’s trump card?
“Taste my fusion of magic and science: instant sorcery!” Kult yelled, throwing the machine capsule at Hibiki.
“...!”
She quickly tried to knock it away with her baton.
No, not that!
“Dodge!” I screamed out of some sudden intuition.
“Tch!” Hibiki heard my voice and instantly relaxed her stance, dropping to the floor.
The capsule flew over her head and landed on the chair I’d just thrown. Despite its hard-looking exterior, it broke cleanly in two upon impact. Light poured out of it, followed by thorny vines that wrapped themselves around the chair.
“What in the world?!”
The thick vines were giving off a pale light. It was like magic, but it had come out of an intricate machine.
Magic and machines... Magic and science... “Magical science”? Was this it?!
“Hibiki! Don’t let any of those capsules touch you! They’re probably filled with magic. They activate on contact!”
“Roger.” Hibiki nodded as she stood up.
“Hmm... So you figured it out after only seeing it once? You may look dumb, but you’re quite observant.”
“Thanks?” I sort of joked, but I was starting to get scared.
I’d seen magic and cutting-edge space technology up close before. It gave me a leg up on figuring out what was going on, but it didn’t help me at all when it came to trying to figure out a way to beat his “instant sorcery.”
This was going to be surprisingly tricky. I had no way of knowing what magic was inside the capsules. This time it was a spell to bind Hibiki, but that didn’t mean they would all be the same.
If he mixed in a wide-area attack spell as a feint, I didn’t know if I’d be able to deal with it. And since he didn’t need to chant anything, there was no opening to attack him. If only I knew what spell he was going to throw next. No, there was no way he was just going to announce it...
“Since you’ve figured out what it is, I’ll tell you. That was a binding magic capsule. For your reference, the next one will be a sleeping magic capsule.”
...Okay, maybe he would.
Did he just look smart, and he was actually a total idiot? Or maybe he was trying to show off? Either way, he was a fool. And that would make this a lot easier.
“I am a magical scientist, but I am also a gentleman. I have no intention of hurting you. So don’t worry when this hits you!”
“Then don’t attack us in the first place!”
“That’s a separate matter!” Kult yelled as he threw eight capsules.
“Wait! You’re chucking that many?!”
The handful of capsules flew in an arc toward me and Hibiki. I quickly moved from the living room to the kitchen. Without a wall between them, it was a clean break—hopefully far enough away to get me out of their range. Just as I was thinking I needed some way to fight back...
The door to the living room flew open.
“Sir Rekka!”
It was Harissa. She’d changed into her robes. She must’ve heard the loud explosion from a minute ago. She’d brought her staff, too, which probably meant she was there to help us fight.
No. That... That didn’t matter.
She’d appeared on the battlefield unprepared to protect herself, and one of Kult’s capsules landed right on her chest. It broke open, and the light poured forth as the magic activated.
“Huh?”
Even a spellcaster like Harissa was defenseless against the instantly activating magic. The strength drained from her legs. Her big, wooden staff rolled across the floor.
“Gnuh! Oop!” Kult sounded panicked.
“—!”
It was all I could do to stop myself from running up t
o him and sucker punching him in a fit of rage.
Calm down. Could I do what Hibiki did? No. Then...! I grabbed the bottle of shichimi red pepper flakes from the kitchen table, took off the lid, and flung it as hard as I could at Kult.
“Ngwah! It hurts! My eyes!” Kult was distracted by Harissa’s collapse, and he took the full brunt of the bottle. He was covering his eyes with both hands and screaming.
“Hibiki!”
Hibiki moved just as fast as I spoke. She leaped from the low table in the living room and jumped straight for him. Her right hook landed square in Kult’s blinded face.
“Gyafnuh?!” Kult hit the ground hard, bouncing two or three times before rolling straight out of the living room into the yard. “Grrr... Temporary retreat!”
He stood up, covered in dirt, and turned a purple jewel on a ring on his finger ninety degrees. It began to glow, and suddenly a blue door appeared out of thin air. He put his hand on the doorknob, then turned to us.
“Listen here! I’m making that girl mine, no matter what! Just you wait!” He then opened the door and vanished. A moment later, the door disappeared soundlessly as well.
“A teleporting item, huh?” Hibiki said in a hushed voice as she relaxed.
Finally, my home was shrouded in silence once more. It was just the three of us... and the destroyed living room.
“Harissa!” Once I was sure the danger had passed, I ran right over to the fallen girl. “Harissa! Hey, wake up!”
“...”
I held her in my arms and yelled, but she didn’t respond. She just kept breathing rhythmically, making cute little noises every time she exhaled. She was alive. At least there was that. But she wasn’t waking up.
Kult had said it was a sleep spell. Yeah, maybe she was just asleep. But if she wasn’t waking up when I was yelling in her ear... When was she going to wake up?
“Move.”
Hibiki had been looking around the part of the yard where the blue door had disappeared. Now she came back inside and took Harissa out of my arms. And then she started slapping her on the cheeks.
“Hey, wait! What are you doing?”
“If you want to know whether she’ll get up or not, this is best way.”
She slapped her two or three more times after that. There was a smacking noise as Harissa’s cheeks turned red. But still she didn’t wake up.
“Hey... Wait. You’re kidding me.” What if she was never going to wake up? “That bastard! He said he wasn’t going to hurt her!”
I glared at the yard where Kult had vanished. Of course, there was nothing there.
But I couldn’t stop myself from glaring at it anyway.
Hibiki handed Harissa back to me and stood up.
“The good news is that she’s not hurt. His goal was to take me alive... A permanent sleep spell would be the best way to do that.” Hibiki analyzed the situation dispassionately.
Harissa was alive. But she would never wake up.
That... That wasn’t fair!
“Damn it!” I gritted my teeth and heard a nasty sound as part of a tooth cracked off.
Why... Why wasn’t I able to protect her? I could’ve sent her somewhere safe before the fighting broke out, or kept her closer to me... Anything! So why hadn’t I?
“Why...? Harissa...”
“It’s because we were here.” Hibiki looked down at me with cold eyes.
“...We can still fix this. If we see the story through, we can still save Harissa. Right?”
“...I don’t know.” Hibiki answered my pained question with a shrug.
But I was only pretending to talk to her. I turned to R. She was from the future and knew more about my bloodline than I did. She should know the real answer.
“To be honest, it’s unknown whether or not you can save Harissa,” R said bluntly. “You’re caught up in Hibiki’s story right now. She’s the heroine. Harissa is just a side character who happened to get dragged into the middle of it, and your bloodline only gives you the chance to save people who are critical to the story. In other words, just because you resolve Hibiki’s story doesn’t mean you get to save Harissa too. It’s just like how when Hibiki defeated the gun smugglers, her injured friend didn’t suddenly get better.”
What the hell...?
Harissa got involved in this because of me... And I couldn’t save her?
“Well, that doesn’t mean there’s no way for you to save her. For example, when you defeated the Demon King and saved Harissa, of course, you saved the rest of her entire world too. So the possibility still exists that by saving Hibiki’s story, you can save Harissa as well.”
“...”
R’s voice was flat, but it felt like she was casting the blame on me.
“You get it now, right? We’re walking disasters that bring misery to everyone around us.”
And Hibiki’s words only made it worse.
“......”
I’d already been caught up in so many stories. Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Tsumiki, Tetra, Lea... I’d struggled in the face of tragedy after tragedy, and somehow managed to save them all. Had I just been cocky? Had I thought that if I just worked hard enough, I could save anyone? All while unconsciously ignoring how dangerous I really was?
“I’m a walking disaster, huh...”
Maybe Hibiki was right. When I started to think about how this was all my fault, the back of my head began to hurt.
Lea, the girl I’d saved during the battle underground, had been convinced that everything was her fault too. That was why she tried to take responsibility all by herself. I told her she was wrong, but... Something terrible might happen to those close to me, and it would be my fault. I finally understood the terror that she’d felt.
“Zzz... Zzz...” Harissa was still snoring in my arms.
Even if I solved Hibiki’s story, it might not be enough to save her.
“...”
I had to try my hardest to stop myself from screaming. I didn’t have the right. Not after doing this to her.
What... What was I supposed to do?
“Rekka!”
Suddenly I heard someone yelling my name.
I turned around to see my childhood friend who lived next door, Satsuki Otomo, standing there out of breath. She’d realized that something was wrong at my house and come over as fast as she could.
“Rekka, what happened?”
“...”
If I asked Satsuki for help, would things work out? Maybe she could use her Magic of Omniscience to come up with a way to wake up Harissa.
But... But...
Kult would be back. He might put my childhood friend in danger too. No, he would for sure. What if he did something worse than put her to sleep? Something there was no way to recover from? If that happened, I would never be able to forgive myself.
I retracted the hand I was about to reach out to her.
“Rekka, what happened?! Answer me... Huh? Harissa?”
As she raced toward me, she realized that I was holding Harissa. Harissa simply appeared to be sleeping, but coupled with the mess that had been made of the living room, it was obvious that something was wrong.
“This is... magically-induced sleep?”
“Yeah. You can tell, Satsuki?”
“Y-Yeah. It’s a spell I’ve never seen before, though.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I’m not sure. It’s a very strong spell, so with my power, I think I’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance.”
“I see... Then take care of her.” I gave her Harissa and stood up.
“Take care of her? What are you going to do, Rekka?”
“I’m going with Hibiki to follow the guy who did this to her.”
“Hibiki...?” Satsuki appeared to finally notice Hibiki’s presence.
“...”
Hibiki, who was standing in the corner of the room, looked at Satsuki silently.
“Who is she?” Satsuki asked.
“My partner.”
“You
r partner...?” Satsuki looked shocked, like she didn’t believe me.
“Anyway, I’m leaving.”
“W-Wait! You still haven’t told me what happened here. And if you’re getting caught up in something again, I’m going with you.”
“...!”
For a split second, I thought that my stomach might have literally been ripped open.
If Satsuki tried to help just like Harissa did...
If something terrible happened to her too...
And if I couldn’t do anything to stop it...
The thought alone was enough to fill me with dread.
It wasn’t like what had happened with Lea, where we all had to work together in order to beat Bahamut. I was putting Satsuki in danger just by being near her. And it was all because of the Namidare bloodline.
The only way for me to stop being Rekka Namidare was to be reborn... And since that was impossible, there was no way to solve this problem.
If there were a solution, I would’ve loved to rely on Satsuki and Lea for help. But... there just wasn’t.
So...
“Please don’t.”
“Huh?”
“I want you to look after Harissa. This time, it’ll be just me and Hibiki. So don’t come with me.”
“Why are you saying something like that? I...” Satsuki pushed back.
I knew exactly how stubborn she could be at times like these. And that was why...
“I said stay here!” I cut her off by rejecting her as strongly as I could.
“...Rekka...?”
Satsuki seemed more bewildered than discouraged by what I’d said. How long had it been since I’d raised my voice at her like that?
I didn’t know what kind of look I had on my face... And I was scared to find out. I looked away from her confused gaze.
“...Please. Just stay here. We’ll solve this story ourselves. Having everyone come along will just make things worse.”
The hesitation was swirling around in my heart. I was potentially on the verge of throwing away everything that was important to me. But it was better than destroying them. That possibility was far scarier to me than the very idea of the world ending.
“Bye.”
And that’s why I turned my back on Satsuki.
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 3 Page 2