Chirp, chirp—
Maybe it was because this was an old game. Even the way it portrayed morning felt old-fashioned.
“Miss Yuridia, wake up.”
Yuridia had fallen asleep in caterpillar form.
The sleeping bag rose halfway upright, then froze in place.
What was this? Had she evolved into a chrysalis?
“Mmm… where’s breakfast?”
“As far as I know, chrysalises don’t need meals.”
“I’m a person! A living creature that can’t survive without calories!”
Crimson flames flickered around Yuridia.
She looked ready to use me as food if I didn’t feed her.
I rummaged around by the head of the bed and pulled out the hunters’ emergency rations: ham and biscuits.
The moment I put a slice of ham into her mouth, the chrysalis… no, Yuridia, quieted down.
“Mmm… not bad. Don’t you have any warm milk?”
Like I’d have that. Scalding water hot enough to pass for lava, maybe.
The water was still bubbling in the cup after I poured it.
Yuridia naturally brought it to her lips.
Thankfully, she didn’t spit it back out. I had adjusted the temperature with ice magic.
“What a beginner’s meal. I’m disappointed.”
“I should’ve poisoned the ham.”
“What an unfunny joke. I really do wonder how you managed to win Miss Luna’s heart.”
And I’d really love to know what goes on inside the head of the girl running the academy rumor mill.
Once she finished eating, Yuridia wriggled her way out of the sleeping bag.
Having successfully molted(?), she spread both arms like wings.
It looked like she was finally ready to head outside.
“So, what’s the plan now?”
“I need to regroup with Luna. It should take about an hour.”
“Ahh, I wanted to go camping with cute little Luna… such a shame. I wonder how adorable she looks right after waking up. I bet she has the face of an angel.”
Really? I’d say she was closer to a Demon than an angel, and closer to an evil spirit than a Demon.
And that was coming from someone who saw her every day, so it was reliable testimony.
Anyway, now that I’d filled my stomach, all that was left was to leave.
But before that, there was one thing I needed to do.
“Do you have any money?”
“Money…?”
Yuridia fumbled around and pulled out a single silver coin. When I shook my head, she pouted and pulled out one more.
“How petty… This is highway robbery! Two meals and you’re charging me 2 silver?”
“I agree. If it were me, I would’ve been satisfied with 1 silver.”
“Huh?”
I tucked the two silver coins beneath the head of the bed.
That was right. I had no intention of taking them for myself.
‘The hunters’ anger is terrifying.’
Emergency food for the next visitor, local specialties, medicine in case something went wrong.
The hunters had prepared all of it as an act of kindness for whoever came after them.
And because of that, the hunters’ rules applied here.
‘Anyone who uses these supplies must leave something for the next person.’
If they had nothing appropriate to leave behind, then they were to leave money instead.
Otherwise, they would pay the price with their body.
This was one of the hidden pieces I’d discovered and revealed.
How did I find it?
…I’d rather not know either.
“Keke, kindness should be repaid with kindness.”
“Hmph~ I see. Maybe that’s one of the things Miss Luna fell for.”
I really am devastatingly charming. The kind of man who racks up sins just by breathing, you could say.
“Then let’s get going.”
“Oh, right. You kept the proposal safe, yes?”
Yuridia’s proposal for Teron. Of course I had it with me.
It was a piece of the puzzle that might even change the ending of this episode. There was no way I’d handle it carelessly—
‘Come to think of it…’
As the hunters’ hidden piece had shown, this game was built with an absurd level of detail.
‘But can Teron really be persuaded with just a single proposal like this?’
— Daike is an exception.
Yuridia had excluded Daike.
Because she claimed it would be better for him that way.
‘But Teron won’t accept a proposal that leaves Daike out.’
Because to him, Daike mattered more than anything.
“What are you doing? Aren’t we going?”
“…I’ll take the lead.”
What mattered first was that we’d opened the door.
When it came to clearing hidden pieces, gathering information always came first.
I would have to look for what had changed.
“Miss Luna, just wait a little longer! I’m bringing your darling to you right now!”
…First, I needed to shake off this academy gossip goblin.
About an hour after leaving the hunters’ hideout, we reached our destination.
I expected to be greeted by a fierce young lady and a timid rabbit—
“There’s no one here?”
—but I wasn’t.
I looked around, but there was no sign of Luna or Rezé.
Surely they hadn’t run into trouble while searching for me?
That was what I was thinking at the exact moment—
“Y-you’re lateeeee!”
The bushes suddenly spoke to me.
Gah! The legendary bush ghost that only talks to handsome people!
I jumped back and glared at the shrubbery.
Looking closer, it had a vaguely human shape. I didn’t even have to think to figure out what it was.
It was Rezé, disguised as a camouflaged rabbit.
“D-did I scare you?”
“Keke, me? As if. I’m the very model of a manly man.”
“I-it sounded like you screamed like a little girl…”
“You heard wrong.”
Rezé narrowed her eyes.
They were clearly saying, ‘Sure you did~.’
What a cheeky little rabbit.
“It seems you’ve forgotten who I am after just one night.”
“K-kiiiik!”
I had just grabbed Rezé’s Idiot Hair and started shaking it from side to side when—
“Hey! Where did you go?”
Luna was running toward us from far away, a pig-like animal slung over her shoulder.
It looked like she’d gone out hunting in the morning.
“Keke, my apologies. Something came up, so I ended up a bit late.”
“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
“As you can see, I’m perfectly fine.”
Even after I said that, Luna kept checking me over.
She even went so far as to prod and pat me all over before finally letting out a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, you’re fine. Other than your face.”
“Is there something wrong with my face?”
“No, it was weird to begin with.”
“…?”
“Let’s eat first and move after. You must be starving. Honestly, you’d be helpless without this big sister of yours…”
Luna immediately got to work butchering the pig.
The instant I saw the glint of her knife, I knew.
If I told her I’d eaten until I was stuffed and spent a cozy night in comfort—
‘That pig wouldn’t be the one lying there. I would.’
Since I was apparently about to eat breakfast for the second time, I decided to send Yuridia ahead first.
“You should head on first. If you go that way, you’ll come across a red rock soon enough. From there, just follow the path on the left.”
As a bonus, I was also pointing her toward the place where the next part of the story would unfold.
Everything was perfect.
Except—
“Why should I leave?”
“What?”
“We’re allies, aren’t we? Wouldn’t it be stranger not to stay together?”
“Wouldn’t that lower the efficiency of gathering headbands?”
“We only need to secure a little over half of them anyway. And in the worst-case scenario, we can just get help from Alex and Victoria, so don’t worry.”
Yuridia came up with a fairly convincing excuse.
That was right. I knew exactly what it was.
An excuse.
The real reason Yuridia refused to leave was simple.
“Ohohoho! This is the perfect chance to watch Miss Luna’s romance unfold right in front of me! There’s no way I’d pass this up!”
It was because of Luna.
This was much more troublesome than I’d expected.
‘If she stays like this, Yuridia’s storyline gets blocked, and we’re locked into a bad ending.’
As I was still trying to figure out what to do, Yuridia made the first move.
“I’ll help. Should I raise the fire a little?”
Yuridia stepped in to help Luna.
What she got in return was—
Glare.
Luna’s icy stare.
“Miss Luna? Why are you looking at me like that? Did I do something wrong…?”
“You really have to ask? You two spent the whole night together.”
“N-no, don’t worry! I’m Yuridia! I’m not the sort of shameless woman who’d lay a hand on her friend’s boyfriend.”
“Who said that? I’m mad because the two of you got to enjoy camping together.”
“Huh?”
“It was supposed to be my first camping trip with Zero. I’d already thought through everything—what kind of campsite we’d make, what we’d eat, what we’d do for fun. I really wanted us to go for a walk at dawn and look at the stars… and you went and did all of it before me!”
Luna, we weren’t there to go camping. We’re in the middle of an exam.
And why on earth would anyone go for a walk at dawn? What are you, some hopeless romantic?
“Pfft…”
Maybe she found that little fantasy adorable, because Yuridia let out a small laugh.
And what greeted her for it—was Luna’s burning gaze.
“Hic…!”
Startled, Yuridia began hiccuping.
Only now, it seemed, had she realized what she’d done.
Without even meaning to, she had gone full NTR.
From Luna’s perspective, that smile Yuridia had just made probably looked like mockery.
‘Your friend’s first camping experience? I stole it. Oh~ Hohoho!’
Something like that.
More than enough reason for Luna to go up in flames.
“So you had a really fun time, huh? I’m sure you did everything I wanted to do.”
“N-no! That’s not it at all! Nothing happened! Right?”
Yuridia looked to me for help. She wanted me to stop this before the misunderstanding spiraled out of control.
And the moment I heard her plea, I acted at once.
Thud.
“…?”
I collapsed gently to the side and sat down in a frail, delicate pose, my legs tucked together like a girl’s.
“Sniff…”
Once I even added fake tears to the performance, Yuridia could only stare at me with her mouth hanging open.
“Miss Luna, I’m sorry. I did my best to refuse, but… it was too late at night, so there was nothing I could do.”
“T-that’s a lie! I wasn’t the one who dragged him away, it was him!”
“If only Miss Yuridia hadn’t challenged me to a fight back then…”
“T-that part is my fault, but still…!”
When Yuridia turned her eyes aside, she saw it.
The evil spirit that had settled over Luna’s face.
Luna’s murderous demon mode. It had been a while.
“I’ll never forgive you! You stole the first time(?) that Zero and I were supposed to have together!”
“S-stole it?! Absolutely nottt!”
Yuridia fled like her life depended on it.
Luna chased after her for a while, then came back to our side. Her expression was gloomy.
“Let’s just eat first. It’s not much, but still…”
It was a whole roasted pig seasoned with nothing but salt. Worse, the cooking method was a mess, so it hadn’t even cooked evenly.
Some parts were underdone, others had been burned black.
In every way, it was lacking.
Honestly, it tasted worse than what I’d eaten yesterday, but—
“It’s excellent.”
The fact that I’d managed to get one over on Yuridia, the queen of the academy rumor mill, made the meal taste far better than it deserved.
“Don’t be too disappointed about the camping. There’ll be plenty of chances in the future.”
“But it’s still a shame that it won’t be the first time. There are feelings you can only have the first time, you know? I wanted to share those with you…”
It seemed Luna had wanted to share all of it with me.
The little incidents that came with preparing a campsite.
The time spent eating together, relaxing together, sharing the same feelings, falling asleep under the stars.
All of it.
“It might as well have been the first time.”
“Hm?”
“It wasn’t fun at all. You could barely even call it camping. It was completely boring.”
Luna’s face lit up instantly.
“Hehe! Eat up! You too, Rezé! I even roasted carrots!”
Luna handed Rezé a skewer with a carrot on it.
Apparently, Luna had no idea that Rezé was on the verge of tears as she stared at the half-burnt carrot.
By the time we finished cleaning up the campsite, my stomach felt like it would burst, but my mood was strangely fresh and light.
That was when Luna scratched the back of her head and asked,
“So, what now?”
What now?
“We go hunting.”
–TL Notes–
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The theme of this episode is NTR!
I guess it not tge time to challenge Teron yet