I can see darkness.
Darkness that should have made it impossible to see even an inch ahead.
And within it, a faint silhouette.
Why can I see it?
That question is lame, so I'll skip it.
More importantly, judging by the slender build, it looks like a girl.
No, maybe a pretty boy?
"Ah, hello?"
Uh... hel-lo?
I return the greeting.
But hearing the voice, it's unmistakably a girl.
No, wait.
Maybe even that conclusion is too hasty.
The world is vast, and there are plenty of men who really do sound like women.
In a harsh world like this, what a narrow-minded view... or so I'd say if I were spouting nonsense!
Get lost, weird signal!
Life is best when it's pure love!
"Um... should I say it's been a while?"
Leaving that ridiculous weird signal behind, I continued the conversation with her.
Hmm, well.
I'm not really sure, so I don't know what I should say.
Because... you... somehow...
"You look... familiar?"
I nodded.
No, I think my body moved with that kind of feeling.
That kind of feeling?
Uh, what was it... again?
"...It's okay. You'll remember later... I'm sure you don't need to worry about it right now."
Y-yeah... I guess so.
"Yes. That's how it'll be... definitely."
Hmm, if you say so.
"Anyway, the reason I came to see you today isn't anything else... I, um, heard something from that idiot old man, so I came to tell you..."
She, or maybe he, said something to me.
It was some story that felt old-fashioned and boring.
"Listen carefully. From now on, you..."
Hey, more importantly...
"?"
Are those horns on your head real?
"..."
Maybe you've got an oni, a demon, or a spirit somewhere in your ancestry...
Ah, she's crying.
"I don't know! J-just go away already!"
Swoosh!
It felt like my body was being pulled away from her.
No, it was more like I was sinking down somewhere below.
I wasn't trying to make her cry, you know.
Anyway.
That expression on the beautiful girl's face as she pouted in frustration.
Mm, sweet, sweet satisfaction~
I opened my eyes.
Then it was time to say the promised line.
"Ah, an unfamiliar ceiling."
It really was the ceiling of someone else's house, one I'd never seen before.
"Ugh, whoa."
Thud.
"Haa, yare yare Daze."
So I tried to get up now that I was awake, but I ended up falling over before I knew it.
I didn't have any strength in my body the way I wanted.
Looks like my body's been wrecked pretty badly again this time too.
Maybe, like during that last deep-level expedition, I'd barely survived by sheer bad luck after dying a hundred times over.
And if I go by that faint memory of what was said earlier, then now...
"Well, nothing for it."
I sighed while staring at the ceiling.
Yeah, I'd already prepared myself for this long ago, just as I expected.
All that was left was to clean up the aftermath.
Or maybe I should take a reckless gamble again, like I always do.
The problem is that it's a truly hopeless dilemma.
It's not like there's absolutely no way, and the odds aren't completely zero either.
So let's leave that aside for now.
"Kyaa~!"
"A-ah, Arghana?!"
...What is this?
That noisy racket with a strangely sweet-and-bitter feel that I'd been hearing from earlier.
"Y-you bitch...! What are you trying to do to the captain now...!"
"Come now, Finn. You can make the strongest child. Let's fill you and me up with all the lives I've devoured. If we want, we can even start right here, right now..."
"I'll kill youuuuu!"
Ugh, I don't know what it is, but I don't want to get near it.
I really want to close my eyes again and pass out... no, go back to sleep.
Honestly, I'd like to pretend I don't know anything and stay out of that commotion if I can.
But if I keep making everyone worry any more than this, I feel like it won't end with just a series of Lady Hestia's special backhanded smacks, so let's just give up quietly on my side.
Yeah, that's right.
Giving up is this easy.
"Then, once more... ugh."
With that in mind, I forcibly turned the mana in my body again and made my creaking body move by brute force.
Well, it's basically cheap puppetry applied to my own body.
It is possible to use a combat-enhancement mode like the original's Nen ability, but personally I don't really see any reason to use that on myself, so I only use it at about this level.
Even the enhancement mode is more for emergency evasion or escape than for battle.
Combat is more efficient with my other Magecraft anyway.
And if I push myself like that, my body hurts like hell afterward.
Also, I can't use this on other people.
No, weirdly enough, my own body can be manipulated like this reasonably well, but when I try it on someone else, I'm terrible at controlling it.
In the end, the other person's body would get twisted out of alignment here and there, or spin around wildly, and they'd end up dead... no, functionally stopped.
What the hell was the problem?
It should have been a perfect plan... no, a perfect design, in theory.
"So. What the hell is that supposed to be?"
Once I stepped outside, the source of the commotion came into view.
Some Amazoness and Tione were putting on a skit in front of Finn.
It was hard to call that a simple catfight; one side felt like a Shura, the other like she was in heat, and the atmosphere itself was completely opposite on both sides.
In other words, it was a skit.
A cheap skit with no fun and no emotion.
But for the people involved, it was probably very serious.
Still, who is that girl, and why is she doing that with Tione?
Even I'm genuinely scared when it comes to her and Finn, and Tiona too.
Are they maybe acquainted?
Like childhood friends from the same hometown who used to hang around together?
I wasn't particularly interested, so I looked away.
I could see the goddesses nearby watching that skit.
And naturally, our gazes met as well.
Yo, good morning~!
"Oh my? Yer awake?"
"M-Magus! Are you...! Is your body... is your body all right now?!"
"Yes, as you can see."
It's a total mess.
Thud!
"K-kyaaaaa! M-Magus-kun?!"
As soon as I released my mana, my body collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and I laughed at the sight of Lady Hestia letting out a cute(?) scream.
Then, after Mama's iron-fist punishment that followed, I quickly reactivated the puppetry and moved again, reassuring her startled heart.
Honestly, she's already seen this several times, so there's no need to make such a fuss.
Our goddess is way too timid for how she looks.
I wouldn't be surprised if even the little one beside her ended up crying for her.
"Nonsense! Ask anyone else! I'm definitely not the strange one!"
"Ehh, nobody dies from that little bit."
"Say something that makes senseee!"
"I'm serious."
I've checked and verified it several times, you know.
...Well, all I did was breathe and twitch a little now and then, but still.
Anyway, biologically and medically, I was alive, so what I said was true.
Yes, indeed.
The truth is always only one!
"Give it up, Lady Hestia. Lili has concluded that expecting common sense from An-kun is the real mistake."
"Th-that may be true, but... no, even so...!"
"Yes, exactly. Giving up is easier."
"Y-you! You're making my head spin, so stay out of this! And you, from the very beginning...!"
And so, as usual, the back-and-forth continued.
I was hoping that if this kept up, Lady Hestia would eventually get tired first and the whole thing would fizzle out into a rough conclusion.
Then, once the mood was right, I could talk about the matter on my side...
"Aaaaan~!"
"Huh? TioN, A?!"
Snap, whoosh!
In an instant.
My entire field of view flipped over, and with a strange sensation of floating, the scenery I'd been seeing just a moment ago was instantly replaced by something else.
And the thought that followed a beat later.
"Huh?!"
Oh, it's the sea.
A blue sea with waves rolling across it.
But it's getting closer and closer to me?
No, in this case...
"I'm falling into the sea...!"
Crash!
With a booming sound like a bomb going off, my vision flipped again in an instant.
This time, I was underwater.
Maybe that's why I couldn't tell up from down, left from right, or any other direction nearly as well as before.
"Bubububububu...!"
Fortunately, even with the sudden change, my mind was perfectly fine.
And there was no major problem with using Magecraft either.
So even through the white foam and bubbles obscuring my vision, I was able to calmly activate a levitation spell.
My thought was that if I applied the concept of "floating upward" to my body through Magecraft, then no matter which direction was actually up, my body would rise toward the surface.
"Puhah!"
My judgment was roughly correct.
Thanks to that, I was able to escape from the sea in better shape than I expected.
Of course, I still ended up looking like a drowned rat soaked head to toe in seawater.
But more importantly...
"...What exactly are you doing, Hiryute?"
"Hehe."
No, this brat?!
"What's so funny about that?"
Looking at that carefree grinning face made it feel like the violence inside me was about to burst out because I couldn't accept this sudden turn of events.
No, it's definitely going to burst out.
Looks like this little girl was still holding a grudge over me teasing her yesterday and had decided to get back at me by soaking me like this.
Fine, I'm in a mood.
As you wish, I'll personally carve into your head what it means to meet the wrong guy today...!
"An, bear my child!"
"Puhf!"
In that instant, my body completely slipped out of my control.
And in the midst of that confusion, only one thought rose up.
Something... feels familiar.
Very, very familiar.
========================
The website for reading paid chapters is available on my Patreon. The number of chapters on Patreon: 134
Link: patreon.com/UltraMagnus_T