・ ・ Chapter 136: Dream Come True
“Th-this is… I"m not… ”
We returned to the room with the gas traps, and after attempting to search the left-hand side pa.s.sage, we soon found Yamada.
“No, really… Please, keep this a secret, from Reinchan…”
“Right, no problem. You can rest a.s.sured that I won"t tell her about you committing illicit acts with elementary school girls”
We"d found defendant Yamada surrounded by multiple cloud creatures,
“UOHHH, ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GIRLS ARE THE BEEEST!!”
He shouted, clearly deranged, and we quickly subdued him. Upon further investigation, the accused made such claims as, “I don"t really remember,” and even started to repeat nonsensical gibberish such as, “I"m their onii-chan and they"re all my cute little sisters after all,” his pedophilia, lolita complex, was quite chronic it seemed.
That was expected though.
“Now we just need to get Yamajun and Ayase-san”
Yamada looked dead in the eyes as he listlessly followed us in our search.
“So many forks”
“Looks easy to get lost in”
“Do we split up?”
“No, we might get into more traps if we go separately. I know this is slower, but we have to stick together here”
We hadn"t had any pitfalls yet, but I shouldn"t be so sure about finding everyone so easily. Like, what if we find Reina next, but then Yamajun is missing? I wasn"t sure I could manage the party without him. As he was a pivotal member of the party as well as a good friend, it was essential we find Yamajun.
Maybe my honest-to-goodness feelings reached him, as we quickly got a lead.
“I can hear Yamajun!”
“Oi, Where?”
“Wait, shut up a bit… This way, let"s go!”
Ueda"s acute hearing picked up on Yamajun"s voice, and we headed in that direction immediately. Everyone here liked Yamajun, he"d been a good friend and all-around nice guy to all of us in cla.s.s and in the dungeon. We were a lot more serious about finding him than we were for Yamada.
We quickly checked the surroundings before entering the target room, and deeming it safe, we entered promptly. It was the 5th time already, I was used to it.
There we saw, as expected, Yamajun was lying on the floor together with a cloud creature.
“M, mmm… We, we can"t, no… No, it"s just that, I"ve always…”
“H-holy f.u.c.k, Yamajun still has his clothes on”
“That guys legit got b.a.l.l.s of steel”
“A dude among dudes”
Unlike them who"d been yelling and swinging their hips like dogs in heat, Yamajun, though a bit disheveled, was still in his uniform, and it only looked like he was lying in bed with the creature.
I was pretty astonished to say the least. Yamajun was a guy too, he should"ve been the same as us hormonal teenagers, but he was actually resisting the blissful temptation that the cloud creature was showing him. Amazing willpower. Or perhaps, this girl he was seeing was someone he was very hesitant to defile.
Anyway, I was in deep admiration of his psychological duress.
“Yamajun, we"ll save you now!”
I swiped the evil creature away at once using Blackhair Bind, and the totem-pole trio, along with Yamada, gave it a severe beat down in spiteful anger. It was overkill yes, but this was its just desserts for laying a hand on our Yamajun.
Ok, rescue complete.
“Nnh, uuh…”
“Ah! You alright there?”
“No, sorry, I can"t take it anymore, I… Love you, I love you so much!”
Yamajun suddenly made a heated confession of love, as he embraced me.
“Uwaaah!? Hey, you guys, Yamajun"s still not out of it! Help!”
“Oi, get a hold of yourself!”
“Wake up man!”
“That"s no dudette, that"s Momokawa!”
I was THIS close to get my second kiss from a guy before everyone could drag Yamajun off me.
That was close, I"d thought that we"d get him back since we beat the cloud creature already, but since it was a dream-like hypnosis, there was a chance that he"d still be confused right after waking up. I hadn"t considered that.
“Yamajun, how"re you feeling?”
“Eh, ah… Momok.a.w.kun… What"s…”
Yamajun looked listless as he returned to sanity and for the 5th time, I explained the hypnosis trap.
“Ah, oh, that"s… I"m, so sorry Momok.a.w.kun, I… Uuuhh…”
“Eh, no, hey, don"t cry. It happened to all of us, don"t worry so much”
“That"s right Yamajun, you did great”
“Yeah, he was the only one who wasn"t already f.u.c.king when we found him”
“Heheh, who"s the girl, you can tell us, dude”
“I, don"t think it matters… Me, I was even, kuh...”
We all pitched in, giving him our own words of consolation. It was surprising seeing this guy actually cry, but no matter, he soon straightened himself up.
“Sorry, I gave you guys so much trouble. I"m fine now”
Yamajun put on his usual gentle smile and stood up.
“Ok, that"s everyone, let"s get out of this place”
“Oi Momokawa”
“What"rya doing forgetting Reinchan?”
“Dude, you"re doing that on purpose, right?”
After that masterful trifecta of retorts from the totem-pole trio, I reluctantly got ready to search for Reina too.
“Guys wait, if Reinchan"s in this trap too…”
“Eh! Oi, oi oi, you don"t mean…?”
“Oh ho ho man, can we legit? It"s like a live p.o.r.no, right?”
“O-OI! You f.a.gs better not look! I mean it!?”
Boys please, leave the lewd fantasizing to your private time.
Like really, haven"t you guys had enough s.e.x time already? Give me some of that goodness too, I want the big t.i.tty harem experience!
“Well, if Reina is naked when we find her, it"s best if you put your jersey on her or something, Yamajun”
“Eh, why me?”
“You"re the best choice we have”
If our only girl in the party, Reina, had fallen under the same mind control, she"d definitely ‘be" with someone she liked. That someone definitely being Soumkun.
Sure she looked like an elementary schooler, but she was a proper girl of age, well, she was our age. If Soumkun were to strongly reciprocate her feelings, well, they"d do it. There was a big chance we"d find quite the sight once we get to her.
I personally would like to use my phone, it was turned off and was probably low on batteries, to take a video and use it as blackmail material for later, but I don"t think that"s a good idea.
“Oi, c"mon, Momokawa, can"t we look a little bit though?”
“Like, as a side benefit to finding her? ‘Accidentally", y"know?”
“Like, dude can"t be helped if he makes a mistake?”
“I"mma kill you f.a.gs!”
No, I get what you mean guys. As for Yamada whose pants were reacting even as he tried to denied their desires, I don"t even want to know.
“Yeah no, I think it"s better for all of us if we don"t see her s.e.x scene”
“Why the f.u.c.k not?”
“Have a heart man”
“Seriously dude”
“What"s wrong with you! It"ll be by accident, it can"t be helped!”
Oi Yamada, you cut the c.r.a.p. I wouldn"t care if you were alone and tried to a.s.sault Reina after seeing her in her birthday suit, but WE will have to stop you, won"t we? Stop being a pain.
“Listen, if Reina gets shocked after finding out that we saw her naked, we"re all gonna get barb-cued by Engard”
Everyone went silent. Of course they did. They wouldn"t risk seeing a naked girl if it meant turning into roast chicken.
“So we need to take the utmost precaution when we"re going in to rescue her. Agreed?”
They all agreed, and we set out on finding her whereabouts.
After a while, we realized that we couldn"t find her no matter how long we searched the area connected to the left hand path.
“So she"d most likely gone through the center, I guess?”
By the time I noticed the problem and ran back, Reina was likely already walking along the central path. We might have even pa.s.sed by each other unnoticed.
I was honestly hoping she stayed missing like this, but the others looked like they were genuinely worried. But we"d searched all we could in this area, and found nothing. We had to look for another way.
“d.a.m.n, Dammit can"t find her… Reinchan, where are you?”
Yamada whined in a hopeless tone. We"d been at it for a while now, no leads.
“s.h.i.+t man, I can"t hear anything”
“Can"t she be out of your range?”
“Wait, what if she got teleported… It"ll be impossible dudes”
s.h.i.+mokawa had a point, there was a non-zero chance that Reina got herself wrapped up in a teleport. This dungeon did in fact have transfer points other than inside boss rooms. For example, the sacrifice portal device that Higuchi tried to use, there had to be more like that. I bet there were teleport traps lying around somewhere or other.
“Look there, I think that"s a fairy square. We should rest up for a bit”
After walking a while through the front facing path, we could see a door to a fairy square.
We"d been walking for ages, and our mental fatigue had surely built up from how we hadn"t made any progress towards Reina. Everyone readily agreed to resting.
We walked tiredly, as if the fatigue had caught up to us, and stepped inside the square.
“… Mm, Yuu-kun, I love you too”
Reina, was there.
We couldn"t see the fountain from outside the entrance, and they were right beside it. A cloud creature was there, holding Reina in a tight embrace as if she was being buried in its fluffy body.
Her uniform was on. Her clothes weren"t even disheveled. She was smiling innocently like a child being hugged by her mother.
“Reinchan!”
Yamada and the trio shouted almost simultaneously.
She was under it"s spell. Even without me asking, they would quickly run to their precious princess, and unleash their rageful blade into the insipid cloud creature ―― or not.
“Ah, you boys… Why, are you here?”
Reina, noticed us.
Obviously she would since these guys had shouted out her name so loud. But that wasn"t normal.
Reina was currently under the cloud creature"s hypnosis, having a sweet reunion with her beloved Soumkun, so there was no way our words would reach her ears.
Something was wrong.
But I seemed to be the only one noticing the discrepancy, the guys who leaped into action in order to save her just answered normally.
“Reinchan, we"re here to save you!”
“We"ll f.u.c.k up that cloud m.o.f.o!”
“That dude"s not the real Souma Yuuto!”
Yelled the totem-pole trio, followed by Yamada who screamed,
“UOOHHHHH!! I"LL SAVE YOU REINCHAN!!”
Countering that, Reina replied,
“No, no NOO!!”
Utter rejection. As if, we were terrible monsters who came to ruin her happiness. She screamed in tears as she buried her face into the cloud creature"s chest.
“No, don"t, I don"t wanna! Get away, I"m with my Yuu-kun!”
“Wh-what are you saying, Reinchan!?”
“That"s a fake over there!”
“Dudes, she might be in hypnosis again”
“Got it, I"ll just f.u.c.king kill him”
I wonder, was she really? Couldn"t she be doing this fully aware?
I can"t imagine Reina of all people being thankful to us if we separated her from that thing.
I"m sure she thought of us as a bunch of loud and obnoxious boys prancing around her for no reason. She literally had no idea how much we were helping her, being careful not to offend her, and basically protecting her.
“I"m with Yuu-kun now! Isn"t that fine? Why… why do you keep getting in my way!”
The moment I heard that, I felt like I"d finally understood this girl called Reina A. Ayase.
Reina didn"t mean any harm. She wasn"t the type of sc.u.m that trampled on other people"s kindness.
She was simply, too pure, her heart, too child-like.
Like how a child wouldn"t understand the troubles of their parents. Children in general, basically just didn"t understand an adult mindset. Kids had their own sense of value, of good and bad.
In that sense, seeing as how she hadn"t a need once she was with her Soumkun, it was kind of sad that they"d gotten separated for so long. Basically, if crying and screaming got her to keep being with Soumkun, that was good enough for her.
But no matter how big or small her feelings on the matter were, this cruel isekai dungeon wouldn"t just let that happen. In reality, her and Soumkun had been placed separately from the start. That was reality and no matter how she begged or cried, that reality wouldn"t change.
“No, I won"t leave Yuu-kun ever! I hate you, I hate everyone who wants to take Yuu-kun away from me! Save me, Yuu-kun! Please protect me, don"t go away!”
No really, I told you, your feelings won"t reach that thing, shouting won"t make it real. Soumkun isn"t here.
“―― Sure Reina, I"ll protect you”
But then I heard it, Soumkun"s voice.
Impossible, don"t tell me he actually transferred over, at this perfect timing no less―― No, there"s always a huge flash of light when that happens in a fairy square.
Nothing like that happened. No one had come. But then,
“Yuu-kun!”
“I"ll, never go away, Reina… I promise”
“Mm, promise, Yuu-kun!”
“Thank you, Reina―― that binds us in promise (contract)”
It was the cloud creature, it spoke.
The thing slowly stood up, Reina still in its embrace. It was like its fluffy body was a costume of some sort, and the real Soumkun was inside with how fluently it spoke with the same voice as the guy.
“Wh-what the h.e.l.l, are you”
Towards my strained question, it continued boldly,
“I am Souma Yuuto―― Protector of Reina, Guardian Beast SOUMA YUUTO”
Instanly, the white cloud body burst.
And from inside, it, he appeared, looking like an exact mirror image of Souma Yuuto.