Chapter 16 — A Girl Falling from the Sky Is a Rather Standard Development!
“Around here, I guess?”
At Yogiri’s instruction, Hiruko brought them to a stop. Below them was a forest with a large hole in the middle of the canopy. Given the path of destroyed earth leading from there to the capital, it must have been where the monster had emerged.
“This is all well and good, but we’re not going to find any clues about Euphemia here, are we?” asked Yogiri.
“Miss Euphemia chose to fight against a god named Zakuro, did she not?” Hanakawa asked. “Is it not possible she lost and is thus lying collapsed somewhere nearby?”
“Let’s take a look. Hiruko, take us into the hole, please.”
“Jeez, how arrogant can you be?! And you don’t even care, do you?! I gotta say, you’ve got guts!” As she spoke, Hiruko lowered them into the hole in the forest. The bottom was strewn with broken chunks of stone of all sizes, lending credence to the theory that the monster had burst up from underground.
Once they landed, Yogiri looked around. “If she was lying around here, she was probably crushed.”
This had been an underground city, but there were few traces of it remaining. The majority of the place had been destroyed by the collapsing rock.
“There was a teleporter here, wasn’t there?” Tomochika said, a sour expression on her face. “Even if we find Euphemia, it’s starting to look doubtful we’ll be able to use it.”
“We’ve got no clues at all, huh?” Yogiri replied.
“Mokomoko, can Enju analyze the area?” Tomochika asked.
“Hmm. While her vision is excellent, she is not equipped with any functions that significantly surpass a human’s.”
Yogiri looked around carefully again but still found nothing. “Maybe this was pointless.”
“Can you stop whining? I’m the one who had to carry us all here, so it was my effort that was wasted.”
“Now what? If she’s not here...maybe the capital?”
“It is possible,” Mokomoko said. “The individual that she met here, Zakuro, called the monster ‘the Overlord’ and seemed to serve it in some capacity. It is quite possible he has gone in the same direction, and our only potential clue as to Euphemia’s whereabouts seems to be to question him.”
“Hiruko, please take us to the capital.”
“Okay, your insolence is getting to be too much. It’s almost starting to get amusing.”
“Hey, what’s that?” Luu pointed up into the air.
Yogiri looked up to see a door. It wasn’t attached to anything and was just floating in the air. Aside from that, it looked like a plain, unadorned wooden door.
“Was that here when we arrived?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Tomochika answered.
“No, such a thing existing would be beyond the scope of our imaginations,” Hanakawa said. “With such low visibility, even if we were told it was there from the start, we would probably believe it...”
“Do you know what that is, Hiruko? You’re supposed to be a god, right?”
“Don’t think I know everything just ’cause I’m a god! But hey, it’s a door. If you’re curious, just open it.”
Before they had a chance, however, the door opened on its own, a person leaping through it.
“Ow! What the heck? What’s going on?! This was supposed to be a cave.” A girl in a pink dress fell from the door. Maybe she had landed too hard, because her level of complaining was extreme.
“Oh! A girl falling from the sky is a rather standard development! Yes, I understand! I am sure I am going to be ignored at this point, but we have no idea what this is all about yet, so please let me dream!”
“Why are there so many people here?!” The girl was clearly shocked to see them.
Considering they were in the remains of a collapsed cave, it was now a bit of a crowd.
“So...any ideas?” Yogiri hesitated. He had no idea how to deal with a girl suddenly popping out of a door in midair.
“How about you try talking to her?” Tomochika suggested.
“Okay. Who are you, and how did you appear like that?” Yogiri made no attempt to introduce himself. They were being targeted by the Malnarilna sect, so with no knowledge of whether she was affiliated with them, it was best to hide their identities.
“Why should I tell you?” Of course, from her perspective, the six of them were strangers wandering around a cave. It wasn’t surprising that she would be on guard herself.
Forcing her to talk wasn’t necessary, though, so while Yogiri wondered about what to do, Luu pointed at the newcomer.
“That person has part of my body.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying she has a Philosopher’s Stone?”
“Yeah. It’s inside her own body.”
“Does that mean she’s a Sage?” If she had a Philosopher’s Stone, that was almost certain.
“Isn’t that just a bit too convenient?!” Hanakawa complained. “That is far too bizarre of a development!”
“Maybe, but she’s here, right? I don’t think we can complain.”
“Tomochika, have you lost all sense of shame?! How can you act so calm in such a ridiculous situation?!”
“I mean...a lot has happened,” Tomochika murmured, looking off into the distance.
“While I traveled alone, a development like this would inevitably end up subjecting me to a horrible fate, but this time things shall not be the same! Not with Sir Takatou here! Now, drop the hammer of God upon that wicked Sage!”
“I can’t. If I kill her, the Philosopher’s Stone loses its power.”
Sages used the stones as a source of power. It gave them the ability to regenerate forever. If Yogiri killed the Sage, the Philosopher’s Stone would exhaust itself in a futile attempt to revive them, according to Sion.
“My name is Yogiri Takatou. If you’re a Sage, maybe you’ve heard of me?”
“Takatou... I think Sion mentioned something about you.”
“We’ve been going around fighting Sages and collecting Philosopher’s Stones. If you give us yours, we won’t have to fight. So how about it?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. You’re the one who killed Santarou, right?”
“And Lain, and Sion, and Raiza.” Though technically he hadn’t personally killed the latter two, he didn’t feel like explaining. The information should have been enough to threaten her.
“O-Oh. But so what? Doesn’t that just mean I’m stronger than all of them?”
“What are you wasting your time for?” Hiruko interjected, looking at Yogiri.
“I just thought it would be easier if we didn’t have to fight,” he explained.
“Come on, if she’s got part of Ma’s body, you just gotta take it. Don’t waste your time with all this jibber jabber.”
Hiruko suddenly vanished and then appeared beside the Sage a moment later, her arm embedded in the girl’s chest.
“Wha...”
“Hmm. It should be here somewhere... Ah, there it is! Found it!”
Pulling her arm out, Hiruko held up a round, translucent stone. The Sage, meanwhile, collapsed, clutching her chest.
Showing off the stone proudly, Hiruko walked back over to them.
“So you take your time walking back, huh?” Tomochika commented.
“Once the job’s done, you gotta revel in it a bit, right?”
“Noooo!!! Another beautiful girl wasted!” Hanakawa cried.
“Here, Ma.” Hiruko handed the stone to Luu. The moment Luu touched it, it immediately transformed. The solid, round stone melted into some sort of liquid and was absorbed into her hand. At the same time, Luu started to transform. As they watched, she got bigger. Her child-like face seemed to become a little more mature. She grew taller and her arms and legs grew a bit longer. She had changed from a three-year-old to a six-year-old.
“I got bigger again, daddy!”
“Cool, I guess?”
“Hold on! Ma is giving you such a cute smile! Can’t you give her a better response than that?!”
“We really got lucky this time, didn’t we?” Yogiri said.
“Yeah, well, we can’t waste any more time here,” Tomochika answered. “We have to look for Euphemia.”
“You people! How can you act like this is all finished when our beautiful Sage still has a hideous wound in her chest?!” Hanakawa ran over to the fallen girl. “Are you okay?!” He put his hands on her, and a gentle glow enveloped her.
“Huh? Why?” The Sage was taken by surprise. Hanakawa’s healing magic had restored her to perfect health.
“I am not like those monsters over there! There is no way I could abandon a beautiful young girl in her time of need! In addition, no matter how slim, it provides a chance of you falling for me and becoming the start of my harem!”
“You know, Hanakawa,” Tomochika sighed, “if you didn’t say stuff like that, you might actually have a chance with a girl someday.”
“Umm...thanks...” the Sage replied.
“Huh? Oh. Err, I expected you to insult me anyway, so I am not sure how to react to being thanked.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll help you out.”
“Uh, what do you—”
“Another Kingdom!” the Sage shouted, and the world turned dark. The sudden blackness soon split, revealing new scenery.
“What just happened?” Yogiri asked. They were in a completely new place. Though the rocky ground hadn’t changed, it was now surrounded by an expansive meadow. A huge gate stood in front of them, with walls stretching from either side of it.
“What the hell is going on?!” Hiruko screamed.
◇ ◇ ◇
The moment the Sage shouted, Hanakawa felt a powerful impact strike him. It felt like he was being thrown around by intense winds.
“Gaaaaah! What is happening?!”
He was being thrown around so violently that he couldn’t tell the difference between up and down. He tried to flap his arms and legs and regain some sort of balance, but it wasn’t working. Then, he hit something. After bouncing a few times, he came to a stop and immediately felt relieved. It had seemed like the violent winds would continue forever, but somehow he had made it out.
Lying on his back, he looked up at the sky. He was in a forest. They had been in an underground cavern earlier, but it seemed he had been thrown back to the surface.
“I-I do not understand what just happened, but it looks like I’m...safe?” He glanced around to try and figure where he was and saw the young Sage sitting nearby.
“Gyaaaah!”
“You don’t have to act so surprised. I just saved you, after all.”
“Err, uhh...”
“Maybe ‘saved’ is too strong a word. You were just outside the range of it because you were too close to me.”
“Ah, umm...I see. Thank you for saving me...” Hanakawa looked to his left and right. The rest of his companions were nowhere to be seen.
Now then...this appears to be an absolutely awful situation.
He had thought he would be safe as long as he was near Yogiri, but he had been quite easily ripped from Yogiri’s side. In short, he had no guarantee of safety. If this pink-dressed girl was a Sage, that would put her on the same level as Aoi and Yoshifumi. She would be able to kill someone like him with no effort at all.
Ah, I have made a terrible mistake. I should have feigned death for a while...
He doubted she would have remained in the area for long. If he hadn’t moved, she likely would have left without a second glance at him.
“Umm...may I ask what on earth just happened?”
“I used my power to get out of that place,” she answered plainly. She didn’t sound hostile. “My power can create worlds. When I created one with them at the center, the blast knocked you away. Well, it wasn’t exactly an easy trick, but it looks like I managed to trap them inside.”
“I-I see...” It hadn’t been a direct attack on Yogiri, as evidenced by the fact that the girl was still alive. Otherwise Yogiri’s automatic defenses would have killed her. “Err...do you perhaps have some business with me?”
He waited, but the girl merely sat there, watching him.
“Do you know much about this area?” she finally asked.
“Well, it is not as if I am totally unfamiliar with it...” He had traveled with Shigeto’s party to the capital and then spent a good deal of time living there. He could say he knew a bit more than someone who had never been to the region before.
“Okay then, show me around.”
“Me?!”
“I don’t have much power right now. With my Philosopher’s Stone gone, I can only make one world at a time.”
“Should you really be telling me that?!”
“Who knows? But you helped me when I was hurt even though you’d never seen me before. Doesn’t that make you a good guy?”
“Ah, ha ha ha...I wonder about that.”
“My name is Alice. What’s yours?”
“I am Daimon Hanakawa.”
“Hanakawa, huh? Take me to Yoshifumi in the capital.”
“Yoshifumi?” Hanakawa had no idea how to tell her that Yoshifumi was already dead.
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