“Then...”
“Yeah. She’ll never be able to go home again.”
The whole point of this originally was for Harissa to be able to visit her home world. And since she was going anyway, I thought we could take Mio too to keep her safe.
“It’s fine... It’s my fault this happened. You don’t need to worry about it,” Harissa said, staring down at the floor. She clearly felt responsible, but she was also hesitant to use the last catalyst. To go home, or not...
Everyone fell silent, unsure of what to do.
“Hey, listen, everyone. Don’t worry.” I spoke up, hoping to cheer everyone up. “We need to find out what happened before anything else. We can wait until then to decide what we do with the catalyst, right?”
“Yeah. You’re right, Rekka,” Lea agreed.
The first thing you need to do in any situation is think. The only reason I’d managed to survive all my stories was because I never stopped thinking. And it seemed Harissa had taken my words to heart. She looked like she was gradually calming down. Mio was still worriedly clinging to my waist, but I figured she’d be doing that regardless.
“First, I want to check something important, Harissa.”
“O-Okay!”
“Did your spell really fail?”
“Huh?”
Harissa’s eyes went wide. It was such an unexpectedly simple question that it threw her completely for a loop.
“Um... I mean, we’re in the wrong world...”
“Sure, we’re not in the world we wanted to be in. But that doesn’t mean your magic didn’t work.”
“What do you mean?” Tsumiki interrupted.
“Let’s say you have a car accident on your hands. Maybe the driver made a mistake, but there also might be something wrong with the car. Maybe a traffic light wasn’t working properly, or maybe another driver is to blame. My point is that even if you have an accident, it’s not necessarily the driver’s fault.”
“Oh... I see.” Tsumiki nodded.
“I’ve been to other worlds a bunch of times, and when you go, there’s this feeling of weightlessness. It’s weird. And I definitely felt that when she used the spell. Harissa says this isn’t her world, but I think the spell still worked.”
I was sure of what I felt. It was unmistakable. It was something like the feeling you get when you close your eyes on a roller-coaster and can’t tell whether you’re going left, right, up, or down.
“It worked with the remote, right? Did you do anything different this time?”
“No, I don’t think so...” she said hesitantly.
“So if there was nothing wrong with the spell, then there must be another reason we didn’t make it to Aburaamu.”
“Another reason?” Harissa asked, a glimmer of hope in her voice.
“Like what?” Tsumiki asked.
“Well, that’s what we have to find out. And first things first, we need to figure out exactly where we did end up. So... let’s look around some more. We haven’t even seen what’s behind those yet.”
There were two doors in the room, and I had no way of knowing which went where. I took a stab in the dark and pointed to the door closer to us. Everyone walked over to it. The door itself was made out of what looked like carved stone, but there was no handle. How were we supposed to open it?
“What do we do? Should I break it down?”
Lea began to wind up for a punch. She would probably be able to break through it with ease, but Harissa stepped in and stopped her.
“Wait a moment. This is... Let me give something a try. Lugol Arie!”
She raised her staff in front of the door, and it began to slide open.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I once went to an ancient temple in Aburaamu, and they had doors that worked with magic. I thought I could try the same thing here.”
Hmm... So maybe this place was connected to Aburaamu somehow? It would seem strange that they used the same system for doors otherwise. Feeling encouraged, we all went through the door and were met with a sight not a single one of us had expected.
“...”
It was a naked girl.
“Why isn’t she wearing any clothes?” I wondered.
But that wasn’t the only question I had. Her pale limbs were trapped in some kind of strange stone that melded with the floor. It looked like a statue of a woman tied to a stone cross, but it was definitely a real girl... and, um... her long hair was covering her delicate parts, but it was hard to look at, honestly.
“Rekka, look carefully. That’s what a real woman looks like.”
“Don’t you dare stare.”
R and Tsumiki said the exact opposite thing, but I was taking Tsumiki’s side on this one. R was a terrible role model.
“Is she... asleep?” Lea asked the question we were all wondering.
The girl wasn’t moving at all, so she appeared to be sleeping... or even dead. It was hard to tell.
The base of the restraints confining her was shining with a pale light. It was similar to the light I saw when Satsuki or Harissa cast spells. I figured there was a good chance it was something magical.
“Harissa, Lea, do you know what that is?” I asked the two girls I thought would be most likely to know something.
“It’s probably some kind of binding spell.”
“I think so, too. It’s not the one that bound me, but it feels similar.”
Their answers were more or less what I figured. But that left me with the question of what to do about it. If it really was magical, I could probably use the Hero’s Sword to break through it. Before making a move, however, I asked everyone else what they thought.
“I feel bad for her. We should save her,” Tsumiki said pointing at the helpless girl.
I couldn’t blame her for feeling that way, either. She certainly did look like she needed saving. But...
“I don’t know why she was sealed, but there must be some reason. It might not be a good idea to set her free,” Lea said.
She’d once released a powerful being, Bahamut, who’d been sealed away for a very good reason. That made her cautious, and she wasn’t interested in making the same mistake twice. Harissa declined to say anything, and Mio just silently clung to me as she had been. With them abstaining, the vote was one to one.
“Hmm...”
This strange stone room was probably underground, and this girl was sealed away with magic.
“Wait...”
Something suddenly crossed my mind, and I turned to R. She was usually the first person I consulted when I came across something strange like this. But she didn’t notice. In fact, she wasn’t looking at me at all. I discreetly tugged her sleeve so the rest of the girls wouldn’t see. She finally turned around, but looked strangely upset.
“What are you doing? I’m trying to find the best angle right now.”
I started to ask what she meant, but then it hit me. She was trying to figure out if she could see through the girl’s hair. She wanted to see her completely naked. I tugged her sleeve harder and told her to knock it off.
“Jeez, what do you want?”
I was glad that she was starting to show some emotion, but why did her personality have to end up like this? A little peeved, I gave her a stern look. She then seemed to realize what I wanted.
“Yes, it looks like she’s a heroine,” she said like I’d asked a dumb question, and then promptly went back to trying to sneak a peek at the girl.
Hmm... I needed to have a long talk with R, but that would have to wait.
If this girl was a heroine like R said, that meant she needed my help somehow. And if I was going to help her, that meant I needed to save her first. Step one would be releasing this seal. Maybe she’d been kidnapped or something? Compared to Mio’s confusing story, this seemed a little more straightforward.
“All right, let’s save her,” I said.
Just in case, I had the girls step back. Mio was reluctant to leave me, so I had Lea take her.
&n
bsp; It had been quite a while since I’d last held the Hero’s Sword, and it felt awkward in my hands. I’d fought by just flailing it around before. Swords just weren’t my thing, it seemed. But I could lift it up, and bring it straight down...!
“Yaaah!”
I swung the sword down on the shining part of the dais.
Clang!
The dais shattered, and the bonds restraining the girl seemed to shatter along with it. The next thing I knew, something fell down on top of me.
“Hmm... Dwaaah!”
It was the naked girl!
“Well, you destroyed the seal, so of course she’d fall down,” R said.
She was right, but I’d realized it too late.
“Oww...”
How many times now had somebody landed on top of me? I tried to move her off me without really thinking about it... and grabbed something soft. It was another feeling I was really familiar with...!
“What are you doing?!”
“Fgyah!”
The sole of Tsumiki’s shoe came down square on my forehead so hard that it rattled my brain. I thought she was trying to split my head open.
“Don’t even think about looking up for a while.”
“...Okay...”
This didn’t really seem fair, but I decided to just go with it. Eventually Tsumiki told me it was okay, and I slowly stood up. As soon as I did, Mio ran over and grabbed on to me again.
When I looked, the girl was wearing some of Tsumiki’s spare clothes and was lying on the ground with her head in Lea’s lap. Fortunately, it didn’t look like she’d hurt herself falling from the dais. Soon she began to fidget a little, and then she slowly opened her ruby-colored eyes.
“Who are you...?”
She looked around at each of us. She was probably more interested in what we were doing here than our names.
“Um... we’re lost?”
She frowned. Apparently that wasn’t the answer she was hoping for, but unfortunately it was the truth, and I didn’t have a whole lot else to tell her. Suddenly, however, her eyes seemed to hone in on specific spot. She was looking at the Hero’s Sword.
“That sword... why do you have it?”
“Oh, do you know it?”
She seemed to recognize it. But if she recognized the sword, and the sword was from Aburaamu, did that mean that this was Aburaamu after all?
“Hey, can you tell me—”
“I’ll ask you one more time. Who are you, and why do you have that sword?” the girl cut me off.
The look in her eyes was the very image of seriousness. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t going to answer my questions if I didn’t answer hers.
“My name is Rekka Namidare. I used this sword to defeat the Demon King when this girl, Harissa, summoned me to her world, and I ended up taking it home with me.”
If she knew what I was talking about, that could be a good sign.
“I see. I understand the situation.”
She raised her head off of Lea’s lap. She still looked pale and didn’t have her strength back, but she managed to stand up on her own.
“First, my name is Corona. Thank you, boy from another world, for releasing the seal.”
This girl—Corona, apparently—seemed to have a strange air of authority about her in everything she said and did.
“S-So, about the sword...” I gently tried to remind her.
“Don’t be in such a hurry. The answer is yes, I know that sword you’re holding.”
“Really?!” I asked without thinking, and she nodded in response.
“Although, I suppose there’s a more precise answer to your question.”
“Huh?”
“That sword originally belonged to me.”
“What?!”
Both Harissa and I were shocked. But if that was true, then that would mean...
“I am the hero who saved that world. At least, I once was. If you’re the current hero, then I suppose I’ve passed the title on to you.”
“No way...” I shook my head in disbelief.
I mean, that would still make her a hero. And the real deal to boot. But that was one heck of a surprise.
“H-Huwah...” Harissa was so shocked that she could barely speak. Instead, she was flailing her hands about to express her surprise.
“By the way, you there...” Corona said, looking at Harissa.
“Y-Yes?!” She froze.
“What is your name?”
“H-H-Harissa H-H-Hope. It’s a p-pleasure to meet you, Her... Corona.”
Harissa cast a glance my way as she stopped herself from calling Corona “Hero.”
“Hmm, I see.”
Corona ignored her, however, and seemed to be lost in thought.
Was there something unusual about Harissa’s name? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, but I had more immediate concerns.
“Hey, Corona. Where are we right now? Is this not Aburaamu?”
“Unfortunately, it’s not. This place is known as the spirit world.”
“The spirit world?!” Harissa gasped.
“Harissa, do you know it?”
“Know it? This is where the spirits I summon live.” Harissa then looked around, whispering to herself in pure amazement. “So this is the spirit world...”
“Then are you a spirit, Corona?”
“Hmm... Well, something like that.”
“You’re a spirit...” Harissa whispered as she looked down at the ground.
I wasn’t sure why she had such a serious look on her face after finding out Corona was a spirit of some kind, but I decided to let it be for the time being.
“My next question is, where are we specifically? What is this building? It feels like it’s underground.”
“This is the lowest floor of an underground labyrinth called the Ruler’s Dungeon, I believe...”
“A labyrinth? And we’re all the way at the bottom?”
“You don’t know anything about it? Surely you had to traverse the dungeon to get down here to me.”
“Well...”
I proceeded to explain to her how we’d actually gotten here. When she heard our story, she simply said, “That sounds rough,” and nothing more.
“So, it’s your turn now. What were you doing sealed down here?”
Corona didn’t answer.
Before we’d undone the seal, Lea had suggested that there must be a reason she was here, but why would anyone have to seal away a former hero? I was definitely curious about that, but it wasn’t the only thing I wanted to know. And if she wasn’t going to answer, I decided I might as well try asking her something else.
“By the way, do you have anything from Aburaamu? Something with a strong connection to that world?”
“You mean for the connection magic you were talking about?”
“That’s right.”
I could piece together why we’d arrived here instead of Aburaamu now. We were using the sword to try and make the bridge between worlds because it had a strong connection to Aburaamu. We’d known from the start that connections to people were stronger than connections to places, but Harissa had never considered that the original owner of the Hero’s Sword could still be alive. That meant, however, that her spell was indeed a success. And now that we knew that the magic worked, all we needed was an item to connect us to Aburaamu, and we’d be fine. Of course, we might be out of luck if Corona didn’t have anything like that.
“Certainly.”
“Yes!” I cheered.
That would make this a lot easier. We could just—
“I do, but not here.”
“...Of course.”
Corona had been sealed away in this dungeon completely n-naked. She didn’t have anything on her, much less personal possessions. If she had something that connected her to Aburaamu, it wasn’t going to be down here.
“Then let’s go get whatever it is. I’d like you to let us borrow it for a bit. I promise we’ll bring it back.”
�
��That’s fine, but...” Corona looked calmly up at the ceiling. “How are you going to make it out of this labyrinth?”
“Oh.”
I suddenly remembered where we were: the lowest level of an underground labyrinth called the Ruler’s Dungeon. I only knew that because it’s what Corona had said, but it didn’t seem like she had any reason to lie to us. And that meant that the dungeon above was standing between us and whatever Corona had that could get us back to Aburaamu. In other words, without getting out of this dungeon, we were never getting home. I broke into a sweat, but R was casually doing somersaults in the air above me.
“So, it’s a dungeon this time, huh? Too bad there’s no princess with a string waiting to lead you outside. Will you be able to make it?”
I honestly didn’t know. RPGs weren’t exactly a specialty of mine or anything.
▽
“Uwaaaaah!”
We were running down the corridors of the Ruler’s Dungeon as fast as we could manage. Why, you ask? Well...
Rrrrrumble...
“A giant rock is rolling after us!”
“It’s your fault for pushing that weird button!” Tsumiki yelled.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault for finding the weird button!” Harissa yelled back.
“Stop talking and run!” shouted Lea, who was carrying Mio.
We were all booking it for everything we were worth, but we were quickly coming up on a dead end. It looked like we were going to get squished.
“Into that room over there!” Corona pointed to a door just up ahead.
We made a dash for it, and Harissa immediately started casting her opening spell.
“H-Hurry!” Tsumiki yelled.
Harissa shouted the spell as loudly and as quickly as she could, and the door slowly started to slide open. Damn, did I say it was slow yet? Come on, go faster!
“Nwaaah!”
We forced ourselves through the narrow gap that had opened up. I could hear the boulder rolling past us on the other side of the door, but before we had time to catch our breath...
Rumble, rumble...
“Huh?”
I heard what sounded like stones grinding together, and when I turned around, I was met with the sight of an earthen giant raising its equally giant sword overhead.
“That’s a golem!”
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 7 Page 6