Epilogue

Several days after defeating the beast from the age of gods, during lunchtime at school...

“Hmm?”

“Oh, there you are.” Tsumiki came up to me as I was walking down the hall. She seemed like she had been looking for me. She was holding a boxed lunch, carefully wrapped in a cloth napkin...

RUN!

“Why are you running away?!”

“Humans should never give up hope for survival!”

“What does that even mean?! You’re talking to the winner of Food Champion, you know.”

Tsumiki angrily punched me in the head... repeatedly. Punched, not slapped, mind you. It really hurt.

“S-Stop it!”

As I tried to protect my head, I remembered what had happened over the last few days...

▽

After Bahamut’s screams had echoed their last through the artificial world, the Celestial Sphere of Inferno disappeared.

At the same time, his body started to crumble like a sandcastle. Which meant, of course, that what I was standing on dissolved from underneath me...

“Ugyaaaah!”

I ended up plummeting to the ground below before I could even enjoy my victory. And without a flight unit this time! I was going to die!

But the feeling of falling suddenly faded away. I looked around and saw that I was inside the same kind of bubble Lea had used on Iris.

“You defeated the king of beasts. Don’t die in such a stupid way.”

“Yeah... You really saved me.”

Lea used her magic to land me safely. I wanted to take a break right then and there, but there was more work to be done.

“Lea, I need a favor.”

“What is it?”

“You said you’d be willing to give some of your meat to Tsumiki, right? Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

Something small came flying off the forehead of the giant sea snake. I looked up to realize that it was her core—the girl Lea.

She slowly descended and landed next to us.

“Whew... That was heavy.”

“It was heavy?”

“Yeah. Look how big it is,” Lea said as she patted her own (?) huge body.

“Um... So can I take that?”

“Yes. It’s an empty shell now, so do with it what you will. It cost me most of my power, but it’s worth it for you and Tsumiki.” Lea stared at me as she spoke—and then suddenly grabbed me.

“Huh? Wha—?”

Iris had been hugging me a lot lately, but still, I was a healthy high school boy, and having an older girl pressing her body up against me was... Um, it was a new experience. And, um... My head was getting all hot and fuzzy.

“Rekka, thank you.”

“No, I didn’t really do anything...”

“Don’t be so humble. You saved my lonely soul.” Lea pulled away a little and looked straight at me. I could see myself, looking a little unsure of what to say, reflected in her purple eyes. “I love the children of man. I’m grateful to Tsumiki. But Rekka... You’re even more special.”

“Um...” Her words were so straightforward and from the heart that I didn’t know how to respond.

“Go for it, Rekka. She’s yours.”

R, just shut up! And go for what, exactly?!

As I kept fidgeting uneasily...

“Rekka! What are you two doing?”

My savior—that is, Iris—appeared next to me.

“No cheating!”

“Fgwah!”

And she hit me hard. Iris was so strong that I flew at least a good ten meters.

“Th-That was harder than usual...” I flailed my limbs about like a dying insect.

“You don’t think it’s because Lea’s breasts are bigger than hers?”

R, you really don’t look at anything but boobs, do you?

Well, thanks to the punch, I was out of the sticky situation I’d found myself in.

“All right... Let’s take this meat back.” It was intended to be an offering to God, so even if it was just sliced up for yakiniku, it could probably win Food Champion, but... “But Tsumiki can turn even meat into dark matter just by cooking it...”

“If that happens, I’ll eat it,” Lea said.

It may or may not have been a good idea to begin with, but right now, if Tsumiki couldn’t cook something reasonable, this whole thing was pointless.

“Maybe I could help. I’m pretty sure I can make yakiniku...”

“Rekka, I have an idea, actually...” Tetra raised her hand. “Actually, it’s less of a suggestion and more me asking for a favor...”

“...?”

And so Tetra explained her idea...

▽

Tetra and Tsumiki entered Food Champion together and won first place. Of course, Tetra did the cooking. Tsumiki’s job was to be nice and friendly to the judges.

If there’s something you can’t do yourself, you should ask someone who can. It’s important to have the right person for the right job.

“Hey! Come on, eat my lunch!”

“No, Tsumiki... The right person for the right job means that you shouldn’t be doing the cooking...”

“Shut up and eat it!”

“Mguh!” My pleas, however, fell on deaf ears as Tsumiki jammed the rice ball down my throat and forced my jaw closed. “Ugguguguh... hmm? It doesn’t hurt.”

There was no headache, no stomach pain, and no mysterious, severe agony.

It was real food. I was shocked. I was shocked that I was shocked, but I was still shocked.

“Wait... This is actually good.”

“W-Well, I did have Tetra help a little.”

“Oh yeah? How much is a little?”

“I had her make the rice, then put the filling in and make it into a ball, and then shape it into a triangle for me.”

...That was the whole thing. All that was left was to wrap the seaweed around it.

But it was because of that that I was still alive, so I figured I needed to thank Tetra for it.

“A-Ahem.” Tsumiki coughed, a little deliberately. “So yeah, I’m learning how to cook, little by little.”

“Yeah, hang in there.”

I gave what I thought was a pretty plain response, but for some reason Tsumiki’s cheeks went red.

“S-So I was hoping you could be my taste tester...” And she said something that terrified me.

“Huh? I... I think Lea, the girl I introduced you to, would gladly be your taste tester...”

“I want it to be you!”

I tried to change the subject, but for some reason it only made Tsumiki even redder.

“O-Oh... I see...”

Why was she so insistent on sending me to hell? I didn’t understand what she wanted. What was wrong with Lea? She’d gladly eat Tsumiki’s dark matter!

“So you’d better come to Nozomiya today, got it? I’ve got a special menu just for you!”

“What...?”

“Y-You’d better! If you don’t, I’ll never forgive you!” Tsumiki ran off before I could stop her.

I felt strange for a while, like I was somehow cut off and isolated from the hustle and bustle in the hallway around me. More specifically, I felt like a prisoner who was just about to be sent to the execution chamber.

“Well, it does make me happy that even after I told her about my bloodline, she still treats me normally, but...”

After we got back to the surface, I told Tsumiki everything—about the stories I’d been caught up in this time, and about the bloodline of the Namidare—just like I’d promised.

At first, I was afraid she would think I was weird, or worse, creepy. But in fact, she’d just been acting like this. Part of me was grateful, but most of me wanted nothing to do with this “special menu” of hers.

“...Maybe I’ll have Satsuki put protection magic on beforehand like last time.”

“She’ll probably refuse, though.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re dense.”

“?” R never made any sense. Satsuki wouldn’t refuse without a good reason...

▽

Or so I thought. When I told her I was going to eat Tsumiki’s cooking, she’d looked at me with terribly cold eyes and simply gone home alone. Iris also told me not to go, but then she put me in a sleeper hold.

I mean, I wasn’t really excited about the idea either... But if I ignored her and hurt her feelings, I’d feel bad, too. So I went to Nozomiya after school regardless.

But I did almost die.

“Huh? That’s strange... I was sure if I cooked it, it would be fine...”

“It tasted like Nirvana...” I mean, I’d never been to Nirvana, but basically it was a taste beyond imagination.

“Okay, I’ll bring the next dish.”

“The next one?!” Don’t tell me it’s a full course thing!

Tsumiki ignored my visible shuddering and went back into the kitchen.

“Looks like you’re having a rough day.”

Lea, wearing a t-shirt, sat down next to me. She’d lost most of her power and was now living in human society, doing whatever she pleased. But she still came to Nozomiya quite often. Without her there to secretly eat the food Tsumiki made for me, I might really have gone on a one-way trip to the next world.

“Man, I don’t even think I care anymore...”

Tetra, in her Nozomiya apron, brought me water as I laid my face on the table.

“Are you all right, Rekka?”

“Yeah, I think so. Anyway, you get used to your new job, Tetra?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

After her victory at Food Champion, she’d been working part-time at Nozomiya.

“I want to learn more about surface culture so I can help Jizu Village grow,” she’d said.

Speaking of Jizu Village...

“So how are they liking the artificial world?”

“It’s going well. After the seal was destroyed, it ceased working like a prison for the Monster, I guess. The flow of time is almost the same as it is in the real world now, so if we sow seeds, they’ll grow. Everyone will finish moving soon.”

“I see.”

The villagers were all moving to the formerly sealed world. That part was my idea. I’d hoped that a new place to live might bring some life back into them. But more than that, I knew that living in that cramped underground cave meant there was no way for the village to grow. It even restricted how many people could live there. It just wasn’t a good place to be.

There was no way to revive the village in a stifled place like that, so I suggested a change of venue. Of course, I thought there might be a possibility Tetra was so attached to the village itself that I would need to come up with another way to save her story, but she had agreed.

What she wanted to save, she said, wasn’t the village. It was the people. And so now they were in the process of moving. To sort out the best way to go about handling the move, Tetra was here to learn all she could about the way humans lived. Several other villagers had also come to the surface with her and were working elsewhere nearby. Nozomiya’s rise to fame had brought some life back to the sleepy shopping street, too, so most places were hiring.

There was still much to be done, but as long as they were all willing to work together to make things better, Jizu Village was going to be fine.

“Are the guardians eating my meat?” Lea joined in the conversation.

“Yes. They’re very grateful.”

“I see. Tell them they can have as much of it as they want to keep them fed until the first harvests come in.”

“Thank you.” Tetra bowed to Lea.

“Wait, isn’t it going to rot?” I asked.

“It was supposed to be an offering to God. It’s meant to last the ages. More importantly, Rekka, it’s rude to suggest that I would just ‘rot.’”

“W-Wait! I’m sorry!”

Lea put me in chokehold. The soft feeling on the back of my head was incredible... But my train of thought was interrupted by the whooshing sound of a tray flying between us.

“T-Tetra...?”

“No flirting allowed in the restaurant, sir!”

“Have you picked up some weird vocabulary since you started working on the surface?”

“It’s not allowed, sir.”

“...Okay.”

For some reason, Tetra looked really scary. What on earth was going on? Lea looked at me and chuckled.

“You have a rough time with girls, don’t you?”

It wasn’t funny.

“I feel like someone stole my line,” R chimed in.

She wasn’t making any sense, either.

Then Tsumiki emerged from the kitchen holding a tray.

“Okay, this time, I know it’s going to be good!” She covered the table with plates, all loaded with strangely shaped black objects.

Sheesh... It was one thing to put my life at risk for a story. But why was my life still in danger after her story was over? And what was worse, I had even more heroines now. R had said that I would save hundreds of heroines in the future. Maybe she wasn’t joking. Maybe this really would turn into a war.

Even so, that didn’t mean I was capable of choosing any of them yet. These days, I hated myself for being so indecisive.

But this was something important enough that I couldn’t just choose lightly. It would be rude to all of them.

Still... the longer I put it off, the more complicated things were going to get. Ugh...

This bloodline was a real problem sometimes. Seriously.

“But you know...”

I didn’t know who it was that I liked yet. Maybe that was okay for now... But someday, I would decide. That was one quiet vow I’d made for myself.

I had to protect the future where R came from, for one thing.

”...?” R looked at me expressionlessly, tilting her head to the side.

It wasn’t something I had to tell her, and I wasn’t going to. But more importantly...

“Hey! Come on, Rekka, eat the food!”

I needed to escape the peril that had already befallen me. Before I saved the future, I needed to make sure I had a future of my own.

Gwah.