Chapter 2: The Golden Bunny Festival

After school, we headed to the port with Kokoru in tow. Akabane was there waiting for us.

“We’re grinding together, bawk? Who’s their hero candidate, bawk?”

“We sure are. They’re in charge of Selphie Muse.”

She’d been the most popular pick at the draft meet. I think she started at level 60 minimum, and she had tons of magic.

As I recall, she was a beautiful blonde elf and the daughter of a village chief in Mishuria.

After we’d picked Kokoru, Akabane’s brother had won her in the lottery. The moment he did, man, the whole place went silent.

Kokoru had seen the whole thing, too, though he hadn’t made the connection yet.

“It’s Selphie, bawk?! She’s the one from that weirdo’s guild, right? Bawk, are we sure about this?”

“Yeah. Don't worry, he won’t be here.”

“That’s a relief, bawk.”

While we chatted on the deck of the Peachy Thunder, Akabane called from behind, “Apologies for the wait. Let us depart.”

There was someone walking alongside her.

Someone wearing a full-face iron mask and a crimson scarf.

There he is! But why?! Didn’t she say he wouldn't come?!

“Gaaaah! Here he comes! I told you I can’t deal with him!” Yano shrieked, making herself scarce.

“Oh, wait! This isn’t my brother. Take a closer look.”

As directed, I looked at the character’s name. It was Selphie Muse.

“How could they do this to you?!” I screamed.

“Baaawk?! Selphie’s gone crazy!” Kokoru was likewise incredulous at the change she had undergone.

At the draft, she had been such a normal-looking elf girl. Now she wore a pink, painted mask and that stupid little red scarf.

At the very least, she wasn’t wearing swimwear. Instead, she had normal clothes on underneath.

Hey, wait. That mask is the one that Akira gave Akabane, isn’t it?!

“When in Rome, you know. I’m just following the fashion of the guild that’s helping me out.” came a mild-mannered, almost carefree voice from within the mask.

She seemed pretty calm. The girl must’ve been an airhead.

“What do you think, Kokoru?” she continued. “I say it looks pretty cool.”

“G-Good thing I ended up with Ren, bawk.”

I didn’t think he’d look nearly as terrifying with the helmet on, owing to his roundness. In fact, it might even be cute. A fat, little chicken wearing a silly mask.

“Selphie and my brother have become fast friends, so she’s taking after him a little,” Akabane explained.

She must be pretty weird if she gets along with someone like him.

I noticed that her level was 62, the same as it had been at the draft. They must have been struggling to grind, too.

At least she was already high-level, though. She could fight just fine in her current state.

“Yes! On top of his impressive level, he’s also a sweetheart who would never hurt a fly. I think he’s wonderful! I want to be just like him!” Selphie said, then crossed her arms in an imitation of him.

Seriously, what is with these people? Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

For a moment, I thought about the other guilds. Baddest of the Bad’s Alfred seemed like a really good, steadfast guy, and he was clearly sad to have to take part in their badness. In a way, maybe Selphie was honestly better off.

Though from our point of view, you just had to pity the girl.

“Yano, you think you’ll make it?”

“Uh, yeah. At least she has clothes on. I should be fine.” She still looked really perturbed, though.

“Hahaha. Well, how about we get going, then?” Having collected herself, Akira took the lead.

All of us stepped into the wheelhouse. If we tried to station ourselves anywhere else, we’d probably get thrown off the ship.

Gotta hold the handlebars and plant your feet down, or you’ll be in danger when Maeda does her thing.

“Draco, make sure you hang on to me.”

“I hug Ren!” he chirped.

Little by little, he was learning to speak.

“Akabane, Selphie, you hang on too.”

“Very well.”

“Understood, sir!”

“Hanging on, bawk.”

Then, Maeda put her hands gently on the airship's wheel.

Now that we had thrown all of our Merit Points into customizing the ship, the single red lever around the steering wheel—the nitro lever—had multiplied, leaving us now with eight red levers.

Today’s Peachy Thunder was already radically different from yesterday’s. It was the Redefined Peachy Thunder! I couldn’t wait to see how it performed.

“Embarking now!” Maeda announced, followed by a loud clunk!

I knew it! She went straight for the nitro!

Since it was our second time, the rest of us guildies already knew what to do. We kept hold of whatever we could with our feet planted firmly on the ground.

But for Akabane and Selphie, it was their first time. Although I’d warned them, they clearly weren’t wary enough, as they quickly lost their balance.

“Eep?!”

“Wagh?! Hey, don’t come any closer!” Suffering from Selphie's sudden embrace, Yano looked sick.

Clearly she’d been traumatized by the full-face mask itself and was now terrified by the very sight of it.

“Eeeeek!” Akabane screamed as well, this time trying to cling to me.

Unfortunately, she missed and ended up smooshing her lips against my cheek.

“Sorry! I, erm, didn’t mean to.”

“Umm, it’s cool. You really gotta hang onto those handles tight, or else.”

Nice, I guess something good came out of this after all.

However, Akira was glaring right in my direction.

“Wait, Akira, you’ve got it all wrong! That was just an accident!” Akabane was even more flustered than me.

If she was actually vying for anyone’s affections here, it would be Akira’s.

“Here I thought we could be friends, Nozomi. But that was just a dream, I suppose.”

“Aaaah! No, please! It’s reality!” Her panic was truly pitiful.

In the midst of all this, Maeda was yanking nitro levers left and right.

“Baaaaawk! It’s going even faster than last time, baaawk!”

“Hahahaha! You can use multiple nitro boosts at the same time! More testing, more testing!”

Upon activating nitro, the ship accelerated for thirty seconds. You could use them one at a time to have endless nitro, but now we learned that you could also activate all eight at once. It had clearly led to even more incredible super-speed than last time.

Almost instantly, we arrived at an area in airspace where ships were competing over a Sky Fissure, pulling ahead of them in ease.

The rift was directly to our right.

Unfortunately, we had a ton of forward momentum going on! We couldn’t just turn directly toward it, could we?

“We’re going in!” Maeda spun the wheel, which creaked as it rotated.

The ship lurched to the side as it changed direction, like a drifting car. We all screamed and hollered, clinging to the handrails for dear life.

Our ship was outta control! This was one heck of a thrill ride!

Thanks to Maeda’s maneuvers, the Peachy Thunder pulled a slick slide right into the Sky Fissure.

“I did it! Look, everyone! Now we’re free to enter any Sky Fissure we please!” Maeda rejoiced as we were teleported into the instanced dungeon. Miraculously, she was perfectly fine.