Chapter 78
Mandatory
Event
Translator : PolterGlast
--It was terribly
painful.
"It" was
buried in the rough soil. It had been sleeping peacefully in the warm earth.
But the rain... the
rain was no good. It couldn't breathe, sinking into the mud.
"Is it
painful?"
One.
Two, three. Unable to
endure it, they burst out. Every time they gathered, they deliberately rubbed
against each other, and a sound echoed. "Is it painful? There's a capital
over there," the man said. A red-haired man. The same color as his own
body. He didn't know more than that. Because he wasn't human, and his words
were simple. Human forms didn't matter.
He was given power.
More than the power he had lost. He was shown where to go. Leaving footprints
in the rough sand, he advanced. Little by little. Dozens of them, like a single
living thing, aimed for just one place.
The perpetually summer
country, Soleil. Its capital, Kasei.
He didn't even know
the name of the capital. He just needed people to be there. Lives to devour, if
there were any.
***
"A mandatory
event is coming...!"
Yuko was the one who
shouted. She thrust her index finger straight up towards the sky and put her
other hand on her hip. It was too late to mention, but Yuko was still wearing
her sailor uniform. It looked cooler than a blazer, but in this place, it had a
pretty strong otherworldly feel. I hadn't paid much attention though, since she
was wearing the same outfit in the game.
Her blue skirt
fluttered as she monopolized the attention of Lotus and all the students, and
she snorted through her nose. As for me, I was cleaning the hall today. As
after-rain maintenance, I was rolling around with a roller. It was bigger than
my body, but since it was a magic tool, it was light and convenient. Roll-roll.
Ichi and the others were also rolling.
"Okay, Lotus. I'm
going to handle this mandatory event perfectly and properly. Burn my saintly
power into your eyes. And adore me, like 'Saint-sama-sama' times two!"
"Shall we go for
a run soon? The ground isn't that wet."
"Nnnnnn, you're
totally ignoring me!!!!??"
Even the students were
now ignoring Yuko. In the midst of all that, a man came rushing over at full
speed. His long-hemmed clothes flapped around, and he looked very awkward, but
the man with the dark circles under his eyes said, "Saint-sama, I told you
so many times not to bother us during training-aaaaah!!?" "Let go of
me, Nabariiiii!!" No one could maintain their composure anymore.
"Alright, shall
we go then?"
Without even looking
at Yuko being dragged away, Lotus and the students disappeared with a
"heh-ho, heh-ho." This was already starting to seem like a daily
routine, and I felt a bit uncomfortable. I thought about the mandatory event
Yuko had mentioned. So, she had noticed too.
Or rather, I should
say she knew. She was Yuko, a player even more hardcore than me. I put down the
roller, sighed, and looked up at the sky. I hoped we could get through this
event without any problems.
***
I wasn't absolutely
confident whether this event would really happen. Because even though this was
the world of the game, it was reality for me. The idea that a mandatory event
would occur exactly as it did in the game didn't feel real. I had been praying
that nothing would happen, but as expected, "it" arrived.
"F-from the two
o'clock direction... they're coming... a huge number of, sand
scorpions...!"
Sand scorpions were a
type of monster in this world. Not just ordinary scorpions, but with flames
burning at the tips of their tails, and they fed on human life force. Their
bright red bodies, visible even to the naked eye, swarmed together, looking
like a red wave approaching. We could probably manage one, but if we were
bitten by two or three, it would be life-threatening.
In the game, sand
scorpions attacked the city after the first heavy rain that fell after Yuko
arrived in town. So, one might think it would have been better if Yuko hadn't
come, but whether Yuko came or not, it was bound to rain someday. If that
happened, the sand scorpions, having lost their nests and the nutrients in
their bodies due to the heavy rain, would have no choice but to come to the
capital of Kasei.
Lotus, Veda, and I had
climbed onto the simple fence around the city that was there to manage the
water sphere membrane. Of course, there were many other adults besides us. On
the fence, there was a higher scaffolding for lookouts, and a young man with
binoculars shouted.
"T-they're
increasing rapidly... I don't know how many there are...!"
In the game, these
sand scorpions were labeled as monsters. But when I thought about it carefully,
they were surprisingly coordinated for just ordinary monsters.
(Those are probably
fiends / demonic beasts...)
Fiends were monsters
controlled by demons. I felt a pang of anxiety in my chest. Once you
encountered a fiend, you knew. There was a strange sense of pressure that
monsters didn't have. And in the corner of my vision, Socius was moving his
hands frantically, tears welling up in his eyes.
"G-go home... I
want to go home... no, I have to be ready, ready, I have to be
re-ready...!"
"Hey, calm down,
don't cry."
"I'm not
crying!"
Yes, you are...
Socius was just a
student, but in reality, he was an incredibly talented student. He was the one
who revived the magic tool that amplified voices. "Isn't that just a
speaker?" I thought when I first heard about it, but when I saw the real
thing, I realized it was different. It wasn't a speaker. It was a megaphone.
The kind that was used at sports days and such. What if I died of nostalgia?
Since it didn't have a name yet, the tool, which became known as a megaphone,
was being adjusted until the very last minute.
Lotus, who was playing
the role of instructor, was one thing, but the reason I was here was ostensibly
to help with the maintenance and cleaning of the megaphone. Unlike the
megaphones I knew, this megaphone was a magic tool, so if there was a lot of
dust and dirt around, the sound diffusion would be poor. To ensure the sound
reached everyone, the muscular cleaning crew was very busy moving right and
left. I was usually cleaning with just Ichi and the others, so it felt strange,
like we had gained more comrades, but this wasn't the time for that. My heart
pounded louder with every sand scorpion that got closer. I was scared. If I
didn't move, I would be terrified, and even when I moved, I could hear the
thumping sound in my ears, my fingertips trembled, and I dropped the broom many
times.
Unlike the Cloudy
route, I had played the Soleil route several times. So, I have seen this
mandatory event every time. Yet, it was still scary. The situation of just
pressing buttons on the other side of the screen was completely different from
now, where I could feel the commotion and even the rumbling of the ground.
Even in the midst of
all that, Yuko puffed out her chest proudly and held the adjusted megaphone
that had been handed to her in one hand. Her sailor uniform skirt was still
fluttering in the wind, and she was completely relaxed. "As
expected," I thought, watching her. She probably had a winning strategy.
In this Magic Tower,
Veda avoided getting involved with her as much as possible, and to put it
bluntly, she was treated like a nuisance. Nabari-san, who was next to Yuko,
always had a haggard look, including right now. But she was a player of the
game. And since she had played this game more than me, she might know
information that I, as someone who only knew the hidden elements, didn't.
That's why she seemed so confident. She glanced at Lotus, who was standing
below the watchtower with a difficult expression, glaring at the sand
scorpions, and clenched her fist as if to psych herself up. She looked like she
was going to show him what she could do. But that was totally fine.
If Yuko could somehow
manage this situation, that was good enough for me. As long as we could finish
it without anyone dying. Just in case, I had asked Veda for help, but it would
be better if there was a surefire strategy rather than my half-baked ideas as a
novice player.
--I assessed the
situation.
The sand scorpions
were heading towards Kasei. This was a mandatory event, and since the
difficulty of this route wasn't high in the first place, avoidance should have
been easy. You just needed to have a companion with a unique skill that
exploited the sand scorpions' weakness in your party.
If you used the Mirror
of Foresight, you would know that, so you could ask for the cooperation of the
key character in Leyshan. Yuko hadn't seen the Mirror of Foresight, but she
should know about it story-wise, of course. However, since she couldn't use the
World Tree branch's shortcut function, she couldn't easily get to Leyshan and
couldn't increase her party members.
(If there was a key
character, this event would be avoided with just the scenario without any
battle...)
I had also played the
event without adding the character in Leyshan to my party. At that time, it
shifted to battle mode, and you couldn't clear it unless you leveled up the
protagonist. Was Yuko leveling up? Or did she have some kind of breakthrough?
I didn't want to say
anything unnecessary. I felt Veda's gaze briefly, but first, I needed to focus
on cleaning. Ichi and the others were also working at full speed. "Ah-ah,
mic test, mic test..." Yuko spoke using the megaphone. Veda reluctantly
acknowledged that she was the Saint. She knew things that only the Saint would
know, and she had the endorsement of Cloudy Country. That's why they couldn't
forcibly kick her out of the Magic Tower, and if she said she had been given a
way to resolve this situation by God, they had no choice but to shut up. In
reality, it wasn't God, but her knowledge of the game.
"Can you hear me?
You can hear me, right? I'm Yuko. And I'm the Saint. You see the sand scorpions
in front of you all, right? If we leave them alone, everyone in the city will
be eaten, their nutrients will be sucked out, and they'll die."
It wasn't just the
adults on the wall who could hear Yuko's voice. The people in the city could
hear it too. "W-what a way to put it...!" I looked up. There were
small children too. There was no point in scaring them too much. But if it was
the truth, I understood that I shouldn't shout and stop her words. I bit my lip
hard and endured it.
"But it's okay,
because I'm here. I know everything about this world. I'll guide you
skillfully. First, these sand scorpions can be easily repelled."
The surroundings had
been noisy, but a slightly brighter voice rose. "Good," I thought,
relieved.
"From now on, a
carriage will come fleeing here, but absolutely do not let it in. We're going
to use that person as bait."
Her voice stopped
abruptly.
I thought I had
misheard. But no. Yuko clearly said "bait." "You've closed the
gate properly, right? No matter what they say, don't open it." The noise
grew louder at her insistent words. "Be quiet!!" The megaphone
howled. Yuko herself must have been surprised. She put her fingers to her ears,
frowning. The place fell silent.
"Okay? There's a
man riding in the carriage, but if we leave him outside without letting him
into the city, he'll be attacked by the scorpions. The fifth scorpion to bite
the man is the boss. Once you know which one it is, anyone can just stab it
with a sword or whatever and defeat it. It's impossible to defeat all the
hundreds of scorpions, but if you defeat the boss, the scorpions will scatter
and disappear. Just one, okay? It's super efficient, right?"
"This is a hidden
technique I noticed after playing many times," she said with a smug smile,
but even though I could hear her voice, it didn't seem to reach my ears.
"W-what are you saying...!" Veda approached Yuko and snatched the
megaphone. "What?" Yuko said angrily. "Well then, do you know
any other way to defeat them?" she probably said, snapping at Veda. The
noise spread.
The fifth scorpion to
bite. Even one bite could be fatal to a child. That was five bites. The life of
the person used as bait was definitely gone.
--Is that okay?
--Would that be okay?
--But we can't
possibly defeat all the sand scorpions.
--But still.
The adults' murmuring
spread.
Even as she repeated
her words, the army of sand scorpions approached Kasei. There was no time to
hesitate. It was then.
"Someone, help
me...!!!!"
There was a man
driving a carriage at full speed. He must have been desperately fleeing from
the sand scorpions. He screamed in despair when he realized the gates of Kasei
were tightly shut. Yuko, who had somehow snatched the megaphone back from Veda,
shouted, "Don't open it!!!" The man who was trying to jump off the
wall was one of the gatekeepers. He was the one who had cheerfully mistaken
Lotus for a student at first and smiled brightly.
The gatekeeper froze
at the shouted words. The sound of banging on the door could be heard. My
eavesdropping skill turned on automatically. It was a desperate cry. Open it,
open it. Please, please.
Help me.
My fist trembled. My
vision turned bright red. I threw down the broom and pushed through the crowd
of people. Ichi and the others made a path for me, so even my small body could
easily reach her. "Eek, kyaa! W-what is it!" I forcibly snatched the
megaphone from Yuko. I hugged the megaphone to my chest, trying to escape from
her outstretched arm. As I rolled around and turned into a turtle, Yuko reached
out to cover me. But then Yuko recoiled and fell over. "Hingyaa!" An
invisible mass bounced and attacked her chin. It was Ichi. I was relieved that
he seemed to be holding back. I ran away with all my might again.
The way to use a
megaphone seemed to be the same whether it was a magic tool or not. Lotus was
next to me before I knew it. He might be exasperated. Long ago, I recklessly
charged in alone and got scolded. That's right, alone. But I'm not alone now.
Everyone is here.
"How do you use
it?"
"I know!"
I replied with all my
might to Lotus's question. And then--.
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