I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 11

by Namekojirushi

  And so L set off in search of clean water to bathe with. But with no particular destination in mind, she ended up wandering aimlessly. On top of that, she was currently in battery-saver mode, so she was walking around without her obstacle detector turned on. She was proceeding around corners with extreme caution just in case she happened upon her target, Rekka Namidare, which only tacked on to the time it took her to get anywhere. But eventually...

  “I-I finally found one...”

  L immediately fell to her hands and knees, panting as she was a little out of breath. The miracle she’d found was a public tap at a small park in town. As such, the water wasn’t exactly pristine, but it was still several times better than the river. Now she could finally bathe... Or so she thought, but when it came to working out the exact details of how she’d go about it, a certain problem suddenly presented itself.

  “All right! Let’s play soccer in the park today!”

  “Whaaat? But I wanna play kick the can!”

  “Let’s play soldiers instead! I can dig a pitfall in the sandpit!”

  “I brought water guns!”

  At roughly the same time L arrived, four children wandered into the park to play.

  “Why did they have to come now of all times?!”

  Aren’t the children of this era meant to be so absorbed with handheld game consoles that they barely go outside? And at this time of day, the park should belong to elderly people basking in the sun on benches! Things like soccer should be forbidden! Really, the park shouldn’t have any kids in it right now at all! Children should be at home lazing about and playing games in the air conditioning!

  Audibly grinding her teeth, L resentfully watched the playing children from where she’d hidden herself behind the park gate.

  “Kids are really so troublesome!”

  Appearance-wise, L herself was no more than a child. And as far as age was concerned, she was even younger than most of the children present. But either way... The important thing was that she wasn’t bathing with pesky kids around. She thought about the situation for a moment and came up with a plan.

  “I’ll just have to drive away the kids with my power!”

  She clenched a determined fist in the air and then proceeded quietly through the bushes so that the children wouldn’t see her as she made her way to the public restroom.

  “No one’s here, right...?”

  L checked each stall to make sure she was alone before taking out a small diamond-shaped crystal from the sleeve of her kimono. It was a tool used mainly for disguises that hovered over a user’s head and cast a hologram down over their body.

  “Hmm... In this era, the most effective tactic against children should be to frighten them with what they fear the most... So... a scary adult? Yeah, that should do.”

  L ran the search engine in her head for a list of “scary adults” that would fit in in the present day and age, and then filtered through those results to find a disguise.

  “Aha! This ‘yakuza’ character looks perfect for the job!”

  Once she picked something out, she activated the hologram gem to make her look like a yakuza gang member. She then looked in the restroom mirror to check out her disguise.

  “Yup, this is perfect! Wait, I need to adjust how I talk, too. I need to sound gruff and ill-tempered. A-Ahem...! You brats’ll be in a world’a trouble if you cross me! All right, yeah, that should be perfect—I mean, yeah, thaz right!”

  After using some installed software to modify the tone and pitch of her voice to make her sound like an older man, L was fully satisfied with her costume. And indeed, it was convincing. So convincing, in fact, that...

  “Kyaaaaah!”

  A woman walked into the restroom and took one look at L before shrieking.

  “Eh?”

  L cocked her head to the side wondering why the woman was screaming for a moment... before realizing she now looked like an adult man in the women’s restroom.

  “W-Wait!”

  “Nooooo! Someone heeeeelp!”

  And her yakuza getup wasn’t doing her any favors. The woman seemed to be convinced L was going to attack her, and she screamed bloody murder.

  “Ugh! Be quiet, would you?!”

  “HEEEEELP!”

  “What’s going on here?!”

  L grabbed the woman’s arm in an attempt to silence her, which only scared her more. She then tried to run. And to make matters worse, a police officer just so happened to be passing by as the two of them burst out of the restroom in a struggle.

  “...!”

  It only took one look for the officer to figure out what was going on. A yakuza gang member was harassing an innocent woman—or at least, that’s what it looked like.

  “You there! Unhand that woman! I will protect the citizens of this town!”

  “Why meeeee?!”

  On the verge of tears, L fled the park... still dressed like a yakuza.

  ▽

  After L somehow managed to shake the police officer, she returned to the park out of breath and wheezing. She was hoping the children would at least be gone by now, but no such luck. They were still playing in the sandpit without a care in the world.

  “They’ve sure got some nerve to be playing around while I was running for my life...”

  Her indignation was really closer to spite, not that she could tell the difference right now. But at least the officer wasn’t on her heels any longer. She’d just get back to her original mission. She took a deep breath, mustered as intimidating an aura as she could manage, and marched right over to the sandpit.

  “Yo, brats!” she shouted as abrasively as possible.

  The kids all looked up at her at once, though they weren’t exactly making eye contact. They were actually looking well over L’s head because the hologram made her appear taller than she really was.

  “Hey, that’s the guy who got chased out of the park by the cops!”

  “Hrk!”

  It seemed they’d witnessed her dramatic exit earlier. Having her momentum killed like that made L hesitate for a moment, but she managed to collect herself and press on.

  “Whatever, brats! I’m takin’ over this place, ya hear? It’s mine now, so scram! Go cryin’ home to yer mommies!”

  Hearing a grown man yell at them so rudely, the children looked up at L in terror.

  All right, one more push and they should leave...

  But just as L thought that...

  “Who are you?! We were here first! Go away!”

  Unexpectedly, the lone girl of the group angrily snapped back at L with a fierce look in her eyes.

  “...!”

  The hologram gem made L look like a yakuza, so for this young girl to talk back like that... She really had some guts. But L couldn’t afford to back down, either. Her bath was on the line!

  “Just beat it already! Otherwise...”

  “Otherwise what?”

  Yet no matter how threatening she tried to be, the little girl just wouldn’t back down. Her attitude was so confident, it was almost like she’d been dealing with ruffians all her life. She and L stared each other down, and the little girl almost seemed to bristle like an angry cat. L then heard an odd cracking sound, but she was too caught up in the heat of the moment to stop and think about what it might be.

  “Ugh, that’s enough! I’m telling ya to get lost, ya hear?! Get lost, or you’ll learn tha hard way what happens to little runts who don’t listen!”

  Irritated at how poorly her eviction plan was coming along, L stomped her foot and kicked the sand in the sandpit all over the place. That part wasn’t so much an act... but it should have been a terrifying display nonetheless to the children.

  “...?”

  Yet for some reason, the kids were now all staring at her blankly. They looked like they had no idea what she was going on about, which was so puzzling to her that it stopped her in her tracks. The young girl who had been standing up to L aside, why did the rest of them seem to be so unafraid
of her now?

  “...?”

  L had activated a hologram to appear as an adult to them. An authority figure. That meant she should be towering over them... so why was it that they were now actually looking her in the eye?

  “...Huh?!”

  L patted her body in a panic before finally looking up overhead. The hologram gem was gone... But where? Quickly looking around, L found it—or its remnants—smashed into tiny pieces at her feet. Why was a mystery, but it was certifiably broken. And the hologram would have blinked out the second that happened, which must be why the children were looking at her so dubiously now.

  “Oh, so you’re just a kid, too.”

  The girl—the de facto leader of the group of children—crossed her arms and huffed through her nose. L nearly let out a flustered gasp, but somehow managed to gather the remainder of her stubbornness to maintain her fierce attitude.

  “Tch! I guess it’s come down to using force! Leave this park at once!”

  L pulled a gun from her kimono sleeve and pointed it right between the little girl’s eyes. It was the gun she’d brought with her from the future to assassinate Rekka Namidare. One shot was enough to reduce a human to particle dust in an instant... although R had been able to block it easily.

  “Hmph! You’re the one who should leave!”

  The little girl didn’t seem to realize the danger she was in. Instead, she responded in kind and pulled out her water gun. She really, honestly, and truly had no intention of backing down. L had to stop and wonder what she should do now. She didn’t want to seriously fire a weapon at a child...

  “Hm?”

  But as L was hesitating, the little girl raised both eyebrows in shock and grabbed her nose. Then...

  “You kinda stink.”

  She uttered the ultimate forbidden word. Hearing it, the rope tethering L to all reason snapped.

  “Nooooo! Don’t say I stiiiiink!”

  Tears gushed from L’s eyes as the truth she’d been running from was shoved in her face—by a little girl, no less—and she reflexively squeezed the trigger.

  “...”

  But the little girl seemed to be bristling again...

  Crack!

  “Huh?!”

  Before anything else happened, a strange sound came from the gun in L’s hand. And then, even when the trigger was fully pulled, nothing happened.

  This broke, too?! This makes twice in a row... No, wait.

  The timing was way too convenient for it to be a coincidence. Had the little girl done something? Was she the reason both the gun and the hologram gem had broken?

  “Wah!”

  But as L was contemplating all this, she was surprised by a splash of water to the face. Come to think of it, a water gun had been pointed her way...

  “Wait, stop it! Stop! Don’t spray me any more! Please!”

  “What do you mean?! You’re the one who started this fight! Face me fair and square!”

  “I’m not fighting you!”

  L ran in circles while covering her head as the little girl chased her with the water gun at the ready.

  All I wanted to do was wash my hair! Why did it have to end up like this?!

  “Aaagh! This is all R’s fault!”

  L screamed aloud as her tragic flight continued. If R had overheard it, she would have undoubtedly replied with, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But R wasn’t who appeared next.

  “Fam! What are you doing?” someone called from the park entrance.

  When the girl chasing L—Fam, apparently—heard it, she came to a screeching halt and turned to look towards the entrance.

  “Rain! Do you need something?”

  Since they were quite far from each other, Fam cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled back loudly.

  “It’s almost time for dinner! Hurry on home!”

  “Got it! I’ll be there soon!”

  Once she had responded to Rain, the girl who had come to pick her up, Fam turned to her friends she’d been playing together with.

  “I gotta go home now! See you guys tomorrow!” she said with a cheerful smile.

  The next moment, she had already dashed off towards Rain. She continued waving to her friends until she reached the gate, then departed.

  “Fam’s gone now, so we should head home, too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “See you tomorrow!”

  With their leader gone, the other children—who all seemed to be younger than Fam—decided to call it a day and split up too, leaving the park and wandering down the road their own homes.

  “...”

  The only one left behind was L, who was sopping wet after being hosed down with a water gun. In a way, her mission to drive the children away from the park had succeeded, but... why did it feel so terrible?

  “Wait, so that was Fam, huh?”

  If she remembered correctly, Fam was the gremlin in Rekka’s company who had the ability to destroy delicate machinery. Before now, L had mostly overlooked the heroines that Rekka Namidare had saved so far. She’d only scanned through the material available on them before departing on her mission from the future, and had put it out of her mind until now.

  “Anyway, now I can finally wash myself...”

  Forcing her exhausted body to stand up, L stumbled over to the tap in the park and loosened the sash around her kimono. Despite the grueling road to get here, she was at last where she wanted to be. She could refresh herself now, and no one would call her stinky again. But the moment she placed her hand on the faucet...

  “Hey, you there! What do you think you’re doing?”

  The police officer that had chased L as a yakuza out of the park earlier was now running towards her with a different menacing look than before.

  “Huh? Umm, I just wanted to wash off some...”

  “A girl like you shouldn’t be doing that in a place like this! Do that when you get home. Where do you live, little girl? I’ll take you there.”

  “Umm...”

  The officer had only stopped L with good intentions, but to her, this was unwanted interference. It wasn’t like she could just tell him where she lived. As she mumbled under her breath in hesitation to answer, the officer seemed to find her attitude suspicious and suddenly adopted a stern expression.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve run away from home...”

  “Uh...”

  That was when L realized the situation was about to take an extremely troublesome turn.

  “Why don’t you come with me down to the station?”

  “No thank yooouuuuu!”

  “Hey! Hold it right there!”

  Why, oh why did it have to be like this? Why did she have to be chased by the police twice in one day? Everything had to be... Yes, surely it was...

  “IT’S ALL R’S FAAAUUUUULT!”

  L’s venting scream of agony echoed throughout the entire neighborhood.

  About five hours later, L would come to realize that she should have just gone to the park in the middle of the night when there wouldn’t be any police officers or children around.

  Chapter 3: Romcom × Sick Day

  Monday, the following week...

  After the deserted island incident two weeks ago and the Yulia incident last week, I was starting to worry that second semester was actually going to kill me. I felt safest while I was actually at school. I still hated studying, but with exams right around the corner, I had to suck it up... Wait a minute. I’m managing to get by right now, but what am I going to do about entrance exams in the future? How am I going to keep saving heroines and get into university at the same time?

  “This really is gonna kill me...”

  I fell flat across my desk when I realized what trouble I was in for. I was supposed to be the hero, but I was going to end up being the one that needed saving. Maybe I could just clone myself...

  “I wish there was one more of me...”

  “Shall I bring one over from a parallel world?”

&
nbsp; “That feels like an invitation to get tangled in another story,” I replied lethargically to R’s indifferent suggestion.

  “Haaahh...”

  “What’s wrong, Rekka? That was an awfully long sigh,” Satsuki asked worriedly from the seat next to mine.

  “Nothing... I was just worrying about the future.”

  “I’m not sure why... But the barbeque is this weekend. If you’re feeling anxious, why don’t you try focusing on looking forward to that instead?”

  “Oh, you’re right. I totally forgot about that.”

  The barbeque was something I looked forward to every year. Remembering it lifted my spirits a little.

  “What was that? What were you talking about?”

  That was when Iris chimed in from the seat on my other side.

  “Oh, the barbeque this weekend—”

  “It’s nothing!”

  Just as I started to answer her, Satsuki slapped her hand over my mouth to silence me. Iris pouted.

  “What’s with that? Tell me what you were talking about!”

  “I said it was nothing! Absolutely nothing!”

  “I heard something about a barbeque! Are you going with Rekka? When?”

  “None of your business!”

  “Tell me!”

  Satsuki and Iris immediately started bickering, though I wasn’t sure why Satsuki was trying to hide it. If Iris was free that day, we should invite her along. But just as I was thinking that...

  “What a dumb face... You really must be an absolute simpleton,” R jeered in her typical curt and unwarranted fashion.

  “Hmph! I get it! You’re trying to sneak out behind my back! Not so fast, Satsuki!”

  “I don’t want to hear that from you of all people, Iris!”

  In the split second I wasn’t paying attention, their conversation had gone off the rails, and they were now arguing about something totally different. I wished they would work it out, but I also wished they’d stop yanking on my arms...

  “You there. Why are you two pulling on Rekka like that? Let me join in, too.”

  “Please give me a break...”

  Eventually, the noise lured Rosalind over, complicating the situation even more. Satsuki and Iris had me by either arm, and she was now tugging on my shirt as my classmates stared at me both longingly and resentfully. I had no idea what to do... I was just about ready to give up altogether when the classroom door suddenly rattled open.