Today, I went out for another walk to get familiar with the area.
“Hmm... I think I’ve gotten the basics down.”
Thanks to all the wandering I’d been doing, I had at least learned the layout of the neighborhood where I was staying.
As I continued walking, I spotted a group in the distance. Three men were surrounding a single woman. By the look of them, they were total punks.
“Let’s just listen first, just in case.”
If they only looked like thugs but were actually asking for directions or something, they might be decent people. I quietly moved closer to eavesdrop.
“Hey, lady. Why don't you come hang out with us?”
“My, are you all after my body~?”
“You bet we are!”
Yeah. No doubt about it. These bastards were definitely punks.
Clack! Clack!
As I stepped forward wearing the high-grade knight set I always used, the metal rang out. Before long, I arrived in front of the girl and the thugs.
“Huh? What’s this? Armor?”
“Wow, there’s actually someone walking around in something like that in this world?”
“Hey, why don’t you just keep walking?”
Each punk reacted differently. I ignored them and walked up to the woman.
“Miss. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“Yes, I am a little troubled~”
After hearing her answer, I covered her eyes with one hand.
“Oh my~ What are you doing?”
“Pardon me. Please wait a moment.”
With that, I extended my other hand toward the punks.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“We were the ones hitting on her first! Get lost!”
“If you leave now, I won’t do anything, so you’d better just go.”
They still seemed to think they had the upper hand. For reference, the hand I’d extended was holding a talisman. What did that mean?
Boom!
“Gaaah! My eyes!!”
“My eyes! My eyes!”
“You bastard!!!”
What else? It was [Force], compressed as much as possible. Small, but blindingly bright.
“What on earth did you do?”
“It’s a secret. Now then, excuse me for a moment.”
“Eek! What are you doing?!”
To get away from those punks quickly, I scooped the girl up in a princess carry and ran.
“Hmm. This should be far enough.”
“Really, you suddenly picked me up, so I was startled.”
The girl said that, but she didn’t look startled at all. Still, since she claimed so, I decided to believe her.
“Haha, well, I do apologize for that.”
When I gave an awkward laugh, the girl let out a small sigh, thanked me for helping her, and then went off in her own direction.
“Man, but her eyes were really...”
I muttered while looking at the spot where she’d vanished. Her gaze had been awfully greedy—like she was looking at me as if I were some delicious piece of prey.
“I keep meeting weird people these days.”
Anyway, I started walking again to continue my original goal of taking a stroll.
Wiiiing!
A siren blared.
“What?”
Looking around, I saw people evacuating in all directions, and the speakers were announcing a spacequake warning.
“Spacequake? A spacequake... huh?”
The term felt familiar, so I thought about it for a moment. Then I remembered a conversation I’d had with a friend.
“Hey, hey. There’s this anime I’ve been watching lately, and it’s pretty fun.”
“Yeah. What is it, you damn otaku?”
“It’s called [Date A Live]. The main character builds a harem of spirits.”
“Oh, wow. You really are a total fucking otaku.”
“The crazy part is that when those spirits appear in the real world, they cause a natural disaster called a spacequake.”
Hmm. So this was it. In other words, I’d fallen into Dark Souls, finally cleared it, and now I’d ended up in [Date A Live]?
“Haha, fuck. Is this really happening?”
I suddenly felt like crying my eyes out. Thinking about it, everything had been weird. Those women in futuristic armor. The fact that they’d called me a spirit. The pit I’d woken up in. It was all just like the spacequakes from that anime my friend had recommended.
“At this point, isn’t that bastard the mastermind?”
I talked about Dark Souls with that friend, and I got dropped into Dark Souls. Now I’d ended up in the [Date A Live] world he’d been rambling about. It was enough to make me suspect that friend of being the hidden culprit who’d dumped me into another world.
“Sigh... What kind of mess is this? All because I made friends with the wrong guy.”
Honestly, I didn’t know if my friend was really the problem, but I decided to think of it that way for now. It made me feel a little better.
“Huh? The fuck is that?”
While I was lost in thought and neglecting to evacuate, a boy was loitering near me. He seemed to be shouting something in a hurry, perhaps looking for someone. Since my friend had described the spacequake as a “natural disaster,” it was obviously dangerous. I was just about to tell the boy to evacuate when—
Kwaaaang!
A massive explosion rang out, and my body was torn apart.
******
Itsuka Shido was searching around near the family restaurant where he’d promised to meet his little sister.
“Kotori! Kotori!”
He kept calling his sister’s name, but there was no answer. Still, he didn’t give up hope and kept looking around.
“Agh!”
Then, all of a sudden, space warped in front of him, and a huge crater appeared as ash scattered through the air.
“What...?”
He couldn’t understand what had just happened. As he stared at the center of the crater, he saw a girl standing there with one foot resting on what looked like a throne made of a giant sword, staring back at him.
“What is she doing...?”
Then the girl suddenly pulled a handle attached to the throne and swung the giant sword toward him. Purple sword energy burst from the blade and passed right by Itsuka Shido.
Kragagagak! Boom!
“Hiiik!”
“You too...?”
Startled by the voice right in front of him, Shido opened his eyes and saw the girl who had just fired the sword energy now pointing the giant sword at him.
“You’re here to kill me too?”
Thud!
Shido fell backward in shock at the blade aimed at his face. The girl standing before him kept her sword pointed at him as she asked whether he’d come to kill her.
“If you’re here to kill me too, then I’ll take care of you right away.”
“W-wait! Hold on! What are you talking about?”
Shido couldn’t understand why she kept asking if he’d come to kill her.
“K-kill you? First of all, who are you?”
At Shido’s question, the girl narrowed her brows for a moment, then turned around.
Fwoooosh
Behind her, he saw countless missiles flying toward her.
“Hyaaaah!!!”
“Why do they never learn that this won’t work?”
As the girl held out her hand and deployed a purple barrier, every missile was blocked. Then she flew into the air and swung her sword, slicing through the missiles as they came in again and blowing them all up midair.
When the girl had cut down all the missiles and landed on the ground, a voice came from near Shido.
“Damn it, how many times do I have to die!”
The voice sounded extremely irritated. When he looked toward it, he saw a knight in armor.
“A knight?”
“There! Commander! The identification name [Knight] has appeared!”
“What?! [Princess] is already more than enough, and now [Knight] too? No, wait, didn’t we already kill it?!”
He heard the voices of women sounding flustered as they looked at the knight. But the knight shouted as if none of that mattered.
“You bastards!! This is your doing too, isn’t it!!!”
“That wasn’t us—”
“—No questions asked!!! Kieeeek!!!!”
Ignoring the woman trying to explain, the knight let out a shriek and released something from his hand.
Boom!
“Gah! My eyes!!!”
“Commander! It’s ‘that attack’!”
“All units! Watch out for that shockwave!!!”
Everyone hit by the knight’s shockwave clutched their eyes and writhed in pain.
“You bastards!!! This is revenge for my neck getting blown off last time!!!”
The knight kept throwing punches and releasing shockwaves. But the AST members, already used to it, dodged every attack and closed in on him.
“I’ve been waiting for this! Conqueror’s Haki!!! (Not really)”
With those strange words, the knight’s body flashed for a moment, then burst with an enormous shockwave of light that swept through the area.
And when the light gradually faded, the boy the knight had seen was gone, as was the girl Itsuka Shido had seen. Only the knight and the AST members remained.
“Confirmed: [Princess] has been lost! Engage the remaining [Knight]!”
“I’m telling you, I’m not a spirit, you bastards!!!!”
The knight wailed in injustice. And watching it all was another figure.
“Kihihit. As expected, Mr. Knight is definitely a spirit~”
The black-haired girl muttered before disappearing into the shadows.
“Phew, finally got away.”
Only after using the magic [Invisible Body] was the knight able to shake off the AST’s pursuit.
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