Chapter 1:
A Pure Heart and My Conflicted Emotions
WE ENDED UP at a hotel. Our destination was still a fair distance away, so we had no choice. Hokkaido was a large prefecture.
Realizing there was a blizzard incoming, we chose the closest place we could. These conditions were too dangerous to travel in.
Instantly, we ran into a problem. The room we booked was large, but it was intended for a family of four. There were only two double beds between me, Carol, Sewatari, Nattyan, and Destiny.
“Maybe we should’ve booked two rooms,” I said, pushing a chair into the corner of the room and sitting down.
The four of them were sprawled out across the beds, chatting away, Destiny included. They all turned to stare at me.
“You’re still going on about that? We agreed it’s safer not to split up. Cheaper, too,” said Sewatari.
“It’s fun to be with everyone!” Carol said.
“Don’t tell me you’re thinkin’ impure thoughts, Yoshiocchi?”
The girls were ganging up on me, dismissing my discomfort. At least Carol wouldn’t understand what Nattyan was getting at.
Destiny! Don’t just shrug! Why do you look so disappointed in me? Listen, it’s not like I’m scared or anything!
I knew full well that there might be corrupted god players coming after us at this very moment. We couldn’t be too cautious. Sewatari didn’t need to point out the safety issue to me. It wouldn’t be easy to chase us down in this blizzard, but we didn’t know what powerful miracles they had at their disposal. They might have the ability to control weather, like I did, or some other method to get through the storm.
I was just concerned about a man sharing a room with two women. Not that I planned to do anything weird—I did have some level of self-restraint. I was honestly more worried about Sewatari, who was hugging Carol with a weird smile on her face.
“You just want to stay in the same room as Carol, don’t you?” I asked.
“Yep!” she responded with an angelic smile.
I would pull Carol away if she looked uncomfortable, but she was smiling, too. Besides, Sewatari wouldn’t try anything with Nattyan watching, would she?
“Shall we go take a bath? They have a huge public one here!”
“A huge bath? Yay! Let’s go! Come on, Seri! Nattyan!”
“I’ll wash you. Okay, Carol-chan? Senpai’s not allowed.”
“Why not?!”
The three of them gathered a change of clothes and left for the bath. I accompanied them halfway, before making my way to the men’s bath.
I ducked under the cloth marking the male baths and walked into the empty changing room. Either it was a little early in the evening for bathing or this place didn’t have many bookings.
“The girls are probably having fun without me.” Alone, I spoke aloud out of habit.
I unzipped my bag with my change of clothes, and Destiny poked its head out of the gap. I’d thought about leaving it and the book in our room, but that didn’t seem safe. Besides, Destiny could protect me if something happened.
“Wait in the locker for me, okay? I won’t lock it. If something happens, make lots of noise to warn me.” I scratched its chin as I spoke.
Destiny stared back with its large eyes, then nodded slowly. I felt much safer with my guard lizard around.
I closed the locker and opened the glass screen to the bath. The steam hit me all at once, enveloping my body. The showers and the bath itself were so huge, I felt self-conscious having them all to myself. I rinsed off before heading into the water.
“The heat really does melt away exhaustion, huh?” My body and mind were so tired that it felt even better than it normally would. I could’ve stayed for ages, but I didn’t want to leave Destiny hanging around in that locker for too long. “It can’t hurt to take a little time, though.”
I tried to space out, but my brain refused to let me, spinning in circles. Thoughts of Habatake and the punk. Thoughts of Sewatari and Nattyan.
I knew Habatake and his group were bad news, and I was pretty sure Sewatari and Nattyan were the good guys. It was possible they’d end up betraying me, but I doubted it. What would be in it for them? They could have easily jumped in and taken Carol and the book outside the station without pretending to defend me. No, they were definitely my allies. Sewatari made me feel…safe, for some reason.
Despite that, I was keeping my guard up. I’d used the book to watch the two women earlier when they’d left me and Carol, but they didn’t do anything suspicious. I wouldn’t be so paranoid if it were just me at risk, but this involved Carol, Destiny, and even the other villagers. I couldn’t leave room for mistakes.
I sank down into the water until it was up to my chin and stared at the ceiling. “Maybe if I were smarter, I could come up with some kinda plan.”
Before I got my hands on The Village of Fate, I’d never used brainpower on anything more intricate than beating a video game. I’d squandered my days without bothering to accrue knowledge or connect with reality. I must have done more thinking in these past couple of months than the rest of the decade combined.
“Thinking sure is tiring, huh?” I asked the golden lizard that was swimming around in the bath in front of me, its tail waving through the—“Wait, what the heck are you doing here?!”
It was supposed to be in the locker!
Flustered, I glanced around, but there was no one else here. God, imagine if one of the other guests saw a huge lizard in the public baths. I jumped out of the water, grabbed a bucket, and tossed Destiny inside.
“Why did you come out here? I thought I told you to stay in the locker!” I glared down at it. Destiny blinked up at me and poked its tongue out innocently.
“Nope, you’re not getting out of this by acting like a regular lizard!” I sighed. “Okay, I’m sorry. I guess you wanted to come too, huh?”
I couldn’t stay mad when it looked at me like that. I mean, I did leave it in a locker while I went to enjoy a nice warm bath all by myself.
“All right. You can hang out with me, but we gotta leave as soon as someone else comes in, okay?” I stroked Destiny’s head gently, its eyes narrowing in pleasure. There was no way it couldn’t understand what I was saying.
I decided we’d only bathe for a few more minutes. I didn’t want to leave the girls waiting for me. Once we were done, I put Destiny back into the bucket. The changing room was still empty, and when I checked our locker, I found that it was frozen shut.
“Oh, that was smart,” I said to Destiny. “Good work.”
Destiny had ensured the holy book and the rest of our stuff would be safe. I dried the both of us off quickly before putting it back into my bag. It would be uncomfortably humid in there since Destiny just got out of the bath, but this was the only real option.
We left the baths and sat down on a bench to wait for the girls. They must have still been bathing. With nothing else to do, I pulled out my phone and clicked on the Village of Fate app. It opened on the area around the baths from a bird’s eye view.
“Seeing into buildings like this shouldn’t be possible with our current technology.”
Same with the game’s characters. They were supposed to be powered by a high-performance A.I., but I found that hard to believe. I mean, I’d had doubts from the beginning, but now there was no other explanation. Still, that meant the game was linked to another world, and…well, that didn’t seem likely either.
As I fiddled with the app, I realized that this phone could look into buildings, and at the moment, it was showing me right outside the bathhouse. If I zoomed in…I could see into the baths themselves, right?
I needed to know Carol was safe, after all.
“Kidding. I would never do something so sleazy.”
“What’s sleazy?” a voice whispered in my ear.
“Gah!” I leapt to my feet.
There stood the girls, their cheeks flushed.
How long have they been there?!
“Here.” Sewatari passed me a cold bottled drink.
I took it gratefully; I was parched after the bath. I drank, trying to wash away my indecent thoughts.
All three of them were in the yukata provided by the hotel. The outfit suited Sewatari particularly well. Her beauty was enhanced by the traditional clothing. Nattyan looked like…a high schooler going to a festival. All she needed was cotton candy in one hand and some dried squid in the other. Carol simply looked like a tourist, but the way her blonde hair clashed with the yukata just made her cuter.
Apparently the three of them were hitting it off.
“You looked kind of anxious there.” said Sewatari. “Don’t be. There’s not much point worrying about the game anymore. You need to speak to the developers directly. It won’t be long now.”
“Yup!” Nattyan agreed. “No point in stressin’ at the moment.”
“Yeah, take it easy.”