Visitor from Another Dimension (5)
I took a short break and plucked some of the strange vines crawling through the cave. “Does this leaf look like a human hand only to me?” “It has six fingers, so I don’t think it counts as a human hand.” “That’s an opinion I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams. You fucking ableist.”
Anyway, this goddamn otherworld even has plants that look goddamn weird. I tore off the grass, rubbed it against my neck, then placed a tiny piece under my tongue.
“Senior, are you checking for poison? What are you going to do if it’s a deadly plant?” Larilura asked from the darkness, having figured out what I was doing.
Our eyes must have adjusted during the break. We could now make out each other’s silhouettes even without any light.
“Hehe. I’m trusting my liver, that’s all. I haven’t been drinking as much lately. You’ve got to throw some work at me once in a while so I don’t get lazy.”
“Don’t do anything reckless. If you die, senior, I won’t have the face to look at the sisters.”
“It sounds like as long as I leave a note saying it’s not your responsibility, dying is fine?”
“Will you write a will like that? I’ll write one with the exact same content.”
“If the first letter my wives receive from me is a will, I’ll probably get resurrected as a zombie within ten years.” And then get beaten until I’m nothing but a skeleton.
Still, I had trusted the detox potion, and my tongue didn’t sting or burn. I spat the grass out with a wet ptooey and took a small sip of the potion. If something that tiny could make my tongue hurt, it would have been a lethal poison and we’d need to get out fast. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case.
"Bestowal."
⟨ Ansuz ⟩
The Burning Hand I cast on the spear blade, reinforced with rune magic, flared up. The flame died after only a few seconds again. I was going to use this for Friar’s Lantern if the effect was reliable. Still, I could at least set the six-fingered clover alight. The smoke didn’t smell acrid. As long as it wasn’t some insidious poison that crept in like bleach, it was probably safe. Fuck. No trees around, so now I’m worrying about every little thing.
“Can I take my clothes off now?” Larilura asked once I had the fire going. Her makeup was ruined, but since it was just the patterns on her cheeks, it wasn’t too hard to look at.
“Why are you so desperate to strip?”
“It’s cold and damp now that we’ve stopped moving. It feels gross. A little chilly, too.”
It was indeed a bit chilly. I turned my back to her. “I’ll keep my back turned, so don’t even think about staring at my body.”
“Then you’d better not secretly turn around while claiming you’re looking the other way~?”
“I’ve already seen your back, so why would I? Oh, when you take your clothes off, spread them out next to the campfire. Let them dry.”
If we were talking side-boob from behind, Franc won by a landslide. And the sense of taboo was far stronger when looking at Dana’s body—the one I’d spent three years treating like a balls-to-the-wall comrade.
─Splash.
At my words, the sound of wet clothes being peeled off came from behind me. “Who knows? They say drugs are more tempting once you’ve tried them☆!”
“The loveliness of our wives really is like a drug.”
“Then what about me?”
“Sugar-free sugar.”
“That’s as contradictory as a senior who claims he never talks nonsense. I’ve hung all my clothes out.”
“Good. Once they’re roughly dry we’ll resume expl—”
I nearly fainted while spreading my removed armor and top beside the fire. The clothes closest to the flames had done it. This crazy eighteen-year-old high-schooler (who definitely lied about her age by a year or two) had stripped everything—top, bottom, and even her underwear.
“Hey, you idiot! Underwear dries just fine while you’re wearing it!! And you should be drying your pants too!! Your clown pants don’t even have that much fabric!!”
“Ah! Really? Sorry, I didn’t know.”
When I yelled, Larilura answered as if she genuinely hadn’t realized and put her clothes back on. Then she grumbled in disgust. “Ugh. It’s still damp and feels gross. Like I’m wearing a piss-soaked diaper. It’s giving me goosebumps.”
“If you’re dressed, stay quiet. Stop pissing me off.”
“Ahaha~♡? Senior, don’t get excited? You’ll run out of stamina~.”
“Excited my ass. I don’t have a hobby of getting turned on by a brat’s tiny underwear.” It wasn’t a lie. I had nearly lost my mind at the sight of a bra big enough to cover my entire face. My own juice container wasn’t exactly innocent either!
But at my words Larilura seemed genuinely upset and elbowed me in the side. “I’m not a kid~? Larilura’s body is already fully adult, you know?”
“On the family register you’re still a child. And since your head is also a child’s, you’re a child.”
“Child, child, so noisy. What’s wrong with my head?”
“Stop jabbing my side, you immature brat. Anyone who casually touches another person’s side is still a kid no matter how old they get.”
Humans are creatures that can’t reflect on their own behavior.
“Why are you speaking Romanian all of a sudden?”
Anyway, Larilura wasn’t an Eevee that had fulfilled its evolution conditions. She wasn’t going to suddenly become an adult the moment the year changed. I swept my wet hair back and said, “From what I heard, coming-of-age in Dana’s hometown is at ten years old. Just reaching a certain age doesn’t make you an adult.”
“Hmph~. Then what’s the standard for being an adult?”
“It’s from the moment you want to stay a child that you become an adult. My father said you’re an adult once you can take responsibility for your family.”
According to the Nord Constitution, you became an adult the moment Mr. Lee Dong-gil started looking like the victim, and you became an old fart the moment you began envying Dooly. I chuckled at the thought.
“So when I still wasn’t married at twenty-four, he said, ‘When I was your age I was already changing your diapers.’”
“Eh~? Isn’t it true that not being married by twenty-four means you’re late~?”
“Never, ever say that to Dana even by mistake, got it?”
“No matter how much of a tomboy I am, I’m not you, senior. I wouldn’t do that.”
Dana treated any mention of age like a death flag. Poor Eumna. I really have to take good care of her. And that’s exactly why I have to make it back alive.
Having thought that far, I thanked Larilura. “Larilura. It’s late, but thank you. For throwing yourself in to save Franc. If it weren’t for you, even if I had pushed her aside, I would have been too late.”
“Hehe. Thank me more~♡? When we get back to Sargadis you can treat me to a luxurious meal, you know?”
“You really don’t understand the concept of ‘no,’ do you?”
“I learned by watching a certain bad adult?”
“Good grief. What the hell is he teaching a child? There really are pathetic adults out there. I won’t ask who. Cut them off yourself.”
“Don’t wannaaa~♡?”
What a voice. If I could see her face, I bet she was sticking her tongue out.
“I did it to save the sister I like. Why would I need thanks from you, senior? Even if you’re her husband, apologizing on your wife’s behalf feels a bit off, don’t you think~?”
“Still. If I hadn’t been able to move with you, you would have been dragged here alone.”
“……Ah. Now that you put it that way, I feel a tiny bit of regret?”
“Khh khh. I like how honest you are.”
We kept talking until our clothes dried. If we stayed silent we might not notice if the other person collapsed.
“By the way, you said you’re scared of dark places. Why did you follow me all the way into the ruins? You didn’t have to force yourself.”
“That’s a misunderstanding too. Have you ever seen someone scared of the dark hate campfires or night parties just because they’re dark? When there are people and fire, what’s there to be afraid of?”
“Then how do you sleep alone at the inn?”
“Does my lantern look new to you~? I’ve been using that one for five years.”
“I see. You surprisingly get attached to objects.”
This kid sleeps with the lantern on at night… The guilt without any actual responsibility hit maximum when I imagined Larilura lying there alone with the lantern lit while Franc and I were tangled together. I changed the subject.
“Oh, right. Is that monkey-whatever book okay? My notebook got wet and I’m drying it.”
“I didn’t bring it into the ruins. I usually carry it because I’m afraid it’ll get stolen. And that book is also one of the reasons.”
“Reasons? For what?”
“The reason I followed you into the ruins. Orwalia is Crown Crown-nim’s homeland, you know.”
Larilura touched the clothes to check if they had dried. I touched mine too; they were fairly dry now.
“It was written in the book. ‘I was the boss of the alley in a territory abandoned by Britannia. At the same time, I was a fool who fell for the art of the invading nation given in place of freedom. My homeland Orwalia is a country of such fools.’”
“She’s harsh on her own hometown.”
Well, Orwalia was a nation that had suffered territorial and cultural invasion from ancient Romania. ‘Was it just something people back then accepted?’ This world’s sense of ethics really was amazing, awesome, and unbelievable all at once. In the ancient period just emerging from the new world, imperialism probably wasn’t even treated as a crime. Even now the radical faction in Germania felt the same way.
“So I got curious. It’s absolutely not because I was worried about the sisters and brothers, so don’t get cocky, okay?”
“Brothers?”
“What’s up, brother♡? Did I missspeak a lil☆!”
“Don’t slur your pronunciation. It’s annoying as hell.”
Larilura might not realize it, but to me it sounded like a rapper, so I really wished she would stop. I finished drying my hair and said, “If your clothes are dry, get up. The rest will dry while we walk.”
“Yes! The sisters must be worried, so let’s move with energy!”
─Rustle. Rustle.
We dressed again and rearmed ourselves. While I roughly swept my hair back, Larilura in her clown outfit smiled adorably.
“Senior. Did you know? For me~? The moment when you brush your hair back is the absolute best♡?”
“It’s because light shines from my forehead. Everyone can tell.”
“I hate quick-witted seniors like you☆”
Hate it or don’t. I gripped the damp spear shaft and turned. Larilura followed with lively steps.
“Ahaha♡! Only my crotch is still damp so it feels gross!”
“Who asked?”
I had no idea where the girl who used to shyly show me her back had gone. At some point her sense of shame seemed to have dropped even lower than Franc’s. Franc still got embarrassed showing me her underwear.
“Oh, right. Larilura, come here a second.”
“Yes? What is it? Are you going to mug me? I only have a hat and a knife?”
“Stop talking nonsense. I’ll engrave a rune on your forehead too.”
At that, Larilura’s face turned dead serious. “I don’t want to become an anglerfish.”
“Then am I already an anglerfish, you bitch?”
Fuck, I didn’t know this world had anglerfish. Anyway, I forcibly engraved the rune on Larilura’s forehead.
“It’s the ᚲ(Kenaz) rune I also carved on Franc’s ring. With this you can search for the mana of the summoning circle while staying alert. If this really is those bug bastards’ sweet home, we should be able to find it.”
“A summoning circle?”
“Those bug bastards weren’t under anyone’s control, right? It only makes sense that they were just summoned and then abandoned. There has to be a magic circle that summons the ones here into the tower. We just need to find that.”
We only needed to find it before the mana maintaining the ruins’ summoning circle ran out.
Even if the summoning circle’s mana bottoms out, Dana and Tirsi will probably notice and pour mana into the ruins’ magic circle.
Summoning magic was a subset of space magic—a technique almost impossible to reproduce in the current era. Still, filling it with mana was easy. As long as we stayed alive and located the circle, everything would be fine. With the ᚲ(Kenaz) rune strengthening inspiration, it would be a piece of cake.
Larilura touched her forehead and asked, “What if this is an entirely different other dimension?”
“Then that’s that, but the possibility is low. When we were dragged here the light flashed for a moment with a principle completely different from the bug leader’s wall-breaking. It was probably the effect of the summoning circle.”
“The beach—if I can even call it that—didn’t have a summoning circle, though?”
“The summoning coordinates are probably completely random. Whatever sent us here was likely a trap from the underground tower beneath the third floor.”
1. If an intruder appears, release the otherworldly murder bugs.
2. The summoning circle leading to those bugs’ nest is also used as a trap.
I clicked my tongue. “The fact that the structure doesn’t consider entry or exit is probably for the same reason. At the time this tower was built, Teleport was possible if you knew the coordinates.”
That was my reasoning. The ones who built—no, buried—the tower probably hid it so enemies wouldn’t discover it. They concealed the potion research lab they originally used underground to manufacture potions in secret. Anyone with common sense would cut off supplies first. Recovery items like potions were top-priority targets for destruction.
“For such an important facility, the monsters seem a bit weak, don’t they?”
“There are several possible reasons. The mana placed in the summoning circle may have evaporated over time, or they couldn’t store too much because it would have been detectable from the surface.”
It might not have been that important a facility, yet they had kept a map listing the locations of other bases. Fuck. Now that I think about it, that map is suspicious too. What if the map itself was a trap to lure intruders? Follow the coordinates and you walk straight into a murder-bug nest.
As I was thinking, Larilura nodded as if impressed. “As always, things go smoothly when I’m with you, senior. If I had really come alone, I would have just hidden somewhere thinking you would come save me.”
“When you’re alone that’s probably better. I would have definitely come to rescue you, so if something like this happens next time, just wait quietly.”
“────.”
─Whoosh!
When I spoke, Larilura suddenly looked up at the sky. Startled, I raised my spear thinking something was flying at us again, but there was nothing there.
“What the fuck? You scared me. What’s wrong?”
“……Hmm. No, it’s nothing~? Anyway, let’s move. If we dawdle the sisters might think the same as you, senior, and cross over here too?”
“Ah, uh. Yeah, we should.”
It bothered me that she was forcing a smile as if hiding her expression, but finding the summoning circle was more important right now. And so the two of us became hyenas wandering through a jungle of tentacles and pressed onward.
That was when it happened.
“Aaaaaah──!! Where are all these coming from──!!”
Hearing the furious woman’s scream, Larilura and I headed toward the sound. There we found the merchant guild lady we had seen before entering the ruins and her party fighting desperately against the bug bastards.
“Dismuke!! What about magic?!”
“I’m sorry, miss!! It won’t activate!!”
“Damn it──!!! Failing to even identify the trap properly—this is negligence upon negligence!! The greatest blunder of my life──!!”
─Slash!!
The merchant lady swung her sword at the front, fighting with everything she had, but the numerical difference was overwhelming. They were nearly surrounded. It was only natural; without their wizard able to cast spells, they couldn’t overturn the numbers.
“……Larilura?”
“We help, right? More people is always better, even if we end up fighting among ourselves later.”
I hadn’t exactly been asking, but I could take that as agreement. I smiled and leveled my spear. The presence of these bug bastards meant there was a summoning circle here that led back to the ruins!
The day I would be this happy to see these bug bastards had finally come! It was the first time since three Tinkerbells flew into the squad leader’s quarters during my military service. I raised the corners of my mouth, gripped my spear tight, and charged.
“You fucking bug bastards!!! I’ve been dying to see you!!”