“We put up signs in all the cafés: ‘Keep your tentacles, snakes, chickens, and lizards to yourself at all times.’”
“Excuse me? This smacks of oppression!”
Oh, maid cafés! What cruel temptresses ye be, even in fictional universes!
“Meanwhile, the idiots are back to their salacious gasp hand-holding… Psst, nerds! Have you had any luck in developing normie-exploding magic yet? I’m still on explosive grenades myself, and I haven’t had a chance to do a test run yet. Turns out, it’s hard to develop a weapon that targets the socially competent.”
“Bro, you are the last person who should be hating on a guy for getting some.”
“We take our eyes off you for one second, and you’ve bagged another hot chick.”
“You keep whining ‘that feeling when no gf’ while you’re swimming in concubines?!”
“First there’s that Saint girl, and then there’s the beastfolk twins. You’re lucky your anti-virgin grenades don’t blow your own head off!”
Huh. Lotta hot air in this carriage all of a sudden.
“No, you don’t get it. Imagine I ask out a girl, right. Then she looks behind me and sees three drop-dead gorgeous concubines trailing me. You think she’s going to give me the time of day? And you thought you had it rough!”
“I mean… Okay, that’s fair.”
“Kind of a depressing way to look at it, honestly.”
“Ain’t it, though? In my dreams, I’m walking arm-in-arm with a cute girl. But then there’s another girl hanging off the other arm, a second bearhugging my waist, and a third locking me down tighter than the police with a master criminal. I’m too busy being buried in six bountiful bosoms to focus on my date! I’m too trapped in triple titty-twins territory to pay attention to my girlfriend! Such is the bittersweet trouble of having your own private cheerleader trio.”
“Yeah, if we’re talking the three dungeon emperors…”
“It’s hard to imagine a girl who could compete with them for your attention.”
Right? That’s what I’ve been saying! Normal, non-isekai’d girls just couldn’t cut it. What girl in her right mind wouldn’t feel envy’s green sting comparing herself to my line-up of showstopping babes?
“And if I can’t even get a normal girlfriend, how am I supposed to ever get a hot girlfriend? Short of isekai’ing a manga artist into this world to make me a 2D girlfriend, I’m shit outta luck.”
The dungeon emperors were clearly out of my league. And who else was I to date? One of my female classmates? They were just as bad. If I wanted to shoot my shot, I’d have better luck shooting them than asking them out.
“Dude, you’re missing the point… You don’t need to look for a girlfriend anymore.”
“Man’s drowning in a lake and complaining of thirst… Well, he’s certainly not a normie. Normalcy gave up on Haruka long ago.”
“He claims he wants to play the G-rated route, and then he picks all the R-rated scene options.”
“Yeah, well… We’ve all done that.”
I couldn’t even shoot my shot. I was too busy being shot at in a dungeon emperor bullet hell.
“Well, forget games. This is more like a light novel plot point. I’m telling you, Haruka, I’m jealous of you.”
“Haruka’s trying to browse the tender romcom shelf and keeps getting pulled into the erotica aisle.”
“What about Haruka is tender? His Skills and equipment come straight out of the villain protag genre.”
“Yeah. He’s done for. He’s never gonna get a girlfriend.”
“Shut up! You’re gonna make me cry! I mean it!!! My chances of having a non-nonexistent sex appeal are about as high as my chances of having a non-nonexistent girlfriend! And if I don’t have sex appeal, then I’ll never get a girlfriend! That’s basic cause and effect! Or maybe quantum entanglement? Is my lack of sex appeal entangled with my lack of girlfriend? How come you wound up with girlfriends? How come you met their families and popped the question, huh? Huh??? If that isn’t being a normie, I don’t know what is. Explosions! Explosions for all of you!”
“Nothing you said is technically wrong, but it’s so bonkers I can’t keep up.”
Oh, mine was not a tale of tender hearts and intertwined hands! No, I was to suffer rubbed-tender parts and intertwined, iron-gripping legs—fighting in the trenches with three contentious wenches!
“If you’re already getting some, then what’s the problem? You’ve hit your end goal.”
“Did I? ’Cause I feel like the final boss keeled over when I was still on the character selection screen.”
“That’s called being a cheat character, bro.”
“No, that’s called bad video game design. No one downloads OP mods to get shot straight to the ending. What’s the point of playing if you can’t flaunt your OPness?”
Having had enough of these insipid love affairs dangled before my poor, virginal nose, I lobbed a prototype idiot-blaster grenade into the middle of the cramped carriage and made myself scarce. Issue was, the idiots ran too. The nerds threw themselves on the grenade in a panic, trying to stop the explosion, and then there was a great deal of fluster and bluster and also, strangely, mustard—and that was right when we caught up to the girls’ carriages.
Before we could say hi, the girls trooped out and tore me a new one. The dungeon emperors had snitched on me! Now everyone knew how I kiiiiiiiinda sorta maybe died a teensy-weensy bit in that last dungeon. The girls hauled me into their carriage for the lecture of a lifetime, and as we trundled off once more, I pleaded my case of innocence. Alas, even though I needed to make a pitstop at the pseudo-dungeon, I could not extricate myself from the lectures.
“Haruka-kun, why do you never stop to consider if something is even possible until after you’ve done it?”
“’Cause it was just a Vibration attack on overdrive, y’know? It was an accident with unintended consequences. Whoops?”
“He says like someone else did it.”
“It was you, Haruka-kun. You did it. You were caught in the act!”
“Willful negligence is his MO. But this? This is a step above that. This is willful accident-causing.”
“Objection, Your Honor. Willful negligence occurs when the accused is aware of the dangers of their actions and does them anyway. That’s what makes it a crime. But me? My willful accidents were committed with the purest of hearts. I was aware that my actions could be dangerous, but thinking too long about it was spooky, so I didn’t think at all, and then I caused my accidents. They’re accidents because I didn’t have absolute, 100% certainty my actions would be dangerous. Therefore, I didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m innocent of all charges!”
I did not intentionally commit an accident. In fact, I was very careful to disregard acknowledging the nature of the situation. I worked hard to go ‘la, la, la, not listening’ and carry on my merry, accident-sowing way. But for some baffling reason, this argument failed to impress the girls. In fact, it made them furious. Turned out they’d been told about the ring incident too. Fortunately, Horsey began his slow deceleration just about then. The end of the trip—and the lectures—was in sight!
“Damn, you lectured me all the way through the pseudo-dungeon tunnel? Talk about having tunnel vision.”
“Haruka-kun! Why! Do you not! Have any second thoughts! About nearly killing yourself?!!!”
Having (miraculously) survived the lecture to end all lectures, we pulled up alongside the city gates. My last chance to escape the sermon was here! I tossed souvenir beastfolk manju (which came in ten flavors, including two special secret types!) and cathedral of philosopher who-da-what’s-it goodies out the window to the cheering crowd, and then I leaped out after the confections. I tried to lose myself in the throng, but the instant I left the carriage, I was mobbed by a pack of flying orphans. I hadn’t been able to dodge the little ankle biters before my massive body breakdown, and I sure as heck couldn’t after. I’d waited a split second too long, torn between shoving my way through the masses and not knocking people on their asses, and then it was too late. I went down in a swarm of children.
“Aggh! You’re heavy! Get off!”
The unholy terrors had only gotten stronger and faster with more levels under their belt. They targeted me in my blind spots. They went for my legs in deadly low-altitude juvenile homing missile attacks. Fortunately, this was not my first rodeo. I was well-prepared to knock them out of the air with a special sonic frequency then swoop to safety. Aaaand… Oof! Well, this isn’t going to work.
“I’m glad the kids are growing up big and strong, but you, madam, are doing neither. Your growth is firmly localized to the stomach region. And you’re an iron weight! Get off, tiny tanuki! Plus, you came with me to the Theocracy! You do not need to welcome me home! Get on back to acting like one of the kids if you must—just don’t get on my back!”
The kids had all grown in the short time I’d been gone. They were higher level now, too. They had not, however, grown out of their child torpedo tendencies.
“You guys weigh too much! And you do not all need to pile on me at once! Hey—stop biting me, Tiny Tanuki!”
A chorus of chomping and “Welcome home!” followed me all the way to the inn.
“Heh heh heh! Why hello there, poor plebian Poster Girl. ’Tis I, Richy Rich McGee, here with a souvenir for you, if you could just—get off, you—move—ugh!—Poster Girl, could you give me a hand? Yeah, could you peel these orphans off for me? They are very heavy. Urgent evasive action is needed; we are currently experiencing a barrage of orphan glomp attacks from all sides; mayday, mayday; captain we are going down… Oof, you weigh a ton! Could you—urgh—Poster Girl, could you at least get the tiny tanuki off? She’s the heaviest of the bunch. Damn, girl, when did you put on so much we—” CHOMP, CHOMP “—YEEARGH! Yeeargh? Oh, here. Piping hot, freshly made souvenir for you. ’Cause I’m back? And stuff?”
Poster Girl ran up with tears in her eyes. Heh. She sure must have missed us.
“Welcome back,” she sniffled. “Your room is ready and waiting for you.”
But hey, for all those tears, she still had a smile ready. I ruffled her hair (trying to ignore the lead weight of half the town’s kids clinging to me). Poster Girl made no move to extricate me from my load, even though I’d given her a souvenir and everything. So, taking extra care not to hurt anyone, I Entangled myself together internally and attempted to lug the whole mass inside, child mountain and all. If I couldn’t manage to drag them into the inn, like heck was I gonna get them into the general store. And speaking of…oh phooey, we got stuck in the door frame. Huh, is that why that’s the name of this town? Oh phooey?