>

“Yes. I think it slipped off my finger when he bumped into me...”

Wait, don’t tell me that ring was...

“Um, I think I might’ve swallowed it.”

“What?!” several people shouted at once.

“Well, something got into my mouth back there. I guess I accidentally swallowed it...”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s it, then. I saw the ring land on the ground and roll away.”

“Then maybe it’s under there?” Hibiki said, pointing to what looked like some kind of space-age vending machine.

“I thought so, too, but it was too dark to see anything when I looked...” the girl mumbled.

“Just leave it to me!” Tetra interjected.

“That’s right. You can see in the dark, can’t you, Tetra?” I asked.

“You bet!”

Tetra got on the ground to take a peek, let us know she’d found it, then slipped her hand underneath the machine.

“Is this it? It looks like some kind of toy,” she asked as she pulled it out.

“I’m so glad... This ring’s been precious to me ever since I was a little girl. Thank you... Tetra, was it?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I’m Shirley. Shirley Madagascarwel Blood.”

Shirley happily took the ring from Tetra and smiled.

▽

Shirley said she was an astrogeneticist and astromechanical engineer who worked on all kinds of things, from genetic modification research to clones, robots, and cyborgs. She’d come to Berano for a vacation. Apparently, she went out for a walk and had gotten a little lost. She was trying to find her way back when that man ran into her. Talk about a bad way to spend your vacation.

“Ryugu Palace City has a lot of canals, so the streets often come to abrupt stops. If you’re here on your own instead of with a tour group, I recommend taking a gondola,” Rain said.

“Um... I haven’t been on a lot of trips, so I’m not used to stuff like that.”

“Want to go around with us, then?” I asked.

Shirley looked a little surprised at my offer.

“Can I?”

“Sure, I don’t mind. If you run into any more problems like that on your own, it might ruin your whole vacation, right?”

“...All right. I guess I’ll take you up on that.”

And so Shirley joined our Ryugu Palace City tour. Since we were still basically strangers, she stayed behind the group and seemed a little tense at first. But fortunately, this was a resort town. There was a lot for us to do to have fun together. After watching a show of performing fish and trying some of planet Berano’s famous desserts, she opened up and joined in more freely. Tetra in particular seemed to take a liking to her, and they spent a lot of time talking to each other.

“So you’re the chief researcher at your lab, Shirley? That’s amazing.”

“But you’re leading a whole village and helping them grow, right? That seems a lot more amazing to me.”

Maybe they’d bonded over the ring, but Shirley seemed to take a shine to Tetra, too.

“Would you like to head back to Ryugu Palace, everyone?” Rain asked. “It will be dinnertime quite soon.”

“Yeah, I guess we can head back. Shirley, where are you staying?”

“Um, I’m staying at Ryugu Palace, too.”

“Oh, my,” Rain said.

What a coincidence. Wait, if she was staying there, did that mean Shirley was really rich?

“Then why not eat dinner with us?” Tetra volunteered.

Nobody objected. Our room was big enough that adding one more wouldn’t make a difference. We headed straight back to the hotel after talking about it, where we found Rosalind moping around the room still.

“Hahh... Here’s yet another girl.”

“Hey, you don’t need to sigh right in front of her!” I said to Rosalind under my breath.

“You don’t even understand why I’m sighing.”

Huh?

Well, whatever. Even if she looked unhappy, it didn’t seem like Rosalind was opposed to Shirley being there. We ended up inviting Rain, too, and everyone changed into yukata-like outfits before all 11 of us dug into a delicious dinner at Ryugu Palace.

“I didn’t expect there to be sashimi in space.”

“Tsumiki, isn’t this the octopus we saw from the turtlebus?”

Tsumiki and Tetra both worked in a restaurant, so they were curiously discussing each dish as it came out. They even asked Rain about a few of them.

At this rate, I was worried Nozomiya might start serving space food. It was getting further and further away from a normal cafeteria as it was. Their main menu right now was food from the age of gods, for one thing. Well, if it tasted good, maybe that’s all that mattered... But I hoped that someday I would get to eat something that tasted good there, too.

“Thank you for the meal!”

We all finished our fancy dinner feeling very satisfied and put our hands together to show Rain how grateful we were. Since Rain and Shirley didn’t know anything about Earth manners, they looked a little confused by the gesture.

After dinner was free time. And when you had free time at an inn like this, there was only one thing to do: play games. But...

“Rekka, want to play cards?” Satsuki wanted to play a card game.

“Let’s tell each other’s fortunes!” Tsumiki had a fortune-telling book.

“Do you know how to play chess, Rekka?” Rosalind had a chessboard.

“W-Wait. Guys, I can’t do all of this at once.”

Everybody had something different they wanted to do.

“Oh, my. May I join you?” Rain asked.

“Shirley, you should join us, too,” Tetra said.

“Really? You’d let me?”

With Rain and Shirley joining in, we all had a great time explaining the rules to them and setting up games tournament-style to account for the sheer number of people we had playing.

▽

At about 11:00 P.M., we decided to take a break and each go have a bath.

“Man, my head hurts...”

After all I’d done today, I was pretty wiped out, so I went to go take a load off by the window and enjoy the view.

“Whoa! This chair’s soft!”

The chair I sat down in was designed to look like a mermaid. It looked like it was made out of marble, but it felt like cushy foam.

I opened the window to take in the night air. Looking down, I could see all the artificial lights below in Ryugu Palace City. The town was still bustling at night, but the noise didn’t reach all the way up to Ryugu Palace. As I stood at the window, I realized how calm it was outside.

“I wish there was some wind... Nah, I guess that’s impossible.”

I’d almost forgotten we were inside an undersea dome.

Whoosh...

“Huh?”

There was suddenly a breeze sweeping across my cheek. There was oxygen in the dome, so maybe it was circulating from some kind of climate control system?

“Can I sit here?”

“Oh, hey, Shirley. Sure, make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you,” Shirley said as she took the chair opposite mine.

“You taking a break, too, Shirley?”

“Yes. I don’t know if I’ve ever had this much fun in my life.”

“That’s right. You said you have a full-time job, didn’t you? Do you not have time to play?”

“Well, it’s not that, but...” Shirley chuckled and looked away. “I said I haven’t been on a lot of trips, but this is actually the first one I’ve ever been on. So I really don’t know what you’re supposed to do at a resort like this.”

“I see.”

“It would’ve been great if I had a friend to come with, but I don’t, so... I guess I was really lucky to run into you guys. You’ve made this so much fun, Rekka.”

Shirley was almost a year older than me, but she said she’d been working for a long time. I was still just a student, so I couldn’t imagine a work environment like that.

“Work must be really hard, I bet...”

“I suppose. But I don’t have any problems with my job, you know? What I’m doing right now is going to make a wonderful world for us.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, my,” R suddenly said.

Wait, why was R nodding at Shirley with a sympathetic look on her face? Don’t tell me... I glanced back at her.

“Yup, you guessed it. Looks like Shirley’s a heroine.”

Seriously?

I mean, sure, Hibiki told me to watch out for anything that seemed strange, and meeting a girl at a fancy inn was definitely a special event, but... seriously?

“So, what’s this wonderful world going to be like?”

“Oh? Well, let me think... It’s an ideal world where it’s always warm like spring. You can always be with your friends like this, and nobody ever has to hurt each other.”

“I see...”

“Yeah, I’m working really hard to make that world a reality.”

While I might be able to help with the friends part, a peaceful world of permanent spring sounded more like a fairy tale than any reality I’d ever heard of. Well, I guess if there were planets of endless summer like Berano, we might be able to find a springtime one if we looked hard enough.

Either way, I didn’t have the first clue how to go about resolving this story. Could a high school student like me even help her? I guess just the fact that we’d met each other like this meant I probably could. One way or another. In that case...

“So, I guess this is your first step towards an ideal world, huh?” I offered her my hand.

“Um... what?”

“A handshake. Do you not do those in space? You both take each other’s hand and shake lightly. It’s a sign of trust.”

“Trust?”

“Yeah, and maybe friendship, too. We’ve eaten together, played together, laughed together... We’re friends now, right? So I’m the first person to be part of your ideal world. Or, wait... Since you were there already, maybe I’m number two?”

I laughed a little, but Shirley’s eyes went wide. She timidly took my hand. I shook it a little and smiled at her.

“Your dream’s really huge, but if there’s anything I can do to help, just tell me. I’ll do anything I can.”

“...Thank you, Rekka.”

After a moment’s astonishment, Shirley pushed up her glasses and smiled.

Anyway, a warm, peaceful world, huh? If I lived there, I might get to relax... No, for some reason, that seemed like it was impossible. And that reason was probably the girl from the future who was floating next to me.

I helplessly chuckled a little, and Shirley looked confused. Wait a minute. Shirley wasn’t the only girl we’d met here.

“Does that mean Rain’s a heroine, too?” I whispered my suspicions to R.

“No, it looks like Rain isn’t a heroine.”

“Really?”

I mean, it would be really bad for me if every girl I met turned out to be a heroine, but...

Suddenly, something flew into the room from the open window.

“Coo, coo coo!”

“...A turtle?”

It looked like a flying turtle. Was it some kind of space turtle? The noises it was making were surprisingly cute.

“T... Tu...”

“Huh? Shirley?”

“NOOO! A TURTLE!” Shirley screamed and took a small gun out of her pocket.

It was shaped like a smaller version of the medical gun I’d used to defeat Bahamut. Before I could ask any questions, Shirley was pressing the barrel—the needle—right up against the head of the turtle that had landed on the floor.

“Coo?”

Fwoosh!

She pulled the trigger, and the contents of the syringe instantly emptied into the turtle.

“Coo...”

The turtle suddenly froze like it had turned into a statue.

“Sh-Shirley?! What are you doing?!”

“Uwaaaaah! No! No turtles! Anything but turtles!”

Shirley then ran to the corner and curled up into a ball. She was in tears and mumbling to herself.

“Oh, my! Mr. Turtle froze!” Rain heard the noise and was shocked to see the frozen turtle.

I eventually calmed Shirley down enough to find out that she’d fired something called a “Time Stop,” which shut down a living creature at the cellular level. I managed to get the antidote for the Time Stop from her, then used it to get the turtle moving again so I could let him back outside.

“It’s okay now, Shirley.”

“Th-Thank you...” she whimpered, her eyes still full of tears.

“Now, let’s forget about this unpleasantness and play a game! Break time’s over, you two!” Iris insisted.

She pushed us back into the center of the room, and the games began once more.

▽

Before long, it was past midnight. We were all tired enough by then that we finally decided to call it a night, but...

“...How did this happen?”

At the moment, I was sleeping in my futon in a room with ten times as many girls as boys... No, actually, there was no sleeping involved. I CAN’T SLEEP LIKE THAT!

At first I planned on sleeping in the hallway, but Rain politely explained that that wasn’t an option. Yeah, I guess you couldn’t exactly do something like that in a high-class inn.

And so, I reluctantly got into bed, surrounded by ten girls after we added Rain and Shirley, but let me say it again: THERE WAS NO WAY I COULD SLEEP LIKE THAT!

“So, Rekka, who are you going to jump in bed with?”

“Nobody! What are you talking about, R?”

“Oh, I thought that’s why you were still awake. Anyway, that fight to decide who got to sleep next to you was just brutal, wasn’t it?”

“...I don’t even want to think about it.”

Even this dumb conversation with R felt like a blessing when time seemed to be passing so slowly. It must’ve been two or three hours after we’d turned out the lights, and I was still wide awake. Just when I was wondering when dawn was going to come in this undersea world...

Rustle rustle.

S-Somebody crawled into my bed?!

“Wh-Who’s there?!”

I didn’t want to yell this late at night, so I tried to say it as quietly as possible in my surprise as I lifted the covers.

“I-Iris?!”

Staring back at me was a twin-tailed girl I knew well.

“Stay still...”

I was too surprised to move anyway! But what on earth was going on here?! I mean, R had just said something about jumping into bed with someone...

No, no, no! Wait! Why would Iris want to come be in the bed with me? I had no idea how to react, and it only got worse when she started to pat down my body.

“I-Iris, wait...”

At this rate, she was going to touch me in a place that I really shouldn’t be talking about! Just when my confusion reached its peak...

“What the heck are you two doing?!” Satsuki screamed as a blast of wind knocked Iris and the futon to the corner of the room.

Then the lights came on, and I could see exactly how mad Satsuki was. It was scary.

“Rekka, what are you doing with Iris?”

“Nothing! I did nothing! Iris suddenly crawled inside my futon...!”

“I see... She tried to get ahead of everybody else, did she? Heheheh...”

No, never mind. It wasn’t scary. My childhood friend’s smile was absolutely terrifying.

“W-Wait, is Iris okay? You knocked her back pretty hard...”

“Don’t worry. For the first blow, I held back. I might not for the second, though.”

“Please do! Iris isn’t made of steel—”

As I tried to calm Satsuki down, somebody crawled out of one of the other futons.

“What’s going on here? What did I do wrong?”

“...Iris?!”

It was the girl who’d caused all this fuss.

“Huh? What?”

She was asleep? But Satsuki had just blown her clean across the room... And wait, hadn’t Iris let down her hair before she’d gone to bed? Did that mean that the girl inside my futon... was an imposter?!

Both Iris and I gasped as we looked towards the corner of the room where the fake Iris (?) should have been, but she wasn’t there.

“What’s going on? You’re making an awful lot of noise.”

“Sir Namidare? Is something wrong?”

Rosalind and Suzuran were both awake now, as well. Hibiki, Harissa, Tsumiki, Rain, and Shirley all were shortly after, too.

“...Hm?”

Tetra was the only one unaccounted for, and when I looked over to her futon, it seemed like the lump underneath it was twice the size it should have been.

“Satsuki...”

“Yeah...”

We both nodded at each other and tore the covers off the futon together. When we did...

“Ugh... It’s bright.”

“Ugh... It’s bright.”

There were two Tetras inside.

“Huh? Why are there two Tetras?”

“Huh? Why are there two Tetras?”

The two Tetras looked at each other in shock as they mimicked each other word for word.

“What’s going on here...?” I was stunned myself.

“Well, the obvious assumption is that one of them is a fake,” R said rather nonchalantly.

“One of them’s a fake, huh? But which one...”

“Rekka, I’m the real Tetra!”

“No, I’m the real Tetra!”

They looked and sounded exactly the same.

“Tsumiki, can you tell which of them is real?”

“Huh? Don’t ask me!”

So even Tsumiki didn’t know, huh? Hmm... What made Tetra unique? I closed my eyes, pretending to think.

“Hey, Satsuki, can you turn off the lights?” I said after a moment.

“Sure.”

When I could tell through my closed eyes that the lights were off, I opened them again. Of course, it was dark now, but I could see two glowing orbs in that darkness.

“So you’re the fake!”

“Huh?”

I’d closed my eyes to accustom myself to the darkness beforehand. Thanks to that, I was able to quickly leap towards the fake Tetra—the one whose eyes weren’t shining—and grabbed her.

Slam!

“Gyah!”

I’d grabbed her so hard that she fell down and hit her head on the floor, knocking the disguise “she” was wearing right off.

“You... You’re the dine-and-dasher we caught this afternoon!” I gasped, staring down at the man now underneath me.

“Oww... Would you get off me? I’m not a huge fan of being held so closely by a man.”

“Neither am I!”

Whatever...

“So... Raul, was it? What are you doing in my room?”

“I went to the bathroom and just happened to walk into the wrong room on my way back,” the dine-and-dasher—Raul, apparently—said without batting an eye.

“Liar. If you just got the room wrong, you wouldn’t have had to do... that.”

Gyaaah! I just remembered how it felt when he patted my body down! Ugh... I feel sick.

“He’s probably a thief. There’s no way some dine-and-dasher could afford to stay at a fancy place like this,” Satsuki said.

Great. So he’s a dine-and-dasher and a thief. Talk about a scoundrel.

“Oh, no, missy. I don’t want you getting the wrong idea about me. I am the Great Phantom Thief Raul the Baron. I would never stoop to stealing pocket change from a bunch of kids.”

“Great Phantom Thief?” That was quite a title he’d given himself.

“The Great Phantom Thief Baron? No way...”

“Hm? You’ve heard of him, Iris?”

“Yeah. About 500 years ago, he was a legendary thief who hit places all across the galaxy. Or something like that.”

“That’s right, little lady. Yours truly,” Raul said with a smile.

That sounded... extremely implausible.

“Right. Sure. So, you’re some great phantom thief, huh? I suppose that explains how you managed to pull off a Tetra disguise.”

“That’s right. I can change the size and structure of my skeleton as well as alter my appearance, so I’m a master of disguise.”

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

Tetra seemed rather impressed, which was a little lost on me. Raul wasn’t showing the slightest sign of remorse for what he’d done.

“So, what do we do with this man?” Rosalind finally asked.

“Well, he didn’t actually take anything, so we can just hand him over to the hotel staff and have them handle it, I guess,” I said with a shrug.

“Then I’ll lead you to the annex. At this hour, the staff should all be in their rooms,” Rain volunteered.

I took her up on the offer and followed her to the door.

“I see. Then Suzuran and I shall accompany you. We don’t want him trying to escape,” Rosalind said.

“Leave it to us,” Suzuran added.

And so the four of us got changed and dragged Raul to the annex. It was a three-story building. The first floor was filled with storerooms while the second and third floors were quarters for the staff. They were each connected with a walkway to the main building where the customers stayed. Since we were staying on the third floor, we didn’t have to go down any stairs, so getting there would be easy, even if it wasn’t quiet...

“So... Rekka, was it? Man, I tell you... That Suzuran girl and that Rosalind lady are really something. You’re just surrounded by all kinds of lovely women. I’m so jealous!”

“...”

“So, which of the girls do you really have your sights set on? Satsuki, your childhood friend? Or Hibiki, the tomboy? Or do you go for the well-endowed type? In that case, you must like...”

“Show some decency!”

Raul hadn’t stopped talking since we’d left the room, and just listening to him was exhausting. Not to mention if anybody here was into big breasts, it wasn’t me! It was the girl floating next to me!

“Sheesh. I’m glad he’s not trying to escape, but I didn’t expect him to be so obnoxious.”

“If you want to entertain a girl, you need to be cheerful and conversational with a bright smile. So, Rosalind, if you’re not seeing anyone now, why not date me? We can get married in a few years. How’s that sound?”

“Unfortunately, you’re not my type.”

“What a shame!” Raul said, trying his best to look genuinely shocked.

“By the way, is there anything you like, Suzuran?”

“I like to watch bugs and flowers. Why?”

“Okay, I’ll get you a bouquet of rare flowers, so let’s go on a date.”

But instead of giving up, he just switched targets to Suzuran. I didn’t even know what to say about this guy...

“Rekka, you should take a lesson from him,” R whispered in my ear.

No, I mean, I’ll admit I was kind of impressed, but there was no way I was gonna take a page out of this guy’s book!

“Rain, are we at the annex yet?”

“We’re almost there. Once we cross this walkway...”

Rain was walking ahead of us, so she looked back over her shoulder to answer me, but when she did, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared towards the front gate of Ryugu Palace like she was frozen. There were rails on the walkway, but no walls, so we could see the gate clearly.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just that the town seems a little busier than usual...”

And then suddenly—

BOOM!

—the gate burst into tiny pieces.

“Wh-What...?!”

What just happened?!

As we all stood there in shock, a group of dangerous-looking toughs ran through the broken gate and flooded onto the palace grounds. Among them was a man much, much bigger than the others. He was wearing a mask over his face, so I couldn’t read his expression, but the others seemed to be following his orders. So that was their boss, huh?

“Who are those guys?”

“Those are the Seageists. They’re pirates.”

Surprisingly enough, it was Raul who answered my question.

“Pirates?”

“Space pirates, to be exact. Look at their limbs. See how the light reflects off them? They’ve all had cyborg implants to load themselves up with weapons. That’s how you can tell they’re Seageists.”

When Raul finished his explanation, he jumped up on the railing and put his hand on the edge of the roof covering it.

“...Wait, where are you going?”

“I just remembered there’s somewhere I have to be. Oh, wait.”

He pulled a gun with some kind of special design on it out of his breast pocket and tossed it to me.

“This is a stungun. All it does is temporarily paralyze your target, so even a beginner shouldn’t have too much to worry about when shooting it. Use it to protect yourself. And with that, farewell!”

“Hey, wait!”

Before I could say another word, Raul flipped up onto the roof and vanished. I would have been concerned, but with everything else going on, I didn’t have time to waste on him. More and more pirates were rushing into the palace by the second.

“Rekka, what do we do?” Rosalind asked.

“Let’s head back to our room for now. Does that work for you, Rain?”

“Y-Yes!”

Rain looked really nervous, so we took her with us as we quickly headed back the way we came. But when we got back to the main building...

“Wait!” I called to the girls as I raised my hand to get them to stop.

“What is it, Rekka?”

“The pirates are here already.”

I’d tried to act as fast as I could, but the pirates had already reached the third floor. We had to go past a stairwell to get back to our room, but there were five ruffians standing there keeping watch as more of them climbed the stairs up to the fourth floor.

“They’re going up?” Rain gasped. “My mother is up there!”

Oh, crap. That’s right. She’d mentioned earlier that she and her mother lived on the top floor. Unless we were going to be extremely optimistic, it was pretty clear her mother would be in danger.

“Rosalind, Suzuran, can you take out those guards?”

“Hmph. I could do it on my own. Easily, mind you,” Rosalind replied.

“Glad to hear it. Okay then, Suzuran, can you get back to the room on your own?”

“Not a problem.”

Suzuran lifted the hem of her yukata and revealed a belt strapped with silver knives. Old habits die hard, I guess. But don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t complaining right now.

“Got it. Then let’s split into two groups.”

I told Suzuran to get back to the room and have Harissa turn everyone invisible until the pirates were gone. Rosalind, Rain, and I were going to head to the top floor and rescue the queen.

“All right, let’s go.”

At my signal, Rosalind and Suzuran started to run. I readied the stungun that Raul had given me and had Rain, who couldn’t fight, stand behind me.

The pirates noticed us, but Rosalind was faster than they were.

“Too slow!” she cried in a battle roar.

In the instant it took for the pirates to transform their cyber-arms into guns and blades, she was on already on top of them. The first man got his legs knocked out from under him, and the second was sent flying across the hall with a punch to the chest. The third managed to raise his blade-arm, but he took one of Suzuran’s silver knives to the shoulder. Rosalind gave him a swift front kick, and he took out a fourth man as he was knocked backwards.

“I hope Raul was telling the truth and this just stuns you!”

The fifth pirate was practically in a daze at what had just happened. I saw my chance, aimed the stungun, and pulled the trigger. There was a “bzzt” sound as a blast of something like lightning flew out of the barrel and struck him. He began to spasm before falling to the floor. Well... It sure didn’t kill him, but that was pretty brutal.

“Okay, Suzuran! Go take care of the other girls!”

“Understood.”

We parted ways with Suzuran and headed up the stairs. The fourth floor was guarded, as well, but Rosalind didn’t have any trouble taking care of that for us.

“Wait, is this the top floor?”

“No. The stairs to the fifth floor are on the other side of this floor in a place where the guests can’t get to them.”

That made sense. I mean, it was where the queen and her daughter lived. Normal customers wouldn’t be allowed there, so it’s not like there would be stairs going straight to it.

Rain led us down the hall, and Rosalind took out pirate after pirate as we went, but we didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the stairs.

“There are just so many pirates... Wait, doesn’t Berano have police force or an army or something?”

“We have our own police, but they’re mostly for handling disputes and petty crimes in town. We’d have to ask Estashion for help with something serious like pirates...”

That’s right. Iris had said they were under Estashion’s protection.

“How long will it take for help from Estashion to get here?”

“I’m sure our police have already sent out an SOS, so it should be less than an hour.”

There was no way of knowing exactly when the distress signal was sent, but a good amount of time should have passed between when the pirates first arrived at the undersea dome and when they’d hit Ryugu Palace. That meant we had to hold out for another... 30 minutes? Forty, maybe? If we could get to the queen and hide her somewhere until they arrived, would we be safe?

“The door!” Rain screamed as we ran.

I looked down the hallway to see a heavy door—so heavy it seemed drastically out of place with the rest of the palace interior—that had been shattered. It was probably an end-of-the-line security measure to protect the royal family, but there was barely anything left of it. It had been completely destroyed. A cold chill ran down my spine at the sight.

“Let’s hurry!”

We ran up the stairs to the fifth floor and came up on the north side of the building. It seemed to be where Rain and her mother lived, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

“She’s not here? Is there somewhere else she could be?”

“There’s a room in the southern wing that holds the Mermaid Princess’s Tear.”

“What’s that? Some kind of merfolk treasure?” Rosalind asked Rain with a raised eyebrow.

“We can get into that later! Let’s go!”

There was no time to waste. I hurried them both along as we traversed the fifth floor, but I couldn’t shake the chills I was getting. If the Mermaid Princess’s Tear really was some important merfolk treasure, the queen might be trying to protect it. And if she was, then...

“Mother!”

Rain’s scream was loud enough to shake my eardrums. It turns out my guess was right.

Entering the room, we were confronted by the sight of the huge man in the mask, the guy I figured was the leader. With him, he had a woman in a suit that looked like a secretary of some kind and a young girl with a headband that didn’t appear to be of any particular importance. But we weren’t looking at them. Rain’s mother was there, too, lying on the ground covered in blood.

“Ah... aaah...”

Rain collapsed when she saw what had happened to her mother.

The huge man, whose presence was even more looming this close up, turned towards us with a giant blade in his right hand. In his left was a beautiful, pearl-like jewel that shone with the colors of the sea. I figured that was probably the Mermaid Princess’s Tear. Was he here to try and steal it? Was that why he’d done... that?!

“Damn it...!”

My legs were shaking. It was the first time I’d seen someone die. I hadn’t made it in time...

“Rekka, get a hold of yourself.”

“Y-Yeah...”

Rosalind brought me back to my senses. I choked down the urge to vomit and put my finger on the trigger of the stungun. If I couldn’t save her mother, I had to at least try and protect Rain.

“What are these kids doing here?” the girl with the headband asked in disgust.

She was calling us “kids,” but she was clearly younger than we were.

“Just go sit in the corner and stay put. That way we won’t have to hurt you.”

She gestured as if to shoo us away like we were just some annoyance to her.

“Hah! Listen to you, little girl,” Rosalind growled. “Do you have any idea how many of your pirate friends I’ve left lying broken on the floor on my way here?”

“What?”

The girl frowned in confusion just as Rosalind leaped forward.

“Rosalind!” I called after her.

“If we can take out their boss here, we win, right?”

Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean we should attack them! The important part is keeping Rain safe!

“Rain, stay close to me!”

I raised the stungun and ran after Rosalind. I had to back her up, but I couldn’t move too far ahead or else I wouldn’t be able to protect Rain. I just had to try to stay at a safe distance and wait for my chance to help.

“I ain’t letting you touch the boss!”

“Out of my way!”

“Ngyaah!”

The girl with the headband defiantly tried to block Rosalind’s path, but Rosalind easily pushed her aside and kept heading for the big guy. She lunged at him, but the man blocked Rosalind’s attack with the flat of his blade.

“Hmph. You’re better than your men, at least.”

He stared at Rosalind in silence, then swung his blade to the side. Rosalind evaded by jumping backwards and putting some distance between them. Still silent, the big guy handed the Mermaid Princess’s Tear to his secretary and came at Rosalind again.

“Boss, she’s just a kid!” the girl yelled in surprise from the floor.

She seemed shocked that the man had attacked Rosalind, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Rosalind’s kick must have hit her hard. It looked like she still couldn’t stand. The secretary in the suit didn’t participate in the battle, but rather stood on the sidelines away from the large man. Like him, she was silent the entire time. Compared to the emotional young girl, her expression was cold and indifferent. It was a little creepy.

But I got distracted from that when the man’s left arm began to change shape. Wait, was that... a cannon?

“Rekka! Get down!”

Yikes!

I grabbed Rain and got as far out of the path of the cannon as I could. There was a flash of light, and a burst of plasma far larger than the one from my borrowed stungun destroyed a huge chunk of the palace. It was powerful enough that it reminded me of the time that I’d fought the ultimate mage.

“Man, that’s really not what I wanted to be thinking about right now...”

Since that was a magic duel, I’d been able to use the anti-magic powers of the Hero’s Sword to win, but this was clearly the power of science. I couldn’t think of a way to overcome it. But I had to do something. And fast. I needed to end this before he fired again!

“If I can hit him with this and stun him...”

I glanced at the stungun in my hands. The hulking man looked like he’d fashioned his whole body with cyborg parts, including boosters on his back and heels that let him accelerate instantly. Not only was he agile, he was also fast enough to keep up with a vampire like Rosalind. And me? I didn’t even know how to aim a gun while running. One miss, and I’d be his next target.

I either had to wait for him to stop moving or fire practically point blank to make sure I wouldn’t miss, and there certainly didn’t seem to be any way to get close without him noticing. If only I had Harissa’s invisibility magic... No, wait. Of course. There was another way to make sure he couldn’t see me!

I checked to see where his two allies were. The girl was still on the floor, and the secretary was on the other side of the room. Rain wouldn’t be in danger if I disappeared for a second.

“Rain, stay here for a minute!”

“Rekka!”

I made a break for it while holding the stungun tightly in my hands. I ran past the girl on the ground, heading for the giant man as he fought with Rosalind. Rosalind noticed me getting close.

“Rosalind! Turn into bats!”

“Right!”

Thankfully, she seemed to realize exactly what I was trying to do. She instantly transformed into countless red bats and swarmed the big guy to blind him.

He had no reaction other than to raise his blade. He took out several of the bats, but they quickly regenerated and formed a red wall around him. While he was occupied and couldn’t see anything else, I moved around behind him.

“His back!” I shouted.

An opening appeared in the red wall of bats, exposing the man’s back. I jammed the stungun right up against it and fired. The man moaned in pain, and the bats reformed into the shape of Rosalind.

“This is the end!”

Rosalind brought down her right hand in a chop to finish him off from above.

“Guhh...”

But he just barely managed to move out of the way. How was he still conscious after the blast from the stungun? He must’ve been even tougher than I thought.

“Hmph. A tough one, aren’t you?”

“Hey, Rosalind, are you okay?”

“I’m not even scratched. More importantly, that was great work there, Rekka. You and I really are quite a team.” Rosalind smiled happily.

Well, I’m just glad I managed to do something useful.

Bzzt! Bzzt! Snap!

We watched as the man’s mask split in two. I guess Rosalind’s attack had hit him after all.

“Well, would you look at that... Talk about an ugly mug.”

“An ugly mug?”

“See for yourself.”

That’s really mean, Rosalind. I mean, sure, he does look like some kind of fish-man, but you don’t have to be so harsh. If we were being generous, I guess you could say he looks kind of gallant...

“...Are you a merman?”

Huh?

I turned around and saw Rain gasping at the sight of the man’s face.

“Rain, do you know him?”

“...No.”

Rain denied it, but I could tell she was shaking. She was definitely hiding something.

“Rekka, what do we do with him?”

“Hmm... One more blast from the stungun should knock him out.”

That would be enough to keep him from hurting us. Not that I had any plans past that. I turned the gun on him, deciding to shoot first and think later, but...

“I won’t let you!”

The girl with the headband suddenly grabbed me from behind.

“Waah!”

“Grr! Don’t you dare grab Rekka like that!”

Rosalind was mad about something, but I wasn’t quite sure what. Either way, the girl refused to let go.

“I won’t let you hurt the boss!”

Her legs were still trembling and weak, but she seemed to have cyborg augmentations in her arms. They were incredibly powerful. I didn’t think I could shake her off.

“Uh-oh...”

Apparently the big guy had come to his senses at some point, because when I looked up, I saw him silently standing over my shoulder with his blade raised in the air.

Man, I really let my guard down! I thought he couldn’t move anymore! But nope, there he was! Right about to cut me in half! I really needed to get out of the way!

My mind was racing a million miles a minute, but my body reacted much slower than that. Just as the huge blade was about to meet my face...

“Boss! What are you doing?!”

The girl who I thought was my enemy turned her own right arm into a blade and blocked his attack. Of course, it was a far more powerful attack than a young girl standing on two trembling legs could handle. She and I both went flying back through some Japanese-style paper sliding doors and slammed against a railing.

“Ow! Hey, are you okay?”

“Ugh...”

The girl, who’d been caught between me and the railing and had taken most of the blow, just moaned.

Creeeeeaaak...

But more alarming than that was the sound I heard coming from behind her.

Snap!

The railing gave way, and both of us lost the only thing that was holding us up. If it was just me, I might’ve been able to grab on to what was left of the railing, but...

“Damn it!”

That didn’t matter. I put my feet against the wall as we fell and pushed off of it as I reached out for the girl. I was able to grab her, but with nothing to catch us, we both fell five stories to the ground.