NOVEL NEXT Chapter 19: (1)
Transfer
Tanaka and co. headed to Nanashi town in a hurry. Apparently, however, the army of beauties had all retreated. Tanaka couldn’t help but click his tongue.
In the town, some people could already be seen here and there beginning to deal with the aftermath of the incident. It may be thanks to the fact that here was a frontier area, but the residents for sure possessed quite a resilient spirit.
As the three continued to make their way through the town and headed to the guild, they could eventually notice Echigoya issuing various instructions to the people.
「Echigoya-san. We just got back!」
「Oh, you’ve returned pretty early.」
When Echigoya noticed Tanaka, he floated a smile and greeted him with sarcasm. Tanaka tried to give him a desperate excuse.
「No, no, you may not know it but we’d also gone through a lot, you know? We’ve suffered from this such and also that, you know? The same goes with the army of beauties from earlier, I had to suffer through hell because of them.」
It wasn’t good at all. For now, Tanaka tried to gloss it over by saying whatever lines that seemed right. Despite his sarcastic greeting, though, Echigoya didn’t seem to be that angry at him. Rather, it was more like his current priority was to first deal with the situation in the town, so he didn’t have time to fuss over Tanaka.
「I don’t really follow that, but for the time being, I want you to quickly help out with the reconstruction of the town. We don’t know when they might come attacking again, after all.」
「Well, about that matter, the thing is….」
Tanaka informed him about the incident which caused the fall of the beautiful woman. Afterwards, he also told him that it was highly likely that the purpose of the attack was to lure that beautiful woman out, according to what he heard before the army of beauties retreated. However, he didn’t bring up the matter pertaining to the spirits, since he felt that he’d only get involved in more trouble should he do so. Upon listening to Tanaka’s report, Echigoya fell into thoughts.
「… I see, that’s certainly a possibility. Do you have any idea who the victim was?」
「Her body more or less turned into smithereens, so there was nothing I could do to investigate.」
He couldn’t quite tell him that her body had completely disappeared because she was a spirit. So he decided to mislead him by saying whatever suitable words he could come up with.
「I see. That’s still without a doubt good news, but there’s no guarantee that we’re already completely out of danger either. Anyway, please help out with the recovery of the town.」
「Aye, aye, sir.」
Echigoya quickly moved away from Tanaka and co., and resumed giving out instructions to people for town recovery works again. Looking at such an Echigoya, Suke-san was impressed.
「He looks very busy-degozaru.」
「Yep. Thanks to that, it looks like we can gloss over the matter of us taking too long with our training…. kukuku. Well, Let us do what we can to help out with this matter too.」
Tanaka and co. left the guild and proceeded through the town. They’d been walking while looking around, but let alone died, no one seemed to be injured at all. Instead, there seemed to be a lot of destruction to the buildings. To lure out the beautiful woman, they destroyed the buildings which caused more impact, perhaps something along those lines.
「For the time being, let’s go to the inn. It’s an important place for us to sleep, after all. If there’s damage to the inn, we’ll help out with the reconstruction there to the best of our abilities, as it’s for our sake too.」
「Yes-degozaru.」
「Yoi!」
The three headed to the inn they frequented. As they walked through the destroyed town, Tanaka began to ponder about the future.
「We also need to arrange equipment for Kaku-san….」
Tanaka muttered as he turned toward Kaku-san. Kaku-san had nothing but black speedos on his body. So he stood out like a sore thumb in the town. To put it bluntly, there was no point in him assuming human form.
「Ah, I don’t need that sort of thing. I can’t carry heavy objects like weapon or armor, after all.」
Kaku-san easily rejected Tanaka’s idea. Moreover, his reason was quite an absurd one.
「What? What the hell is that? What are those uselessly bursting muscles for then?!」
Tanaka protested about Kaku-san’s muscles. While brushing aside Tanaka’s protests, Kaku-san explained the reason.
「I was once told by my master that ‘a spirit must be beautiful’, so I put quite a lot of effort into this human appearance of mine, you know?」
Kaku-san stopped on his steps, and responded to Tanaka in his signature side chest pose. For some reason, Suke-san was imitating his pose next to him.
「So it’s all for show then! Moreover, you took it in the wrong direction! And o master, you should have corrected him properly…. Rather, by master, you mean that beautiful woman, right? That beautiful woman actually had such an airhead side to her, huh… Also, Suke-san, stop imitating him!」
Tanaka properly disciplined Suke-san to make sure he didn’t grow in a strange direction. He seemed to be unwilling, but Suke-san still obediently listened to him.
「That’s why, we can discard the matter of my equipment. In my human form, I spend most of my power to maintain these muscles and speedos, after all.」
「No, you don’t need to do those sorts of things! Just be normal alright!」
Tanaka had him turn into human form was originally to make him less conspicuous. Tanaka earnestly hoped for things to stay normal. And if possible, he hoped for a beautiful woman. Whether he realized Tanaka’s thought or not, Kaku-san continued on.
「Well, when it comes time to battle, I’ll undo my human form and assist you. I can use most of the magic that humans can use, after all.」
Kaku-san boasted about his ability with a smug look on his face. As expected of a spirit, one could say, he seemed to be good at magic. Tanaka was honestly interested in it.
「Seriously? That’s awesome, Kaku-san…. Hmm, it looks like there’s a need to give it a try, and then reconstruct our tactics based on it.」
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