Bound for Dalwini
It had been ten minutes since I started making my way toward the sign marked Rare Book Corner in both English and the otherworld script. Until just moments ago, I had thought of this place as nothing more than an ordinary bookstore or library. Yet strolling between shelves that rose at least four meters high, it felt less like I was inside a building and more like I was cutting through the heart of a jungle.
(It's seriously fucking huge...)
(Magic? It looks way bigger than it did from the outside.)
In a space this vast, how the hell was I supposed to find the specific books Elphy wanted? I asked the occasional person I passed whether they knew where a certain title might be. But whether it was my pronunciation or the simple fact that I was human, every single one of these otherworlders pulled the same strange face when they heard my question.
(What is this?)
(Why is everyone staring at me like that...?)
At first I assumed it was ordinary species discrimination. But the look that beastkin woman gave me a moment ago went far beyond simple disgust at a human's existence. It was something heavier.
Just to be sure, I slowly read over the paper Elphy had written for me.
Du... yuin pro? Rol-lot...? Statiko el kumb... ble diiha he... estudio?
(What the hell does any of that mean?)
(Is that even the right way to read it...?)
It was so difficult and convoluted that even after reading it aloud I still wasn't sure. Maybe Papago could tell me what it actually said. The app still struggled with the otherworld language, but it was worth a shot.
I snapped a photo. The result popped up instantly.
Magical Research on Male Prostate Orgasms
(...)
No exaggeration, I checked the same screen dozens of times, convinced my eyes were broken. What the actual hell had she been thinking when she wrote this down? She'd told me she wouldn't hold back and would straight-up rape me, but was she talking about doing the penetrating instead of the other way around? The thought sent chills crawling down my spine.
Right then, a message notification slid up on my phone.
(...)
Crazy bitch. A cookbook? Just how exactly was she planning to cook me? The absurdity had crossed over into genuine fear.
With shaking hands I ran every note Elphy had given me through Papago. Each and every one was drenched in sin and depravity, too embarrassing to even say out loud.
(Ha... fuck. There isn't even a cookbook.)
My head spun. For now, I was absolutely not fetching anything about prostate orgasms. Instead I decided to at least grab the relatively normal-sounding Plants for Enhancing Sexual Desire...
Wait. Did I actually have to get any of these books?
(Should I just leave...?)
I had zero intention of buying the truly filthy ones anyway. She'd told me to pick a few myself, so maybe I could just grab whatever looked decent from the nearest shelves. The excuse was easy enough: the place was too big and I couldn't find them.
I reached for the closest decent-looking volumes when one book in particular caught my eye.
(What is that?)
(Why the hell is it stuck all the way up there?)
A faded, dark-crimson book nestled among the worn volumes. It looked old enough that climbing the ladder to reach it might be genuinely dangerous, yet something about it made me want to take it anyway.
I pulled down the tome that somehow felt familiar, like a memory half-erased by time and wear.
(What kind of book is this...?)
It carried a faint scent of mold. The pages felt so brittle that the slightest pressure from my fingers might turn them to dust. The characters were completely alien, yet the sections that held the actual content stood out clearly against the faded crimson cover. The long, scrawled lines looked almost like graffiti. After staring at them for a while, I closed the book with a decisive snap.
(Yeah. Elphy likes weird, ancient stuff...)
(Might as well take this one too.)
The day we set out, the sky was overcast. The square patch of gray I glimpsed while waiting at a red light was choked with heavy clouds. It looked exactly like my fatigue-fogged mind, or like the anxious expression on my slave's face.
“...Elphy. Are you worried?”
“No… it’s not that. My head just hurts a little.”
“…”
Liar. Even while answering she was clearly preoccupied. Her expression had been off since last night and still hadn't improved. She could say she was fine all she wanted, but now that we stood at the threshold, her heart was obviously in turmoil. Seeing my lovely slave like this made me feel restless too. Come to think of it, she'd been perfectly fine until last night. Even when I shoved Papago in her face and demanded to know what the hell those books were about, she'd brazenly claimed that in the otherworld climax was another word for good health. She'd seemed okay then.
So what had happened after I fell asleep? Could one of the books I'd chosen yesterday have been the problem? Then again, the person who'd asked me to find a book on prostate orgasms had no right to look that dead inside. I couldn't begin to imagine what kind of title would make her wear that kind of face.
(Is she only now feeling the weight of it?)
(Well... I get tense the moment an operation actually starts too...)
Maybe that was all it was. Not the books, just the timing. Either way, the atmosphere inside the car was as gloomy as the hazy sky. Elphy and I rode the rest of the way in heavy silence.
The sky briefly threatened to clear before thick black clouds rolled back in. The sea, so dark it looked like black ink splattered across denim, rippled with lazy waves that seemed to highlight the man in charge standing right in front of us.
“Hey. This barge only runs at high tide, right?”
“Yes. There’s a timetable. When the water recedes it becomes dry land, so you can drive or walk across.”
“Drive across? Isn’t the whole area mudflats?”
“It is, but there’s a road built on top of the mudflats that leads all the way to Dalwini.”
“It should be right beneath us as we pass now.”
“…”
I see. If that was the case, it might not be as uncomfortable as I’d feared. As our destination slowly drew closer I started throwing the questions swirling in my head at him one after another.
“How big is the island? It doesn’t look very large from here.”
“It really isn’t. You can walk the entire circumference in about an hour.”
“Really? Then why hire us for such a tiny place?”
“Pardon? What do you…”
“Even a small village should have its own vigilante force, right?”
In a place this small, how many rifts could possibly appear? But the more the man explained, the more complicated the situation sounded.
“Multiple rifts?”
“Exactly. Rifts that form inside other rifts…”
“And they’re so wide that the locals can’t handle them.”
Rift inside rift inside rift. They were multiplying like a chain of endless tails. Normally they would have asked the nearest administrative city, Ferid, to handle a case like this. The problem was that the administration was currently ignoring the villagers entirely.
“…Redevelopment?”
“Yes. Ferid wants to redevelop the area, but negotiations with the residents aren’t going well.”
“And then something like this happens at the perfect moment…”
They’d been handed the perfect excuse. How ruthless. So they lacked the funds to hire a guild privately, searched for a company instead, and somehow our firm ended up with the job. The more I listened, the worse the situation sounded.
“What the hell does ‘critical point breakthrough’ mean?”
“If rifts are left alone, monsters will eventually crawl out. That’s what we call…”
“Wait, hold on. Are you telling me monsters are already roaming free on that island?”
“Not yet, but if we don’t act quickly it will come to that.”
“So our goal is to close as many dungeons as possible, as fast as possible. Simple, right?”
“…”
No. Nothing about that sounded simple. If you phrased it that way, what in this world would ever be difficult?
I stared at the man in disbelief. He avoided my eyes.
“Hey. You never once mentioned that the fate of this pathetic little village was riding on us, did you?”
“W-well, that’s… haha;; I thought if I told you, you might refuse the job…”
“…”
This crazy bastard. In my experience, when people acted like this the mission was always extremely, severely, nightmarishly difficult. What the hell did he have to smile about?
In my head I’d already slammed the butt of my rifle into his skull. Ha… Fine. Fuck it. We’d come this far. I couldn’t back out now.
“U-uh, boss. You’re not mad, right?”
“How about we shout ‘Let’s do our best!’ together to show we’ll work hard?”
“Shut up.”
“Yes sir…!”