Chapter 2 — Stop Screwing with Me! Why Don’t I Get a Beautiful Girl?!
Yogiri’s group was walking through the tropical rainforest known as the Elven Forest. Mokomoko led the group using the Enju robot, with Tomochika Dannoura, Yogiri Takatou, and Daimon Hanakawa following in line behind her.
They were heading for the collection of buildings at the center of the hexagon made by the enormous trees. They had only been a kilometer away when they had been visited by Malnarilna, so it wasn’t that much farther.
“Truly, I believed Sir Takatou would be capable of defeating Malnarilna somehow! My discerning eye has come through for me yet again!”
“Wouldn’t things have just stayed the same for you if we had lost? You were still planning on sucking up to Malnarilna afterwards, right?”
“N-N-N-Not at all!” Hanakawa, still in his jester outfit, averted his eyes, confirming the lie in his words.
“By the way, what’s up with your outfit? Is that the kind of thing you like?” Tomochika asked.
“You’re just asking that now?! Sage Yoshifumi forced me to wear these clothes! Even someone as fashionably challenged as myself would never choose an outfit such as this!”
“Yoshifumi? You were with the Sage?”
Hanakawa had appeared in front of the rest of them out of nowhere. Yogiri hadn’t cared where he’d come from, but now that he knew Hanakawa had been with Yoshifumi, he couldn’t help but ask. After all, they were lost and wandering through the forest because they were trying to find the Sage.
“Quite so. I was taken captive and forced through all sorts of awful experiences.” Hanakawa went on to explain at length everything that had happened since they had parted ways in the capital. It was a long story of him being swept along against his will, first by Akinobu Marufuji, Shigeto Mitadera, and Rei Kushima, who had brought him to Ent, then by Yoshifumi, who had forced him into his service and brought him to the Elven Forest.
“Huh? I don’t remember seeing Kushima and the others at the capital. Did they split off from everyone else?” Tomochika was clearly surprised. She had thought they had been killed somewhere.
“They traveled with us from the bus to the first town, but after that they ran off alone.”
“So that means the survivors from our class are me, Takatou, Hanakawa, Carol, Ninomiya, Marufuji, Mitadera, and Kushima?”
“I believe Sir Marufuji is deceased now, so it’s just the seven of us, I suppose.”
“Hmm. It would be nice if we could all work together.”
“But Hanakawa doesn’t want to go back, remember?” Yogiri cut in.
“Actually, I have recently begun to change my mind. Things here have turned out much differently than expected...”
“Oh. Good luck, then.”
“Hey! This is where you should be renewing your resolve, saying ‘We’re all going to make it back together!’”
“If it doesn’t inconvenience us, we can bring you back too, but our main objective is to get ourselves home. I won’t make any guarantees about looking out for anyone else.”
They knew they could get back using the Philosopher’s Stones, but they still didn’t know exactly how many they would need. Finding Philosopher’s Stones wasn’t exactly an easy task, and the more of them they acquired, the more people died as collateral damage along the way. Yogiri wouldn’t hesitate to use his power if he had to, but he also didn’t feel compelled to go overboard to help some classmates he barely knew.
“As expected of Sir Takatou, you abandon your own classmates with ease. Such behavior is terrifying and not the least bit admirable! I would hope you could act a little more humane!”
“Well, to be honest, we’re not really in a position to be worried about others,” Tomochika commented.
“Tomochika, please! I was hoping you’d be the kind of heroine whose airheaded and shallow sense of justice gets us into all kinds of trouble!”
“Surviving is my top priority, though.”
“The Dannoura way leaves no room for aiding one’s allies. Rather than thinking of others, the best results can be reached if each individual ensures the best outcome for themselves. Such are our teachings,” Mokomoko said as she cut through the thick brush.
“Umm, now that I think of it, who is this lolita-esque girl leading us at the moment?”
“That’ll be annoying to explain... She’s a robot named Enju Sumeragi. She showed up out of nowhere.” Explaining that she was being controlled by Mokomoko, Tomochika’s guardian spirit, was too much trouble, so Yogiri didn’t bother.
“What the hell?! How come everyone else gets one?!” Hanakawa suddenly exploded, taking them by surprise. “‘My Book of Prophecy skill suddenly turned into a young girl!’ ‘A robot girl suddenly appeared out of nowhere!’ Stop screwing with me! Why don’t I get a beautiful girl?! Is asking for a slave girl to press her chest into me and say ‘As expected of my master!’ whenever I show my powers in the slightest so much to ask for?!”
“Don’t ask me. Actually, didn’t you just get a summoning power?” Yogiri asked. “Can’t you summon a girl with that?”
“There is no way it would be so... There is... Huh? Wait, is that actually possible? I can summon anything, right? But no, if they refuse the summoning, it will fail to activate. Though it hurts to say it, I cannot imagine any young girls who would be willing to answer the call of someone like me.”
“If you can summon anything, why not set the conditions to be a ‘a young girl who likes people like you’?”
“Aha! Now that you mention it, that should work! Very well, then, allow me to do so...” Hanakawa stopped to focus on using his power, but Yogiri didn’t feel the need to hang around and watch. “Err, why are you leaving? Are you not interested in seeing what I end up summoning?”
“We’re not in a huge rush or anything, but we’re too busy to stick around for your wife hunting,” Yogiri replied.
“V-Very well! I shall wait until we reach a more secure location!” Hanakawa hurried to catch up.
“So, you said Yoshifumi is in the forest too?” The conversation had totally derailed, so Yogiri returned to what he was interested in asking.
“You say ‘here,’ so that must mean this is the Elven Forest after all?”
“Yeah, at least we think so.”
“I am sure you are correct. It is hard to believe many forests like this exist.”
There were certainly any number of forests in the world, but this was an otherworldly domain that mimicked a rainforest. Yogiri couldn’t imagine there were others like it.
“Do you know where Yoshifumi is?” he asked.
“Shortly after he entered the forest from the capital side, I was teleported here, so I cannot say precisely.”
“He’s looking for a sword, right? Which direction was he heading in?” Yogiri asked.
“I could not say. It appeared Sir Mitadera had some clue, though.”
The forest was large, but if they were in the same place, there was a chance they would run into each other. Yogiri decided to keep that in mind.
“If this is the Elven Forest, I suppose there is a chance I may come across a beautiful young elf while I am here! Perhaps there is no need to summon a girl at all!”
“Hanakawa...the elves aren’t what you think they are,” Tomochika interrupted. “They’re these weird bug-monkey things. It’s like an affront to fantasy itself.”
“Is that so? The elves I have come across seemed to match the typical description.”
“What?” Tomochika froze. “No way! Where were they?!”
“The ones I met were in the Forest of Beasts. There was a dazzling young elf there.”
“Then what are the things here?!”
“The only reason we had for believing they were elves was that they said the word once in their broken speech, I guess,” Yogiri commented.
The creatures they had encountered were four-armed animals that looked to be both insects and monkeys. There was no guarantee they were actually elves.
“So wait, I can still have hope, right?!” Tomochika cried.
“Well, we know those other things live here, so I don’t think the chance of finding normal elves is very high...” Yogiri suggested, but Tomochika was no longer listening.
“If you wished to see Sir Yoshifumi, why are you in a place like this?” Hanakawa asked.
“We heard we had to go through the forest to get to the capital, but once we got inside, the space was all warped like the Lost Woods. We don’t know how to get out, so we decided to just head for the middle.”
“That sounds terrifyingly reckless—” Hanakawa suddenly stopped short. An arrow was sticking out of his chest. “What is this?!” He tore the arrow out.
“You seem pretty relaxed for having been shot by an arrow,” Yogiri said.
“I am level ninety-nine, so this is not a real problem. But do you not possess some ability to detect killing intent?!”
“Sorry, it didn’t even occur to me to try and protect you.” Yogiri hadn’t been paying any attention to the killing intent aimed at their unwelcome companion.
“An arrow... Does that mean elves?!” Tomochika exclaimed.
“It seems Tomochika isn’t much concerned for my well-being either!”
“Where did it come from?” Yogiri had thought using a bow and arrow would be impossible in dense foliage, but that clearly wasn’t the case.
“Guh! Th-There are more!”
As another arrow embedded itself in Hanakawa, Yogiri and Tomochika leaped behind him for safety. Even Mokomoko had returned at some point to use him as a shield.
“This is all wrong! Why are you using me for protection?!”
“You’re pretty wide, so you’re good cover.”
“Good luck, Mr. Ninety-Nine!”
“Indeed. I am sure they fired at Hanakawa first due to his larger size making him an easier target,” Mokomoko commented.
“A-Anyway, could you please use your special instant death power to stop whoever is firing these arrows?!”
“Don’t do it, Takatou!” Tomochika immediately interjected.
“What?!”
“This time it might be real elves!”
“Why is your desire to see elves more important than my life?!”
“Against an archer, a student of the Dannoura School of Archery has no excuse for fleeing! Here, take Furemaru and don’t hold back!”
Mokomoko tossed a black lump to Tomochika. As she grabbed it out of the air, it transformed into a large, black bow.
“Huh? What am I supposed to do?!”
“I set it to be non-lethal, so aim as if you intended to kill!”
“Well, if they’re not going to die, then okay.” Although a little hesitant, Tomochika seemed motivated.
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