I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 3 Read online

  And at last, Hibiki was in front of me.

  She turned the jewel on what she’d been holding—the ring Kult wore on left hand—and summoned the blue door that led to another world.

  “Geh! That’s...!” Kult quickly stopped firing when he saw the blue door. He was probably worried about freezing the ring. “Y-You! When did you get my ring?!”

  “You blocked my baton with your left hand, didn’t you? It fell off then.”

  So the metallic sound I’d heard was her baton hitting the ring?

  “Ngah! G-Give that back!”

  “You want it back...?” Hibiki held it high.

  “Then go get it!” She hurled the ring as far away as she could.

  “Gyaaaaah!” Kult’s screaming grew even louder.

  Without that ring, he couldn’t get home.

  “Okay, now go!”

  “Right!”

  While Kult was chasing the ring, Hibiki put her hand on the blue door.

  Clackety clack.

  “Hmm?”

  Hadn’t I heard that noise when I opened the red door? I looked at the doorknob.

  “Wait! S-Stop!”

  I had an absolutely terrible premonition and tried to stop Hibiki.

  “Stop wasting time! The door’s going to disappear!”

  But she ignored my hesitation and yanked me through the blue door with her.

  Right after, my vision went black.

  ▽

  I woke up just in time to look up and see the blue door disappear.

  “My back hurts...”

  I must’ve hit it coming through the door.

  “Rekka Namidare, are you okay?”

  “Hmm? Yeah... Ow.”

  Hibiki helped me up. How come she always landed on her feet? I really should’ve had her teach me the trick.

  “...Are you really okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “But that wound on your back...”

  Oh, she must have meant where the nine-tailed fox got me.

  “It’s not that deep. And it’s already stopped bleeding. I’m fine.”

  “......” Hibiki fell silent as she looked at my back. “Is that from when you protected me?”

  “Hmm? Weren’t you still unconscious then?”

  “Kokomo just told me.”

  That’s right. They could talk inside her head, couldn’t they?

  “Well, just like I said, it’s not that bad. Don’t worry about it.”

  “...Hmph.” For some reason, Hibiki turned away from me.

  ...Had I said something to piss her off again?

  I had Kokomo undo the transformation spell. I felt much more at ease in my own body. There were a lot of things different about a girl’s body... Like, um, the breasts and... stuff... No, never mind.

  Anyway...

  “Moving on...”

  “Yeah...”

  Hibiki and I both sighed and looked around.

  We were in a wasteland. One without so much as a single tree. The land was barren as far as the eye could see.

  “Just like I thought, we’re somewhere different now... Is this Earth? Or another world?” Hibiki whispered to herself.

  “Yeah, about that...” I raised my hand in response to Hibiki’s whisper.

  “What?”

  “I just realized that there’s a dial on that doorknob.”

  “A dial?”

  “Yup. One you can spin.”

  “Come to think of it, it did feel like I was spinning something when I turned the doorknob.”

  “That dial is probably what decides where the door goes. I accidentally spun it when I opened the red door in Kult’s lab, too.”

  “......”

  “Wh-What?” I asked.

  “Great. In other words, if you hadn’t spun that dial, we could’ve made it back without getting caught up in this unnecessary story.”

  She looked like she was ready to kill me. But it wasn’t fair. She hadn’t noticed it either!

  Well, whatever. I guess it was still my fault.

  “...Hmph.” Hibiki’s shoulders slumped. “There’s no point in just sitting around in an empty wasteland like this. Let’s go, Rekka Namidare.”

  “Mm, yeah...”

  “Huh? What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?”

  “No... I mean, I know it’s a little late for this, but isn’t it kind of a pain to call me by my full name?”

  “......”

  Maybe it was a little too late, yeah. She looked at me like I was hopeless.

  “...rassing, right?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s embarrassing to call a boy by his first name.”

  This time it was my turn to look astonished.

  “Wh-What?! Why are you looking at me like I’m weird?” She stammered.

  “I’m not, really...”

  Come to think of it, she’d called Kult by his full name, and she’d even asked Kokomo if he had a last name.

  “Do you not like men?”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “I just never really had a chance to interact with any... Wait, what are you making me say?!”

  “Gwah!”

  She... She punched me dead in the solar plexus... That might’ve been the worst hit I took all day.

  But while we were screwing around, the fox ears on Hibiki’s head suddenly twitched.

  “U-Um, guys... I told you stop talking out of my mouth!”

  Kokomo tried to say something, but Hibiki cut him off.

  “ROAAAAARRRRRRR!”

  It was just in time for an earthshaking roar to drown out all of our voices.

  “Wh-What?!”

  It sounded like someone’s voice... maybe. The way it shook my eardrums and pounded into my brain made it hard to believe somebody was making that noise, but it definitely sounded human.

  “It’s coming from over there!” Hibiki yelled.

  When I turned in the direction she was pointing, I saw a huge army headed our way. There was a massive group of armed men coming over the horizon... but something was strange about their silhouettes.

  “Golden... humanoids?”

  They looked like the stick figures you see on emergency exit signs, except a little squished and wider on the sides... They looked like they were made of clay. And each of these golden claymen were holding weapons like spears, bows, swords, and shields as they rushed towards us.

  “There are more coming from the other side too!”

  I spun around and saw another army of claymen coming up from behind us, just like she said. These ones were white. There were less of them than the golden claymen, but they were holding weapons and screaming too.

  No matter how dense I was, even I could tell what was happening... Rather, what was about to happen.

  “A war...?”

  It was a simple word. It was almost surreal to say it out loud, but that’s what this was. It was happening right in front of me.

  “What are you doing? We need to get out of here!”

  Hibiki grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me.

  “R-Right!”

  We ran away from the battlefield as fast as we could.

  ▽

  After just barely escaping the clayman armies, we wandered through the wasteland for hours.

  “Hahh... Hahh...”

  It was scorching hot, and the sun was burning my skin. Without any shade and without any water, we were running out of energy quickly. Even Hibiki was staggering.

  I wanted to take a break, but if Kult managed to find us in a wide-open plain like this, we’d be sitting ducks. We couldn’t afford to stay put.

  “...How long do you think it will be before Kult gets here?” I asked Hibiki once I couldn’t walk anymore.

  “He’s got the dowsing pendulum, so he should be able to find the ring. He’ll be here eventually.”

  “So it’s just a matter of time.”

  “Shut up.”

  The conversation stopped there.

>   It was strange, but part of me was looking forward to Kult showing up. If he showed up now, we’d have no way to beat him, but at least I wouldn’t have to walk anymore.

  Both Hibiki and I were reaching our mental limits. When you start to get that fatigued, your mind goes in dark directions. For example, I started thinking about my bloodline.

  The bloodline of the Namidare caused its bearer to get caught up in stories without a hero, and forced them to play the role of protagonist. At first, I’d thought it was a pain in the neck. But the reality of it turned out to be far worse.

  Putting myself in danger was bad enough, but just by being near them, I put the people around me in danger too. Just like a mystery novel where the story doesn’t work without someone near the detective dying, serious things kept happening around me one after the other. It was one thing in fiction, but actually having somebody like that in your life was a different matter entirely. Take Harissa, for example. Even though I once saved her, she was now hurt because of me.

  ...So was that it, then? If I wanted to avoid hurting anyone, would I have to keep moving? Never make any friends? Just solve stories wherever I went, only to leave behind the people I met along the way? Was that the destiny of a Namidare?

  Even if it was only until I grew up, I was still just a kid. There was no way I could handle that. I’d always lived a perfectly normal life until this turned my world upside down. It was like a malignant tumor. I just couldn’t accept it.

  I wished it would go away.

  This wasn’t normal at all.

  Just like Hibiki said, maybe I should let this bloodline go extinct...

  As I got lost in my dark thoughts, I suddenly saw a glint of sunlight out of the corner of my eye. Was it a building? If it was a building, did that mean there were people? If there were people, did that mean... there was food?!

  Hibiki seemed to notice it as well. The two of us looked at one another.

  “...!”

  And then we both broke into a run, without so much as bothering to nod at each other.

  ▽

  What we reached seemed to be a forward base belonging to the white claymen. Fortunately, there was nobody around save for a few guards, and we were able to sneak in easily. We used our senses of smell, keen with hunger, to find their provision stores.

  “I know it’s too late to ask now, but is it really okay to eat this stuff?”

  “Just be glad it wasn’t clay. Shut up and eat,” Hibiki said.

  Good point. For now, I would put my stomach over my sense of ethics.

  We finished by washing it down with some water. Finally, we were able to take a load off.

  “Okay, first we need information. Let’s go, Rekka Namidare.”

  “Go where?”

  “If this is a clayman base, there should be an armory somewhere. We can find weapons to fight Kult Graphimore there.”

  “Weapons, huh? But I don’t think we should use anything too serious...”

  “Our goal is just to capture him. And from the look of what we saw on that battlefield, all the claymen have are primitive weapons like swords and bows. I’m actually worried we won’t find anything that can stand up to his Gatling guns...”

  “It would be nice if we could talk with him before we fight,” I said.

  “He plans to save his world by capturing me and putting me inside the Infinity Reviver. And he’s got more than enough firepower to do it, so there’s no reason for him to negotiate,” she replied.

  “That’s true, I guess...”

  “Of course, if we had something to offer him, that might change things.” Hibiki’s eyes narrowed, as if she was asking me a question.

  Something Kult would want... that would be a way to save Kult’s story. If we had something like that, even Kult would hear us out.

  “...”

  But unfortunately, I still hadn’t come up with anything.

  “Just so we’re clear,” Hibiki said, “my plan is strictly to get Kult to give up on the Infinity Reviver and move his people to another world. I think that’s the best way.”

  “I know.”

  “Rekka Namidare, if you want to solve this story in your own way, you need to come up with a solution by the next time you see Kult Graphimore.” Her voice was strict as she spoke.

  After that, we used Kokomo’s transformation technique to turn into white claymen and left the food storehouse.

  “...Hey, shouldn’t we try to hide more?”

  “Who do you think is more suspicious: someone walking down the middle of the street, or somebody who’s hiding behind lampposts as they move? Kokomo’s spell made us look just like them, so walk like you’ve got nothing to hide.”

  There was a lot of space between the buildings in the base, and there was very little cover on the roads. There was almost nowhere to hide. If anyone came around the corner, we’d be found immediately.

  Fortunately, however, nobody had passed by us yet.

  ...But wait, why were there so few people here? The road was wide, and there were tracks that looked like they’d been made a jeep or something, but we were the only ones on it.

  It was good for us... but it was still weird.

  “Hey, Hibi...”

  And just as I started to say something to her...

  “What are you doing there?!”

  “!!”

  A sudden shout made us both freeze.

  “Hey, don’t tell me they found us out...” I muttered.

  “Stay calm. Let’s see what happens.”

  “Turn around!” the voice yelled from behind us as we whispered.

  I turned around, but I was still frozen stiff with tension. As I expected, there was a helmet-wearing clayman standing there.

  “The High Leader’s speech has already begun! Get to the parade grounds now!”

  His face was nothing but a mouth, with no eyes or nose, so it was hard to read his expression. But I could tell he was mad.

  It didn’t look like he’d figured out who we were... but how were we supposed to get through this? As I was freaking out, Hibiki gave a crisp salute.

  “Sorry, sir! We were just deployed here yesterday and got lost!”

  Wow. She lied without breaking a sweat!

  “You’re lost? You must’ve been slacking off during orientation, you maggot!”

  “I’m terribly sorry! We’re anxious to attend the High Leader’s speech and would like to get there as soon as possible. I’m sure you’re busy, but can you tell us the way to the parade grounds?”

  “Hmph... Fine. Follow me,” the clayman said.

  He didn’t look quite satisfied. But perhaps Hibiki’s lie about wanting to hear the speech had paid off, because he motioned for us to follow him as he walked off. He got mad at us a bunch of times on the way, but at least he was none the wiser about who we were.

  “...Comrades... We are... at...”

  I could hear fragments of what must have been their leader’s voice from the other side of a storehouse. Coming around the corner, I saw a giant field with over a thousand claymen standing in a row. The claymen all looked the same, with the exact same height and shape, so all of them standing in a neat line had an aesthetic quality to it. We joined in at the tail end.

  “This is the High Leader’s last speech before the final battle. Listen carefully,” the white clayman said. He then left.

  Once I saw that he was gone, I whispered into Hibiki’s ear, “What do we do, Hibiki?”

  “We’ll stand out if we move. They think we’re soldiers, so once we’re done with this speech we can just ask them where the armory is.”

  She was right. It wouldn’t be strange at all for a soldier to want to go to the armory.

  I nodded back at Hibiki. I decided it would be best just to quietly listen to this so-called High Leader’s speech until this gathering was finished.

  “Men, you have done well to endure this long war.”

  The High Leader was standing on a podium built from wood
en boxes. His voice was piercingly loud. If I had been close up, it probably would’ve busted my eardrums.

  “Those gilded bastards call us an inferior color, and attack us without cause! But their minds are tainted! They’re worth less than the filthy mud on the ground!”

  A rallying cry went down the line in response to his words.

  “Hey...” I whispered to the white clayman in front of us.

  “Hmm? What is it? Are you the guys who were late?”

  “I have a question.”

  Hibiki was jabbing me in the ribs and whispering for me to shut my mouth. But I didn’t stop. There was something I needed to know.

  “He’s talking about those gold dudes, right? Why are they fighting us?”

  “Huh? Why are you asking this now? You heard the High Leader. Those damn goldies say we’re an inferior color. They’re trying to wipe us off the continent because of it.”

  “...By color, you mean the color of our skin?”

  “Of course! They call us failures who can’t even shine in the light of the sun! They make fun of us, those bastards!”

  Can’t shine? That’s... That’s really stupid.

  Were they really fighting a war over something so dumb? Well, I guess the stupid ones were the gold claymen for attacking them over something like that.

  The white clayman I was talking to seemed to remember something upsetting, because he angrily turned to face forward and started yelling along with the leader’s speech. But eventually, just shouting wasn’t enough for them. The white claymen all started stomping too. Over a thousand pairs of feet stomping hard against the ground literally made the earth shake.

  “My brave, pure white soldiers! Are your shouts of anger true? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to teach them a lesson?”

  The shaking of the earth grew even stronger.

  “Very well. Then I will show you our army’s ultimate weapon.”

  There was a loud rumble as the four walls of the storehouse next to the parade grounds collapsed outward.

  Inside where the building had been standing was a huge wooden object. It looked something like a big box with things sticking out, but from a distance there was no way to tell what it was supposed to be. There were barely any decorations on it, but the sides were emblazoned with what looked like a relief in the shape of a dragon. For some reason, it reminded me of Lea when she was in Leviathan form.