Epilogue

“Are you friggin’ dumb? Like, for real?”

“...I’m really sorry. Seriously, I’m sorry.” I was listening to Ichika’s angry lecture while resting in a futon in my room. Despite having told her that I would come back to life if I died while transformed, I hadn’t mentioned that the sheer might of curses aimed at Leona would make me explode if I transformed into her, so my stunt terrified the hell out of her. In my defense, like, it takes a lot of resolve to kill yourself and I honestly dunno what I would have done without Leona’s transformation. Does she not know how valuable a method to instantly die really is? Seriously.

“You listening to me?! I was hella worried about you, bub!”

“Yeah. I definitely wasn’t thinking ahead enough. It would’ve been pretty bad if there was another Dungeon Eater.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about! Geez.”

“Ichika,” interjected Rokuko, “I think he’s learned his lesson by now.”

“You’re too soft on him, Rokuko! If we don’t beat this lesson into his skull, he’s gonna do more crazy bullshiz in the future!”

Rokuko had made a full recovery. Only took a few seconds after I exploded, apparently. At this point, I was in a worse state due to recovering from my resurrection. What, you already gave back the Divine Pillow? Curses.

“Ichika. There’s a good reason for why Keima did something that crazy.”

“A reason? Well, I get that you were in danger and all that, but...”

“No, it’s nothing that complicated. It’s something a lot more simple, a personal thing for him.”

Huh? No no no, I definitely just blew up to get you your powers back. A personal thing for me? What? As I waited to find out what it was, Rokuko planted her feet firmly on the ground and spoke with her hands on her hips.

“He was sleep deprived!”

Whaaat?! I-I can’t believe it! I-I mean, I definitely had missed out on sleep to figure out what her sickness was, and now that I think about it, I definitely was sleep deprived even though I passed out for a bit!

“...Aaaah... Okay, that totally makes sense.”

Th-That’s a good enough reason for you? Well, alright. At least she’s gonna stop lecturing me now.

“So basically, Ichika, what he needs right now is a lot of rest.”

“Sure, whatevs,” said Ichika while standing up.

Watch out, I can see up y— Eh, nevermind. Nobody can be blamed for futons being placed directly against the ground. It’s not my fault I’m looking straight up. Dark white, close to gray.

“I’ll give you a pass this time, but you owe me big time. I’m talking a huge favor.”

“One favor? Sure, no problem. As long as it’s something within my power.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that. Laters. Take care of him for me, Rokuko.”

“Mhm. My turn,” said Rokuko while sitting next to my head. “Sit up.”

“R-Right.” Rokuko made me sit up.

“Keima, are you hungry? You must be hungry.”

“Huh? I’m a little hungry, I guess.”

“I just so happen to have a purin with me.” Rokuko held up a purin. Then, a spoon. But she didn’t hold out either of them to me.

Yeah, I can see where this is going.

“Keima. I’ll feed you!”

“...Figures.” But I was indeed sick. No reason for me to refuse.

“Okay, open wiiiide.”

“Sur— Nmph.” I ate the purin as she spooned it into my mouth. This is kinda embarrassing, but alright.

“Does it taste good?”

“...Yeah, sure. Tastes fine.”

“Right, right? So good. The second Ichika fed me like this I knew I could use it.”

Use it? Upfront as ever I see, Rokuko.

“Here, open wiiiide.”

“Nom.” She spooned more purin into my mouth. And that’s when it happened.

“Rokuko, are you okay?!” Haku threw the door open and burst into her room. She was carrying a mattress under her arms—a Japanese kind, known as a shikibuton. Then, she froze.

Rokuko and I froze too. Oh, right. I forgot I sent Haku a message about this.

Rokuko was feeding me a purin. I was letting her feed me.

“Haku! It’s so good to see you!”

“Um, ah, yes. It’s good to see you too. I’ve just been so busy lately, Rokuko, I hope you can forgive me... Oh, rather, are you feeling better? Did you get better after making Keima sick?” Haku looked back and forth between Rokuko and I. It seemed she was pretending not to have seen Rokuko feeding me.

“Umm, Keima cured me, so I’m all better now. But he got hurt in the process and now he’s stuck in bed.”

“I see, I see.” Haku took deep breaths to calm down.

By the way, about that mattress. It looks kinda divine. Might that be the Divine Mattress?

“This won’t be necessary, then. That’s a relief,” said Haku while putting her Divine Mattress (presumably) into {Storage}.

Ah, wait! Hold on, let me touch it! Nooo!

“Oh, Haku. You shouldn’t wear shoes on tatami.”

“Hm? Oh, I’m aware. We sometimes import tatami from Wakoku.” Haku took off her shoes and exposed her glorious, tights-wrapped feet to the world. She then took out a stool from {Storage} and sat on it.

“Although comfortable, it always feels a little odd to remove my shoes in someone else’s room,” she said while opening and closing her toes.

Thank you for this visual feast. I could not have asked for a better visitor while sick.

I ended up so absorbed by Haku’s feet that Rokuko noticed my staring and jabbed me in the side. Oof!

“In any case, Keima, are you well enough to tell me what happened? Surely you are. You wouldn’t be playing around if you weren’t.”

“...Uhhh, right. Sure.”

“Good. Tell me everything that happened, from beginning to end,” said Haku while crossing her legs.

＊ ＊ ＊

“...I see. In the end I didn’t need to rush here at a great cost, but it was still the right move to take.” Haku switched her crossed legs after hearing all about the Dungeon Eaters. “To think there exists bugs that eat dungeons. Do you have any video footage of them?”

“Yeah, if they aren’t broken from being eaten. And... Looks like we’re good. Here.” I showed her videos of the first Dungeon Eater we saw, then the second one charging toward the monitor with an open mouth.

“...Hm. Anything else?”

“I wouldn’t think so. We lost the monitor function after it was eaten.”

“Oh? But Keima, it looks like there’s a file after that.” Rokuko pointed at my menu, and there indeed was a video file I had no memory of. Maybe Rei had taken it...? No, the monitor was probably stuck with the Dungeon Eater until it died. Which meant...

“The Dungeon Eater was using the monitor function?”

“I see. That is possible. May I see?” asked Haku with a smile.

...But judging by the time, the video was taken during the fight. Absolutely nothing good would come from her seeing the Daiframe or me using {Element Burst} without chanting.

“Let us check it first.”

“Certainly.”

I opened the video after making it so only Rokuko and I could see and hear it. As expected, it was a video of me fighting the Dungeon Eater. Or to be more precise, it was a video of me pretty much dominating the Dungeon Eater.

“If you’re gonna steal from people... You’ve gotta be ready for them to take it all back and more! Now, spit it all out! Give! Back! My! Dungeon! This dungeon... Rokuko belongs to me!”

“.........” Rokuko blushed. I avoided eye contact.

“...What in the world is on that video? May I see it?”

“Uhhh, it’s from the Dungeon Eater’s perspective, so I’m the only one on it. Not really worth watching it.” Haku asked to see with a suspicious look, and I answered while avoiding eye contact.

“R-Right. I’ll save this just in case. Geheheheh.”

“Rokuko, please.”

“.........”

Ngh! Rokuko, could you stop playing ‘Rokuko belongs to me!’ on loop while Haku’s glaring at me?! And could you stop focusing on that one part?! Come on! What did I ever do to deserve this?!!

“Okay, Rokuko, cut! Cuuuuut!”

“Awww, but why? Haku can’t hear or see it, remember?”

“I’m gonna die of embarrassment! I’m not even kidding! At least make it invisible to me too!”

“Fine, fine.” After playing it three more times, Rokuko closed the window in satisfaction.

“What in the world... Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. If Rokuko’s happy, I’m happy.”

“Ngh... S-Same here...” Curse you, Rokuko. Did you forget I’m sick right now?

“In any case, this was quite the surprise for me. To think that a Dungeon Core could fall deathly ill.”

“This is something even you’ve never heard about, Haku?”

“...Correct. I could hardly believe it when Core 219 told me what she did. That was the first time I had ever heard of a Core falling sick without morphing into a human. This is absolutely something I will need to report to Father at the next assembly.”

Can’t say I expected it to be that big of a deal, huh.

“I pulled out my Divine Mattress and literally flew here as fast as I could.”

“...You didn’t use {Teleport}? Now that you mention it, you got here pretty fast considering Core 219 said it’d take her three days.” Only a bit more than two days had passed since I asked Core 219 to contact Haku. Barely any time had passed since when I expected her to be arriving at the capital, with right now being the start of the third day. Haku must have really rushed to get here that fast.

“I made all of my party members except Misha use {Teleport} in turn to close the distance. In the end, I teleported to Tsia all on my lonesome.” She used her closest allies as stepping stones—or maybe I should say rocket boosters?—to save on mana and get here all in one go. Makes sense. And as an aside, she left Misha behind since she was too dumb to learn {Teleport}. Yeah, that sounds right to me.

But all of Haku’s party members held important political and military roles. I could only imagine how severe the impact of forcing open their schedules would be. Haku seemed to be thinking the same thing, judging by the somewhat gloomy look on her face.

“I then rode the Divine Mattress here. To summarize its powers, it has restorative properties and can fly. At max speed it is faster than a horse.”

I knew that was the Divine Mattress. A flying mattress... Yeah, I want that pretty bad. I could travel while sleeping. What a beast of a mattress. Whoever made it must be a genius. It’s so perfect...!

“...Well, I am just glad to see Rokuko healthy. The information about the Dungeon Eaters and traveling merchant is appreciated as well. I will distribute wanted posters for the merchant.”

“For what crime?”

“High treason.”

Oh yeah, the Empire is the country of dungeons. Even for those who don’t know about Dungeon Cores, it’s well known as a country where the economy and all the largest cities are built around dungeons. Bringing something like Dungeon Eaters into the Empire certainly is treason. Doubt anybody could complain about that.

“In that case, I’ll be using him as an excuse for a lot of things.”

“Feel free. By the way, I would like to stay here for the night.”

“Consider the grand suite yours. Rokuku, don’t worry about me. You can take Haku to her room. And Haku, since you took such a big loss to get here so fast, don’t worry about paying for your room or the food. They’re on the house.” I presented Haku with Rokuko and a free inn room. It was the least I could do considering she would be rushing back home tomorrow with a mountain of built up work waiting for her.

“Oh, really? In that case, I’ll need to give Rokuko plenty of tips to help her feel better. Shall we go? I believe I’ll need to check to make sure your body’s holding up okay.”

“Makes sense to me. Night, Keima! Be sure to get some rest, okay?!”

“C’mon. Don’t forget who you’re talking to here.”

Haku left the room with Rokuko (still smiling like an idiot) in tow. Guess I’ll finish this purin off.

＊ ＊ ＊

How to deal with Isam was kind of a tricky question. He was pretty heavily involved in our problems, having been the one to carry the Dungeon Eaters into the dungeon. But I couldn’t talk to him about the dungeon, and it sounded like he was being manipulated, so... The real villain here was the traveling merchant in question, and Haku had made it known he was wanted for high treason. It was fair to say that Isam was just another of his victims. And since that traveling merchant was the mastermind here (Note: I never said there wasn’t yet another mastermind pulling the merchant’s string), nothing would come from punishing Isam. I wouldn’t have any excuse for punishing him, either.

But he did commit the crime of getting in my way to challenge me to a duel when I was rushing to the bottom of the dungeon. What if the Dungeon Eater got to Rokuko first and ate her thanks to him slowing us down? Yeah. He needed to be punished, at least a little. I could frame it as... ehhh, cooperating in searching for the wanted criminal.

With all that said, I summoned Isam to the Beddhist church.

“And that’s how it is, Isam. You’re gonna tell me everything you know.”

“I dunno why you started this conversation like that, but uh, I’m guessing you’re talking about the assassin guy? If this is about his treason, I already said everything I remember. But my memory’s just so freakin’ fuzzy I could barely say anything.”

“Dooon’t worry. That’s just what you think. Memory can be a lot more reliable than you think, and sometimes memories you thought you forgot can be lurking in your head.” I snapped my fingers. Ichika and Suilla, wearing a nun outfit, entered the room. As a quick reminder, Suilla is a Succubus. Yeah, you can guess where this is going.

“I’m sure we can find out more details if we give you a Beddhist style interrogation. You don’t get to refuse. You lost the duel and this is an order.”

“Ngh! Fine, you win.”

I called it an interrogation, but it was really just charming him and unearthing his memories by force. While I was at it, I accidentally made him reveal all his fetishes and embarrassing secrets. In front of Ichika.

“Whaddaya want me to do?”

“Just relax a bit. Suilla, do it.”

“...I believe it would be more efficient for you to do this, your holiness.”

Yeah, not a chance in the world. I’m sick of seducing men as a Succubus.

Anyway, I made Isam expose his fetishes to Ichika, but... There’s nothing weird about having a smell fetish. I mean, that’s just normal stuff. Shoes and all that. Wait, Ichika? Why are you looking away? Uh, and Suilla’s giving a gentle smile... That means ‘Yes, it certainly is normal,’ doesn’t it? Right? I ended the charm after wiping his memories of being charmed and revealing his fetishes. But not the other things.

“Okay, that’s it for the interrogation. Thanks for all the help.”

“...Just kill me.”

Yeah, that’s the first thing I would say too.

“Isaaaam?! What did you do with my shooooes?! Try saying it one more tiiiime!”

“H-Hold on! I-I mean, I just love how you smell, that’s all!”

“Alriiight, time for natto! I’m gonna make him eat natto! Master!”

Aaaaah... Okay. Go ahead and have your fun, Ichika. I bought some natto (strongly fermented soybeans) with DP as I pretended to reach into {Storage}, then handed it to Ichika.

“Ngh?! What the hell is that smell?! Are those rotten?!”

“Heheh, relax, my dude. It’s fine to eat since it’s just fermented. Too bad I’m gonna stuff it all up your nose.”

“N-NOOOOO!”

Stuffing natto up a wolf’s nose? Oof, Ichika, isn’t that a bit mu— aaand up they go. Oooof. Oh, you want blue cheese too? Fine, but don’t expect any surströmming.

By the time Ichika was done with him, Isam was convulsing on the floor with his eyes rolled back into his head. As a fellow man, I will express my sympathy by casting {Purification} to get rid of the smell. He can have the leftovers, too. Guess I’ll slip some of Ichika’s socks from my stash in as well just to seal the deal. Yeah.

＊ ＊ ＊

Isam calmed down a lot after all that. He wasn’t causing any problems anymore. In fact, he would sometimes sit beside me in the cafeteria and sit in a front row desk in the church. It was enough to think that maybe the smell had broken his brain.

But in truth, I knew it was thanks to me giving him Ichika’s socks. He must have interpreted that as me being a fellow man of smell. So I thought, while eating the natto Isam bought for me. He always shouts the loudest when we’re counting sheep at mass, then falls asleep by number five.

I was also letting Niku spar with him since he wanted to train. He probably saw my magic and wanted to learn from me, but too bad. That magic’s special. And Niku seemed happy to have a sandbag to beat the crap out of for practice. It kinda threw me off when he trained so hard he ended up asleep in front of my front door, but his fur saved him from catching a cold.

Anyway, Isam and Mimiko eventually dropped by to say goodbye—they were moving on. Most adventurers never stayed in the same place for too long. Really, they had stayed here a bit too long considering their wandering roots.

“My brother caused so many problems for you, I’m sorry. My big dumb brother is just... Come on, Isam, apologize!”

“...Sorry.” Isam bowed his head at Mimiko’s urging. He didn’t seem to feel that he should be apologizing, and honestly I didn’t know why he needed to apologize at this point either.

“Hey, Ichika. Why are they apologizing to me?”

“Aaah... I’m guessing he kinda feels bad for all the trouble he put you through? Let us hear it, Isam.”

“Y-Yeah. That’s pretty much it.”

“Keima, you have such a big heart... Isam, I don’t think you can beat him.”

“.........” Isam grimaced a bit. I dunno why, but he didn’t seem too happy.

“Well, y’know. Cheer up. Feel free to come again if you want. Just try not to get wrapped up with another weird merchant.” I held out a hand, but he slapped it away. Feeling shy, huh? Nice.

“I’ve been watching you ever since I came to this town. Far as I can tell, you do take your job as town chief seriously. The people all love you.”

Uh, what? I take my job seriously? You lost me. But if that’s how it looks to outsiders, sure, alright. I can’t complain.

“...But I’m not gonna forgive you if break Ichika’s heart!”

“Huh? Uh, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Hmph!” Isam turned to look at Ichika instead of me.

“Ichika... I’m fine with anything as long as you’re happy. But if you ever want me to come kidnap you, just say the word.”

“Geez, give it a rest! Just get the heck out of here already, you dumb dog. You don’t wanna be here when Master wakes up and stops being so nice. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll find another good woman. Though you’re totally not gonna find any as good as me, just saying.”

“...I’ve gotta ask. Are you a slave because—”

“Ha! I’ve got a master this amazing, y’know? All other men just look like total trash to me.” So Ichika said, but Isam didn’t seem ready to give up on her.

“Ichika, no matter how much you love this guy, he’s not gonna—”

“Alright, Master, look this way. I’m gonna use that favor you owe me.”

“Huh? Sure, but what fo— Mmggh?!” Before I could finish my sentence, Ichika kissed me. Wha, why?! Soft lips! Is that your tongue?! What?!

“Fwah! There you go. See, Isam, he... Isam? Hello?” Isam had frozen in place. “Whoops, guess that was a bit much for the kids in the audience. What’re you gonna do, Mimiko? Wait until he snaps out of it?”

“...I’m just going to drag him away. Ichika, we’ll be back to visit later. Keima, please take good care of Ichika.”

“R-Right.” I was kind of experiencing extreme emotional turmoil, but somehow I managed to squeeze out a reply to Mimiko. She then grabbed Isam by the back of the neck and did indeed drag him out of Goren, just as she had said she would.

“...Ichika. Where did that come from?”

“Hm? I was just like, what better favor could I ask for, y’know? Dooon’t read too deep into it, it was just a spur of the moment thing! Yup!” said Ichika with a smile.

C-Cool.

“Oh, look, here comes Rokuko. Looks like it’s time for me to split.”

“Wha?” I followed Ichika’s gaze and saw that Rokuko was running this way.

“Keima! I saw that, Keima! Why did you kiss Ichika?! Are you trying to make babies?!”

“I, uh... Didn’t I tell you kisses don’t make babies?” Anyway, I guess that means she was watching us on the monitor. I’ve gotta delete the video of the kiss later...

“...You’ve gotta make babies with me first, okay?! Ichika and Niku and Rei and everyone else can come after!”

“Why are you including Niku and Rei there too?”

“Whatever, just promise me! I’m first! Right now!” yelled Rokuko while repeatedly hitting me with her fists.

“Alright, alright, I promise, so stop hitting me. That actually hurts.”

“Okay! I forgive you.” Rokuko beamed a satisfied smile with her head held high.

“Wait. Hold on, Rokuko. It kinda sounds like you’re implying that I’m going to make a harem.”

“...Aren’t you? Isn’t a harem every man’s dream?”

“Where did you hear that? No. At the very least, I don’t want all the trouble that comes from a harem. I’ve got my hands full with just you, Rokuko.” It might not look like it from her perspective, but I’m a one-track kinda guy.

“Th-That’s good too!”

“Yup.” I patted Rokuko’s head as she blushed bright red.