Chapter 22 - Magnificent as always, Master!

Four kilometers south of the destroyed train.

Having walked along the rails for about three hours Hayabusa finally came into view.

It was a rather slow pace for two high schoolers, and cause for that was mainly Yogiri's weak stamina.

"See? We should have asked the robot to carry us."

Tomochika looked down at the resting Yogiri, who had promptly called for a break after discovering a fallen tree. Since they were both wearing backpacks filled to the brim one would expect them to be somewhat equally tired, but unlike Yogiri Tomochika was as lively as could be.

"I don't think we're in a situation where we can go around catching attention like that. Imagine someone saw us getting carried by that robot?"

That giant was what this world called an Aggressor, meaning the natives most likely considered it their enemy. Yogiri could imagine that being seen traveling together with it would make them end up looking like enemies as well.

"Odd for such an understanding robot to have such a bad reputation. Also, say, could it be you're bad with exercise, Takatou-kun? Although you didn't seem very clumsy at all when you pushed me down earlier."

Tomochika asked Yogiri, slightly provocatively.

"I was forced to exercise so I'm somewhat agile, but yeah, I'll admit my lack of stamina."

When they resumed their journey even Yogiri was hurrying at first, then he started slowing down and eventually he came to a halt and called for a rest. The sword he was carrying had started bothering him a long time ago and now lay thrown away somewhere along the rails of Kuenza to Hayabusa. His argument was that he couldn't use it anyway, and the idea of having to carry it with him in the future as well didn't do much to convince him otherwise.

"Maybe you should do some exercise and train your body? Who knows what awaits us in this world."

Tomochika spoke as she sat down next to Yogiri.

She didn't appear to be wearing a weapon either. The ones she bought back in Kuenza were left behind in the train; partly because taking them along was inconvenient, but mostly because she had acquired a new, far more compact weapon, which was currently camouflaging as part of her outfit.

The new weapon was originally part of the robot's insides, a material that was capable of freely changing its form. Apparently the robot mostly used it as its muscles.

Compared to the robot's external material it was rather soft, but when turning its solidity all the way up it was more than hard enough to keep up with the usual materials used for weapons.

"We should've at least asked if it had something like a vehicle. Was there a reason we had to leave that abruptly?"

[Mhm, agreed. If we had been a little more pesty we could have probably gotten a whole lot more out of that robot.]

Tomochika asked and the floating Mokomoko chimed in.

"Was risky to stick around there, too much shadow. I've told you about being able to sense stuff like killing intent and life hazards, right?"

"Yeah, that you can sort of see them. Kind of like Morihei Ueshiba, right?"

"Who?"

"He was this famous Aikido master, legend says he was able to dodge bullets, apparently because he could see their trajectories like light rays before they were even fired."

"Might be something similar then, yeah. Although in my case it's less like light rays and more like black lines, kind of like shadows. The whole area at the train was covered in that shadow and it was getting even denser pretty quickly. Like 30 percent risk of disaster."

"Hmm. '30 percent' doesn't really tell me anything, does it work like a weather forecast?"

"Kind of. This place feels like under one percent so compared to earlier it's pretty safe."

"It feels like you're trying to make it sound like we're resting after finally escaping some danger zone, but in truth you just needed a break, right?"

"Hey, nothing wrong with a break. We've pretty much arrived already anyway."

Hayabusa, a train station between a canyon and an ancient forest.

Since that was all they had been told about the town they were expecting a small cozy settlement, but contrary to that the city before them was actually of quite large scope.

"Looks like this one doesn't have a wall."

"Would probably be impractical with all the trains entering and leaving."

Yogiri answered Tomochika as he looked at all the railways leading into the city. That transportation network was probably the reason for how developed Hayabusa was.

"Doesn't it mean that they don't have any enemies to worry about?"

"Not so sure about that. From what I can tell this world is full of monsters, aside from the places under protection by the sages."

"You say that but we didn't meet any on our way here, did we?"

"Well that's because I was killing everything."

"…Huh?"

Tomochika had to think about that for a moment.

"A bunch of monsters and thugs were targeting us."

"Tell me about that sort of stuff! Now I feel like an idiot, just humming and walking along without a care!"

The majority of the enemies had been approaching from the ancient woodlands.

The monsters most likely took notice of them by smell and the criminals might have come from some train raiders' stronghold in that vicinity.

"Just thought it's nothing worth mentioning."

"I'm starting to wonder why I'm even carrying a weapon…"

[Mhm. I programmed a decent amount of shape shifting patterns into it, but now I'm not so sure they'll be necessary.]

All of a sudden Tomochika was holding a sword in her hands. The strange material that had been camouflaging as part of her school uniform had moved to her hands and changed shape there, but with how smoothly it happened it looked like she summoned it out of thin air.

"Actually, wait a minute! Mokomoko-san, weren't you a ghost from the Heian era!? Why are you even able to manage some sci-fi weapon like you've seen it a hundred times!?"

[No matter the environment, the Dannoura Style adapts and continues to evolve! Recently I was focusing on electronic warfare, were you not aware?]

"Of course not, that's not exactly a field of study you'd expect a ghost to specialize in!"

"Although it's a great help that she does. Mokomoko-san, do you think you can take apart and analyze the whole 'system' thing?"

[Well, about that. With the one million credits we got from that robot I bought a license for one of the middleware products used in Battle Song. The software that Battle Song is based on is open source so I should be able to somewhat reverse engineer it now, but they really made a lot of changes to it, I'll have to figure out a way that'll let me look into what exactly they modified. Once that is done our understanding of this world's inner workings should finally make some progress. Might even be possible to hack it.]

"How did this discussion take such an unexpected turn and what's this feeling of being left behind!?"

Tomochika was becoming more and more perplexed.

＊＊＊＊＊

The two travelers finished resting and entered the city of Hayabusa.

There were no city walls nor an inspection upon entering; anyone was free to come and go. That said, the town did have some poles standing in regular intervals from each other, drawing a circle around the city. They most likely marked the edge of the celestial protection.

Once more, stone streets and stone buildings. The atmosphere wasn't too different from that of Kuenza, the first town they had been to, but as far as Yogiri's impression went this one seemed livelier.

"So, now that we're here we'll wait for everyone else to pass through, right?"

"We can wait here or head to the royal capital in advance. Your thoughts?"

"If we go by train again getting to the capital should be pretty quick, right? I'd say let's wait here for a while and move on if we don't end up meeting them."

"Alright, let's start by finding a place to stay then. Celestina recommended a hotel, let's check that one out first."

"Sounds good. If Celestina recommended it we might as well go straight for that one."

Looked like Tomochika had pretty much absolute trust in Celestina.

They followed the map Celestina had drawn up for them and discovered the recommended hotel right away. It ended up being fairly extravagant again, similar to their last one.

"If it isn't Dannoura-san!"

They had just entered the lobby when suddenly a voice addressed them; a quick look in its direction revealed a Japanese high schooler with black hair and black eyes approaching them. Yogiri didn't recognize him, but since he knew Tomochika it was most likely one of their classmates.

It appeared he was just about to leave the hotel with several native-looking girls following behind him.

"Hm? Oh, Tachibana-kun? How come you're here?"

Their classmates were currently traveling through the primeval forest Hakua, it shouldn't have been possible for them to arrive at Hayabusa before Yogiri and Tomochika, who had taken the train.

"So you were safe, that's nice. Well, about me, I split up from the rest of the class. No point in going along with an inefficient leveling method, you know?"

"Ah, I see. Although not really."

Even Tomochika was caught off guard by the sudden encounter with a classmate and wasn't sure what to say.

"What's with that woman! Sure acting overly familiar towards Yuuki-sama!"

And just like that, one of the girls behind Tachibana made her hostility known.

"Excuse me?"

The reaction was so unexpected Tomochika wasn't sure how to respond; the situaton really didn't do much in explaining what she was suddenly being criticized for.

"Leave it, Erika. These two are my classmates."

"If Yuuki-sama says so…"

Erika reluctantly pulled back.

"Magnificent as ever, Master! What a tolerant heart even towards such uncultured people! Truly a personality fit for a monarch!"

This time one of the other girls behind Tachibana raised her voice.

"Takatou-kun… what's going on here?"

"You're asking me?"

Based on the girls attitude it almost seemed like they were worshipping Tachibana.

"Meeting you here must be some kind of click of fate, Dannoura-san. Will you become my lover?"

And in a heartbeat the girls' stares went from hostile to murderous.

"…Pardon?"

While Tomochika was getting more and more confused by the situation, Yogiri was struggling to suppress his power's reaction to the girls' killing intent.