I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 12 Read online

  “Then...”

  I looked at her hopefully. She nodded...

  “As you requested, I shall...”

  “Wait a minute.”

  But the samurai suddenly interjected.

  “Chirika?” I asked, turning to look at her.

  “King of these lands, you say you travel the world gathering knowledge, correct?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Then do you know anything about a yokai called the Gold Yaksha?” Chirika inquired, eying the king with a sharp gaze.

  “Hmm...” The king pulled out the cord she’d used to summon the librarian puppet earlier. “Search command: Gold Yaksha.”

  YS-8 was on standby after delivering the ship in a bottle to the safe, but swiftly left the room when it received new orders. The librarian puppets of the Great Library of the Heavens were probably all searching for information on the Gold Yaksha right now.

  “Chirika... What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?” I asked timidly, feeling strangely uneasy.

  She turned to me with a furious glare and replied, “I am no longer relying on you.”

  What? Don’t tell me...

  Just as I was about to ask, several librarian puppets waddled into the king’s quarters with enough books to cause an avalanche. They walked in front of her one by one, showing her the various tomes they’d collected. They opened to specific pages, and the king passed her eyes over each of them in rapid succession. The whole process took less than a minute.

  “You wish to know about the man called... the Gold Yaksha, correct?”

  Wait, man? The fact that she’d called him a man instead of a yokai caught my attention for a second, but Chirika didn’t seem to pay it any mind.

  “I want to know his location. Can you find it?”

  “We cannot determine his precise location... in real time. But we do know where... he used to live.”

  “Tell me immediately!”

  “Wait a second, Chirika!” I forced my way between the two of them. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on going after the Gold Yaksha right now? I still...”

  “Silence. I will wait no longer.”

  “But you said you’d trust me.”

  “That was when I had no other leads and no choice but to trust you. But now that I’m learning about the Gold Yaksha, I will prioritize this clue. Move.” Chirika thrust me out of the way and drew closer to the Laputian king. “Now, tell me. Where is his hometown? I may find out about him if I go there.”

  “If you wish to go... we will lend you one of our airships. Laputa just so happens... to be near Japan right now.”

  “I would be most grateful.”

  “YS-1 will take care of the navigation and piloting for you.”

  The king gave orders to another of her robots, YS-1, which waddled off towards the door. Chirika followed after it.

  “Wait, Chirika! Your Majesty, why did you tell her that?!”

  “The samurai was the one who surprised us... Should she not be the one to receive the reward?”

  “Ugh...”

  I couldn’t say anything to that, so instead of trying to argue, I went after Chirika. Everyone else followed suit... Including Nyanyan, who was desperately trying to keep up with our running pace.

  “Hey, what are we suddenly running for? Where are you going?” she somehow managed to ask while panting for breath.

  “Iris, could you carry Nyanyan?” I asked.

  “Eeeh... All right.”

  With a somewhat annoyed look, Iris scooped up Nyanyan and kept running without missing a beat.

  “This is much easier, I admit, but could you not carry my like baggage?”

  “If you complain, I’ll drop you.”

  “Eep! Th-This is fine...” When Iris glared at her, Nyanyan shrank back in her arms. “M-More importantly, where are we going? We still haven’t gotten King Laputa’s word that she’ll do something about my uncle.”

  “Sorry... At this rate, Chirika’s going to go off on her own. We have to follow her,” I explained.

  “Whaaat?! Then what about me?!” Nyanyan wailed.

  “Not that I wanna take her side or anything, but why do you wanna go after the samurai chick so badly? She was always complaining and being mean to you, so I say let her go,” Iris said with a furrowed brow.

  “No, I can’t. This is my fault for only focusing on what was right in front of me and continuing to put her off. I don’t blame her for ditching me.”

  Considering Chirika’s personality, she’d done well to hang in there this long. It was my bad for not following through and helping her out after I said I would. Somewhere along the way, I may have naively thought she’d have to wait for me because there wasn’t anything she could do without me... If her story had come my way, that meant she’d need me to help solve it.

  “Anyway, I can’t let Chirika go off alone. We got the king to agree, so we can come back and ask her for help properly later.”

  But for right now, I had to prioritize chasing Chirika. I figured she’d be headed for the airships we all came in on, but it didn’t seem like it. Was YS-1 leading her somewhere? Oh, they just went through a door! What was on the other side?

  “...W-Wait, an elevator?!”

  When we got to the door, I realized what it was and couldn’t help stammering a little. Just how many centuries ahead of its time was this island?! Judging from the display, Chirika was headed down.

  “Argh! We’re getting on the next one! Satsuki, she’s probably headed for an airship hangar! Please look up what floor that’s on for me!”

  I asked her to take care of that part while I repeatedly jabbed the button to summon the other elevator to this floor. I’d gotten so impatient that I made a terrible oversight...

  “So cramped!”

  “I can’t breathe! Jeez!”

  “I... I’m gonna suffocate...”

  “I’m... being... crushed!”

  “Someone’s feathers are in my face!”

  “It’s slipping! My skirt is slipping, so stop shoving me!”

  Pandemonium... Packing so many people into a single elevator was hell. I’d honestly forgotten how big our group was. Fortunately (?), there was no weight limit alarm. Normally the king was the only one using the elevators, so there probably wasn’t a need for that... But at least we were moving. I tried not to imagine the possibility of the cables snapping at any moment.

  “Wow, Rekka. Enjoying the perks?”

  The only one who was perfectly comfortable in the packed elevator was R, who was grinning as she whispered to me squished between everyone.

  “What?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Right now, all these heroines are pressed up against you head to toe... I can think of men who’d die to be in your position right now—literally.”

  Ugh, she just had to go and remind me! I was trying not to think about it, too! Things were awkward enough as it was. I didn’t need a rush of blood to the head making it worse... Please. Please just let us get there soon.

  All told, it probably took less than two minutes to reach the bottom, but each second felt like an hour.

  “Bwah!”

  When the doors finally opened, we all spilled out of the car desperate for fresh air. It seemed we’d made it to the hangar.

  “Wait, where’s Chirika?!”

  I raised my head and looked around in a panic. The hangar was a large room filled with airships lined up in rows. One of them—one at the front—was clanking about like it was ready for takeoff. We’d never make it in time to stop it, and it would be impossible to stop it once it was in the air.

  “I guess we don’t have a choice. We gotta follow that airship. Satsuki, can you find out where she’s going?”

  I knew I was asking a lot for her to use her Omniscient Magic repeatedly like this, but we just couldn’t afford to lose Chirika now. While Satsuki was looking it up, we split up into two groups again to pile into the airships.

  “Huh...?”

  As we p
repared for takeoff, I heard a surprised peep from Satsuki.

  “What’s wrong? Did you figure out where Chirika’s headed?”

  “Um, well, yes.”

  “Where?”

  Satsuki hesitated for a moment, then replied with a bewildered expression...

  “Chirika’s destination... is Shangri-La.”

  ▽

  Shangri-La—the ultimate paradise. An ideal utopia sequestered away from the rest of the world.

  “First Atlantis, then Laputa, and now Shangri-La? What’s happening?”

  “It’s like a gallery of the legendary lands of the earth, sea, and sky. To think we’d be going on a one-day trip through places that any archaeologist or historian would die just to see... Guess that’s Rekka for you.”

  Hibiki and Satsuki looked at me as they sighed in exasperation, but I wasn’t sure why. As far as I was concerned, I was already in over my head with Chirika’s timeslip... It wasn’t like I wanted all of these stories to overlap like this. I really didn’t get it.

  “Man, the heroines that follow you around really have it tough...”

  And as usual, R was there to hit me right where it hurt. It wasn’t like she was wrong, though... I’d been causing a lot of trouble for everyone lately. It’s almost time for the school festival, so I’ll just have to make it up to them then.

  But for now, I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps. We’d just reached Shangri-La.

  “I can’t see anything...”

  I mean, I said we’d reached it, but there was only dense undergrowth as far as the eye could see. There was no sign of any kind of paradise.

  “If you go through those bushes, there’ll be an invisible entrance. Since it’s a magical land, it’s not like a normal door or anything,” Satsuki explained.

  “I see. Then let’s get going.”

  I took the lead and pushed through the undergrowth, stomping down the grass and snapping shrub branches to make it easier for the girls following me to get through. After proceeding like that for a while, the undergrowth ended abruptly and opened up into a flat dirt road.

  “Did we enter Shangri-La?”

  I looked around curiously as I waited for everyone to catch up. Shangri-La was often described as a dreamlike paradise, but it certainly didn’t look fantastical. Really, it just looked like an old-fashioned countryside village. The roads weren’t paved with gold or anything extravagant like that. The houses didn’t even look that fancy, either. There were sprawling farms and fields, giving it the feel of a hard-working community. It was grand in its own way, but relaxed and peaceful... I guess that’s how Shangri-La rolls, but what was with this sense of unease?

  “Uh...”

  There were no signs of life here. The only person in Laputa had been the king, but there wasn’t a soul around here. It was like a ghost town. I could see a dozen or so houses, but they were shut up tight. And on top of that, it was kind of... It was just sort of an odd impression, but it seemed like there was a dark cloud hanging over this peaceful village.

  “Hmm...”

  “Isn’t it kind of... somber?”

  It seemed the girls had the same impression. Several of them started rubbing their chins and looking around too. But while we were hesitating to proceed, the door to one of the houses opened up and Chirika stepped out.

  “Chirika!” I yelled her name as I ran to her.

  Despite her indignant expression, Chirika waited for me without running off this time.

  “So you came too, did you? I thought you were going to ignore me in favor of saving that girl.”

  “As if I could do that. Moreover...” I paused a moment to catch my breath, then lowered my head.

  “Wh-What are you doing?!”

  “I’m sorry. I made light of your situation and took advantage of your patience. But please... Please don’t run off by yourself anymore. You can be pissed off at me all you want, just give me one more chance to help you.”

  With my head bowed low, I apologized to Chirika as sincerely as I could. I’d intended to the moment I ran into her, and here we were. My eyes stayed glued to the ground as I waited for her response, praying she would forgive me. Eventually, I heard a scoffing snort.

  “Come now, a man shouldn’t bow his head so readily.”

  I tentatively looked up to see Chirika’s disgusted expression.

  “I truly didn’t expect you to come after me... Why do you care so much? There are others that require your assistance as well,” Chirika asked, glancing over at Nyanyan and Sherlyn.

  “This may sound arrogant, but I’m the only one that can save your story, Chirika. Like I told you before, that’s how my bloodline works, so I’d never abandon a heroine who came to me. I made that promise to myself.”

  “...I’d call that greed rather than arrogance. You’re attempting to save everything yourself. It seems like you’re an even greater fool than I had thought,” Chirika said before laughing for the first time today.

  Did... Did that mean she forgave me? Maybe?

  “She might have just been sulking because her story was placed on the back burner, you know?” R said as she somersaulted in the air, but I took it as her usual nonsense. If that were true, not only would it make me feel guilty, it’d actually be pretty cute.

  Now, back to the main subject...

  “Anyway, we’ll get back to Laputa later. Since we’re here now, we might as well try and find out something about the Gold Yaksha. So... time to gather information, I guess?”

  I was ready to get right into it, but...

  “Give up. It’s pointless.”

  Chirika stopped me for some reason.

  “Why?”

  When I asked that, her expression turned rather sour.

  “There’s a plague.”

  ▽

  Chirika had arrived in Shangri-La before us, and she had used that time to go around asking the residents here about the Gold Yaksha. Or at least that was her plan, but when she barged into the first house... she found its owner lying in bed looking more dead than alive.

  “I counted 15 houses in the vicinity, and of the 14 I’ve visited, they’re all in the same condition. At this rate, it won’t be long before their entire village is wiped out. I heard that Shangri-La was a land unfettered by death, but it seems the rumors are just rumors.”

  It was indeed starting to seem like Shangri-La was far from the paradise we’d heard it was.

  “Okay, well, let’s go to the remaining house for now. We can plan our next move once we’ve exhausted that possibility.”

  And so we made our way to the one house Chirika hadn’t already visited yet.

  “Hold on a minute...”

  “Nyanyan?”

  Just as I was about to open the door, Nyanyan tugged on my sleeve and stopped me.

  “There’s a sick person inside, right? Everyone should drink some of this.”

  She took one of the bottles hanging at her waist and opened it before lifting it to my mouth. A medicinal scent wafted up from the inside.

  “Is this some kind of medicine?”

  “Atlantis has been developing its medicinal technology for a long time now. Don’t you remember me telling you about that? If you drink this, it’ll prevent you from breathing in viruses. So drink up.”

  “So it has a virucidal effect on the air itself? Without the need for a mask?” Hibiki readily accepted the bottle from Nyanyan with an approving, impressed nod.

  “Thank you, Nyanyan.”

  “I-It’s no big deal...”

  When I thanked her, Nyanyan hurriedly turned away. Was she feeling shy? Anyway, after we all took a sip of the medicine, I opened the door.

  “Hahh... Hahh...”

  I found a young woman lying in bed who seemed to be in a lot of pain, which, according to Chirika, was par for the course here. Just when had Shangri-La fallen into such a terrible state...? To stay on the safe side, only me, Chirika, and the medically knowledgeable Nyanyan actually entered the house.r />
  “Hahh... Hahh...”

  Even when we walked over to her, the woman’s hoarse panting continued.

  “The people I found in the other houses were in the same condition. Even when I called to them and shook them, they didn’t react,” explained Chirika, frowning bitterly.

  “...Are you all right?”

  Despite what Chirika had said, I couldn’t help kneeling beside the pained woman to see if there was anything I could do. And slowly, she faintly opened her eyes. All three of us were surprised to see it. To be honest, I’d already half given up hope after hearing about the sad state of things here.

  “Wh... Who...?” the woman asked in a husky voice.

  “Nyanyan, could you take a look at her?”

  “P-Probably.”

  Nyanyan nodded without much confidence, but she swapped positions to kneel down next to the woman. Then, after whispering something quietly in the woman’s ear, she held her ear up to the woman’s mouth as she murmured her reply. They went through several questions this way, and Nyanyan reached for another one of the bottles at her waist.

  “Rekka, please lift up her head.”

  “Got it.”

  I kneeled beside the woman’s pillow and gently held up her head, tilting it back as Nyanyan directed. She carefully brought the bottle she’d opened to the woman’s lips and helped her drink it little by little.

  “It’s only a temporary measure, but this should help alleviate her pain... I think.”

  “Can you heal her?”

  “I’d have to return to the kingdom and ask the medical team for more details, but it should be possible... I think.”

  “That’s good news.”

  I let out a little sigh of relief for now. We then waited patiently, and the woman’s breathing and expression both eventually relaxed.

  “I’m not sure who you are, but thank you...”

  She eventually recovered enough to sit up and thank Nyanyan properly, albeit with a hoarse voice.

  “No, I didn’t do anything special...”

  “We’re lucky to have a princess from a kingdom that specializes in medicine like you around, Nyanyan,” I added.

  “I’m telling you, it’s no big deal... These are just some of the basics I learned while my father was still alive.”