Bye-Bye, My Pretty HuntGal...
They say ignorance is bliss.
That rather than digging up a truth you can't handle and getting tangled in a mess of trouble, it's better to live on knowing nothing at all.
And the reason that old saying popped into my head right now was simple.
“...Is this for real?”
“Has this body ever once lied to you?”
“...Eep!”
The things Lady Historia had just told me were that shocking.
Shocking enough to leave even my super-duper Country Belle spirit nursing a few bruises.
Remember how, when I got back to my original world, the world I knew had suddenly transformed into a modern-fantasy one?
Apparently, that was because of Lady Historia.
“So, after I smacked down the Demon Lord—”
“‘Mutual destruction’ would be the more fitting expression, but do carry on.”
“—some remnant of the Demon Lord or whatever dragged the world to the brink of annihilation.”
“Indeed. Even dead, that wretched Demon Lord refused to stay dead.”
“So the solution you picked was to just slam the whole world into the shape of a Tower and toss it into a different world?”
“...Yes. A sorrowful reality, is it not.”
“Ttuddai...”
To put it simply: everything was fine up until I clobbered the Demon Lord.
But because some leftover remnant of the thing just wouldn't go away, the world had become utterly beyond saving.
So the method Lady Historia ultimately chose was to reshape the world itself into a Tower, transfer it elsewhere, and borrow the power of a different world to erase the Demon Lord's remnants for good.
And according to her, she wanted to entrust the key role in that plan to me.
It was a development I found profoundly difficult to accept. With questions numbering far more than one or two, I promptly raised my hand.
“Hey, so, Lady Historia?”
“Speak.”
“Why did you come to my world of all places? There's no way only two worlds exist. Was there some special reason you had to pick this one?”
“...Ah. You mean that.”
And before Lady Historia could deliver some tedious, pedantic answer, I pounced first.
“You missed me, didn't you?”
“......?”
“You wanted to see me, the cutest, most lovable Country Belle in all the world, admit it!”
“Haah... you truly are...”
For the record, it worked spectacularly. So well that I was almost disappointed no “MASSIVE SUCCESS!” message window popped up.
“Uhihi~ Cute, right? Adorable, right?”
In my good mood, the Country Belle–style giggle came bubbling out on its own.
“...I anticipated this, but I did not expect it to reach quite this degree.”
“Well, I am cute.”
“...Haah.”
Watching Lady Historia clutch the back of her neck, I made a decision.
'Better quit while I'm ahead.'
Keep this up, and Her Squishy Country-Belle Majesty really would try to take my head.
'Not that dying at the hands of a Country Belle like Lady Historia would be so bad, honestly...!'
Still, I didn't want to die, so I'd stop here for now.
The moment I cut off the Country Belle giggle and put on a solemn face, Lady Historia's expression settled somewhat.
“Good. You finally seem ready to listen.”
“Obviously. What do you take me for?”
“......”
Glare—
She immediately leveled a glare at me for the ongoing nonsense.
Being on the receiving end of a Country Belle's fury was, to me, a kind of reward — but I wasn't so tone-deaf that I couldn't read the room.
“Fine. So tell me — why here, of all places?”
“...Yes. It was information I would have to impart eventually, in any case.”
And so began Lady Historia's explanation.
As it started, she held something out to me.
“...What is this?”
What met my eyes was a cube.
Roughly the size of one of those toy puzzle cubes from my childhood.
“Sir Deneb crafted it.”
“...My teacher did?”
At first I had no idea what it was supposed to be.
But the moment I heard my teacher had made it, warning lights started flashing in my head.
My magic-and-general-education teacher from my hero days, the sage of another world — Sophia Aldebaran, otherwise known as Sir Deneb.
If that woman — a hikikomori who lived walled off from the entire world — had sat down and built something, then the world really had been on the verge of ending, apparently.
“Rather than words, better you try it yourself. Inject some mana into it.”
Following Lady Historia's instruction, I fed mana into the cube. It split into eight pieces, then snapped back together —
“...Eep?”
— and what appeared before my eyes made me doubt them on the spot.
Because floating in front of me was a single hologram window.
Welcome to the Tower
Its very first words carried a deeply ominous implication.
The moment I saw something so thoroughly, unmistakably 'System'-shaped, my instincts pointed to one place, and I arrived at a single conclusion.
“...Hold on. No. Way. Right?”
“Your thinking is correct.”
“...Seriously?”
“Would it not naturally be so?”
Yes. The entity that had awakened countless people across the world and driven them to grow — the Status Window.
And the person who had created and distributed it was someone I knew personally.
“Nongkyaaaaah!!”
It felt like learning the secret truth of the universe itself.
“...What are you doing?”
“I-ify this goes on, the FarmLuminati are going to come abduct me...!”
Somehow I got the feeling a secret society that guarded the world's truths would come haul me away, so I curled up into a ball and shivered.
Behold: me, shivering violently. Adorable, right?
'...Wait a second. Abducted by a secret society that knows the truth of the world?'
And then two facts dawned on me at once.
Fact one: I had already been abducted. And fact two —
the head of the very secret society that knew the world's truths was standing right in front of me.
The moment that registered, despair flooded through every inch of my body.
“Ttuddai...?”
“Sir Evermoon, is something the matter? Why so suddenly—”
“S-stay back!!”
“......?”
“Y-you're going to mess me all up, aren't you?! Like some ero-doujinshi!!”
“......”
And with that, my super-duper Country Belle spirit went completely off the rails.
“Uuu... it's embarrassing, but if it's you, Lady Historia...!”
“Haah... here we go again......”
Konk—!
My rampage only stopped after I took one to the head from Lady Historia.
“Kyaang!”
Which, naturally, was a reward as far as I was concerned.
And so, once my rampage had been brought under control—
“Do you understand now? The calamity that appeared in your world, and the Awakened ones — all of it came from us.”
“Yep.”
“I feel great sorrow toward your world, but as its sovereign, it was a choice I could not avoid.”
Thanks to Lady Historia's attribute lecture, I was able to sort out the truth of this world in rapid order.
First: the Tower, the Gates, and the Awakened had all been spread here by the decision of Lady Historia and her retainers.
Second: Gates were temporary passageways connecting to the Tower's interior.
Third: the reason she had chosen this world, out of the countless ones available, was me.
Fourth: the reason the Tower had stayed sealed all this time was that she couldn't yet judge whether the Awakened should be let inside.
And fifth: the Tower would soon be opened.
...That much was a truth of the world even a total ditz like me could grasp.
Naturally, of course, a Country Belle possessing at least a minimum of intelligence would then ask questions like these.
“And how exactly is that because of me?”
First question: what on earth did choosing this world have to do with me?
To this, Lady Historia replied as follows.
“Well, would a world with someone you can trust not be preferable to one shrouded entirely in the unknown?”
Okay. Understood completely.
Lady Historia missed me.
“Uhuhu.”
Next question, then.
“But why open the Tower only now? Why did you summon me? What do you need my help with?”
What reason had brought me here, and what certainty had finally convinced her to open the Tower — and why had she said she needed my help?
“......”
Hearing my questions, Lady Historia's face faltered, just slightly.
“What is it? Is it hard to say?”
“...Haah. I suppose I have no choice but to tell you.”
But she soon seemed to steel herself, stepped closer to me, and said,
“Sir Evermoon. Would you become the link that binds our two worlds together?”
A faint flicker of anxiety, and of tension, showed in Lady Historia's expression.
And I—
“Uuu... what does that even mean...?”
Sadly, I understood not one bit of what she had just said.
“...Do not toy with me. I am being exceedingly serious at this moment—”
“Uuu... Ttuddai... big words are too hard...”
I got the gist, maybe, but the details were a total blank. She couldn't possibly want me to do Tower PR, and beyond that, I had zero feel for what she was asking of me.
“Haah. It seems I overestimated your level of cultivation.”
Lady Historia's voice dripped with pity, but what was I supposed to do about not understanding?
So there I stood, frozen with a blank Ttuddai expression — and Lady Historia's private crash-course lesson began.
“To put it simply, it means I wish to entrust you with the role of the Tower's Administrator.”
“...Ttuddai?”
She'd managed to stun me within the first ten seconds of the lesson.
“Administrator of the Tower? Me?”
“I judged you to be the most suitable candidate.”
Listening to Lady Historia's explanation, I felt dizziness wash over me.
“Hmmm...”
Administrator of the Tower? Me? Me, the one who hadn't even registered as an Awakened out of sheer laziness?
Frankly, my heart leaned hard toward refusal.
The instant I accepted, I'd obviously get tangled up in an enormous pain-in-the-neck affair.
“Hold on, aren't there plenty of other people besides me?”
“There are. But are they not ignorant of your world?”
But then the nature of a true Country Belle whispered to me. Would you dare refuse the earnest plea of a Country Belle in distress?
“Sir Evermoon. I beg of you.”
“Khck...!”
In the end, I simply could not bring myself to turn away the pitiful face the Country Belle was making right in front of me.
“Well, what the hell — let's give it a shot.”
And so, having concluded my round of farm-belle utilitarian reasoning, I nodded before the Emperor once again.
Just as I had on the day I swore to become a hero.
“...I am grateful, Sir Evermoon.”
And watching the Country Belle Emperor smile at my answer, I felt certain I'd made the right choice.
“Oh, but can I pop home for a bit? I should at least give people a heads-up.”
...Or at least, I was — right up until the moment my declaration that I'd swing by home made Lady Historia's expression shift into something inscrutable.
“Hmm. W-well, you see...”
Wearing a profoundly apologetic look, Lady Historia couldn't quite bring herself to finish the sentence.
Seeing her like that, an uneasy thought surfaced in my mind all on its own.
“N-no, right?”
“...I am sorry.”
The moment I heard that apology — the answer to a question I'd asked hoping to be wrong — my suspicion hardened into certainty.
“I-I can't leave this place?”
“I am sorry. I am searching for a way, so—”
The Country Belle Emperor kept repeating her apologies over and over.
It was the first time I'd ever seen her like this, but right now there was something that mattered more.
Something that mattered more than all the questions still piled up unanswered.
“U-uhbuhbuh...”
The fact that if I couldn't leave the Tower, I would never be able to log into HuntGal again.
“M-my dopaaaamine!!!”
Yes.
From this very moment on, I could not access HuntGal.
“Nooooooo!!!”
The instant that devastating truth hit me, screaming was the only option left.
Bye-bye, my pretty HuntGal......