“Rekka! I can’t believe you’re being deceived by those sacs of fat again! Do you like breasts that much?! Argh! I’ll teach you a woman’s true value!”
“O-Okay...?”
I lay on the ground as Rosalind and Harissa scolded me from both sides.
“Uh... I-I’m sorry?”
I held my hands up in a gesture of surrender... although I didn’t quite understand why I was at fault here, a-and I wasn’t being deceived by her chest at all! In the middle of all this, the still-bickering Satsuki and Iris made their way over to us and instigated more trouble.
“Hey! Give Rekka back!” said Iris.
“What do you mean, ‘back’? Rekka doesn’t belong to you, Iris!” said Satsuki.
“S-Sir Rekka visited the village elder with me! S-So Sir Rekka is m-mine!” said Harissa.
“You’re all spouting nonsense!” said Rosalind.
Wh-What was I supposed to do? There wasn’t even room for me to say anything...
As they continued to hiss and spit, Lea squeezed past the four of them and grabbed me again, pulling me towards her.
“Rekka, go on a date with me.”
“Huh?! Wh-Wh-Wha—”
“You went on one with Iris, right? But that’s in the past now. Go on your next one with me.”
If it’s in the past, wouldn’t it be better to forget about it...? Please?
“Lea, get away from him!”
“...Tsumiki?”
Surprisingly, the one who tried to stop Lea was her good friend Tsumiki.
“What, Tsumiki? I’m just inviting Rekka on a date. Don’t get in my way.”
“I-I’m not getting in the way! I just can’t forgive the way that womanizing pervert smiles when he touches your breasts!”
“I’m not smiling! And I didn’t touch them!”
Not of my own free will, anyway! Lea was the one who touched me!
“Oh, is that all? I don’t mind if Rekka touches me, though.”
“Th-Th-That’s not right! Here, I’ll help! I’ll get him away from you!”
“Ow, ow, ow!”
They were trying to tear my arms off! Tsumiki was forcibly trying to pull me away from Lea, who refused to let go. They were each gonna have a piece of me in a second!
“Hmph! Let go, Tsumiki! Rekka’s in pain!”
“You let go, Lea!”
“No!”
“Uuugh! I won’t feed you anymore when you come to Nozomiya!”
“What?!”
Lea hesitated for the briefest moment, but it was enough for Tsumiki to yank me away from her. She yanked a little too hard, however, and the force of it knocked her off-balance and sent her tumbling backward.
“Wah! Huh? Kyah!”
“Uwah!”
She was holding my arm so tightly that I, of course, went tumbling with her.
“Ouch... Huh?!”
“Hahh!”
I could hear Tsumiki gasp from directly below me. Apparently, I’d landed on her when we fell.
“R-Rekka...”
Lying entangled like we were, our faces were oh-so-close together... We both unthinkingly blushed at each other. Wh-What was this? I’d never seen such a sweet look on Tsumiki’s face before. Despite the predicament we were in, I couldn’t help thinking it was cute, but...
“AAAAAAAAH!”
The other girls were all shrieking.
Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Lea, and Rosalind were all angrily roaring over the, uh... compromising position I’d ended up in with Tsumiki.
“What are you doing?! Dummy Nammy!”
“Ack!”
Lyun released a magical burst of wind that blew me into the air, but luckily...
“You all right, young man?”
“Y-Yeah... Thanks, Corona.”
Corona, who could fly freely, had apparently taken flight to save me. Thank God someone was still there for me.
Honestly... what was wrong with everyone? At first, I thought it was just one of their usual spats, but I’d never seen Lea and Tsumiki fight before. Lea especially wasn’t the type to raise her voice with her friends. I realize it was a little late for this to be dawning on me just now, but something was definitely wrong here.
“Young man, no... Rekka.”
“Hm?”
“Do you like larger breasts?”
“Bwuh?!” I spluttered at Corona’s unexpected question.
“If you do, you may do as you please with mine,” she offered.
Her cheeks were tinged with red as she pulled me closer... to her and her magnificent chest. Well, we were already pretty close together, so maybe it would be more accurate to say she was squishing me up against her. Damn it! They’d practically been in my face this whole time, and I was doing my best to pretend like they weren’t, but now I couldn’t not notice them! They were right there! And... so soft...
But just as my mind was thrown into lustful disarray...
Clack!
“Hm?”
I heard what sounded like something metallic clamping down, then felt something tighten around my throat and forcefully yank me backward—right towards the ground. Just as I thought I was about to crash into it, my body decelerated, and I came to a gentle stop just inches above the ground. As for who had lassoed me like a cowboy... er, cowgirl...
“Goodness... Everyone wants to run off with you, Rekka.”
“Sh-Shirley?”
“But it’s all right. I can catch you anytime with this anti-gravity whip,” she said with a grin.
So the reason I was floating right now was because of her gravity-defying whip? It was probably designed to negate gravity for the target in order to reduce their struggling. It’s pretty hard to run when your feet aren’t on the ground, after all.
“You there, science girl! Unhand Rekka at once,” Rosalind roared.
“Shirley! Let go of Rekka right now!” Iris hollered.
“How about no? Teehee,” Shirley refused with a taunting grin.
“Don’t mess around, you...” Satsuki seethed.
The other girls were also on their way over, each trying to divert the others away. Things were already out of hand, but this was just... No, that’s enough!
“Hang on, everyone! Stop! Just calm down!”
I raised my hands and my voice, trying to restore some semblance of order... But it was like none of them even heard me. Really, what had come over them?
As I was pondering that, the conflict between the girls came to a head, and all hell broke loose. In an instant, they were hurling magic, technology, and bare fists at each other. It was like a war zone.
“Waaaaait!”
My frantic yelling was swallowed up by the thunderous commotion. No one was going to hear me now. Why had they all attacked each other so suddenly? This was going way too far, even for a fight!
“Hold still, damn girl!” shouted Rosalind.
“Don’t you run away! Leave Rekka here!” shouted Iris.
“I refuse!” shouted Shirley in reply.
Why was everyone even fighting to begin with? What had gotten them so worked up? Shirley was still swinging me around with her anti-gravity whip, so I was powerless to do anything other than watch the chaos unfold.
“You late-comers all cling to Rekka way too much!” shouted Satsuki.
“Just because you’re his childhood friend doesn’t give you dibs!” shouted Tsumiki.
“I want to cling to Rekka, too!” shouted Lea.
The fighting was steadily intensifying. They were knocking down trees in the grove, kicking up dirt, and generating giant clouds of dust and smoke.
“Sir Rekka and me are getting hitched! Y’all ain’t gettin’ in the way!” shouted Harissa.
“No, I will have Rekka!” shouted Corona.
“There’s no way we’d hand him over to a former Demon King!” shouted Lyun.
After that, the shouting just deteriorated into cacophony. All I could make out was my name every now and then. I didn’t have the faintest idea what was happen
ing, other than that it seemed like I was the reason they were fighting... But there was also that light Rachelle had fired at them earlier. That was still on my mind. Everyone had started acting weird after getting hit by that.
So, in order to get to the bottom of things, I’d have to start with interrogating that ridiculous angel... which meant I had to get out of here for now. Maybe if I left, the girls would stop fighting, too. But first I had to do something about this anti-gravity whip...
“That’s right! My suit!”
Zeta had mentioned all kinds of useful features in Galactic Great’s suit when she’d introduced it. One of them might come in handy right about now. If I recalled correctly, the voice activation command was...
“Galactic Blade!”
The next moment, my right arm started to vibrate at a high frequency from my elbow down. It was so strong that it felt like it could snap my bones, but thanks to the suit, I was fully protected.
“Oof!”
I struggled with balance due to the lack of gravity, but I swung the Galactic Blade down on the whip restraining me. It appeared to be made out of some kind of special space material, but the built-in secret weapon of the custom hero suit was made to fight against much tougher things. The Galactic Blade cut through the anti-gravity whip like it was butter.
“Ngh!”
I hit the ground clumsily, rolling a bit before coming to a stop and getting up.
“Ah, no! Don’t run away, Rekka!” Shirley yelled upon realizing I’d escaped.
“Rekka! Over here!” Satsuki called.
“We’re going to go finish our date, Rekka!” Iris clamored.
“Sir Rekka, I’ve made up my mind! Let’s sleep together tonight!” Harissa chimed in.
“Everyone, just calm down! I’ll be back!”
Using the power of the suit, I dashed off at lightning speed. My biggest concern was Iris, who was wearing the same suit I was and had much higher base stats than I did. Thankfully, Satsuki and Harissa blocked her path, allowing me to get away successfully. But it turned out she wasn’t the only one I needed to be worried about.
“Rekka! Where do you think you’re going without me?!”
“You stay here, vampire, or Rekka will run away.”
“Are you saying it’s my fault he’s running?!”
Rosalind and Corona bickered with each other as they chased after me. Lea and Lyun were flying through the air right behind them, too.
“H-Hold it right there!” As the only normal person in the group, Tsumiki had fallen quite far behind, but even panting, she was still running and shouting as best she could.
“Why don’t you just give up and let everyone debauch you?”
“Quiet!”
As I yelled at R for not ever being able to mind her own business, I ran deeper into the woods. The forest appeared to be completely untouched by human hands. The rooty and wild underbrush was difficult terrain to run on. It nearly tripped me up more than once. Eventually, the somewhat flat land began to slope into an increasingly steep hillside.
WHAM! BAM! SLAM!
“Wh-What was that?!”
My feet came to an unwilling stop at the thunderous commotion coming from behind me.
“Perhaps one of the heroines is smashing trees out of their way? Or maybe they’re trying to obstruct the other heroines,” R postulated.
“Damn it! How did things end up like this?!” I cursed.
“The cause is fairly clear, if you ask me.”
“Right, the light Rachelle fired out...” I recalled what had happened 20 minutes ago rather unpleasantly. “What was that light, anyway? Why did it affect everyone this way?”
“That’s also quite clear, I believe.”
“Huh?”
I turned to R in surprise, who gave a tired sigh in response.
“You’re so hopeless. Consider this a huge favor.”
“O-Okay?”
“If you’re wondering about the light Rachelle released, then start by thinking about what kind of angel she is.”
“What kind of angel? She’s... the angel of love and passion, right?”
“Right,” R said with a nod. “Now, what was she gathering today?”
“...Love energy?”
“Right again.”
“What about it?”
“Next question: how, exactly, did Rachelle want to collect said love energy?”
“Huh?”
Why was R asking me all these questions? She’d said she was doing me a favor... Which had to mean this was leading to some kind of hint, right?
“Let me think...”
This morning, we’d met a starving Rachelle who’d traveled from across the sea in order to get the love energy she so desperately needed. And she’d asked for...
“...A scene of carnage?”
“Correct.” R nodded unemotively.
I didn’t quite understand how angels gathered energy, but Rachelle was able to do it just by being near a source. Moreover, she was a total weirdo. She seemed to equate carnage with the pinnacle of passionate love. So if she’d had her powers restored...
“Don’t tell me that she’s now gone on a rampage and is trying to create carnage herself?”
That was the only explanation I could think of. If it was right, then the chaotic contest she’d started over me made sense.
“The carnage the heroines are creating right now is akin to what’s going to happen during the War of All. Although this is on a much smaller scale, so I suppose we should call it the ‘mini’ little apocalypse. Perhaps that’s redundant...” R murmured pensively.
As we were talking, the destructive sounds of battle coming from the other side of the forest only grew more intense. At this rate, there wouldn’t be anything “mini” about it... Wait a minute!
“That damn angel! This whole thing is all her fault! I knew she was a fallen angel!”
“Well, it does seem as though she absorbed excessive amounts of energy, resulting in her wild rampage.”
Ugh, when she put it that way, it made it sound like she was on a drunken bender... But regardless, at least 80 percent of today’s ruckus was explicitly on her!
“Hang on. If that’s the case, does that mean the situation will resolve itself if we do something about Rachelle?”
“That’s a more than reasonable hypothesis.”
To be honest, I had been agonizing over what to do about the girls going crazy. This was my first little ray of hope.
“That being said, Rachelle has absorbed so much love energy right now that she’s likely insanely powerful. She might even be stronger than the kaiju was.”
“Ah, crap...”
Come to think of it, she had single-handedly one-shot the kaiju that had given the rest of us hell. Damn it, just how much trouble was she going to cause?!
“Rekka!”
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I heard someone call my name, but when I turned around to see who it was...
“Are you all right, Rekka?”
I spied a worried-looking Kiri.
▽
Kiri led me to a cave in the forest so I could hide.
“Hi there.”
“Hi again, Starmon.”
Her mascot, Starmon, was there waiting for us.
“Starmon found this place,” explained Kiri.
“Yeah?”
Apparently, when Satsuki and the others had started fighting, they’d fled the scene.
“Come to think of it, how come you weren’t affected by Rachelle’s light, Kiri?”
“Even you can’t conquer a heroine you haven’t saved yet,” R answered with a sigh.
Whatever. I was just glad one of the girls was still sane.
“Wait, you’re saying Kiri’s a heroine? Well, I guess that was obvious...”
She was in a desperate situation with the odds stacked against her. She was headed full-speed for a bad ending.
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re safe, Kiri.”
; “Yeah...” Kiri nodded, but she didn’t seem very happy.
“...Kiri?”
“Hahh... Hahh...”
She suddenly fell to her knees, gasping for breath like she was in pain.
“H-Hey, are you okay?!”
“Yeah...” she said, but her expression was twisted in agony.
“Star Prism...” Seeing her like this, Starmon called to her with a tearful voice.
“Starmon, what’s wrong with Kiri?! Is she sick or something?!” I asked.
“No, she’s not sick... This is because her hero gauge is depleted.”
“What’s a hero gauge?” I had to ask.
“A hero gauge is the essence of a hero. It increases when fighting and defeating evil in the name of justice. However, if said evil isn’t defeated or the hero does anything to shame their name, the gauge decreases.”
As far as I could tell, Kiri was a spirited girl with a strong sense of justice. I just couldn’t imagine her doing anything that would shame her as a hero.
“Hahh... Hahh...”
“Kiri!”
Unable even to remain on her knees any longer, Kiri fell over. I reached out to catch her in a panic, and was lucky to grab her before her head hit the ground. As I gently laid her down, Starmon continued explaining.
“We’ve actually been fighting an evil organization for the last year, but they figured out Star Prism’s hero gauge and took nasty countermeasures against it.”
“Nasty countermeasures?”
“I’m afraid so.”
According to Starmon, this is how it went. Star Prism’s hero gauge increased when she defeated evil, so the bad guys learned to prevent that by not letting her defeat them. In other words, whenever they were about to lose to Star Prism, they would take themselves out before she could do it.
“At first, they would only self-destruct when their demise was inevitable, but that counted towards Star Prism’s hero gauge anyway... So they eventually mastered the timing and learned to self-destruct early enough that she would get no credit for their defeat. And so they’ve been chipping away at her hero gauge over the past six months.”
Apparently this “hero gauge” thing was like a measure of a hero’s extraordinary nature. It was an inherent measure of their heroism, more or less.
Honestly, hearing this all was a little hard to swallow, but if what Starmon was saying was true, these bad guys were real bad dudes. They’d chosen an effective—not to mention nasty—plan to take out Star Prism. The more they depleted her hero gauge, the less power she had as a hero. And if this had been going on for half a year, that would explain why she was so weak fighting the kaiju.
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 10 Page 9