“Shut up. Your face is too loud. What is it, an ad for pissing people off? Which podunk shit-storing school taught you your sense of ethics? Are you truly too twisted to understand other people’s feelings? Even Masamune Okazaki couldn’t fix you. I’m busy looking for you, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Have some grass for supper tonight. Goodbye.”
“You could probably fill a dictionary with all the foul words you know. If things were normal, I would have given you lessons to make you worship me, but I’ll let you off the hook today, since I’m feeling like I’m going to cry.”
I parted with Snow—and got a dropkick from behind.
“You aren’t holding back at all!!”
I slid onto the ground with a thud.
She flipped me over in the blink of an eye, and then she straddled me across my stomach.
With tears in her eyes, she grabbed me by the collar and pulled.
“You unbelievable jerk! At least call me if you’re alive!! You can die, for all I care. Die. Die! Die!!!”
“I’m sorry! Forgive me! I didn’t realize you were that worried about me! I was dying, and I couldn’t contact you! Please don’t punch me! No establishing a plastic surgery clinic for the aftermath! Have mercy on me!”
Thud, thud, thud. After hitting me to her heart’s content, she plopped down on my chest and sobbed.
“You jerk…die… Go to hell…!!”
“Sorry, I failed to do that. I apologize for not meeting your expectations. Next time, I’ll do my best to do better.”
“Jerk! Don’t die!! But die! No, don’t.” (Thud!) “Die.” (Whack!) “Die.” (Slam!) “Don’t die!” (Bam!)
It was the ultimate in being unreasonable, and she came at me full force. Wham!
Several minutes later, Snow calmed down, and we sat next to each other on a park bench.
“Um… Would you mind letting go of the hem of my shirt…? I’d like to have a bottle of uncarbonated cola to celebrate not dying.”
“…You’ll take off somewhere again if I let go, won’t you?”
“No, I won’t. I have no place to die, and I have no place to go.”
Sniffling noisily, Snow held the hem of my shirt tightly and wouldn’t let go.
Left with no other choice, I headed for a vending machine, accompanied by my servant.
“Snow, what do you want to drink? A noncarbonated cola?”
“…Green tea.”
“Okay. Noncarbonated cola it is.”
“I said ‘green tea,’ didn’t I? Do you have a built-in noise canceler on your eardrums?”
I pulled the uncarbonated cola from the machine and was dismayed by what had happened.
“What’s going on with my body…? Have the aftereffects of that battle to the death left me incapable of telling the difference between tea leaves and cola…?”
“I doubt that the aftereffects have anything to do with this. Never mind. You drink that. Now, hit the button for green tea.”
“Okay.” And I hit the one for noncarbonated cola again.
“I’m going to kill you.”
Come to think of it, I was a zero-scorer and was only allowed to buy noncarbonated cola. So you could say that this wasn’t my fault. It was part of the government’s oppression.
We took our drinks in hand and sat back down on a bench.
“So what happened at your orientation camp?”
I couldn’t hide the facts after all the worrying I put her through.
I explained the details to Snow, leaving out the part about choosing to die with the enemy in an explosion. She held tightly to the aluminum bottle in her hand, looking unusually solemn. She nodded and then opened her mouth.
“…So another new woman appeared on the scene…?”
“Are you kidding? Is that how you’re going to sum up my fight for life?”
“I’m just joking. First, we need to make a plan for the future. I didn’t expect you to come back so easily, so my mind is in a state of confusion… But let’s go back to Miss Rei and the others in a way that will cause them the least shock.”
“Huh? Why? Isn’t it enough to go home and say Hey, I’m back?”
Snow let out a deep sigh.
“Master, your outlook is unbelievably naive. Naive like an infant, and the girls will flock to you, going on about how sweet you are.”
“Hey, Snow. Isn’t that going a little too far? I mean, this playboy was only gone for two weeks. Couldn’t we say I was holing up with some girl?”
“Did your mother give birth to you without providing you with objectivity? You’re a love-hunting beast who does whatever the heck he wants, making every girl he meets along the way fall for him.”
Snow explained my current situation in an admonishing manner.
It appeared that Rei believed the Sanjo family had been the cause of my disappearance.
Putting on her iron mask, she took full advantage of her position as successor to the family fortune to hunt down the members of the clan, who were so terrified that they couldn’t sleep at night.
“It’s like a gang war. For the past two weeks, I’ve been standing next to an expressionless Miss Rei, witnessing how ugly humans can be and the horrific state of people who have gained power. Miss Rei has become unrestrained, and she’s running amok. The Sanjo family will collapse from its very foundation if we don’t stop her soon.”
Hearing the unexpected, I froze. Then she told me something I could hardly believe.
“Lapis has returned to Alfheim—the Land of the Elves.”
“Huh? Well, of course, she’d go back now and then, since that’s where she’s from.”
“Has your brain gone back to Neverland? I’m saying she won’t ever return to this world again. She swore she’d never come to Japan again, since it would remind you of you. Without a doubt, your disappearance was what made her a reclusive princess.”
Cold sweat slowly trickled down my forehead.
“What about my master, Astemir, and Tsukiori? They’re getting along well, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are. They’ve teamed up and have been attacking every branch of the demonic religion. They’re taking out their resentment on them, and I can’t bear to watch.”
Oh no… I went ahead and died casually, then came back from the dead, and now the present world had become more of a hell. The game scenario had been destroyed and was no longer in its original form. I had to fix it soon, or I wouldn’t be able to even think about yuri girls anymore. The heroines were doing slash-and-burn farming in a beautiful yuri garden that I’d worked so hard to create.
“S-Snow, I need to talk to you about something.”
“No can do. You’re thinking of giving the girls proof that you’re alive and then disappearing again, aren’t you? I wouldn’t mind that, but they’ll come looking for you to the farthest reaches of this world.”
“All I wanted was to be their friend,” I said with resignation.
In despair, I told Snow I had to use the restroom… Then I put a little distance between us, sat on the edge of the fountain, and held my head.
Wh-what should I do? If I told Rei and the others that I was still alive, I had a feeling my likability would mysteriously be boosted, and things would get out of hand. It appeared that a suicide or disappearance might disrupt the flow of the game scenario, so those weren’t options I could casually choose.
I couldn’t run away, but neither could I face the situation head-on.
I was at a dead end—
“You seem troubled, Hiiro Sanjo.”
I looked up quickly.
A brown trench coat was swaying in the wind.
Behind the glowing red tip of a toy cigarette were green eyeballs, glowing brightly.
“I could save you from your predicament.”
The demon I was supposed to have killed—Alsuhariya—laughed.
“What would you do—?”
“Die.” I launched my projectile.
“You would do that, wouldn’t you?” It was a direct hit.
The Masamune Kuki I threw at Alsuhariya hit her, and she fell back with great force—and the tip of the sword I’d thrown was stuck in the ground.
“Hey, you’re even more of a savage now when this is our first reunion in two weeks.”
Her whole body was transparent.
The Masamune Kuki I’d thrown at her had passed right through her.
She had fallen at the same time I had thrown it, so it had looked like it had stabbed her…but she had no substance.
“How come you’re back? And aren’t you kind of small?”
Alsuhariya had shrunk to about fifty-five inches—four foot seven—and had a childish face and spoke with a lisp.
“Hey, whose fault do you think that is? Anyway, you have other things to worry about—stop that.” (Hiiro hits her.) “Don’t punch me.” (He hits her again.) “Stop beating up a person with a kid’s face.” (And another hit.) “Don’t beat me to a pulp.” (He hits her four, five, six, and seven times.)
But no damage had been done.
I stared at Alsuhariya’s face, which remained untouched. Not even deformed in the slightest.
“So, what am I looking at, exactly? An echo of a piece of filth…?”
“It’s your mouth that’s filthy. Control that foul mouth of yours and go gargle with an air freshener. Listen to me, and I’ll explain everything.”
“Master? Are you fooling around on the street again?” Snow asked suspiciously as she came back, perhaps worried that I hadn’t gone back to her.
“Snow! Stay away!! Alsuhariya’s back—!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Snow stared at the spot where I pointed and tilted her head in question.
“What are you mumbling to yourself about?”
“Huh…?”