I was a step behind everyone else in fleeing, and the pervert walked up to me.
“All right!” it said. “First, I’m gonna take you hostage, moo!”
“What?”
This was my second time today glaring at someone. One look was enough to make the pervert flinch in fear.
“G-Glaring at me isn’t gonna do anything, moo!”
I glanced downward without a word. Its lower half was pretty pathetic compared to its muscular upper body.
“Your legs are trembling,” I said. “What are you? A newborn calf?”
“Wh-What? Why? I’m a modified kaijin, damn it! How am I getting humiliated by a commoner like you?!”
“Because you’re weak. Duh.”
“Y-You call me weak?!” the pervert spat with boiling rage.
It directed its unbridled hostility at me, which told me it wasn’t actually part of a show. I was glad to clear that up because it’d been pretty confusing. I had no choice, so I reached toward my back—and didn’t find my trusty weapon there.
Oh, that’s right. I don’t have my sword...
I’d left it at Akira’s house. This was exactly why I carried a sword with me. Yet, I had to follow this world’s rules.
“I’ll rip you into bloody shreds for mocking me, moo! Eat my Machine Gun Hooves!”
The pervert held up its hooves menacingly, and I heard voices calling out to me from behind.
“Look out!”
“Run!”
The voices distracted me for a second, and the pervert made the first move by closing in on me while repeatedly thrusting its hooves. I’d missed the timing to evade the attacks, so I reflexively swiped with my claws without thinking. They sliced apart its hooves and cleaved the asphalt in their trajectories, leaving giant claw marks in the ground.
“Aaaaaaaaah!!! What did you dooo?!” screamed the pervert.
“Oh, my bad. Didn’t mean to do that,” I said.
The pervert was the one who’d started it. It wasn’t my fault. But I really hadn’t meant to do that, so I couldn’t help but apologize.
As the pervert rolled around on the ground in pain, I heard a gallant voice from behind.
“Are you okay?! Leave the rest to us!”
“I mean, I’m fine. I can handle it on my own,” I said.
I was here to have fun, so I didn’t want to cause a fuss. Eventually, I decided to back down and move to the edge with everyone else.
“Okay, everyone! It’s just one kaijin! We’ll make short work of it if we all gang up on it!”
“Leader, I don’t know if ‘gang up’ is the best way to put this... The kids are watching.”
“Yeah, that isn’t a very heroic thing to say.”
“Really? Okay then, surround it and mercilessly beat it to a pulp! Beat the living daylights out of that thing!”
“That’s even worse!” said the woman in the pink scarf and the boy in the yellow scarf in unison. It looked like they weren’t all on the same page.
“That isn’t fair! Aren’t you gonna fight me one-on-one, moo?!” protested the kaijin.
“Of course not! And don’t give me that. You tried to take a hostage just a minute ago!”
“Y-You’re supposed to be heroes of justice, and you’re gonna gang up on me, moo?! In front of the kids too! You should be ashamed!” said the kaijin.
“I don’t know about other heroes, but our motto is ‘Justice must always win’! Don’t try to pull the ‘What about the kids?’ card on us when you came in here intending to cause harm!”
The heroes started fighting the pervert, and they really did surround it and start attacking mercilessly. Yet, the pervert curled up defensively and waited for a moment to strike back. It seemed to be charging up its power. At this rate, Yellow Scarf was gonna get hurt.
“Hmm.” I chomped on the chicken leg bone I’d been chewing and broke off one end, sharpening its tip to a point, then I threw it at the pervert as hard as I could. The ground beneath my feet sank and cracked under pressure, sending debris into the air. The full power of my level 48 throw sent the projectile slicing through the air, and it hit the mark right on the pervert’s head.
“Aaaaaaaaah!!!”
I heard the pervert’s soul-shattering scream, but whatever. Those “hero” people seemed strong, and they’d surely take care of the rest.
“Take this! Buuurniiing Smaaaaaash!!!”
I heard a deafening explosion behind me as I left the event venue. I heard people saying things like “Yay! A special move!” and “This will go viral for sure!” but I had no idea what they were talking about.
§
“Huh, so that event was a hero show,” I said.
After searching all around the amusement park, I’d managed to regroup with Eldrid again.
“Yeah, a pervert appeared midshow, but things worked out in the end,” she said.
“A pervert?” I asked.
“It was a talking cow monster thing.”
“Oh, one of those... They really do appear everywhere.”
And so, I got a pretty good idea of what had happened. Why did modified kaijins appear whenever I brought guests to this world? And apparently, modified kaijins were perverts to people from the other world for some reason.
“What kind of heroes were performing, by the way?” I asked.
“I wasn’t really listening to their names. What were they called...? Oh, they all wore different colored scarves,” said Eldrid.
“Oh, were they the ones on TV this morning?”
“Yeah, them!”
Oh, no way. We almost ran into each other.
“My friend is part of that group, so maybe I’ll go say hi,” I said.
“Your friend?”
“Yep, my childhood friend.”
We decided to head over to the venue so I could see my friend. I walked up to one of the staff members who were cleaning up.
I asked, “Excuse me, do you know where the heroes who were performing here just now went?”
“Oh, they just finished up and left.”
“Dang, so we just missed them,” I said.
The staff member smiled pleasantly at Eldrid and said, “You were amazing earlier. Are you part of another hero team, by any chance?”
“Huh? No, I’m not,” said Eldrid shyly.
“Really? But come to think of it, you don’t look like you’re in any hero team I know of,” said the staff member. They seemed to be looking at Eldrid’s head and waist for some reason.
“Did something happen here, El?” I asked.
“It was nothing. I just saw that the yellow one was in danger, so I threw my chicken leg bone right through the weirdo’s brain.”
Eek.
“That doesn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me,” I said.
“All I did was throw something.”
“I guess that’s level 48 strength for ya...”
Dealing fatal damage to a modified kaijin with just a throw was incredibly impressive. She could probably use anything and everything in the environment as a weapon like a character from a certain battle manga.
As we continued talking, a realization hit me. “Do you feel like we’re being watched?”
“Are we?”
“Yeah. Well, more like you’re being watched.”
The people around us were staring right at Eldrid. That wasn’t all that surprising considering she was a good-looking woman, but there was something odd about the way they were looking at her.
We started glancing around, perplexed, then Eldrid suddenly yelped like a cat that got its tail stepped on. I looked at her, confused, then noticed a boy around five years old standing behind her—with her tail in his hand.
“It’s a tail,” he said. “This lady has a tail coming out of her butt.”
“Huh?” I looked at him, shocked, but Eldrid had a bigger problem to worry about.
“N-No... Don’t...touch me there...” she whimpered.
Her tail seemed to be her weakness. She went weak at the knees and helplessly leaned on me for support. She was like that certain vegetable alien race before they trained their tails.
Does that mean...
“D-Did the illusion wear off?!”
That was the only explanation for her tail being visible. This was bad. Were God’s godly powers not enough, or was there some other reason? I had no idea, but it was clear as day that this could end very badly if we didn’t do something.
“Hey, let go! Let go of that!” I shooed the boy, then helped Eldrid to her feet.
“The magic wore off... What do we do?” she asked.
“I-I-I’ll do something about it with my magic!” I said.
“Uh...is it really that big of a deal?”
“Remember what God said? People in my world don’t have tails!”
Everyone probably assumed she was in cosplay or something, but observant people would likely catch on. Eldrid wasn’t wearing the kind of outfit that could cover up her ears or tail today, so we had to figure something out quickly.
“Let’s take cover somewhere for now!” I said.
“R-Right!”
I grabbed Eldrid’s hand and hid us behind some cover.
“U-Uncanny Illusion!” I called out, quickly casting a spell to make her ears and tail invisible.
That should do it. Phew.
Then I realized I’d made a terrible mistake.