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

by Namekojirushi

“Huh? Were you trying to scare him, L? You had a rather scary look on your face just now...”

  “I... er, um...”

  L glared at me for lying about her playing a prank, but it was the only thing I could think of to explain the obvious tension. It wasn’t like I meant anything by it! That made it okay, right? Right?!

  “I-It’s because... It’s Rekka’s fault! He’s always flirting with all these different girls like some womanizer! So I wanted to teach him a lesson for your sake, Big Sis Satsuki, and, and...”

  A w-womanizer? Surely she just said that to go along with my lie and diffuse the situation, but it felt like an awfully brutal counterattack. L really hated my guts, so I guess it figures she wouldn’t pull any punches, but still... That hurt my feelings.

  “For my sake...? Wh-What are you saying, L?!”

  Anyway, hearing L’s explanation seemed to put Satsuki in a strange panic.

  “Huh? I just—”

  “No, never mind! You don’t have to say it!”

  I didn’t really get it, but Satsuki’s fit was escalating into a bona fide freak-out party. At least it seemed like it had put any further questions out of her mind?

  “L, you sat through the lectures about how we, as people from the future, mustn’t say anything unnecessary to the people of past too, no?”

  “Sh-Shut up...”

  Even R felt prompted to give L a warning. L didn’t seem too pleased about it, and she spat back at her quietly so Satsuki couldn’t hear. As for Satsuki... Now that she was here, any further conversation between the sisters would have to wait.

  After that, we—me and R, now with Satsuki and L—continued to gather firewood and eventually ran into Iris. Harissa and Rosalind weren’t too far off, either.

  “We’ve managed to gather quite a bit of firewood between the six of us. Surely this should be enough.”

  “Okay, then let’s head on back.”

  The girls all nodded, and we began the trek back towards the riverside where Uncle Itsuki and Suzuran were setting things up. Along the way, Harissa suddenly came to a stop, her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance.

  “Hm? What’s wrong, Harissa?”

  “Nothing... I just felt a mysterious presence over there.”

  “Mysterious?”

  “Yes, but it’s kind of weak... It’s somewhere over there.” Harissa indicated, pointing deeper into the forest.

  I was curious what she meant by “weak,” and I agreed to go investigate with her.

  “You guys can go on back ahead of us,” I said to the other girls.

  “What? But I wanna go, too!” Iris demanded.

  “But someone has to deliver the firewood.”

  “Then let’s decide by rock, paper, scissors who goes and who stays,” volunteered the diplomatic Satsuki.

  “Fine by me,” agreed Rosalind.

  Everyone else seemed okay with Satsuki’s suggestion too, and thus began a big round of rock, paper, scissors. When it was all said and done, Iris was the one who got stuck with the job of carrying the firewood back.

  “Whaaat?!”

  “Sorry, Iris. Can you carry all that by yourself?”

  “That part’s not the problem! Grr, how annoying...”

  She seemed to be particularly vexed about getting the short end of the stick. I could hear a flapping noise coming from under her skirt, probably her normally-hidden tail swishing about in frustration.

  “Why don’t you go back with Iris, L?”

  “I’m going, too!”

  Huh? L wanted to follow us, too? Even though she acted like a child, she was still an advanced life-form from the future. Maybe she had something up her sleeve...

  It wasn’t like I was at liberty to ask her about it in front of everyone, so I quietly accepted her company as we headed deeper into the forest with Harissa as our guide. Then, after walking for a while, we found it. Or rather, her.

  “Huh? Don’t tell me... Is that a fairy?”

  She was about the size of a doll, and she looked like one, too. She also had a set of transparent butterfly-like wings sprouting from her back, making her look exactly like the fairies I’d seen in picture books as a kid. I was pretty surprised to find out she was the source of the mysterious presence Harissa had felt. I actually doubted what I was seeing was even real for a minute. I thought it was just a doll at first, but she was very clearly breathing... So, yeah, this was definitely the real deal.

  “Why is there a fairy outside of the spirit world?”

  “Fairies exist out of the spirit world too, although their numbers have decreased dramatically in recent years... This one seems to be injured,” said Satsuki as she helped Harissa examine her.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “This looks easy enough to patch up with either my or Satsuki’s healing magic, but...” Harissa answered, nervously glancing over at L.

  As far as Harissa knew, L was just a normal girl. She was probably worried about using magic in front of her.

  “W-Wow, it’s a fairy...” L suddenly said in a completely deadpan voice.

  After noticing repeated glances in her direction, she walked over to us and the unconscious fairy.

  “A-Amazing. Fairies really exist. Oh, no, but this one’s hurt... Big Sis Harissa, can you heal her?”

  “Huh? Y-Yes, I can.”

  Harissa nodded reflexively at such an innocent question, then looked to me.

  “Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine. L is just a child, so she won’t make a big fuss about it or anything,” I said, trying to let her know it would be okay.

  She and Satsuki then both readied their spells.

  “Then... Cure Curiona!”

  “Winds of healing...”

  The tip of Harissa’s staff began glowing, and a warm breeze stirred around Satsuki.

  “W-Wow, both of you are amazing...!”

  Continuing her unconvincing wonder-struck child act, L kicked me in the shin when no one else was looking. Was she mad that I’d said she was just a little girl? Whatever. I didn’t have much time to pay her any attention, because it was only a few moments before the fairy awoke thanks to Satsuki and Harissa’s magic.

  “Ow... H-Humans?! Eek!”

  “Hey, wait! It’s all right! There’s nothing to be scared of, so please don’t cry!”

  “Hyaaah! Please don’t eat me!”

  “No, no way. We would never do that.”

  The poor little fairy was trembling just at the sight of us, so I tried to calm her down. I explained what had happened and how we’d found her.

  “So you’re the ones who healed me?”

  She sounded a little suspicious, but after she looked at herself and realized that her wounds had indeed been healed, she seemed convinced.

  “Thank you very much. My name is Poppy. “

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  Harissa and Satsuki both smiled at Poppy’s words of gratitude.

  “So, Poppy, how did you get hurt in the first place?” I asked.

  Considering her size, she might’ve just been attacked by a bird or something. But nevertheless, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.

  “The truth is...”

  Though hesitant, Poppy told us her story. This forest where she lived with the other fairies was quiet and peaceful. They mostly lived without human interference, but apparently children would wander into the woods every now and then and chase them around for fun. That was how Poppy had been discovered, and she’d accidentally flown into a tree while trying to escape.

  “There were children in the forest?”

  “Maybe it was those little kids from before?”

  “Those damned brats, huh?”

  They’d run off into the woods after messing with Rosalind, so all signs pointed to them. If they weren’t familiar with they area, they probably would’ve gotten on their bikes and fled the other way. They probably played up here in the mountains often.
<
br />   So Poppy had gotten hurt because of some kids... It was probably idle curiosity, and they probably didn’t mean any harm, but Poppy couldn’t afford to be caught, and now she was hurt thanks to them. It was bad enough as it was, but what if they’d found her first and taken her into town? We had to do something to make sure that didn’t happen.

  “All right, everyone, lend me your ears.”

  I collected my thoughts and immediately shared my plan with everyone.

  ▽

  “Hey, did you find it?”

  “It’s not over here!”

  “We’re gonna catch it for sure today!”

  “Oh, yeah? You think you can?”

  We arrived at our target location, careful to stay out of view, and spotted the five kids that had been playing at the river earlier.

  “Think? Ha! I know I can!”

  “You always say that...”

  The leader of their little squad appeared to be a boy with spiky hair. He raised his arm triumphantly into the air and another boy with a scornful look in his eyes—the older brother of the sibling pair—shook his head with a sigh.

  “Big Brother, can you really catch the fairy?” his little sister—who had scornful eyes just like him—asked as she tugged on his hand.

  “Hmm, let’s see... Hey, maybe we should go back for the bug net after all?” he answered.

  “What are you saying?! What if we break its wings! That’d be horrible!” a precocious-looking girl with brown hair argued.

  “That’s right! It’d be cheating if we used tools, anyway! We should fight fair and square!” Apparently, the leader of the group considered their chase with Poppy some kind of battle.

  “Hahh...”

  And just as the scornful-eyed brother sighed, the third boy—who was chubbier than the rest—consoled him with a laugh.

  “Hahaha! Don’t give up now!”

  The chubby boy had an insect cage slung over his shoulder. It was probably something they’d prepared to put Poppy in once they caught her, but it was already occupied with butterflies and other bugs. Perhaps they weren’t too picky about what they caught?

  After getting a better sense of these children and their personalities, I could tell that they weren’t bad kids. Really, they were all just goofing around on the weekend and having fun.

  However, even if they didn’t mean any harm, they’d still ended up hurting Poppy, albeit indirectly. They had no idea how much they were scaring and disturbing the fairies. They didn’t feel safe in their own forest now... I felt a little bad for the kids, but we had to proceed as planned for the fairies’ sake.

  “Satsuki,” I covered my mouth and whispered into the phone.

  “I’m on it,” she whispered from the other end.

  A short moment later, a gust of wind suddenly blew through the forest, eerily rustling the trees. It was Satsuki’s magic at work.

  “Hm?”

  The spiky-haired boy froze mid-step at the sudden movement of the forest. And once their leader stopped, so did the rest of the group as they observed the mysterious phenomenon. The little sister fearfully clung to her brother.

  “What is that?” the chubby boy asked.

  “Nothing. It’s just the wind! My dad told me the weather changes easily in the mountains, so it’s no big deal! Let’s keep going!”

  It seemed the spiky-haired boy was either reckless or just plain difficult to faze. He ignored the others’ concern and marched ahead, but then...

  “Kyaaah!” The brown-haired girl suddenly let out a high-pitched scream.

  “What’s wrong?!” the spiky-haired boy asked, turning around in a hurry.

  “My hand! Someone grabbed my hand just now!”

  “I-It wasn’t me.”

  “Me, neither!”

  The brown-haired girl waved her hand around, half in tears, but both the boys behind her denied any wrongdoing. The little sister holding her brother’s hand with both of hers also shook her head furiously from side to side.

  “Nice one, Harissa.”

  For the record, Harissa had used her invisibility magic just now to sneak up on the girl and grab her hand. The plan I’d come up with was to scare the children badly enough that they never wanted to go too deep into the woods again. I wasn’t winning any points for originality here, but that wasn’t my main concern. I just needed a simple, effective tactic to use on elementary schoolers.

  “Skree, skree, skree!”

  “U-Uwaaah! Bats!”

  Next, Rosalind transformed into a teeming swarm of bats and descended on the children like a black cloud. Of course, she was scaring them rather than hurting them.

  “Kyaaah!”

  “Big Brother!”

  Even if they played up here in the mountain woods frequently, they never would’ve experienced anything like this. (I even checked with Poppy to make sure that bats didn’t live around here.) I figured it would be a good way to scare the pants off of them. The girls had already burst into tears, and I could see the boys shaking in their boots, too.

  “Ugh... Come on, let’s run! They won’t follow us forever!”

  But as expected of their leader, the spiky-haired boy rallied his friends. He rebuked them for being scared and gave them the courage to keep going. It would have been easiest for everyone if they’d run home here... but it looked like we’d have to take things to the next step.

  “Your turn, Poppy.”

  “Okay... here I go.”

  She sounded nervous, but set out to do her job. She slowly approached the children... dressed as a ghost.

  “Yikes!”

  The frightful little sister noticed her first, and she yelped at the sight. That got the attention of the other kids, who all flinched when they saw a ghost floating through the air towards them. For the record, Poppy’s ghost costume was really just Harissa’s scarf, the “something different” about her outfit today. It was small, sure, but it made a perfect sheet ghost when we draped it over Poppy. It was kind of obvious, actually, but it was working just fine against the already frightened children. And the real moment of truth was almost upon us...

  “Oooh... Leave this place at ooonce...”

  Poppy tried as hard as she could to hold back her high-pitched fairy voice and sound as hair-raisingly spooky as possible. It wasn’t exactly convincing on its own, but with the help of Satsuki’s magic making the trees rustle as she spoke, it was plenty terrifying.

  “Wh-Who are you?!”

  “Yooou children... have angered the spirits of the fooorest...”

  “S-Spirits of the forest...?”

  Uh-oh, was that beyond their reading comprehension level? I figured if they knew what fairies were, then they had to know what spirits were... Should I have asked her to use something simpler?

  “The spirits serve... the king of the fooorest!”

  Fortunately, Poppy was able to fill in the gaps. Surely they would understand making a king angry.

  “The king will nooot fooorgive thooose whooo seek to expooose the secrets of the fooorest!”

  “The secrets of the forest...? You mean the fairies?” the brown-haired girl asked, trembling.

  Poppy responded by shaking the white cloth of Harissa’s scarf up and down affirmatively.

  “What should we do?” the little sister asked worriedly.

  The next moment, an even stronger wind blew through the forest, rustling the trees more violently than before. The bats let out a high-pitched screech and an invisible Harissa snuck up on each of the children in turn to scare them. Their fright had just about hit a fever pitch.

  “Never cooome into the fooorest again... If you break this prooomise...”

  “Wh-What happens if we break it?”

  Ghost Poppy didn’t waste any time replying, “THE BATS OF THE FOREST WILL COME SUCK YOUR BLOOD DRY!”

  “SKREEEEE!”

  The bats all screeched loudly as she raised her voice, and the children all took off at a dead sprint, convinced they were running for
their lives.

  We watched them flee from our position in the bushes, and once they were long gone, we all came out from hiding—magical or otherwise.

  “I guess threatening to suck their blood is pretty effective on kids. I remember being scared of vampires when I was little, too.”

  “What? In that case, I should have just confronted them myself instead of using the bats.”

  “No, I don’t think you would have scared them as much, Rosalind.”

  At first glance, she just looked like an ordinary girl. It would have been a different story if she’d put her full vampire powers on display, but we couldn’t risk actually hurting the children. We were only trying to scare them, after all.

  “Oooh, Rekkaaa...”

  “Poppy? Why are you still talking like a ghost? Also, you can take off the scarf now.”

  “Huh? Ah!”

  Poppy squealed in embarrassment and hurriedly removed the scarf from her head.

  “Thank you very much for your help, Miss Harissa.”

  “No, it was my pleasure.” Harissa grinned happily as she accepted the scarf back.

  Poppy then turned back to the rest of us and bowed.

  “Thank you as well, Rekka. It looks like we’ll be able to get some peace and quiet around here again.”

  “Nah, I’m just glad I could help.”

  “I’m truly, truly grateful.” Poppy bowed again. “I’d like to thank you properly someday, so please come by again. We fairies would happily welcome you all.”

  “Sure. We’ll come visit sometime.”

  Poppy waved as she saw us off. We then headed back to the riverside, collecting some more firewood along the way.

  ▽

  “You’re late! What were you kids doing?” Auntie Sanae asked, clearly worried.

  “Erm, we had to take a little detour because of... stuff,” I fumbled.

  “It wasn’t very gentlemanly to make a girl carry the firewood back all by herself,” scolded Uncle Itsuki.

  “I’m sorry...”

  I apologized to Iris and brought over the rest of the wood we’d picked up. We’d been gone long enough that the barbeque had been ready for a while now.

  “Well, now that everyone’s back, shall we get grilling?”

  “Yay!”

  “Yes, let’s!”

  “Woo-hoo!”