Public Bathhouse and Sudden Panic

It had been about two months now since the High School Prodigies found themselves in their new world. The freshly fallen snow crunched under Tsukasa’s feet as he headed to visit Ringo. Suddenly, he heard something.

“Hyah!”

A rousing shout, loud enough to reach the very heavens. Turning to face its source, he saw Aoi Ichijou standing between the village and the woods. With each swing of her trusty katana, another massive tree fell. Tsukasa reflexively found himself applauding the nigh-inhuman feat.

“I see those thick trees are no match for your skills, Aoi.”

“Tsukasa, m’lord… Mmm…” The girl turned around upon hearing Tsukasa’s praise, only to immediately scrunch up her face.

“Waaaaaaah!” Tears began gushing from her eyes like waterfalls. “I would prefer you did not say such things! I—I… I am nothing but a useless good-for-nothing who gets in everyone’s way, that I aaaaam!”

…She’s still hung up on that?

She was crying like a baby. As for the reason…it was because Mayor Ulgar had kicked her out of the hunting group. It wasn’t because she was a woman. Rather, it was because she was too strong. Her mere existence gave off a powerful kind of aura. Animals sensed it and would flee before the hunters could even find them.

In the end, the hunts with Aoi present had gone so poorly that the mayor had no choice but to relegate her to woodcutting duty. The hunt had gone back to normal in her absence, but Aoi herself had spent the past few weeks fretting over the trouble she’d caused.

“Waaaah! The Ichijou Rishin style even teaches us to wield our swords to protect the weak, that it does… I am beside myself over my own ineptitude!”

“It was my decision to have you join the hunt, Aoi. I’m the one who misjudged your skill set. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“…Rgh. This is the same as saying I am of no use to this village, though. I am but a base fool, good for nothing but cutting people down… I cannot cook. I am unskilled at commerce. I lack the wit to entertain the children. Woodcutting is all I can do for those who saved my life, that it is…”

The girl insisted she wanted to be of true help, to be useful. She sobbed as she slumped over, dejected.

At this rate, she’s liable to lose focus and get herself hurt.

That was no good. Tsukasa stepped toward Aoi and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t abase yourself like that, Aoi.”

“Tsukasa, m’lord…?”

“I’ve heard that the winters here get downright frigid. And the snow’s already started piling up. Firewood is the lifeblood of anyone who lives in places like this. There’s no such thing as having too much.”

“…So you are saying that my blade is of use, despite cutting neither beast nor foe?”

“Absolutely. Remember breakfast this morning? We cooked that with the wood you cut and charcoal made from it. The only reason we’re able to have warm meals is because you’re chopping down trees out here. Your katana is doing plenty of protecting as it is, both of the village and of us. Take pride in that.” Tsukasa wasn’t patronizing her just for the sake of it. Everything he’d said had been true.

The boy gazed straight into her wet eyes, his voice firm and reassuring. Hearing it seemed to bolster Aoi’s spirits a bit.

“I am in your debt. Thanks to you, I feel a good deal better.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Now, those trees aren’t going to chop themselves. And like I said, there’s no such thing as too much firewood.”

“Understood. Hyah!”

Aoi still wasn’t at 100 percent, but the look in her eyes had recovered some of its focus and vigor. At least now she wasn’t likely to hurt herself.

…Still, that was just a stopgap. I need to think of a good follow-up at some point.

Deep in thought, Tsukasa turned away from Aoi and continued walking.

—It had been two months since they’d come to this world.

Not just Aoi, but pretty much all of them had settled into their roles in the village. Tsukasa’s cooking skills hadn’t gone anywhere, so neither had he.

Akatsuki was still beloved by the children, so he was still on babysitting duty. Keine was good with her hands, so she was helping out with the sewing.

Masato had been back in the village for the last two days, but he generally spent most of his time over in the city, wheeling and dealing for the company to further support the village finances. And as for the new member of the village the Devil of Finance had picked up, she was over at Lyrule’s house, busying herself with learning to read and write. Everything was going smoothly. The peaceful days were passing gently by.

In fact, things are far less stressful here than they were back on Earth…

Back there, he’d had to restore his country’s failing economy while constantly fending off assassins. Tsukasa was certainly getting more sleep in this world. To him, the days he was spending in the village were downright blissful. If he wasn’t careful, he might’ve soon found himself not wanting to leave.

…This is bad. I have to get back to Earth—and sooner rather than later.

They all had responsibilities back there.

Tsukasa quickened his pace as he made for Ringo’s base. He needed to talk to her about how they were going to find a way home.

There was a river on the outskirts of the village that folks used for bathing and washing clothes. Beside it, there was an ancient ruin built into the side of the mountain. It very nearly resembled a temple. However, there were two things by its entrance that were decidedly un-templelike.

Specifically, a pair of signs: One read ELM VILLAGE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT and the other had the universal symbol for radiation on it. Yes, Ringo Oohoshi—the genius inventor—had turned the masterless ruins into a power plant slash laboratory.

After slipping past the entrance’s now-spoiled view and continuing on through the ruins for a while, Tsukasa eventually came to a large dome-shaped hall. Originally, it had probably been used for some sort of ritual. Now, the entire hall was lit with electric lights, and there was a throng of towering machines grouped in its center. Pipes and wires snaked all along the walls and floor. The machines themselves were made from a hodgepodge of organic and inorganic materials—stone, wood, iron, and the like—giving them the countenance of a certain moving castle from an anime movie Tsukasa had seen in the theater when he was a child.

At first, there had only been the pocket nuclear fission reactor—the one that had survived the crash. But Ringo had added countless new machines since then. Things like a blast furnace and a reduction pot for making aluminum, which explained the current state of the hall.

All the machines were chugging away. The cavern was filled with the sounds of ventilators pumping out air and steam blasting from pipes.

It’s been some time since I last heard the sounds of civilization.

Back on Earth, it would’ve just been a racket, but now the chorus of machinery sounded like home. As he basked in the nostalgia, Tsukasa searched for the room’s master. It didn’t take him long to find her.

The girl in question, Ringo Oohoshi, was in the middle of doing some welding at the base of the cluster of machines.

“………”

Wearing the goggles that were usually perched atop her hat, she traced the two sheets she was joining with her oversized gloves. The fingertips of the gloves glowed red-hot as she did, their heat melting the metals together.

The gloves she was using were one of her inventions, the All-Purpose Gloves. Once connected to a power source, they could serve as basic tools like pliers and hammers while also being able to weld, cut, and cleave. One pair of gloves allowed their user to perform almost any type of simple industrial work without having to constantly swap out tools, making them indispensable to any sort of craftsman. They were incredibly convenient and efficient, and their creation was estimated to have increased worldwide productivity by 20 percent. Some people referred to them as the invention of the century.

Currently, it appeared that Ringo was using them to remodel a machine.

Tsukasa chose not to call out to her. He didn’t want to interrupt her work. But just as he was thinking of leaving and coming back later, a mechanical voice piped up behind him.

“Why, I can bearly believe it! It’s Tsukasa!”

The boy prime minister spun around and saw Ringo’s massive backpack using its manipulator arms to walk around on its own like a spider. After it scuttled over to him, its top popped open.

“I haven’t seen you since the crash! It’s been a bear’s age!”

Then a monitor displaying a cartoon character that looked kind of like a bear crossed with a rabbit emerged and greeted him.

Tsukasa knew the character well.

Ringo was bad at conversing with others, so she’d developed an AI to talk to people in her place. Its name was Bearabbit, and it had also been in charge of piloting the Prodigies’ plane.

“Did you have something you wanted to tail Ringo?”

“Yeah, but she looks busy. I’ll just come back later.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! She’ll be pawsitively elated when she finds out you’ve come! Ringo, Tsukasa’s here to see you!”

“Huh?! Tsu-Tsukasa…?!” Hearing Bearabbit call her name, Ringo looked up like she’d just been flicked on the head.

“Good morning…er, evening? I think?”

“Good afternoon, Ringo.”

“Oh!”

The hall was artificially illuminated both night and day. Apparently, she’d been cooped up in there so long she’d forgotten what time it was. When Tsukasa corrected her, the girl’s pale cheeks went as red as an apple.

“Hard work is good and all, but you should try to get some actual sunlight every now and again. No good will come of you ruining your health.”

“O…kay. I’ll be careful…”

“Please do.” Tsukasa walked over to Ringo’s side and gazed up at the machines she’d built. “I have to admit, this is all really impressive. It seems like they get bigger each time I visit.”

“We have Masato to thank fur getting all the materials!”

“That’s right… Masato…is amazing.”

“When it comes to making money, he’s the best in the business. What are you working on right now?”

“Oh, um, this newborn over here just came together. Come look!” Ringo let out a happy exclamation, seemingly pleased that Tsukasa had taken an interest in her work. She hopped over to a laptop connected via a wire to a large machine and punched in a few lines.

When she did, the machine thundered into motion. After a short delay, it spat out something hard that clanged noisily as it emerged from something resembling a rubbish chute on the machine’s lower half. Upon inspection, the “something” was actually ten-odd silvery shovels.

“Are those…aluminum shovels?”

“This little one can take any material, then process it according to the design I put in.”

“I can already make pretty much anything myself, but for mass production, a piece of equipment like this is beary handy.”

Tsukasa found himself unable to conceal his surprise at Ringo’s accomplishment.

“That’s amazing. I had no idea you were already able to manufacture aluminum.”

“Eh-heh-heh…” Hearing Tsukasa’s admiration for her work made Ringo rock her body like she had an itch. However, she seemed happy.

“We’re pawsitively surrounded by raw materials, and we’re able to refine the sodium hydroxide we need for the reduction pot from salt. As long as we’ve got electricity, bruin up aluminum is a piece of cake.”

“Oh, so that’s why you asked Merchant for so much salt. That’s what you were using it for. It all makes sense now.”

“Yup… Now I can finally be useful to the village.” Ringo picked up one of the shovels, then turned back to Tsukasa. “Will they…be happy with this, do you think?”

Ringo seemed unsure of herself, so Tsukasa nodded vigorously.

“They’ll be thrilled, I’m certain of it. Up until now, the shovels they’ve been using have been barely better than wooden spatulas. Digging up the hard ground around here with them was a nightmare and a half. Light, sturdy shovels like these will make the farm work far easier.”

“Eh-heh-heh… I’m glad… Ah…” Tsukasa’s praise seemed to have drained her tension; she let out a cute little yawn.

“I-I’m so sorry! We were in the middle of talking, and I…!” Ringo frantically apologized, but Tsukasa told her not to worry about it.

“You look exhausted. Maybe you should call it a day.”

“Oh…but you came because…you needed something, right?”

“While that’s true…it’s going to be a big job. We can’t have you pushing yourself and passing out. For now, just rest up. That way, you’ll be able to give the next assignment your best.”

“…In that case, I think…I’ll take you…up on that…” Having seemingly reached her limit—unable to stay awake any longer—the girl tottered over to the pelt at the back of the cavern and rolled herself up in it.

“You’re going to sleep here? Shouldn’t you turn off the machines first, at least?”

“I can’t… If I stop the coolant pumps all of a sudden, the machines will break.”

“Isn’t it loud, though?”

“No…it’s nice. This way, I can hear all the voices of my children.”

“…I see.”

To Tsukasa, it was just noise, but apparently, she heard it differently. Her expression had a certain kind of pride to it.

“It seems my question was rather boorish. Rest easy, now.”

“…Mmm. G’night …”

As soon as their conversation finished, Tsukasa could hear Ringo breathing softly in her sleep. She must have been dead tired.

I definitely need to make sure she doesn’t push herself any more than this.

Originally, he’d come because there was something he wanted her to build.

Namely—an airplane.

Given the info he’d gotten from Shinobu the other day, there appeared to be no easy way for them to pass through the checkpoints marking the edge of the domain. Travel over land wasn’t a viable option. And the ports had the same checkpoints, so the sea was no better. In other words, there was only one route left: the sky.

However, if he so much as mentioned that to Ringo, she would undoubtedly ignore her fatigue and immediately turn her considerable intellect toward drawing up blueprints. And that could only end poorly.

Things aren’t so urgent that we need to drive her into the ground just yet.

Ringo’s scientific prowess was abnormal—even for Earth, which was centuries ahead of this world to begin with. Her skills were without question the greatest weapon in their arsenal. Right now, he needed to make sure she rested and recovered her stamina.

“What’s up? If it’s something time sensitive, I might be koalafied to help.”

“No, it’s nothing that urgent. I’ll just try another time.”

“In that case, I’ll come with you. I want to let her hibernate peacefully for now, so I thought I’d go recharge in the sun until she wakes up.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan.”

Tsukasa and Bearabbit headed down the path leading outside.

“…I’m beary sorry.” Bearabbit sprung a sudden apology on the boy, midway through their walk.

“I can’t say I recall you having anything to apologize for. What’s this about?”

“It’s my fault the plane crashed… If I’d kept my bearings, we wouldn’t have ended up having to live in this inconvenient new world.” The AI appeared to feel responsible for their current situation. However, Tsukasa immediately refuted his claims of guilt.

“Not at all. For one thing, traveling to another world can only occur via a supernatural phenomenon. Losing control of the plane wasn’t your fault. Either some unfathomable power is at work here…or we’re the victims of a coincidence of cosmic proportions. One way or the other, there’s nothing for you to feel guilty about. Nobody could possibly blame you for that.”

“That’s beary sweet of you to say…” Bearabbit’s response to Tsukasa’s reassurances was decidedly vague. The mere fact that he’d been the one piloting the plane still clearly weighed heavily on the AI. It was something he was going to have to come to terms with on his own, but…

Still…he wasn’t wrong about how inconvenient this was.

Tsukasa thought back to the way Ringo had passed out like a light. And it wasn’t just her, either. He could tell that fatigue was eating away at all of them.

It was only natural. Back on Earth, they could get potable water at the turn of a faucet and fire at the turn of a knob. They could eat whatever foods they wanted, no matter the season, and seasonings were varied and plentiful. But now they’d been set adrift in a world where they had to sweat and bleed just for a single grain of pepper. And to make matters worse, they had no idea how to get back.

The exhaustion was eroding their bodies and minds. Recently, they’d even had to start worrying about the temperature. They’d all come from Japan, a subtropical climate, so Elm’s harsh winters were especially brutal on them. Each bath they took in the frigid river felt tantamount to punishment. Even Tsukasa himself had started feeling like his feet were made of lead.

…I wish there was something I could do about it.

Futile thoughts swirled around his head as he made his way out of the ruins.

“Well, Bearabbit, I’m heading back to the village, so—Hmm?” Suddenly, he noticed something peculiar. White fumes were rising from the woods out back.

“Is something on fire?”

If so, that could be real trouble. However, Bearabbit quickly put his worries to rest.

“Oh, nothing to fur. That’s just steam.”

“Steam? But why?”

“A lot of our machines get unbearably hot, so we draw water from the river to cool them down. The steam is coming from the used coolant.”

“So that’s industrial wastewater?”

“Oh, it’s not nearly dirty enough to koalafy as industrial waste. All that drains there is water we used as coolant. The only thing wrong with it is that it’s pawsitively boiling, so we can’t pour it back in the river immediately.”

“Where’s the actual waste, then?”

“We’re keeping all the contaminated water and bauxite tailings in tanks for now. It’s not like we’re mass-producing, so the amount is still bearable. We can’t exactly dump it here, though.”

“True. You’ll have to ask Merchant to take it out to sea for you.”

But that aside, boiling water…

Tsukasa gazed up at the pillar of steam as the gears in his mind began turning.

It’s not something we strictly need, but it certainly isn’t useless. Also…given the state those two are in, the timing works out nicely.

After considering every aspect, every pro and con, Tsukasa made his choice.

“If you’re not busy, Bearabbit, would you mind lending me a hand?”

“With what?”

“I am a politician, so I thought I’d act the part and organize a public works project.” Tsukasa drew his phone as he spoke and dialed Aoi Ichijou.

A little while later, Aoi came running over to the meeting spot—the point on the river’s edge where the people of Elm bathed.

“I apologize for keeping you waiting, Tsukasa, m’lord. What is this request you would make of me?”

“I was thinking of building a public bathhouse here, and I was hoping you’d help.”

“A—a public bathhouse?!”

“That’s right. It’s gotten cold recently, hasn’t it? The people from this village may be acclimated to it, but the weather we’re used to is much warmer. At this rate, some of us might even fall ill. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen. And the people of Elm will probably be just as excited at the prospect of a nice, warm bath. Think of it. Remember the last time you had a hot bath on a freezing winter night? Remember how nice that felt?”

“Oh, I do…”

The memory brought a warm glow to her face. Her body was practically shaking as she grabbed Tsukasa’s hands.

“You have my wholehearted support! Whatever you need, I shall gladly assist! I am certain that the people of Elm will be thrilled, too, that they will!”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. There’ll probably be a lot of manual labor, so it’s good to have you along.”

No sooner had Tsukasa finished securing Aoi’s assistance than—

“I’m back!”

Having finished the assignment Tsukasa gave him, Bearabbit returned.

“And I come bearing shovels!”

“Good work.”

Bearabbit handed Tsukasa the aluminum shovels he was carrying in his manipulator arms. Tsukasa made sure to thank the AI, then inquired about the matter he’d asked Bearabbit to check on.

“So do we have enough spare materials to make a boiler?”

“We do! Thanks to Masato’s hard work, we have an embearassment of riches!”

“Excellent. In that case, I leave manufacturing it to you.”

“The task is in good paws!”

Bearabbit was brimming with confidence. Well-warranted confidence, too. His artificial mind had been designed with Ringo’s as its base.

As a computer program, he couldn’t invent new things on his own, but when it came to devices that already existed, he could produce them to the same degree of quality Ringo could. Building a hot water boiler was child’s play to him.

“And where are my talents needed?!”

“Aoi, I need you to bring over enough wood for the roof and the waterways. Then I’ll show you how to build them. Twenty trees’ worth should do the trick.”

“The deed is as good as done!” Aoi’s reply was cheerful, and her expression was sunny and full of energy. All she’d wanted was to be helpful, and now she was directly contributing to the village’s well-being.

And Bearabbit, who felt indebted to the seven waylaid earthlings, was much the same. It was hard to read his expression, but based on the way his manipulator arms were chugging away, his spirits seemed to have picked up a bit.

Seeing the two of them in such high spirits secretly filled Tsukasa with relief.

While increasing the village’s quality of life and protecting the Prodigies’ health had certainly been one of the reasons he’d decided to build the bathhouse, he’d also hoped to use its construction as a form of therapy for Aoi and Bearabbit.

The idea was that having tangible proof of their contribution to the group would help alleviate some of their guilt. Based on their expressions, it looked like he’d succeeded on that front.

“You two can go ahead and get started. Oh, and if you have official work you need to do, make sure you prioritize that. We’re in no hurry to get this built. We should plan on finishing it gradually over the next couple days.”

Now all they needed to do was take it easy and make sure they didn’t push themselves. Or so Tsukasa thought.

“Nonsense! It shall be done before nightfall, that it shall!”

“Fur sure! This isn’t a job that’ll take multiple days! Half a day is plenty; I bearantee it!”

“………”

The other two were getting even more into it than Tsukasa had anticipated. It was possible his plan had worked too well. A pang of unease flitted through his mind.

However, as the one who’d suggested the idea in the first place, it wouldn’t do for him to dampen their enthusiasm.

“…Sounds like a plan. I’m looking forward to that hot bath, after all. I’ll be sure to do my best as well.”

Aoi’s physical abilities were downright superhuman, and it had taken a superhuman intellect to design Bearabbit and his manipulators. The prospect of having to make sure he didn’t slow the two of them down made Tsukasa’s head spin, but he was careful not to let it show on his face.

Then, after a few hours of work—

The three of them actually managed to finish the bathhouse before the sun went down.

In the end, Aoi brought five people to the completed bathhouse. Keine Kanzaki and Winona, who’d happened to have been free, were first. Lyrule and Roo, having just finished their spelling lesson, were next. The last of the group was Ringo, who Bearabbit had gone and woken up.

All of them gathered under the structure’s triangular, anti-snow roof. Upon seeing the steam rise from the tub Aoi had dug out of the riverbank, they all let out cries of joy.

“Wow! It’s so toasty and smoky!” exclaimed Roo.

“Oh my. Now this is a pleasant surprise,” remarked Keine.

“Tsukasa…did you all make this?” asked Lyrule.

“That we did. Aoi, Bearabbit, and I.”

“Gosh, you kids really are amazing. Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Right? This is incredible! I never knew you could make your own hot springs…”

Lyrule and Winona, in particular, seemed impressed.

In their eyes, hot springs were a gift from nature.

However, while they’d likely heard rumors about places where hot water bubbled up from the ground, they’d never even considered the possibility of making one themselves.

“Oh? What’s that little shed over there?” asked Winona.

“That’s the boiler hut. It’s where we heat the water befur we send it over here.”

“Oh, I see. So it’s like a big pot.”

“They’re furly similar. I’ll show you all how to use it later.”

“Incidentally,” added Aoi, “you cool the water using this channel from the river. When that is no longer necessary, all you need to do is divert the flow.”

“Wow. You all really thought of everything.”

Evidently pleased at how happy everyone was, Aoi and Bearabbit continued their explanation. However, no description was going to be better than experiencing it firsthand. Tsukasa turned to them and offered a suggestion.

“You know, they say experience is the best teacher. There’s still some time before dinner, so why don’t you all try it out? You seem excited, and the water’s already heated. Besides, Aoi, I’m sure you worked up a fair sweat.”

“That I did!”

“Roo wants to try, too!”

“I’m embearassed to say that I’ll rust if I try to join you, but I could certainly go for a little back scrub.”

“Once you’re finished, you should let me know if you have any modifications you’d like us to make. I hope to make this the best bathhouse it can be.” Not wanting to keep them waiting now that they’d decided to take their bath, Tsukasa turned to leave. As he did, though, Aoi said something outrageous.

“Hmm? Are you not joining us, Tsukasa, m’lord?”

“What?!” “Hweh?!?!”

Alarmed expressions immediately crossed Ringo’s and Lyrule’s faces. It was a natural response. The question had been downright absurd.

“…If anything, I’m curious as to why you assumed I would.”

“It was your idea to build this bathhouse, was it not? It would be wrong to exclude the man who worked the hardest from its inaugural bath.”

“That’s right! Labor begets re-mooneration! That’s what Teacher said!”

“I have no objections to mixed bathing. I’m certainly used to seeing naked bodies.”

Roo and Keine piled on as well. The situation was taking a turn for the worse.

Roo was just being a kid, but Keine was probably doing it on purpose. Ringo and Lyrule were both as red as lobsters and sweating bullets, and Keine was watching them with clear amusement.

However, Tsukasa had no intention of playing along with her game.

“While I’ll admit that I was the first to come up with the idea, Aoi and Bearabbit both put in far more work than I did. I’ll just take my bath with the other men when they get back, so don’t worry about me. I’ll see you all later—”

He tried to end the conversation unilaterally and stride off. In his haste to leave, though, he made one big mistake.

He casually waved them good-bye.

“…Ah!”

The moment he did, Lyrule keenly noticed what he’d been hiding and quickly grabbed his hand.

“Tsukasa, your hand…!”

…Oh, now I’ve done it.

Lyrule’s action finally forced Tsukasa to acknowledge how stupid he’d been. In order to keep up with the pace Aoi and Bearabbit were maintaining, he’d pushed himself a good deal too hard. Not only had he blistered his palms, he’d broken the blisters, too.

And now Lyrule knew.

“Oh my. Those certainly look painful.”

“I just broke the skin because I wasn’t used to the work. It’s nothing serious.”

“B-but…”

Even though he claimed it wasn’t serious, that didn’t change the fact that his palms looked like shredded rawhide. It certainly was no surprise that Lyrule’s and Ringo’s faces clouded over when they saw them. However, that wasn’t what Tsukasa wanted at all.

Those weren’t the kinds of expressions he’d worked so hard to inspire. Aoi and Bearabbit were probably no different. He racked his brain. How could he lighten the mood? He was still in the middle of thinking, when all of a sudden—

“All right, all right, all right! Cheer up, Lyrule!”

“Yeeeep?!”

Without Tsukasa having to do anything, Winona blew away the heavy pall by reaching out and grabbing Lyrule’s ample breasts.

“Why’re your boobs the only things that ever get bigger, huh?! You little pip-squeak, you!”

“Winona, wh-wh-what are you doing?!” Startled at the abrupt turn of events, Lyrule’s face went red.

Winona laughed in exasperation as she told Lyrule off. “If you keep looking guilty like that, how’s Tsukasa gonna feel about all the hard work he put in?”

“…Ah…”

That was right. The reason Tsukasa had built the bathhouse in the first place was to make everyone happy. If all he got were depressed looks, how was that going to make him feel? The fact that Winona had picked up on that really carried home the fact that she was their elder, but she didn’t stop there. If only she had. However, she only went further.

“But just like Aoi and Roo said, it wouldn’t be fair for all of us to go and have fun without the man we have to thank for all this. But don’t worry, I have a great idea!” A mischievous grin unbefitting a woman her age spread across Winona’s face. Before she even said what her idea was, Tsukasa could already tell that no good would come of it.

“Ah, I see… I have to hand it to you—that was a good idea.” Tsukasa took in the view before him as he soaked in the tub. The women were all wearing bikinis made from leaves layered atop one another.

“I never considered making swimsuits out of leaves. Clever thinking, Winona.”

“Heh-heh. Wasn’t it just? Go on, praise me more!”

“You’re right. It’s very like you to come up with an idea that straddles the line so narrowly between genius and stupidity. I could never have come up with something like that, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have ever considered actually proposing it. You have my respect.”

“…Huh? Wait, is that a compliment or an insult?”

Tsukasa averted his gaze, offering no reply. In truth, half of him was impressed, and the other half was thoroughly vexed.

Possibly the most surprising part, though, was the fact that Winona had gotten all the others to go along with her scheme.

“Ah…”

“Heh. It sounds like you’re enjoying yourself, Roo,” quipped Keine.

“…Back in Roo’s country, it was always toasty warm like this.”

“Ah, I see. In that case, you should make sure you bundle up in the coming months. Having your environment change so drastically can be hard on your health.”

“Mmm…” Roo submerged herself up to the tip of her nose, blowing bubbles as she gave a vague response. Given her expression, they half expected her to just dissolve straight into the water.

Most of the other women were relaxed and enjoying themselves, too. However, although they’d gotten everyone to go along with Winona’s plan, one member of the group had been keeping her back bashfully turned to Tsukasa the whole time.

“…Ringo, if it’s too embarrassing, there’s no need to force yourself to stay.” Tsukasa, reading into her behavior, offered her an out.

She still didn’t turn around, but she shook her head vigorously.

“I’m…fine…” Her voice came out quiet and thin. With moist eyes, she shot a fleeting glance over her shoulder. However, when her gaze met Tsukasa’s, she immediately looked away. The young man could tell what was going on now.

Odds were that it wasn’t that she was ashamed of being seen in her swimsuit, it was that she was ashamed of seeing a guy in his. She didn’t seem to dislike it, though. She was definitely interested. Internally, her curiosity and bashfulness were warring it out. In other words, she hadn’t joined them because she’d caved into peer pressure. It was probably fine to just leave her to her own devices.

“Man, Tsukasa, do you kids really always have hot baths like this in your world?” asked Winona.

“Not everyone prefers to soak their whole body like this, but we generally don’t use cold water, no.”

“Wow… That must be a lot of work, gathering all that kindling.”

“Hmm-hmm,” Keine said, laughing. “In our country, we use gas to heat our water, so we don’t have to cut down firewood at all.”

“Gas?”

“It’s a kind of flammable air.”

“Oh, Roo knows about that! Roo had that near her village! The burning air is really dangerous, so the mayor told us not to go near it!”

“You probably lived near a deposit of natural gas, then. In our world, we use it as fuel. We cook food with it, heat our baths…pretty much anything you could think of that needs fire. We generally only use firewood when we go out camping,” explained Tsukasa.

“Oh.”

“The more I hear about your world, the stranger it sounds… But if it means you get to take nice, warm baths like these every day, then color me jealous. Heh…”

“I’m glad it’s to your liking.”

Smiling softly at how content everyone looked, Tsukasa submerged himself up to his shoulders. He could feel the leaden fatigue inside him slowly melt away.

As he sat, basking in the satisfaction that all those blisters had been worth it, he heard Lyrule call out to him from above.

“Tsukasa, do you mind if I sit here?”

A little while ago, she’d gone back to the village on her own, saying there was something she wanted to go get.

“Of course not. I’m glad you’re back. So what was it you—?”

But the moment he turned around, his voice got caught in his throat. The sight of Lyrule carefully dipping herself into the water feetfirst so as not to cause any ripples left him speechless.

Her slender ankles and the way her calves gently arced from them. Her round, soft, feminine buttocks—how her waist accentuated them. The slight forward inclination of her posture made her plump breasts (and the leaf bikini that only barely covered them) jiggle with her slightest movement. And finally, the way the water’s warmth made her attractive face soften with pleasure.

He couldn’t focus on anything else.

…She’s so beautiful.

“Oh…this really is nice, isn’t it! I can feel my entire body warming up…? Um, is something the matter?”

She was talking to him, but he wasn’t responding. How odd. Lyrule focused her lapis lazuli eyes right on Tsukasa. When he finally replied, his voice was as calm and collected as always.

“Ah, forgive me. I simply found myself captivated by your beauty.”

“What?! Hwa-wa-wa?!”

Lyrule’s face immediately flushed bright red, and she instinctively covered her chest.

“My oh my, how forward.” Winona laughed.

“Is there any reason to beat around the bush when praising someone’s looks?”

“Mmm! Oh, really now! That’s enough flattery, just… Just give me your hand.”

“I can’t say that was my intention, but what’s this about my hand?”

“Just give it here already!”

What exactly was she planning on doing? Tsukasa was confused, but he offered Lyrule his hand anyway.

When he did, she pried it open with one hand and stuck her other in the small, fist-size pot she’d left on the rim of the large bath’s basin. Then she scooped up something white and goopy from within the pot and smeared it across Tsukasa’s palm.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an ointment we make from horse fat. It makes the pain go away and speeds up the healing process.”

“Oh, thank you for going out of your way to get it. I apologize for the hassle.”

“Not at all… It’s thanks to you all that we have this lovely bath, so it’s the least I can do…” Lyrule continued to gently apply the ointment to his hand as she thanked the young prime minister.

The sensation of her dainty, slime-covered fingers crawling across his raw nerve endings sent pins and needles across his whole body. Tsukasa twitched.

“Oh no, did that hurt?”

“No…it just tickled a little.”

“If it hurts, make sure you tell me.” Lyrule smiled tenderly and resumed the treatment. This time, her touch was even tenderer than before. It still tickled, but the sensation was by no means unpleasant.

It was comforting…and gentle. Ever since he’d destroyed his family, Tsukasa never had anyone care for him like this. He wanted this peaceful time to go on, even for just a second longer…

But then—

“Th-there’s been trouble!!!!”

—a shout, along with the sound of frantic footsteps, brought it to an end.

“Akatsuki?”

When Tsukasa turned around, he saw that Akatsuki had come running over from the village. His expression was frantic.

“Tsukasa! Bad news, you have to—Wait, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Huh?! What kind of joint are you running, exactly?! When did this place get here?!”

“Enough with the nonsense; what’s the matter? It must be serious for you to have run all the way over here.”

“Y-yeah, that’s right! It is! See, what happened—”

Between gasps of breath, Akatsuki elaborated on what had occurred.

“?!?!”

They all responded with shock. Winona leaped from the tub, her face drained of color. After all, she’d just learned that her family, Elch and Ulgar, along with the hunters they’d been leading, had been attacked by the massive bear known as the Lord of the Woods.

Winona raced back to the village, not even stopping to get dressed. The women and children had already assembled in the village square. The crowd was gathered around Filippo, one of the men who was supposed to be out hunting. He was sitting on the ground, panting.

“Filippo!”

“Whoa! H-hey, Winona, what’s with that sexy getup?!”

“Later!”

“Bweh!”

Masato had been treating the cuts Filippo had gotten on his shoulder when he’d dived through the brush, but Winona flung him aside and pressed Filippo for answers.

“Filippo, is it true?! Did you really run into the Lord of the Woods?!”

“Yeah, we did…! Everyone’s still fighting it, but once that thing gets going, it’s impossible to escape…! Our only option is to take it down…! That’s why I—Ah!”

Suddenly, Filippo’s gaze shifted to behind Winona’s back.

Tsukasa and the others had followed her back to the village, and Filippo called out to one of them in particular—Aoi Ichijou.

“Aoi!”

“Filippo, m’lord! Are you unharmed?!”

“I’m fine. But the others are in danger. This is no time to be chatting! We need your help! You’re the only one in the village who can take on that monster!”

The Lord of the Woods was a vengeful creature. Once it picked a fight with someone, it would follow them to the ends of the earth. If the hunters tried to flee, they’d end up leading it right to the village. And they couldn’t let that happen.

So instead, most of them had stayed behind as decoys while Filippo ran back to get Aoi. She was the only person they knew who stood a chance against that sixteen-foot-tall behemoth of a bear.

Aoi instantly agreed to the request.

“My blade is yours! Just lead the way!”

“Of course! I—?!”

But the moment he tried to stand, the man immediately collapsed to the ground.

“Filippo, m’lord?”

“Th-this is nothing. Just give me a second, and—”

“That’s quite enough.”

The second time he tried to get up, Keine pressed down on the back of his neck.

She was probably squeezing some pressure point needed to move. Even with just a woman’s strength, she was able to completely immobilize him.

“Bwuh?! Wh-what are you doing?!”

“No moving, doctor’s orders. Your ankle is clearly sprained. Trying to run on it would be an exercise in futility.”

“I just twisted it a bit, is all! It’ll heal on its own in a min—Mmph?!”

“No, it will not. You’ve suffered a grade-two sprain to your lateral ligament, as well as a complete grade-three tear of your calcaneofibular ligament… Given how serious they are, it’s a wonder you made it all the way back here. Now, do as your doctor says and get some rest.”

Filippo had kept thrashing despite her warning, so she covered his mouth with a handkerchief.

“Nnn…………”

A moment later, Filippo fainted, his body going limp.

“You anesthetized him?”

“As long as he was conscious, he would’ve crawled there on his hands and knees.”

“But how’re we supposed to find them with this guy out cold?” asked Masato.

Tsukasa had an idea. “About that… Ringo?”

“Hweh?!” Ringo clearly hadn’t been expected to get called on. She jumped a little as she turned toward Tsukasa.

“Aoi and I are going to go save the mayor and the others. I want you to come along, find where they are with your goggles’ infrared thermography, and lead us there. Can you do that for me?”

Now Ringo understood why he’d asked. Her goggles had so many features that they required knowledge and experience to use. There was no time for her to teach someone else. It was a job only she could do. Knowing that, she nodded. She said nothing, but the nod itself was firm.

“In that case, I will bear Ringo upon my back!”

“I’ll accompany you, too. There are sure to be people injured over there,” Keine added.

“Yeah, please do.”

“Prince and I will stay here. I figure we’d just slow you guys down.”

“Y-yeah, what he said! It’s for the best, I’m sure! I’d love to rush off all gallant-like with you, but I’m way better with indoors-type stuff!”

Masato’s statement earned Akatsuki’s vigorous endorsement. Tsukasa hadn’t had any real plans to bring the two of them along anyway, so he offered no objections. He quietly nodded his assent, then turned to leave with the others.

Before he could go, though, Winona grabbed the hem of his suit.

“…The menfolk of this village are counting on you…!”

“I know. —Let’s go!”

As she watched the five of them disappear into the forest, Lyrule said a quiet prayer.

“Everyone, please… Be safe…”

“Hey, Aoi and Keine are on the case. There’s no way either of ’em will let anything bad happen. You don’t need to look so worried.”

Masato placed a hand on her trembling shoulder to cheer her up. Hearing the confidence that bordered on certainty in his voice eased Lyrule’s expression.

“…You’re right. I should just believe in them.”

“Damn straight. For now, though, we should do what we can on our end. First off, we gotta treat this guy. Can’t exactly leave him napping out here all day, can we?”

“Bring him around to our place for now. I’ll get a bed ready,” said Winona.

“I can do that, so please get some clothes on…! Look, here!”

“Oh, you brought ’em for me. Good thinking, Lyrule.”

Lyrule handed Winona back her cast-off clothes.

It’s now or never; I gotta burn this sight into my eyes…!

As Masato carried Filippo away, he turned his gaze toward Winona in her immodest state of undress. However, Akatsuki slipped right into his line of sight.

“Yo, Prince, get outa the way. You’re making me miss the most important moment of my life.”

However, Akatsuki paid his objections no heed. His expression grew serious.

“Masato…do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Now that Akatsuki pointed it out, though, Masato definitely heard something. His hearing was far superior to most people’s, after all.

…What is that? An earthquake? No, I hear metal on metal…and a whole bunch of feet walking. But why—?

Still unsure what was going on, Masato turned to face the direction the sound was coming from, the village entrance.

Then he spotted it.

There was a long mountain path that extended from the village and through the trees. Five soldiers in light armor had just rounded one of the bends in the path.

“Soldiers? What is this, a patrol like last time?” Akatsuki, who’d been present for their last run-in with soldiers, wondered if the same thing might be happening again.

However, it soon became clear that the situation was far grimmer than the previous encounter with armed men. Coming up behind the first five were another ten soldiers, then a second set of ten, then a third. Some of them were even clad head to toe in formidable bronze armor.

Winona stared in shock.

“Those are no underlings! They’re the Lord’s Order of Guardian Knights…!”

“““…?!”””

The villagers were all visibly shaken. Why was the Lord’s Order of Guardian Knights, the domain’s main military force, coming to their village?

A violent shout rocked the startled villagers’ ears.

“You haughty peasants are in the presence of the captain of Marquis Findolph’s Order of Guardian Knights, Silver Knight Inzaghi! Lower your filthy heads!”

“Lyrule!”

“Hwah—”

Winona reacted to the voice faster than anyone else, immediately forcing Lyrule’s head down. The feudal lord who ruled their lands was a massive lecher, so the village had been hiding Lyrule from him.

The other villagers followed Winona’s lead and prostrated themselves.

“M-Masato, what do we do…?”

“Just go along with it for now.”

Masato and Akatsuki, the two who’d stayed behind, did the same. There was little to be gained from being stubborn. Even so, a foreboding inkling crossed Masato’s mind.

…I’ve got a bad feeling about how this is gonna play out…

There was one thing he knew for sure. In life, misfortune and hardship had a way of crashing down on you at once. And sure enough, his hunch was on the mark.

The soldiers moved aside to create a path, and a carriage pulled by a white horse rolled up in front of Masato and the others. Its door opened, revealing a knight garbed in silver armor and adorned with a cloak of deep blue. This was the man who led the soldiers and Bronze Knights of the Findolph domain’s Order of Guardian Knights.

Silver Knight Alessio du Inzaghi.

The villagers were prostrating themselves, and Inzaghi’s tall figure allowed him to lord over them all the more. He scoffed.

“Hmph. This is my first visit here, but I see I wasn’t missing much. The village reeks of wild beast, and most of its inhabitants are defects.”

Defect was a slur for byuma, people with animal qualities. Just that one phrase was enough to tell Masato what kind of person the man was.

“And what business do you have that you’d need to come to our reeking village yourself, Sir Captain?” Masato lifted his head, every inch of his body on high alert, posing his question to the man called Inzaghi.

The Silver Knight flashed his yellowed teeth as he smiled.

“What business? Ha-ha. I see, I see. You plan to feign innocence to the bitter end. You think you can trick me? …You commoners are all utter fools. Very well, though. Allow me to make my purpose crystal clear: You all are being charged with the grave crime of treason against the state.”

“Wh-what?! What kind of sick joke is that?!” In her surprise, Winona looked up and snapped at him. Inzaghi looked down at her with abject disgust, then continued, satisfied with ignoring her outburst.

“As I’m sure you remember, you used unlawful means to amass gold within your lord’s domain. We’ve already conducted a full investigation.”

“Wait, hold on a minute!” Masato couldn’t help but stand and protest. “Unlawful? Those charges are false. We earned that money through legitimate trade. We got a license from the mayor and everything. Take a look through our ledgers; it’s all there.”

Inzaghi laughed down Masato’s rebuttal. “I don’t need to. Those scraps of paper mean nothing.”

“…What?!”

“You people are lowly peasants who hunt beasts up in the mountains, yet you had the gall to come down and lay your grubby, mud-ridden hands on gold coins with the Dragon Crest of the Freyjagardian imperial family engraved on them. And in doing so, you have enraged your lord. The very act of laying your filthy peasant paws on the Dragon Crest constitutes an act of treason against the state.”

“Wait, those charges are worse than false…!”

“False? You push your luck, peasant. As nobles, our words hold more weight than your very existences. You live when we tell you to live, and you die when we tell you to die. That is the law of this land, and that is justice. And in following with that law, His Lordship has decreed that every treasonous upstart in this village shall be burned to death!”

“““?!?!”””

The cruel, arbitrary verdict made the villagers blanch and tremble. Inzaghi, however, had no intention of listening to them beg for their lives. He raised his voice and gave the order.

“Let the judgment commence! Seize everyone in this village, then confiscate every last coin and scrap of food! Feel free to kill any who resist!”

“““Hraaaaaaaah!!!!”””

Pride and Resolve

The thin-trunked conifers whizzed past. Tsukasa and the others raced along in Ringo’s wake, trampling moss and ferns underfoot.

“Ringo, do we keep bearing straight ahead?!”

“That’s right…! It’s half a mile more this way! Keep going!”

“Understood! You two, I ask that we pick up the pace!”

Aoi glanced over her shoulder at the suit-clad young man and the young woman in a white gown a few paces behind her.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Not to worry. I can still keep up.”

“You two are impressively quick, that you are.”

“Politicians and doctors both need their stamina, after all.”

“He’s quite right.”

“In that case, I shall refrain from holding back!”

“Fur speed ahead!”

Aoi and Bearabbit kicked off even harder against the ground and barreled through the forest.

A short while later, they reached a clearing. The conifers that had been so plentiful just moments before were nowhere to be seen.

Did we leave the forest?! Did I take a wrong turn, mayhap?! —No, wait!

That wasn’t it. It wasn’t that they’d left the forest. The forest just wasn’t there anymore. Dozens of trunks lay scattered at their feet. All had been ripped up at the roots. A few scant minutes ago, the forest had been there. Now, though, it had been completely blown away. The trees had been mowed down by some sort of insane force.

And the one who held that force—

“Aoi! It’s right bear!”

—immediately commanded the attention of all present.

It was just past the wasteland of toppled trees. The ursine monstrosity easily towered sixteen feet tall, its shiny obsidian carapace covered in black hair.

“Wh-what is that thing? It’s like a cross between an animal and a mineral… That’s pawsitively unheard-of!”

“So it was a monster, after all. I figured there was a chance, given that this world has dragons and beastfolk, but—Ah!”

Then Tsukasa and the others spotted Elch and the rest of the hunters by the creature’s feet. Their bows and axes were held at the ready, but they were all covered in wounds.

“Everyone…!”

But before she could finish what she’d wanted to say, Aoi realized something. Elch and the others were being pushed toward the sheer drop of a cliff. Instantly realizing how urgent the situation was—

“HYAAAAAAAAAH!!!!”

Until now, she’d been holding back so the others could keep up, but faced with a truly dire imperative, she let loose her full strength. The force of her kick shattered the mossy boulder she’d been standing on as she charged the Lord of the Woods.

She shot forward like a bullet, barreling through the air without decelerating even for a moment. Her speed was utterly inhuman. Such was the power of the High School Prodigy who’d survived countless battles with nothing but a single katana.

However, the Lord of the Woods was perfectly aberrant in its own right.

“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!” It immediately responded to Aoi’s attack to its flank.

After dodging with speed anything its size shouldn’t rightly have possessed, it thrust forward with rocklike claws. It was intercepting Aoi’s charge with a counterattack.

This creature’s fast! But…

Aoi’s reaction proved faster.

As the bloodstained claws that looked as though they’d been hewn from stone slashed down at her, Aoi gathered power in her whole body. Despite having no footholds, she performed a midair forward roll on muscle strength alone. Then she slammed the heels of her feet onto the oncoming claw and used the force from her toes to pull herself upright.

“Compared to rifle shots, you appear to be standing stock-still, that you do!”

She dashed straight up the arm of the colossal creature, all the way to its head, and—

“ZEYAAAH!!!!”

—as she passed it, the young woman drew her katana and lopped it clean off the monster’s shoulders. Its head flew up into the gray sky, higher than the tips of the tallest trees.

Aoi finished her dash by landing next to Elch and the others behind the Lord of the Woods’ body. The headless aberration toppled lifelessly to the ground in time with the swordswoman’s own landing.

“Everyone! Are you all right?!”

“Aoi! Thank goodness you came! Filippo must have really pulled through!”

“We’re fine. You made it just in the nick of time. But…”

The villager’s looks of relief quickly turned grim. Behind them lay a massive pool of blood and guts that had spilled from Mayor Ulgar’s shredded stomach. Elch was kneeling beside him, sobbing.

“Grandpa…!”

“Mayor Ulgar…m’lord…”

Then Tsukasa and the others finally caught up.

“Elch!”

“Tsukasa… You came to rescue us…,” Elch said through sobs.

“Of course, although Aoi did most of the actual saving… What happened to the mayor?”

“He took an attack from the Lord of the Woods to protect me…! He just stopped breathing…”

“I see. Well, that’s a relief.”

“…Huh?”

Elch and all the other hunters gawked at Tsukasa’s unexpected response. Tsukasa grinned a little as he elaborated.

“If he only just stopped breathing, then there shouldn’t be a problem. Isn’t that right, Keine?”

“But of course,” Keine Kanzaki answered in agreement and approached what remained of the mayor without delay. She then knelt beside the body and carefully looked it over.

“Left-side ribs five through ten are lost. Abdominal lacerations… Large intestine is torn. Viscera are exposed from the thoracic diaphragm down, and the patient has lost consciousness due to shock from excessive blood loss. Heart’s been stopped for less than three minutes, I presume. Heh-heh-heh. Very good, very good. I should be able to make this work with the tools on hand.”

“Wh-what are you—?”

“I’m about to begin operating. Please stay back. You’ll only get in the way.”

Keine got to work.

As she raised her hands into the air, a number of surgical instruments came flying up from beneath her gown. There was a scalpel, a pair of mosquito forceps, a pair of surgical scissors, a pair of tweezers, some medicine, a syringe, gauze, a roll of bandages, and countless others.

And before the unbelieving eyes of the hunters—

“““Wha—?!?!”””

—she began to juggle them.

And that wasn’t all.

Still juggling the surgical instruments, she began performing her surgery on Ulgar. She sewed up his ripped organs, mended his shredded blood vessels, and rejoined his broken bones, all while keeping everything sterilized.

By catching whatever tool she needed next at each given moment and manipulating her fingers as deftly as an acrobat, she was able to mend the mayor’s body faster than the eye could follow.

“Wh-what’s going on?! His wounds are closing up before our eyes…!”

“W-wow…!”

The villagers were a given, but even the normally silent Ringo let out a gasp of admiration. That was just how utterly miraculous a feat it was.

Back on Earth, Keine Kanzaki was the greatest doctor in the world. It wasn’t just her knowledge and technique that had earned her the title, however. It was also the mind-boggling speed at which she worked.

Normally, any sort of major surgery like this would need a whole team to perform. The surgeon would be accompanied by an assistant, an anesthesiologist, a clinical engineer, and a surgical tech to lighten their load.

Even with such an assembled team…Keine’s blistering speed would have left them all in the dust. After all, how could anyone keep up with someone who worked faster than the eye could perceive? And it was thanks to that speed and skill that she performed every role of a surgical team herself.

By mentally storing the entire procedure from start to finish in her mind, she was able to juggle all the instruments and anesthesia she would need and swap them out as necessary to maintain her superhuman levels of speed and precision.

That was the technique that had allowed her to save the tens of thousands of lives, even on battlefields lacking in medicine, tools, and manpower.

As far as she was concerned, it was more efficient to do everything herself than to have to rely on the sluggish help of others. She could save more people that way. And ever since she’d adopted her technique, not a single patient had died under her knife.

In mere moments—

“Ruptured intestine repaired. Surgery complete. Now injecting liquid oxygen and beginning pulmonary resuscitation.”

—she completed her extraordinary work and moved on to the final stage of treatment.

It was unclear when she’d cut the incision in the mayor’s chest, but she didn’t hesitate for a moment before sticking her hand in it and grabbing his stopped heart directly.

“Eek…!”

Not having expected the grisly act, several people screamed. However, Keine’s concentration didn’t waver in the slightest. She merely applied pressure to the heart with exacting tempo and control. And as the air-rich blood circulated through Ulgar’s body—

“Ah… Ack, gack!”

“G-Grandpa?!”

—he suddenly coughed up a tremendous amount of blood.

Now that his cardio-pulmonary function was restored, his body was excising all the blood that had built up in his lungs. After confirming that, Keine swiftly withdrew her hand and stitched up the incision in the same motion. With the procedure finished, the young doctor snatched all her tools out of the air.

“The operation is complete. He should wake up in two or three days’ time. I also took the opportunity to treat the stage-one stomach cancer I found, so he should make it another twenty years with ease.”

Sweat had begun pouring from Keine’s body the moment she finished the surgery, and it soaked her hair as she smiled at Elch.

The mayor didn’t seem to have regained consciousness yet, but his chest had started rising and falling. He was breathing again. Elch and the others thanked Keine profusely for the miracle she’d wrought.

“Ohhh! Thank you so much! We’re forever in your debt!”

“You saved our lives; I saved his. Please think nothing of it.”

Keine stepped aside from Ulgar so his grandson could come closer, then went back over to Tsukasa.

“Thanks for your hard work,” Tsukasa said, offering a brief word of gratitude as he handed her a handkerchief.

“Heh. A job like that hardly qualifies as ‘hard.’”

Keine took it, then turned back to the villagers as she wiped away her sweat.

“Now, I can see you all have varying degrees of injuries, so please line up over here in front of me.”

“Huff…” Ringo let out a long exhale from her spot atop Bearabbit’s back.

“Are you all right, Ringo?”

“…I’m so glad…that everyone’s okay…”

“Yeah. Me, too. I’m sure it’ll come as a great relief to Lyrule and the others.”

After Keine had finished giving first aid to the villagers, they all headed back the way they’d come. They’d expected the women of the village to be waiting for their return with bated breath.

Unfortunately…they had no idea what lay in wait for them.

“Hmm?”

The first to realize that something was amiss…was Aoi.

A distinctive smell tickled at her nose. The smell of something burning. The smell of fire…

She looked up and saw a pillar of black smoke rising up to touch the dull, cloudy sky.

“…Tsukasa, m’lord. Is that smoke…coming from the village?”

When she pointed it out, he and the others took note of it, too. The moment he saw the smoke, Tsukasa was seized by an indescribable sense of foreboding.

“We need to hurry,” he said, then double-timed it out of the forest.

When they got to the village, the first thing they saw was the mayor’s house engulfed in a scarlet blaze.

“Wh-what’s going on?!”

“Why’s our house on fire…?!”

At first, they assumed it had been some sort of accident.

However, they soon realized that wasn’t the case.

“Don’t any of you move!!!!”

“““Who—?!?!”””

Five soldiers closed in around the group, swords at the ready.

In his confusion, Elch cried out.

“Wh-what the hell’s going on here?!”

“Don’t play dumb with us, scum!”

“You filthy peasants amassed wealth, and your lord has come to punish you for your crimes! Shut up and submit!”

“““What?!”””

Elch and the other villagers had no idea what was going on. It was all too sudden. Tsukasa, however, quickly talked them down.

“Don’t lose your head, Elch. This is no time be asking random questions. Right now, there’s just one thing we need to check… Where did you people take this village’s women?”

The soldiers’ mouths curled into cruel grins.

“Heh-heh-heh, we didn’t take ’em nowhere. They’re still right here in the village, enjoying a nice little outdoor cooking. They just happen to be the ones on the grill.”

“Wh—?!?!”

“Don’t worry, though. Our lord told us to put everyone in the village to death. In other words, you guys get to join ’em on the other side!”

Making no efforts to hide their bloodlust, the soldiers swung their swords to attack.

But as the hunters instinctively braced themselves—

“I see. Now I understand what’s going on. Aoi?” Tsukasa, armed with the knowledge that the feudal lord was trying to kill the village, gave Aoi her orders. “We don’t need these men anymore. They’re eyesores, so would you mind cleaning them up?”

Aoi responded with a sigh, her katana’s hilt making a clinging sound as she stowed it back in its sheath.

“I wish I could obey, m’lord. But you spoke a moment too late. I’ve already dealt with the problem, that I have.”

“Ah. My apologies for being slow on the uptake.”

“What are you peasants babbling…about?”

Suddenly, the soldiers lurched forward and collapsed onto the ground in unison, unconscious. Aoi had struck them down with the flat of her blade.

“““………”””

Not another word came from their mouths.

Elch and the others spent a moment impressed at Aoi’s nigh-invisible swordsmanship, but they quickly came back to their senses and rushed toward the burning house.

“We have to hurry, dammit! C’mon!”

“““Yeah, let’s go!”””

As they were about to take off, however, Tsukasa brought the group to a halt.

“Stand down, all of you. Running into a burning building like that would be suicide.”

“Well, we can’t just stand here and watch!”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure the house is already empty.”

“Huh?”

“One of our members can escape from a coffin after it’s been welded shut. Getting out of a house full of openings like that would be nothing to him.”

Tsukasa took out his modified smartphone and dialed Akatsuki’s number.

“Our unpleasant guests are gone, so you can go ahead and come out now.”

The moment the words left his mouth…a distant bit of underbrush began to rustle.

“Daddy!”

“Honey!”

The women and children of the village came rushing out. The hunters ran over to them in turn, husbands and wives each rejoicing at discovering that the other was safe. Bringing up the rear were Akatsuki and Masato. Upon seeing them, Elch’s shoulders trembled.

Masato was carrying Winona’s limp body on his back.

“Mom…?!”

Elch dashed over to them, but Masato was quick to assuage the young man.

“Winona’s fine. She was about to pick a fight with the soldiers, so I had to knock her out.”

Elch and Tsukasa breathed deep sighs of relief. If she and the rest of the villagers were safe, then everything was all right. At the moment, they could ask for nothing more.

“I’m impressed even you were able to sneak all these people past the lookouts, Akatsuki. Thank goodness you were here. Thanks to you, everyone…”

But then…Tsukasa noticed a conspicuous absence.

“…Wait, where’s Lyrule?”

The girl he’d spent the most time with out of anyone in the village was nowhere to be seen.

The carriage rolled away from Elm, back toward the castle. Inside, Inzaghi looked at the young woman at his feet and chuckled to himself.

“Heh-heh-heh. I was just after their gold and goods, but I stumbled onto a jackpot. Today must be my lucky day.”

Inzaghi had no interest in peasant women, but the girl’s beauty had caught even his eye. Lord Findolph was as lecherous as he was corpulent, so the girl would make an excellent tribute for him.

With an offering like this, his recommendation for a promotion to Gold Knight was all but assured. Having a simpleton for a lord certainly came in handy.

That said, handing her over as is has its dangers.

Once she woke up, she would no doubt hate them for having destroyed her village. She’d probably resist with all her might, bare her fangs like a wild dog. No matter how beautiful she might’ve been, she was still just a commoner. Inzaghi doubted that she’d act with any shred of civility.

She needs to be collared first.

Fortunately, he already had a collar ready.

“Wake up, you. Are you planning on sleeping all day?”

“Nnh… Huh? Where am…? Ow!”

Inzaghi kicked her, and Lyrule’s eyes shot open, horrified to discover her situation.

“Huh?! Wh-why are my hands tied up…?! What are you—?”

Suddenly, she met Inzaghi’s gaze as he glowered down at her. Recognizing him as the same man who’d attacked the village, rage flared up inside her.

“It’s you…! What happened to everyone in the village?! What did you do to them?!”

Inzaghi gave her a faint sneer. His response was brief.

“I killed them.”

“No…!”

The light faded from Lyrule’s lapis lazuli eyes, immediately replaced with the darkness of hopelessness. However, that darkness soon gave way to a black flame of fury and loathing. As an orphan, the villagers who raised her were her family. And now they were dead.

“How could you…?! How dare you do that to everyone! To my family…! You won’t get away with this!”

“Hmph. I knew you were an uneducated mutt,” Inzaghi said, sighing in exasperation. “Who do you think you’re barking at? Know your place.”

“Agh! Ah…!”

Inzaghi pressed down on Lyrule’s side with his foot, then rescinded his earlier statement.

“Don’t worry. When I said I killed them, that was just a little joke.”

“…Huh?”

“I bound them all up in a shabby little hut and took a torch to it, but…there was that blond girl with them. When my men were tying her hands behind her back, she twisted her wrists sideways.”

“…What does that mean?”

“If you turn your wrists sideways when they’re being bound, you can simply twist them back the other way to escape the restraints later. In short, she could have escaped whenever she wanted to. She’s probably untying the other villagers and helping them escape as we speak. The village’s men are coming back, so I had to leave a few soldiers behind to keep up appearances, but I made sure to leave only the utterly incompetent. They won’t stand a chance against hunters tempered by the mountains. Understand what I’m saying? Your precious villagers are still alive.”

This was the man who attacked her village. There was no reason she should believe a word he was saying. There was no reason…but given the look in his eyes and his tone, he didn’t seem to be lying.

If, indeed, everything he’d said had in fact been true, it only served to further confuse Lyrule.

“But why would you…?”

If he knew about the wrist thing, why hadn’t he done anything? Inzaghi was more than happy to tell her.

“In order to make a deal with you.”

“A deal?”

“Quite. Right now, we’re bound for the lord’s castle so that I may offer you to him as a tribute. I’m sure you’ve heard about his proclivities. You’re easy on the eyes, so if I hand you over to him, I’ll surely earn his favor. However…he’s liable to blame me if you do anything untoward in the bedroom. So I offer you this deal: become his obedient concubine and pleasure him with your body.”

“N-no…!”

“Then, as long as you fulfill your role properly, I’ll spare the lives of your precious villagers.”

“!”

This was the “collar” Inzaghi had prepared.

“In fact, I’ll even let you see them sometimes. I can guarantee you that much… Should you refuse, however, I will turn the carriage around this minute, mobilize the Order of Guardian Knights, and slaughter this family of yours. And it won’t be anything so lenient as flame this time, either. I will flay the flesh off every woman and child in that village before your eyes… Even an uneducated peasant like you can tell which choice is wiser, right?”

“…Waaah, hic, waaah…”

The flames of hatred in Lyrule’s eyes lost their intensity. As they vanished, fat tears began spilling out in their place.

At the sight of the girl, Inzaghi merely mused, How sentimental.

They had no education, no surnames. They were like beasts crawling on the ground.

People like that could never accomplish anything.

Temporary bouts of rage could make them bare their fangs, but that never lasted.

They have no status or goals. It’s impossible for animals solely concerned with how they’re going to get through each day to muster any sort of sustained drive. After you get past the moment where their anger peaks, the rest is easy.

The sly knight knew how the minds of the have-nots worked, and just as he’d expected…Lyrule nodded her assent to his arrangement.

—Just by giving up her lowly orphan life, she could protect her whole village. To someone as compassionate as Lyrule, it was her only option.

After Tsukasa and the others drove off the remaining soldiers, Masato told them everything that had gone down after they’d left the village.

“That’s horrible…! They stole little Lyrule away?!”

“That perverted bastard…!”

The middle-aged hunters ground their teeth and clenched their fists in frustration.

Lyrule didn’t have any blood relatives. However, that was precisely why each and every adult in the village treated her like she was their own flesh and blood. And now she’d been abducted. Their collective fury hung thick in the air.

Elch was the one to rally the other hunters.

“C’mon, everyone, there’s no time to waste! We have to storm the castle and get Lyrule back!”

“Yeah! You said it!”

“Lyrule is like a daughter to all of us. We won’t just sit by as they snatch her away!”

The hunters all followed him. There was no reason they shouldn’t. However—

“Hold it right there.”

—Tsukasa moved in front of the group and blocked their path, fixing his heterochromatic eyes on them.

“Don’t be idiots,” the boy snapped with a voice as sharp as a knife.

“What?!”

“The man you’re going up against is the lord of the Findolph domain. This isn’t some barroom brawl you’re walking into. You’re committing an act of war against the entire nation. Even if, by some miracle, you actually managed to rescue Lyrule, the imperial court isn’t just going to sit quietly by. They’ll retaliate with extreme force. I don’t know exactly what the scope of this country’s military looks like, but I do know it’s not something a single village can hope to withstand.”

The hunters winced when faced with the cruel reality of their situation. Yet, even so, they were loath to just abandon Lyrule to her fate. That simply wasn’t an option. In other words, if Tsukasa was going to stand in their way—

“B-but then, what do you want us to do…?!”

—Elch interjected, assuming that the young prime minister must have concocted some sort of plan.

Tsukasa gave his reply in the same calm, collected tone as always.

“I’m going to go negotiate with them. In exchange for Lyrule, I’m going to get them to drop the treason charges.”

“Wh-what?!”

“How dare you! You’re just gonna abandon Lyrule like that?!”

“It’s not like I’m happy about sacrificing her, but the fact of the matter is she’s the one whose life the lord and his men value. In other words, she’s the only one we can sacrifice. Fortunately, she’s an orphan, so we won’t have any problems on that front… What? I can make these negotiations work. I guarantee it.”

Flames of rage flared up in the villagers’ eyes. Elch grabbed Tsukasa by the collar and shouted at him.

“You sick bastard! You can’t possibly mean any of that!”

“YOU THINK I WOULD JOKE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!?!”

“““……!”””

Tsukasa’s bellow was loud and forceful enough to drown out all the other angry cries. His eyes burned with rage every bit as fervent as anyone else’s. It was clear he was just as repulsed as they were. Yet, even so, he pressed on.

“…It’s the only way this gets resolved peacefully. And it’s not like they’re going to kill her. If we can trade her…for the future of everyone in this village, then it’s the only sensible option. Think of the village’s children. And most importantly…it’s what she herself would want.”

He was right. There was no way Lyrule would want the villagers to start a war and fall into ruin just to save her.

“You all… You all should know that even better than I do.”

“………” The villagers hung their heads, silently grinding their teeth. Just as he’d said, they knew that wasn’t what Lyrule would want.

And yet—

“True. That probably is what Lyrule would want.”

“Mom…!”

Winona, who’d woken up, stood before Tsukasa. She, too, spoke with conviction.

“She would try to protect us, even if it meant giving herself up. That’s just how gentle and kind a girl she is. We all know that… But right now, Tsukasa, that isn’t what matters.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re right. We could follow Lyrule’s wishes, send you to negotiate with the lord, and get our peace back… But the moment we abandoned Lyrule, we wouldn’t be ourselves anymore. If we threw a child of ours to the wolves just to save our own lives, we’d be no better than the beasts crawling on the ground that the nobles think we are.”

“…Don’t you believe that it’s better to be a live dog than a dead lion?”

“Not at all. No matter how much the nobles may consider us beasts, we’re still people. We’re people, just like they are. And we won’t abandon someone in need. No matter how much it costs us, we’re always going to go support them. Because that’s what it means to be human. We’ll hold on to our pride, even if it costs us our lives.”

“““”””

The hunters, the women…even the small children—all agreed with her. Their eyes burned with silent, resolved affirmation. As people who lived on the barren mountains, it was their one ironclad rule. No matter how many people called them savages, they refused to relinquish their pride as human beings.

The importance of that rule was etched into their very bones. Their souls screamed out, commanding them never to break it.

“We’re going. Not just to save Lyrule… To protect our own humanity.” As she spoke, Winona stepped toward Tsukasa…and pried open his hands.

“““Ah…!”””

A stir ran through the villagers.

The flesh on Tsukasa’s palms had been gouged, and his raw blisters were bleeding. That was how hard he’d been clenching his fists.

“Well, that’s a shame. You just got those treated, too.”

“…I’m not some unfeeling monster, you know.”

“No, you aren’t. In fact, you’re just as kind as Lyrule.”

Winona took Tsukasa’s bloody palms and gently placed her hands atop them.

“…Tsukasa, if you’re that worried about us, won’t you lend us your strength? We know just how incredible you all are. We can’t do this on our own, but with all of you on our side…I’m sure we can save Lyrule…! I’m begging you…! Please help us…!” The woman looked straight into Tsukasa’s eyes as she made her plea.

Her words moved the boy’s heart. He wanted to protect people’s smiles. He wanted to be able to lend them a hand. It was an almost childish wish, but it was that ideal that had inspired Tsukasa to become a politician in the first place. It was an ideal he’d clung to every day.

He might end up having to sacrifice everything else. But despite it all, he couldn’t just pretend he hadn’t heard Winona’s plea. He couldn’t just pretend he hadn’t seen the villagers’ eyes.

“…Like I said, what you’re trying to do amounts to a declaration of war against the entire Freyjagard Empire. Once it starts, saving Lyrule won’t end it. The war will be long and arduous. Corpses will pile up like mountains, and enough blood will spill to fill the sea. You’ll experience unthinkable hardships, and you’ll know that they could have all been avoided if you’d just stayed servile to the nobles… Is protecting your dignity really worth all that?”

“”

The people of Elm didn’t reply. Their expressions said that the answer was so obvious they didn’t need to. After confirming their resolve…Tsukasa steeled his heart in turn.

“Understood. If you’re prepared to go that far, then as a politician who upholds democracy, I lend you my aid. I’ll join your war—your People’s Revolution.”

At Tsukasa’s verdict, Winona and the others bowed deeply.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Tsukasa said. He then turned to the other High School Prodigies. “You know the score. I would ask you all to join me in this battle. The situation being what it is, though, I certainly won’t force you…”

“We’re way past that, Boss,” Masato said with a laugh. “We already agreed that you’d be the one calling the shots. You won’t hear any complaints from my end. Besides, abandoning Lyrule like this would leave a shitty taste in my mouth.”

“It goes without saying that I shall accompany you, too, m’lord. Yet, had you not gone, I would have fought on behalf of my friends all the same, that I would.”

“I suspect my talents will be called for as well. There’s no shortage of patients on a battlefield, after all.”

“………”

“Ringo’s saying that she’ll do her best fur Lyrule’s sake, too!”

“O-of course I’m gonna come fight t-to help out my friends! Wh-what kind of guy wouldn’t?!”

“Prince, dude, your legs are shaking like crazy.”

“Shut up! I’m just, uh, ex-ex-ex-excited, that’s all!”

Akatsuki protested Masato’s assertion while practically on the verge of tears.

However…not even he made to leave. He loved the people of this village just as much as the others did.

“Yo, Tsukasa. You should probably warn ’em first, right?”

“…True. Too true.”

Tsukasa turned back toward the people of Elm. No, not just him. The entire group from Earth turned to the villagers in unison. Faint smiles played at their mouths as Tsukasa gave the people of this world his speech.

“Friends, while we’re willing to help you, it means we’ll be putting our lives on the line. And that means we aren’t going to be able to hold back.

“In short, we’re likely to end up accelerating your world’s culture by a factor of at least five hundred years.

“Your government, your economy, your value systems—they’ll all be drastically changed.

“In other words, what I’m trying to say is this:

“Given that we’re liable to destroy the world as you know it, is it still all right to give this everything we’ve got?”

To the people of Elm, no words could have made them happier.

The People’s Revolution and the High School Prodigies

“Oh-ho! Oh-ho-hyo-ho!!!!”

It was nightfall, and the sound of creepily high-pitched laughter echoed through the lord’s castle. The voice belonged to a middle-aged man as round as a barrel. His clothes were adorned with fine gold and silver thread. This man was the owner of the castle, Edwart von Findolph.

His brow gushed sweat, his nose went flush with excitement, and his eyes glimmered with delight as he looked the girl over. On Inzaghi’s orders, Lyrule had been neatly groomed and made to wear a white dress that showed off ample portions of her bosom.

“Oh, this one’s a real beauty! Oh-ho!” The man’s fleshy jaw quivered.

He was the spitting image of a bulldog in heat.

“Her blond hair is as fine as silk threads, and it glimmers like gold dust! And her skin, as white as freshly driven snow…! It’s so unbelievably smooth!”

“………”

The feeling of his fat, swollen fingers caressing her hair, cheeks, and neck filled Lyrule with so much disgust, she wanted to scream.

However, she desperately choked down that reaction. So long as she was submissive to Findolph, the villagers were safe. Inzaghi’s collar had bound the girl’s willpower itself.

Beside her, the man who’d so effectively shackled her bowed respectfully to his lord as he upsold his meritorious deed.

“I found her in the village you ordered me to torch. Because of her beauty, I took it upon myself to spare her life and bring her to you as tribute. I apologize if I’ve acted out of turn.”

“Not at all! You’ve shown amazing judgment, Inzaghi! It’s no wonder you’re the strongest knight in my domain! I promise your armor will be sparkling gold in no time!”

“You are most gracious, my lord…”

“Bwuh-hyo-hyo-hyo. Still, she really is something. What’s your name, girl?”

“…I-it’s Lyrule.”

“Lyrule, is it? Well, rejoice, Lyrule! I’ve decided to accept you as my concubine. You will belong to me, a noble in the service of our exalted emperor himself. How do you like that? Wonderful, isn’t it?”

It was anything but. There was no way she could ever come to love a man so clearly only interested in her body. The thought made goose bumps run across her flesh. She forced a smile nonetheless.

“Oh, very. Thank you so much…my lord…”

“Bwuh-hyo-hyo-hyo. Now then, you know what to do, don’t you?”

Lord Findolph slid one hand down to her shoulder, began kneading her breast with the other, and puckered up his lips.

Nonononono…

Lyrule had never been with a man. The only time she’d even touched lips with one was when she was nursing Tsukasa back to health. She was utterly inexperienced, and the man before her was viscerally repulsive.

But…if her sacrifice was enough to save her beloved family—

“Yes…master…”

It was painful how strong she was.

Lyrule stifled her emotions, plastered on a fake smile, and braced herself to accept Lord Findolph’s kiss.

But before their lips met—

“Gyah?!?!”

“Eeeeek!”

—a burst of blue lightning flashed between their bodies and forcibly blasted them apart.

“Ugh…”

As a result, Lyrule slammed her head into the wall behind her and passed out on the spot. There was no such solid mass behind Lord Findolph; he instead merely collapsed backward onto the bed. However…

“Ahhhhh! Owwwww! M-my lips got singed! Gaaaah!”

The barrel man writhed around. It must have been some sort of lightning attack, as some of the flesh on his lips had been seared clean off.

Inzaghi’s eyes went wide at the unexpected sight.

“Magic…?! Th-that girl’s a mage…?!”

Inzaghi had seen magic firsthand on the battlefield a few times, so he could tell immediately. What Lyrule had just used had unmistakably been magic.

She didn’t show any signs of it when we captured her… Could she really have just awakened?! What awful timing…! If I’m not careful, Lord Findolph will end up blaming me for this…! Dammit!

Realizing the threat the girl now posed to him, Inzaghi ground his teeth and rushed over to Lord Findolph’s side.

“My lord! Are you all right?!”

Lord Findolph snapped back at him, enraged.

“INZAAAAAAGHI!!!!”

“Urk…!”

“Cast this swine into the dungeon at once! How dare a commoner like her wound my noble personage…! She needs to pay for this! Make her regret having ever been born!”

“A-at once!”

Every conceivable savage emotion flashed across Lord Findolph’s bloodshot eyes as he turned them on Lyrule’s collapsed form.

At times like these, it was best to not give excuses and just follow orders. Inzaghi’s years of experience in service of Findolph had taught him that. He turned toward Lyrule.

However, his hand never reached her.

The girl’s friends had finished the necessary preparations to save her, and it was in that moment that they made their presence known.

“Anchors set. Stand fixed.”

Bearabbit reached the top of a knoll overlooking the side of the lord’s castle. Ringo’s hastily built cylindrical machine was mounted atop his back. After having shot anchor bolts out of his six legs to lock himself in place, he wirelessly contacted Masato.

“Preparations complete! Teddy when you are!”

“We’re in position, too. When Ringo does the thing, that’ll be our signal. Their flank’s virtually undefended, so let’s hit ’em hard!

“Ringo, they’re ready ofur there, too!”

“Got it!”

Ringo was back in the village’s power plant, and upon hearing the news, she skillfully tapped away at the laptop hooked up to its generator.

“No abnormalities in the electronic transmission systems. Main inverter connected. Environmental variables analyzed. Angle adjustment locked. Output limiter removed—”

As Ringo typed on her keyboard, the cylinder on Bearabbit’s back began to hum. Massive amounts of energy from her pocket nuclear fission reactor flowed up a thick, oxygen-free copper cable and into the cylinder’s two long conductor turned electromagnets to create a powerful magnetic field. That was right. The cylinder—

“Seventy-seven-pound depleted uranium shell, fire!”

—was a railgun cannon.

The moment Ringo slammed down the ENTER key, an orange flash exploded from the cannon’s barrel. The shell easily surpassed the speed of sound, melting into plasma as it surged through the air.

A lightning-like afterglow followed in its wake as it crashed into the castle ramparts—

—roaring so loudly that Ringo could even hear it in Elm, five mountains away.

That was how tremendous the destructive roar of the cannon was.

Inzaghi and Findolph were close enough to the detonation’s epicenter that they experienced it less as a sound and more as a wave of force.

“Pyooooooooooh?!?!?!”

“Nwah?!”

Glass windows shattered. The ground shook. They both toppled onto their backs.

“Wh-what was that…?!”

“I-Inzaghi!”

“I’m on it!”

Not needing to be told twice, Inzaghi dashed onto the terrace so he could look out over the whole castle.

“What…in the blazes…?!”

The shock was so intense it made his mind go blank for a moment. And it was no wonder. When he made it outside, the first thing he saw was the castle’s stone ramparts blown to smithereens.

Up on the knoll, Bearabbit’s camera captured the damage as well.

When he sent it over to Ringo, she clenched her fist a little.

“The target’s been destroyed all right.”

The ramparts of the stronghold were worthless now.

There was little nuclear fuel left in the pocket reactor, but it looked like their lack of frugality with it hadn’t been in vain.

“The damage is pretty pawful on our end, too, though.”

Bearabbit sent over a picture of the railgun cannon.

Unable to withstand the electric heat it had generated, its barrel had melted.

“It couldn’t be avoided. We were short on time and materials. I’m glad we were even able to pull off that one shot.” As she murmured, Ringo sympathetically stroked the image of the railgun cannon on her display.

“But now the path is open… Good luck, you guys!”

And a moment after Ringo sent her devout cry of support from the village—

“This is it! Everyone, storm the courtyard!”

“““YEAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!”””

Over at the castle, Masato led Aoi, Winona, and twenty-odd hunters out from the woods and toward the massive hole in the ramparts.

The moon was out, so the Order of Guardian Knights spotted them immediately.

“C-Captain Inzaghi! The villagers from earlier are heading toward the opening!”

“So they’re the ones behind this?! But how…? No, never mind that!” The moment Inzaghi’s wheels started turning, he shook his head.

That’s not important right now. I don’t know how they managed to destroy the wall, but their goal must be to rescue that girl. That means that cannon fire was no stray shot! The fact that they’re sending in infantry is proof enough of that!

“In any case, a few dirty mountain peasants can’t possibly pose a threat to us! Give them a taste of our crossbows! Shoot down every fool who dares stand against us!”

Inzaghi’s orders were precise, and his men quickly moved to follow them. They rushed from their stations with crossbows in hand to man the battlements. They took aim through the hole in the wall and fired at the rebels.

Bolts whizzed through the air.

Their crossbows were so powerful, they required windlasses just to draw them back. There was no way the destitute rebel villagers had any equipment capable of defending against something like that. Countless uprisings had fallen in the face of such firepower.

Yet—

Clang!!!!

—sparks and the sound of metal filled the air as the villagers deflected every last bolt.

“Whaaat?!”

Impossible. The soldiers’ eyes went wide. How could this be?

After all, you’d need an iron shield to block—

“W-wait, what’re those…?!”

“Shields?! And they ain’t wood, either. That’s metal! They’ve got iron shields!”

“Say what?!”

Inzaghi leaned over the balcony in disbelief and stared at his onrushing foes.

Not only did they have shields, they were even big enough to hide one’s whole body behind.

And although he couldn’t quite make them out in the darkness, the way they caught the moonlight meant they were definitely metal…!

B-but how?! How could mountain brutes get equipment like that…?!

Not even a Silver Knight like him was issued a shield large enough to hide behind. Come to think of it, something like that should have been too heavy to even wield.

Yet the Elm hunters carried them in one hand while running at full speed. The fact that poor villagers had gotten their hands on iron shields was uncanny enough, but that they held them single-handed was just downright baffling. However, what Inzaghi found so hard to understand was actually quite simple.

The truth was, the shields weren’t made of iron at all.

“Damn, these things really can deflect crossbow bolts! They’re so strong!”

“And they’re still light enough for us to carry them in one hand! I’ve never seen metal like this before!”

“You guys really made this amazing metal from the red clay over in the valley?!”

The hunters were all amazed by the hitherto unseen material. Masato let out a booming laugh at the incredulous reactions of the vanguard.

“You’d better believe it. Nice, ain’t it? This stuff completely changed the course of history back on our world!”

Was it aluminum? Not quite. After all, aluminum on its own wasn’t nearly that strong.

Not only was aluminum not strong enough to repel crossbow bolts…it wasn’t even sturdy enough to make the shovels Tsukasa had used to dig out the riverbank. In other words, what Ringo had been cooking up in that lab of hers wasn’t ordinary aluminum.

Instead, she’d taken the aluminum she extracted from the bauxite and refined it with magnesium and a number of other metals. It was devastatingly cheap, seemed to defy every law of mass, and had once single-handedly accelerated Earth civilization by centuries and quite literally changed the course of history. It was a superalloy in every sense of the word.

“We call it duralumin, and compared to the rest of the stuff in this world, it’s basically a Dreadnought-class overpowered item! Arrows, crossbow bolts, guns, I mean, bring it on!”

Masato and the others made their way toward the castle, effortlessly repelling the crossbow bolts without pause. The Order of Guardian Knights began to panic.

“Dammit, hurry it up with that windlass! At this rate, they’re actually gonna make it inside!”

Desperate to stop the enemy’s charge, the rampart-encamped crossbow archers continued firing. However, the man who’d devised the villagers’ invasion wasn’t so kind as to let that go on forever.

“Gweh?!”

“Huh…?! A-an arrow?! They’ve got sni—Glurk!”

“Gah!”

The crossbow unit let out strange screams as they toppled one after another off the ramparts to the courtyard sixty feet below.

“Wh-what’s going on?! What’s happening?!”

As Inzaghi floundered, one of his men called out to him.

“C-Captain! They’re sniping us! With metal arrows! They’re metal all the way from the arrowheads down!”

“More metal arms?!”

It was true. Elm had a sniper. The bow’s wielder was none other than the greatest archer in the village, Elch.

He was standing atop a tree over six hundred feet from the castle, sniping the crossbow unit from well outside the range of a traditional arrow.

“Damn, this thing is nice,” he said, glancing at the metal bow he wielded while marveling at its capabilities.

Ringo had made him a recurve bow with an aluminum alloy handle and a carbon rim.

“It shoots about four times farther than our wooden bows, and its arrows are made of this crazy-light metal. Almost feels bad, sharpshooting this good… It feels like I couldn’t miss if I tried. I bet I could even nail a rabbit right between the eyes!”

Elch nocked another arrow and loosed it at his foes. It cast a high arc through the air and whizzed straight toward Inzaghi’s forehead.

“Hyah!”

However, he wasn’t the captain of the Order of Guardian Knights for nothing. Sensing the projectile bearing down on him, he promptly swatted the arrow down with his sword. The steel blade crushed the alloy-shaft arrow and sent it tumbling to the ground.

“Where’s that sniper, dammit?!”

“W-we don’t know! All the trees in shooting range of the castle were felled, but we can’t spot them anywhere…! There’s nowhere for them to hide, bu—GAAAAAAAAAH!!!!”

Another soldier toppled from the ramparts, a duralumin arrow piercing through both his helmet and skull.

Inzaghi clenched his jaw in frustration.

Tch! Does that mean they have a bow that can shoot from impossible ranges?! Where are these filthy mountain hunters getting such things?! Dammit! Dammit! How is this happening?!

It defied all logic.

And with logic yet defied—

“Captain Inzaghi! They’ve made it to the courtyard!”

—the situation just kept getting worse and worse.

As he broke out into a cold sweat, Inzaghi strained his voice and barked orders to his men.

“We’re sitting ducks up here! Grab your swords and meet them in the courtyard! There are only a few dozen of them and almost two hundred of us! We’ll crush them with superior numbers!”

Despite all the confusion, Inzaghi was still a skilled enough man to be able to make wise decisions in battle.

He made a good point, too. In combat, the side with more numbers had an advantage, and that advantage was only compounded when it came to close-quarters combat. In other words, his forces had every reason to make full use of that, head down to the courtyard, and engage their foes in melee combat. It was a smart, logical decision. In fact, given his situation, it was probably the best play he could make.

Halberds in hand, the fully armored Bronze Knights charged at Masato and the other intruders.

“Commoner scum! You’ve brought chaos and violence into our great lord’s castle!”

“You’ll pay dearly for that crime!”

However—

“Well, in that case…I shall bring you the payment you so desire with my sword, that I shall!”

—there was one swordswoman present who had fought on the bullet-filled battlefields of the future and was said to be a match for a thousand men. A tenfold numbers advantage was nothing before her.

As though to prove that, she swung her blade faster than a gale-force wind and lopped the heads off the two Bronze Knights charging at her through their helmets.

“My ferocious secret technique—Iron-Cleaving Flash!”

“H-how can this be?!”

As the other soldiers stopped and gawked at her in horror, she closed in on them before they could blink.

“For your affronts, I strike you down.”

“““AAAAAARGH!!!!”””

With just one slash, she bisected three foes.

“I would not normally pursue those who flee, but our numbers today are far too few. Forgive me, but know that all within reach of my sword shall be cut down without mercy!”

She was, in every way, a samurai dominating the battlefield. Spurts of blood gushed through the air in her wake. The soldiers quivered in fear, then began screaming and ran for their lives.

“Sh-she’s a monster!”

However, they found themselves crashing into the soldiers who’d just fled from the other side.

“Agh!”

“D-dumbasses, don’t come this way! Ah—”

The anonymous soldier breathed his last. A chestnut-haired wolf with a grass sickle in each hand had sliced open his throat.

“Heh-heh. It’s been a while since my blood boiled like this.”

Amid the melee, Winona was fighting just as hard as Aoi.

“I thought my wild days were over once I got hitched, but this is for my daughter. Now you boys are gonna see exactly what Elm’s top hunter is capable of!”

The way she dropped low to the ground and ran—she was the spitting image of an actual wolf. Time and time again, her sickles found thighs and tendons, slicing them open and rendering the soldiers powerless.

Earlier that day, she’d been ready to take on Inzaghi’s whole unit by herself until Masato knocked her out from behind. If he hadn’t been there, though, she probably would have taken at least ten of them down with her. That was just how strong she was.

“Hey! Move aside, you useless lumps!”

“Agh!”

“Gah!”

Eventually realizing that the soldiers were helpless to stop her rampage, a Bronze Knight swept his men aside and brandished his halberd.

“A knight’ll be the one to take you down, impudent beast!”

He stabbed forward over and over, the tip of his halberd audibly slicing through the air each time. Unlike the soldiers’ inexperienced thrusts, his had the kind of speed that only came with practiced technique. Yet to her, even that speed seemed glacial.

Winona dodged each attack with the smallest movements possible, then chose one—

“Too slow!”

—and used its timing to stomp the halberd into the ground.

“Wh—?!”

Then, with the weapon still embedded in the dirt, she ran up its long grip, leaped into the air, and planted her butt right on the Bronze Knight’s face.

“Hraaagh!”

Though it was protected by chainmail and a helmet, the force of the impact snapped the Bronze Knight’s neck anyway.

Seeing him crumple to the ground in a cloud of dust, Aoi offered words of praise.

“Good work, Winona, m’lady! Childbirth seemed not to have tarnished your figure, so I suspected that you were practiced, but I never expected it to be to such a degree! I thought myself the only one here capable of felling the Bronze Knights, that I did!”

“What, you thought I’d let you hog all the glory?”

And Winona wasn’t the only combat-capable villager in the fray.

The duralumin shield–equipped hunters weren’t quite on par with the Bronze Knights, but they completely outclassed the rank-and-file soldiers. Their enemies’ numbers advantage dwindled before their eyes.

Even the Bronze Knights who’d made their way down to the courtyard went shivering in their boots as they witnessed Elm’s unwavering advance.

“Dammit, they’re too strong! This shit ain’t normal!”

Up in the northern sticks, the soldiers got little to no actual combat experience. In contrast, Elm’s hunters spent their days running around the mountains. The difference in their base physiques was considerable. Coupled with Elm’s overpowered equipment, the soldiers of the castle hardly stood a chance.

“C’mon, surround them! We gotta all charge at once!”

One of Bronze Knights called out, knowing that they were doomed if they stayed scattered like they were.

The soldiers did as instructed and moved to surround Elm’s hunters.

Damn. Looks like one of them was able to keep his head. Masato clicked his tongue.

Aoi would be fine, of course, but anyone else would be in trouble if they got rushed by ten people at once. It was time for Masato to play his trump card.

“We can’t let them regroup! I’m counting on you—Prince!”

And not a moment later…

“BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!”

Laughter boomed down from above, and a dark shadow eclipsed the light of the moon. The soldiers couldn’t help but look up at the sight.

“Wh-who’s thaaaaaat?!?!”

“Th-there’s someone flying up there! They’ve got a mage!”

“N-no way…! What’s a mage doing in a grubby little mountain village…?!”

The mysterious figure was wrapped in a dark cloak and hovering up in the air with the moon at his back. There was only one person who could pull off a stunt like that—Prince Akatsuki, the greatest magician on Earth.

“Quake with fear! Cower in terror! For you stand before a grand and powerful mage!”

Akatsuki feigned an overly inflected voice as he focused the attention of the soldiers on himself.

In contrast to his imposing tone and countenance, however—

Please don’t shoot me please don’t shoot me please don’t shoot meeeeee!!!!

—his internal monologue was a terrified scream.

Of all the people there, Akatsuki was the only one with zero experience facing down death.

The hunters’ experience was obvious; they put their lives on the line every day they went out hunting. Masato, for his part, lived much like Tsukasa—fending off assassins year-round. Plus, not only was he well acclimated to attempts on his life, but business in and of itself was akin to war. Masato couldn’t even remember how many people he’d sent to their ruin on his path to controlling 30 percent of Earth’s wealth. Even Ringo, who wasn’t there in person, was no stranger to peril. Her intellect was vast enough that it could influence entire nations. Every country in the world wanted her for themselves. Two hands’ worth of fingers weren’t enough to count the number of times she’d nearly been kidnapped. That was precisely why she chose to live in low orbit. Her mere presence on Earth was enough to spark conflict.

And as for Aoi and Keine, they hardly needed to be mentioned. They spent their whole lives on the battlefield.

But Akatsuki was different.

True, he was blessed with skills that went beyond the pale…but he’d never been in a situation where it was kill or be killed. As successful as he was, he was still just a normal person. The world he lived in was bound by laws and common sense. And because of that, seeing the all-too-real battle playing out below him shook the boy to his core.

People were dying one after another. The green lawn was being stained with dark-red blood. It was a world completely removed from the one in which he normally spent his days.

Tsukasa, being cognizant of all that, had called Akatsuki over before they’d all gone in.

“There’s no need for you to force yourself to take part in this battle,” he’d said. “You have an important task that comes after this, so there’s no shame in staying back.”

Despite the prime minister’s warnings…Akatsuki had come anyway. He knew full well how badly it would shock their foes to see a mage. Him being there would meaningfully increase their chances. With that in mind, there was no way he could just take it easy somewhere safe and wait for his friends to return.

I’m…a man, too, you know…!

He quashed his fear. He suppressed his trembling. Akatsuki was used to performing on big stages, and no entertainer worth his salt ever let the audience see him whine or panic!

“Now take this! My secret recipe, mandrake poison gas bombs!” With a shout, Akatsuki did as Tsukasa had instructed and hurled a bunch of colorful Ping-Pong-size spheres onto the battlefield. Were they really mandrake poison gas bombs? …Well, no.

Akatsuki had had neither the time nor the knowledge to make anything nearly that exciting. What he’d thrown were the smoke bombs he used in his performances. Like his outfit, they were part of his magician’s tools he’d had on him when he’d gotten dropped into that world.

When the smoke bombs hit the ground, huge swaths of colorful green, pink, and blue fumes began billowing from them.

“Ahhh! He’s throwing something at us!”

“What’s with this weird colored smoke?!”

When Masato saw the dense fumes fill the battlefield, he made his move.

“AAAAARGH! IT BURNS! THIS STUFF’S POISON!” he shouted. He’d had to take control of more than his fair share of discussions turned screaming matches in the past, so the young businessman was more than experienced in making his voice carry. Hearing him immediately sent the soldiers into a panic.

“S-someone’s screaming?!”

“Guys, make sure you don’t breathe the smoke in!”

“Eeeeeek!”

“Screw this, man! They’ve got shields I ain’t never seen before, they can cut through armor, and now they’re throwing poison from the sky? I don’t wanna fight these guys anymore!”

“We surrender, we surrender! Just let us live!”

Seeing a mage fly through the sky, watching him fill the air with strange, poisonous-looking smoke, and hearing Masato’s scream had dealt a heavy blow to the soldiers’ spirits. They’d been trying to surround the Elm hunters, but now their leadership had been routed. Their people were panicking, and more and more of them were losing their will to fight. Any sort of cohesion they may have had as a group was gone.

In contrast, the Elm side had been told ahead of time that it was just colored smoke, so they pressed the assault and broke through the opposing line in no time.

Aoi, who’d previously been prioritizing thinning the enemy’s ranks, switched to using nonlethal blows. The battle had already been decided. Most of the soldiers were throwing down their weapons and cowering on the ground. The courtyard was already lost. There was no need for her to take any more lives.

“What just happened…?”

Inzaghi had been watching the whole thing play out from the terrace. A tremble began overtaking him.

This is bad. At this rate…

…the peasants were actually going to make it through.

Even if he was able to withdraw those of his men still willing to fight and redeploy them inside the castle, it would just be a repeat of what had played out in the courtyard. The difference in individual strength between each side was simply too great.

Especially that girl with the long, tied-up hair…

Aoi Ichijou was too powerful for him to deal with. In fact, she was so strong that she could probably have taken the castle on her own. The only person who could stand up to her…would be a mage, but…

“…!”

Inzaghi went pale.

Now that he thought about it, where was that First-Class Mage who’d been stationed at the castle these past few months? Why hadn’t he joined the battle? Where or what was he—?

It was then that the true worst-case possibility became apparent to the Silver Knight. What if it wasn’t that he hadn’t joined but that he couldn’t?

“Was that flashy battle all just a diversion…?!”

Abandoning his men, Inzaghi rushed back toward his lord. He needed to take Lord Findolph and flee the castle.

Down on the battlefield, out of the corner of his eye, Masato watched Inzaghi beat feet.

Looks like the hotshot finally figured it out. But he’s too late…!

Certain of their victory down in the courtyard, Masato trusted his hopes for the plan’s final steps in their two missing members.

Tsukasa, Shinobu! The rest is on you guys!

Inzaghi’s hunch had been right on the mark. Tsukasa had called Shinobu back earlier, and while Masato and the others were invading the courtyard, the two of them had been infiltrating the castle.

The soldiers had all been occupied by the chaos over on the grounds, so the hallways were empty as they quietly slipped through them. With Shinobu’s guidance, the two were able to make their way straight to the lord’s chambers.

“This has been on my mind for a while now, but I’m constantly amazed at your ability to gather intel. Finding out about the secret passage is one thing, but when could you have possibly had time to learn the castle’s entire layout?”

“Nya-ha-ha. There ain’t no secret safe from me! I’m the world’s greatest journalist, remember? Anyway, back when I first heard what a jerk the lord was, I figured we might have to take drastic measures at some point!”

“Ah. How prudent.”

“Weren’t you against starting this fight, though?”

“…War carries a toll of blood. Without fail. I’m in no position to bear responsibility for the lives of this world’s people. And for a politician, wars should only be started as an absolute last resort. That’s what I believe, at least. Lives once lost can never be recovered.”

However—

“However, I also know that there are moments where people have no choice but to put their lives on the line and fight. For Winona and the others, that time is now. I can’t do much, but I aim to help them however I can.”

“Well, that’s very ‘you,’ all right. You sure it’s okay for you to be away from Japan for so long, though?”

“Our country isn’t fragile enough that it’d just collapse in my absence. Besides…this won’t take long. I’ve got six of Japan’s brightest stars with me. Given all our talents, waging this war while searching for a way home at the same time will be easy. That’s what I’m counting on, anyway.”

“What are you, some sorta slave driver…?”

“Worse. A politician.”

“I dunno if that’s something to sound so proud about, Tsukes.” Shinobu let out a chuckle and looked at the approaching corner. “When we turn this bend, there’ll be a staircase! Head up that, and we’ll be smack-dab in front of the lord’s chambers!”

But as she was about to lean into the turn, she saw something. Just beyond the corner, at the other end of the hallway leading to the stairs, was a man dressed in a blue robe.

“! Tsukes!”

“Huh?!”

Shinobu suddenly forced her body back, slamming herself into Tsukasa, who was about to round the corner after her. Not a moment later, a loud bang rang out, and a large crack appeared in the stone brickwork wall where Tsukasa’s head would have been.

“What the…?!”

“My, my. Inzaghi’s incompetence runs deep, it seems. I was not counting on having to get involved with a puny little twenty-man uprising, yet the worms have already managed to squirm their way this far.” From beneath the blue robe, a male voice echoed through the dark corridor at the two intruders.

“The battle on the surface was a diversion, was it? A clever plan, for a bunch of uncivilized savages. But I’m afraid your luck ran out the moment you met me. I am Gale el Stafford, First-Class Imperial Mage. I’ll cut off your rebellious little heads and offer them to the lord as tribute!”

“If he’s a mage, then that must have been magic.”

Shinobu, who’d learned a thing or two about magic, nodded.

“Yup. A simple wind spell called Wind Edge. It shoots a vacuum blade at the speed of a pistol shot. You saw for yourself how effective it is.”

“Well, this is a problem. Is there another path we can take?”

Shinobu shook her head.

“It’d take too long; we don’t have the time. It’s okay, though, we’ll just go through him. Leave it to me!”

“…Are you sure?”

“Thanks for looking out for me, but I got this. I’m not some delicate princess like Lyrule, I’m a lady ninja, a modern-day kunoichi. And protecting political leaders is a ninja’s job. That means this is my time to shine!” Her declaration made, Shinobu dashed around the corner alone.

The mage wasn’t about to let the opportunity that represented slip by.

“Fool! You’re just rushing to your death! Wind Edge!”

He swung the baton-like stick he was carrying in a diagonal line and cast his spell. An invisible blade rushed through the air, straight toward Shinobu. And yet—

Shinobu stepped toward the wall, practically hurling herself at it. The attack missed.

“Tch, a lucky guess! In that case, how do you like this?!”

Gale clicked his tongue, then waved his wand around and loosed several more Wind Edge spells.

They shot down the narrow corridor, each one flying at a different angle without nary so much as a pause in between.

However, the magical barrage did little to slow Shinobu’s advance. She ran toward Gale, weaving her way between the miniscule gaps in the attacks without stopping for a moment. The mage made no efforts to hide his shock.

“B-but how?! Can you see my invisible blades somehow?!”

Shinobu responded with a smirk as she leaped over the blade of wind speeding toward her stomach like she was in a hurdle race.

“Oh, I don’t need to. Wind Edge flies fast and is fast to cast, but the trade-off is that you can’t really control it. It always just shoots as an extension of the line you draw with your wand.”

“How?! No commoner should have such knowledge of magic…!”

“How? Why, you’re the one who taught me. Don’t you remember…Mr. Good Lookin’?”

“Huh?”

Gale suddenly remembered that pet name and seductive tone of voice. A week ago, when he was out drinking in town, he’d chatted up a cute girl who’d sounded just like that.

“Whaaaaat?! Y-you’re Sasha?!”

Shinobu wasn’t about to let the opportunity his shock presented slip by.

“Yep!”

“Argh!!”

Shinobu’s shuriken sank into the back of the mage’s hand. The pain forced him to drop his wand. He immediately leaned down to pick it up, but Shinobu got to him faster.

“Whoop!”

“GYAAAARGH?!?!”

When she did, her special stun gun knocked him clean out. She’d modified it to increase the voltage.

“Ninja Art: Bolt Release—or y’know, something like that.”

“That was impressive. Now that I think about it, I do remember you mentioning that you were able to make an appointment with a mage. Is that when you learned the castle layout, too?”

“Bingo! Mr. Good Lookin’ was surprisingly forthcoming.”

“Loose lips sink ships… Although, here it was a ship we wanted sunk, so—?!”

Though the mage had been rendered harmless, apparently, they’d let him shoot off a few too many spells. The sound of the wind blades colliding with the walls had echoed through the castle, and soldiers were starting to gather on their position.

“Intruders! We’ve got intruders this deep into the castle!”

“Kill them! Don’t let them reach our lord!”

Three bronze-clad knights charged toward them from down the hall.

“They must’ve heard the battle.”

As Tsukasa clicked his tongue, Shinobu moved into position to cover for him.

“Tsukes, go! I’ll hold them off!”

If he went now, he could make it to the stairs before the enemy reinforcements did.

Tsukasa was pretty sure Shinobu could hold her own, no matter how many knights they threw at her. And so—

“—Okay. I’m counting on you!”

—he left her side and headed for the lord’s chambers alone.

Meanwhile, Inzaghi had only just made it back to the lord’s chambers himself.

“I-Inzaghi! Wh-what’s going on out there?!”

Lyrule was the last thing on Lord Findolph’s mind now. The rotund man was covered in blankets and curled up into a ball as though instinctively trying to protect himself. The abnormally loud commotion outside was impossible to ignore and must have clued the lord into the danger he was in. Inzaghi knelt before him and delivered a status report.

“I’m afraid to say that the commoners have formed a mob and are on the verge of taking the castle.”

Lord Findolph’s eyes went wide in shock.

“What?! C-commoners?! Commoners, you say?! You’re a Silver Knight, and you’re losing to mere commoners?”

“Regretfully so. But there’s nothing common about them. The insurgents all have equipment made from an unknown metal. One of them wields a weapon called a katana and is clearly an experienced warrior. Between their weapons and their skills, they’re no mere mob! They’re as formidable as any military unit…!”

“……!”

“We’re in danger here. Let’s prepare to evacuate so we can—”

But he was too late.

“That won’t be necessary.”

““?!””

Both of them looked in the direction of the sudden voice. Someone was standing in the doorway, blocking their exit.

“Whatever you’re planning, it’s too late.”

It was Tsukasa Mikogami, his red eye burning hot and his blue eye ice-cold.

When Tsukasa entered the room, his gaze immediately shifted to the floor, where Lyrule was sprawled. Her shoulders rose and fell; she was breathing.

Well…it looks like we dodged the worst-case scenario.

Tsukasa had been worried that Lyrule, thinking that the villagers had died, would lash out—and that Findolph would kill her in retribution. Fortunately, that appeared not to have been the case. Now all he needed to do was get her out of there.

“I’ll be taking her back now.”

Tsukasa drew the extendable baton from his suit and charged into the room.

“I-I-Inzaaaaaaghiiiiii!” Lord Findolph screeched.

“Hyah!”

Inzaghi promptly moved to intercept the attack. His sword cleaved a silver arc through the darkness—right into Tsukasa’s path.

Tsukasa quickly blocked it, but the impact sent a sharp sting through his bandaged hand.

Ow…!

That single exchange was more than enough to tell him how powerful the foe before him was. Armed with the knowledge of Inzaghi’s strength, Tsukasa realized this wasn’t someone he could just bulldoze his way through. He turned his gaze away from Lord Findolph, focused all his attention on the Silver Knight, blocking the man’s the follow-up attack.

Inzaghi cast a rage-filled glare at him. “Your moves are clearly practiced. You’re no amateur. And you’re no peasant, either, are you?”

“I do have something of a handle on the basics.”

“…There was that woman outside, too. There’s no way a commoner could be that strong or skilled. I get it now… So you people gave the peasants knowledge and arms, then riled them up, is that it?!”

“They started this fight, not us. We lent them our strength, but we certainly didn’t rile them up. You turned your backs on them, and this battle is their retribution.”

“Nonsense!” Inzaghi pushed Tsukasa back farther and farther using the secret sword techniques only taught to Imperial Knights. He wasn’t on Aoi’s level, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t a skilled swordsman.

Furthermore, Tsukasa’s hands were covered in raw blisters, and his extendable baton had a short reach compared to a sword. The deck was stacked against him.

“This won’t end well for you, you know! This castle and domain were entrusted to Marquis Findolph by His Majesty, Emperor Freyjagard! Breaking in and raising your swords against the marquis is akin to raising your swords against the emperor himself! His Majesty won’t let this stand. He’ll kill you, each and every last one of you!”

Inzaghi attacked again and again, his rage growing with each strike. Little by little, he was pushing Tsukasa back. However—

“Then I suppose we’ll just have to take your emperor’s head before he takes ours.”

—Tsukasa’s emotions remained unwavering.

His eyes were filled with a fierce light, and they were fixed not just on the enemy before him but on the one behind Inzaghi that the prime minister knew he’d inevitably need to slay.

“Like I said, it’s too late. The times have begun changing in accordance with the will of the people. Commoners are just as human as you nobles, and their pride will go on to move the hearts of others in turn. Right now, it’s just a backwoods revolt, but just like in our world, it won’t be long before the uprising sweeps over all of Freyjagard. It’ll be like a wildfire. And the wheels of change stop for no man, so there’s only one thing the people like you, the people who ran the old regime, can do when faced with the tides of history—perish.”

“Silence, you little malcontent!”

As a Silver Knight who served the empire, Inzaghi couldn’t let an affront like that stand. The emperor’s absolute inviolability was the foundation that provided the basis for the nobility’s worth. Yet this upstart boy made light of that. Inzaghi leveled slash after slash at him, seething like a raging fire. Each attack was stronger and deadlier than the last. Tsukasa defended himself laudably, but—

“Agh…!”

—eventually, one of Inzaghi’s slashes knocked his baton out of his hand.

Its handle was wet and sticky with Tsukasa’s blood, and their repeated exchanges had sapped his grip of strength.

Inzaghi wasn’t one to miss an opportunity like that. He brought his sword crashing down toward Tsukasa’s head, ready to split him in two.

“Taaaaaake—that?!”

All of a sudden, though, the weapon slammed into something and stopped in midair. However, Tsukasa shouldn’t have had anything to defend himself with. But then, how?

The truth lay in the fact that they’d made their way back to the room’s entrance. The blade had gotten wedged in the post at the top of the doorway.

“Ah, da…” Damn. He’d noticed it too late.

Having been handed a decisive opening, Tsukasa charged in point-blank. Seeing Tsukasa’s collected expression, Inzaghi finally realized he’d been had.

This brat used his own wound as a trick…?!

“Hrah!” Tsukasa drove the heel of his palm into Inzaghi’s jaw at a harsh angle. The Silver Knight’s body flew through the air and toppled onto the bed. He didn’t stand back up. The attack had rattled his brain, knocking him clean out.

Now nothing was left in Tsukasa’s way. All he had to do was go grab Lyrule—or so he thought.

“—Ah…!”

A roar like a thunderclap echoed through the room. Tsukasa was from Earth. He knew that sound well.

It was the sound of a gunshot.

A searing pain shot through his chest. When he looked, he saw Lord Findolph pointing what looked like a smoking pistol right at him.

“Hya-ha-ha-ha! I shot you! I struck you down!” As Findolph watched Tsukasa drop to one knee, he let out a shrill laugh.

Tsukasa glanced at what the man was holding and clicked his tongue. “…A flintlock pistol? I anticipated the existence of firearms but didn’t expect any of them to be small enough to hide in a pocket…”

“You didn’t expect it? But of course! This miniature flintlock pistol is the newest technology from Freyjagard’s imperial workshops! Only a handful of nobles are entrusted with them. There’s no way a peasant like you could have known about it!”

The bullet had struck Tsukasa square in the heart. He couldn’t have had much life left in him. Confident of that fact, Findolph flaunted his pistol and crowed victoriously.

“The times are changing? What a joke! We nobles have the technology, the knowledge, and the military! You people have nothing! You’re the ruled, and we’re the rulers! That will never change!” Findolph cast aside his now-empty pistol, drew forth a knife, and moved in for the kill, a confident expression of superiority on his face all the while.

It wasn’t because his bullet had hit its mark. It was more fundamental than that. He was simply sure that a noble like him could never lose to a commoner. He had been special since the day he was born, and the commoners were his possessions, no more than slaves.

Nothing could possibly topple that hierarchy. That was what he’d believed all forty years of his life. Yet all his confidence was built upon castles of sand.

“—Then we will bridge that gap.”

“Wh…?”

Suddenly, the young man who should have been on death’s door rose to his feet as if nothing had happened.

“H-how are you still standing?! My bullet hit you; I saw it…!” But right as Findolph was about to let out another cry of disbelief, he heard something small and hard hit the floor. The bullet that should have been lodged in Tsukasa’s chest rolled back on to him.

“What…?”

“This suit is made of bulletproof aramid fiber. A gun without rifling can’t hope to penetrate it. And also…you seem quite proud of that flintlock, but I’ve got something similar.” Tsukasa reached into his suit and drew a gleaming-silver automatic pistol.

Findolph gawked at it in disbelief. As far as he knew, the empire had only just developed small firearms. There was no way a peasant could have gotten their hands on one.

“No way; h-how…?! Y-you must be bluffing—”

To dispel the man’s doubts, Tsukasa pulled the trigger and shot the knife right out of the lord’s hand.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek?!?!”

“As you can see, this is no bluff. And this gun…has another six rounds loaded. Do you understand what that means? I could kill you six times over.”

“E-eeeeeep?!?!” The young man’s words sent Findolph into a panic. Why did a commoner have a gun superior to the best the empire could manufacture? It defied explanation. Who was this kid? Who were these people?

The cold reality of a barrel leveled at his forehead wiped away all of the lord’s confusions. In their place surged his primal fear of death.

“Let’s… Let’s not do anything rash here! Y-you want the girl, right?! You can have her! Just take her and leave! A-and if that’s not enough, I’ll give you money! As much as you want! I’ll exempt you from taxes! S-so let’s just put that away!”

Tsukasa quietly shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. It would have been one thing before we started a war, but given the display of force we just put on, making a deal with you won’t stop the empire. In their eyes, we’re beyond forgiveness. It’s how they’ve maintained control for as long as they have… In other words, there’s no turning back for us. We’ll take you down; we’ll take your allies down; we’ll mow down anything that stands in our way. And we’ll keep going until this People’s Revolution achieves its goal—building a nation by the people, of the people.”

“Of the people…?”

“A land where everyone is equal—and where anyone can become the nation’s representative. Every citizen will have a chance to participate in government and take responsibility for their own lives.”

Upon hearing that, Findolph’s jaw dropped for a moment. “Ha…ha-ha-ha! Do you have any idea how foolish you sound?!” Tsukasa’s gun was still trained on him, but he couldn’t contain himself.

“Commoners representing themselves?! A bunch of uneducated, powerless slobs who can’t even survive without us holding their leashes building a nation?! Ha! Ah-ha-ha-ha!” His face still frozen in fear, he began laughing like a man possessed.

They were going to make a country with no kings or nobles, just ‘people’? Edwart von Findolph had never heard anything so ridiculous in his life. The world would never accept such radical values. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was like one big joke.

“Don’t be absurd, now. His Majesty will never put up with such nonsense. Society won’t put up with such nonsense…! Spreading this nonsense is akin to challenging the world itself…! You people think you can change the world?!” Findolph’s mockery wasn’t completely without merit.

The strong rule the weak. That was a fundamental rule of nature. Trying to sing equality’s praises flew in the face of that. It was like trying to paint over the whole world’s value system. None would call it an exaggeration to say that such a feat was beyond the reach of humankind. And yet—

“I know we can…if it’s what the people want.” Tsukasa’s answer was plain and confident. For he knew that the seeds of change had already begun taking root in this world. The young man was confident they wouldn’t be so easily ripped up.

The world changes in accordance with the will of the people. That was why—

“That’s what politicians like me exist for.”

With that, Tsukasa pulled the trigger.

There was a flash and a bang. Findolph’s body crumpled to the floor. Yet, somehow…there was no blood. Tsukasa’s gun was loaded with rubber bullets designed for riot control. Findolph wasn’t dead. Tsukasa had decided he might still find a use for the unscrupulous lord.

In any case, the battle’s over.

The battle of this eve, anyway. Tsukasa let out a long breath and dashed to Lyrule’s side. “Lyrule! Are you all right?!”

He lifted her into his arms from the rug and lightly tapped her cheek. The moment he did, her long lashes trembled, and her eyelids opened to stare at her savior—

—with eyes glowing jade green.

That wasn’t the color her eyes were supposed to be. And it wasn’t just the irises that were off, either. Tsukasa could make out snowflake-like patterns of light gleaming in her pupils, too.

“Ly… Lyrule?”

“Thank…goodness… You made it…in time…”

A chill ran through Tsukasa’s body. The girl he was holding was without a doubt Lyrule, and yet—

That’s not Lyrule’s voice…

“Who exactly…?” Tsukasa froze. He didn’t understand what was going on. What could only be called Lyrule—and yet not Lyrule—reached up and cradled his cheek in her hand. Her petite lips moved as the strange voice spoke to him.

“There’s…no …left anymore. This world…is being engulf×ed…in a massive, evil dragon’s maw… If you don’t hurry ×××× will ××—”

Her speech was intermittent, like a broken radio, but it seemed to be asking him to do something. Try as he might, Tsukasa couldn’t tell what it was, though.

What was Lyrule…or rather, “she” trying to tell him? Who even was she?

But a moment later—

“I beg of  , o Seven He oes, you ust  this world.”

“!”

—all his questions were blown away.

Choppy as it was, he’d definitely heard her say Seven Heroes.

“Wait, was it you?! Were you the one who summoned us here?!”

The voice speaking through Lyrule’s body grew faint, and Tsukasa grabbed the girl by her shoulders as if to plead for an answer. But then—

“H-huh…? Tsu…kasa…?”

“L-Lyrule?”

The mysterious green glow had vanished from her eyes. They were back to their normal shade of lapis lazuli. After getting a good eyeful of Tsukasa, the blond girl leaped up.

“Tsukasa…wait, wh-wh-wh-wh-what?! Wh-wh-wh-what are you doing here?! I’m… Wait…what’s going on? The last thing I remember, there was a flash of light, and I passed out. Hmm? Lord Findolph is… Wait, what? What happened here?!” She looked around the room, but doing so only served to amplify her confusion.

Tsukasa choked back the hundreds of questions he wanted to ask her. He still didn’t understand how it all worked, but it was clear that this Lyrule wasn’t the same person as the one a moment ago. In other words, hounding her for answers wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

Besides…right now, there was something more important he needed to do. After shifting mental gears, he laid his hand back atop Lyrule’s shoulder.

“Are you injured at all?”

“Hmm…? Oh no. I hit my head a little, but it’s just a small bump.”

“Well, that’s a big relief.”

“But…what are you doing here, Tsukasa?”

“I came to rescue you. Not just me. We all came to save you.”

“E-everyone…?!”

“Yup. We all worked together to storm the lord’s castle and take it over.”

“Hwa-wa-wa-wa?!” Lyrule’s eyes went wide upon hearing the news…and anguish washed over her face. Her friends and family had started a war against the lord on her behalf. She knew all too well what the empire would do to them.

But the biggest source of her distress wasn’t what was to come—

“I’m just the worst…! You all did something so crazy…and yet, I’m still so happy that you all came for me…!”

—it was guilt. Even though she’d made up her mind to sacrifice herself for the village, she was still happy they had sacrificed themselves for her. And she hated herself for being so selfish.

However, her guilt was misplaced. The people of Elm had picked this fight of their own volition. It was the future they’d chosen. There was no reason for Lyrule to feel guilty about that. As her shoulders trembled with anguish, Tsukasa pulled them toward himself and hugged her tight.

“Eh? Tsu…kasa…?”

“You’re right. We did something crazy. And things are only going to get crazier from here. We’re past the point of no return, and there are mountains of things we need to do and plan for. But we can leave that all for later.”

For the moment, Tsukasa felt—

“I’m just glad you’re safe.” He whispered the words in her ear and squeezed her a little tighter. He wanted to convey to her just how much he and the others cared about her. The fact that they’d saved her was well worth celebrating.

When she realized just how thoughtful he was, the feelings of indebtedness inside her began fading away.

“Mmmmmmmmm!” A choked sob slipped from her mouth. Contained in it was all the fear and despair she’d been stifling, as well as her relief at having been freed. Her heart was too full, and all her emotions were gushing out.

Tsukasa said nothing. He merely held Lyrule close until she finished wringing herself dry of all the emotions that were too heavy to keep carrying around inside.

Normally, now was when he should’ve been heading back to the others and letting them know that Lyrule was safe. Instead, he took comfort knowing they were a reliable bunch. His friends could certainly hold out long enough for Lyrule to at least settle down.

Lyrule finished sobbing far faster than Tsukasa had expected. Figuring she’d calmed herself, he let go of her, but the young woman grabbed his hands. The wounds on his palms had gotten so much worse that they were bleeding through his bandages.

Lyrule looked down at them. When she spoke, her voice was still a little nasal, but she sounded surprisingly collected.

“Sniff… You need more ointment, I see.”

Tsukasa was a little taken aback.

“You just got saved, and you’re already worrying about others? Well, I suppose that’s just the way you are.”

“You’re certainly one to talk.”

“…If you’re feeling well enough to get snarky with me, I suppose that’s all I can ask for.”

If her mood had softened, there was no reason for the two of them to stay there. Tsukasa took Lyrule’s hand.

“Come on, let’s go. Everyone’s waiting to see you safe and sound.”

“…Okay!”

Tsukasa and Lyrule headed over to the terrace overlooking the courtyard and drew a curtain on the battle by announcing that Lord Edwart von Findolph had been defeated. The hunters of Elm cheered for their victory and the safe return of Lyrule.

It was no normal cry of victory.

It was the cheer that heralded the beginnings of freedom and equality in the Freyjagard Empire.