Chapter 18 — Things Have Gone Totally Crazy Again!
The bear doll leaped forward, swinging its knife. Detecting killing intent, Yogiri used his power, and the bear immediately collapsed on top of the table, while the other animals in the café dropped to the floor as well.
“What was that about?!” Tomochika cried.
“Uhh...I guess they turn violent at a certain time?” he answered.
“Well, let’s get out of here!”
Tomochika and Mokomoko immediately stood up and made for the exit with Yogiri close behind them. As they stepped out of the store, Hiruko and Luu joined them. All around them, the animals gave something like a war cry before falling to the ground.
“I’m not getting a chance to do much lately, am I?” Tomochika muttered, thinking something like these animals wouldn’t have been too difficult for her to handle.
“My plan to prove the supremacy of the Dannoura Way in this other world is falling apart,” Mokomoko complained.
“Uh, I don’t really care about that. I just feel a little bad for making Takatou do all the work.”
“There is no other option. Perhaps you could defeat something on the level of a dragon, but the levels of our recent opponents have been too great. They have been much more powerful than what can be handled with ancient martial arts...”
They continued to discuss things as they ran. They needed to get out of Another Kingdom. But as they headed for the gate they had entered through...
“What happened to the exit?!”
Where the gate should have been was a plain wall. There were no signs of an exit.
“Up we go, then!” Hiruko shouted as their bodies floated up into the air. It was just a wall, after all. All they had to do was jump over it, she thought.
However, as they floated above the gate, they ran into something. With a clicking sound, the pale wall jumped up to meet them. There appeared to be a barrier in place even above the walls.
“Since you’re a god, can’t you break through this?” Tomochika asked.
“Nope. The rules make it difficult. If we’d been thrown in here against our will, we could have forced our way out, but we walked in on our own. We’re kinda stuck now.”
“Huh? What do you mean, ‘we walked in on our own’?! We had no choice!” Tomochika cried.
“There were those rocks under us at the start, remember? That counted as being in the outside world. Everything around us was covered by this closed space. So once we stepped off those rocks, it was like we stepped into her world on our own, and at that point we gotta do whatever she says. That’s how it works.”
“That sounds like a scam!”
“Either way, that’s how it is.”
“But can she really keep us locked in here forever?”
“Hmm...I don’t know the rules of this place yet, but that’s usually impossible. There should be an exit somewhere, otherwise it would be easier to break out.”
“Is that how it works?”
“If she doesn’t set up rules, we don’t have to follow them either. Speaking of which, looks like flying this long is against the rules too.”
Hiruko suddenly dropped out of the sky. Some sort of power was pulling her back to the ground. Flying through Another Kingdom was clearly against the rules.
“In that case, there should be rules somewhere,” Yogiri said. “Dannoura, where did you get that pamphlet?”
“There was an information center at the start when we first came inside.”
It didn’t take long for them to find the information center again, so they were definitely in the same location where they had entered.
“There it is.” Yogiri grabbed a pamphlet from the information stand. “So, uhh...it says ‘The exit is here!’ in big letters.”
Animals continued to rush at them and subsequently drop to the ground as they read through the pamphlet. The exit was at the castle at the center of Another Kingdom, the symbolic center of this world. Getting inside the castle required a key from each area, each of which was guarded by a boss.
“One, two, three, four...nine areas?” Hiruko counted. “And we’re supposed to go to all of them?”
“No, according to this pamphlet it’s just a door that’s locked,” Yogiri said. “In that case, I think I can get us through.”
“Really? Rules that are super clear like this are pretty hard to break, you know.”
“Let’s go to the castle first. It’s at least worth trying.”
“If you say so, why not?”
Once again, Hiruko flew them up into the air. With unbelievable speed, they whizzed past the scenery around them and were in front of the castle in no time at all.
“Rushing to the center doesn’t seem to be against the rules.”
“This is a bit too easy,” Tomochika said, slightly concerned.
“So this is the door, huh?” Yogiri said, looking up at the large castle gate standing in front of them. It was shut tight, with nine indentations on it. If they put the nine keys in, it should open.
“Die.” Yogiri killed the door. Then, with a little push, it opened fairly easily.
“Huh? That’s weird,” Hiruko said. “We just came to take a look, so why was it so easy to get in?”
“That’s my power.” Yogiri didn’t feel like explaining any more to the confused god. “But the exit is supposed to be inside here, right? Is there a back door or something?”
“The pamphlet doesn’t say anything more. But we were supposed to beat nine bosses to get here, so maybe there’s a last boss we’re supposed to fight?” said Tomochika.
“Not that we fought any bosses! We didn’t even get a single key!” Luu replied.
Passing through the castle gate, they entered a luxurious entrance hall. Climbing the staircase immediately in front of them, they made it to another large door, through which they found what appeared to be a throne room.
“No one here, huh?”
“Looks like someone left a note.”
A piece of paper was stuck to the throne.
I’m not home. Please wait until I come back. —Alice
“Guess there’s nothing we can do if she’s not home—wait! Doesn’t that mean there’s no way out?!” Hiruko cried.
The door leading into the throne room swung shut on its own. Soon after, darkness started creeping in. The blackness spread across the walls, the floor, and the ceiling, from which something began to emerge. Knights clad from head to toe in armor stepped out of the darkness, turning their swords and spears on the group.
“Huh?! What the heck? Are these supposed to keep us busy ’til Alice gets back?”
“Yeah, I don’t think we have the time for that.” Yogiri considered their options. If this was a pocket dimension, he could try killing it outright. For such a clearly distinct place, he had no problem distinguishing between it and the real world, so it shouldn’t affect anything on the outside. However, if he killed the world around them, there was no telling what would happen to them while they were still inside it.
“Hiruko, could you make a barrier around us or something?”
“Probably, but I think Ma is better at things like that.”
“Can you do it, then, Luu?”
“Yeah!” As the girl answered, a bubble appeared around them.
“It’s like making a totally new world,” Hiruko explained. “The inside of this bubble is separate from the outside, so nothing in the outside world can affect us here.”
That made things easy for Yogiri as well. All he had to do was kill the closed space outside their bubble.
He killed Another Kingdom. Beyond the bubble, cracks began to run through otherwise empty space, as if glass were breaking. Before long, those cracks ran through everything, and then with a loud crash, the world outside exploded.
“Did we make it through?” Yogiri looked around. They were back in the dim underground cave, surrounded by piles of rubble.
“Hanakawa and that Sage are gone,” Tomochika noted. The area was quiet, with no signs of anyone else around.
“Who the heck are you?” Hiruko asked, staring at Yogiri.
“This is just my specialty.” Still feeling that explaining was too much effort, he gave her another vague answer.
“You’ve got some pretty unique skills, huh?”
“Daddy is awesome!” For some reason, Luu seemed really proud.
“Well, as long as you’re on my side. That was kind of a waste of time, though, wasn’t it?”
“Since you can do that, we could have made it out from anywhere, couldn’t we?” Tomochika asked.
“I thought it would be better if we found a proper exit.” Yogiri wanted to avoid killing things like “space” as much as possible.
“I think we’ve been moving a bit too slowly. Can we start flying again?” asked Hiruko.
“I’ll do it!” Luu raised a hand. “I’m stronger now, so I can handle it!”
“All right, I’ll leave it to you.”
“Okay!”
Their bodies once again floated up into the air. As Luu had said, it felt much more stable than before.
“What should we do about Hanakawa?”
“If he’s not here, there’s not much we can do. Considering his luck, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Man...he’s no friend of mine, so I don’t really care, but you guys...” Tomochika muttered.
As they floated out of the underground cavern and into open air, they saw that the sky was dyed red around them.
“Huh?” said Tomochika in confusion. The dark red of the sky made it feel like it had been drenched in blood. A roar of thunder could be heard in the distance as black lightning struck the ground. “Things have gone totally crazy again!” she shouted up at the sky.
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