I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 1 Read online

  Prologue 0-1: Satsuki Otomo

  The Omniscient Magic.

  It was a powerful spell that enabled one to access the Akashic record, and learn everything there is to know about this world’s mysteries. Mages had whispered of its existence for generations. If it was real, it would enable someone to save the world, to destroy it, or to rule it. Its power was such that some laughed at the very idea of its existence.

  But the whispers remained, down the long generations, along with another rumor: that there was a family of mages who inherited that spell. And at this very moment, the young female heir to that clan of mages was unsure of what to do.

  Her name was Satsuki Otomo. Tomorrow, she would turn sixteen. That was a very important age for her family. Her clan, which handed the great Omniscient Magic down through the generations, carried a powerful protective spell to keep their bloodline from dying out.

  It was called the Omniscient Contract. Whoever kissed Satsuki under the sign of that contract would become her partner for life. Simply put, the contract ensured that their bloodline would be carried on.

  This might not seem to be a problem, but it was. Whoever she made the contract with would be able to use the Omniscient Magic, just like her. And this important contract could only be sealed when a mage was sixteen years old.

  So, as you’ve just learned, the Omniscient Magic was a double-edged sword. If she chose the wrong partner, it could destroy the world. And in every era, there was no shortage of evil men who wished to use it for their own purposes.

  To protect the great magic from those people, Satsuki’s clan had hidden themselves with layer after layer of disguises and deceits. But a short while ago, a man had appeared who’d seen through their disguises and learned their true identity.

  His name was Messiah Kyandistrapps. He was the strongest mage of the modern era. The rumors said that not only was he a powerful mage, but he was greedy for knowledge, and even worse, a serious show-off. If a man like that acquired the Omniscient Magic, terrible things would happen.

  Her parents had gone to fight Messiah, to protect her and the great magic. But they wouldn’t be able to do more than buy a little bit of time.

  Satsuki herself had mostly mastered spells that would help her flee from combat, like teleportation and levitation. But Messiah’s magical power was so much greater than hers that even if she could elude him, it would only be for a day or two. She couldn’t keep it up. A day or two was, in fact, the absolute most she could hope for.

  Her parents had passed the great magic on to her when she was born, and now she was the only one capable of accessing the Akashic record. She could only make a contract with one person, too. Messiah would doubtless do whatever it took to become that person. A mage of his skill had any number of ways of forcing her to make the contract. Her only choice now was to make the contract with someone else, before he could find her.

  Satsuki rubbed her eyes to stop the tears from forming. She would’ve preferred a real romance. She would’ve liked to go through all the steps, and slowly built up a relationship of love, and only then reveal her secret, which he would then accept.

  But time wouldn’t wait for that. Messiah wouldn’t wait for that.

  She continued her letter, making sure that her tears didn’t fall onto the paper.

  I should’ve just told him I liked him in middle school. But it’s too late for that now, she thought. Again and again her tears would stain the words, and each time she’d start over on a new sheet of paper.

  By dawn, the letter was done, and she wrote his name on the envelope. “Rekka Namidare,” it said.

  Prologue 0-2: Iris Fineritas Cyphercall

  “Sheesh! Just when I’d finally escaped to this planet in the middle of nowhere!” Iris cursed as she looked behind her.

  There were two shadows following her, jumping from rooftop to rooftop like Superman.

  The pursuers were from her home planet, Finerita. They wore sunglasses and tuxedos, and at a glance, looked similar to the natives of this planet— Earthlings, they were called. But they had horse-like tails poking out from their behinds, which showed that they weren’t actually from this planet at all.

  Of course, Iris had a similar tail of her own. She was an alien, too. Not only was she an alien, she was the heir to the rulership of Finerita. But now she was running away from home.

  The reason was simple: she didn’t like the man her father had asked her to marry. More specifically, it hadn’t been a request. She was being sold off to the ruler of a much larger nation. Her own desires didn’t matter at all.

  She’d told her father that there was no way she was going through with it. She’d done a random warp in her own personal spaceship, and finally escaped all the way out here to this distant planet. But the pursuers were right behind her. Her father had seemingly known exactly where she was going to go.

  But that didn’t mean she was going to let them catch her. Iris ran. She ran desperately. But finally, she landed hard on the roof of an old building, and plunged through a rotted plank.

  “Eeyaaaah!” When she landed, a huge cloud of dirt and dust flew up, blinding both her and her pursuers. She cursed again as the dust clung to her body.

  And then she saw a boy. “This way! Let’s get out of here!”

  “Huh?” Inside a cloud of dust that wouldn’t let her see more than ten centimeters in front of her face, he grabbed her hand and ran.

  It was so sudden, she didn’t know how to react. Still, she let him lead her out of the building.

  He was an Earthling, she gathered. And it seemed that he’d saved her, too.

  Wh-What’s going on? Wait, his hand... Even if he was an alien, he was a boy, and this was her first time touching a boy’s hand. As he led her away, she could feel her cheeks flush and her heart beat faster.

  The boy led her away for a while... and finally, he stopped and began to pant for breath. It seemed that Earthlings were much weaker than Fineritans, but she had no intention of leaving him to flee further away.

  “H-Hey... What’s your name?” For some reason, her voice was cold and brusque. He was still holding her hand, and she was feeling very embarrassed.

  The boy said that his name was Rekka Namidare.

  Prologue 0-3: Harissa Hope

  The Seventh Anti-Demon Overlord Expeditionary Force had failed, just like all the others before it. Men, arrows, magic... Nothing could break the barrier surrounding the Demon Overlord’s island, and the demons he’d summoned tore the army apart.

  The Overlord’s armies were appearing all over the land, causing chaos wherever they went. The kingdom no longer had the strength left to oppose him. That’s why everyone was hoping for the return of the hero of legend.

  “A-A-A-A-All right, I will now b-b-b-begin the cross-world summoning!” Harissa’s voice shook terribly as she stood there, clad in wizard’s robes. The king and his chief minister stood in front of her, and to the side stood his other advisors and the military’s leaders. She was expected to pull off the magical feat of the century in front of all of them. It was a legendary ritual passed down in the royal family which would summon a hero from another world.

  I... I... I have to make this work! Harissa gripped her staff with both hands, and green magical energy poured from its tip into the summoning circle. If she poured enough magic into the circle that it went critical, a hero would appear from another world to defeat the Demon Overlord. At least, in theory. If the royal family’s legends were right.

  Aw... I’m starting to think I can’t do this. There was a reason that Harissa had to make this summoning succeed,
no matter what, but as she looked at the unchanging summoning circle, she started to get nervous.

  But she couldn’t stop pouring in energy. Suddenly, as she prayed, the circle began to shine.

  The magical energy turned from a flickering green into a dazzling light, which spread through the royal throne room.

  “Wh-What’s going on?!”

  “What did you do, Harissa Hope?!”

  “I... I just did what you told me!” For half a minute or so, the room was filled with sobs and angry yells.

  The light coming from the circle suddenly stopped, and in its center sat a boy who hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  That was the one change— there was now a boy in the center of the circle.

  “Huh? What? Where am I?” He looked around in confusion.

  His clothes were of a strange sort that you would find nowhere on the continent.

  All the important men started to trade suspicious glances and doubts.

  “A foreigner?”

  “A boy?”

  “Have you ever seen him before?”

  “Another world?”

  “Was he summoned?”

  “Success?”

  Their thoughts all came together into a single answer.

  “A hero?”

  “A hero!”

  Harissa, the one who had summoned him, leaped forward before anyone else could.

  She ran up and hugged the boy, who was still standing there in confusion

  There were tears of joy in her eyes, and she looked at him with admiration and awe. He was an ordinary-looking boy, but to her, he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

  “Huh? Wh-Why are you crying?”

  “Hero! What is your name?” She cut him off before he could finish. She already sounded like a girl dreaming of a prince on a white horse.

  He stammered out a response, looking a little overwhelmed.

  “My name’s Rekka Namidare, but... where am I?”

  Prologue 1: Starting Today, I’m...

  Today’s my sixteenth birthday.

  It’s also the day I start high school.

  Right now, I’m sitting in the middle of the opening ceremony. It started thirty minutes ago. Just like the ones in middle school, it was unimaginably boring, but I still managed to force myself to look interested and studious.

  Only a few moments ago, a girl had appeared in front of me. She had blue, shoulder-length hair.

  She was tiny, with a childish face. She looked to be in her first year of middle school, or maybe younger. She was wearing a uniform like the Japanese army ones I’d seen in textbooks, and she was staring at me with a dead serious look on her face— while she floated upside down in the air.

  “Are you Rekka Namidare?” For some reason, she knew my name.

  Who was this girl? And wait, why was she floating? I’d been waving my hands in confusion, and the boy wearing glasses who sat next to me was staring at me suspiciously. It felt like only I could see or hear her.

  “My name is R. You can call me Arlie if you want.” The girl began to introduce herself, even though I hadn’t asked her name. And she was a little too friendly.

  Wait. Hold on a second.

  Question: Who was this girl, R? A hallucination? A delusion? A... ghost? I didn’t want to be seeing any of those, and if I was, it was bad news. This was a big problem, but I was in the middle of the opening ceremony for school. I had to sit up straight and look serious, whether I wanted to or not. Otherwise I’d end up sticking out.

  I didn’t like sticking out. My motto was, “Normal is best.”

  Normal is best in all things.

  Some people might say normal is boring, but if you asked me, I’d tell you that those people didn’t know what normal meant. A normal life had time for hobbies, or for playing with friends. Was there anybody who didn’t like hanging out with their friends? If you insisted on being different from other people, you lost out on things like that.

  Which meant that being normal was the best way to be happy.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” And now, something that was threatening to shatter my normality into a million pieces was waving its hand right in front of my face.

  “Hello? Sir Namidare? Hmm, is that a little too formal? Rekka? Does that not work, either?” No, first name basis is about as informal as you can get. It’s not that I can’t hear you. It’s that I’m ignoring you. And why are you so friendly, anyway?

  “All right, dung beetle! Can you hear me? Answer me, damn it!” Who are you calling a dung beetle? That’s quite the downgrade. Did I do something? Did I do something that would make you call me a dung beetle? I did not! No... don’t give in. Hang in there! If you scream, that’s just what she wants.

  “Hey, you’ve got a nose hair sticking out,” R said, as she pointed at my nose.

  Huh? Seriously? I moved my hand to my face without thinking.

  “Not your right side. Your left. Your left.” Left, huh? Got it. I need to yank it out before someone notices... Wait, there’s nothing there?!

  “I lied. And you fell for it!”

  “Are you trying to pick a fight with me or something?!” I blurted out.

  “So you can hear me, after all.”

  “Oh.” Crap.

  Then things got worse. “You, new student. Who are you picking a fight with?” said a teacher. The principal, the entire student body, and even the parents were staring at me.

  Aahh! “N-No, it’s nothing.”

  “Sit down. Now.”

  “Yes, sir...” It hurt to have them all looking at me. I felt like I could die of shame. In fact, I wished I would. My head felt like it was about to reach its boiling point.

  “Well, I knew you could hear me when you put your hand to your nose.” This little brat! It was all I could do to keep from screaming.

  “Since I’ve succeeded in making first contact, I’d like to get right to the point. Is that all right?” It wasn’t, but if I ignored her, who knew what she’d do?

  Was there a way to talk to her without standing out? Maybe there was. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and opened the text message screen.

  Tap-tap-tap-tap. “Who are you?” I typed in a message, and then motioned for R to read it.

  She spun around in mid-air and looked down at my hands.

  “This is quite an old communications device, isn’t it?” Old? I’d just traded in my phone for a new one not too long ago.

  “I guess that’s natural, though. I’ve come from the future, after all.”

  The future? “Did you just say the future?”

  “That’s correct. I’m from the future.” The future... seriously?

  I decided to put aside my confusion and start asking questions.

  “Can anybody but me see you?”

  “No. Only you can see and touch me, Rekka.”

  “I can touch you?”

  “Correct. And I can’t touch or speak to anyone but you. I am what’s called a demi-material being. Would you like a complicated explanation of what that means?”

  “...”

  “I don’t think the ‘...’ merits being typed out.” I ignored her and asked the biggest question on my mind.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “I’ve come to save the future. I’ve come to change the future that’s been ruined by you and the Namidare bloodline,” R said.

  I had ruined the future? My goal in life was to be normal, so it was hard to see me having any effect on the future.

  But I had some small idea of what she might be talking about. My father had told me about my blood— the Namidare bloodline.

  That had just happened yesterday.

  ▽

  The previous evening, the Namidare household was filled with the sound of noisemakers.

  “Happy birthday, Rekka! Yahoo!”

  “Don’t point those things at me. And don’t say ‘yahoo,’ Dad.”

  “Boo! You’re so boring, Rekka!”

  T
his idiot, who was far too old to be puffing his cheeks out like an angry squirrel, was my dad, Jigen Namidare. He was a stay-at-home dad with a beard who looked best in an apron. All the delicious-smelling food on the dining room table was stuff he’d made. Even the cake was homemade, which I thought was honestly pretty impressive. I wished he hadn’t written “Rekka, I love you!” in chocolate icing on the cake, though.

  “All right, let’s start eating.”

  “Mom’s not here yet.”

  “Mom’s busy getting ready for tomorrow. So she says we can start without her.”

  “I see.” He was probably talking about her job transfer tomorrow.

  My mom was a talented career woman, and she’d been given the honor of transferring to her company’s HQ outside Japan. Since she was congenitally incapable of doing any chores on her own, Dad had decided to go with her, but I’d decided I was going to stay in Japan. Part of it was just that I wanted to try living on my own. Fortunately, my parents had both agreed.

  My birthday was actually tomorrow, but for that reason, we were holding the party tonight.

  “Want me to put the candles on the cake?”

  “No way.” Blowing out birthday candles was a little too childish for me. And it was kind of lame, just having your birthday with your family.

  “Did you not invite Satsuki this year?” I asked.

  “That’s right. She wanted to come, but I had something important to talk to you about, so I said no.”

  “Hmph.”

  “Oh? Are you lonely without her?”

  “Huh?! A-Absolutely not! Just, you know... We’ve always had our birthdays together, so it feels a little weird.” We’d had our birthdays together for the past ten years. Of course it felt weird.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Shut up. Stop grinning.”

  “Right, right. Sorry!”

  Why did my dad always like to screw around like this? I didn’t hate the guy or anything, but I wished he’d grow up a little.

  I was a little curious about what he meant by “something important,” though.

  “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “Hmm... yeah. I guess I should tell you.” Dad chewed on a bit of parsley as he began to talk.