It appeared that the henchman had been pondering the same thing. He seemed to be performing a peculiar dance, juggling fruit in both arms. What a joyous scene.
“I am eating. Can you not fill your stomach quietly?” the elderly knight grumbled.
In contrast to his verbiage, he was currently soaking in a bathtub while devouring two armfuls of fruit. Had there been a need to keep watch, I would have thought his energies were best applied in that direction, but we knew already that this island was devoid of any dangerous beasts or other threats.
That was when the princess stopped in her tracks just ahead of me. She seemed flustered and startled.
“Did something happen?” I asked.
She was peering at something beyond the rocks, red-faced. When I followed her gaze, I found the beastmaster and the bandit staring at each other in an altogether ardent fashion.
The princess and I gasped at the sight of them mouth-to-mouth. I’d had no inkling that they were in that sort of relationship.
“Hey, Princess Io! Sir Masa! Were you peekin’?” the bandit demanded.
“Not at all!” the princess insisted. “I may have accidentally intruded upon your intimate moment, but I had no intention of interfering.”
The beastmaster laughed. “You look like a boiled octopus, Your Highness. Was that too stimulating for you?”
The princess’s cheeks were red, and she appeared to be terribly shaken. In that regard, I was much the same.
“Prithee! Do you mean to say you’ve previously partaken in osculation? And by osculation, I refer to the act between lovers…”
The bandit scowled. “It’s not like it’s my first time or nothin’. I’ve been doin’ it for ages…”
“I see,” I said. “You have already locked lips with her…”
“So you are lovers, then,” said the princess hesitantly.
“I’ve always been kind of a bullish woman, though, so I told him to give up on me,” the beastmaster insisted.
“That side of you adds to your charm as a woman,” said the bandit. “’Sides, you’ve always had a pretty face.”
“Keep sweet-talking like that, and I might just fall for you.” The beastmaster scratched her beet-red cheeks, the signifier of a maiden in love. It all but seemed that the two were already deeply entwined, though they seemed far from the old married couple phase of a relationship.
“My knight, I wish to share a kiss with you.”
The princess’s hallowed face steadily grew larger within my vision. I had to stop her. But why? I could entrust my body to her. Yes, because I too desired—
“Hm? Sir Knight, look over there!”
My squire had arrived at the scene while I was unawares. When I turned my gaze to where he pointed slightly yonder, I observed a hooded girl looking down upon us from atop the hill.
“It is time to wake from your dream, all of you…” Munch, munch. “Shucks, this doesn’t taste of anything. Maybe it’s ’cause I know this is a dream…”
As she spoke, the girl demolished the fruit in her path at a most alarming speed. I had thought the fruit limitless, but there was an almost dreamlike quality in seeing it all disappear in rapid succession. Hmm? A “dream”?
“You speak of waking? You refer to us?!”
I certainly felt awake. Yet the girl’s words inspired a peculiar fretfulness within me.
“Remember…” Munch, munch. “Uh, what was the line again? Right, what exactly did you come here to search for?”
Ah, but of course! I was the princess’s knight, not her lover. My duty was to return the princess to where she needed to be. This was not our final destination. In the beginning, we only stayed at this island as a temporary lodging while we gathered materials to repair the ship.
“Now wake up! You must be hungry in reality!” yelled the girl as she bit down on the final piece of fruit.
Munch, munch.
And with that, everything abruptly turned black.
When next I opened my eyes, my body was thoroughly entangled in vines. Upon closer inspection, I saw my companions were rousing and in much the same state. Everyone appeared slightly emaciated.
“So we were under an illusion, hmm? I suspect it happened the moment we first ate the fruit. This island entraps its visitors by showing them a paradise, then devours them. In that case, I would hazard a guess that we are currently in the stomach of the island itself.”
The elderly knight’s analysis sent a chill down my spine. To think that the island was preying on us while we were caught in a delusion…
Side. S
Phew, I thought. I was relieved to see that everything had worked out fine this time.
“By the way,” said Karane-san, “how do we wake up Kurumi?”
“Got a feeling she’ll wake if we stuff random food into her mouth, aye,” said Kusuri-senpai.
“Would Mommy’s milkers do?” asked Hahari-san.
“If you’re prepared for her to cut all ties with you the moment she wakes up, then by all means, be my guest,” said Hakari-san.
“Perhaps she will appreciate some Hanazono Company mayonnaise?” Mei-san suggested.
Wrapped in a futon, the sleeping Kurumi-san made some animalistic sniffing noises. Then she opened her mouth wide and practically inhaled the mayonnaise.
“Yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” she squealed, her eyes springing open to reveal throbbing hearts.
“The most efficient means of rousing her,” Nano-san commented.
At last, Kurumi-san was awake like the rest of us, safe and sound. Indeed, she had played the role of stirring the characters from their dream by jumping into the island’s clutches herself.
Let us turn back the clock once again.
We had come to this island via a boat prepared by Hahari-san.
“I’d heard about this event in the story, so I bought a boat with Hanazono Company funds,” she said.
“Because of your astute leadership, the company is now capable of purchasing dozens of ships,” Mei-san declared.
“Yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
Sir Kamakuru and the others had already embarked on their journey to the dreamworld. We were there to watch over them.
“How’d your business turn into a massive conglomerate already?” asked Karane-san, somewhat exasperatedly.
“She’s resourceful at making money. That much I’ll give her credit for,” said Hakari-san.
“One ought to separate competence from personality,” Nano-san commented.
“Kusuri hears plenty of businesspeople are wackos, aye,” said Kusuri-senpai.
“Yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
In the original story, a hermit had landed on the island. Out of concern for the emaciated knight and his group, he delved into the dreamworld and stirred the captives awake by making all the fruit rot. Unfortunately, we had interfered with the plot quite significantly by this point. If nobody else came to the island, then it would be up to us.
“Yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
By the way, what on earth had Kurumi-san been up to all this time?
“Yummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
I turned to her, and my eyes widened in shock. She was devouring fruit by the fistful.
“What?” Kurumi-san noticed my reaction. “The fruit I’m not supposed to eat is this one, right?”
She pointed to the fruit which Sir Kamakuru and his group were eating.
Yes, she was eating a different variety of fruit, but that was the problem. It was supposed to be eaten by the hermit. This was the sole fruit on the island, the one which made the eater retain their lucidity when they entered the illusionary world. Unfortunately, I had been a step behind in explaining this.
“N-not to worry! I’ll just go in his place! I gotta watch the timing and wake everyone up when I’m supposed to, right? That’s it?”
True, it was technically possible to resolve the inconsistency that way, but something struck me as off. The way the original story was written, you were supposed to enter the dreamworld immediately after eating the fruit.
“H-hey, I’m not sleepy at all.” Kurumi-san threw herself down on the ground in a panic. “Will it work if you force me to sleep?”
“Hmm.” Kusuri-senpai put a hand on her chin in thought. “You’ve all built up a resistance to hallucinogens from constant exposure to Kusuri’s medicine. Nothing this weak will work on you, aye. I don’t think you’ll enter the dreamworld, even if you fall asleep right now.”
“When the heck did our bodies get accustomed to that?!” Karane-san yelled.
“N-no way!” Kurumi was aghast. “That means none of us can go help in the dreamworld!”
“Hm? Kusuri didn’t say that,” Kusuri-senpai said nonchalantly, although I could not fathom what she was talking about. “Kusuri will make medicine that steamrolls the resistance and sends you straight to dreamworld, aye!” she declared firmly, a bright smile on her face. She was the very picture of a reliable chemistry club leader.
Nevertheless, I had to admit—as shameful as this thought was, considering I was relying on her help—I had my concerns. Would her medicine be okay? From an, erm, literary perspective…
“Aye, it’s done!”
After I finished schooling Kurumi-san on the corresponding lines of the story, Kusuri-senpai’s voice rang out.
“Nullify Resistance to Kusuri’s Medicine Medicine!”
“That’s what you’re going with?!” Karane-san and Kurumi-san shouted in unison.
“Eh? What did you think it would be?”
“Er, well, I totally thought you’d made a medicine that would send someone directly to the dreamworld.”
“Unfortunately, Kusuri’s not good enough to make medicine like that at the moment…”
“In that case, it would be appropriate to describe it as a medicine that steamrolls resistances and sends you straight to the dreamworld,” Nano remarked coolly.
“W-well, anyway, I can go there if I take this, right?” Kurumi asked Kusuri-senpai carefully.
“Without your resistance, fruit should have regular effect, aye!”
Fortunately, it looked like the story would get back on the rails.
“Then I’ll give it a shot.”
No sooner had the drug passed her lips than Kurumi-san plonked to the ground, fast asleep.
“You could sort our lives into a before and after our bodies got corrupted by drugs,” said Karane-san, wincing.
“Mei, get a futon and pillow for Kurumi-chan,” said Hahari-san.
“At once, my lady.”
Mei-san set up a futon and pillow and laid Kurumi-san on it. This was all well and good, but… Was it just my imagination that Kurumi-san’s sleeping face looked uncomfortable? Her stomach continued to rumble even as she slumbered.