I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 6

  Lea’s Part-Time Job Life

  Tsumiki Nozomuno was, quite literally, fatally bad at cooking.

  After a complicated series of events about two months ago, I’d agreed to become her taste tester. And once again, today I was at her family’s cafeteria, Nozomiya, to sample her food. But this time, the fish (?) dish that she offered me exploded. It was quite possibly the most confused I’d ever been in my life.

  An indescribable silence descended on the cafeteria.

  I wasn’t the only one who was shocked. Tsumiki, the chef; Tetra, the waitress; and Lea, a Nozomiya regular, were all standing there aghast, covered in pieces of fish. Since when did fish... explode?

  “Tsumiki.”

  “...What?”

  “Over the past two months, your food’s about killed me several dozen times, but... I never thought...”

  “What? Out with it.”

  “Fine, I’ll just come right out and say it.”

  I slammed my hands against the table and stood up.

  “I never thought I’d see the food I was just about to eat blow up on me! Have you finally decided to just kill me?!”

  “Of course not! Sometimes food just explodes!”

  “What kind of food explodes?!”

  “Surströmming.”

  “That’s just a can filling up with gas and bursting!”

  Sometimes cans of surströmming, the smelliest food in the world, would explode because the herring inside would ferment, releasing gas and building pressure inside the can. But even so, the food itself never blew up.

  “Oh, jeez! Just shut up and eat it!”

  “Eat what—Mwgrah!”

  Tsumiki forced some of the leftover pieces of fish into my mouth.

  “How is it?”

  “Mm... Mmgh...”

  She looked so serious that I felt like I had no choice but to at least chew it. But when I bit down...

  Boom!

  “Bwhragh?!”

  I-It exploded in my mouth! The blast, which was literally inside my head, made me black out for a second. I fell backwards to the ground, but Tetra helped me up again.

  “Rekka, are you all right?”

  “Y-Yeah. It was a small one, so it’s not going to kill me.”

  “I’m glad... I guess I shouldn’t have let Tsumiki do any cooking with strange space food.”

  “I really wish you’d realized that earlier!”

  “I mean, I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  The space food she was talking about was a fish from Berano, the planet we’d just visited. Rain, the planet’s princess, had moved into town, so Tsumiki had asked her for some. Nozomiya’s menu was already different from your regular cafeteria, but this was getting even weirder. Intergalactically weird.

  “So, you’re not going to eat any more, Rekka?” Lea asked as she pointed to what was left of the fish.

  “Yeah, you can take care of it.”

  “Thanks,” Lea said happily as she eagerly picked up a pair of chopsticks and chowed down on Tsumiki’s failure of a dish.

  “No matter how many times I see you do that, I just can’t believe it... Is that good?”

  “Yes. It’s good.”

  Bang! Hers exploded, too.

  “Mmm!”

  But she didn’t mind. She kept picking up the little pieces with her chopsticks and popping them into her mouth one after another. I knew she liked unusual foods, but this took adventurous eating to a whole new level. A dangerous one, even. And if she enjoyed this stuff, what in the world was her day-to-day diet like?

  Huh... Well, she was probably capable of eating normal food. I’d just never seen her do it.

  “Hey, Lea.”

  “Hm?” Lea swallowed before she turned towards me. “What is it, Rekka?”

  “What do you usually eat?”

  “Huh? What do you mean by usually?”

  “Like, on days you don’t come to Nozomiya? You never really struck me as the home chef type.”

  “Same. But I can’t see you buying lunch at a convenience store, either,” Tsumiki joined in.

  “You don’t cook, Lea?” Tetra asked as she brought us all cups of water. She seemed interested, too.

  “Nah. I used to only eat food raw or roasted over an open fire, so I’m honestly amazed at this thing that you humans call ‘cooking.’ Eventually, I want to try it for myself.”

  “...When you do, just don’t learn it from Tsumiki.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Gyah!”

  Oww... I took a karate chop with a plate. Right on the nose, too.

  “But if you’re not cooking for yourself, then what do you eat when you don’t come here?” Tsumiki repeated my question from a moment ago.

  “I don’t really eat when I’m alone.”

  “You don’t get hungry?” Tetra asked.

  “Well, I spent millions of years without any food. I can go a few days without eating.”

  “Then... Don’t tell me the only thing you’ve really eaten since coming to the surface has been Tsumiki’s cooking?!”

  I was terrified at the thought. Tears were forming in the corners of my eyes... And then I got hit with the plate again!

  “Oww! Come on, not the eyes!”

  “Shut up! I don’t usually get mad, but that was certainly enough to do it!”

  “You’re always getting mad!”

  “That’s because you’re always making me mad!”

  Tsumiki and I glared at each other. For some reason, Lea laughed.

  “You two really do get along, huh?”

  “No way!” we both shouted in unison.

  But Lea just laughed more and finished her meal.

  “Thanks for the food.”

  “Glad you liked it.”

  Tsumiki took the empty dish behind the counter. The conversation came to a temporary halt, but by the time Tsumiki came back, we were all talking about Lea’s eating habits again.

  “Well, it doesn’t bother me if I don’t eat, but I do sometimes eat at places other than Nozomiya.”

  “Oh, I see.” Tsumiki looked half surprised and a little disappointed.

  “Of course, your cooking is the best. But you guys know how I lived underground for so long, right?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  “And so now that I’m back, everything seems so new. Sometimes I go flying around on trips just to see it all.”

  Now that she mentioned it, I remembered Tsumiki saying something about that before.

  “So far I haven’t left Japan, but every part of this country has its own special dishes, right? Whenever I see those, I always want to try them.”

  “Huh... Even if it’s just normal food?”

  “I’m not picky.”

  “I see.”

  I knew what it was like to want to eat something tasty on a trip.

  “The last thing I had that was really good was takoyaki.”

  Takoyaki, huh? Had she been to Osaka? Lea closed her eyes and looked like she was remembering the day she tried some.

  “They were so soft and gooey. I couldn’t believe how good octopus is. There were so many different kinds of them, and they were all good.”

  “Mmm... You talking about it like that makes me want to try some for myself.”

  Did they sell those at the convenience store? If I wanted them fresh, I’d probably have to take the train to someplace with a department store.

  “If you really want some takoyaki, should I ask Rain to get me some space octopus?” Tsumiki asked as she raised her hand.

  Oooh, that actually sounded really
good.

  “But have Tetra make it,” I said.

  “Tsumiki can be in charge of putting the sauce on them,” Tetra said.

  “What’s with you two?!” Tsumiki started to flail her limbs in a tantrum even as she sat in her chair.

  It really was kind of amazing how Tsumiki never got better at cooking. She’d gotten to the point where she was capable of putting seaweed around a rice ball or putting store-bought sauce on top of takoyaki, but that was it. I was starting to think it might actually be some kind of curse.

  “Are these space octopuses any good?” Lea asked. I noticed she was leaning forward a little without realizing it.

  “They’re very big. And they’ve got something like 50 arms.”

  Tetra spread out her own arms to show how big they were. Lea’s eyes started to sparkle.

  “Oh, I bet we could make lots of takoyaki with that. I was a little sad when the last place ran out of octopus.”

  “...Huh?” We all turned and looked at Lea.

  Did... Did she really just say that?

  “Lea, you mean to say the restaurant ran out of octopus?”

  “Yes. Why?” Lea seemed confused.

  “Does that mean you ate all the octopus they had?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t you just say you didn’t really need to eat?”

  “I just meant that I can store a lot of energy, not that I don’t enjoy eating. When I want to eat, I can eat as much as I like.”

  “Huh...”

  Come to think of it, in her Leviathan form, Lea was huge. And while she was tall, her core—in other words, Lea in her human form as she stood before us now—was still just a normal-looking girl. If that meant all the energy needed to transform into her Leviathan form was contained inside her human body, that would explain things. But there was something else I didn’t quite understand.

  “How’d you get the money to pay for all that takoyaki, anyway?”

  “Money? Oh, you mean those hard, round, flat things and the scraps of paper that humans use?”

  “Hang on...”

  Did that mean...

  “Tsumiki, Tetra.” I beckoned to both of them, and they moved closer. “Hey, do you think there’s any chance Lea doesn’t know about money?”

  “She knows it exists, right? I mean, based on what she just said...”

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t seem to really understand it.”

  I looked up.

  “So, Lea, where did you get the money for it?”

  “Hm? Oh, somebody would always give it to the owner.”

  “Somebody?”

  “It was someone different each time. Whenever I would stare at a shop or restaurant, somebody would always come talk to me... Actually, it was always a man, come to think of it. When I said I wanted to eat something, a man would always buy it for me.”

  “...”

  We put our heads together again.

  “...They were trying to pick her up, weren’t they?”

  “Lea’s really pretty, after all.”

  “But she probably didn’t even realize what was going on.”

  Tetra was right. She probably had no idea.

  “Knowing you, Lea, there’s no way... but did any of those men do anything to you?”

  “Do anything...? Hmm, when I started eating, they were all really happy, but they gradually started to act strangely as the meal went on.”

  “Strangely?”

  “Their eyes would start to dart between me and the food, but when I asked if they wanted some, they’d shake their heads. I’d keep eating, but they’d suddenly start shouting, ‘Please stop!’ and ‘No more, please!’ When that happened, it meant I was supposed to stop eating, I guess, so I would thank them and leave.”

  My head started to ache a little.

  “...She probably drained every last yen out of their wallets, huh?”

  “If she was eating enough to close down the store, then yeah...”

  “I don’t know who those guys were, but I feel sorry for them...”

  Well, I knew exactly what those men were after, but I still couldn’t help taking a little pity on them.

  “Rekka? What are you guys talking about?” Lea was staring at us, clearly confused.

  “Man, I don’t even know where to start... Actually, let me ask you something first.”

  “What?”

  “Lea, do you have any of those hard, round things or paper things?”

  “Nope.”

  “I knew it...”

  After I’d saved Lea’s story, I’d gotten so wrapped up in getting ready for Tsumiki’s Food Champion cooking competition that I’d completely forgotten to explain to her how money worked. There was no way she’d be able to survive in modern society without it... Right?

  “Lea, have you ever run into problems because you didn’t have any money?”

  “No, not really.”

  “But normally you’d need food and a place to stay... Where’d you get those clothes you’re wearing?”

  “These? Tsumiki gave them to me when I came to the surface.”

  “I just thought that you’d stand out too much if you wore what you did when you first got here,” Tsumiki responded. “Since my skirts didn’t fit and neither did my mom’s, we ended up having to give her a pair of Dad’s pants.”

  That was nice of them, but...

  “Did you never notice she was in the same outfit all the time?”

  “I gave her several outfits... and she’s been washing them, too.”

  “Huh?”

  How was she washing them if she didn’t have a washing machine?

  “I washed them in the river.”

  She did what?

  “Rivers these days aren’t that clean...”

  “That’s true, they aren’t. But, fortunately, I can control water.”

  Water magic sure is convenient, huh?

  “So, um... you have clothes and food, I guess, but where are you living?”

  “Where do I live?”

  “I mean your home.”

  “My home?”

  “...Where do you sleep?”

  “The sea. I just float on the surface and sleep.”

  Wow, yet another answer I hadn’t expected.

  “It feels good to sleep on top of the waves, but once in a while, I get hit by human boats. That does hurt a little.”

  For most people, that would do a lot more than “hurt a little,” but that wasn’t even what I was concerned about right now.

  “So you’re sleeping outdoors. In the sea.”

  “It doesn’t matter. No, I guess it does matter.” Tsumiki sighed loudly. Then she grinned as if she’d gotten an idea. “I guess I need to teach you about the importance of money. And how to get rid of sleazy pick-up artists!”

  “No, it’s more important that we get her a place to live.”

  “Right, right. I know that,” Tsumiki said with a nod. “My dad knows a local real estate guy. We can find her an apartment. And until she can pay rent, she can stay in my room. Tetra’s already using the guest room.”

  “Oh, that’s all right! I’ll just commute from New Jizu.”

  “That’s a long walk, though.”

  “But...”

  The two of them argued for a bit.

  New Jizu was originally the artificial world where Lea had been imprisoned. But now with her gone and the seal undone, the mole people had moved in. There used to be a hole out back at Nozomiya that led straight there, but we’d sealed it up because it was dangerous. That meant if Tetra wanted to get back and forth between here and New Jizu, it would mean several hours of walking through the cave tunnels in the mountains behind the school.

  “You don’t have to give me a place to stay. I’m perfectly happy at sea.”

  Lea still didn’t seem to understand what the problem was.

  “You can’t do that!”

  “That’s not okay!”

  “R-Right...”

  Getting sho
uted at from both sides, Lea seemed to shrink a little.

  “You know, my living room’s free, and I’ve got an extra futon. She can stay with me,” I offered.

  “That’s even worse!”

  “You definitely can’t do that!”

  “R-Right...”

  I got yelled at from both sides, too...

  “Well, so what do we do about Lea and money for now?”

  “Huh? There’s only one answer to that.”

  Tsumiki looked at me in an exasperated manner and clenched her hands into fists.

  “A part-time job!” she yelled.

  ▽

  And so, three days later, I was on my way to the supermarket on the shopping street after school. Tsumiki had gotten both me and Lea part-time jobs there.

  “Hey, Lea.”

  “Rekka.”

  Lea was waiting for me in the parking lot. She stood up from the low wall she’d been sitting on and walked over to greet me.

  “Sorry, Rekka. I didn’t mean for you to have to get caught up in this.”

  “No, it’s fine. Both Tsumiki and Tetra are busy at Nozomiya, I guess.”

  Today I was here to support Lea.

  We’d taught her most of what there was to know about money, but she was still just learning how to function in modern society. I was worried she’d run into other problems, so I’d ended up getting a short-term part-time job alongside her.

  “Okay, before we go greet the manager, let’s go over your story.”

  “My story?”

  “First, you’re from overseas, and you’re here on a homestay program. Second, you’re 24 years old. Third, you arrived in Japan two months ago, and now that you’ve settled in, you’ve decided to get a part-time job.”

  Tsumiki and I had come up with this story to explain how Lea looked.

  “Where is ‘overseas,’ exactly?”

  “Just say ‘the American countryside,’ and you’ll probably be fine.”

  Nobody was going to ask her what state she was from, probably. Really, the hardest part was deciding on her age. She was so pretty that she could’ve passed for either a youthful woman in her thirties or a mature girl in her late teens. And the fact that her real age was at least seven figures only made things harder. In the end, we’d just decided to split the difference and say she was in her mid-twenties.

  “Also, if anybody asks why you came to Japan, just say you’re into Japanese culture.”