I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 5

by Namekojirushi

  I hadn’t saved a single story yet. I couldn’t give up here.

  “Aww, damn it... Fine! Kid, let me tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t need to get the Mermaid Princess’s Tear back.”

  “Huh? Why...?”

  “The jewel the pirates stole from Ryugu Palace was a fake. I swapped out the real thing before they even got there.”

  “...Huh?”

  What the heck was he talking about?

  “But the Mermaid Princess’s Tear is a pretty azure jewel, right? Squallow definitely had it. Rain saw it, too.”

  “Yes, I’m certain that was the Tear...” Rain agreed.

  “I chose something that looked similar enough that you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”

  “But how could you prepare such a detailed fake? Only the clan of the mermaid princess and the king of the mermen are supposed to know about it. How did you even know what it looked like?” Rain didn’t seem convinced.

  How he’d known what it looked like was a good question, but better yet...

  “Why would you do that in the first place?”

  He was a thief, so I could understand stealing it. But why he’d bother swapping it out with a fake was beyond me. It sounded like Raul was trying to trick the pirates.

  “I just told you that I’m immortal, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A long, long time ago, I was the one who gave the original mermaid princess the Tear.”

  “What?!” we all screamed in unison.

  “Th-Then you’re the god in the legend, Raul?” Rain asked.

  “Aww, don’t call me a god. It makes me feel silly. Old stories always get blown out of proportion down the line. The Mermaid Princess’s Tear once had a much more boring name, too, you see. It was called the Weatherstone.” Raul waved his hand dismissively and shied away from Rain’s gaze.

  “Hmm, so what are you saying? In order to protect the present you once gave an old flame, you beat the pirates to it and swapped it out for a fake, then stayed on Berano until they attacked?”

  The rest of us were too stunned to react, but not Rosalind.

  “She was nothing like that,” Raul chuckled. “But she was quite the looker, I’ll have you know. At first, I’ll admit there were ulterior motives. But really, she had a pretty heart... Very different than somebody like me. And, eventually, I started to think I wanted to protect that pretty heart of hers.”

  Raul’s eyes narrowed, and he looked at the floor. Was he remembering something from his past?

  “...I wanted to protect the planet she loved. That was all.”

  “And that’s why you swapped out the real one for a fake?”

  “That’s right. Berano’s royalty has kept the secret of the Mermaid Princess’s Tear for generations. But there are always people trying to find out secrets like that, so I took the extra step of spreading the rumor that it was just a valuable jewel.”

  Right. That way, even if someone did come to steal it, they’d just be looking for a jewel and not something more.

  “Somebody who was just after a jewel could be easily conned with a fake. So when I heard that the Seageists were after the Tear, I quickly snuck into Ryugu Palace. I left a different valuable jewel in its place so they’d steal that instead. Then I could just return the original afterward.”

  And that’s why Raul had been waiting for everything to finish playing out in Ryugu Palace City.

  “Of course, I very discreetly passed the news on to Queen Muse that the Seageists were coming. But she didn’t do anything to prepare... Well, since the Seageists’ boss is the former merman king, she probably didn’t even believe me.”

  But she didn’t know that Squallow was under someone else’s control... and that’s why...

  “So, where’s the real Tear?” I asked.

  “The real tear is,” Raul pointed at me and said, “inside your stomach.”

  “Huh?! Wait! How?!”

  It’d been a day full of surprises, but this was the biggest one yet.

  “The first time we met, by which I mean the time you gave me that nasty lariat, remember how you thought you’d swallowed something?”

  Huh, yeah... That’s right. I thought it was Shirley’s ring, but it turned out to be a small pebble or something. Wait, don’t tell me...

  “The Mermaid Princess’s Tear flew out of my pocket, and you swallowed it.”

  “What was it doing in your pocket?! Take better care of your stuff!”

  “You can’t honestly expect me to be prepared to take a lariat like that on the street.”

  “It was your fault for dine-and-dashing!”

  “Even immortals get hungry, you know.”

  Raul and I yelled at each other for a while, but it was such a waste of time that I gave up.

  “I guess that explains some things, though,” I said. “Like what you were doing in my room, or why you showed up in the canal, or why you followed us here.”

  He’d been trying to keep an eye on the Mermaid Princess’s Tear. He couldn’t just come out and say that something so important—especially not something he stole—was inside my stomach. If I was a bad guy, I might misuse it. And he probably hadn’t tried to take it by force because Rosalind was with me.

  “Well, that’s about the size of it. The Mermaid Princess’s Tear is right here, so there’s no need to go chasing after Squallow,” Raul said, trying to bring the discussion to a close.

  But...

  “No, I still haven’t saved anybody. So I’m going.”

  Raul frowned.

  “Man, you really don’t get it, do you? If it weren’t for me, you would be dead right now! So why are you trying to chase her again? You don’t even know where she went...”

  But before he could continue yelling at me...

  “No, we still have a clue,” Rosalind said, interrupting him.

  She was staring at Garnet, who was still lying on the ground.

  “She left her behind, huh?”

  Bad guy or not, it was still horrible of Shirley to just leave her like that...

  “Hey, if you’re not broken, answer us,” Rosalind demanded.

  “Pi... ga...”

  “Hmph. She’s still partially operational. Rekka, that’s your cue.”

  Rosalind moved aside so that I could talk to her. Garnet still couldn’t move, so I lifted her up and leaned her against the wall. Then I got down on my knees next to her and thought for a moment about what I wanted to say.

  All the bloodline of the Namidare did was give me a chance to bring a story to a happy ending. Shirley’s story was an attempt to create “an ideal world.” Not just any ideal world, but hers. She wanted to be happy. That was a normal wish. One that everybody had. But how Shirley was trying to achieve it was wrong. That much I was sure of. So my question for Garnet was...

  “Garnet, tell me. Why did Shirley decide to create an ideal world?”

  “Rekka, shouldn’t you ask where she went?” Rosalind interrupted in a slightly stern voice.

  “We have to stop Shirley, but just beating her up won’t solve anything. It was the same with you, wasn’t it, Rosalind?”

  “...”

  I hadn’t solved Rosalind’s story just by beating her in combat. I’d had to learn about her past, her motives, and the beginning of her story. That was how I was eventually able to get through to her.

  “I want to save Shirley’s story. It’s normal to want to be happy, but the way she’s acting... If she’s that desperate to be happy, it must mean she’s been through something really horrible. She wouldn’t have to go to such lengths otherwise.”

  Shirley’s smile last night when we were playing was genuine. I couldn’t imagine a truly cold-blooded person smiling like that. That’s how I knew there had to be something in her past... Something that had driven her to this.

  Garnet’s head turned upward to look at me with a creaking sound. She stared straight at me with mechanical
eyes.

  “...You’re going to save Shirley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “...You’re the first person who’s ever said they’d do anything for her.” Garnet’s mouth was still moving awkwardly, but her voice sounded relieved. “Shirley is a genius created by the pinnacle of genetic technology. She’s been training in all of Estashion’s technology since the day she was born, and she started working with the adults at the head of the government at a young age.”

  “A created genius?”

  So like an even more amazing version of mixing the genes of talented men and women?

  “No friends.”

  “No time to play.”

  I recalled the things Shirley had said at the hotel and gritted my teeth. If she’d really spent her whole life in an environment like that, then she couldn’t help feeling that way, could she?

  “At first, I was just a little doll with a learning-enabled AI implanted in me. Shirley always looked so sad when she played with me... Eventually she moved my AI to another body and upgraded me over and over until I could help her with her work. Work was all she cared about. It felt like she was working so much so she wouldn’t have to think about anything else.”

  So she was trying to drown her loneliness in work?

  “But just over a year ago... something happened.”

  “What?”

  “Shirley has been working on a certain project for three years.” Garnet kept talking, unblinking. “The chip that was implanted in Squallow’s brain was originally the type given to all Estashionian citizens at the age of ten as an initiation into adulthood. It enhances a person’s mental capacities.”

  “I remember hearing something about that,” Raul said.

  “The name of that chip was the Peacemaker Device, and it was part of a project that was attempting to use them to eliminate crime and dangerous ideologies. On occasion, it was also used to bring the will of the people together.”

  Get rid of crime and dangerous ideologies? That sounded nice on the surface, but it was really no different than using the master chip to control someone, was it? And this was on a much larger scale.

  “The people weren’t opposed to a mind control project like that?”

  “That’s why the project was carried out in secret. But just a little over a year ago, the details became public. The backlash was overwhelming. The people came very close to obliterating their own government.”

  That made sense. It was hard to imagine who wouldn’t be mad after finding out about something like that. I know I would be. But what did this have to do with Shirley’s story?

  “So what happened then?”

  I motioned for her to continue, and Garnet—even though she was an android—looked like she was about to cry.

  “The Estashionian government put all the blame on Shirley, the project head, and tried to have her executed.”

  “Executed?!”

  “...So, Shirley was betrayed?” Tetra bit her lip and put her hand up to her chest as if to quell the pain inside.

  She’d spent her whole life without making friends or having fun, only to end up being used like a scapegoat...

  “Hmph...”

  Rosalind didn’t say anything, but I could tell that she was displeased. Maybe she was thinking of Suzuran back when she was still Silver Slayer, a homunculus created only to kill her. There was certainly a similarity between the two of them. Shirley’d even been betrayed. It wouldn’t be right to compare which of them was worse off, but...

  “Shirley took me and fled from the government.”

  But before she left the planet, she’d had Garnet remove her chip. The government could track her with it, so she knew she had to get rid of it in order to get away.

  “So that’s what happened to Shirley...”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand.”

  I nodded, but before I could stand up, I heard a voices in the hall as pirates swarmed into the room. They were all badly injured and their clothes were in tatters.

  “Fam! What the heck is going on here?!” one of them asked.

  “What happened to you all? You’re bleeding!” Fam replied.

  “Some weird woman showed up with a monster and stole our new ship! Some of the others went with her. We don’t now what’s going on...”

  According to what they said, the woman—probably Shirley—had taken a few of the pirates with her, including some of their lieutenants. Those who tried to stop them were attacked without mercy. Shirley hadn’t only done her surgery on Squallow. She’d probably implanted this “chip” in some of the other crewmembers, as well.

  “Fam, do we have a ship that can chase her?” I helped Garnet to her feet as I talked. She still seemed barely aware of what was going on around her. “The faster the better, even. Something that can catch up to the new ship’s warp speed... Like the one in the docks right now.”

  “...And you want me to get everybody to help you? To save that woman...” Fam spat out those words with a bitter expression on her face.

  “I won’t deny it. I want to help Shirley. But I want to help Squallow, too.”

  “...”

  “Fam, your story can’t have a happy ending without Squallow and the Seageists, right? I’ll help you. So help me, too.”

  Fam didn’t answer right away. She looked down a little and thought about it.

  “Fam, what is he talking about? Who are these guys?” one of the pirates asked.

  “Everyone...” Fam said as she looked up. “We’re going to save the boss.”

  “Wait, you can’t mean...”

  “You can ask questions later! Get the ship moving first! Everybody in the family owes the boss a debt, and now’s the time to repay it! Now it’s our turn to save him!”

  For a moment, the pirates fell silent. But seeing how serious she was, they all ran out of the room with determination in their eyes.

  “We’re going, too. Don’t fall behind,” Fam said as she looked over her shoulder before running after the pirates.

  “Yeah. Garnet, you can tell us the rest on the way.”

  I offered Garnet my shoulder as I went to follow Fam.

  “Wait.”

  But Raul stepped in front of me.

  “You’re not done talking with me. You’ve got the Mermaid Princess’s Tear in your stomach. I can’t let you anywhere near Shirley.”

  Raul was looking at me with a stern expression. I could understand why he wouldn’t want the Mermaid Princess’s Tear anywhere Shirley could get her hands on it. But...

  “You understand, don’t you, Raul? Your whole plan depends on her thinking that she had the real Tear. But once she realizes that she doesn’t, Shirley’s going to attack Berano again.”

  “...”

  The tear was necessary for keeping Berano’s climate stable, but it wouldn’t make a difference with no one left to enjoy it. Until the problem with Shirley was solved, Berano wouldn’t be safe.

  “If it’s really that important to you, then you can do surgery on me or something to take it out.”

  With Raul’s power, any wounds from the surgery could be healed instantly.

  “But there’s no time, so do it while we’re on the ship on the way out of here. We might need to go into warp to catch her, but once we leave warp, you can take an escape pod and leave on your own.”

  “...I still don’t get it. I mean, that works for me, but I still don’t get it. Shirley tried to kill you. Why are you going after her?’

  “The reason’s simple,” I said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “Because that’s the normal thing to do.” The corners of my mouth turned up ever so slightly. “If a friend of mine gets kidnapped, I want to save them. If a child is crying, I want to help them. And if my friend is doing something wrong, I want to stop them, even if I have to punch them to snap them out of it. That’s all there is to it.”

  That was how I decided to live my life the day I found out about my bloodline.
>
  “Raul, everyone... what will you do?”

  “Hmph. I’m going with you, of course. Do you even have to ask?” Rosalind was the first to respond.

  “I want to stop Shirley, too,” Tetra said. She formed her hands into tiny fists in front of her chest and nodded. “I don’t want her to do any more awful things.”

  “...Me, too,” Rain said in a strong voice through lips tightly pursed in determination.

  “Come on now. Rain, you’re not that strong. What will you do if you follow the boy? It’s dangerous!” Raul quickly stood in her way and tried to persuade her to give up.

  “Raul...”

  But the purity in her eyes made him look away.

  “You have watched over Berano and the merfolk for centuries, and on behalf of my clan, I thank you. But for now, please don’t try to stop me.”

  “But I made a promise to her. I promised I’d protect Berano! I can’t let you go anywhere you’ll be in danger.”

  “Raul...” Rain said softly.

  She then closed her eyes and paused for a moment. When she looked up at Raul once more, the look in her eyes was even more resolute than before.

  “Did the purehearted princess you loved ask you only to protect the merfolk and not the mermen?”

  Raul’s eyes went wide.

  “I’m going to save Squallow. And I’m going to change the world so he can come back home,” Rain said. “My mother and Squallow protected my world, and now I will change it to bring us into the future. Just like I promised my mother when I was little, I will grant the wish of the red fish prince and the blue fish princess.”

  Raul frowned for a moment before finally putting a hand to his forehead and muttering that he’d given up.

  “In the end, I’m just a wimp who sees only what he wants to see. When I look into eyes like yours, Rain, I realize how small I really am.”

  Raul chuckled and slapped his hands against his cheeks. In an instant, he was back to his usual easygoing expression.

  “I’ll follow you anywhere. If there’s anything I can do to help, just ask.”

  “Will do,” I said as I nodded.

  Now that everyone was on the same page, I headed for the spaceport, half-carrying Garnet along the way. Fam gave us a ride in some kind of vehicle that hovered above the ground, so we were all at the ship and ready to go in no time.