DAY 23: MORNING — INTERLUDE: THE LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

DAY 23

MORNING

How exactly do our class rankings work?

INTERLUDE:
THE LADY FINGER BOUDOIR

 

I WENT TO CHECK ON Haruka-kun that morning, only to discover that he had taken his things and disappeared. He left a message at the front desk, but it was incoherent.

“I knew he was going to leave sooner or later,” I muttered to myself. “I wonder why…why didn’t he at least say something?”

I read the message again: “I’m off to see the idiots. Level up and wait here.” He went back into the forest, but he also asked us to wait. Did that mean he planned to come back? If that was the case, he should’ve at least added “I’ll be back.” A note this short was totally ambiguous. I don’t know what he’s planning, and I’m not sure I want to know…

I told the other girls.

“Let’s…let’s go to the forest!” Shimazaki-san said. “Like, to the cave!”

“Haruka-kun told us to wait here.”

“We need to go! He’ll totally abandon us again!”

“Do you want to go and fight, then?” I asked. “Against people? Against our own classmates?”

“I can…I can fight,” said Fukunuki-san. “Even if it’s against the boys…even if it’s scary, I’ll fight. I want to help Haruka-kun…”

“It doesn’t matter whether or not we can fight,” said Chika-chan. “Let’s just go! We need to help him! How could he…”

“No! Stop being ridiculous!” I shouted. “He told us to stay here and wait. Do you want to die after everything he did to save us? I won’t let you throw your lives away!”

I restrained my voice, tried to blink away the tears. If we do as he tells us…

“B-but Shimazaki-chan, you and your friends want to go, don’t you?” said Vice Rep A. “You can’t go alone!”

“We’ll be totes fine!” Shimazaki-san protested. “We were enthralled before—we’ll just get enthralled again! Just let us go! We said we’d follow him and that’s, like, what we want to do!”

“Don’t be silly, Shimazaki-chan,” Vice Rep B said. “He told you to stay here and wait, didn’t he? You should only go if you’re prepared to kill.”

“But I…I can’t stand it! I can’t stand that he’d go…all alone…”

“He wants to avoid casualties, but he might become one himself…”

At that moment, we heard a voice outside the inn.

“Hi, cute flyers girl! We brought you a souvenir!”

A group of four guys entered the inn and stared at us blankly. It was Oda-kun and his friends. They were back.

“Class Rep? Is that you?”

Pandemonium broke out. Everyone was shouting and crying, no one understood what anyone else was saying, and we all talked past each other. They totally forgot the normal flow of conversation as they described all the agony they’d been through in a frenzy. So much had happened. So, this is what Haruka-kun meant when he said they couldn’t read the room…

Shimazaki-san and her friends burst into tears the moment they saw them. Bowing deeply, they apologized and begged for forgiveness. Shimazaki-san told them how hard they’d tried to find Oda-kun and his friends to thank them properly. She mentioned that Haruka-kun disappeared. Out of nowhere, Vice Rep B decided to leave through the town gates. I had to run out and drag her back inside. Then Oda-kun and his friends tried to ghost on us themselves. I stopped them and forced everyone to sit down to at least mutually agree on a common goal and develop a strategy. My thoughts were all over the place, but I got everyone to settle down.

Vice Rep B looked at me in confusion. “What’s your problem?”

“What do you mean? You just tried to leave by yourself!”

“Well, if I want to join Haruka-kun, I had to be willing to kill, right?”

“You were the one who decided that!” a chorus of voices shouted.

She’s prepared to kill! Why did everyone think this girl was the nicest in our class? People just judged her by her assets, didn’t they? Is that how my classmates measured niceness, by bra size?!

“Shimazaki-san, you need to calm down, too. We’re all friends here!” I called.

“We have to go,” wailed Shimazaki-san. “We found Oda-kun and apologized, so we have to go! Please let us go! Please! We’re also prepared to kill if we have to! We’ll do whatever it takes!”

I had to admit that Shimazaki-san and her friends were at a pretty impressive level. They outleveled us because of the extra experience they kept getting from Servitude. That meant that Haruka-kun was out there, fighting monsters by himself.

Shimazaki-san and her friends could undoubtedly handle strong enemies. If they were trying to protect Haruka-kun, I was confident that they would even kill one of their own classmates.

I remembered Haruka-kun talking about how terrifying they were in battle, like religious zealots. He was right—they were believers in Haruka-kun, wild to express their gratitude, crazy enough to be willingly enthralled. He was their savior, their benefactor; he gave them their world, and that’s why they were willing to do anything for him.

It wasn’t too far off from how all of us felt, even Oda-kun and his friends. We would all fight for Haruka-kun and were prepared to kill if necessary. It might have just been empty resolve, but that was enough to make everyone desperate to go help him.

I saw Oda-kun try to sneak out the door again, so I leapt to my feet and grabbed him by the collar. “Why do you think he told us to wait here?” I growled.

They talked over each other as they listed myriad possible reasons: we’d hold him back and get in his way, he didn’t want us to kill or get killed, he didn’t trust us, he thought we were weak, he was better off alone, and we were no fun to be around.

“He’s worried,” I explained, “that one of you will get taken as a hostage.”

“Don’t worry about us!” exclaimed Oda-kun. “We’re all over level 70, and we’ve got plenty of good weapons!”

They just went ahead and reached level 70 without even considering that anyone was worried about them. The guild master had told us that the strongest people in the world were over level 100, and they were known as monsters. With the boosts that they got by coming from another world, Oda-kun and his friends were probably on par with S-rank adventurers. Their cheat skills probably made them the strongest people in this world.

But he also told us that even those ridiculously powerful adventurers might barely manage victory against a single Dire Greenwolf. Haruka-kun crashed into it and the rest of its pack. He literally described it as a traffic accident.

By leaving us behind, Haruka-kun was really saying that…

“We should stay here and protect ourselves,” Oda-kun realized.

“I think so too, since we don’t even know what the enemy is after,” one of the girls agreed.

I concurred. Haruka-kun had collected so many spellstones that it bankrupted the guild. He had accidentally put the duke in his debt twice over by saving his daughter and later rescuing him. He wasn’t even supposed to leave Omui, yet he saved them by accident. He got favors from the leaders of this city by accident. If anyone in the town spotted him, the only other black-haired, black-eyed person besides us, we’d know immediately. The adventurers, soldiers, and entire town were on the lookout for him. That made this city the safest possible place to be.

Everyone turned on me and shouted, “If you’re so intent on stopping us, why are you the only one fully armed and ready to leave?!”

Huh? Everyone is scolding me now? What is happening?