Chapter 20 – He and I
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In the queen’s chamber I crossed swords with her. But, as it’d be impossible to stay in the dungeon indefinitely, I headed towards the magic circle for the time being. And given that I couldn’t leave her behind here, I approached her timidly as she lay on the ground, unconsciously.
Seeing her sleeping face, I felt my heart thump a bit. Her face was so pretty that even celebrities would feel ashamed… Is it because she’s from Tokyo?
…Let’s not pay attention to it as much as possible.
Thinking so, I inserted a hand underneath her lower back, trying to lift her up. With her head now resting on my shoulder, her golden-blue hair with its pretty shades entered my visual field. This is truly beautiful and fascinating coloring. I wonder how she managed to dye it like that.
A fragrant, flowery smell wafted over from her hair. In addition, two things only women possessed pressed against my back. They were quite big.
……It seems like it’d be better to give up on carrying her on my back.
After lowering her again, I tried various ways of holding her, before eventually settling for a princess carry.
On top of the magic circle we were wrapped up in a pillar of light. And then we arrived at the reward room, me still carrying her.
It wasn’t as though the room was housing a treasure chest as its name suggested. The reward room where I ended up yesterday was kind of like a store for assorted goods. All in all the dungeons were apparently full of incomprehensible places like fields, caves, and so on. And without being an exception to this rule, my current location also made it difficult for me to understand why a place like that had been prepared.
Currently I was inside a wooden room. Many mask-like objects were hanging on the walls, but in a way allowing you to pick them up. Additionally, there was a counter for accounting, but it was awfully small.
Looking at my smartphone, I saw that I had a time limit of five minutes. I guess the available time increases with the class of the dungeon.
I wanted to jump into rummaging through the stuff right away, but I’m carrying her right now. And although it doesn’t look like she’s going to wake up any time soon, that could change any moment.
I made sure by stroking a metallic mask hanging on the wall. It was made out of sturdy material, giving one the impression that its defense power would be considerably high. But, going by its shape, I felt like it hadn’t been made with the intention to be worn by a human. Still, I could sell it and maybe it’s possible to break it apart.
With that in mind, I barraged the Store button until my smartphone’s capacity hit its limit. I had systematically picked up one mask after the other.
…In reality I wanted to carefully pick a good item while tossing away the worthless stuff after looking at them through my smartphone, but it’d be tough to do that while holding her. Besides, will I actually be able to leave together with her, if I press the Escape button?
If she also has Dungeon Seekers installed, I’d just need to open it and press the button her smartphone, but there’s no way I’d be able to grope all over her body to search for her smartphone, and to begin with, I don’t even know her password to unlock the phone either.
Also, I have a certain hunch that she isn’t a player. I mean, she’s simply too strong for that. Her strength is definitely nothing you could obtain with DS which was supposedly launched just recently. Rather, it’s something you obtain as a result of many years of diligent training and repeated survival of deadly encounters.
At the moment her eyes were closed with her head leaning against my right arm. Her outfit suited her very well.
…This situation is really bad for my heart. I should hurry up and go back home.
While hugging her so that she wouldn’t get separated from me, I pressed the Escape button. Once again we got wrapped up in light and then I could confirm that both of us had returned to our original world.
｡ ₊°༺🫀༻°₊ ｡
After returning to the backyard of my home while carrying her like a princess, I headed to my room by blatantly climbing in through the balcony. Since we were going to enter my home, I took off her boots and placed them down on the floor.
Her legs are really slim…no, no, now’s not the time…
I was treating her courteously, but she attacked me, right? Even so, I didn’t sense a tinge of hostility from her and she allowed me to enjoy the battle, so I didn’t feel wary at all.
She might attack me again, once she wakes up. Maybe I should tie her up for the moment? No wait, is there any meaning in tying up someone who can use mana?
Thinking that I might just do it for the time being, I retrieved the rope──I bought one as a precautionary measure since it seemed like it could come in handy during the dungeon clear──from my smartphone, and tried to bind her hands. Just as I tied them tightly, I stopped, thinking that it might hurt her a bit, so I loosened the knot.
I lifted her up and took her to a tatami room I hadn’t used in a while. There I took out the mattress for guests and laid her down on it.
｡ ₊°༺🫀༻°₊ ｡
The scent of tatami tickled my nose.
Waking up, I was resting on a mattress for some reason. My hands were restricted by a rope, but it seemed like it’d be quite easy to undo the binding. As I was lying, I moved my eyes, scanning my vicinity.
I was inside a Japanese room with sliding screens and tatami. Slowly raising my body, I noticed him sitting on a chair. He was facing in my direction, his eyes closed.
“…Kurase Hirotatsu?”
“That’s right, Amamiya Satoha.”
Gradually I recalled what had happened. My body didn’t hurt and there were no traces of anything strange having been done to it. It looks like I was the one being suppressed without injury.
He was staring my way, holding his magic sword in one hand.
He had apparently collected the golden shields and spear, my anti-Occult armament, but I noticed that the bigger part of my gear was still with me. Why didn’t he confiscate all of it while I was unconscious? Even though I’m lying right now, I can kill him with what I’ve got on hand right now.
Roughly scratching the back of his head, he faced me.
“After making you faint with my mana, I left the dungeon and carried you here. I won’t take your life and I won’t injure you. That’s what I told you, right?”
“Yes. You certainly did…I just didn’t expect that you would truly go through with it.”
Given that it was slightly uncomfortable on top of the mattress, I moved my legs a bit and changed my posture. Seeing me switch into seiza, I felt like his eyes widened a bit.
“…How did you notice me being behind you during our final clash? You shouldn’t have been able to sense me.”
“Hmm? Ah, I wasn’t able to notice you, even though you were tailing me all the time while I was in the dungeon. So I simply fought under the expectation that you might have a technique allowing you to erase your presence and become invisible.”
“…Hmm, I understand that you would expect it, but you still shouldn’t be able to deal with it. There’s no way you could.”
That technique is one of the states I attained as Occult Slayer. No matter what sort of opponent, they won’t be able to precisely pinpoint my location. It’s nothing you can dodge, even if you know that I’m present.
“…The instant I couldn’t see you anymore, I simply thought that you’d probably come at me from behind. If you had attacked me from the side, it’d have likely been my loss. At the very end, I bet on a baseless gut feeling. That’s all there is to it.
I couldn’t articulate just how silly all of it sounded. Placing the katana between my staff and his head at that exact moment was a miracle. If he had moved before I actually swung my staff, I might have been able to deal with it, so it’s pure coincidence that he won that bet.
“…It was my bad. Since I would have injured you with a single touch, if I had clad myself in mana seriously, I adjusted the output, but that backfired on me. I received the full brunt of your mana attack.”
Although it happened based on a coincidence, it’s a fact that I lost, and yet I made excuses. The final move of his that caused me to faint decided the outcome because I was solely fixated on his magic sword and neglected to be cautious of his other techniques.
As such, my own immaturity also played a role in this, but even so, it still doesn’t diminish the fact of him being a strong person. He also didn’t take the explanation of my defeat as the whining of a sore loser.
“Yeah…I’ve understood that you’re strong. Thanks, it was fun,” he muttered with an earnest and very satisfied look.
“S-Sure…”
Because I hadn’t expected that he’d thank me for attacking him, I felt slightly confused. I still haven’t fully grasped just what sort of guy he is. During the battle he blurted out some amazing stuff about me being beautiful and so on, too.
“Anyway, I cannot go to Tokyo. Could you please reconsider?”
His eyes were filled with determination as he made that statement while staring into my eyes. He has no choice but to ask me to not take him to Tokyo as he didn’t kill me before.
Although it’s my own order…I’ve been trying to lure into the dangerous place called Amamiya and because of that, I’m feeling a biting pain in my chest out of a guilty conscience, even if it’s now too late to say that.
What should I do? I don’t really know.
Only the silence of winter remained between him and me. But, somehow that didn’t feel unpleasant, but rather comfortable. The sunlight pouring into the room hit both of us. His figure, as he waited for my answer while fixedly staring at me, was awe-inspiring.
｡ ₊°༺🫀༻°₊ ｡
A world of me just facing him. It might be the first time I feel comfortable about silence reigning between me and someone else. But, that world was distorted by the thoughtless trembling of my smartphone. After exchanging a look with him, I picked up my phone.
“Yes, Amamiya Satoha speaking.”
“Satoha!? I finally got through… What’s your current situation?”
The one calling me was my elder sister──Amamiya Rei, the acting head of the Amamiya family──and not that old man.
“…I attempted to restrain Kurase Hirotatsu, but failed. And right now I’m facing him in his home.”
Guessing that things hadn’t taken the worst-possible turn, sighed deeply. That sigh contained a lot of emotions like relief and anger.
“What kind of situation is this…? Anyway, whatever. Satoha, I revoke the order of those elders. Goddamn, those damn geezers never stop looking down on me…!”
On the other side of the phone my sister was fuming, but he couldn’t hear any of it. Either way, the necessity to bring him to Tokyo was gone with this, is what I took out of our conversation.
“Satoha, you will explain to him, who got involved in our family mess, what DS is about and in addition I have another, new order for you: you are to work together with Kurase Hirotatsu from now on until I have new orders for you.”
Although he was likely curious about what I was talking about on the phone, he was stoically waiting without trying to rudely listen in on my conversation.
“…This is a request by the management…using that as a pretext, you will stay away from Amamiya for a while.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, I have to take care of the aftermath, so I’m hanging up now. Satoha, please report back to me regularly.”
After finishing that last bit of our conversation, my Sister hung up. Following that, a document detailing the order was sent to my device. It basically told me to serve as his guard in addition to investigating the background of the serial murder case that took place here in Sendai. But, what I must do first and foremost is to explain to him the purpose and meaning of DS as well as the true state of this world.
…Now then, where should I start?
He was suddenly dragged into this world, attacked by another player and monsters. And on top of that, he got attacked by me. All of it might be a great nuisance to him, but I do feel slightly curious about a human like him. While hoping that he agrees, if possible, I began to speak.
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