"And so, it looks like I've become a slave again," the slightly plump young man, Daimon Hanakawa, muttered to no one in particular.
The way he muttered made others think he was
a bit creepy, but ever since returning to this world, he had been talking to himself an
awful lot.
He couldn't bear what was happening to him without complaining to someone, even himself.
"Hey, piggy, what are you mumbling about? It's annoying." The voice came from behind and made him jump.
He had been talking quietly enough that he didn't think anyone would hear him.
They were in a forest heading for the Demon Lord's castle.
It was a place he had visited back when he'd first been summoned to this
world.
Specifically, they were in a region to the south of the Kingdom of Iman, the heart of the territory claimed by the Demon Lord.
The forest was said to be the last difficult obstacle before the monster's
castle, but that was a story from long ago.
The Demon Lord and the leaders under him had all been defeated, and the creatures that had
made up its army had long since dispersed.
Unfortunately, that didn't mean the forest was safe.
Even without monsters, ferocious
wild animals still inhabited the region.
At the moment, Hanakawa was being used as bait.
He was being forced to walk at the front of the group so that, as they put it, "any
attacking animals would go for him first." Of course, such a strategy was pointless in this environment.
The whole thing was little more than petty bullying.
"M-My apologies." Hanakawa turned around. Behind him were three boys and a girl, making a party of five including himself.
"You know, I don't like the way you talk all fancy like that." One of the young Japanese guys stepped up to him. "Are you trying to make
fun of us?" His name was Akinobu Marufuji. Like Hanakawa, he had been transported to this world during their school trip.
"N-No, not at all, I was just—huh?" His first thought was to apologize.
He had intended to pass things off frivolously like he always did. He wouldn't even mind begging on his hands and knees if
that's what it took. But he soon realized that was naive of him.
Akinobu had thrust his sword forward and, without a moment's hesitation, planted it firmly in Hanakawa's ample gut.
Hanakawa crumpled to the ground with a cry, curling up around the intense
pain in his stomach as Akinobu sneered down at him.
"Are you sure he's okay?" another young man asked, staring at the bizarre sight with obvious shock.
His name was Ragna, and he was a
local born and raised in the area. He was also the leader of the party.
"It's fine; we're just playing around," Shigehito Mitadera said, immediately trying to smooth things over with their worried companion.
"Come on, Hanakawa, hurry up and heal yourself. Ragna's getting worried. You're making it look like we did something bad. Read the atmosphere, would you?" He was, like Akinobu, one of Hanakawa's fellow classmates.
"I'm...fine. Everything's good." Hanakawa laughed and forced himself to speak without his usual affectation.
He knew that if he continued to talk in his preferred style, things would get much worse for him.
Healing the wound in his stomach, he stood back up.
While he could heal such an injury in an instant, it didn't make it hurt any less in the
meantime.
"Hey, why don't you give it a try, Ragna? It's like proof of our friendship," the girl, Rei Kushima, said as she slid up beside him.
She was yet another student summoned from Japan, another member of his former class.
This trio had split off from the others the moment their group had reached the first city en route to the capital, so they
had avoided the catastrophe of the battle royale.
"But..." Ragna frowned. The idea of pointless violence must have struck him as being wrong.
Th-That's correct! You must not heed the words of these brutes!
Do you really believe they are good people? You should rebuke them!
Perhaps then their treatment of me would improve! But if Hanakawa spoke out of turn, he was sure they would kill him, so all he could do
was shout inside his own head.
"Right, I suppose violence is unacceptable," Rei replied.
"Yes, even among friends, it's a bit much," Ragna said.
"Still, saying only that 'violence is wrong' is a one-sided way of looking at it."
"What do you mean?"
"This guy loves it when you punch him and stab him and stuff. See, look how greedily he's watching us."
I'm looking at you in no such way! This is hate in my expression!
"Maybe you don't see it much living out in the country, but there are lots of people like him in the city."
"I see. The city really is something else. I don't know anything about it."
This isn't an urban-versus-rural issue, you know! "
Well then, you should take this chance to learn all you can," Rei suggested with a chuckle. "If you want to get along with him, you
should hurt him!"
"I see..." Ragna nodded deeply, as if in admiration.
Don't just say "I see"! My tastes are all in watching! I certainly don't enjoy suffering myself! If I have to suffer at all, I want it to be
when a beautiful girl is looking down at me in disgust as she steps on me!
Hanakawa desperately wanted to run away, but the dangerous looks from Rei and the others clearly told him he was to stay put and take
whatever was given to him.
As Ragna approached, he could do nothing but fake a smile. And then the man's fist struck him right in the stomach.
Once again, he crumpled to the ground with a cry of pain.
"I thought I punched him really lightly," Ragna said, looking unsure of himself as he watched Hanakawa squirm.
"Yeah, it looks like it hurt a lot, doesn't it? He must be in a lot of pain."
"Then I shouldn't have hit him, right?"
"But he enjoys the pain. I'm sure he thinks much better of you now. You two must be an awful lot closer."
"Oh, really? I guess there are all sorts of people..."
Oh, come on! Why would you believe something like that! Hanakawa used his healing magic, but this time, it didn't do all that much.
There were some kinds of damage that he just couldn't heal from as easily.
Ugh... If I knew things were going to end up this way, I never would have gone off on my own.
He was beginning to regret running away from Yogiri.
◇ ◇ ◇
Flying over the city, which was covered in the Dark God's flesh, and crossing over the walls, Hanakawa and the others had managed to
escape safely.
"That looks...terrible. Or I suppose I should be glad it's only this bad?"
"I assume only those closest to the city walls were able to escape."
"Well, all praise goes to Takatou, I guess. If he hadn't stopped that wave of meat from growing, getting past the walls wouldn't have
saved anyone."
David, Ryouko, and Carol left the glider behind and were looking at the refugees fleeing the city.
Hanakawa had used the chance to slip
away.
It was just a reflex by now. He figured if he was going to run, it was best to do so while Yogiri wasn't around.
But he had also hesitated. Was fleeing the right choice? It might have been safer to
stick with them.
That thought had slowed him down, leading him to hide behind a nearby rock.
"N-No, this is the right choice. If I stay with them, they might consider me part of their group." Hanakawa's objective here was very different from the others'.
Yogiri and Tomochika wanted to return to Japan while he wanted to enjoy
himself in this world to the fullest.
"But I could still make use of them until the last moment..." Being with Yogiri was inarguably the safest option.
But in another sense, Yogiri was also the greatest danger.
Hanakawa was well known for his ability to make people angry with him, so it wasn't
unthinkable that Yogiri might turn his powers on him at some point.
As he was thinking things over, Yogiri and Tomochika descended from the sky.
"Wait, Tomochika has wings now?! She looks like an angel!" His classmate was wearing her skintight black battle suit.
Large wings had appeared on her back, carrying the pair through the air towards
them, with Yogiri clinging to her around the waist.
"Wait, why couldn't I have done that?!" Looking on enviously, he watched as the two landed safely.
"So, not everyone in the capital was killed," Yogiri observed, glancing back at the city.
"Wait, where's Hanakawa?" After having decided to head to a city nearby, Tomochika had suddenly realized that he wasn't with them.
"Good question," Yogiri replied.
"Hm. Well, that's to be expected. I am a Healer, after all. And the fact that I'm level ninety-nine means there is considerable value in having
me... Wait, they aren't going to look for me?!"
The most they had spared him was a brief glance around, but after that, Yogiri quickly lost interest.
"I guess he ran. There's no reason to
take him with us, though, so it doesn't matter."
"It didn't seem like he was interested in going back home anyway." Even Tomochika seemed satisfied with his absence.
"No, no, no! I mean, sure, you're right, but if you were to insist that I go with you, I wouldn't hesitate!" Whining from his hiding spot was pointless.
As he muttered to himself, a cute girl jumped out of a passing carriage. She accosted
Yogiri, and two more beautiful young women stepped out behind her.
"Wh-What is going on?! He's just surrounding himself with all kinds of women now? Come on!"
All but surrounded by females, Yogiri was the lone boy in a group of seven.
Technically, David was there as well, but he could safely be ignored, so as far as Hanakawa was concerned, it was a perfect harem.
"W-Well, it's not like I'm jealous! I want more pure, blindly trusting girls who will be embarrassed but still let me do whatever erotic stuff I want to them! There's nothing for me to be envious of here at all!"
Afraid the jealousy might drive him mad, he had turned and left.
No one noticed him go, and no one tried to follow him.
"N-Now then, let us regroup. They were nothing more than acquaintances of happenstance. Totally unrelated to my shyly joyful
new world life. Now that I have finally attained freedom, where
should I go?"
He had once again considered what he could do to achieve the otherworld lifestyle he was looking for.
His first course of action would be to leave the area.
The damage caused by the Dark God was
immense, so it wouldn't be a simple thing for the city to recover
from.
As such, another country was the best option, but the neighboring nations would likely be in a state of chaos as well.
It wasn't hard to imagine the flood of refugees they would soon be
facing.
"And the country I was summoned to last time would be no good..." During his first journey to this world, he had been summoned by the
magi of the Kingdom of Iman.
They had brought over several heroes
to bring down a Demon Lord.
As part of that group, Hanakawa had
assisted in defeating the threat but had promptly been sent back to his own world once the task was complete.
In short, Iman had no interest in rewarding him for his past efforts, nor were they likely to
welcome him back.
He had been treated like an annoyance rather
than a hero, so if he casually waltzed back in, it would undoubtedly lead to nothing good.
"Thinking back on it now, their behavior was rather insulting Perhaps I should add them to my Revenge List."
He couldn't do anything at the moment, but it was always possible that he might obtain more power in the future.
So, in anticipation of that time, he added the Kingdom of Iman to the growing list in his
mind.
"I wonder how the territory of the Demon Lord looks now that the monster is gone?" He recalled the end of his previous adventure.
The people who ruled the Demonic Kingdom were monsters who called themselves
"demons," but the majority of the locals were ordinary people who were being oppressed by them.
If the Demon Lord and his subordinates had been defeated, the country might have acquired some measure of peace.
"And the people of the villages there were simple and kind. They even seemed to have customs similar to night crawling!" Although
Hanakawa had never experienced it himself, he had heard plenty of stories about others in the army that had been organized to defeat
the Demon Lord getting lucky.
"Hm. I'm also a little familiar with the area. Perhaps that's not a bad idea after all." At any rate, remaining there wouldn't have been ideal. He'd felt that if he stayed in the area and ended up coming across Yogiri again,
things wouldn't go so well for him.
"And if he and Tomochika are looking for Sages, it would be best to find a place that Sages are unlikely to visit." He had never heard of Sages visiting Iman.
There was likely a Sage responsible for the area around it, but they didn't seem liable to
show their face unless it was absolutely necessary.
"The next issue, then, is how to get there... Well, as long as I have money, it should be manageable."
While Yogiri had robbed him of
most of his valuables, he still had a number of generic magical items left, which would probably fetch a good price. "And I am perfectly happy with the simplistic village girl-type, too!"
With images of his future harem in his head, Hanakawa had immediately set off for the former Demonic Kingdom.
◇ ◇ ◇
Using carriages and trains, Hanakawa had made it close to the Kingdom of Iman easily enough.
Though he doubted many there
would remember him, he'd decided to pass Iman by and head directly for the Demonic Kingdom just in case.
There was essentially no border, so he had no difficulty making it inside.
"Hm. I suppose that would be Mount Caluone. As such, the Demon Lord's castle would be in that direction."
Mount Caluone's tip had been blown off in the past, so it worked well as a landmark.
His late classmate Higashida had refined his
ability to cast the Fire Ball spell at its absolute limit, enabling him to destroy the top of the mountain.
"It appears there are no monsters here after all. A slow village lifestyle should be more than possible!"
He walked down the road leading through the forest.
A village, an isolated settlement where they had spent the night on the eve of
their attack against the Demon Lord, should have been on the other
side.
"It's one of those, then. The last village before the Demon Lord's castle! Totally self-sufficient, they have little communication with other villages, are quite hospitable to travelers, and they even have
the custom of providing warm bodies to spend the night with—"
Hanakawa stopped as a woman's scream split the air. "Hmm! I am feeling the premonitions of an event of some sort!"
He saw a young woman running down a nearby path. "Pray tell, what is the matter?"
"Th-There's a boar! You must run away!"
"Heh heh. Please, stay behind me!"
Something as simple as a boar would be no issue for him. Although his class was "Healer,"
it wasn't like he was helpless in combat. He
could fire magical bullets from his fingers.
They only had the strength of a handgun, but that was more than enough for wild animals.
"A simple boar is no... What?!"
The ground shook beneath him. The boar showed its face, but something was wrong.
"It seems like my sense of distance is a little off..." Hanakawa looked up at the creature whose head was well above him. "Is that really
just a boar?!"
He immediately used his Discernment Skill, but there was no sign of the Gift.
It appeared to be an ordinary wild animal, though its size alone was a significant threat.
Hanakawa's method would have been
akin to attacking it with a peashooter.
"Uhh, what do I do now? Ah, maybe I have an item for this!" He retrieved a staff from his Item Box.
Though it was a one-shot expendable tool, it allowed him to use a preset magic spell.
"Wind Cutter!" He waved the staff.
A blade of wind shot forth from its head, striking the massive beast dead-on.
The blade split the animal cleanly in half
from head to rear, passing straight through it.
"Ha! No matter how large, an animal is just an animal! Before the intellect of man—err, before magic, they are as nothing!"
The boar had been cleaved in two. But it didn't fall over.
Normally, one would expect the animal to be dead by now, but the bisected
body instead began to stitch itself back together, countless black threads shooting out to connect the two halves, which reconnected with a squelch.
Though there were still traces of injury where it had been cut, the boar seemed more or less back to normal.
"What the hell is that?!"
"You have to destroy the heart."
The voice came from the direction of the monstrous creature.
A young man shining with a golden aura had stuck his hand into the
beast's abdomen.
As he pulled his hand back out and watched the animal collapse to the ground, the girl that Hanakawa had been protecting ran to the newcomer with a cry.
"Don't you think it's a bit too dangerous to be walking around the forest alone, Yuu?" he scolded her.
"But mother said we needed more mushrooms."
"You should have just told me. Ah, thank you for helping my sister."
"Oh, well, uhh...did I really help much at all?"
"Yeah. At the rate it was going, I wouldn't have made it in time. Are you from the city? The boars around here are quite ferocious, so I
can imagine your surprise."
"Ah, ferocious..." He laughed awkwardly. "Yeah, I'm not sure that quite covers it..."
Something still felt wrong.
While the monsters did indeed seem to be
gone from the region, if the wild animals were this dangerous, it seemed unlikely that humans could survive here.
The last time Hanakawa had been in the village, the locals had only been around level ten at the most.
There was no way people at such low levels
could handle enemies like this.
Hanakawa used his Discernment Skill on the boy and immediately sputtered in shock.
His class was Villager, but his level was fifty
thousand.
"Wh-What is going on?! Wouldn't he be strong enough to defeat the Demon Lord on his own at this level?!"
The aura surrounding the boy abruptly disappeared, and his level immediately dropped down to five.
"By Demon Lord, you mean the guy with weird clothes living in the castle nearby, right?"
"Hm? Is that how you see him?"
"Actually, you seem familiar. Have you been here before?"
"My name is Daimon Hanakawa. I was once sent here to defeat the Demon Lord."
"Huh? Did he do something bad?"
"I suppose so. He was probably in the wrong; however, I was but an underling, so I am unaware of the details."
The perspectives of the Kingdom of Iman and the people of this country seemed to be quite
different, but figuring all that out was too much to bother with, so he offered a simple lie instead.
"I see. My name is Ragna. What brings you here, Hanakawa?"
"I was hoping to visit your village, but would that be unwelcome?"
"Not at all! We love visitors!"
And so Hanakawa had safely reached his destination.
◇ ◇ ◇
Hanakawa had received a warm reception at the village.
He'd enjoyed the singing and dancing, gorged himself on delicious foods,
and relaxed in a luxurious bath.
Then night fell. In the room they had set aside for him, he'd waited nervously on the bed.
"No, no, no, this has got to be it! They were so persistent in asking what kinds of girls I like!"
Someone would surely be coming to his room.
"Ah, I was too indecisive. I couldn't decide, so I just said I'd leave it up to them!"
He had no idea who they would send until she or they actually arrived, which only served to stoke his nerves.
"Well, there were plenty of high-quality options, so anyone is welcome! Actually, if they send some older woman, then... But
leaving it up to someone more experienced for my first time doesn't sound too bad... What a decision! Well, I did say I'd leave it up to
them, so I guess it's not my decision to make anymore."
Perhaps because of his nerves, he was getting increasingly high-strung, fidgeting and rolling restlessly around on the bed.
He wasn't sure how long it went on for, but just as he was beginning to grow impatient, a knock sounded at the door.
"Finally, they have arrived! Here comes my debut as a man!" His chest swelled with anticipation as he grabbed the doorknob.
And it grabbed him back.
"What?" He was holding hands with the door. Where a doorknob should have
been was now a person's hand.
As he stared at it dumbly, more hands began to sprout from all over the door, grabbing him.
"Wait! This isn't the kind of foreplay I was looking for!"
The door burst open, throwing him across the room.
Hitting the wall, he fell to the floor and looked up, moaning in pain.
"Wh-Why are you here?" He recognized the people standing there.
They were his classmates; three who had disappeared the moment they had reached the first city on their travels.
"Hah! Piggy really is here." It was the Creator, Akinobu Marufuji.
"I guess he is. But do we actually need him?" The Femme Fatale, Rei Kushima.
"He's useless as a human, but we need to trigger the flag for being friends with the hero." The Master Oracle, Shigehito Mitadera.
Oh, these guys are lethal, Hanakawa thought. Reviewing their Gifts with his Discernment Skill, he was quickly overcome by an
inescapable feeling of dread.