Prologue: Reincarnated on an Island

I couldn’t really remember what my childhood dream was anymore. I’d thought that the future was endlessly vast, and that I would be able to do whatever I wanted when I grew up.

“But I was wrong...” I said to myself.

After graduating from college, I ended up working for a so-called “black company.” I was constantly bombarded with all manner of different tasks, which made leaving on time impossible. I’d return home on the last train every night and routinely be called into work on my days off. Needless to say, living that way meant I had no free time, and I devoted what few vacations I was allowed to idly lying around and watching videos on the internet. Every day, I felt that my life was a drag. But I never got up the courage to take the first step to change it. And in the end, I died from overwork.

Perhaps this outcome was only natural.

Well, my cause of death was apparently a god’s careless mistake, I thought, so maybe “natural” isn’t quite the right way to put it...

“Still, I didn’t expect to end up somewhere like this.”

A large forest stretched out before my eyes, and a somewhat choppy ocean behind me. Just a short while ago I’d been at work. Then I’d died and met a god who decided that I would be reincarnated. I’d asked to go somewhere without any people, and the end result was...

“So gods really are out there?” To be honest, I’d assumed that it had all been a dream or a hallucination brought on by exhaustion, but no dreams were this real.

I didn’t want to think about anything, so I hugged my knees while watching the ocean. When I closed my eyes, the sound of the waves receding on the sand began to put my mind at ease.

“Now then...”

That was enough reflecting on a past I didn’t want to remember. It was time to think about the future.

I was currently on an uninhabited island. I’d been given two cheats: a strong body immune to illness and injury, and the ability to copy someone’s skills and magic just by watching them. I had only asked for the first one, but the god had thrown in the second for some reason. Something about how it would lead to a greater sense of adventure.

“Well, I’ll take what I’m given. But what’s the point of a copy ability if I’m all alone here?”

I had been utterly dumbfounded when I’d heard that I, a former lowly office worker, was going to be reincarnated in another world because a god had carelessly let me die. But regardless, I really was grateful for these gifts that would allow me to live in the midst of nature.

“She really made me quite good-looking too. Is this another freebie? Not that I have anyone to show myself to.”

My reflection in the ocean had black hair, and my face was similar to how it used to be but with more slim and youthful features. I was originally thirty years old, but now I appeared to be around twenty. It was quite odd having a different body from the one I’d lived with for many years, but the feeling would probably resolve itself before long.

“Anyway, it sure is incredible that I don’t have to worry about getting hurt or sick.”

It felt liberating to think about how I wouldn’t have to wear out my body working like I used to, but I was worried about what I should do from now on. Well, it wouldn’t be anything too flashy. As long as I could rely on the strength of this new body to live in peaceful solitude, that was enough. I didn’t want to work. I was going to savor the leisurely rural living that I’d yearned for back in my days as a corporate grunt.

That’s what I decided before I was reborn, but...I know next to nothing about survival skills. Could living on an uninhabited island actually be quite demanding?

“No, there’s no point in saying that now! Let’s do this! I’m going to enjoy this peaceful life with all I’ve got!”

It all starts with a single step, I thought.

I rose to my feet and entered the forest.

◇

The first thing I felt upon entering the forest was how gracefully my body moved. My agility was completely different from before—the expression “born anew” fit to a T. It would normally have been a challenge just to walk down this game trail, but instead it was like strolling down a flat, paved road, and I swiftly moved ahead.

It was dark, with the sunlight significantly obscured by large, tall trees. But that didn’t mean it was hard for me to see; it was almost as if I were an animal with night vision.

“Hmm... But this island really does seem uninhabited.”

I couldn’t spot anything man-made in the forest, and I often caught sight of what looked to be footprints from animals using the trail. The smell was also quite intense.

“I’ll have to investigate what kind of island this is. But before that, I need to secure some food and water.”

It went without saying, but if there was no one living here, I would have to acquire provisions myself. For meat in particular, I would need to hunt wild animals. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether an ordinary office worker like me would be able to do that. I had no idea how to actually prepare an animal in the first place; I’d only ever seen it in manga a long time ago.

I paused. “Actually, I’ll be fine. After all, I’ve got a strong body from a god.”

Surely she hadn’t sent me here to make up for her own mistake only to put me in a situation where I could easily die. But despite my wishful thinking, I couldn’t dispel my unease.

“Wild animals are scary, so why don’t I start with searching for some water, and also some plants that look edible?”

If I had any survival skills, I might’ve been able to make even seawater drinkable. But seeing as I couldn’t do that, I had to search for a river, lake, or anywhere else with clean water.

Twigs crunched under my feet with every step. Besides that and the occasional bird call from above, the forest was quiet, so those snapping sounds produced an odd dissonance which only made my anxiety worse.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of something else breaking a branch. I gasped and whirled around, but nothing was there.

“Actually, scratch that.”

Lowering my gaze, I saw a small, snow-white rabbit looking up at me with cute, beady eyes. The sight of this adorable creature released the tension from my body. At the same time, a thought came to mind: I can eat rabbits if I cook them, can’t I?

“Sorry,” I said to the rabbit.

It looked innocently at me, showing no signs of caution. I slowly approached it, and as I did, I decided that it would be my food for the day. I might not have known how to prepare a rabbit, but I was pretty sure that as long as I drained its blood, took out its internal organs, skinned it, and cooked it, I’d have a passable meal.

“Squee,” the rabbit quietly squeaked. Then, its eyes suddenly glinted and it headbutted me. There was a huge, dull thud, and the trees around us shook.

“Huh?”

“Squee?”

The rabbit and I regarded each other with curiosity.

It had a look in its eyes like it wanted to say, Why are you still standing? As for me, I was utterly baffled as to how such a tremendous noise had come from something that I’d hardly felt at all.

I tried grabbing the rabbit by its legs, but it dodged with a nimble backward leap. It charged at me a second time, so I blocked it. Right on cue, another loud, dull noise resounded throughout the forest.

“Huh? I guess it’s nothing after all.”

After a long pause, the rabbit squeaked again.

It would take more than a rabbit to knock a grown man off his feet. That much was obvious, but for some reason, I could imagine my previous self being bowled over. Still, as you might expect, I couldn’t let myself lose to a rabbit.

“I’ll be making you my meal for today.”

I balled up my hand into a fist, then brought it down on the rabbit.

“Squeeee?!”

The rabbit must’ve sensed danger, because it instantly tried to dodge my punch. My fist only grazed it... At least, that’s what I thought, but suddenly the rabbit was spinning violently like a top at full speed.

“Huh?”

The rabbit’s momentum sent it smashing into a tree, where it slumped limply to the ground.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What was that? Did it just self-destruct?”

I’d never seen a rabbit move like that before. Then again, I was in another world. There were plenty of animals back on Earth that could spontaneously kill themselves, so maybe a rabbit that did the same wasn’t too strange here.

“It looks like it fainted, so while it’s still unconscious, I’ll capture it and—”

The moment I moved toward the fallen rabbit, I sensed another presence nearby. I turned around and saw a drooling wolf looking my way, and it appeared to be absolutely starving. This creature, which had already gone extinct in Japan, glared at me menacingly while giving off an intense, murderous air. Its gray fur was faintly dirty, and its bared fangs looked sharp enough to bite a human arm clean off. Honestly, I was terrified.

“Oh, cra—!”

I wanted to turn around and run for it, but it was likely to attack me if I did. As I panicked, wondering what to do, I noticed that the wolf’s line of sight wasn’t on me, but on the rabbit. Apparently it was trying to swipe my kill from me. Without taking my eyes off the wolf, I slowly approached the rabbit and firmly grabbed the unconscious animal.

“You’re acting more like a hyena than a wolf. But if this is what you’re after...”

I flung the rabbit over the wolf. It looked up at the flying animal in a panic, then chased after its prey. At the same time, I turned in the opposite direction and broke into a run.

“Hahh, hahh... Phew.”

After a while, I came to a stop, relieved that there was no sign of anything coming after me. Though I had sprinted as fast as I could, I didn’t feel any fatigue. But my heart was audibly thumping, and I was afraid for my life.

I looked behind me. There was just a game trail and the dense forest. “So this is what it means to live on your own...”

I didn’t want to associate with anyone—that had been the thought in my mind when making my wish to the god. I still didn’t regret it, but it seemed like there was nothing I could do about this anxiety over whether I would be able to survive.

“Oh...is it already evening?”

I hadn’t noticed because the tall trees obscured most of the sunlight, but it appeared to be when the sun set. There was no telling what kinds of dangerous creatures lived in this forest in addition to the wolf from earlier. I had no guarantee that the beasts would run away if I made a fire, so I decided to abandon my explorations for the day and return to the beach. From what I’d seen a while ago, there was a rocky stretch that could make for a good hiding spot. It seemed like a safer place to stay than the forest, anyway.

“Once it’s bright out tomorrow, I’ll definitely find some drinkable water.”

I had done a lot of walking down unfamiliar trails today, and I had even sprinted as fast as I could, and I still didn’t feel very tired. But even if this body was more efficient, there was no way I could ignore the need for water.

“Maybe it’s safe...here?”

Before it became completely dark, I found a space in the rocky area of the shore large enough for a person to enter, and I decided to make that my temporary base. There was nothing to act as a roof, so when I lay down on a hard boulder, the vast sky spread out above me.

“Wow...”

This must’ve been what people meant when they talked about a sky full of stars. Without any artificial lighting, the heavens above the island were overflowing with more stars than I’d ever seen in my life. It took my breath away. What kind of place was this island, and would I really be able to live by myself? One look at the glittering stars instantly made those worries disappear.

“Tomorrow, I’ll give it my all.”

There were, without a doubt, moments that could completely change one’s outlook on life. For me, the first had been when I died and was reincarnated. The second was right now. It made me realize that all my troubles, my sufferings, and my entire life were puny compared to the vastness of the world. In short, I was awestruck by the sight.

It’ll be all right, I thought. If I can see this view every night, then I can do my best.

“Let’s do this! I can do this! I’ll live on my own!” I shouted to the sky, louder than I’d ever been before.

I wouldn’t complain that my life was a drag anymore. I promised myself that I would lead a fun life on this island, and as I did, I shouted again and again.

◇

The next day, I was awoken by the sunlight directly on my face. I left my hiding spot in the rocks and looked at the shore.

“I’m not dreaming. That’s a relief.”

I had been worried that when I opened my eyes, it would be as if the previous day’s events and my inspiration had never existed, that I would wake up in the same old room and continue to experience the same monotonous days. However, sprawling before my eyes now was the huge forest, and the vast ocean with its endless, unbroken horizon. There was no room for doubt that I was still on the same island.

“I thought that sleeping on those rocks would make me feel stiff, but I guess not.”

I was in such good condition that it was almost scary. I knew I had been made younger, but this was just too abnormal. Perhaps my god-given, healthy body was emitting some sort of mysterious power. I was somewhat thirsty, but not to the point I could no longer do anything—it would probably be fine for me to move around all day.

“All right, why don’t I take a stroll on the beach before I go into the forest?”

There could very well be something edible on the shore too, and I might also find some plants that stored water. It had been a total mistake to go into the forest without even considering those possibilities.

I continued on with that in mind, but I then caught sight of something far away lying on the beach.

“What’s that?”

I cautiously approached, only to find that it was the one thing that shouldn’t have been here: another human. Surprised, I hurried over to them, and I saw that it was a girl who was young enough to still be a high school or college student.

She had the slim figure of a model, and fire-red hair that went down to the middle of her back. The outline of her chest was clearly visible in her wet, clinging clothes, and her slender legs beneath her short skirt were oddly captivating. Typical of someone from a fantasy world, she was wearing a white cloak, but it was soaked with water and looked incredibly heavy. At any rate, she was more beautiful than anyone I’d ever seen in my life.

“Umm...could she be a castaway?”

I looked around, but I couldn’t see anyone else. There was nothing resembling a ship on the horizon either.

I was the one who had asked to be reborn in a place without any other people, so it made sense that I was alone. But then, why was someone else here, lying on the beach? That god had seemed quite careless, what with her accidentally killing me, as well as her other unreliable aspects. She had been undependable, like a new employee who earnestly listened and took notes but didn’t really comprehend what was going on.

“Wait, now isn’t the time to be thinking about that!”

I rushed over to the girl and got on my knees.

Out of all the various videos I’d watched thinking that I’d go camping one day, I had seen one on how to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Relying on my memory, I checked the girl’s condition and verified that she was in danger—she was unconscious and without a pulse, and she couldn’t breathe. It looked like she had swallowed a lot of water, and some of it was dribbling from her mouth. At this rate, she would drown. I didn’t know how long she’d been in this state, but there didn’t seem to be any time to lose.

“C-Can I really do it?”

Needless to say, I didn’t have a defibrillator on hand that would list all the steps in detail. I was faced with the fear of having to do something urgent while relying on just my own knowledge.

“But that’s no reason not to try.”

I slightly elevated the girl’s chin, and was about to bend her head back when I remembered a warning I’d heard in the past.

“Right... If the victim has been swallowed up by ocean waves, it’s possible that they have a neck injury.”

I vaguely remembered that in such a case, one had to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with them still in their regular position, without bending their neck. After a moment of stressing out about what I should do, I decided not to risk doing something stupid from my lack of expertise. I lifted up her chin just as I had pictured at first. I would be stealing a kiss from an unconscious girl, but there was nothing else I could do to save her life.

“Sorry! I’ll listen to you complain as much as you want after this!”

Pinching her nose and placing my lips on hers, I spent a long second breathing air into her lungs, and her chest visibly expanded. After seeing that, I placed my hands on her chest and tried performing chest compressions. I recited the steps in my head—secure an airway, breathe in air, and chest compressions. Though this was my first time, and I was worried whether I was really doing it correctly, I frantically moved my body in order to save the girl.

Then, finally, she threw up water.

“Whoa,” I exclaimed, surprised. But I couldn’t stop now, otherwise the water she had spat out would clog her throat again. I quickly tilted her head slightly to the side, letting the water flow out, then repeated mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions.

“Ahh...” The girl let out a breath.

When I put my hand to her lips, I could tell that she was breathing, though only faintly. I tried waiting for a bit, and her distressed expression gradually softened.

I sighed. “What a relief.”

I observed her for a while, and the fact that she had stabilized made me lose focus. But then, I abruptly remembered that her clothes were drenched.

“It won’t be good to leave her like this.”

Although the warm sun was shining, the wind on the beach was somewhat chilly. In her weakened state, these clothes would sap her body’s warmth.

“This is to save her life...”

Reining in my impure motives, I took off the girl’s clothes while endeavoring not to look at her as much as possible. It’s hard work to undress someone who is completely limp, but luckily she was light—or maybe my body was just strong—because I didn’t have to exert myself all that much.

Her underwear was red, matching the color of her hair. It would’ve been impossible for me to not feel excited by someone so attractive, but I averted my eyes as much as humanly possible. Actually, it would have been best to take off her underwear as well, but I obviously didn’t have the courage to go that far. Eventually, I managed to successfully dress her in my own dry clothes. Next, I took her wet clothes and lightly shook out the water, then set them out to dry on some driftwood that was lying around. The sun’s rays weren’t quite as warm as they would have been during the height of summer, but they would be enough to dry her clothes in a few hours. Finally, I gently laid her on her side, sat down, and looked up at the lovely azure sky with its white clouds.

“Phew.”

The sunlight felt pleasant. I closed my eyes and tried focusing my hearing in order to feel at one with nature. The birds chirping and the din of the waves were relaxing, and they reminded me that I was in a place that was cut off from the society I’d lived in up until this point.

When I opened my eyes again and looked at the girl, her condition seemed to have stabilized. I was a bit afraid that she would have some lasting complications, but at this point I couldn’t do anything more than watch over her.

It had been hectic all morning, but things had finally calmed down. After I spent a while enjoying the sounds of nature, the girl stirred while letting out a quiet groan.

“Ngh, ah...”

“Oh?” I murmured.

She faintly opened her eyelids and squinted at me, perhaps because she was blinded by the sunlight. Then she spoke, briefly and softly.

“Who...are you?”

“My name is Arata Toudou,” I replied.

“Arata...Toudou?”

“Yeah. Before I knew it, I was here on this island, but I don’t actually have too many memories of anything before that. So, what’s your—”

I paused, reminding myself that the girl still hadn’t fully recovered. Right now, it would be better for her to get some rest than to share introductions.

“You seemed like you were a castaway, so I took care of you,” I said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Huh... So you saved me? Thanks.”

“It’s good that you’ve regained consciousness, but you should still rest for now. I’ll keep watch.”

The girl was silent for a moment. “Thanks, I think I’ll take you up...on that offer,” she said sleepily.

She must still be tired, I thought. I gently patted her on the head like one would a child, and she closed her eyes, her energy spent.

I was silent. Then, I unintentionally glanced at her mouth. It might have been an emergency, and I had been trying to save her life, but there was no man out there who wouldn’t feel conscious of such a beautiful girl after coming into contact with her lips.

“A life in another world that starts with a kiss, eh?”

Making a quip was the only way I could hide my agitation.

Chapter One: The Magician Girl

“Arata Toudou, you have passed away.”

“...Huh?”

“There are various reasons for this, but just to tell you what happened, I—a god—have made a mistake.”

“A god?”

“Therefore, you will be reincarnated in another world after being granted anything you desire. I mean, if you don’t wish for anything, I’ll be banished from the realm of the gods! Now, gimme your wiiiiish!”

That was how I was reincarnated into another world: I made all the wishes I could while also getting various things foisted onto me.

◇

“Pwah?!” I yelled, waking up with a jolt.

It seemed that I had dozed off at some point while sitting in the pleasant sunlight and listening to the waves lapping against the shore.

My talk with that god sure was casual, I thought. I had only reincarnated yesterday, but I suddenly felt deeply moved.

Looking up at the sky, I saw that the sun had climbed overhead. Quite some time had passed since I had saved the girl.

“Is she all right?” I wondered aloud. The girl was asleep next to me and still showed no signs of waking. Though her breathing was steady, I was a bit worried that she would have lingering negative effects from my amateur attempts at rescuing her. But, my worries soon dissipated when she woke up.

“Mm-hmm...”

The girl slowly rose to her feet, then gently moved her body, checking for any abnormalities. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with her. My clothes were baggy on her, but the way she wore them made them look like the latest fashion. Good-looking people are really in a league of their own, I thought, feeling impressed despite myself.

She looked at me again. “You said your name was Arata, right? Um...thanks for saving me.” Though she seemed somewhat strong-willed, she bowed her head and thanked me right away. The contrast between her tone of voice and the steadfast look in her eyes, and her respectful personality, gave me a favorable impression of her.

“I’m relieved that you’re all right,” I said.

I was also grateful that she’d instantly understood why she was wearing different clothes and wasn’t bringing it up. Her own clothes had dried by the time she woke up, though, so I gave them to her and then turned around without saying anything.

“Thanks,” she said.

The sound of her clothes rustling as she changed was slightly provocative. Even though I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I felt my heart beat a bit faster. She then gave me back my clothes, so I returned to the adventurer-style outfit I had been wearing at the start.

“Umm...first off, can you tell me your name?” I asked her.

Now that I got a good look at her, her white cloak made her fiery red hair stand out all the more. Unfortunately, some of the beach sand was clinging to her cloak, giving it a dull luster, but even in that state she was far and away the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I wondered why someone like her, who had an air of nobility, had washed up on the beach alone. As I did, she looked straight at me and began to speak.

“I’m Reina. I was on the way to explore a certain island, but...”

As I listened to her, it really did sink in that I was now in a fantasy world.

Reina was a first-class magician who had been en route to the Furthermost Lonely Isle, traveling on the king’s orders. In the middle of her journey, her boat had been hit by a fierce storm and sunk. Just when she had thought that she was going to die along with everyone else, she had washed up on these very shores.

“Thanks to you, I made it out alive,” she said.

“Yeah, about that... In order to save you, I had to, well...” When I remembered giving her mouth-to-mouth, my face burned with embarrassment. She had been unconscious, so maybe she hadn’t realized it, but I had stolen a kiss from a young lady—I couldn’t just not tell her.

“Th-That’s fine. You saved me, so how could I complain?!” Reina’s face reddened, and she sheepishly averted her eyes.

“O-Of course! I’m glad to hear that!”

She was obviously shaken, but I was truly grateful for her understanding. We both nervously fidgeted and blushed like chaste students, and it didn’t take long for us to silently agree not to press the issue any further.

“By the way, Arata, do you live on this island?”

“Actually...” I began, then suddenly wondered what I should say. Regardless of the circumstances, it was hard for me to directly reveal that I had met a god and that she had allowed me to reincarnate here from another world. That being said, I didn’t know a single thing about this island, so whatever I told Reina would be a lie.

“Before I knew it, I was just on this island,” I finally said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ah, ha ha... I don’t really know either.”

Reina’s suspicious gaze made me sweat. I worried about what to say if she pressed me on my excessively vague response, but then her expression softened slightly and she smiled.

“Well, I guess everyone has their reasons. You saved me, and that’s all I need to know.”

“...Thanks.”

“Hey, that’s my line. By the way...” Reina shyly looked away and squirmed.

Her already short skirt fluttered, briefly exposing her pale, fit thighs, so there was no helping it if my eyes just so happened to briefly glance in that direction.

“Y-You didn’t do anything...weird...while I was unconscious, did you?” she asked.

“N-No, of course not!” I blurted out.

Perhaps because of my guilt over looking at her thighs, I was shaken in spite of myself and I reacted defensively.

◇

Seeing as neither of us knew anything about the island, there was no use in staying put on the beach. With that in mind, we tried walking along the shore for a while, but there didn’t seem to be any good sources of food or drinkable water. We couldn’t spot anything that looked like a ship on the horizon, nor were there any other castaways besides Reina. It didn’t seem like we would find anything more, so with no other option we proceeded in the direction of the tall, wooded forest.

“Are you all right?” I asked Reina, but she remained silent.

The island felt rather large. Quite some time had passed since we entered the forest, but there was still no change in scenery. From the perspective that I was planning to make this place my home, it would be inconvenient for me if it were a small, isolated island, but it would also be an issue if the island was so large that it was impossible to grasp its entire scope.

The ground in the dense forest was uneven, making it much harder to walk on than a flat path. Normally, I would’ve run out of stamina after walking just a short distance. And as a matter of fact, Reina had beads of sweat rolling down her forehead and looked drained.

“Why don’t we take a short break?” I said.

“Yeah, good idea,” Reina said, panting.

I found a fallen tree and was about to sit down on it when I suddenly remembered how Reina was dressed. I took off my coat, spread it out on the log, then sat next to it. Reina silently stared.

“Is something wrong?” I said. “You’re still recuperating. Maybe that isn’t the right word, but I don’t think you’ve gotten fully better yet, so you’ll ruin your health if you don’t take a break.”

“Um, thanks.”

Seeming to pick up on my intent, she gently sat down on top of my coat.

Reina was dressed, for lack of a better descriptor, like a magician out of a video game, but even then her overall defense was especially low. She had been about to hurt her pretty legs by sitting down on the bare log.

“You sure have a lot of energy,” Reina remarked.

“Yeah, I’m surprised too.”

“You’re surprised?”

In my last life, I had been too busy with work to think about exercising, so my body had been sluggish. Now, I felt so agile that it was hard to believe that this was my own body. As far as I could tell, the “strong body immune to illness and injury” I had received from the god was giving me a great deal of support on the stamina side of things.

Reina sighed. “At any rate, this island is a bit strange.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. This place shouldn’t be far from where my boat sank. But there’s no way the kingdom knew nothing about such a large island. What if...” Muttering to herself, she fell deep in thought.

Meanwhile, I idly surveyed our surroundings. There’s a tree, the ground, a wolf, some dirt, a tree, a wolf, a wolf on top of a large rock, a wolf, another—

“Wolf?!”

I scrambled to my feet and looked around. There was a pack of drooling, gray-haired wolves all like the one that had stolen my rabbit yesterday, and they had us surrounded. They clearly saw us as food and were ready to dig in. And this time, I didn’t have anything I could use to draw their attention.

“R-Reina?! R-Run awa—”

“What are you so scared of?”

“Just look: wolves! And these ones eat people! If we don’t run, there’s no telling—”

“Run?”

Reina casually stood up, a fearless smile on her face. Then, her scarlet eyes glinted and she nimbly held up a hand. In an instant, a wind that emitted a faint azure light began to blow around her feet, and her scarlet hair and white cloak fluttered in the breeze.

“Wha—?! C-Could this be?!”

“Would I, Reina Mistral of the Seven Celestial Archmages, do something so unsightly as run away from mere beasts? Not a chance.”

As she spoke, Reina moved her hand, and in conjunction with her movements, sharp blades of wind cut into the wolves. They were sliced cleanly in half with no time to run, and they died without even comprehending what it was that killed them.

I unconsciously exclaimed with wonder at the sight of this supernatural power that hadn’t existed in my previous life. “M-Magic?!”

“Well, that’s pretty much what it’s like,” Reina said, shooting me a self-assured smile and brushing a loose strand of hair to the side. She shone beautifully.

But behind her, there was a wolf that had luckily managed to survive, and it had its eyes trained on her back.

“Look out!” I shouted.

“Huh?!” Reina exclaimed.

The wolf suddenly leaped at her. I got between the two of them and stuck out my arm to keep it from biting her throat. At the same time, I felt a shock.

“Gah!”

“Arata?!”

“Ow, that...doesn’t hurt? What?”

I had tensed up in fearful anticipation of the imminent pain, but in complete contrast with my expectations, it only felt as if I were being gnawed on by an infant who was still teething. And in front of me, there was a teary-eyed wolf with crumbling teeth.

“Oh, its teeth were already shattered from your spell earlier,” I remarked.

“H-Hey, are you all right?!”

“Yep, it looks like I’m completely fine.”

I wasted my surprise, I thought before wondering what to do with the wolf. It was still biting down on my arm as hard as it could, making no effort to hide its hostility, so I couldn’t very well let it go. I made a fist and wound up for a punch.

“I don’t think an ordinary guy like me hitting it is going to have much of an effect, but...take this!” I hit the wolf, which still had its mouth on my arm, in revenge for biting me.

“Graaah!”

When my fist landed, the wolf went flying, pirouetting rapidly through the air like a figure skater and crashing into a large tree.

“Huh?” I was baffled by the utterly inexplicable sight.

From behind, I could hear Reina say in a mystified voice, “What was that?”

As for the wolf, it was no longer moving. It seemed that it was completely dead. First the rabbit from yesterday, and now this. Could I be—

“Arata, just who are—” Reina said, interrupting my train of thought. But before she finished speaking, she unnaturally cut herself off. Her face was pale, and she looked afraid of something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“When I give the signal, run as fast as you can in the direction we came.”

“Huh?”

I was confused, unable to comprehend the meaning of what she said. Suddenly, I heard the sound of something stomping through the trees a short distance away. I instinctively turned to look in that direction, and saw a massive wolf with pure white fur glaring at us. It was clear at a glance—this one was on a completely different level from the others.

“Grrr...” it growled, displaying its anger at us. This white wolf was probably the boss of the gray ones, and it seemed ready to attack at any moment.

“Run!” Reina shouted in a strained voice, and at the same time, the white wolf pounced. It was explosively fast. Even though it had been quite far away, it closed the distance in the blink of an eye.

“Why...you!” Reina got between the wolf and me, then mumbled what sounded like some sort of incantation. When she did, an invisible blade of wind accelerated toward the wolf, cutting through a massive tree in its path. This spell had to be much more powerful than the one that had taken down the gray wolves earlier. Even someone like me, who knew nothing about magic, could tell at a glance how incredible it was. However, the moment it made contact with the white wolf, it disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place.

“No way... My magic doesn’t work?!”

“Graaaaahh!”

“Ah.”

“Watch out!” I wrapped my arms around Reina and leaped to the side to protect her from the incoming wolf’s fangs. Luckily, I just barely managed to dodge it, but I doubted the next time would go so well.

“Oh...Arata.”

“Reina, are you hurt?!”

“No, but... I mean, no! What are you doing?! Didn’t I tell you to run?!”

“Yeah, but it would’ve caught up.”

“I was going to hold it back so that didn’t happen!”

Hold it back. In other words, she was trying to help me escape, even at the cost of her own life. She must’ve known from the start that this animal was incredibly dangerous, and that her own powers wouldn’t work against it. Despite that, she had prioritized saving me over herself. She was an immeasurably kind person—maybe even too kind. There was no way I could let someone like her be killed in a place like this.

“Come at me, wolf! I’ll take you on!” I shouted.

“Grrr...”

I was terrified. Getting glared at by an ordinary large dog was scary enough, and this wolf, which looked large enough to swallow a human whole, was clearly trying to kill us. There was no way I wouldn’t feel afraid. And yet, I would live. I had met a god, and I had been given the opportunity to lead a new life. I couldn’t just die here!

“Graaahh!”

“Arata! Run!” Reina screamed behind me.

I wouldn’t let the wolf just get away with killing her. At the very least, I would give her an opening to escape!

“HAAAAAHH! DON’T SCREW WITH US HUMANS!!!” I shouted, loud enough to make myself hoarse. Then, I confronted the wolf head-on.

I balled my hand into a fist, then swung my arm with everything I had, aiming to take the wolf down a peg. The instant my fist collided with its face, it went soaring, flying through the sky until I couldn’t see it anymore, as if it were a golf ball that had been hit at full power.

“Huh?”

“What?!” Reina exclaimed.

At the end of my fully extended fist, the wolf was no longer there. There didn’t seem to be any doubt that the animal that had gone flying was the same white wolf that had just been trying to devour us.

I didn’t say anything. Neither did Reina. There was an unbroken silence in the depths of the forest. By the looks of it, the “strong body” part of the god’s gifts was stronger than my wildest imagination.

Looking up at where the wolf had disappeared into the sky, I remembered the careless god that had sent me here and unconsciously muttered to myself.

“My death might’ve been your fault, but I think you overdid it with this apology.”

◇

As I silently sat back down on the log, Reina had a cheery smile on her face. But her expression was terrifying, not unlike how animals might smile as an intense display of aggression.

“Hey, Arata...”

“Y-Yes?”

She was giving off a ferocity that made it clear I mustn’t disobey her. As a magician in a fantasy world, she was sure to be incredibly powerful.

“I’ve never seen a human send a monster flying out of sight before,” she said. “Do you think you could tell me how you did that?”

“W-With magic...maybe?”

The instant I said that, Reina’s smile froze. “Even if I used all my mana to enhance my physical strength, something like that would be beyond me. So you’re saying you must be more of an expert magician than I, one of the Seven Celestial Archmages, then? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Not at all! Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever seen magic in my life,” I said in a hurry. I’d really messed up, and trying to smooth things over with lies would only make things worse. There hadn’t been any magic in my past life, and the first person I’d met in this world was Reina.

But though I had answered her honestly, her cheek just twitched and she gave no reply. From how she responded, she seemed to be quite a powerful magician, and proud of it.

Still, I was confident in my ability to read people, and I could tell that she was a reasonable person. If I continued the conversation while minding that pride of hers, we would surely come to an understanding.

“I’m not a magician. That isn’t a lie,” I insisted.

“So you can do all that without even using magic, huh?”

“Uh...”

Needless to say, even a truthful answer could lead her to draw unfavorable conclusions. I was just awful at choosing the right thing to say.

What do I do? Should I just admit everything? I wondered.

Then, Reina abruptly stopped smiling, and her expression changed to an apologetic one.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to attack you. It’s just...I was so surprised, and well...”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I get that I’m weird.”

“But you saved my life. And though you weren’t hurt, you protected me earlier too. Now I’m just...”

After reflecting on her attitude, she seemed to have succumbed to self-loathing.

I’m at a loss, I thought. Having just reincarnated from another world, I had no clue what was typical here, but I was at least aware that my previous actions had been abnormal. Reina’s suspicion was only natural. And, though I currently appeared close in age to her, I used to be thirty years old and had a fair amount of experience as a working adult—I couldn’t very well make a girl who was still young enough to be a student concern herself over me. As an adult, I had to do something for her.

“Hey, Reina, don’t make that face, okay? It’s not like I’m angry or anything.”

“Are you treating me like a kid?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, whatever.”

Her expression got a bit brighter, maybe because me casually speaking to her had distracted her somewhat.

Even if we had some misunderstandings, it would be all right as long as we made an effort to get to know each other. Communication was important, and so were smiles. By being attentive in how we spoke to and treated each other, we could lift our spirits. We could feel better by sharing unpleasantness and celebrating joy. Because as humans, gifted with language, that was how we nurtured happiness.

“So, are these Seven Celestial Archmages really all that amazing?” I asked.

“What?!”

I swore I could see a vein on her forehead bulging with anger. It seemed I had said the wrong thing once again. Words could be used to deepen our mutual understanding, but I had forgotten that they could also be used to hurt others.

It had completely slipped my mind that I’d wished to be reincarnated in a place without any people because I was bad at communicating.

“You don’t know the Seven Celestial Archmages? Have you been living under a rock?” Reina said.

“Ah, ha ha. My memory’s just... I mean, you know...” I said, making an excuse that even I knew was hard to swallow.

Reina looked at me wearily. “That’s some awfully convenient amnesia. But if you’re really that clueless, then I’ll have to thoroughly train you.”

“I-In what?”

“Common knowledge on the continent, of course.”

According to Reina, whose mood had suddenly changed, the title of Celestial Archmage was given only to the continent’s greatest magicians. Any one of them was powerful enough to take on a dragon alone, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that they were admired by everyone in the land. And the youngest person to ever become one of those illustrious magicians was none other than Reina.

“Whoa, that’s incredible.”

“You don’t sound all that impressed, but fine,” Reina said. “Just know that I really am that strong of a magician. But even if I used all my power to strengthen my body, I still wouldn’t be able to do what you did.”

That must be why she’s so hung up on how abnormal I am, I thought. I still didn’t quite know what magicians were really like, but I got the impression that one of their goals was to seek further knowledge. There was a chance that if I went to this continent she mentioned, they would dissect me for research.

“All right, I’m never leaving this island.”

“How did you come to that conclusion from our conversation just now?” Reina said, mystified.

I hoped she would let it pass without further comment.

Regardless, I fully comprehended that she was an amazing person who was brimming with talent, so I decided that I would count on her for the time being.

“Uh-oh. We can’t rest here any longer,” Reina said. “We have to find water and a place to sleep, quickly, before the both of us starve and end up as some monster’s meal.”

“Good point. Why don’t we head in that direction?” I suggested.

“Why there?”

“I just feel like I can hear the sound of running water for some reason.”

“I don’t hear anything...”

It seemed that my body’s senses were top-notch as well; if I focused, I could pick up sounds from quite a long distance away. When I consciously listened in the direction I gave, I could hear some sort of running water, like a waterfall or a river.

We finished our break and headed toward the source of that noise, finding a leisurely stream that cut through the forest. The water was completely clear, and it gave off a pure and cool air.

“You were right... But it took us a while to reach this place. How did you hear such a quiet sound from so far away?” Reina asked. Honestly, I was just as surprised as she was.

If I had known I could do this, I would’ve been able to secure water for myself yesterday. Although, if I had, Reina would’ve died. From that perspective, I should have considered myself lucky. Anyway, what was more important right now was making sure that this water was drinkable.

“Hmm.” I tried putting a finger into the water, and it was cold. My body was immune to injury and illness, so I was pretty sure I’d be fine even if the water was full of bacteria, but Reina was another story. I scooped up some water in my hands and tried taking a sip.

The forest was thick and strangely humid. Maybe it was because we’d just walked through all that, but this water quenched my thirst and tasted better than anything I’d ever had before. This must be what it means to say “it really hits the spot.”

“Okay, Reina, I think this is safe for you to drink,” I said.

Reina was sitting in a chair and pouring water into what looked like a pot, then boiling it over a fire—none of which had been there just moments ago. There was even some food lined up beside her. She was briskly preparing it all, looking eager to get cooking.

This is weird. This is unbelievably weird.

“Hey...Reina?”

“Yes?” she replied without looking my way. There was a serious expression on her face as she handled her cooking tools like a world-class chef. The way she looked at her knife was particularly striking. She was a professional, without a doubt.

“Where did you get all that from?” I asked.

“Huh? I just had it in my Storage spell. What about it?”

“I-I see...”

Shame on me for not asking what kinds of things this world’s magic could do in the first place. I’d only been thinking about offensive spells for combat, like magic in a video game. This Storage spell had to be like a portable warehouse, allowing you to put things in and take them out wherever you were. I had absolutely no grasp of the theory behind it, but I supposed I should have been glad that she had something so convenient. And unlike me, she had a place to go home to. Anything that she could use to get back was welcome, however minor it was.

“But still...”

As Reina made full use of her modern conveniences in this untouched forest, she looked just like an outdoorsy young person who had come to enjoy some camping. I had watched videos about camping and routinely fantasized about doing something like that when I got a day off, so I couldn’t help but feel jealous. So, I went up to her and...

“I want to do something too.”

“I get it, but this isn’t safe. Talk to me later.”

My aspiration was flatly rejected by Reina as she expertly used a knife to prepare each of the ingredients.

◇

I learned that the Storage spell was even more useful than I had first thought. Its capacity changed based on the user’s total amount of mana; Reina, whose mana was among the highest on the continent, could fit an entire house inside. She could carry a larger payload by herself than a merchant with many horse-drawn wagons.

The skill seemed so useful that I soon thought, I want to use it.

When I did, the space in front of my eyes began to waver slightly.

“Huh?!” I exclaimed.

“Listen, I’ll make a meal for us with the ingredients I have today, so just sit tight,” Reina said, oblivious to what was going on behind her.

Could this be a Storage spell?

I had a feeling that when Reina had produced food out of thin air earlier, she’d been putting her hand into a hazy mirage like the one that had appeared before me.

I carefully brought my fingers closer to it, and they were swallowed up into the space. My fingers encountered no particular resistance—it felt as though there was a wide-open area on the other side. It was a mysterious sensation, but for some reason I felt certain that this really was a Storage spell.

Is this my ability to copy someone’s magic by watching them?

“Hey, are you still there?” Reina said, turning around.

Surprised, I yanked my fingers out, and the space dispersed. Everything suddenly went back to normal.

“What were you doing?” she asked, looking at me curiously as she held a small pot in her hands.

“N-Nothing,” I said, lying without thinking. For some reason or another, I had the feeling that she’d get angry at me if she saw what I had been doing. I was acting like a child who was hiding a bad test score, and even I was fed up with myself.

But then, I was distracted by the captivating sight of the red soup she’d made.

“Wh-Whoa! That looks good!”

“It doesn’t look good, it is good. I’ll put a table down, so hold this for a moment.”

The pot she handed me was full of vegetables. Judging from the smell, it was tomato soup or something similar.

We had entered the forest past noon, and now it was already close to sunset. I hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. Even my god-given body was seemingly not immune to hunger, and my stomach made a loud noise.

Reina giggled. “You’re such a kid, Arata,” she said, apparently finding something funny.

With a wave of her hand, the ground swelled and produced a neat set of chairs and a table. She then took out some dinnerware from her Storage spell, completing the picnic scene.

“Well, there it is.”

“Wow,” I said, impressed. I placed the pot in the center of the table then clapped.

Although Reina had the air of a young lady from a well-off family, she apparently also carried the qualification of an S-rank adventurer in addition to her title of Celestial Archmage, and she was used to eating outside like this.

Moving briskly, Reina even summoned some bread. If we hadn’t been outside, I could have mistaken the scene for a high-class dinner.

“All right, there’s some bread too, so why don’t we eat?” she said.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“Yep!”

We were silent. Just as I was about to dig in, both Reina and I froze. At some point, without either of us noticing it, a small girl had sat down in the chair I was about to sit in and was already dipping a piece of bread in the soup.

Is she a beast person?

The girl had twitching, gold-furred ears on her head and a fox-like tail growing from the small of her back. If she weren’t in this other world, I’d have thought she was nothing more than a child doing cosplay.

“DE-LISH! Miss, this is tasty!” she said, her ears and tail perking up.

Reina and I were dumbstruck. The girl continued to cheerily gobble up our food, but I had no clue what to say to her. As I wondered who she was and where in the world she had come from, I looked to Reina.

She was trembling with fear.

“Reina? What’s wrong?”

Reina started. “I-I’m fine. Yeah, fine...”

“You don’t look fine at all.”

Her eyes were fixed on the small fox girl who was steadily consuming all of the food she had prepared. At this rate, even Reina’s portion would be completely eaten. I didn’t know who this girl was, but I knew that I had to stop her, so I grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and lifted her up.

“Wah!” she exclaimed.

“Hey, you know you shouldn’t eat other people’s food without asking,” I said.

As she dangled from my hand, the girl looked at me with confusion on her face and a red soup stain on her mouth.

“A-Arata, it’s all right! If she wants to eat, then we should let her have as much as she wants!”

“No, Reina, we can’t do that. She’s still a kid, so we need to teach her proper manners.”

The small girl licked her lips, seeming intent on not letting a single bite of food go uneaten. That in itself wasn’t a bad thing, but with her ears and tail together, I couldn’t help but see her vivid resemblance to an animal.

“Ah ha ha!” the girl laughed.

“A-Arata! Let her go already!” Reina said.

Although Reina sounded panicked, the girl seemed to think I was playing with her. Unlike the wolves that had attacked us earlier, she had pretty, golden hair that was in a ponytail, and her large, round eyes were the color of jade gemstones. Reina’s appearance had led me to assume that this was a Western-style fantasy world, but the girl’s clothing looked just like a shrine maiden outfit. While her atmosphere didn’t contain even a trace of holiness, the outfit curiously suited her, and she looked good in it. She had to have been about middle-school-aged, but in contrast with her appearance, she acted strangely young. Even though she was dangling from my hand as I gripped the scruff of her neck, she seemed like she was having fun.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Luna!”

“Okay. All right, Luna. We were about to eat dinner, but you already ate my portion...”

“Oh...” Luna must’ve finally realized what she had done, because her face clouded over somewhat. She at least seemed to understand that she had done something wrong, and she looked repentant. When I let her down, she looked up at me with worry in her eyes.

“You shouldn’t eat other people’s food without asking, okay?” I said.

Luna whimpered, then said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s good that you apologized,” I said, tousling her hair. She looked a bit flustered, but she didn’t seem to dislike it. Her perked-up fox ears were unexpectedly soft, and it was a mysterious feeling. I’d lived a life that had little to do with animals up until now, but perhaps this was what it would have felt like if I had kept a dog as a pet.

“Hey, Reina?” I asked.

“Y-Yes?” she replied, looking at me with a mystified, somewhat rigid expression.

“Do you still have a lot of food left?”

Reina nodded. “I expected it to take more than half a year to conquer the Furthermost Lonely Isle, so I brought enough to last.”

“Okay, that means we’ll be all right for the time being. In that case, sorry, but do you think you could make a portion for her too?”

“Of course I can.”

On an uninhabited island, food was precious. Despite that, Reina agreed without hesitation. As I watched her go back to cooking again, I thought, She really is a kind person, even during such a difficult time.

“Mister, is it really all right?” Luna asked as she watched us.

“Yeah. Reina says it is, so it is.”

“Yay! Thanks, Miss Reina!” Luna broke into a sunny smile.

Looking at her, I felt at peace. But I knew I couldn’t just let things go on as they were. Both before and now, Reina didn’t seem to have any qualms about sharing her food. I was very grateful for that, but at this rate I would become completely reliant on her.

“I’ll end up a leech,” I said to myself.

“Is ‘leech’ your name, mister?” Luna asked.

“No...it’s Arata.”

I wanted to live a relaxed life on this island, not mooch off a beautiful girl. According to the god I’d met, this place had everything I’d need to survive on my own. In other words, I was in an environment where I could be self-sufficient. It was unclear how long it would take to reach that point, but I knew I had to quickly become less of a burden on Reina.

Then, I had a sudden suspicion: This island was supposed to be a place without any people, so why was Luna here? Unlike Reina, who had arrived here after a shipwreck, Luna was clearly a native. Unless the god had been mistaken, she simply shouldn’t have been here.

I looked at Luna, sitting on a chair. She was happily kicking her legs and watching Reina’s back as she cooked. “I’m looking forward to Miss Reina’s food.”

“Hey, Luna. Can I ask you something?” I said.

“What?”

“Are there more people living on this island?”

“Yep!” Luna said, smiling from ear to ear. “There’s us Divine Beastfolk, the Fierce Ogrefolk, the Ancient Dragonfolk, the True Ancestor Vampire, and all sorts of others!”

“I see...” I said. The fact that none of them were humans told me everything. And I had a feeling it was the god’s fault that every single one of those races had such intense names.

“Hey, god lady? Are you really this careless, or is this actually all on purpose?” I said.

In any case, I realized that while there were no humans here, this was a place where some truly unbelievable beings lived.

Chapter Two: Meeting the Divine Beastfolk

A short while later, Reina finished cooking once again, and I took a piece of bread in hand to eat for real this time. The bread was tough, having been made for use as rations, but when I dipped it in the tomato soup it instantly became softer and easier to eat. When I took a bite, all the flavors of the broth that had soaked into it—including the tomato—combined with the spices and permeated my mouth, satisfying my hunger.

“Delicious!” Luna and I both said, exchanging looks with each other.

Eating together brought a smile to my face. When my bread and soup were gone, I unconsciously reached for seconds and then thirds, completely engrossed.

“Hey, that’s mine!” Luna said.

“Oh, my bad,” I replied.

“Jeez!”

Luna’s interjection made me pause just as I was about to grab more, but then a second pot landed on the table with a thud.

“No fighting, you two,” Reina said. “Tomorrow is a different story, but today I’ll make as much as you want.”

“Nice.”

“Yaaay!”

Unlike the last pot, this transparent liquid looked like chicken soup. I would’ve expected it to take longer for the stock to be done, but perhaps Reina was using some sort of special tool or technique.

The beautifully clear soup had a faint, golden gleam—this was definitely going to be good. I lightly dipped the bread in and took a bite, and the powerful taste of chicken spread throughout my entire mouth.

“Mmm, it’s rich!”

“De-lish!”

“I suppose I’m a little happy that you like it so much,” Reina said bashfully, then sat down herself. “It’s time I have some too.”

With that, I remembered that she hadn’t had anything to eat yet. I quietly poured some tomato soup into a dish she had set out and gave it to her. Luna must have been thinking the same thing, because she got a serving of chicken soup and placed it in front of Reina.

Reina watched the two of us as we unintentionally did the same thing and smiled softly. “You guys are almost like siblings.”

That smile suited her curiously well, and I almost said, “Then you’re like our mom” before swallowing my words. Even with my young appearance, she would surely dislike being treated like a mother by a guy her own age. Besides, I could at least learn from my previous verbal slip.

“You’re like our mom, Miss Reina! And you’re pretty! And nice!”

Reina paused. “Thanks.”

But when those words came from the mouth of an innocent child, they were a compliment. Reina blushed, looking a bit happy. She gingerly pet Luna’s fox-eared head, and Luna broke into a contented smile. It was an incredibly heartwarming sight.

◇

Luna had to return before it got dark, so once she finished her meal she went away into the forest. She was a tempest of a girl. I told her that we would be living here for the time being, so we would probably be able to see each other again.

Right away, Reina and I got to work setting up camp, deciding on a spot in a flat area a short distance away from the riverbank, just in case it overflowed. Having said that, all of my knowledge was from camping videos, and I’d never actually put it into practice, so I didn’t have many opportunities to help out. In the end, I just followed Reina’s instructions and set up the tent she laid out. And when I finally finished, I realized that it didn’t have any of the useful features like the ones on Earth. Just assembling the thing had taken so long, I started to worry that I was holding her back.

“Still, you’re amazingly strong, Arata. You’re a real help.”

“Oh, I just did as you told me, that’s all.”

“This is your first time camping, right? I’m grateful that you did what I asked, instead of forcing yourself to do things you don’t know. Besides, anyone can do this. You can just learn from here on out.”

She was a really great person for saying that. There was a huge difference between her and my bosses in my previous life, who had done nothing but nitpick everyone’s shortcomings.

Reina had skillfully manipulated wind magic to set up the tent, but it was originally intended to be built by several people at once. It was large enough to house a whole group of soldiers, so there was a great deal of extra room with just the two of us inside. In order to prepare the tent for use as a temporary shelter, Reina summoned pieces of furniture and other objects.

“Things have finally calmed down around here, so why don’t we talk about what we’re going to do from now on?” she said.

“Yeah, good idea.”

Be that as it may, I didn’t have even a glimmer of knowledge about this world other than the fact that it was a fantasy land of sword and sorcery. Also, I did know that while there were no humans on this island, there was a great assortment of different races.

“I know I mentioned this already, but I was headed for the place known as the Furthermost Lonely Isle as one of the Seven Celestial Archmages. There’s said to be a miraculous elixir of immortality hidden somewhere on that island, and our goal was to get it.”

“‘Our’?”

“The knightly order that came here with me on the king’s command. But as far as I can tell, I’m the only one who survived.”

Reina’s glum expression made me wonder if she had been close with some of those knights. I had no intention of prying too deeply, and she didn’t seem to want to say anything about it either.

“Anyway, if what Luna said is true, this place probably is the Furthermost Lonely Isle,” Reina continued.

“That makes sense...”

Going off of what Luna had said during dinner, there were no humans living here. On the other hand, this island was the residence of various legendary races.

“But Luna was an ordinary kid,” I said, confused.

“You aren’t a magician, so maybe you couldn’t tell, but that kid has much, much more mana than I do.”

I was silent. Reina was one of the best magicians on the continent, and naturally her total mana was top of its class as well. But Luna concealed such overwhelmingly powerful mana within her that it was enough to make even Reina feel afraid of her, even though she was just a kid.

That must be why her expression was so stiff when Luna first showed up.

“I don’t like to say it, but frankly, she’s a monster,” Reina said. “Enough so that if she showed up in the kingdom, she’d cause a disaster large enough to go down in history.”

“Umm, but she sure didn’t look like it...”

“I don’t think she’d ever actually do anything like that. But she’s just that powerful.”

And if we were to take Luna at her word, there were beings on this island that even she paled in comparison to.

“Divine Beastfolk and Fierce Ogrefolk aren’t even in the history books—they’re straight out of myth,” Reina continued. “They appear in folklore that dates from before the time humans existed on the continent. As for Ancient Dragons, there have been stories of them showing up on the continent and destroying nations. And the True Ancestor? Completely fictional...or rather, that’s what I wish I could say.”

“Anyway, it certainly seems that this island isn’t normal, at least.”

“Yes...there’s also no telling if those we meet in the future will be friendly like Luna, so we should do what we can to avoid making contact with any of them until we have a bit of a better grasp on the conditions here.”

It struck me as very intelligent that Reina hadn’t outright dismissed Luna’s words as a child’s fantasy, instead carefully considering them. Not just anyone would believe such baseless stories, like the fact that I had been sent here by a god.

“Anyway, no matter how strong you and I are, we’re just humans,” Reina continued. “If those monsters really do exist, we won’t stand a chance. Let’s take care not to provoke them, and get off this island.”

“What about the elixir?”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. The very existence of the island is dubious, and more importantly, the team that should’ve been here with me was completely wiped out. What I need more than anything is a proper team of surveyors to get an accurate picture of the island.”

If a first-class adventurer and ultra-first-class magician like Reina said it, then it had to be correct. As for me, I’d decided that I would make a life for myself on this island, so it would be awkward if other people came and messed up the place.

Also, it sounds like provoking the residents of this island could end up destroying the continent?

When I asked Reina about it...

“That’s also something I have to investigate. It would be a genuine disaster if beings like those suddenly came to the continent, but that can be avoided if we prepare well and establish positive relations with them, right? It’d be impossible to stop such destruction, but if we can make an effort to prevent it from happening in the first place, then we should.”

“I see...”

I hadn’t even considered that.

It was an impressive way of looking at things. She was right—hostility wasn’t the only way to deal with them, and even if one stuck to a policy of noninterference with the island, there was a world of difference between knowing what one was dealing with and not.

“These are beings out of folklore and myth. They might not have done anything to mess with the continent up until now, but there’s no evidence that they never will. Countries are destroyed on a god’s whim all the time in stories. Luckily, Luna was open to conversation and we were able to establish communication with her. So, we’ll definitely be fine.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine her running amok and destroying a country.” When I thought of the girl that had eaten food to her heart’s content together with us, a violent rampage seemed ridiculous. “Well, in any case, if you’re going to leave the island, you’ll need a boat.”

“Yes. That’s why I’ll need your help, Arata,” Reina said, smiling sweetly. She was an attractive woman, but I got the message behind that expression, loud and clear: She intended to put me to work.

I was willing to help Reina out—her cooperation would be indispensable if I wanted to build a foundation for my life on this island—but honestly, I was just a bit afraid. I sort of got the feeling that I’d end up never being able to defy her for the rest of my life. Luckily, my god-given body was resilient and powerful. I wouldn’t get sick, and if Reina taught me magic, I would be able to use it right away. Even if I didn’t know how to build a boat, these divine cheats would take care of most things. With that in mind, I decided that I would stay with Reina until she left the island.

◇

After that, I ended up spending the night together in the same tent as a girl for the first time in my life. I had offered to sleep outside, but Reina wouldn’t hear it. No matter how large the tent might have been, there was nothing I could do about my nervousness over sharing it with such a beautiful girl. I didn’t sleep very well.

In the morning, I exited the tent with a big yawn, and there I was greeted by a smiling Luna. Standing next to her was an adult beastman I didn’t recognize who was glaring at me.

“Are you the intruder on the island?” he said.

The beastman’s unfriendly remark made me realize with apprehension that perhaps something somewhat troublesome had occurred.

The beastman’s mere presence radiated a terrible pressure. His ears resembled those of the wolves I’d encountered in the forest—was he another one of the Divine Beastfolk, like Luna?

“I am Elga, a warrior of the Divine Beastfolk. My Ancestor is the great Fenrir. Who are you?”

“Arata,” I replied.

“Arata, huh? Now, to the woman inside that tent who’s concentrating her mana—if you want a fight, I’ll give you one, but if not, then you’d better stop. You don’t really think you can do anything against me with mana like that, do you?”

After Elga called her out, Reina cautiously exited the tent. Her face was pale with fear. Unlike me, she probably had a firm grasp on just how strong he was. Reina was one of the Seven Celestial Archmages, who were the continent’s strongest magicians, but by the looks of it this beastman in front of us was so powerful that human titles meant nothing to him.

I stood between the two of them, covering Reina and squaring off against Elga, but then, Luna suddenly hit Elga’s back.

“Jeez, Elga! I only brought you here because you said you wouldn’t fight!”

Elga paused. “I know, I know. But they’re the ones who were trying to attack me first.”

“That’s because you’re making such a scary face! When I was here they gave me tasty food!”

“Tch.” Elga vigorously scratched his head, an awkward expression on his face as the small Luna scolded him. By the looks of it, he hadn’t originally been hostile to us.

“Umm, Mr. Elga?” I said. “How can I help you?”

“Just ‘Elga’ is fine. No need to be so formal.”

“Ah, okay.”

“And I don’t need anything. You guys are in Divine Beastfolk territory.”

“Huh? But Luna didn’t say anything about that yesterday...” I looked at Luna, who tilted her head in confusion.

When he saw that, Elga let out an exasperated sigh. “She doesn’t know how far our territory goes.”

“I see. That’s my bad. We were just washed up on this island, and we never intended to come ashore. So I don’t really get all this talk about territory or intruders...”

“Hmph, that’s what I thought. Besides, there’s no way humans could ever come to Arcadia, the Isle of the Gods, on purpose.”

The terms “Isle of the Gods” and “Arcadia” were new ones for me, but I supposed he was referring to the same thing as the Furthermost Lonely Isle. Did the name mean that this was a place where beings who were deemed gods lived?

“Well, if you aren’t thinking about doing anything bad, like cutting down the forest, then I don’t really care if you stay,” Elga added.

“That’s a relief to hear,” I said.

“But be careful. We Divine Beastfolk generally aren’t too aggressive, but the Fierce Ogrefolk and Ancient Dragonfolk whelps will attack you without mercy.”

Apparently, Elga had come here to give us a word of warning. He spoke somewhat roughly, but maybe he was actually a really good guy.

“If possible, I’d like to know more about this island...”

“Tch, what a pain...but it’ll be even more of a headache if you don’t know anything and end up damaging the island, so I guess I gotta. I’ll go get a map, so just stick around here.”

Elga went away, leaving Luna behind at the tent. He moved so tremendously quickly that the forest’s terrain seemed to mean nothing to him, and in no time flat his back disappeared from view. I was impressed.

“So, he’s all right with us?” I asked Luna.

“Elga’s harsh and always says things are a pain, but in the end, he takes the initiative and helps out a bunch, so everyone relies on him!” Luna said.

“Yeah, that’s sorta the impression I got.”

I suddenly wondered how Reina was doing, so I turned around. She was trembling and her face was pale.

“R-Reina, are you okay?!”

“Miss Reina?!”

“I’m fine. It’s just, I was exposed to an unbelievably high concentration of mana, and my body is shaking, that’s all...”

Apparently Elga had given off a considerable amount of pressure just standing there. I honestly hadn’t felt it all that much, but maybe it was a magician’s special sense. I supported Reina’s slender body, and she compliantly leaned her weight against me. If she was so exhausted after only a short period of time, then it would probably be best for her to move away when Elga returned.

“Is it my fault?” Luna asked.

“No, not at all,” Reina said. “Of course, it isn’t Elga’s fault either. It’s my own, for being an inexperienced magician.” She patted the worried Luna’s head.

Reina was a magician who was more skilled than pretty much anyone. To call herself inexperienced would mean every other magician on the continent was even worse off. But she was proud, and she would never do anything to disparage others. It would be easier for her to blame someone else, but it was in her nature to take on all the responsibility herself. I couldn’t help but respect her—it was a way of living I could never emulate.

“Now, I’ll get breakfast ready,” Reina continued. “You want some too, right, Luna?”

“Yep! I like you Miss Reina. Your food is tasty!”

Reina giggled. “Thanks.”

As I watched this pleasant scene, I felt warm and fuzzy inside.

◇

“Hey, you guys, I’m back.”

While the three of us were eating breakfast, Elga returned with the map. He had taken about an hour, which told me that the Divine Beastfolk lived around thirty minutes from where we were. Although, considering I’d seen him move much faster than a car, the actual distance was probably quite considerable.

“De-lish!” Luna said, ignoring him and focusing all of her attention on eating the food Reina had made.

Elga glared at her and shook with anger at the fact that she had been playing and even eating a meal while he had been running through the forest. Unable to just stand by and watch, Reina spoke.

“Umm, Elga? Do you want some too?” she asked, a somewhat stiff expression on her face.

After some hesitation, Elga answered. “Yeah, sure. Sorry.” He sat down next to Luna, snatched a piece of her bread, then dipped it in the soup.

Surprised but undaunted by this sudden incursion, Luna took some bread and ate it. But, after Elga took a bite, he silently grabbed up more pieces of bread.

“Ahhh,” Luna sobbed, her eyes welling up with tears. Elga was bigger than her, and he kept taking bread.

“Hey, there’s still seconds, so don’t cry,” Reina said.

“I love you, Miss Reina!”

Elga then abruptly stood up, shaking. Looking upward, he yelled, “WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! IT’S...SO...GOOD!!!”

Not to be outdone, Luna faced the sky and shouted as well. “DE-LISH!”

Their voices made the atmosphere tremble, and the birds living in nearby trees took flight in a great panic.

Is there something in the Divine Beastfolk’s nature that compels them to scream when they eat tasty food? I wondered.

They continued to shovel food into their mouths while repeating how good it was. Then, satisfied and with their bellies full, the two of them lay down on the ground next to each other.

“Ahhh, now that hit the spot,” Elga said.

“That hit the spot,” Luna echoed.

Though Luna’s fox features and Elga’s wolf features clearly differed, in this moment, they looked just like close siblings.

I decided to leave them be and instead help Reina clean up the aftermath of breakfast. I couldn’t cook, but I wanted to do what I could. With the dishes in hand, we went to the river we had discovered the day before.

“Thanks,” Reina suddenly said.

“If anything, I should be thanking you,” I replied. “You’ve made such good food, so I obviously ought to help clean up.”

“Jeez, that’s not what I mean.”

I wondered what she could possibly be referring to.

“You protected me when Elga glared at me earlier, didn’t you? That’s what I’m thanking you for,” she said with a smile.

“Oh, yeah. But since he wasn’t actually hostile, I feel like I was just meddling.”

“Not at all. I never thought I’d need protecting, so this whole ordeal is unfamiliar to me. I was happy you were there.”

Reina was one of the continent’s premier magicians. There was probably hardly anyone who could keep up with her, even if she fought on the front lines in a battle. It wasn’t like I had protected her on purpose—my body had just moved on its own—but I was glad that she wasn’t bothered by it.

“Anyway, once we’re done cleaning up, why don’t we ask Elga all about the island?” I said.

“Good idea. After that, let’s figure out what we’re going to do from now on.”

Luckily, Elga wasn’t hostile. In fact, he even seemed concerned about us. And since Luna had brought him to us, I was certain that he wasn’t a bad person. Of course, part of me was uneasy about what would happen if I angered him, but after seeing how heartily he had gobbled down his food, I also got the impression that it would be fine.

“Yeah, we have a lot more to learn about this island,” I said.

I had made my wish to the god with the intention of staying here permanently. I hadn’t expected there to be inhabitants already here, but I decided I would enjoy it as another one of the island’s charms.

With those thoughts in mind, I went back together with Reina to where Luna and Elga were lying down.

◇

Elga had said that he was a Divine Beastfolk with Fenrir as his Ancestor. Fenrir was the most powerful monster in Norse mythology, who devoured the ruler of the gods, Odin, but I wondered what his role was in this world. Reina hadn’t reacted to the name in any particular way, so perhaps he wasn’t very widely known. I wasn’t all that knowledgeable about mythology though—my impression of Fenrir was a wolf with ice powers who showed up as a boss character in video games. But based on Elga’s silver hair and wolf features, that probably wasn’t far off from the truth.

“Hey, I’m sorry about everything,” Elga said.

“It’s all right, I don’t mind,” I said. “Oh, what’s that?”

When we returned from washing the dishes, Elga already had the map out. It seemed Reina still wasn’t used to Elga’s pressure, because she was watching us from a distance with Luna.

“This is a map of Arcadia, the Isle of the Gods,” Elga said. With his stomach full, he cheerily spread out the map.

“Whoa... It’s pretty big.”

From the looks of it, this place was so large that calling it an island was a disservice. It was the shape of an ellipse stretching from east to west, so it was difficult to tell its precise size, but it seemed to have around the same total area as the island of Hokkaido in Japan.

Elga pointed at where we were now, then to a spot in the south where the Divine Beastfolk lived. “From here to there is roughly where our territory spans. And around here to the east is where the Ancient Dragonfolk and the Fierce Ogrefolk live. They don’t like each other very much, but they also know it wouldn’t be pretty if they got into a fight, so they only get into scuffles every now and then.”

“So they do occasionally fight...”

“Well, only about once every hundred years. It usually starts when some hotheaded whelps on either side get carried away and pick a fight. The adults will watch them for a while before giving them a good scolding; that tends to resolve things.”

It sounded like only the young ones were territorial, while the adults were rather rational. But for “occasionally” to mean once in a century, they had to be living on a completely different time scale.

“Now, over to the west is where the High Elves live. They don’t leave their territory much, but they do have some interaction with the Divine Beastfolk.”

“Am I wrong, or are the people on this island actually pretty friendly with each other?”

“Nope, not at all. But it’s not like we have to be buddy-buddy to tolerate each other. And once you live long enough, competition gets boring, that’s all. This place just never has anything new.”

It seemed that long-lived races were more tranquil than I had imagined. At first, I’d been a bit afraid that the island might have been full of bloodthirsty monsters, but Elga made it sound like I really would be able to live here.

“Hey, Elga? I think I’d like to live on this island. Do you know any good spots for me?” I asked.

“Huh? Are you crazy?”

“No, I mean it. I found my way here because I wanted to live somewhere far away from other people. To me, this place seems like heaven.”

Elga looked exasperated, but he understood that I was serious. Looking down at the map, he earnestly contemplated my question.

“That’s tricky. This is the first time a human’s ever come to this island, after all. Depending on the race, and even among us Divine Beastfolk, you’ll find some who would rather get rid of any outsiders. The High Elves in general probably wouldn’t welcome you anyway.”

“Oh, I’m not asking for anyone to let me live with them. I’m fine with being on my own, as long as you can find me a half-decent spot.”

“A puny humanfolk like you can’t live just anywhere. And your food isn’t going to last forever, is it? Not many monsters around here are weak enough for you to hunt. You’re more likely to end up as dinner yourself.”

Elga spoke somewhat roughly, but it was clear that he cared. At the same time, he was operating under a slight misunderstanding. I was confident that my body had the ability to withstand life on this island. If it couldn’t, then the god who had reincarnated me in a place like this wasn’t just careless—she’d be downright useless. Still, it would be quite the challenge to prove this to Elga. It wasn’t like I could punch him. As I stressed over what to do, I heard the ground shaking far away.

“What’s that noise?” I asked.

“It’s...an Emperor Boar’s footsteps!” Elga shouted, sounding somewhat happy.

Luna, who had been playing with Reina a short distance away, came over to us, sounding delighted. “An Emperor Boar?! Yay! It’s a feast!”

“What’s an Emperor Boar?” I asked.

“Basically, they’re huge pieces of meat!” Elga replied.

“And they’re super tasty!” Luna chimed in. “They’re really big, but they usually sleep underground. You don’t see them often, and they’re hard to get!”

Already drooling, Elga and Luna looked in the direction of the sound. They seemed ready to leap at any moment.

“I see... Did you get that, Reina?”

“I wish I hadn’t. On the continent, there are Great Boars, which are large monsters that look like boars. Then there are King Boars, which are even bigger. They’re so big that their main source of food is wyvern, and they’re so dangerous that if one of them shows up, an entire knightly order has to mobilize in order to—”

Reina abruptly stopped speaking. There was no longer any need.

The sound of trees snapping and the boar’s massive footsteps steadily got closer. I looked in the direction of the noise, and...

“Uh, isn’t that a bit too big?” I said.

There was a boar running toward us, and its massive size was apparent, even from far away. The surrounding trees were decently large in their own right, but watching the boar trample over them as though they were nothing made it feel like everything I took for granted was wrong. The Emperor Boar was more than sixty feet tall.

Reina silently looked up at it, blown away by its massive size.

Elga chuckled. “Heh, it looks like it’s only just come out of the ground, and it’s starving. Hey, Luna, you’re still a kid, so just sit there and let me handle it!”

“No! You adults always say that, and then you save all the best parts for yourselves! I want to eat the tasty bits too!”

Even in a situation like this, the two of them were playfully horsing around. Perhaps for Divine Beastfolk, even such a colossal boar was just food.

“Survival of the fittest! If you want the best parts, then bring it down before I do!” Elga said.

“You’re on!” Luna replied. “I won’t lose!”

Then, the two of them leaped at the charging boar.

Can they really stop that monster in its tracks? They look confident, but we’ll be in danger if they can’t do it...

“Wait, I knew it! It isn’t slowing down at all!” I said. “Actually, the two of them clinging to it are making it struggle even more!”

“Wha— I was just thinking that I should do something, but I don’t have time to cast anything!” Reina said.

The Emperor Boar came charging at our tent. Its body was so large that it was impossible to run. And while I might have been fine, Reina was in danger.

“Damn... If it’s come to this...”

“Arata?! What are you doing? Run!”

“Reina, get back!”

I believed in the power of the god who had reincarnated me in this world. Besides, if I couldn’t stand up to a sudden danger of this magnitude, there was no way I’d be able to survive whatever else this island had in store.

A racing truck was nothing compared to the boar’s momentum. Stopping it would be like catching a meteorite. But oddly enough, I felt no fear.

“Arataaa?!”

“I’ll be fine!”

I can do this!

I confidently spread my arms wide, and the incoming, colossal boar collided with me. I felt an impact for a moment, but it wasn’t enough to push my body backward, and I stopped the boar cold.

“Oink?!”

“HOW ABOUT THAT, HUH?!”

Reina was stunned into silence before muttering, “No way...”

Time seemed to stop for all of us. Even Elga and Luna, who had been clinging to the Emperor Boar and attacking it, froze and looked at me with surprise.

“Wow! That was amazing!” Luna shouted.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me... You mean you aren’t a human in the first place?!” Elga exclaimed.

“If I take down the boar, then the meat’s all mine, right?” I said.

Elga had been the one to say that the early bird gets the worm. Also, I didn’t know how long it would take to bring Reina back to the continent from where she came. We would need food if we were going to be living together.

“It’s survival of the fittest. Sorry, but you’re our food!” I said to the Emperor Boar.

As the monster made a last-ditch effort to crush me, I punched it as hard as I could.

When I reincarnated into this world, a god had given me a strong body immune to illness and injury. I’d already demonstrated its strength on the wolf the previous day.

“Emperor Boar down!”

With a tremendous crash that resounded across the Isle of the Gods, I defeated the colossal Emperor Boar. However, just like when I had hit the wolf with full power, the monster hurtled away into the sky in the east. Those of us who had been after its meat all shouted with dismay.

“My meeeat!” Elga said.

“Nooo!” Luna exclaimed.

“Oh crap!”

Reina finally said, “That spectacle just blew away everything I thought I knew.”

Three of us wailed, unable to do anything except helplessly watch as the boar flew out of sight. Meanwhile, Reina—the only normally sensible one—had a faraway look in her eyes.

And so, one episode of our everyday lives came to a close.

◇

Elga and Luna were now glaring at me.

“How are you gonna make up for us missing out on the Emperor Boar’s meat, huh?”

“Mister Arata, how could you?!”

“I-I’m sorry, okay?”

With my back to the part of the forest that had been bulldozed by the colossal boar’s advance, I frantically apologized to the two of them. Still, there was nothing else I could have done. I had wanted to have a bite of the delicious Emperor Boar too. Besides, this wasn’t a gag manga; how was I supposed to have known a single punch would be enough to do that?

“All right, you two, lunch is ready,” Reina said. “And that’s enough. You can forgive him already.”

“That smells good...” Luna said. “If Miss Reina says so, then I forgive you.”

“I guess I gotta,” Elga said reluctantly.

They forgave me so easily that it was enough to make me wonder what the point of everything up until now had been. The basis for their actions was food, which meant that one could distract them with it—Reina’s timing had been perfect. I shot her a grateful look, and she seemed slightly embarrassed.

“You’re the one who helped me out first,” she whispered under her breath. It was perfectly audible to me, but I knew she would get embarrassed again if I mentioned it, so I pretended to not hear it.

The four of us then ate our lunch—a dish that resembled curry. As always, it seemed like something that would have taken a while to prepare, and I wondered how Reina had been able to make it in such a short period of time. Of course, I could just go up to her while she was cooking if I really wanted to know, but the way she handled a knife and the look in her eyes was so professional that it was hard to approach her.

The curry roux in the pot was a bit more orange than packaged curry, and I smelled a sweet hint of citrus. As a former Japanese person, I would have preferred to have it with rice, but I knew that would have been too much of an ask. Instead, I tried scooping it up with some naan that Reina had also made.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed. It wasn’t as spicy as I had expected, but the slight citrus flavor went well with the curry and produced a novel taste. On top of that, it blended with the naan, bringing out the bread’s sweetness, which made it really easy to eat.

Struggling with how best to eat it, Elga and Luna mimicked me and took a bite, then abruptly stood up and let out a shout to the sky.

“WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! IT’S...SO...GOOD!!!”

“DE-LISH!”

As always, they gave good reactions, and an awkward smile crept onto my face.

“Good grief, you two are so exaggerated,” Reina said. But she must’ve been happy that they were enjoying the food she had made, because contrary to her words, her tone of voice was cheerful.

“You know, this is seriously good,” I said. “There’s a similar dish where I’m from, but what do you call it?”

“Caray. You really don’t know about it?” Reina said. “It’s home cooking everywhere on the continent.”

“I-I see... It’s called ‘curry’ back home, so I guess the name is a bit different depending on where you are.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was supposed to think about the name “caray.” I’d have understood if the food was called something completely different, but it sounded so similar that it was enough to make me suspect that someone had been reborn here in the past. Nevertheless, the god had said there wasn’t anyone else, so it was probably just a coincidence.

Anyway, Reina was really good at cooking. I didn’t know how many ingredients she was keeping inside of her Storage spell, but I had high hopes for whatever she’d make next.

“Back when I was with my teacher, I had to cook so much that I could hardly stand it. Because of that, I know a bit about cooking,” Reina said.

I got the feeling that it was more than just a bit, but her expression told me she didn’t want me to bring it up, so I refrained from prying too deeply.

“Now that I know what your cooking is like, it makes me wonder how that Emperor Boar would have tasted if you cooked it.”

“Well, I’ve never prepared such a large boar before, so I don’t know if I even could...”

The boar had been so huge that it could have fed two people for several months. Even including Elga’s and Luna’s appetites, it would have been quite a lot of time before we needed food again. I felt guilty for letting the opportunity slip away and making Reina again use the food she’d stored.

“Next time we find one, I’ll try cooking it. Just make sure you don’t blast it away, all right?” Reina said.

“Make super sure!” Luna chimed in.

“Y’know, I’ll bring one here if I do find one. I’ll be counting on you then,” Elga said.

The three of them all had different responses, and I smiled uneasily in spite of myself. Luna seemed like her mouth was already watering at the prospect of eating some Emperor Boar, whereas I got a feeling from Elga that he was going to bring all sorts of different ingredients next time we saw him. While I didn’t know about the rest of the Divine Beastfolk, the two of them seemed to have accepted us outsiders.

And so, while boisterously chatting, the four of us finished the meal, and I helped Reina clean up. Like yesterday, Luna and Elga were sprawled on the ground with their hands on their bellies, looking satisfied.

“Now, why don’t we continue where we left off?” Elga said to me. “You were talking about wanting to live on this island, right?”

“Yeah...but you said it wouldn’t work out, didn’t you?”

“That was when I thought you were a human.”

It seemed that, without me knowing, I had been categorized as something other than human.

“But I am a human,” I said.

“Humans can’t stop an Emperor Boar’s charge, and they can’t send ’em flying with a single punch either.”

“You just don’t know anything about humans, Elga. We can do that sort of stuff these days,” I said, though really I didn’t know anything about this world.

Elga looked baffled. Luna, who was listening next to him, opened her mouth in surprise. She probably didn’t know anything except this island.

“No way, seriously? When did humans become such monsters?” Elga said.

“Humans sure are amazing,” Luna said. “I’ve never seen one, though. Have you, Elga?”

“Huh...now that you mention it, no, I haven’t. All I know is what the old man and the others have told me. So that’s what the outside world is like nowadays? Damn, guess I was selling humans short.”

Luna and Elga spoke to each other in such serious tones. They had completely fallen for it.

Shoot, I messed up.

Embarrassed, I looked to Reina; she was looking back at me with exasperation. We’d only known each other for two days, but I already knew I could rely on her in times like this.

“Elga, Luna, he’s tricking you,” she said.

“What?!” Elga shouted.

“Huuuh?!” Luna exclaimed.

“Reina, you betrayed me!” I cried.

“Don’t say it like that, Arata. It’s your fault for lying.”

She was right, of course. Elga and Luna were giving me accusatory looks, so I sincerely apologized, and they forgave me. They genuinely didn’t know anything about the world beyond the island, so I decided to be more careful in the future.

“By the way, Reina, is there really nobody else besides me who can do that?” I asked.

“No.”

“Oh...”

That made me think that maybe I really had lost my humanity. But even then, I had no complaints with my god-given body. And seeing as my plan was to live on this island far from human civilization, I didn’t actually care if I was exactly a human or not. I didn’t mind, but...

“Hey, Reina, is this guy really a human?” Elga asked.

“In terms of taxonomy, I think so.”

But why was it that when she put it like that, I didn’t quite know how to react?

“Well, whatever,” Elga said. “Human or not, it doesn’t really matter. By the way, Arata?”

“Yeah?”

“If you really want to make this island your home, then you can just live around here. There are a lot of natural resources in this area, so you won’t have trouble finding food, and sometimes tasty meat like that Emperor Boar will come along.”

“You’re fine with that?”

“Yeah. You’re a pretty strange guy, and fun to be around. Luna seems to have taken a liking to you too,” Elga said, smiling as he tousled Luna’s hair.

“Are you gonna live here?” Luna asked me.

“If you two are all right with it, then I think I will.”

Luna then looked to Reina. “You too?”

“Yes. I don’t have any way to return home right now, and I don’t think I could survive on this island on my own, so I’ll be with Arata for the time being.”

The second Luna heard our answers, her eyes sparkled and she threw her arms in the air. “Yay! That means we’ll be able to play a lot more from now on! And also eat tasty food!”

“Just don’t bother them, Luna,” Elga said.

“Don’t worry, I won’t! Hooray! I’m so happy!”

Luna’s ears and tail twitched, and she expressed her joy with her entire body. Just watching her made me feel happy as well. Then, she excitedly hugged Reina. It was a wonderfully pleasant sight. Though this was only my second full day living in another world, I was relieved that it looked like I would be able to make a life for myself here.

“By the way, Reina, do you know what that is?” I asked, pointing in the direction of the sky where I had blasted away the Emperor Boar.

“Huh?” Reina said.

Though it was a great distance away, I could see a massive silhouette flapping its huge wings as it got closer to us.

In contrast with how he had been acting up until this point, Elga had a somewhat panicked expression on his face. “You’ve gotta be kidding me... Could it be?”

“Umm, is that what I think it is?” Reina said.

The silhouette steadily approached; it appeared to be headed our way. By the time I could make out what it was, I sensed that it had a clear grasp of us as well. Its entire body was covered in scales that looked sharp enough to break skin on contact, and on its back were huge wings that resembled those of a bat. Its long, sharp tail extended from its lustrous black body, and in its talons it clutched the Emperor Boar I had sent soaring.

If I had to describe what I was looking at, I could only give one answer.

“A dragon?”

It seemed there was still a long way to go before the second day of my otherworld life would show any signs of settling down.

Chapter Three: The Assault of the Ancient Dragon Bahamut

Though Luna and Elga—who were native to the island—had animal ears and tails, they hardly looked different from humans. That was why I had been able to establish a rapport with them, and why I had thought to start by talking to them in the first place. In contrast, the wolves and the Emperor Boar that had suddenly attacked us were wild animals through and through. They had only thought of us as food. That was why I had sent them flying without any remorse.

But what I faced now was a gleaming black dragon looking down at us. Its slow wingbeats were powerful enough to violently shake the forest trees, battering them with waves of wind as though they were in a hurricane. Was this being a rational one like Elga and Luna, or was it wild like the forest beasts? According to my impression of dragons from before my reincarnation...it could be either. That was what made it so hard for me to tell.

Elga clicked his tongue in frustration. “That’s an Ancient Dragonfolk, and Bahamut’s brat no less. This one’s gonna be a real pain!”

I could make some sense of the dragon’s background from those words. This was one of the Ancient Dragonfolk “whelps” he had mentioned. Still, while this meant there was a possibility that it would be open to conversation, it was simultaneously a dangerous being.

As I was thinking that, the black dragon suddenly dropped the Emperor Boar it had been holding in its claws right onto us. The huge, round animal fell from the sky like a meteorite.

“Wha— Everyone, get down!” I shouted.

It had been so sudden that there was no time to run. I have to at least keep the others from getting injured, I thought, and I caught the boar. Luckily, my godly cheat body was easily able to stop it. However, there was such a disparity in our sizes that it was hard for me to stay balanced.

“A-Arata, are you all right?!” Reina shouted. “I’ll lift it up!”

“L-Lift it?!” I said.

Reina quietly mumbled something, and a gentle breeze began to blow around me. The wind spun into several small tornadoes, steadily growing larger as they sucked in more of the surrounding atmosphere. Then, the tornadoes—which had expanded to be much larger than I was—swallowed up the Emperor Boar and supported its weight. Thanks to that, I was able to maintain my balance. Maybe it was because I wasn’t used to magic, but holding up a huge boar together with some tornadoes was a mysterious sight.

“You can let go now, Arata,” Reina said.

“Oh, okay. Thanks, Reina.”

I tried gently releasing my grip. The tornadoes seemed to be doing their job, as there were no signs of the huge monster falling. After being sure that it would be all right, I looked up at the black dragon in the sky, and our eyes made perfect contact. It seemed that I was its target.

“But why?” I asked.

“Just give up on trying to find any logic with them. There’s no real reason,” Elga said.

“Really?”

Despite what he said, the dragon was staring intently at me, and I could sense that it had some sort of goal.

Elga continued. “Still, I don’t think she’s ever come all the way to Divine Beastfolk territory before...”

“She isn’t here to give back the Emperor Boar?” Luna asked.

“If she was, you’d think she’d have set it down a bit more softly.”

Neither of them showed any fear of the black dragon as it—she?—imposingly looked down on us from the sky. Elga had said that it would be a “pain” to deal with, so he probably really wasn’t afraid.

“But still, she’s coming onto our territory. I hope she’s prepared to find out what that means.” Elga smiled boldly and cracked his knuckles. For a moment, the dragon turned its attention to him, but it quickly looked back to me and stared.

“But why?” I said.

“Who knows? She’s coming!”

In a single motion, the dragon powerfully spread its wings, then descended on us. By any normal standard, being attacked by a colossal creature was nothing short of terrifying—but just as with the Emperor Boar, I strangely didn’t feel any fear. If anything, my only thought was that, somehow or another, I’d be fine.

“Hey, Arata! Can you really catch that?!” Elga asked.

“I think so!”

“Gotcha, then you stop her. I’ll take care of what’s next!”

Lowering his center of gravity, Elga prepared to intercept the dragon. He cloaked himself in a powerful white aura, and the air began to strain under his mere presence. Reina’s face turned pale, probably because she was affected by the pressure. She must’ve been more sensitive to mana. I was worried about her, but the incoming dragon was more important.

It would normally have been impossible for someone to catch such a colossal animal—I’d thought the same about the Emperor Boar too. You’d just be squashed to a pulp. I was fully aware of that...but maybe my reincarnation had left behind the part of myself that could feel fear, because I was completely unafraid.

“I’ll catch it!”

I extended both arms in front of me to catch the fast-descending dragon, but that exact moment—

“I COMMEND YOUR SPIRIT, TRUE MAN! AS BEFITTING OF THE VALOROUS ONE WHO HAS ASKED FOR MY HAND IN MARRIAGE!”

As I heard a cute and animated female voice, the black dragon began to gleam with light and rapidly shrink. I was so surprised that I completely froze, while the dragon continued on its rapid course, throwing its arms around me.

“Oof?” I exclaimed, though more confused than anything.

In my arms was a girl wearing a black summer dress. She looked around high school age, and her soft black hair was tied up into a side ponytail with a scarlet ribbon. It was clear to me that this girl I was holding was the dragon from moments ago, but everything had been so sudden and I couldn’t comprehend the meaning of her actions. Bewildered, I looked to Elga, but he was frozen in his tense stance, still emitting a white aura. In any other situation I’d have thought that his pose made him look like a badass out of an iconic scene in a battle anime, but in this moment he was honestly kind of lame.

“Yes, your body is rugged and feels good to hold, darling!” the girl said, embracing me tightly and burying her head in my chest.

“Oh? Um... Thanks?”

She didn’t seem to harbor any animosity toward me, but I had no clue why she was calling me “darling.” I didn’t think Elga would be of any use, so I sought help from Reina...but her face was even paler than before.

“Just...go away for now!” I said to the girl.

“Ngah!” she grunted.

I detached the strange girl using all her limbs to embrace me with her entire body, then supported Reina, who looked like she was about to collapse.

“I’m...fine,” Reina said faintly. “I’m just a bit sick from mana, that’s all.”

“A bit? This doesn’t look like a bit!” I said.

True, her condition did resemble seasickness. However, even seasickness could have lasting symptoms if it got bad enough. Elga and the dragon girl’s mana was too much for an ordinary human like Reina, as evidenced by her labored breathing and pained expression. I wanted to get her away from them as soon as possible, so I put one arm behind her knees and picked her up while supporting her back. In common parlance, this was called a princess carry, but for now I just hoped she would forgive me.

“Wh— Arata?! What are you doing?!”

“You can complain all you want later, so let’s just get away from here quickly!”

“Eeek?!”

I kicked off the ground and leaped in one go. Using my full strength for the first time, I instantly accelerated, dashing through the forest.

“Darling! Are you cheating on me, your wife, right in front of me?! I appreciate such backbone in a strong male, but if that female intends to compete with me for my darling, then she had better—”

I could hear the girl saying some incomprehensible things behind me, but I ignored her and came to a leisurely flowing stream. If the cause of Reina’s sickness was Elga and that dragon girl, then getting some distance from them should let her recover.

“Are you all right?” I asked Reina.

“Y-Yeah...” she said, but there was no energy in her voice.

I set her down leaning against a nearby boulder, then I held her close and rubbed her back. Because I was hugging her from the front, I could feel her rough breathing right up against my ear—it was bad for my heart. But right now, her condition was what mattered most. After a while, her breathing began to grow more steady, little by little.

“Ah, hahh... Phew.”

It became incredibly quiet. The only sounds were the slow trickling of the stream and the trees swaying in the wind.

“Ngh...” Reina groaned.

Honestly, I was worried that she would be able to hear my heart pounding amid the silence, and I also suspected that I was blushing. At the very least, my face was hotter than it had ever felt before. Then, I caught a faint glimpse of her ear between the scarlet hair covering the side of her face. It had turned bright red. I also realized that her body was quivering slightly.

“Reina?” I asked.

“I-I’m fine,” she replied.

She didn’t look fine at all—her face was becoming redder and redder. Though her breathing had steadied, it seemed that she was still in a poor condition. It was inexcusable of me to be thinking only of myself when she was in such a state. I cleared my mind and continued rubbing her back until she calmed down, and the tension in her body gradually dissipated. I couldn’t see her face, but she seemed to have fallen asleep from exhaustion.

“Hm?”

I suddenly felt a gaze on me, so I looked that way and noticed a fox-eared girl—Luna—watching us with worry.

“Is Miss Reina gonna be okay?” she asked.

“Come closer, but be slow and quiet,” I said.

Luna anxiously approached, then softly grabbed Reina’s sleeve. “Does it hurt her for us to be close?”

She was worried about Reina, not just how she was doing now, but what this would mean for the future. But when I remembered everything Reina had done up until now, I was certain that she wouldn’t be harsh toward Luna. So, I gently pet her head.

“Ah...”

“You’re just a kid, so you don’t have to concern yourself with that,” I said to her. “Reina seems like she enjoys being with you, and I think she’d be sad to hear you say that.”

“Really? But...”

“If you’re worried, then when you’re near her, you can suppress your mana. Or rather, hold it back as much as possible. Then she’ll definitely be okay.”

Reina’s symptoms were the result of absorbing far too much dense mana for a human to handle. But Reina was fine when Luna acted as she normally did; as long as the girl was careful, Reina should be all right. Luna seemed to understand after I told her that, and she nodded, a serious look on her face.

“I’ll do my best,” she said.

“Good job.” I pet her head again, and her expression finally returned to her usual, bright smile.

◇

After some time, I laid the exhausted, sleeping Reina on her side, then looked in the direction I came from.

“Can you look after Reina for a bit, Luna?” I asked.

“Okay! Where are you going?”

“I’m going to go see what that dragon is here for.”

The black dragon—whom Elga had called Bahamut—had abruptly attacked without warning. I knew her goal, but not her motive. At the very least, she hadn’t seemed to harbor any malice, but from suddenly dropping the Emperor Boar on us to becoming a human and hugging me, her actions were all over the place. Reina might be leaving the island eventually, but building a boat or waiting for aid would both take time. There was no telling when a similar thing might happen and put strain on her body and mind. I would probably be fine, but at this rate, Reina’s health would be ruined. That was exactly why I had to find out what motivated the actions of those who lived in this forest.

◇

I left Reina with Luna and returned to the spot in the forest. The black-haired girl was flailing around as Elga held her by the scruff of her neck.

“Un! Hand! Me!” she shouted.

“If I do, you’ll just follow them,” Elga retorted.

The girl appeared to be in her teens, but the way she spoke and acted made her seem somewhat younger. Luna was the same; maybe the mental growth of this island’s residents was slower than their physical aging.

She suddenly met my gaze, and her eyes lit up. “Darling! You’ve finally returned!”

“Hey, Arata. Is everything all right?” Elga asked me.

“Yeah, and Reina’s settled down too. Now...”

What should I do with this girl who was calling me darling? My experience up until now had demonstrated that my special, godly body had no chance of getting hurt, but I still had no clue why a dragon had gotten attached to me.

“Could you tell me your name?” I asked her.

As she dangled from Elga’s grasp, the girl proudly introduced herself with her head held high. “My name is Tailtiu! My Ancestor is the Divine Dragon Bahamut, and I am the mightiest Ancient Dragon on this island!”

Just like with Fenrir, the name “Bahamut” was something I only really recognized from manga and video games. My impression was of a super strong dragon, but I didn’t see how that was related to the girl before me. Nevertheless, I couldn’t very well remain silent and not respond to her after she had introduced herself to me.

“My name is Arata,” I said.

“Aha, so my darling is named Arata! It is a fine, strong name!” She seemed happy to have learned my name.

“Th-Thanks...” I didn’t mind hearing praise for the name my parents gave to me, but I wondered why she was being so friendly with me. “By the way, Tailtiu, why do you keep calling me darling?”

“Hmm? That’s a strange question. Why, you made a passionate proposal to me, and I accepted it!”

“Uhh...”

I crossed my arms and looked at Elga, but he shook his head, as if to say, Don’t ask me. He didn’t seem to understand what she was talking about either, which meant that this wasn’t some sort of local joke.

“It wasn’t my intention to propose to you, or anything...”

“What?!” Tailtiu exclaimed.

She was surprised, but as for me, I actually couldn’t understand why she was so shocked. Where in the world had she gotten things so twisted?

“B-But darling! You gave me the Emperor Boar as a gift, did you not?!”

“Huh?”

“Imbue a powerful monster with even more powerful mana, and present it to a female—that is how we Ancient Dragons propose! And your mana was so unbelievably powerful that I could hardly believe my eyes... I-I thought, now that I’d received such a sign of affection, I had no choice but to—”

“H-Hold it, stop!” I said, interrupting Tailtiu as she started excitedly speaking in a rush. I took a moment to digest what she had said. “Umm, can I ask you one question at a time?”

Tailtiu paused. “I see, that was a joke just now, wasn’t it?” She giggled. “How endearing. And now, you desire for us to learn more about each other! I applaud your attitude, darling!”

No matter what I said, she interpreted it favorably and grew even more attached. It sure was confusing, but I supposed it was better than her turning hostile. I gave Elga a look, asking him to let Tailtiu onto the ground. When she got back onto her feet, she was more than a head shorter than me, at not quite five feet tall. I squarely met her eyes, then questioned her in detail.

“You’re an Ancient Dragonfolk, right, Tailtiu?”

“Indeed! I am without a doubt an Ancient Dragonfolk whose Ancestor is the Divine Dragon Bahamut!”

“And, you’re calling me darling because...I proposed to you, and you accepted?”

“Ancient Dragonfolk females are only interested in males stronger than ourselves! And you possess far more power than I. I’m head over heels for you!” Tailtiu grinned from ear to ear, baring her small canines.

It seemed that this was the source of our misunderstanding. I asked her for some more information, and discovered that the Emperor Boar I had sent flying had landed right in her bed.

For Ancient Dragonfolk, giving someone a powerful monster as food was a courtship ritual, charging the monster with one’s mana as a show of strength. As a result, Tailtiu had interpreted the Emperor Boar coming in from the sky as such. And for some reason, my mana—the superpower from my godly cheat body—had been infused into the boar, and she had come here with the mistaken belief that it was from an eager bachelor far stronger than her.

“And the reason you dropped the Emperor Boar was...?”

“I accepted your proposal! I was returning your gift so we could eat a meal together as a family!”

“...I see.”

Regardless, I clearly understood that there hadn’t been any malice behind her actions. The issue was that I hadn’t had any intention of proposing to her. Nevertheless, it was also true that my actions had given her the wrong idea.

“You see...” I began.

I explained everything that had led up to this point. Before I knew it, I was on the island. I had been exploring the forest with Reina, the person who had collapsed earlier, when we met Luna and Elga. Then, we had defeated the Emperor Boar, and it had been sent flying by accident.

“D-Darling, do you mean to say that you haven’t actually proposed to me? You aren’t merely trying to hide your embarrassment?”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right.”

When I conveyed to her that this was just an accident caused by a clueless outsider, she reacted with shock.

“Ahh...is that so? I misunderstood you,” she said. Then, she began to mutter in a quiet voice. “I see. I’m so strong that not even other Ancient Dragonfolk want to get close to me, so I was excited over my first proposal. But it was all a mistake...”

“S-Sorry.”

Tailtiu sat on the ground, her back turned to me. Her bright and cheerful mood was gone. She looked so crestfallen that I could almost hear a shocked sound effect as her back cast a long, deep shadow. When I saw her pick up a branch and start to draw circles on the ground with it, a feeling of extreme guilt welled up inside me.

“After all, I already knew that no one would have such strange tastes that they’d propose to a lonely dragon such as I. No one weak ever wants to approach me either,” she continued to mumble.

By the sound of things, she was strong even among her kind, and it had isolated her.

“Hey, Arata, this loner’s a real pain,” Elga said.

“Don’t call her that. It’s too sad.”

Still, it didn’t seem like she was going to start running amok all of a sudden, so I breathed a small sigh of relief. I wasn’t yet used to the strength of my own body, so if she attacked me and I resisted, I could potentially hurt her by being unable to control my own power.

I can communicate with her, so... I thought, then looked at the Emperor Boar. I had an idea.

“Oh, that’s right. Hey, Tailtiu?” I said.

“Mm-hmm?” she grunted.

“You’re already here with us, so why don’t we eat together?”

“Mm-hmm-hmm-hmm?” She had been emitting a gloomy aura, but she suddenly perked up and lifted her face to look at me. However, there were traces of doubt in her eyes. It looked as though I had made her distrust me.

“Together?” she asked.

“Yeah, together.”

“You all aren’t going to get together and have fun chasing me off into the corner or anything?”

What in the world has she been through?

“You’ll be part of our circle too, and we’ll all eat some food together. How about it?”

“Wh-Whole roasting is my specialty! I can make fire with my mouth, like this! Pow, Fwoosh!” Tailtiu said, frantically trying to show off what she could do.

I smiled awkwardly. “Whoa, impressive. Why don’t I leave the heat up to you—”

As I spoke, an overexcited Tailtiu expelled fire from her mouth, engulfing me in flames before I could move out of the way.

“Ah...oh no!” she exclaimed.

“A-Arata!” Elga shouted, panicked.

The flames cut out, and I smiled at them. “I-I’m fine. Just a bit surprised... I’m not burned or anything.”

Dumbfounded, the two of them silently gaped at me as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Apparently, my body was abnormally sturdy, even from the perspective of these two powerful residents of the island. If that’s true, then I can live here with peace of mind, I thought, examining myself.

“Come to think of it, it’s incredible that my clothes aren’t burned either,” I remarked.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to be worried about!” the two of them simultaneously retorted.

After that, we went back to Reina, in order to decide how to cook the Emperor Boar.

◇

Reina was already awake and deep in conversation with Luna. Both of them were smiling, and I was relieved that Luna’s worries had ended up being unfounded.

“I’m back,” I said.

“Ah, Mister Arata!” Luna said.

“Welcome back,” Reina said. “And you too, Elga...”

Reina’s expression was somewhat stiff, which was understandable given what had just happened, but Elga was suppressing his mana and she didn’t appear to be experiencing any ill effects. Apparently, as long as he didn’t use his full power, Reina was unaffected.

“Hey, sorry about earlier,” Elga said.

“No, it’s all right. You all are just living as you normally would. It’s my fault for being inexperienced,” Reina replied.

Reina was just living normally too, but she would never blame others. Elga must’ve been bracing for her to rebuke him, because he was taken aback and looked at me with wide eyes.

“You’re something else, but the young lady here is strong too, if you know what I mean,” he remarked.

“She’s cool, isn’t she?” I said.

Elga chuckled. “Yeah. I like a woman with guts.”

“Is that supposed to be praise?” Reina said.

Of course it was. As for Elga, he seemed as though he had accepted her as an individual, and saw her as more than just another weak human.

“By the way, Arata, who’s she?” Reina asked, looking at Tailtiu.

“Hm? Do you mean me?” Tailtiu replied.

It seemed that Reina didn’t remember Tailtiu transforming from a dragon into a girl, probably because her consciousness had been hazy. Reina’s confusion was only natural; from her perspective, an unfamiliar girl had just shown up out of nowhere. I signaled to Tailtiu with my eyes that she should introduce herself, and she proudly puffed up her small chest and stepped forward.

“My name is Tailtiu! My Ancestor is the Divine Dragon Bahamut, and I am the mightiest Ancient Dragon on this island!”

“In other words...?” Reina asked me.

“She’s the black dragon from earlier,” I explained.

“...I see.”

I had been together with Reina for two days, and she was surprisingly flexible. Her intellectual air was probably her usual self, but I also got the impression that she was making an effort to accept the things that were beyond her existing knowledge as they were, without casting doubt over them.

“And, I am my darling’s wife!” Tailtiu added.

“In other words...?” Reina asked again.

“She has the wrong idea,” I replied.

“C-Certainly, our relationship began from a misunderstanding, but I am already head over heels for your mana, darling!”

“Huh?” Reina looked at me coldly.

I knew what that expression meant—it was how one looked at a lolicon. I hadn’t done anything wrong, so why did I feel as guilty as a husband who had been caught cheating?

“Please, just let me explain everything from the start,” I said.

“Yes, please do,” Reina said.

I once again explained what had happened since she had collapsed, in order to clear her misunderstandings. She would occasionally confirm things with Elga, and I idly thought, She really knows who to ask in order to get accurate information.

Once I’d finished, an exasperated expression appeared on her face.

“Do you have Loki’s blessing or something, Arata?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“It brings unwanted trouble to you. Of course, unlike the other gods’ blessings, it’s only a superstition.”

“All I want is to live a quiet life, so I really could go without a blessing like that.”

Nevertheless, while I didn’t know which god had reincarnated me, she had seemed like the type to attract trouble.

“Umm, anyway... Lady Tailtiu?” Reina said, unsure of how to address her.

“Just Tailtiu is fine! We’re both attracted to the same male, so let us be equal!”

“Huh?!”

Did this loner just say something absolutely unthinkable just now?

I instinctively turned to Reina. She seemed surprised, though she turned to Tailtiu while doing everything she could to feign composure.

“Listen to me, Tailtiu. Arata and I only met each other yesterday. He’s a fine person, but I don’t think of him in a romantic—”

“So what? It’s only been a few hours since my darling and I met. When a female is attracted a male, time is irrelevant. Especially when he’s so remarkably strong. It’s only a female’s instinct to want to be embraced by a powerful male.”

Tailtiu gazed at Reina with an innocent look in her eyes—she probably seriously believed what she was saying. Still, her values were different from a human’s. Reina must’ve understood this as well, because she was trying to convey this to Tailtiu with deliberate speech, as if she were teaching a child.

“Humans take time to learn about the other person’s good sides and bad sides before falling in love. That’s why...um...we don’t just suddenly like someone, because time is important, and those sorts of temporary feelings aren’t enough on their own.”

“Humans sure are complicated,” Tailtiu remarked.

She seemed to have a sensibility close to that of a wild animal.

Reina was correct—it had only been a day since she and I had met. I liked her as a person too, of course. But that hardly meant I wanted to be in a romantic relationship with her right at this very moment. I would have to get to know her better first. Besides, it would be fundamentally difficult for us to be together, because she wanted to leave the island while I wanted to live on it.

“A-Anyway! Arata and I aren’t partners or anything, so don’t get it twisted!”

“You aren’t?” Luna said. “You were just hugging each other earlier, so I was sure you were lovers.”

That comment took Reina by surprise, and as for me, I would rather Luna have not mentioned it. I had done it out of worry for Reina’s health, but honestly, I would be hard-pressed to say that I’d had absolutely no impure thoughts at the time. I could still feel the sensation of her incredibly soft body in my arms, even now.

“Hey, I’m glad you’re all having fun, but we oughta get back to the Emperor Boar before something else swipes it from us,” Elga said.

“Ah, that’s right!” Reina exclaimed. “It’s supposed to taste really good, so I should get to it quickly!”

“I doubt any will dare to steal food with my scent on it...but very well,” Tailtiu said.

Reina turned and walked into the forest, followed by Tailtiu and then Elga. As for the one remaining—me—I couldn’t help but be curious as to why Luna was staring intently at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Do you like Miss Reina?” she said.

I paused. “Hmm. I do like her, but I don’t think I’m in love. It’s more like, as a person.”

“Oh... I think you’d be a good match.”

All women must like talking about love, even when they’re in another world and a member of a different race, I thought. Maybe that was why Luna seemed so bored with my response. She broke into a jog, chasing after the three who had left before us.

◇

“I know I’m repeating myself, but it really is big,” I remarked.

The Emperor Boar was a colossal creature more than sixty feet tall from the ground to the top of its head. I had no idea how one was supposed to prepare it for cooking. But I was seemingly the only person who thought that, and the other four were expertly getting ready to take apart the boar.

“All right, I’ll cut open its stomach, so can you gut it for me?” Reina asked Elga.

“I’ve got it covered,” Elga said.

“Oh, Arata, you’d better stay there. It’ll be bad if you get too close.”

Obeying Reina’s instructions, I went with Luna to a spot nearby. Cutting its stomach sounded simple on paper, but I wondered whether she would be able to handle doing so to such a large monster. As if she’d read my mind, Tailtiu, who had transformed into a black dragon, grabbed the Emperor Boar in her claws and hovered in midair. When she did, the boar started to twitch. Despite how hard I had hit it then, it was still alive.

Once Tailtiu was in the air, Reina made a green magic circle appear at her own feet.

“Since coming to this island, I’ve only embarrassed myself in front of you, Arata. I think it’s about time I showed you what a Celestial Archmage can do!”

When we were attacked by wolves, she had produced invisible blades of wind. The mana she was gathering right now was incomparably more powerful.

“All right, here I go! Zephyrus, Gale Blade of Judgment!”

The massive blade of wind she released sped toward the Emperor Boar and sliced open its abdomen, slowly revealing its insides. There was a massive waterfall of blood.

“Ew...” I said.

It was like something out of a dream—though maybe it was too graphic to call it that—but strangely enough, I didn’t feel any disgust. Perhaps my new body’s definition of fitness included that sort of mental tolerance as well. At the very least, I was sure such a gory sight would have made me vomit in my past life. I finally understood why Reina had told me to stay away. The endless waterfall of boar blood was flowing so quickly that I would not only have been drenched with blood, but I could’ve been swept away by it.

“That’s a nice cut. I guess it’s my turn now,” Elga said. He leaped high into the air and straight onto the boar, then began to gut it. He lopped off one part after another, taking apart the animal so quickly it was impossible to follow him with my eyes.

After a certain amount of the work was done, Tailtiu’s role must’ve been complete, because she changed from her dragon form back into a girl and came over to me. The Emperor Boar no longer retained its original shape; it was just a collection of various parts.

“The white one is quite skilled,” Tailtiu remarked.

“Y’know, Elga’s the best of the Divine Beastfolk when it comes to hunting and taking apart animals!” Luna said.

“I believe it. He’s amazing,” I said.

In no time at all, a bloodsoaked Elga finished working and returned to us. In his appearance there was a blend of animalistic savagery and masculine stylishness—even as a man I admired him.

“Well, that’s how it goes,” Elga said. “After it’s washed clean, any part makes for a tasty dish.”

“Good job everyone,” Reina said. She looked at the huge pieces of meat and, at somewhat of a loss, she muttered, “I know it’s too late to say this now, but there’s so much of it that we can’t eat it all...”

“It’ll be a waste if we let it go bad. We could bring it back to our village...”

“No, Elga!” Luna said. “Mister Arata is the one who defeated it. If everyone finds out we took something an outsider hunted, they’ll get angry!”

It sounded like the Divine Beastfolk had their own sense of pride. As for me, I was honestly fine with letting them have the meat out of consideration for the future, but if Luna insisted, then it was probably best to not do anything like that yet.

“Can you do something with magic?” I asked Reina.

“I could put it inside my Storage spell. Time is stopped in there, so it won’t spoil, but even its capacity has its limits. Besides, the Emperor Boar is bigger than what I can hold, so it won’t work.”

“Oh, my own Storage spell might fit some of it,” I said.

“What?”

I had learned how to cast Storage after watching Reina use it yesterday. With a vague idea of how to do it in my mind, I tried casting it. The space in front of me began to waver, just like it had before. As I consciously wished to put the Emperor Boar meat inside, it disappeared before my eyes. All of it had fit inside. Not only that, but I could sense that there was still plenty of space left.

“Whoa, this sure is handy,” I said, turning around. “...Reina?”

She was silently staring at me, dumbfounded. It seemed that I had stepped in it again. I regretted that I only ever noticed these things when it was too late. First of all, I decided I would prepare myself to apologize. I might not have looked like it, but apologizing was one of my strong suits.

But still, the Storage spell really was handy. Now that I had used it, I realized that the way one looked at others changed greatly depending on whether they could cast it too. In a world where such useful magic was commonplace, the people in it would surely live comfortable lives, and everyone would want to be a magician.

“Hey, Arata? Why can you use Storage magic?” Reina asked. The look in her eyes told me that with my fuzzy memory, it was definitely weird that I could use it.

“Ah, ha ha ha...” I laughed awkwardly.

“After this, do you think you could tell me all about it?”

I don’t think I can hide it anymore, I thought, and I meekly nodded.

Chapter Four: Hectic Daily Life on the Island

All sorts of things had happened today. In the morning, I had met up with Elga and Luna, then the Emperor Boar had suddenly charged us, and then Tailtiu had attacked as well. I never would’ve been able to imagine—let alone experience—any of these things in my previous life. And yet, when I thought about how it was all for the sake of this moment, those memories brought me happiness.

We were at the riverside, where we had first met Luna. Reina had set up some equipment from her Storage spell, and the pieces of Emperor Boar meat were lined up on top of a large barbecue grill.

“This...is...awesome,” I said.

“Yeah, seriously awesome,” Elga said.

The aroma of the meat was incredibly mouthwatering. Elga and I just kept repeating the word “awesome,” while Luna and Tailtiu couldn’t stop drooling as they quietly listened to the sound of the meat grilling.

“I thought boar—or wild game, I guess—would smell bloodier,” I remarked.

“That’s because the young lady here is a good cook. If you drain all the blood and wash it well, that removes much of the stench,” Elga replied.

Apparently salt or alcohol was best for that, but as you might have expected, there was way too much meat for that to be viable. Instead, Reina had used water magic to clean the meat all at once. She had been deadly serious as she did, stressing that preparation was crucial for cooking. It had been impossible to go against her at all. She’d used wind magic to cut the meat into small pieces, and fire magic to sear off small hairs. She looked like an expert hunter. When Tailtiu approached her to offer help, a single glare had made the girl beat a fearful, teary retreat. I got the feeling that when Reina was cooking, she was really the strongest one here. She was as fair as a princess out of a storybook, but on the other hand I suspected that she had been through a lot of hardship in her life up until now.

Finally, Reina, who had taken off her white cloak and put on a scarlet apron, said, “All right then. It’s done.”

Not a moment later, we all sprang into action, each of us vying for the meat on the table. Elga moved his hands the fastest. As an adult Divine Beastfolk, he was in top shape. But when he and I reached out at the same time, our arms stopped just short of colliding with each other.

“Tch! Not bad, Arata!”

“Right back at you!”

Then, as if to take advantage of the opening, Tailtiu and Luna snatched up some meat.

“Mwa ha ha, that meat is mine!”

“Mine!”

They dipped it in the sauce Reina had brought, then opened wide and stuffed their mouths with a single bite. With cheeks bulging like squirrels, they gulped, and after the meat went down their throats they fell silent for a moment. Then—

“Deeeelicious!” they both shouted, their hands still moving seemingly on their own to grab more.

Elga and I made eye contact, then nodded—this was the signal for ceasefire. We divided up the table into our respective territories, then prioritized eating meat from our own encampments. If we didn’t cooperate, we risked having it all stolen by these two ravenous kids. Finally, I was successfully able to pick up a piece of Emperor Boar meat.

“Whoa...”

Though it had been thoroughly cooked, it shone like gold—this was surely no illusion. The first thing that sprang to mind when I thought of wild boar loin was that it was a fatty, high-quality cut. It was good with sauce of course, like how Luna and Tailtiu were eating it, but for me, there was only one choice of condiment—salt!

“Awesome,” I said.

The moment I took a bite, the melt-in-your-mouth fat and the savory flavor of meat exploded throughout my entire body. I was suddenly overcome by the urge to punch the ground as hard as I could...but seeing as doing that would probably blow away this entire area, I reconsidered and stopped myself.

“YEEEEAAAAHHHH!” Elga bellowed in front of me. He was so excited that I couldn’t tell whether it was a shout or a roar, or if he was just trying to say that it was good. He was eating a cut called the skirt steak, which was fattier than the loin and had the richest flavor. His more wild aspect must’ve magnified his reaction to it. Skirt steak was especially great with sauce; he had made a fantastic choice.

“Delicious! It’s firm and perfectly chewy,” Tailtiu said. The meat she was gobbling up was probably the neck. Wild boar neck was tough and chewy when cooked, with a distinctive firmness.

“This part is plain, but it’s good!” Luna said. She was eating the thigh. It was muscular and springy, and incredibly easy to eat.

Both of their cuts were delicious, with a unique charcoal-grilled taste. But Reina was just about to grill the cut I had my eye on. There was only a small amount of it in each animal, and it was the very best: the tenderloin! It was said to be the most tender kind of boar meat, and its highly rich, highly pure flavor was sure to stimulate one’s taste buds. The other three didn’t seem to have realized yet how incredible it was. Right when their attention was diverted, I would snatch it all away in one go—

“Arata, you know better. You have to share with everyone else,” Reina said, dissuading me with a wide smile.

“O-Okay.” There was of course no way I could win against her, and I distributed the tenderloin to everyone. Then, the four of us simultaneously turned to the sky and shouted.

“Good grief... There’s plenty for everyone, so why won’t you eat a bit slower?” Reina wondered.

“That’s because there’s meat right there,” I replied.

“I just don’t get what you say sometimes...” Exasperated, Reina got her own serving and took a bite. “Mmm, this is good.” Being the only refined one out of all of us, her reaction was cute.

◇

After that, my busy second full day in this world finally felt like it had calmed down. The sky was already dotted with stars, and the surrounding area was getting darker.

Tailtiu had gone back to her dwelling satisfied, but not before saying that she’d had fun and would be back. Luna and Elga had returned to the Divine Beastfolk village. Elga had invited us to come with them, but judging from Reina’s condition in the afternoon, I didn’t think she would be able to relax there, so I put the invitation on hold for the time being.

This meant that Reina and I were all by ourselves right now, relaxing by a fire in front of the tent.

“Today was exhausting,” Reina remarked.

“Ah ha ha... Well, yesterday was exhausting too, but yeah, today was especially tough,” I replied.

The crackling of the fire was comforting, and listening to Reina’s voice made me feel calm.

“Um...thanks for today,” she said.

I instantly understood that she was referring to when Tailtiu had swooped in on us. But I felt like it wasn’t right for her to thank me.

“Apparently that was originally my fault,” I said.

“No, but—”

“And if we’re thanking each other, then there are all sorts of things I have to thank you for. Today, you made delicious food for me, and I’ve been totally reliant on you for setting up a place to sleep too.”

I had been reincarnated here on this island in order to live on my own, but I was completely and utterly depending on Reina. At this rate, I’d end up unable to live without her.

“Luckily I have a body that’s tough enough to shrug off anything this island throws at me, so I can protect you,” I continued. “If I couldn’t even do that, I’d just be a burden.”

“Protect, huh?” Reina giggled. “It’s been a while since anyone has said that to me. Lately, I usually get treated like a monster, or a weapon.”

“They don’t know what they’re missing.”

Even though she’s such a beauty, I thought. Are there really not that many guys who feel the urge to protect her?

“That’s what it means to be one of the Seven Celestial Archmages. I’m seventh in rank, so I’m the lowest, but to normal magicians I may as well be on a completely different planet. The idea that I’d ever need ‘protecting’ probably sounds absurd to them.”

“Oh, really?”

“So you’re the weird one here, Arata. If anyone we’ve met on this island appeared on the continent, they’d be natural disasters that all of humanity would need to band together to fight. The fact that you’re just as—no, even stronger than them is impossible for a human.” Reina looked at me, a serious expression on her face. But somehow, she also seemed frightened.

Perhaps from her perspective, I seemed like a monster.

“I really didn’t want to ask you about this, Arata, but... Just who are you?”

Reina was the first person I had met in this world. This was only the second day we had been together, but I very much comprehended that she was someone worthy of my trust. But, I wondered, was it really all right for me to reveal to her here that I was someone who had reincarnated? She might think that I had a few screws loose. In fact, she could even reject me entirely, think I was lying, and stop trusting me.

“Well, fine,” I said.

I had originally reincarnated here, in this place without any humans, because I had gotten tired of complicated human relationships. If Reina did distance herself from me, I would just go back to being alone. Of course, she had already done so much for me, and I would protect her until she was able to safely escape from the island, but that would be all. After that, I would just leisurely enjoy my life on the island. Besides—and this was only a vague feeling—I didn’t want to lie to this straightforward girl.

“Reina, I’m originally not from this world,” I began. I decided that I would tell her everything, including how I had come to this world and the fact that I had met a god.

“...And that’s how I got to this island,” I concluded. As you might have expected, I had omitted minor details like having been a corporate drone, but I still believed that I had told her pretty much everything I could. If this was going to be what caused her to leave, then I would be disappointed, but—

“I see,” Reina said.

“Huh? You believe me?”

“You aren’t lying, are you?”

“N-No, I’m not, but...”

I had been absolutely positive that once I started going on about a god, she would react with disbelief. But she just nodded with understanding. She must’ve found my confusion funny, because she giggled. This laugh was different from her normal, elegant one, and it had an adorable charm befitting someone of her age.

“Normally, if someone started talking about a god, I wouldn’t trust them. But when I see how much you defy all logic, it actually makes it easier to believe.”

“O-Oh...”

“A normal human could never send such a huge monster flying like that. Do you understand?”

She spoke to me as though she were a teacher chastising a poor student. Her teasing manner made my heart skip a beat.

“And, when I take into account how clueless about the world you are,” she continued, “I can believe that you came from somewhere else.”

“Harsh...”

“That’s just how odd you are.”

I mentally thanked her for joking with me like that. I had been worried, just a bit, that after telling her everything, I would be treated as a weirdo or a liar and she would come to dislike me. But she was acting the same as she always did. That made me glad.

“Anyway, now I really get how abnormal you are. And that no matter how hard I make you work, you’ll be fine. So with that, I’m looking forward to my time with you,” she said as if it were only obvious, then smiled.

In spite of myself, I was captivated by her smile, but there was nothing I could do about that.

◇

A week had passed since I had come to the island, and I felt like I had mostly gotten used to my life here. I wasn’t having any issues with keeping myself fed—I had the food Reina had brought, the meat from the Emperor Boar, and fresh water—and I even had a tent to sleep in. Thanks to Reina and her survival skills, it was like I was on a pleasant camping trip.

“When I put it that way, it sounds like I’m basically relying on Reina for everything,” I said to myself.

She had even been giving me magic lessons lately, and thanks to that, I could now cast some simple spells. All of them had something directly to do with one’s livelihood; I was grateful for that, as I had been aiming to live leisurely. However, maybe because of my copy ability, every time I learned a new spell, Reina gave me a look that said, This is why I can’t stand you sometimes. It was a little worrying.

I exited the tent and stretched. The bright sunlight enveloping my whole body felt good.

All of the trees in the forest were incredibly tall, and normally this place would get hardly any sunlight. But the Emperor Boar’s rampage had knocked many of them down, and now the sun shone directly on the ground.

“I might’ve gotten up a bit too early.”

There were no clocks on this island, so the only way to tell time was by the position of the sun. Reina wasn’t awake yet, so I just idly looked up at the sky outside the tent. The wind was pleasantly chilly, and I could hear the sound of birds chirping. It sure is peaceful out, I thought, but then...

“Squee.”

There was a squeak I had heard once before. I looked and saw a small rabbit staring at me from the forest. It had soft, white fur and deep ruby eyes. It was probably the same kind of rabbit as the one I had come across my first day on the island. When I looked at it, I belatedly felt guilt well up within me; it might have already been dead, but I felt bad for having used it as a decoy against the wolf.

“Come here,” I said.

“Squee!” The rabbit hardly seemed to mind me at all. It skipped over, then playfully headbutted me. That instant, a dull noise resounded throughout the area. It squeaked curiously. “Squee?”

I stroked its fur. “Oh, there, there. You sure are friendly, aren’t you?”

If Reina gave me permission, maybe I could keep it.

“Squee! Squee squee squee! Squeeee!”

I had the sneaking suspicion that maybe it didn’t like me petting it, but it was the one who had hugged me first. In other words, it wasn’t my fault. Just give up and become my fluffiness distributor.

After I played with the rabbit like that for a while, Reina came out of the tent. She was normally refreshed in the morning, but she had stayed up reading until quite late the previous night, so she seemed unusually drowsy. Her hair was a bit disheveled, and she had a sleepy look in her eyes. That difference from her usual self was attractive, and I found myself staring, entranced. I was a guy, so there was nothing I could do about it.

Reina yawned. “Morning, Arata.”

“Good morning, Reina.”

“...t’s that?” She looked surprised by the rabbit in my arms.

“Cute, isn’t it?” I said, grabbing the rabbit around its torso and proudly showing it off to her. “It’s friendly. Why don’t you try holding it?”

The adorable rabbit flailed its legs, and even Reina succumbed to—

“I’m going to go wash my face,” she said. Contrary to my expectations, she looked at the rabbit as if it was something terrifying and hurried over to the river.

“What’s up with her?” I said.

“Squeeee! Squee squee squeeee!”

“Hmm? There’s no need to kick me so much. You know what happens if you don’t behave... Punishment time!”

As the rabbit pounded me with its short legs, I gave it a light flick to the forehead. At that moment...

“Squee?!”

“Ah...”

The rabbit’s head jerked to the side, like someone who had been shot with a pistol. It went limp in my arms. Though it was still breathing, it was completely unconscious.

“I really need to learn to control my own strength.”

In my defense, I had only given it a casual flick. But things could definitely get ugly if I misjudged my strength.

As I looked at the unconscious rabbit, I swore to myself that I would learn my lesson from this moment.

◇

Reina returned a short while later. She looked to have also taken care of her hair at the river, and her appearance had returned its usual elegant state.

“I’m back,” she said.

“Welcome back,” I replied.

“...So I wasn’t just seeing things after all.”

“Seeing what?”

Reina wordlessly pointed at the rabbit sleeping in my arms, a stiff expression on her face. “That’s a rabbit, isn’t it?”

“Yep, it’s a rabbit.” I tilted my head to the side, not understanding what she was trying to say.

She let out a deep, exasperated sigh. “Arata... I’m just making sure, but you know what rabbits are, right?”

“Yeah, they existed in my world too.”

“Uh-huh... So you must also know that they’re Calamity-class monsters?”

I silently tilted my head to the side again, not understanding what she meant by “Calamity-class.” I could get a sense of the word’s meaning, but it didn’t seem like something that could describe a rabbit.

“To put it simply, ‘Calamity-class’ means they’re such dangerous monsters that humans don’t stand a chance against them. By the way, if that thing were to show up on the continent, either multiple Celestial Archmages would have to take it out, or a church-recognized hero and saint would risk their lives to face it.”

“A rabbit?”

“A rabbit.”

Incidentally, the small animal nestled limply in my arms was a rabbit.

“Well, Arata, I suppose this is you I’m dealing with, after all.”

“Y’know, I kind of get the feeling you’re upset at me.”

“I am upset.”

It seemed that my knowledge of rabbits didn’t apply at all to this world. Regardless, it looked like I was better off giving up on keeping this Calamity-class rabbit as a pet. Now that I really thought about it, its tackles and kicks, of which I had been on the receiving end several times, had shaken the surrounding trees—maybe those had actually been powerful attacks. But to me, it was just an ordinary small animal, so this was quite a predicament. The way it looked while sleeping was so adorable that it made me want to protect it.

This thing is cute.

“Hey, Reina? Can I keep it?”

“No,” she instantly replied with a smile.

Disappointing...

“Darliiing!”

“Hmm?” I heard a familiar voice from a short distance away, and when I turned to look I saw a smiling Tailtiu running toward me while kicking up a cloud of dust behind her.

“I HAVE ARRIVED!!!” she shouted, diving at me.

“Oof,” I reflexively grunted as I was hit by an impact incomparably more powerful than the rabbit’s.

If that rabbit is Calamity-class, then what are you supposed to call her? Well, when she behaves like this, she’s just a cute girl.

“Hey, Tailtiu,” I said. “Good to see you.”

“Eheh heh heh! Completely calm, even after I leap at you? I knew it, you’re incredible, darling!” she said to me.

The way she rubbed her head up against me like a big dog was incredibly adorable, but though her actions were childish, her appearance was a bit older. I wished she would learn to show a bit more modesty.

“Hello, Tailtiu,” Reina said.

Startled, Tailtiu hid behind me, then peeked her face out from my back and spoke softly. “Hello, Reina... I have arrived...”

“Why’s she so shy with me?” Reina asked me.

“Isn’t it because you glared at her when you were cooking last time, and now she’s afraid?” I said.

“I don’t remember ever glaring at her.”

No, you definitely did, I thought. Tailtiu had clung to me in fright then, so I remembered it clearly. Reina could sometimes be scary when she was cooking.

“Hey, Tailtiu, Reina’s a nice person, so don’t be afraid,” I said to her.

“Y-Yes...you’re right. The Reina that gave me plenty of delicious meat last time was kind.”

“It bothers me that you both sound like you’re trying to convince yourselves, but whatever.”

There were many incredibly powerful races on this island, and Elga had said that Tailtiu—whose Ancestor was the Divine Dragon Bahamut—was one of the strongest among them. She was still young, so she couldn’t fully manifest her power, but her future potential was top of its class. The fact that Reina could strike fear into her heart made me think that it was actually Reina who was the most powerful, in a certain sense.

“So, Tailtiu, what’s going on today?” I asked.

“I have come to play with you, darling!” she replied, smiling from ear to ear.

I smiled awkwardly despite myself. Tailtiu had told me yesterday that the other young Ancient Dragonfolk gave her a wide berth because of how strong she was. In other words, she had no friends even among her own kind and was living a solitary life. So, when someone came along who didn’t break even when she used all her power, she had begun to grow attached. It was a mystery why she kept calling me “darling,” even though she fully understood that my proposal had been a misunderstanding, but she was a sweet and bright girl nonetheless.

“Play, huh?” I said.

Unfortunately for the excited Tailtiu, I honestly couldn’t think of any games she might like. I didn’t need a smartphone or a portable console; even a deck of cards or a board game would’ve completely changed things. But needless to say, I hadn’t been able to bring anything from my past life into this world.

“Hmmm...”

“By the way darling, is that a rabbit?” Tailtiu asked.

“Huh? Yeah, probably.”

It felt wrong to call this animal a rabbit, but that was its name and it looked like one too, so I just had to accept it.

“Amazing! Rabbits are so nimble that even we have trouble catching them!”

“Oh, really?”

“They’re small, and if they run, it isn’t easy to find them again. Also, they’re decently strong.”

“So they are strong.”

The fact that the small, unconscious animal in my arms was being called strong by an Ancestor of the Divine Dragon Bahamut gave me the feeling that this island—or rather, this world—really was a bit strange.

“Yes, I suppose so,” Tailtiu said. “So you’re good at hunting as well...”

“Actually, it just came to me on its own.”

I probably shouldn’t tell her that I knocked it out with a single flick to the forehead. Reina and the others have all stopped treating me like I’m human, I thought. As I did, I spotted Luna in the depths of the forest, running our way. She approached with tremendous speed just as Tailtiu had done earlier, charging toward me at full power while kicking up clouds of dust.

“You know,” I began, “if she doesn’t lower her speed soon, things could get—”

“Yaaay!” Luna shouted, doing a running dive into my stomach.

“Oof!” I grunted. I felt a similar shock to when Tailtiu would collide with me. There wasn’t any pain, but it still startled me. I wished she would go a bit easier on me.

“Oh, Luna. Welcome,” Reina said.

“Good afternoon, Miss Reina!”

“Good afternoon, Luna. Well done, you greeted me properly.” Reina stroked Luna’s perked up fox ears.

“Eheh heh heh.” Luna looked incredibly pleased.

“D-Darling! Me too, me too!” Tailtiu said.

“Umm...” She desperately pushed her head toward me, so I pet her above Luna, who was still clinging to me around my waist. That was all it took for her to be greatly satisfied. Luna was in a good mood as well.

As Reina and I watched the two of them as they behaved like children, we exchanged looks, and smiles crept onto both of our faces.

◇

After that, on a suggestion from Tailtiu, we decided to go into the forest to hunt. However, it would have been inefficient for the four of us to move together, so we formed two pairs and decided to make it a contest of who could catch the best game. It was Tailtiu and me against Reina and Luna.

“It went that way, Tailtiu!”

“Indeed!”

“Miss Reina, over there!”

“Okay!”

It would’ve been easy if there were any large monsters like an Emperor Boar, but apparently the animals on this island were sensitive to the presence of strong individuals. They recognized both Luna, who was one of the Divine Beastfolk, and Tailtiu, who was an Ancient Dragon. The monsters here were well-versed in how to survive, so it was normal for them to stay out of sight.

“There it is,” Reina called out.

“Whoa, you’re amazing, Miss Reina!” Luna said.

Reina giggled. “All right, Luna, next one!”

“Yeah!”

Reina had beheaded a deerlike monster nearby. The residents of the island might’ve seen her as just an ordinary human, but she was one of the continent’s strongest magicians who could cast a great variety of spells and fight in all sorts of situations. She was a jack-of-all-trades who could either defeat foes by herself or support someone like Luna. Not to mention she had a wealth of knowledge as an S-rank adventurer and was very familiar with how to hunt. Compared to her...

“Hrmmm... That Reina is pretty good,” Tailtiu said.

“We’ve still got nothing on our end...”

I might have been stupidly powerful, but my physical strength was the only thing I could rely on. Tailtiu was much the same, so we both were having a rough time just finding any game. And when we did, it instantly escaped. I’d honestly hoped that once we got serious, we’d easily be able to outrun our prey, but I had underestimated their instinctive animal ability to detect danger. They used everything on the island to their advantage, and before I knew it, they disappeared from sight.

“A-At this rate, we’ll lose!” Tailtiu said.

“Yeah, we have to do something.”

It wasn’t like there was a punishment game if we lost. But still, losing was no fun.

“All right, I thought of a good idea,” I said.

“Really?!” Tailtiu exclaimed hopefully.

I nodded, then sat down cross-legged on the spot. After that, I closed my eyes as if I were meditating, and listened carefully to the sounds in the environment.

“Darling?” Tailtiu said.

“Can you be quiet for a bit?”

She was silent. My eyes were closed, but by sensing the movement of the air I could clearly tell that she had covered her mouth with both hands and nodded. When I extended that sense across a wider area, I began to hear the trees rustling in the wind, the river flowing, and animals’ footsteps on the ground. These sounds steadily grew sharper, and...

“Got it! Over there,” I said.

“Oh? Oh?!” Tailtiu exclaimed.

I instantly broke into a run in the direction I had sensed the animals. Though I had moved so suddenly, a surprised Tailtiu was able to follow right behind me. Then—

“Th-They’re here, darling! Rabbits!”

“Yeah! But...they noticed us!”

There were three rabbits. The so-called Calamity-class animals widened their large, round, scarlet eyes with surprise as soon as they saw Tailtiu, and turned tail to flee. Unlike when I was alone, the sight of an apex predator like an Ancient Dragon was enough for them to clearly understand how outmatched they were.

“They’re trying to escape!” Tailtiu said.

“Not on my watch!”

I picked up a rock at my feet, lifted up my leg, and pitched it at full power. I hadn’t been on the baseball team, so I didn’t have any confidence in my control, but thanks to my new body moving exactly as I wished, the rock cleanly hit one of the rabbits in the head straight on and blew the animal away. For a moment, its fellow escapees shot me a look that said, Are you kidding me? But then, just as their attention was turned to me—

“Got you!” Tailtiu shouted.

“S-Squeeee?!”

Tailtiu had drawn near the rabbits while they were startled and grabbed one of them by its ears. It violently flailed its legs in midair, unleashing some powerful kicks, but its physical ability must’ve been far below Tailtiu’s, because she didn’t seem to be affected at all.

“Hmph! Silence, you animal!”

“Skreee?!”

She slammed the rabbit into a tree as hard as she could, knocking it out with a thud. And then there was only one. It had abandoned its captured companions and was making a last-ditch effort to escape. I placed my hands on the ground, then imagined a cage made of earth.

“I won’t let you get away!”

The moment I sent mana coursing through my hands, a wall of earth emerged from the ground and obstructed the rabbit’s path. This spell that Reina had taught me—Earth Wall—was originally used to block enemy attacks. But I created a U-shaped wall to close off the rabbit’s escape routes. Seeing this, the creature let out a short squeak and charged into the wall. It was trying to break through using brute force.

“Darling! Rabbits can easily knock down a wall like tha—”

“Squee?!”

“Like...that?”

My wall must’ve been tougher than the rabbit had assumed, as it bounced off with a painful-sounding crash. As it was lying on the ground in agony, I went up to it and...

“Gotcha,” I said, grabbing its ears and flicking its forehead in order to knock it out. The rabbit’s head jerked back with incredible force, and it fainted while twitching. “All right!”

Tailtiu silently looked at me, shocked.

“Hmm? What is it, Tailtiu?” I asked, confused over what she was so surprised about.

“Rabbits are supposed to be quite strong and difficult to capture.” She stared at the rabbit she had caught, then looked at me as I tossed mine into my Storage spell. “I knew it! You’re amazing, darling! You’re the only one fit to be my companion!”

“Hngh!” I grunted, momentarily taken aback as she wrapped me in a powerful embrace. It didn’t hurt, but there was a noticeable pressure probably because of her abnormal strength. Though if anything, this meant that she couldn’t harm me, even with how strong she was.

This body sure is amazing, I thought.

“Eheh heh heh,” Tailtiu giggled.

She must not have had anyone with whom she could freely unleash her strength, because she was being very affectionate with me. She suppressed her power considerably when she was around Reina, and even other dragons were afraid to get close to her. Elga had called her a loner, but I was sure it was quite hard for her to be such an outcast. All of this marriage stuff aside, it seemed like the responsible choice was for me to accept this sort of physical contact.

“All right, it looks like it’s about time, so why don’t we head back to the tent?” I asked.

“Indeed!” Tailtiu chuckled. “We caught four rabbits! I can see the surprised looks on their faces already!”

Is that how rabbits are counted? I wondered. When speaking, Tailtiu had used the counter for animals instead of the one for birds, which also applied to rabbits. But then I remembered that rabbits were only counted that way because in long-ago Japan, they had been eaten as if they were birds. It made sense that in another world, they would count rabbits the same as any other animals.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter,” I finally said.

Being able to understand each other’s languages thanks to the god was miraculous enough already. There’s no use in getting worked up about something so minor, I thought, watching Tailtiu happily celebrate a successful hunt.

◇

When we returned to the tent, I saw that Reina was already getting ready to make lunch. Luna was watching this from a short distance away and came up when she saw us.

“Welcome back, Mister Arata!”

“Hi, Luna. How’d it go?” I asked.

“Heh heh heh, it was perfect!”

She pointed toward Elga, who had come at some point and was preparing a deerlike monster for cooking. He was the spitting image of a cool hunter, and as a fellow guy, I felt a bit of admiration for the way he looked. I think I’ll have him show me how to prepare game animals next time.

“That man... He is the Divine Beastfolk who called me a loner,” Tailtiu whispered behind my back, sounding a little angry.

I laughed awkwardly. Apparently she held quite the grudge against him. Even so, she didn’t come out from behind my back, probably because she was shy.

She normally spoke in a pompous manner, but her usual seclusion must’ve made her rather bad at communicating, and she didn’t really approach others besides me and Reina. She had only managed to be confident around Elga and Luna last time during the momentary excitement over receiving a proposal, but in reality she seemed to be the type who was afraid to get close to others. She was troubled by her inability to make friends even among her fellow Ancient Dragons, so I wanted to help her out, but it was too difficult for me to do alone. There had to be others who were willing to become her friend.

“How did your hunt go?” Luna asked us.

Startled by Luna’s sudden question, Tailtiu hid behind my back. Nevertheless, this was a good opportunity. Luna was friendly with everyone. She would surely get along with even someone like Tailtiu, who was bad at making friends on her own. With that in mind, I silently waited.

Finally, though Tailtiu was averting her eyes, she managed to speak. “I-I caught three rabbits!”

Luna’s eyes lit up. “Rabbits?! And three of them?! Wow!”

Tailtiu yelped in surprise as Luna pulled her arm, dragging her out of her hiding spot behind me. I quietly moved to the side to make it easier for her to come out.

“Hey, tell me! How did you catch them?!” Luna asked eagerly. “Rabbits are really strong, and they’re fast runners, so it must’ve been hard, right?!”

“Oh, um, well...” Tailtiu was flustered. “D-Darling?!”

“You can do it!” I said. Tailtiu was dazed by the barrage of questions, but it was probably best for her that Luna was being a bit pushy. I walked over to Elga, who was a short distance away.

“Hey! Can you tell me the secret to hunting rabbits? You can, right?” Luna said.

“Uh, you know... I-I didn’t do it all myself...”

“You were great, Tailtiu!” I said.

“Look, Mister Arata’s saying it too!”

“D-Darliiing!”

I believe in you, Tailtiu. If you can take a single step forward here, you’ll be able to leave your loneliness behind.

Hardening my heart, I went to have Elga tell me about how to prepare animals.

◇

Before I realized it, it had already been a month since I had come to the island. At first, just about everything had been brand-new, and I had continually been baffled by things I didn’t understand. But I felt like I had gotten used to much of it by now.

“And all that’s thanks to Reina,” I remarked to myself.

On the second night after coming to the island, I had told her everything about my situation, including the fact that I had reincarnated here. Then, with full knowledge of that, she had said that she would stay with me. She was one of the continent’s premier magicians and also an S-rank adventurer. That meant that she had flawless survival skills, even in places untouched by human hands, and she constantly helped me enjoy a comfortable lifestyle. Sure, my god-given body was perfectly suited to the island, but that didn’t automatically mean my life would have been a pleasant one. Taking that into account, it would be no exaggeration to say that it was solely thanks to Reina that my current life was a fun one.

“Seriously, I can’t thank her enough.”

I was idly patrolling the area around the tent while on watch, to make sure that no dangerous monsters were nearby, when Reina called me.

“Arata, it’s almost lunch!”

“Okay!” I replied, and headed back.

This large tent was one of the things Reina had provided. Since it was a shelter meant for groups of soldiers, it was still quite roomy even with both of us inside. She didn’t seem to mind that I was sleeping in the same place as her; as an adventurer, she had been a member of parties which included men, and at times she had also traveled together with the kingdom’s knights. But for me, sharing lodgings with such a beautiful girl was still bad for my heart. We had been sleeping in the same tent from the start, but honestly, I was beginning to think that it was about time we slept separately. Nevertheless, as the tent was for military use, it was sturdy and resilient to both wind and rain. We didn’t have anything that worked better as a place to stay, so we were still using it. And apparently, I was the only one of us who was conscious of the other, so I had been telling myself every day that it would be all right as long as I exercised self-control.

When I returned to the tent, lunch was already done cooking, and there were two familiar faces seated at the table.

“Oh, Mister Arata, you’re back!” Luna said.

“What’s up? Don’t mind us,” Elga said.

“Hi, Luna, and you too, Elga,” I said.

“We’re here because Miss Reina’s food is tasty!”

“Actually, I’m just her chaperone... No, I shouldn’t lie. I’m here to eat some good food,” Elga admitted.

“You sure are honest,” I said with a laugh.

The two of them had come to visit us nearly every day since we had met. That reminded me—Reina’s food was the reason we had hit it off in the first place.

Reina’s cooking was delicious. She’d previously told me that her magic teacher, despite being an awfully sloppy person, was incredibly picky when it came to the food they were served. For that reason, Reina’s cooking had steadily improved. And because her teacher had assigned her a lot of extreme training, she had also rapidly learned various survival skills. The stories I had heard had been enough to bring tears to my eyes. It was thanks to her teacher that she had become the youngest Celestial Archmage in history, but she never wanted to see them again. The only time I’d ever seen kind Reina have a thousand-yard stare in her eyes like that was when she had spoken about that teacher.

“Darliiing! I have arrived today as well!”

“Oof!”

Tailtiu violently tackled me from behind, and I almost fell forward. My body was nearly invincible, but even I could lose my balance when I was on the receiving end of an undefended tackle from a dragon with Bahamut’s supernatural powers.

“Hey, Tailtiu. You seem well again today.”

“Indeed! And you are as dashing as always!”

“Thanks.”

The impression I got of my reflection in the mirror wasn’t quite “dashing,” but apparently that was how I looked in her eyes. This attractiveness wasn’t something I had obtained with my own efforts, though, so I couldn’t help but feel uneasy about being complimented so much.

“Are you going to eat together with us too, Tailtiu?” Reina asked her.

“I can?!”

“Of course. You brought food the other day, after all.”

Tailtiu and the two Divine Beastfolk had made a habit of bringing various things from where they lived when they came to hang out. It seemed that their pride wouldn’t allow them to receive charity without giving anything in return. The Divine Beastfolk’s seasonings and condiments were especially appreciated. Though Reina had things like salt and sauce on hand, she only had so much. And while I knew some simple recipes, my fundamental knowledge was still too lacking to be able to put them into practice.

Luna and Elga had already sat down next to each other at the somewhat large table, and Tailtiu swiftly went over to the seat at the head. I sat across from Elga; these were our usual spots. Then Reina came over, holding a pot in her hands.

“The only time you guys are well-behaved is when you’re waiting for your food,” she remarked with a wry smile. She set out all of the dishes, sat across from Luna, and we began to eat.

Today’s menu was a creamy stew. Reina’s repertoire included all sorts of dishes, and she had made something different for us every day. I never got tired of having the same thing thanks to that, but more importantly, the food was seasoned well and tasted great every time.

“DELICIOUS!” the three residents of the island shouted in unison. As always, their reactions were extreme.

Just the other day we had eaten hamburgers; they must’ve been especially to Tailtiu’s liking, because she had suddenly turned into her dragon form and flown into the sky. As I’d watched her, I had wondered: Will Luna or Elga also transform at some point? I hoped that if that happened, they would at the very least refrain from destroying the dishes or the tent, but I had no idea what to expect.

And so, we finished lunch, and it was time for the three to teach Reina and I about the island’s ecosystem. Elga took out a map, and indicated some places that we would be better off staying away from.

“Well then, we really shouldn’t go to this eastern area,” I said.

“Yeah, the young Ancient Dragonfolk and Fierce Ogrefolk can get pretty violent,” Elga said. “I think you’d be fine, but it’d be pretty risky for Reina.”

“Shall I give all of them a beating?” Tailtiu said.

“If you do that, you’ll never make any friends and you’ll be a lonely dragon forever,” Elga replied.

Tailtiu violently flinched at that.

I would feel bad for her if that happened, so I decided that I would only ask for her help as a last resort.

“What about the High Elves?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah...those guys are pretty hostile to outsiders too. They aren’t going to rush blindly at you and start attacking, but I have no clue how they’ll react when faced with humans.”

“But the Great Spirits are there too. If they like you, you’ll be okay,” Luna added.

From the sound of it, each race had an internal hierarchy. In the village of the Divine Beastfolk, for example, there were also regular Beastfolk who lived there, and the Ancient Dragonfolk had regular dragons. The High Elves were in charge of the Elf village, and they lived alongside spirits, whose leaders were the Great Spirits the Elves worshipped like gods.

“Hmm, it looks like we’d better go to the Divine Beastfolk village first after all,” I said.

“In that case, I’ll make sure to arrange things before you visit,” Elga said. “If you bring a gift of some sort, specifically some of that Emperor Boar meat, they’ll welcome you with open arms.”

“Really? But I remember you saying they’d get angry if you brought the meat back with you...”

“That was only if I took it all despite not being the one who hunted it. If you offer it as a present yourself, they won’t refuse.”

That attitude must’ve been part of their pride as Divine Beastfolk.

“Well, we’re pretty lax, so you can just do what you want,” Elga continued. “It’s not like there’s anyone who can hurt you.”

“Aha ha ha...”

I didn’t mind where I was as long as I could live freely, but lately I had begun to feel the urge to see the entire island—I had reincarnated, after all, so it would be a waste not to. At the same time, I also quietly hoped to send Reina back to her home. She had done so much for me from the beginning. I hadn’t actually heard her say that she wanted to return to the continent, but unlike me, she was just an ordinary human without an invincible body. There probably wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t feel uneasy being surrounded by creatures with such overwhelming strength.

Once before, I had tried asking Elga if there was any way to escape Arcadia; his answer was no. The island was surrounded by a powerful magic barrier that made it impossible to leave, and the only ones who could enter were those with strong enough mana. The story went that this island had been made by the creator god as a place to confine beings that were too powerful. Even now, monsters that menaced the outside world were thrown in here, though it had been a few centuries since the last time this had actually happened.

In short, once you got in, it was impossible to escape the Isle of the Gods. It was thanks to Arcadia that peace in the outside world was maintained, but that meant nothing to Reina. I didn’t know how long it would take to get her out, but when I heard all that from Elga, I had an idea of what I wanted to do.

“Yeah...”

My first goal was what I was doing now: enjoying a boisterous yet relaxed life on the island. The other was to safely send Reina back to the continent. I wanted to work hard on both of them.

“Jeez, Luna, there’s stew on your mouth,” Reina said. “Here, give me your face.”

“Mmm.”

“Fox cubs are quite spoiled,” Tailtiu remarked. Then, she said under her breath, “Hrmm, but if I do that, will darling perhaps wipe my mouth for me?”

“Hey, loner. Your inner thoughts are leaking,” Elga said.

But then again, I think I want this life to continue just a bit longer, if possible. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with feeling that.

“All right, I’ve had some good food and my stomach is full, so why don’t I get to work today too!” I said.

Because compared to my previous life as a corporate drone, every day on this island was fun and warm.

Chapter Five: The True Ancestor

It was night, and Reina and I were sitting across from each other inside the tent and discussing what we would do next.

“So, that’s why I think it’s about time we went to the Divine Beastfolk and got permission to live in this area,” I said.

“Do we really need permission?” Reina asked.

“This spot was originally their territory, apparently. We’re using it without asking, so I get the feeling we’re doing something that we shouldn’t.”

I had spoken to Elga about this, and he had said that the other Divine Beastfolk didn’t really mind all that much, but still, we were the ones who had settled down here without permission. It was important that we went through the proper procedure, at least somewhat.

“If we’re going to live here,” I continued, “then we’ll definitely feel better if we do it in a way so that everyone’s satisfied.”

Reina chuckled. “That’s very much like you, Arata.”

I smiled, and she smiled softly back. As always, these kinds of expressions of hers were truly picturesque.

“From what Elga said, we just have to bring the Emperor Boar meat with us, so why don’t we drop by tomorrow?” I said.

“Yes, if that’s what you’ve decided, then I’ll go with you.”

I was somewhat worried whether they’d accept us, the only two humans on the island of Arcadia. Still, we had managed to make friends with Luna and Elga. We should be able to communicate with the other Divine Beastfolk as well. Also—though this wasn’t my doing—Reina’s cooking was really delicious. I was sure that the other Divine Beastfolk would also go crazy over its taste.

“All right, we’ve decided our plan, so what will we do for the bath today?” I asked.

“Could I go in first? After everything this afternoon, I’m pretty sweaty...”

“Okay, then I’ll heat up some water, so go get ready.”

After saying that, I exited the tent. The Emperor Boar’s attack had snapped many of the trees in this area, which had created an almost unnaturally large clearing in the middle of the forest. We treated this clearing as our plot of land, and we were currently planning to start tilling some fields and growing vegetables.

In one corner of the clearing, there was a spot that was walled off by fallen trees that had been staked in the ground. I opened a door that was large enough for a single person to enter, and inside there was a largish wooden bathtub. This was the bathroom that Reina and I had built.

“All right, why don’t I get to it...”

I got together some of the pieces of firewood that were stacked in the corner and placed them below the bath heater. Then, after I had assembled a decent amount, I poured some river water I had collected in my Storage spell into the tub.

“This Storage spell is almost too convenient...”

According to Reina, it was a legendary magic; she only knew it because her teacher had taught it to her, and she’d never seen anyone else who could use it. That was why she had been so stunned when I had first cast it.

“There, that seems good.”

The water level had risen somewhat, so I stopped my Storage spell. Then, I slowly charged the tip of my finger with mana.

“O fire, be lit,” I whispered, and a small burning coal appeared. This was a fire spell.

As a matter of fact, I had been getting magic lessons from Reina for the past month, and I had more or less learned all of the basic spells. Now that I could use some handy magic, my life in the forest had gotten to be much more comfortable. I suddenly remembered the first day she had taught me, and I smiled awkwardly to myself.

“She said it was unfair that I could learn any spell just from watching it, didn’t she...”

Normally, it took many years to build up enough of a foundation to finally learn basic magic, so I could definitely see where she was coming from. But, this was a divinely authorized unfairness, so I hoped she wouldn’t hold it against me.

“There.”

I set the small coal next to the firewood as I remembered my exchange with Reina, and in an instant the surrounding wood began to ignite.

At first, I had wondered whether it would be possible to just use magic to make warm water, but it required the simultaneous use of fire and water magic, and even greater fine control, so while I had been able to do it, it had been unexpectedly difficult. According to Reina, one of a magician’s rules of thumb was to let nature take care of things when it could. Here, “nature” referred to magical elements, and it was apparently “natural” to use fire magic for fire, water magic for water, and so on.

“Y’know, that definition of nature is awfully convenient for magicians...”

I checked the temperature of the water, and it was somewhat hot—just right. Now Reina can use her own water magic to adjust the temperature, I thought, and I exited the bathroom. Outside, I saw Reina, who had finished getting ready and was heading this way.

“Oh, good timing,” she said. “Thanks, Arata.”

“Ah, yeah...”

She was wearing what you’d expect from someone about to take a bath. She was holding a white towel and pajamas, and—

“U-Um, Reina, about what you’re wearing...”

“Huh? Do I look strange?”

The white bath dress she was wearing was, if I was being honest, rather revealing. I could clearly make out her figure, and her pale, unblemished thighs were exposed. For her, it might’ve just felt like a swimsuit, but for me it was way too provocative. Reina was already more beautiful than anyone I’d ever seen, and when she dressed like this, I couldn’t help but feel conscious of her.

“No...it’s nothing,” I said.

I’d learned from my time living with her that she was surprisingly unbothered by things like this. It was almost enough to make me wonder whether she was interested in me and trying to tempt me. Still, I knew that wasn’t it. We had only met each other a month ago, and she had clearly stated that while she liked me as a person, she didn’t have any feelings for me.

“All right, I’ll go back to the tent, so let me know when you’re done,” I said.

“You’re weird...”

After that, she went into the bathroom while humming a tune.

During that time, I kept watch over the bathroom and the tent. There weren’t any humans living on the island, so I didn’t have to guard against bandits or anything, but instead, monsters occasionally appeared. Reina was apparently able to deal with them so long as they weren’t as powerful as the Emperor Boar, but that was hardly a reason to be careless.

I sat down cross-legged on the ground, then closed my eyes and listened carefully. My body was not only blessed with physical prowess, but its senses were superhumanly keen as well. When I focused as I did now, I could detect any approaching threats, whether they were coming from underground or from the surrounding greenery. And naturally, this also meant that I inadvertently picked up Reina’s voice as she spoke to herself in the bath—

“Blushing bright red like that...you’ll make me embarrassed too. I know my chest is bigger than average, so it really wouldn’t hurt him to be just a bit more conscious of—”

“Hmph!” I punched myself in the face as hard as I could.

In a way, this was like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, but the immovable object must’ve won out, because I didn’t feel any pain. Still, I did feel an impact, and I managed to divert my attention elsewhere, so I was fine with giving the unstoppable force the win.

“Now, why don’t I get back to... Hmm?”

Just then, I sensed a presence I had never felt before, and I reflexively looked up at the sky. The only aerial attack I’d been subjected to as of yet had been from the Ancient Dragonfolk Tailtiu, but this was something else. And, it seemed to be heading this way. As I readied myself in case I needed to fight, it steadily approached.

In the sky, there was an especially bright full moon and the sparkling stars. And—a floating girl with golden hair.

“So you are the strangers from outside the island. It’s been a while.” She chuckled. “And you give off a mouthwatering scent as well.”

With her black cloak flapping in the air and the starry sky as her background, the girl looked down on me with her crimson eyes and smiled confidently.

It seemed that it was still too early for me to leisurely enjoy a quiet life.

“Mwa ha ha ha ha...” she cackled.

She looked to be even younger than Luna, probably around ten years old. But I instantly grasped that her appearance was anything but congruent with her actual age. The look in her eyes was that of a predator. Like Elga or Tailtiu, she was undoubtedly one of the beings that stood at the top of the island’s ecosystem.

“Oho... I assumed you were a strong but gentle man who knew nothing of violence, but you’re unexpectedly wary.”

“Well, I may be an ordinary guy who doesn’t know how to fight, but of course I’m going to be wary of someone who suddenly looks down on me and laughs at me,” I said.

My body was definitely tough, but that didn’t mean I had any clue how invulnerable it actually was. For an extreme example, it was possible that I might die if, say, a volcano erupted and I was buried in lava.

“Actually...Tailtiu’s flames didn’t hurt me, so maybe I’d actually be fine in lava,” I said to myself.

“What’s that? Do you want to take a swim in lava? What a weirdo...”

She seemed to have picked up what I said, and as she slowly descended to the ground she seemed somewhat put off.

Is this a Floating spell, or something? I wondered. I hadn’t seen Reina using it, but it seemed incredibly useful. I watched the girl intently. I’ll be copying that, thank you very much.

The girl stopped in midair about half a foot above the ground, then crossed her arms and laughed arrogantly. I was not quite six feet tall, which meant that our lines of sight were level with each other.

“Now I’m no longer looking down on you,” she said.

“I sort of feel like you’re a bit higher.”

“Hmph, you’re certainly one to care about the little details.”

She must’ve been able to make fine adjustments, because her altitude lessened ever so slightly.

I had been able to tell from far away, but now that I was face-to-face with her, I was somewhat unable to hide my surprise at how young she looked.

“First, why don’t we introduce ourselves, stranger?” she said. “My name is Wilhelmina Vermilion Vauheim. I am the True Ancestor Vampire who has lived on this island since time immemorial.”

“I’m Arata. Before I knew it, I was on this island, and I’m an ordinary human.”

“Pfft!”

I had only introduced myself, but Wilhelmina burst into hysterical laughter.

“Why are you laughing?” I asked.

“Aha, ha ha ha... If you were an ordinary human, then you wouldn’t need an island like this one, would you?”

“I don’t know what to say, except that I’m human, and nothing else...”

When she laughed, there was a charm to her befitting her apparent age, but I also sensed something scary there. She had called herself a True Ancestor Vampire, but how was that different from other vampires?

“Hmph, very well. It seems that after so long with nothing new, something interesting is finally going to happen on this island. Also—”

As I was wondering about who exactly Wilhelmina was, she grinned like a child about to pull a prank and turned her gaze away from me toward the bathroom where Reina was.

“For some time now, there has been something giving off a very, very delightful scent.”

I’m not her target anymore, I thought. At the same time, Wilhelmina pointed a finger at the bathroom, and icicles appeared in midair above her out of nowhere. Then, she fired the icicles at the bathroom.

“Take that!”

“What are you doing?!” I shouted, hurriedly getting between the icicles and their target and knocking them to the ground. Then, I turned to her to make a complaint, glaring as I did, and I saw that she had a surprised look on her face.

“Huh?” she exclaimed.

“What was that for all of a sudden?!” I said.

“No...you’re way too fast. I fired my spell first, so how were you able to get around it?”

“I may not look like it, but I’m pretty confident in my physical ability.”

“...It takes more than confidence to do that...but, very well.” Wilhelmina raised her palm to the sky, then produced a huge number of icicles. There were so many more of them compared to the first time that I felt like I would get tired of counting before I could finish.

“Mwa ha ha, no matter how fast you may move, there’s no way you can deal with this many, is there?!”

“Hey, wait a—?!”

“Go, Ice Needle!”

Reina was in the bathroom behind me. She wouldn’t come out of it unscathed if these icicles hit her in her present, vulnerable state. So, I mustered all my strength and intercepted as many as I could. Every time I hit an icicle out of the air, shards of ice glittered brightly in the moonlight, and it was a fantastical sight. But this was no time to be getting distracted. What mattered was that I didn’t let them by me. Focusing on only that idea, I knocked away the incoming storm of icicles one by one.

“You’re not fast enough!” Wilhelmina said.

“Damn!”

And yet, there were just too many of them. It would’ve been a different story if all of them had been targeting me, but they were heading toward the bathroom from every angle with irregular movements, and it was just impossible to take them all out with only one of me.

An icicle collided with the log wall of the bathroom, producing a small blast. One, two, then even more icicles hit, widening the impact area, and before long they broke down the wall. This generated a cloud of dust, in the midst of which Reina’s silhouette stood out. It would really be bad now if another icicle targeted her, I thought. I instantly closed the distance between us in order to protect her.

“Reina, run awa—!”

“Just wait, Arata! Right now I’m—!”

“Oh.”

The cloud of dust was blown away by a gust of wind, revealing a stark-naked Reina. She had just gotten out of the bath, so her crimson hair was shiny with water, beautifully reflecting the light of the stars. And, as if to set off that crimson, there was her pale skin. She was slim, like the actresses I’d seen on TV in my past life, which clearly emphasized her full, feminine parts. Then, when I lowered my gaze, the area that would normally be hidden beneath her skirt was exposed, and her legs were so slender that they seemed like they would shatter upon contact. It was as though I was viewing a work of art making a striking statement, and I was unable to tear my eyes off of her.

“A...Arata...”

As I stared at her, her face turned bright red and tears welled up in her eyes. She protectively wrapped her arms around her chest, then turned her thighs to the side.

“D-Don’t...don’t look at me...”

“Ah! Sorry!”

She spoke in a voice more feeble than I’d ever heard from her. This brought me back to my senses, and I hurriedly turned my back to her, erasing her from view. Nevertheless, I was unable to also erase the sight of her that was still on full display in my mind, and I could vividly recall it as though it were a photograph pasted right over my eyes.

Wilhelmina cackled. “How nice, how nice indeed! That shame of yours is wonderfully delectable!” She watched us with glee without making any effort to stifle her laughter.

At some point, all of the icicles above her head had completely disappeared, and she showed absolutely no indication that she was going to attack. She was just drunkenly roaring with laughter.

“...Wh-Who’s that?” Reina said.

“She says she’s a True Ancestor Vampire, or something...”

“T-True Ancestor!” Reina exclaimed in surprise.

As for me, I had no clue what to make of all this. Sure, Reina had said that Wilhelmina was the kind of being that only showed up in fairy tales, but from what I’d seen of the island, she and others like her clearly did exist. However, it was anything but easy for me to link such an incredible being with the blonde girl in front of me.

As I was feeling at a loss, Wilhelmina finished cackling at us, then leisurely descended to the ground with tears in her eyes.

“Pfft. Now, you lovebirds, you may flirt with each other even more. If you don’t mind, I’ll enjoy that as entertainment with my meal.”

“...Umm, I don’t really get what you’re saying,” I said.

“Oh, well normal vampires suck blood, but a True Ancestor like me has overcome that urge, as well as our weakness—the sun,” Wilhelmina explained. “Instead, I savor the fluctuations of others’ emotions for my meals.”

The fluctuations of others’ emotions? I tilted my head in confusion, and she nodded.

“Boredom kills immortals, or so they say. To put it simply, I took the liberty of indulging myself with the shame that woman is currently feeling. Ahh, what a truly delicious romantic comedy. My thanks.”

“So you know the words, ‘romantic comedy,’ do you?”

“Is that the part you scoff at? I may not look like it, but I’ve lived for a long time. I know about most things.”

Still, that helped me understand what had happened. I had felt that something was off since Wilhelmina had first attacked. If she had really wanted to hurt me, weak magic would have been meaningless. Well, I didn’t actually know whether there were any spells strong enough to be effective against me, but at the very least those icicles wouldn’t have left a scratch, no matter how many landed. And if she had been going after Reina, it would’ve been simple for her to attack over a wider area. She had used such weak spells because she hadn’t had any intention of hurting anyone from the start.

“I love young women’s shame. The emotions they experience the moment they’re seen in an embarrassing situation are just so, so... And all the more if it’s the man they yearn— Whoa there.”

Wilhelmina used the tip of her finger to repel a blade of wind that had suddenly been shot at her from behind me. However, it did end up cutting short what she was about to say.

“...with this.”

“R-Reina...?” I said, timidly turning around. Reina had already changed out of her bath wear, and the expression on her face was more gloomy than I’d ever seen from her.

“I’ll never let you get away with this!” she shouted, and as she did, she produced a large quantity of vacuum blades, then shot them all at Wilhelmina at once.

“And now it’s anger—no, feigned anger, to disguise your shame. If you didn’t know, that’s my favorite!”

As Wilhelmina spoke, her small body was cut apart by Reina’s attack. She fell to the ground, her limbs severed and her head separated from her torso.

“Huh? Am I dreaming? Did I... Did I just kill her?”

Reina spoke as though in a daze. She probably hadn’t expected her attack would work so easily. I felt the same. Every single being we had encountered on this island was transcendentally powerful. Therefore, they were beyond the reach of a human like Reina. She had to have only hoped to get the better of Wilhelmina, just this once. But as it turned out, she had taken out the vampire with a single attack. There was no way Wilhelmina would be able to survive in the state she was in.

At least, that was what I thought, but that moment Wilhelmina’s dismembered body parts transformed into a cloud of black bats, which coalesced and began to return her to her original state.

“What?!” Reina and I both exclaimed.

Wilhelmina chuckled. “You didn’t really think that would be enough to kill an immortal vampire, did you? Although, your feelings of surprise make for the perfect dessert. Nice reaction!” She smiled and gave us a thumbs-up.

This made me feel a bit irritated. And Reina started to seethe with rage. If I was being honest...the girl behind me was scarier than the True Ancestor in front of me.

“Well then, now that you strangers have given me a delicious meal, I think I’ll be taking my leave for today. It was fun, you youngsters!” Wilhelmina said. As she spoke, she rapidly ascended into the moonlit sky, returning the same way she had come. Reina attacked her with many spells as she left, but whenever Wilhelmina mumbled something, they dispersed. “You can flirt more sweetly next time, you know! I enjoy that flavor too! Ahhh ha ha ha!”

Right at the very end, Wilhelmina made one final, unwanted remark, and we were unable to do anything except watch as she disappeared into the starry sky.

Chapter Six: An Invitation

It was the next day. Elga and Luna had come to eat breakfast with us like usual, so I told him about what had happened the night before, and he reacted wearily.

“Oh, so she’s come...”

“So you do know her,” I said.

“I don’t think anyone who’s lived long enough on this island doesn’t know the name of that hag.”

According to him, Wilhelmina Vermilion Vauheim was the oldest being on the island, even older than any of the members of all the long-lived races that made the place their home. She was among the strongest here in the true sense of the word, and she had struggled for supremacy over the island with those such as Elga’s Ancestor, the Divine Beast Fenrir, and Tailtiu’s Ancestor, the Divine Dragon Bahamut, back when they had still been alive. That was the true identity of the golden-haired girl that had visited us the previous night.

“She didn’t seem that way to me...” I said.

“That’s because she looks like a kid. But she’s bad news. If she’s taken an interest in you...”

Elga shut his mouth before he finished speaking. Then, seeming like he remembered something, he began to shake. It almost seemed like this Divine Beastfolk warrior with absolute confidence in his strength was frightened.

Is she really that much of a threat?

Luna, who was sitting diagonally across from me and eating soup, raised her face as though something had just come into her mind. “That reminds me, after Mina goaded Elga on, he married Miss Livia.”

“Stop it, Luna... Don’t make me remember that...”

“Whaaat? But it’s such a good story!” Luna had her head on the table and was swinging her legs. She looked like she was dying to talk about it.

“Marriage?” I said.

“Oh, so you’re married, Elga?” Reina said.

“What’s with that look? Yeah, I’m married, is there something wrong with that?” Elga said.

“No, but I mean...” I said.

“Good.”

It had been a month since we had started living on the island. Elga and Luna had come to eat with us practically every day since we had met them. They weren’t staying with us all day of course, but even so, they visited with impressive frequency. If he had a wife, then wouldn’t that be a bit of an issue?

When I asked him that, Elga awkwardly cleared his throat. “Hmm, eh-hem! Don’t worry. She hasn’t found out so far.”

“Huh? But when we left the village earlier Miss Livia asked me what I’m doing every day, and I told her that I’m eating here with you,” Luna said innocently. The very moment she did, Elga froze.

“Hey, Luna... Do you know what you’ve just done?!”

“What, if she knows, can’t you just invite her here?” Reina asked. “You’re always helping us out, so we can definitely treat your wife to something too.”

“S-Seriously, don’t worry about it! If you invite her here, my peace and quiet will be ruined!” Elga said, flustered. He was relatively composed, except when he was eating, but now he was quite shaken, like a husband whose wife had found out that he was cheating.

“Could it be that Elga doesn’t have a very good home environment?” Reina asked.

“Nope,” Luna said. “I think he’s just embarrassed. After all, Miss Livia really, really loves him.”

“Hey, Luna! Stay out of this!”

I see. Maybe this guy whose manliness is his forte actually shows a different side of himself at home. As his friend, I’d love to see it.

“And what’s with that expression, Arata? Just so you know, there’s nothing funny about this!”

“No one’s saying anything,” I replied.

“There’s a huge grin on your face! Anyway, there’s no need to invite Livia—”

“What about me?”

That moment, Elga’s mouth froze open.

Hearing an unfamiliar female voice, we turned in its direction. There, we saw a woman with beautiful, emerald green hair reminiscent of the ocean that she wore in a ponytail. She had on a comfortable-looking Japanese-style outfit—which must’ve been the default look in the Divine Beastfolk village—and she gave off a gentle impression. All of the women of the island I’d met up until now had looked underage, but she appeared to be in her early twenties. She had a somewhat sexy, adult aura about her.

“Livia... Wh-Why are you here?” Elga asked.

“You’ve been going out every day, dear, and I was wondering what you were doing... Oh, and of course I heard about this from Luna, so I didn’t think you were cheating or anything, okay? But you know, that doesn’t mean I won’t feel neglected by my husband...what am I supposed to do about that?”

“I-I wasn’t neglecting you!”

“But there’s no need to invite me, is there? To you, I’m just a woman who’s not worth inviting, is that right?” Livia rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her kimono, motioning as though she were crying.

“Oh, um, well...” Elga’s eyes were darting everywhere, and he looked to be agonizing over what to do.

As for Reina next to me, she was giving Elga a cold look. She was a fellow woman, so perhaps there was something in Livia she found sympathetic. By the way, the other women here—Luna and Tailtiu—were just eating their meals without a care in the world for this unfolding soap opera situation.

I wish I could join them.

“Uhh, she’s... She’s my wife,” Elga said, finally giving us a perfunctory introduction.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Elga’s wife, and my name is Livia,” she said, politely bowing her head and gracefully introducing herself. She added that her Ancestor was the Divine Beast Leviathan, and I saw that she had a dragon-like tail coming out of the back of her kimono.

The image that came to mind of the Leviathan of myth was of a sea dragon, but apparently she was just fine living on land. But well, that’s probably the difference between Divine Beasts and Divine Beastfolk, I reasoned.

“I’m Arata, and this is Reina,” I said.

“It’s nice to meet you, Livia,” Reina said. “We really appreciate everything Elga has done for us.”

After introducing ourselves, we told Livia how we had met her husband, and she listened with rapt attention. Just as Luna had said, she really did seem like she loved Elga. She said that she had come here because, as expected, she had been curious about Elga’s recent strange behavior.

“He’s always sneaking off somewhere,” she said, “so at first I suspected that he might be cheating, and I thought that if he was, I’d rather drag him into the ocean so we could die together...”

“Uh, y’know, I’m the only one who’d die from that...”

And, I also got the feeling that she loved Elga so much that she had quite a few odd quirks as well. Still, her love was the real thing. Though, Elga had a sour look on his face as he listened next to her.

“So you were meeting up with some new friends. Good grief, if only you’d told me about them, I would’ve gladly welcomed them,” Livia said.

“We usually eat here, so does it really matter?”

“It does! And now I hear that you’ve been accompanying them for meals the entire time! You’re already imposing on them, and if that went on, it would’ve been a disgrace on me as your wife! I’d like to have the two of them over at our house and give them a warm reception!” Livia sounded fired up. She didn’t seem to have any intention of taking back what she had said.

We had been planning on visiting the Divine Beastfolk village anyway, so I appreciated any additional people who were going to welcome us, but on the other hand Elga had mentioned that there were some who were reluctant to welcome outsiders. I looked at Livia, wondering whether that would be all right, and she had a suspicious smile on her face.

“Tee hee hee... I’ll throw anyone who treats my husband’s friends poorly into the middle of a whirlpool...”

Scary...

I turned to Elga and saw that he was disconcertedly looking at Livia.

“Hey, that’s enough. Livia, we’re going home for the day,” he said.

“Oh, is there really such a rush, dear?”

“That’s right, Elga. You’re already here, so why don’t we talk a little longer?” Reina said. “Luna and Tailtiu are about to go play somewhere, anyway.”

It seemed that in only a short period of time, the two women had already hit it off, and they worked together to convince Elga. Men were at a disadvantage in this kind of situation, and Elga was no different—he was overwhelmed by their intensity.

In the end, Livia and Reina had a friendly chat for a while, and Luna and Tailtiu also joined in and they all started to get boisterous. In this situation, it was men who felt like we didn’t have a place to be. With nothing to do, Elga and I stepped away and went on a casual stroll through the forest, and he ended up teaching me about things I could eat.

“These mushrooms are pretty tricky. If you’re going to eat them, watch out,” Elga said.

“Okay. Tricky how?”

“They make you really horny.”

“...Can we clear all of them away?”

It would be seriously bad if I got more aroused in my current state. I didn’t think that poison would be effective on my body, but it was quite an issue that I didn’t know how much that resistance covered.

“Also, by the way... About that hag you guys met last night...”

“Hag... You mean Wilhelmina?” I was wondering why Elga had brought her up all of a sudden when he picked one of the mushrooms, a serious look on his face. No matter how you looked at it, the fungus had an obscene shape, and I didn’t really want to stare at it, but he turned it toward me.

“She’s the one who suggested to Livia that she make me eat a whole bunch of these, and before I knew it, well...it was all over.”

I was silent.

“Seriously, be careful. That hag will do anything to amuse herself. If you’re right that she’s singled you guys out, she’ll definitely be a real pain.”

“Yeah... I’ll be careful.”

Judging from the way she had acted the night before, she certainly had seemed like she was going to start coming by often. And her target wasn’t so much me as it was Reina. She appeared to feed off of the emotions that came from bringing us together into a relationship, but in the unlikely event that I actually ended up like that with Reina, it would be a huge issue.

I decided that the next time Wilhelmina came, I would have a serious talk with her while taking those circumstances into account.

◇

When Elga and I returned from our forest walk, the women were gracefully sitting around a circular white table that had been brought out from somewhere, like nobles enjoying a tea party. By the looks of it, they had gotten much closer, and even from my outside point of view it was clear that they were enjoying their time chatting.

“It’s so hard to interrupt them,” Elga said, hesitating to advance.

“Yeah, I get what you mean,” I said. I had just been thinking the same thing, that it would take quite a lot of courage to step into their midst right now.

It was Tailtiu who noticed us as we stood on the outskirts. When her gaze met mine, she came charging at me with tremendous force.

“DARLIIING! WELCOME BACK!” She vigorously clung to me.

“Oof...” I grunted, feeling an even greater impact than when I had stopped the Emperor Boar. I had been bracing for it, but the shock passed through my body and violently shook the forest trees behind me.

If it had been someone else, I think they might’ve been sent flying far away.

“Eheh heh heh!” Unconcerned, Tailtiu happily nuzzled her face against my chest.

Maybe it was because her black summer dress was a bit thin, but I could directly feel the sensation of her body. She looked like a pretty female high school student, so I would’ve preferred that she were just a bit more modest. Still, despite how she looked, she was a full-fledged dragon. It wasn’t good for me to force my human sensibilities onto her, and above all, it felt more as though I was playing with a large dog, and I didn’t feel anything strange as of now.

“I’m back. Did you behave?” I asked.

“I always behave!” she replied.

Then, I gently detached her from me and went to where everyone else was. During that brief period of time, Tailtiu had gone around behind me and demanded I give her a piggyback ride, so I was now carrying her on my back. Livia gazed at Tailtiu’s ardent moves with a smile, but to the others this was a usual sight and they didn’t seem to pay it any thought.

“Welcome back, Arata,” Reina said. “There wasn’t anything strange?”

“No, there—” Before I finished speaking, I remembered the mushroom Elga had shown me. I fretted over whether I should tell a woman like Reina about it, then decided that there was no need to mention it now, so I clammed up. “There wasn’t.”

“What’s with that strange silence... Well, whatever.”

It seemed that Reina had let me off the hook for the time being, but I would probably have to tell her eventually. There would be times in the future when she would go to pick food in that area, so it would be important that she knew about it.

“It looks like you all have gotten to be pretty good friends,” I remarked.

“Yes, I had a fun time chatting,” Reina said.

“So did I,” Livia said. “There aren’t many women who are similar in age with me in the village, so I had a lot of fun.”

The two of them lined up next to each other was a very striking sight. Luna and Tailtiu were more substance over style, so they never produced this sort of atmosphere. Of course, they were both still kids, so that was only natural.

“I heard from Livia how their relationship started, and she said that Elga made a passionate move on her,” Reina said.

“Livia...” Elga said.

“I’m not lying, am I, dear? You pursued me so intensely, remember?” Livia said.

A pure beauty like her blushing and speaking so bashfully was a lovely sight... But while she might not have been lying, I knew the truth behind it all, thanks to Elga. I couldn’t help but feel terrified.

“Oh, by the way, Reina,” I said. “I just talked about this with Elga, but I’m thinking that we’ll go visit the Divine Beastfolk village tomorrow.”

“Really? I’m fine with it, but will they be?”

“Yeah, it sounds like it. Dropping by all of a sudden today would be a bother, and also—”

Out of consideration for Reina, I would have to get the Divine Beastfolk to suppress their power before we got there. Reina was one of the Seven Celestial Archmages, the greatest magicians in the world, but that was only within a human frame of reference. There was a large gap in strength between her and the beings that lived on this island, and I was still worried that if they went all out, it would cause issues with her health.

“Also?” Reina prompted.

“Oh, just that things will go smoothly if I talk some things out beforehand. We’re outsiders from their perspective, after all.”

“Well, we were talking about how we have to go sooner or later, so this may just be good timing.”

“Oh, my!” Livia said, happily clapping her hands together. She was off to the side listening to us speak. “Well then, we’ll have to go back and get ready to welcome you two right away! Luna, Lunaaa!”

“Right heeere!” Luna replied energetically. At some point, she had gone away to do something with Tailtiu, and now she came over to us.

“These two say they’re going to come to the Divine Beastfolk village tomorrow to introduce themselves!” Livia said to her.

“Really?!”

“Yeah. It’s been a month since we’ve come to the island, so it’s about time we paid our respects,” I said.

“Yaaay! Then I’ll get all sorts of stuff ready that you guys will like!”

The two Divine Beastfolk women produced a friendly, welcoming mood. I was sure that when we went tomorrow, things would turn out all right. I had asked Elga about it, and he had said that it would be fine as long as we made sure to bring a present along with us, and more importantly, it wasn’t like we were going to pick a fight or anything. We were only going to greet them and say our thanks for letting us borrow the spot where we were living. Nevertheless, I was honestly excited about my first new interaction since coming to the island.

“I wonder what sort of place it is,” I said.

“Yeah, me too,” Reina said.

We looked at each other, our chests filled with anticipation.

◇

That night, while Reina was taking a bath, I vigilantly watched the surrounding area. Needless to say, I was on guard against Wilhelmina.

According to Elga, once the True Ancestor took a liking to someone, she visited quite often to tease them.

“What a nuisance. She could just come to hang out normally,” I said to myself.

If suddenly dropping in and destroying our bath wasn’t a nuisance, I didn’t know what was. We could easily rebuild the broken fence with Reina’s magic and my strength, but that certainly didn’t mean I would be glad to see it destroyed.

“The next time she comes, I’ll protect Reina for sure.”

I had tried constructing three layers of fences to keep Wilhelmina from breaking through as easily. It would buy a little time, at least. Still, that’s only assuming I stop her from doing what she did last night, I thought.

Right on cue, Wilhelmina once again descended from the sky.

“It isn’t quite a full moon, but the wind is calm and it’s a nice night, don’t you think, Arata?”

“Wilhelmina...”

“What’s with that look on your face? I’ve come all this way to visit you, so the least you could do is act happier to see me.”

Just as before, the golden-haired, scarlet-eyed vampire was wearing a black cloak. The difference was that she had on a pointed hat and was holding a staff tipped with a gemstone. Today, it seemed, she had committed to a very witchy outfit.

“You sure dressed up today,” I remarked.

Wilhelmina chuckled. “In all my years, I never imagined that a human being would take such a flippant tone in my presence. Although, it isn’t a bad feeling. But anyway, don’t mind what I’m wearing. If you attacked me with full power when I was wearing something casual like last time, I’d be instantly killed. This is just insurance.”

“Uh, I’d rather not resort to violence this time.”

“You humans certainly do change your minds a lot, don’t you? I’ll say it again: Don’t mind what I’m wearing.”

By the sound of it, last night’s events had made her consider my strength a threat. That reminds me... I feel like she was treating me like a monster even before I showed my body’s ability.

“So, what’s your business here today? You should know that if you try to pull anything like yesterday, I have a few tricks of my own.”

“Ha ha ha, don’t be so worried. I had to sate my various hungers during the full moon, but normally I don’t need much of anything.”

I was silent.

“What’s with that distrustful look?”

“I mean, you know...”

Maybe consuming the emotions of others was how she survived, but she had derived enjoyment from our reactions. Still, while no one ever actually died of boredom, that didn’t mean entertainment wasn’t necessary. And it was only natural that she would want to eat a tasty meal when she had the opportunity. That was why she was doing all she could to make me lower my guard, and I could easily picture her cackling at me again.

She must have been dissatisfied with my attitude, because she crossed her arms and appeared to be sulking.

“Good grief, who do you think I am? I don’t lie, and when I tease someone, I tease them directly and confidently, with everything I’ve got.”

“That doesn’t make me want to trust you at all...but fine. What are you here for?”

Wilhelmina chuckled, undaunted. “Oh, it’s nothing much. Seeing as we’ve happened to run across each other here, I was thinking: Why not deepen our relationship?”

“Our relationship...at this hour?”

“I’m a vampire; night is when I’m active, you know. When else am I supposed to come?”

“But you’re the True Ancestor who’s conquered the sun, right? Then please come during the day.”

“I don’t want to. I’m sleepy then.”

I had no words. She sounded like a child. Elga had told me that Wilhelmina was able to be active during the day, so this was probably nothing more than an annoyance to her. Still, maybe that was just how things were. Given her nature as a vampire, she probably wasn’t lying when she said that she was tired during the day.

“All right, I get it,” I replied. “So, what should we do?”

“Well, we’ve only just met. Why don’t we get to know each other with an all-out fight to the death?”

“Rejected.”

What the hell is this loli vampire going on about with a smile on her face?

“I’m joking, I’m joking,” she said. “After all, if the two of us really did start a fight to the death, that woman behind you would be the only one to die all too quickly.”

“Huh?”

Reina, who should’ve been in the bath, had now come outside. As you might have expected, she was wearing clothes today, and she was staring at Wilhelmina with a somewhat dark look in her eyes. It seemed that she held quite a grudge for what had happened the night before.

“Hey, lady, my bad about last night,” Wilhelmina said. “I brought something nice today as an apology.” Indifferent to Reina’s hostility, Wilhelmina smiled at her, then produced a book out of her shadow and flung it.

Catching it, Reina flipped through its pages, then widened her eyes in shock.

“I-Is this what I think it is?!” she exclaimed.

“Living on this island is difficult for ordinary humans, after all,” Wilhelmina said. “You should at least learn what’s in that book, so you can protect yourself.”

I’d only seen the book’s cover, but it was clear that it was some kind of grimoire. Reina’s surprise meant that it had to be quite valuable. Maybe Wilhelmina really was here to deepen our relationship, if she was suddenly giving away something so precious.

“That gift is enough, right? Now how about you two start telling me about yourselves?” Wilhelmina said, coming up to us as if it were only natural.

We ended up inviting her into our tent. Reina talked about herself and the continent, and I talked about what had happened after my arrival on the island. Though Wilhelmina occasionally butted in with silly comments and teased Reina, she did actually seem serious about getting to know us better. She made various comments, enjoying herself as much as possible:

“Aha ha ha, I see.”

“So that’s how the continent is developing nowadays?”

“Oho, how fascinating.”

Finally, she returned home before nightfall.

“What in the world did she want to do?” I wondered after she was gone.

“Who knows? But one thing is clear: She has to be someone absolutely incredible to casually give me a thing like this,” Reina said as she looked at the grimoire in her hands, a somewhat stiff expression on her face.

According to her, the book contained knowledge of legendary spells. Though someone even as strong as herself wouldn’t be able to cast them right away, if she did learn how to use them, she would likely be treated as even more of a monster on the continent.

“But as a magician, I definitely can’t deny that I’m interested,” she added.

“That makes sense.”

It didn’t matter to me what the book contained; I just hoped that with it, she would be able to protect herself.

Chapter Seven: The Divine Beastfolk Village

When I woke up the next morning, Reina was already outside the tent getting various things ready for the day. She looked to be preparing the food we were going to take to the Divine Beastfolk.

“Good morning, Reina.”

“Good morning, Arata. Jeez, your hair is all messy. Go to the river and make yourself presentable.”

“Okay.”

After an exchange that could have been between a mother and her child, I went to the nearby river. A month and a half ago, the area had been quite dense with trees, but that was no longer the case. It had seemed like a good idea to make a road for us, so I had cut down the trees and cleared a path. Because of that, the way to the river was somewhat maintained, and walking on it wasn’t as much work as it had been before. Nevertheless, it was still a bumpy road, and it was more of a hassle than just walking normally. It wasn’t a sweat for me with my freakish body and physical stamina, but it definitely couldn’t have been a pleasant walk for an ordinary human like Reina.

“While I’m here, why don’t I take the time to surface it?”

I had learned all sorts of basic spells from Reina during this last month—or rather, she had let me copy them. She had been a great help to me in getting used to this world that was incomparably more inconvenient than the one I’d come from.

“Let’s see... I place my hands on the ground, then pass mana through them...”

Reina had taught me that theory and imagination were important in magic, but my complete lack of experience meant that a lot of it went over my head. However, the spells she showed me were incredibly beautiful, and the grace with which she cast them stood out to me. I tried to imagine that as I sent mana into the ground.

“Hey, not bad.”

The uneven ground started to shift, producing a flat road. It seemed that I had quite a lot of mana, and this much magic didn’t tire me at all, so I decided that I would continue surfacing the path like this all the way to the river.

“Wait, this is pretty inefficient, isn’t it?”

I would walk a short distance ahead, stop to place my hands on the ground, then advance a bit more before having to stop and put my hands back down again. At this rate, the sun would be completely up before I reached the end.

“Oh, I know!”

If touching the ground with my palms was enough, then couldn’t I just do it barefooted instead? I took off my shoes and stepped forward while charging my foot with mana, and the path ahead smoothed out.

“All right, that’s it!”

I felt like a genius for coming up with that idea.

I cheerfully walked down the path to the river, mentally congratulating myself. It was a vaguely pleasant feeling, seeing the path smooth out as I advanced, similar to the exhilaration one felt after finishing cleaning.

“Phew...”

I soon made it to the river and washed my face. The clear water was chock-full of natural minerals, and it refreshed my morning mood. When I took a drink, I felt as though it soaked through my entire body.

Far fewer monsters had been showing up lately, probably because I was here. The animals on the island were all quite powerful, but they knew that even scarier beings were around, so they’d gotten good at sniffing out strong individuals. Because of that, the tent had never been attacked. It seemed that the monsters treated me as someone to avoid at all costs.

“Now then...”

The river’s pure water reflected my image clearly like a mirror. Compared to my original body, I appeared younger, and while my face had a bit of a gentler expression, I had chiseled features reminiscent of a foreigner. But at the same time, there were traces of my old looks. Because of that, I didn’t really feel any sense of discord, and I had been able to grow accustomed to my new body.

“Today’s another day, so it’s time to get to work.”

◇

When I got back, Reina was cooking as always, looking very serious. She was honestly pretty hard to approach whenever she was like this. As a matter of fact, she had once sent Tailtiu—the self-proclaimed strongest dragon—on a tearful retreat with just a single glare. There were even times she didn’t hear me when I said that I wanted to help out. So, I decided that I would make sure to not get in her way.

But then, she noticed me unexpectedly quickly and raised her face.

“Oh, welcome back,” she said.

“Hi, Reina,” I replied.

It seemed that she had just finished getting everything ready.

“About our gift to the Divine Beastfolk village. I think we should bring as much as possible, but what about you?” she asked.

“I think that works. Then again, there are apparently around a hundred people that live there, so it’d be pretty hard to make some for everyone.”

“Exactly. That’s why I was thinking about making something simple to eat, like pork cutlet sandwiches...”

As you might have expected, making enough sandwiches for one hundred people would be a lot of work. Though there was still a lot of Emperor Boar meat left, there were quite a few other steps, like coating the meat with flour and cooking it in oil.

“I’ll help too,” I said. “I can at least get the bread ready.”

“All right, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” Reina said. She then took out a large quantity of bread from her Storage spell, enough to make way more than one hundred sandwiches.

“R-Reina, don’t you think this is a bit too much?”

Reina tilted her head, puzzled. “Huh? But they’ll probably eat five each, right? They won’t be satisfied if we don’t make at least that many for everyone.”

“Oh...yeah.” I quickly realized that she was by no means joking. It seemed that I had been naive. In cooking, Reina accepted no compromises.

Unable to admit now that I had assumed that she was going to make one sandwich per person, I silently worked hard placing the cutlets between slices of bread.

I was making food next to a beautiful girl; when you put it into words, it was definitely something anyone would envy me for. But sandwiching cutlets between pieces of bread next to a silent Reina giving off pressure the entire time was the scariest thing I’d ever done on this island.

◇

“I-It’s done...”

And so, just as the sun rose completely above the horizon, I was finally released. I had done it. I had sandwiched all of the cutlets! And I hadn’t occasionally been the subject of a pointed look from next to me the moment I made a slightly uneven sandwich, probably not even once! That had all been my imagination!

“Good work,” Reina said. “You were a great help.”

“Thanks... I’m really exhausted.”

“All the more because you don’t usually cook.”

I definitely couldn’t say that I was tired because of the pressure that had been radiating from next to me. Honestly, compared to that, fighting the Emperor Boar whose meat was now between slices of bread had been a walk in the park.

“Come to think of it, Luna is supposed to come soon to show us the way.”

As I turned around, I saw Luna reaching a hand out toward one of the sandwiches. It seemed that she had erased her presence and gotten close in hopes of swiping some food.

“Ah!” she said.

“Luna... Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Reina said.

“Thanks for the food!”

No, not that.

She grabbed one of the sandwiches in both hands faster than the eye could follow, then immediately stuffed the whole thing into her mouth. Her bulging cheeks made her look like a hamster.

“Eelih!”

“Luna, if you’re going to say something, then at least don’t do it when your mouth is full,” Reina said, exasperated. She went over to Luna, took a drink out of her Storage spell, and gave it to her. The girl happily drank it, then turned to me with a smile on her face and, as usual, shouted as loud as she could.

“DE-LISH!”

“Good grief,” I said.

Reina smiled softly and put all of the sandwiches into her Storage spell.

“Ahh! My food!” Luna exclaimed.

“Those are the ones we’re taking to the village, and they aren’t yours,” Reina said.

Luna sobbed, an indescribable expression on her face. But we had made quite a lot of sandwiches, so there was probably more than enough for her to eat later.

“There’s plenty of Emperor Boar meat left, so if you want some, you can come at any time,” I said.

“Really?!”

“Yeah.”

Luna’s drooping fox ears joyfully perked up, and she smiled ear to ear, as bright as the sun. By the looks of it, she had regained her good mood. Yeah, a smile suits her better, I thought.

“Now, can you lead us to the village?” I asked.

“Yeah! This way!” Luna said. She swiftly went ahead, leaving us in the dust.

“She just left without thinking,” Reina said.

“Yeah...”

For the time being, we just proceeded in the direction she had gone. The path was barely visible, so it must’ve been somewhat difficult for Reina.

“Oh, that’s right,” I said.

“Arata?”

I went ahead of Reina, then put my shoes into my Storage spell. Reina had a mystified look on her face at this sudden behavior. When I really thought about it, I realized that anyone who took his shoes off on a narrow trail like this one was definitely weird.

“The path is a bit challenging, so I think I’ll use the earth magic you taught me,” I said.

“Right now? And what does that have to do with you taking off your shoes?”

Just as I had done in the morning, I charged my feet with mana while focusing on the areas where they came into contact with the ground. I could sense something like the life energy of the earth, and an image of rippling waves appeared in my mind. I hadn’t been able to grasp this the last time—maybe my spell had leveled up after using it repeatedly. In the morning I had forced the ground into a flatter shape, but now, if I just straightened out these waves...

“Great, it’s turning out smoother than this morning.”

Every time I took a step forward, a ten-foot-wide slice of path was instantly flattened. This was enough space for me to walk together with Reina.

“Let’s go.”

“By the way, Arata, may I say something?” Reina said.

“Yeah?”

“I don’t remember ever teaching you such a weird method!”

Can you stop saying things like “This is why I can’t stand you”? It makes me feel like I did something terribly wrong.

After that, we traveled for a while in the direction Luna was walking as I surfaced the path. Eventually she came back to us, having noticed that she had left us behind.

“Eheh heh heh,” Luna chuckled. “Sorry.”

“Good grief,” I said. The way she laughed was adorable somehow, and I didn’t have it in me to get angry.

And so, with Luna’s guidance, we made it to the Divine Beastfolk village.

◇

“We’re here,” Reina said.

“It’s the Divine Beastfolk village,” I said.

We arrived at an open area in the forest with an atmosphere like that of a rural village. Personally, I’d been imagining a more mystical place, where the residents lived alongside nature in the midst of the forest with houses in the treetops, but the reality was quite different. Regardless, the wood houses were solid, and all of them were large and imposing. The people here had probably gained all sorts of wisdom from living their lives here, making the village what it was.

As we gawked at the village from the entrance, Elga and Livia greeted us.

“Hey, Arata. Thanks for coming.”

“Oh, Elga,” I said.

“You too, Reina, welcome.”

“Hello, Livia,” Reina said.

It seemed that they were our guides, and they brought us farther into the village. I occasionally sensed someone’s gaze on me; when I looked in that direction I saw children, or beastmen working in fields. Visitors must’ve been a pretty rare sight, because they had stopped working and were staring at us. As far as I could tell, I didn’t sense the same mighty strength from them like I did from Elga or Luna. Taking care not to startle them, I asked Elga various questions about the village.

“We Divine Beastfolk inherited much of the power of our mighty Ancestors who lived long ago. A lot of us are pretty prideful about that. Compared to us, the ordinary Beastfolk who live in these parts have completely lost that power,” he explained.

“Is that disparity noticeable even in the village?” I asked.

“Huh... I can’t say that it isn’t. Actually, everyone here is ordinary Beastfolk. Back there, a bit higher up on the hill, is where the Divine Beastfolk live.” Elga pointed at a cluster of houses built on top of the hill, almost as if they were looking down on us.

It was often the case that those with higher status lived in physically elevated locations, and the same thing must have been going on in this village.

“It’s like nobility and commoners,” Reina remarked.

She said it so matter-of-factly, but it seemed spot-on. I’d come from modern-day Japan, where that sort of system just didn’t exist, but I knew that it was pretty much inevitable for a hierarchy to form between those with and without power. However, it wouldn’t be very pleasant if that hierarchy was a cruel one.

“It’s not like we want them to worship us or call us gods, but they just kinda do anyway. It can be a pain sometimes.”

“Hmm?” I said.

“Huh? What is it?” Elga asked.

“The Divine Beastfolk don’t look down on ordinary Beastfolk?” I asked.

“What?” He exclaimed incredulously. “Why would we bother with something so annoying? They just said, ‘We’re nothing compared to you’ and decided to live down below.”

“I see. Uhh, well, sorry,” I said, meekly bowing my head. It seemed that I had gotten all sorts of wrong ideas about them. And sure enough, on second look, the Divine Beastfolk weren’t living more luxuriously—or rather, there wasn’t as much of a difference in their lifestyles as it seemed on the surface.

“We just happened to be born with our powers. Why would we care about something like that?” Elga said.

As I listened to Elga, I realized that it was only the Beastfolk who cared about the differences between them, whereas the Divine Beastfolk didn’t really think about it at all. Apparently the ordinary Beastfolk couldn’t live on this island alone, but although the Divine Beastfolk were ostensibly the ones protecting them, they didn’t use this as a pretext to belittle them.

“We hunt in the forest and get food,” he explained. “The Beastfolk grow rice, vegetables, or other crops. Our roles are just different, that’s all.”

“That’s right,” Luna chimed in. “Everyone has their own responsibilities, so everything goes well.”

“Yeah, you get it, Luna,” Elga said.

That was probably what the Divine Beastfolk sincerely thought. Still, I could also see why the Beastfolk felt as they did. They didn’t have any powers, and they wouldn’t be able to survive on the island without the protection of those who were stronger. To receive protection from the Divine Beastfolk, the Beastfolk revered and worshipped them. It was one way to live in the harsh world of the island.

“And here we are,” Elga said.

The houses on the hill were even more solid than the Beastfolk residences below, and they were truly imposing structures. The huge mansion all the way in the back was especially stately, and it was built in quite a different style compared to the others.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s the village elder’s home. We Divine Beastfolk are born with the power of the old Divine Beasts, but she’s been alive since long, long ago.”

“Wow... So she’s like Wilhelmina?” I asked. The second I mentioned the vampire’s name, Elga made a face. He seemingly held quite a grudge against her for what had happened in the past.

“Hmm, pretty much,” he said. “Actually, the story goes that they fought each other a lot back in the olden days.”

“Grandma’s strong! Even if all the Divine Beastfolk got together, we couldn’t beat her!” Luna said.

“Well...that’s incredible,” Reina said. She seemed somewhat intimidated, but that was probably only natural. She got mana sickness just from Elga or Tailtiu unleashing their power, and it was quite hard on her body. There was nothing encouraging about hearing that someone was even stronger than that.

“She told us to bring you to her mansion first. You don’t mind coming with us, do you?” Elga asked.

“Of course not. We’re here to meet everyone, after all,” I said.

“Not at all,” Reina said. She nodded solemnly, endeavoring to not show her vulnerability. But as you might expect, I could instantly tell from her pose that she was just putting up a tough front.

If anything happens to her, I’ll have to protect her, I thought, psyching myself up. Then, we followed Elga into the mansion.

◇

We were led to a room where a young woman with long, fiery red hair was waiting for us. Wearing a scarlet men’s kimono with a black undershirt and looking down at us with sharp, golden eyes, she looked like someone out of a yakuza film. She was tremendously beautiful, but she had such an intimidating presence.

“So you’re the ones from outside the island that Elga told me about? Hmm... Now isn’t this interesting?”

She was sitting with one knee up and puffing on a pipe in her hand. Now that we were face-to-face, from her slightly elevated position above the room’s tatami mat floor she also seemed like a shogun in a historical drama. Regardless, this woman before me was supposedly the leader of the Divine Beastfolk—the immortal Phoenix herself.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of me, but we have to go through the formalities, so let’s introduce ourselves. I’m the Divine Beast, Phoenix Suzaku. I’m the one in charge of the Divine Beastfolk.”

“I’m Arata, and this is—”

“My name is Reina Mistral. Elga and Luna were gracious enough to help us out when we were lost, and—”

“Oh, don’t mention it,” the Divine Beast said, waving her hand. She sounded deeply irritated. “I hate that serious, ceremonial stuff. You’re our guests, so take it easy. Elga told me all about you. Also, I have all sorts of old names like the Divine Bird or the Immortal Bird, but I just go by Suzaku when I’m in this form, so call me that. And it pisses me off when they call me ‘Elder.’ I’m not getting old yet!”

She glared at Elga, but he pretended not to notice. She kept on glaring at him, so he gave a resigned reply.

“But you are our elder—you have been since long before we were born. Just give it up already.”

Suzaku sighed. “I’ve known you since you were a snot-nosed kid, but now you’re so rude. I wonder who you take after.”

“You’re the one who raised me, at least, so I take after you,” Elga retorted.

It seemed that he and Suzaku were like mother and child. They belonged to different races, so they didn’t seem to be actually related by blood, but I could sense a feeling of trust between them.

“Well, you can see how he is, but he isn’t a bad guy,” Suzaku said. “Keep being his friend, all right?”

“Ah...yeah,” I said.

“Hmph,” Elga said.

She was the very image of a mother trying to be considerate of her obstinate child. The intimidating feeling I had sensed from her until just a bit ago had at some point completely vanished.

“Now, I’ve also heard all sorts of stories from Luna,” Suzaku continued, standing up. “It sounds like she’s gotten quite attached to you, so I know that you definitely aren’t bad people. So, welcome.” The second she spoke that last word, she lobbed a fireball at me out of nowhere.

“Huh?!” I exclaimed. It was so sudden, but I somehow managed to react in time and crush the fireball in my hand. That instant, the flame released an enormous burst of energy. Nevertheless, it wasn’t enough to burn my divinely crafted body, and the flame continued to flicker in my palm.

“Look at that... It isn’t going out,” I remarked.

“I can’t believe it,” Reina said next to me.

“What’s wrong, Reina?”

She was looking at me—or more precisely, the fireball burning in my hand—with astonishment.

“That flame... It has several, no, dozens of times more mana in it than any of my spells at full power. And she just shot it off like it was nothing...”

“Wow. It’s so small too. That’s amazing,” I said.

“It’s more than just amazing...”

Anyway, if the flame is that dangerous, then it’s safest to put it out quickly, I thought. I squeezed my hand as hard as I could, and the fireball went out with a sizzle.

Suzaku whistled quietly, impressed. “Damn, now that’s something. It might be nice to move my body for real once in a while...”

“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing to my guests, Elder?!” Elga shouted.

“There’s an annoying one here, so I think I’ll make my retreat now. Elga, there’s going to be a feast tonight, so just show them around the village until then,” Suzaku said, then exited with a laugh.

As for us left behind, we didn’t know what to do, so we looked at Elga.

“Sorry about her,” he said.

“Oh, I’ve gotten used to this sort of thing lately, so don’t worry about it,” I said.

“She did seem to welcome us, at least,” Reina added.

“Y’know, I’ve been thinking this since we first met, but you guys are pretty bold.”

We weren’t bold in the slightest; we just had to adapt ourselves to our new circumstances, so times like these were unavoidable.

I tried telling them that, but neither Elga nor Luna believed me at all.

Chapter Eight: A Noisy Yet Enjoyable Feast

After leaving Suzaku’s mansion, we were introduced to the Divine Beastfolk that lived in the village. There were all sorts, some with names I’d heard of and others I didn’t recognize at all.

Apparently, not everyone was here today. Some were out hunting, others had left to meet people who were stronger than themselves, and still others just wanted to explore the island. Those kinds of hot-blooded youths seldom returned to the village, but that didn’t mean they had died. Divine Beastfolk were among the strongest creatures out there, even on this island. According to Elga, they hardly ever lost a fight unless they were up against, say, one of the Fierce Ogrefolk or Ancient Dragonfolk, and they were the absolute best at surviving out of all the races.

“It feels nice here, kind of like time is leisurely moving forward,” I remarked.

“Yes. It has a soothing, somewhat nostalgic atmosphere,” Reina said.

Everything in the village was a fresh and unfamiliar sight. The crops the Beastfolk grew were new to me in particular; I’d already gotten them to let me snack on something, and it had been quite good. Also, the fruits and other produce they were growing in the forest were considered especially delicious and would be on the table for tonight’s feast. Before we knew it, we were already getting excited.

Then, in what seemed like no time at all, the sky began to grow darker, and bonfires were lit all throughout the village.

We were led to seats near Suzaku at the head of the table, where we just watched as the dishes were carried out. There was a crowd of more than fifty Divine Beastfolk around us, and ordinary Beastfolk were there as well.

“All right, you all!” Suzaku said. “Elga, the great warrior of the Divine Beastfolk, has invited some new friends tonight! This guy’s a monster who took my flames unscathed! Give them a warm welcome!”

With a roar, they all raised their wooden cups and toasted us.

Being the center of attention was pretty awkward, but I fully appreciated that this was their way of welcoming us, so I settled on feeling sincerely happy. They must have made arrangements for Reina in advance as well, because she didn’t seem to be feeling ill despite being surrounded by Divine Beastfolk.

“Oh, this is good,” Reina said.

“You know, I helped out with that!” Luna said happily.

“That’s amazing, Luna. It really is delicious.” Reina petted her head, and the girl smiled brightly.

I also petted Luna’s head every once in a while; her fluffy fox ears were soft to the touch.

As I watched their heartwarming exchange, there was a loud shout from somewhere not too far away. If my memory was correct, that was where Reina had set her sandwiches.

“WHOOOOAAAA, WHAT THE HELL IS THIIIIIS?! THEY’RE TOO GOOOOOOOD!”

Divine Beastfolk clustered around the sandwiches had started a chain reaction of shouting. Their noise attracted the curiosity of others who steadily gathered around them, making even more commotion.

“Hey Arata, do you ever think that the Divine Beastfolk sometimes overreact to things?” Reina said.

“Isn’t it fine? They’re just showing how happy they are,” I replied. I got the feeling that it wasn’t worth getting too hung up on; it would be better to just be glad they were enjoying the food.

“Whoa, are they really that good? Maybe I’ll go grab one,” Suzaku said. She was about to stand up, but then Reina spoke.

“Oh, there’s some for you here, Suzaku,” she said, taking a sandwich out of her Storage spell.

This was one of the sandwiches we had set aside for later, but Reina probably wanted to give whatever thanks she could to Suzaku for arranging such a friendly welcome feast for us. Also, a sandwich that was still warm from being inside a Storage spell was obviously going to taste better than the sandwiches that had already been set out some time ago.

“Oho, so this is an Emperor Boar cutlet sandwich? Heh heh heh, those creatures hardly ever show themselves. It’s been a while since I’ve had any.” Suzaku opened her small mouth wide and stuffed the sandwich in there. At that moment, her eyes grew large.

“Hey, Reinaaa!” she said, menacingly drawing closer to Reina.

“Y-Yes?” Reina said, startled.

Even like this, Suzaku was suppressing the outflow of her power. I supposed I shouldn’t have expected anything less from her. Thanks to that, Reina was only surprised, and nothing else.

“How many more of these do you have?!”

“Oh, um...about this many.”

Reina took out what must have been all of the sandwiches she still possessed. No sooner were the ten sandwiches lined up before my eyes than Suzaku began to gobble them all up. She was beautiful, and she could have passed as a noblewoman if it weren’t for the way she talked, but the way she greedily devoured the sandwiches was enough to sour even a one-hundred-year-long love. It might have been a different story for someone who preferred women like her, but regardless, she looked to be enjoying the sandwiches.

Luna, meanwhile, was watching this in a daze.

“Ah... Ah... Ah...”

Usually she would have insisted that the sandwiches were hers and charged in to have some, but even she stood frozen with a pout, overwhelmed by Suzaku’s gusto. She probably wanted to eat them, but she just stood there, drooling, as the sandwiches so cruelly vanished before her eyes.

There didn’t seem to be anything else I could do for her, so I took out one of the sandwiches that was in my Storage spell and surreptitiously put it in her mouth. She quickly turned her back to Suzaku, instinctually trying to keep her food from being stolen.

Finally, when Suzaku finished all of the sandwiches, she grabbed a bottle of fruit wine and drained it.

“Ahhh! That hits the spot! The hell is this? It’s way better than the Emperor Boar meat I know!” she said.

“Oh, I prepared it using various methods,” Reina answered. “Also, that cut is actually quite rare, but I used it anyway because it tastes so good.”

“So they’re specially made! My bad! I guess I ate all of them!”

Suzaku smiled, not seeming sorry at all, and we were unable to say anything back to her. But we had made the sandwiches, and she had savored them so much—there really wasn’t anything to complain about... Though Reina was the one who had done most of the work, while I had only sandwiched the meat between the bread.

“No, I mean, I’d already heard, but you’re a seriously good cook! Say, why don’t you become my personal chef? I’ll pay you well!”

“Umm... There are still a lot of things I have to do...” Bewildered by Suzaku’s genuine job offer, Reina glanced repeatedly at me. I interpreted this as a distress signal and quietly went to her side.

“We’ve only just arrived on this island, so we want to build more of a solid foundation for ourselves before anything else,” I said.

“Oh, that? You could just live at my place. Then again, they say you should let young people take risks, so...all right. You won’t cook anything good if I force you, so I guess I’ll give up this time.”

Much to my relief, Suzaku was surprisingly reasonable. I didn’t know whether I would have been able to protect Reina if Suzaku had decided to take her by force.

“But hey, come to the village every once in a while and make something good, all right? I’ll give you as many ingredients as you want.”

“Okay. I’ll do that sometime, then,” Reina said.

After making that promise, there was a harmonious atmosphere for a while. But as time passed, things nearby started to get more rowdy.

“What’s that?” I said.

“Oh, it’s just the youngsters making a racket. Don’t mind them,” Suzaku said. She didn’t seem to care at all, but the noise just kept getting louder.

“They’re flying...” I said.

“Yes, they are...” Reina said.

Even from far away, I could clearly tell that men who looked to be Divine Beastfolk were repeatedly being launched into the air and crashing down to the ground. At this point it was harder to not pay attention to it.

“Wait a minute, what’s going on?” I asked.

For some reason, the men being sent flying were coming closer. I mean, they weren’t coming closer, but it seemed that the one who was sending them flying was approaching us. Finally, it became clear who the culprit was.

“That’s Gaius,” Suzaku explained, sounding exasperated. “His Ancestor is the Divine Beast Behemoth, and he’s the Divine Beastfolk’s biggest hooligan.”

“‘Hooligan’?” I asked, mystified.

“Yeah, as you can see.”

It seemed that the other Divine Beastfolk were trying to stop this Gaius. However, he must have been incredibly strong, because as he came directly toward us, he chucked them into the air with ease like he was playing some sport.

“WHO MADE THIIIIIS?!”

“Eek!” Reina shrieked, frightened by the man who was barreling toward us like a runaway train.

Gaius had messy brown hair that went down to his lower back, and a piece of cloth wrapped around his waist was the only thing covering any part of his muscular body. It was clear from his outfit that he was proud of his strength.

Once he got close enough, he stopped in his tracks before lumbering toward us. He didn’t seem to have any intention of harming us, at least.

“You! Did you make this?!” he asked. He spoke haltingly and sounded more wild compared to Elga and the others. He was holding out one of the cutlet sandwiches and looking straight down at Reina.

As for her, she seemed somewhat daunted by his presence. “Y-Yes... I did,” she said, confused.

“OKAY! THEN BE MY WIFE!”

“Huh?” Reina exclaimed.

The second Gaius spouted that nonsense, I reflexively stood in his way, protecting Reina behind my back.

“What do you want?!” Gaius shouted at me.

“I could say the same thing about you, coming here out of nowhere. What are you talking about? You’re bothering Reina.”

Gaius had proposed to Reina while oppressively emanating his powerful mana. It would have been a different story if he had done so while taking her feelings into consideration, but he was clearly only thinking about himself, so there was no way I could step aside. Reina had helped me in all sorts of ways up until now. I wasn’t going to let anyone get away with troubling her.

“This tastes good!” he said. “This woman made it! Hey, you, be my wife who makes food for me for life!”

What he was saying was absurd. Nevertheless, now that I thought back on it, I remembered that Tailtiu had suddenly demanded that I marry her in much the same way. Maybe to the people of the island, proposals were an unexpectedly mundane occurrence. But I had asked the Divine Beastfolk beforehand to suppress their mana for Reina, and all of them except Gaius were doing so. He was the only one who was radiating his power as he persistently gave orders. It was as if he was saying that he was above everyone else.

When I silently glanced at Reina behind me, I saw that Luna was supporting her, looking worried. She didn’t seem to be suffering from mana sickness, but she didn’t look very well.

“If you’re in my way, then I’ll throw you!” Gaius said, pointing his horns at me in a threatening manner. By the looks of it, he was ready to fight.

I rolled up my sleeves and glared back at him. I realized that I was way more annoyed than I usually was, but I didn’t feel like stifling that feeling. But just when I had mustered the guts to challenge Gaius and pin him down, a flame passed between us.

“Ha ha ha, men quarreling over a woman?” Suzaku said. “This would be fun to watch, but it’d be wrong for me to stand by and let this happen to my guests!”

“Suzaku...” I said.

“Chief! Don’t cut in!” Gaius shouted.

“Whoa there, Gaius. You’re the one who’s crashing our party. Not that I don’t understand where you’re coming from, of course.”

Actually, I’d rather you didn’t understand that part.

Indifferent to my feelings, Suzaku stood between Gaius and me with an undaunted smile on her face, then shot a searing flame high into the sky.

“So, I’d like to decide this with a bout of Divine Beast Sumo!”

Her announcement was followed by fierce roars from people all around.

“YEAAAHHH!”

It wasn’t just one or two of them; nearly everyone here was shouting. The only ones who didn’t share their feelings were our friends, Elga and Luna. However, Luna only seemed fed up with how enthusiastic everyone was and didn’t seem like she was going to be of any help.

“Wh-What’s going on?!” Reina exclaimed, surprised by this sudden turn of events.

I was just as confused. Glancing at Elga, I saw that he had awkwardly placed his hand on his head and looked exasperated.

“Elga, what’s Divine Beast Sumo?” I asked.

“Yeah, about that... In honor of our Ancestors, whenever there’s something we can’t agree on, we swear to them and stake our pride on a sumo match. The loser has to concede to the winner, no matter what.”

“In other words, Gaius and I are going to wrestle over who gets Reina?”

“Pretty much. But this just isn’t how guests are supposed to be treated. I’ll go and stop it.”

With that, Elga went to Suzaku and the others as their excitement was reaching its peak.

“Does anyone have any objections?!” Suzaku shouted.

“Of course I do!” Elga replied, stomping over and glaring. “Arata and Reina are my guests! What do you think you’re doing, dragging them into this thing?!”

“Tch, not you...” she muttered, visibly irritated by his intervention.

“What are you thinking? I explained to you at the start that they’re my guests, didn’t I?”

“Hmph, so what if they are? This is my village. That means my word is law!”

“As if!” Elga retorted, rebuking Suzaku as she acted like an absolute dictator. Then, he pointed at Gaius. “Besides, taking Gaius on in Divine Beast Sumo? He has way too much of an advantage!”

“I’m strong!” Gaius said.

Despite Elga’s insistence that it was clearly unfair for me to fight Gaius, whose power was his forte, Suzaku dismissively scoffed. “Hah! And what about it?! Whatever the odds, once you’ve sworn the oath on your Ancestors, all that’s left is to fight!”

“Arata and Reina have nothing to do with this village anyway!”

“Oh, but they do! Gaius proposed to Reina, then Arata got between them. Tell me, between two men, do you need any more than that?! Huh?!”

They were like two small-time gangsters arguing. Though I guess it’s rude for me to think that about Elga when he’s protecting me.

Though, now that they were getting heated while completely ignoring the people involved in the conflict, it didn’t seem that anything would resolve itself. Besides, all I had to do was protect Reina. And so, I understood the situation.

“Reina, can you count on me?” I asked.

“I... Yes. I trust you, Arata,” she replied.

“You’re going to fight, Mister Arata?” Luna asked me.

“Yeah. The other guy says that he wants Reina, but I can’t hand her over to someone like him.”

“Whoa, you’re so cool!” Luna said, impressed.

I smiled awkwardly, then looked at Reina. She had lowered her face, which was bright red. It seemed that exposure to this atmosphere had caused her to get sick from mana again. If she got even sicker, the party the Divine Beastfolk were having for us would all go to waste. I needed to get a handle on the situation quickly and bring everything back on track.

I went up to Elga and Suzaku, who were getting more and more irate, and I stepped between them.

“Basically, I just have to win at this Divine Beast Sumo, right?”

“Oh, Arata! So you’re ready to fight?!” Suzaku asked.

“Hey, Arata! Don’t listen to a word from these idiots!” Elga said.

I cracked a faint smile at their contrasting yet parallel attitudes. Come to think of it, Elga had said that Suzaku had raised him. That must have been why the two sounded so alike.

“It’s okay, I’ll fight,” I said. “But marrying Reina as a wager is off the table.”

“Really now? Then what am I supposed to do? Gaius is already crazy for her,” Suzaku said.

He isn’t crazy for her, he’s crazy for her cooking. But maybe that was just one of the differences in how our races looked at things. “For now, what about the right to become friends? I think it’s important to keep the wishes of everyone involved in mind.”

“Females are attracted to strong males. That’s just nature.”

“If that’s what you say, then...”

I momentarily fell silent. For the first time since reincarnating in this world, I consciously used my own power, and in an instant, the surrounding atmosphere shifted. Suzaku’s eyes widened.

“I just have to prove that I’m stronger, right?” I said.

Honestly, I didn’t like showing off my power like this. From being reincarnated in this world to receiving this body, everything had all come down to luck. This was a borrowed strength that hadn’t required any effort on my part to obtain. However, I now keenly realized that there were times I would have to use that power.

“Hey... I appreciate your zeal. It’s manly, and I like that. And well, I think you’re right—I did take the joke too far. As you suggest, let’s have a Divine Beast Sumo match over Reina’s friendship!”

“Chief?! I want to make her my wife!”

“C’mon, Gaius! You’re the one who suddenly started running wild, so control yourself!” Suzaku sharply glared at him. He let out a frustrated grumble before taking a step back. It was clear who was in charge here. “Still, now there’s nothing in it for you guys. So how about this: If you win, Arata, I’ll do anything for you within my power.”

“Really?” I said.

“That’s right. The Divine Beastfolk never go back on their word. What, are you interested in my body?”

“No, not at all.”

Unbothered by my terse reply, Suzaku burst into laughter. “Bwa ha ha! So cold.”

Still, the leader of the Divine Beastfolk doing anything for me was a welcome offer. After all, not even Elga knew of a way to escape this island. But Suzaku, who had been living here since ancient times, might possibly know something. And even if she didn’t, she would still definitely be of significant help. I might have come and decided to live here of my own will, but Reina surely wanted to go back home. She had supported me so much already, so for her sake as well, this was a fight I couldn’t afford to lose.

“It’s set! All right, get everything ready, you guys!” Suzaku said.

She directed the Beastfolk to spread out and stand in a circle. Then, a few of them drew on the ground, creating the ring where we were going to fight. Its radius looked to be around thirty feet; a standard sumo wrestling ring was about fifteen feet in diameter, so this one was quite large.

Gaius walked over to the middle of the ring, so I took off my shirt, baring my torso, and followed him. There, Gaius and I stood face-to-face, glaring at each other. My new body was relatively tall for a human, but I was nothing compared to Gaius. Even a pro wrestler in my past life would have looked like a child next to him.

“I’m gonna get that woman!” Gaius shouted.

“You know, if you keep talking like that, Reina won’t let you be with her,” I replied. Of course, that was no reason for me to back down.

Then, facing each other in the middle of the ring, we each announced our names.

“I’m the great warrior Gaius. My Ancestor is the Divine Beast Behemoth.”

“I’m Arata, a human.”

Suzaku waited until we were done, then she cheerfully made a flame appear in her palm and turned it to the already dark sky. “Well then, make sure you don’t tarnish your honor, and have a good, all-out fight! Now...begin!”

Just as she finished speaking, there was an explosion as intense as the sun high in the sky. Then, with our honor on the line, we charged at each other.

“GRAAAAHHHH!”

On Suzaku’s cue, Gaius rushed at me while letting out a fierce roar. The moment we collided, a shock ran through me that was more intense than any I’d felt before.

“Gah?!” I grunted.

“HRAAAAAHHHHH!”

His power surpassed even Tailtiu’s, to say nothing of the Emperor Boar’s, and I was pushed slightly back from my spot. I planted myself on the ground and somehow managed to stop his charge, but his strength showed no signs of abating. Luna and Reina shouted with worry behind me.

“Arata?!”

“Mister Arata?!”

“I’m...fine!” As I reassured them, I took a step forward. That moment, Gaius exclaimed in surprise.

“N-No way?! You caught my charge?!”

He was certainly incredibly strong. He might have swept me away in an instant if I’d carelessly relied on my body as usual. But this time, I had braced myself for a pure contest of strength. Because I hadn’t lowered my guard, I was able to stand up to Gaius.

“What the... Gaius’s Ancestor is Behemoth,” Suzaku said. “Gaius may be weaker than the Divine Beasts themselves, but in power alone he’s top of his class. I had a feeling that this might get interesting, but... Aha ha, this is better than I imagined. This guy is no joke.”

She spoke with mixed feelings, sounding surprised yet exasperated. Honestly, I felt a little satisfied that I had gotten one over on her. She must have set up this bout to amuse herself, but that didn’t mean I was going to do as she wanted—that would just be boring.

“Grah, aaahhh!”

“Hm, hmph!”

One step, two steps, then three. Gaius ramped up the pressure, resisting me as I pushed him back a step at a time. Compared to the Emperor Boar’s charge that hadn’t felt terribly heavy, I got the sense that Gaius would overwhelm me if I let up for even a moment. I gave it everything I had.

“Haaaahhh!” I shouted.

“Hnnnnnnnnngh!”

Every time I pushed Gaius, the enthusiasm of the spectators went up a notch. That in itself was fine, but...

“Whoa, amazing! That guy’s amazing!”

“He has a body like steel. He’s pruned off every redundancy, and trained only for Divine Beast Sumo, I’m sure of it.”

“Spitting up blood, but still pressing forward for a woman. Heh... I could never be strong enough to do that.”

Toward the end, some of them began to make up stories about me.

I wanted to tell them that, first of all, I had received my body from a god and hadn’t done any special training. Sure, living in this dangerous forest meant I was exercising more compared to in my past life, and I even went hunting occasionally. I could move my body as much as I wanted without getting tired, so I also enjoyed going on runs through the forest. However, I hadn’t put in a lick of effort, so when they praised me so much, I felt a bit sorry. Especially for the wheezing man right in front of me who was using everything he had to resist me.

However, this was a fight. And I couldn’t find it in me to forgive him for frightening Reina, at least not yet. So, straining even harder, I decided I would finish this fight in one go.

“Hnnnngh, Hrrrrgaaaah!” Gaius grunted.

“WITH THIS, IT’S OVEEEER!”

I raised my voice and pushed Gaius back, then back again. Finally, our two powerful shouts even swallowed up the roar of the crowd, and...

“H-How...could I...?”

“It’s my win.”

Gaius’s foot stuck out of the circle. In other words, I was victorious.

“A straightaway?” one of the Divine Beastfolk said. “To think that there was someone out there who could push Gaius right out of the ring...”

Just then, birds of fire fluttered every which way throughout the sky, lighting up the area. At the same time, Suzaku threw up her hand.

“We have a winner! The victory goes to Arata!”

The Divine Beastfolk surrounding us all turned to the sky and let out a roar.

“Yeaaaahhhh!”

Then, as if on cue, Gaius hung his head and fell to his knees.

As for me, I finally released the tension from my body.

“Phew...”

I felt just a bit exhausted. Maybe it was because this was the first time I had intentionally used all my strength.

Gaius must have been quite shocked, because he kept staring at the ground. “I-I... How could I...”

One of us had to win, and the other had to lose—that was just how things were. I turned my back to him and returned to Reina.

“Hey, I won,” I said.

“Welcome back. And, it’s not like I was worried or anything,” she replied.

The mismatch between her words and her expression made an awkward smile creep onto my face. Reina was a kind person, so I could instantly tell that she had been worried about me. As I looked at Reina, Luna clung to me.

“Mister Arata, you’re amazing!” she said.

“Whoa,” I exclaimed. Unlike with Gaius, I had completely let down my guard, so I found myself bending backward. However, I knew that I couldn’t show myself being awkward here, and I managed to stay planted on the ground.

“Are you kidding me, Arata? You’re crazy,” Elga said, coming up to me. He was scratching his head, exasperated. “That Gaius is an idiot, but he’s the strongest of the Divine Beastfolk, so to see you straightaway him...”

That reminded me that I had also badly worried Elga as well.

“Thanks for standing up for me earlier, Elga,” I said.

“Don’t mention it... Though it looks like you didn’t need my help.”

“That’s not true. By the way, I heard the same thing earlier, but what does ‘straightaway’ mean?”

“Look.” Elga answered my question by pointing at the ground.

There, I saw two lines that had formed when I had pushed back Gaius. They looked like the outline of a perfectly linear road. In sumo in my past life, this was what was known as railroading.

“You don’t get anything like that unless there’s a big difference in strength,” Elga explained. “And you did it against Gaius. That’s why you’re crazy.”

“Aha ha ha...” I awkwardly laughed. I’d gotten my body from a god, so it wasn’t anything I could feel proud about.

The people around us were still excited and talking about the match. However, for some reason, everything I heard were stories I was unfamiliar with.

Noticing that I was watching this with confusion, Elga looked embarrassed, maybe because they were talking about someone he was friends with. “Well, don’t worry about them. They usually don’t have much going on in the way of entertainment, so they get carried away at times like this.”

“Yeah, well...I don’t mind.” It didn’t look like I had left a bad impression or anything. But still, I’d rather they didn’t treat me like I was the hero of some epic tale.

Just then, Gaius finally rose to his feet and slowly walked over to us. His footsteps were unsteady; it looked like losing to someone with more power had greatly affected him. Finally, he glared down at me.

“You...”

“What?” I said.

Sensing that the situation was on the brink of exploding, the surrounding Divine Beastfolk gulped and peered at us.

No way! Is he here to challenge me to another fight because he can’t give up on Reina?

The moment I thought that, Gaius stuck out his hand.

“BE MY FRIEND!”

“Huh?” I exclaimed, bewildered.

“Be my friend!” he repeated.

No, I heard him; the issue was that I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. But I did sense that he wasn’t lying. His eyes were faintly sparkling, and he was smiling from ear to ear like a young child who had just gotten his hands on a new toy.

“Umm...”

“You’re strong! I respect strong guys! So, be my friend!”

As I hesitated, Gaius took another step forward and stretched out his hand. I cautiously took it and gave him a handshake, and he jerked my arm up and down.

“Now we’re friends, Arata! Let me know if you need anything! I’ll destroy whatever you want!”

“Aha ha ha... Thanks.”

I just wanted to live leisurely if I could, so I didn’t really want him to drag me into anything dangerous...but in this moment, he seemed kind of sweet, like a large dog.

“Congrats, Arata,” Reina said.

“If you’re celebrating, then why are you moving away a bit?” I asked.

“Oh, there’s no deeper meaning behind it. No, none at all.”

She was definitely afraid of getting dragged into this. I was sure of it. Still, I also got the feeling that, in the end, it was a good thing that the subject of his interest had shifted to me.

“All right, let’s do it again!” Gaius said.

“Huh? Do what?” I said.

“Divine Beast Sumo! I won’t lose! Not again!”

The moment he said that, the faces of the surrounding Divine Beastfolk lit up with excitement, and they began to make noise.

“It’s a revenge match!”

“This time for sure, Gaius will win!”

“Show him the pride of the Divine Beastfolk!”

“I get to see that ferocious clash of flesh against flesh one more time?!”

These were the sorts of eager voices that flew about. I’m never getting near the guy who said that last one, I thought.

“All right!” Suzaku said. “It looks like everyone’s getting pumped up! Okay, you two, come to the center of the ring again!”

I sighed. “Fine...”

Gaius brought me to the center of the ring, practically pulling me behind him. There weren’t any special stakes this time, and it would serve to deepen my relationship with the Divine Beastfolk. When I thought of it as just a game, it actually wasn’t that bad. It would be good to get to know my neighbors on the island.

“You can do it, Arata!” Reina shouted.

“Beat him!” Luna shouted.

That was not to mention the shouts of the beautiful and cute women cheering me on. As a guy, it seemed to me that this was the time to get competitive.

“This time, I’ll win!” Gaius said.

Then, we began another match of Divine Beast Sumo. I ultimately ended up winning a second time, but I had made one mistake: The Divine Beastfolk got even more riled up. Others besides Gaius started to announce their own challenges:

“I’m next!”

“I’ll show him my technique!”

“Sumo isn’t all about power!”

“I want to slam my flesh against yours!”

In the end, I wrestled until the crack of dawn...though I did my absolute best to not come into contact with that last one. By the time the sun rose, everyone had collapsed limply onto the ground—perhaps out of exhaustion—and the feast was finally over. Suzaku, who had whipped up the rest of the partygoers, had prepared bedding and retired early.

“I’m exhausted...”

Then, I saw that Reina and Luna were sleeping together under the same blanket. Elga was wrapped up in Livia’s tight embrace, looking a bit uncomfortable. I wanted to sleep too. I hadn’t had the faintest idea that a visit just to pay our respects would turn into all this.

As I plopped down on the ground, I watched the rising sun, and I whispered to myself.

“But, well... Yeah, it was fun.”

Chapter Nine: Reina’s Feelings

The Divine Beastfolk wouldn’t let their guests help clean up, so we left the village after the feast. Normally Luna would have tagged along with us at this point, but Suzaku found her and ordered her to clean up, so she tearfully remained behind.

Reina and I strolled back to our tent through the silent forest. It was so quiet, as if the commotion of the previous night had all been a dream, and I felt myself begin to relax.

“Y’know, everything just kind of happened all at once,” I remarked.

“Yes. But thanks to that, we were able to get to know the residents of this island,” Reina said.

“I’m glad there are so many good people.”

“Maybe a bit too lively, though...”

We’d had a spot of trouble at the village midway through, but like the calm after the storm, they ultimately accepted us. This was probably the best result we could have hoped for. They had already apologized for making Reina the subject of a wager too. She would have been justified in getting angry, but she had smiled and forgiven them.

That side of her must be why I think she’s such a good woman.

“But even so, you didn’t lose a single time,” Reina said.

“I sort of felt like I couldn’t let myself lose, so I tried pretty hard.”

Reina giggled. “What’s that about?”

She casually laughed at what I said, but it had actually been pretty difficult. As a matter of fact, around the time she had fallen asleep, all of the Divine Beastfolk had started an inscrutable bet as a joke—or maybe they had been serious, I didn’t know—saying that they would be able to eat Reina’s cooking if they beat me. Suzaku had approved of their bet on the grounds of it being entertaining or something, so losing had become out of the question for me. As my reward for winning, the Divine Beastfolk had promised to do something for us in the future, so it had all worked out in the end. But still, their passion for food was really intense.

“Gaius ended up challenging me more than ten times,” I said.

“And yet you never lost to him. You really are absurd.”

Gaius had kept coming back to me, like a child wanting to play, saying, “One more, friend!” There had been no end to it. Ultimately, I had taken him on until his stamina ran out and he fell asleep, but the whole time I’d been wishing that he would just give me a break already.

As Reina and I casually chatted, we reached the tent in no time. It was just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill tent, but it brought me peace of mind, as though it was a home I had lived in for many years.

“It felt like it took a long time to get to the village, but we’re surprisingly close,” Reina said.

“Maybe the way back feels shorter now that we’ve been there.”

We ate lunch, then leisurely passed the time and took it slow for the day. A calm wind blew, and the forest trees gently kept the warm sunlight in check. I was peacefully lounging in the hammock Reina had brought, and little by little, I started to feel sleepy. Reina said that she wanted to spend the entire day focused on reading the grimoire she’d received from Wilhelmina, so I gave in to my drowsiness and closed my eyes.

I felt someone caressing my head suddenly. But the pleasant warmth and the gentle manner with which they did so made my consciousness fade away, and the tension drained from my body.

“You were cool out there. Thanks.”

I heard someone speak those words in a voice that was practically a whisper.

◇

I could tell that I was dreaming of the time I had reincarnated. I wasn’t able to remember what sort of dream it was, but it was probably about when I had met the god.

Can I remember it?

As I focused, it felt like my memory of that time might actually surface. But then my hammock shook, and I heard someone’s voice.

“C’mon, if you don’t get up soon, you won’t be able to fall asleep at night,” they chided.

“Mm-hmm...”

I sluggishly opened my eyes and saw that the sunlight had gotten a bit redder. I must have slept for several hours.

The swaying hammock was so comfortable that getting up felt like a nuisance. Like a child wrapping himself up in his blankets and refusing to come out, I lazily refused to get up.

“Are you all right? Are you sure you aren’t just exhausted?” Reina asked, sounding nervous.

“No... I think I just felt comfortable,” I said.

“Oh, if that’s all, then okay...”

I felt guilty for worrying Reina over something so stupid. I forced myself up right then and stretched. My body was in good shape, so I had excellent flexibility.

“Y’know,” I said, yawning, “I feel like it’s been a really long time since I could take it slow like this.”

In my past life I had been swamped with work every day, and even after I got home, I would just dread the next. Exhaustion never left me, even after sleep, so I had always had dark circles under my eyes. Seeing myself in the mirror and washing my face would make me depressed as I thought about the crowded train I would have to take, and when I’d get off that train, my footsteps would grow heavy as I headed to work. A friend had said I should just get a different job if things didn’t get better, but I hadn’t been able to muster the willpower to do something so drastic. I had been an indecisive person. I did think that I had made some decent accomplishments at work, but—especially in my personal life—I had been unable to stick to anything. Changing jobs wouldn’t have given me a future by itself; I would have just endlessly continued the same lifestyle.

So, even though that god had killed me by accident, I couldn’t thank her enough for having given me the chance to live this new life. I probably never would have had the resolve to quit my job on my own, and I would have undoubtedly ended up unable to decide what to do with myself.

“You sort of look refreshed,” Reina remarked.

“Yeah. It just struck me how glad I am to have been able to come here,” I replied.

“I see... If that’s what you think, then it’s definitely something to be glad about.”

Reina smiled at me, and I smiled right back.

Everyone I’d met on this island—not only her, but also Luna, Elga, and everyone else—were good people. We belonged to different races, so I wasn’t quite sure whether calling them “people” was correct, but they all lived freely, laughed heartily, and enjoyed their lives. They seemed so radiant, and meeting them had inspired me. When I first reincarnated, I had wanted to live a quiet life without associating with anyone else, but things were different now. I wanted to learn more about the island, get to know all the different races, and live a life filled with fun.

I made a decision: The slow life of my dreams wouldn’t be about living in isolation—it would be about spending my days getting to know all sorts of people I could laugh together with.

“Hey, Reina?” I said.

“Yes?”

The crimson-haired girl who was the first person I had met on this island was strong, dignified, and kind. She’d probably influenced me more than anyone else. My life on this island was much better off thanks to her. That was exactly why I wanted to keep searching for a way she could return home, just as I had decided previously. I deliberately put that thought into words.

“I’ll do what I can to help you get back home,” I said.

“H-Huh? Why?”

“Hmm?”

Reina responded to my determination with a deeply puzzled tilt of her head. It seemed that she hadn’t understood what I said. As for me, I couldn’t comprehend why she was so confused, and I actually felt bewildered as well.

“I mean, your ship sank and you drifted onto this island, right?” I said.

“Well, yes...”

“Doesn’t that mean you want to go back home?”

“Umm... Not really, I guess?”

Her reply was strangely vague, but it did seem like a genuine answer. That’s weird. Where did I get this misunderstanding?

“Remind me, did we ever talk about this?” I asked.

“No, we didn’t. Well, I did hear you say a few times that you wanted to live here, so I was thinking that I would join you and help out for now.”

Thinking back on it, I realized that I had never heard Reina herself say that she wanted to return home, and I’d never mentioned it to her either. When we talked about what we would do in the future, we had discussed our life on the island, but the mood of the conversation hadn’t shifted to finding a way to go home. In other words, I had only been telling myself that I had to work hard to bring her home the entire time, when really it had only been my assumption.

“One moment... I’m going to go dig a big hole...”

“Don’t. If you seriously tried to dig a hole, it’d get out of hand.”

I got the feeling that that wasn’t the issue, but regardless, I gave up on crawling into a hole.

“Anyway, it looks like I had a big misunderstanding,” I said. “I’d like to carefully talk again about the future with you, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s fine with me, but let’s eat first.”

It was already well past sunset, and the night was beginning to get darker. The area was still bright thanks to the light spells Reina had taught me, but magic couldn’t prevent an empty stomach.

As usual, Reina put on her crimson apron and got ready to cook. I decided that I would at least help out with the odd jobs, and I stood next to her.

In the end, I had thought about all sorts of things and made decisions on my own, but the days had gone by without anything changing.

Later that night, Reina and I sat across from each other in the tent. Our goal was to correct the misunderstandings I’d had up until this point.

“What gave you the idea that I wanted to go back to the continent, Arata?” Reina asked.

“I mean...it’s only natural that you’d want to go home.”

If anything, I wanted to know why she didn’t want to go back home. I had come to this island—or rather this world—by my own choice, but that wasn’t the case for Reina. While this island had certainly been her destination, that had only been by royal decree. She probably hadn’t come here of her own volition, and besides, she had arrived after a shipwreck. It didn’t seem that strange to me to think that she would want to go home if she could.

“Well, yes, you’re right,” Reina said. “Come to think of it, I haven’t told you my circumstances yet, have I?”

“What, did something bad happen before you came here?”

Looking at Reina’s conflicted expression, it was clear that she had a reason for not wanting to go back. I hadn’t pried too deeply into her past until now, but that had been because there was no use in me knowing. I had unconsciously thought that it would be meaningless for a man who knew nothing about the continent or even her origins to question her about her circumstances.

“It’s not a very interesting story, but do you think you could listen to it?”

“Sure. I have as much time as you need, after all.”

Reina quietly whispered, “Thanks,” then began. “At first, I was an orphan...”

“...I see.”

She hardly seemed like one. I wasn’t disparaging orphans or anything, but Reina was just so pretty that if she had told me she was the daughter of a noble family, I would have completely believed her. Still, that part of her couldn’t have been very important, so I only gave a generic response and waited for her to continue.

“Yeah. And then, my teacher—the current ‘number one’ of the Seven Celestial Archmages—took me in because I had a talent for magic, and I became their apprentice.”

Reina recounted her childhood. It was quite brutal. All because she had talent, she had been abandoned in a wilderness inhabited by dangerous magic beasts, or forced to use her mana until she nearly died in order to further her teacher’s magic research. Just how harsh had it been for a girl like her with an ordinary birth and upbringing, who didn’t have any cheats like mine? I could guess at some of it, at least, from the way the look in her eyes gradually turned blank as she recalled and spoke about her past. In the end, Reina told me about how she gained fame across the continent as the “genius magician girl” and became the youngest ever member of the Seven Celestial Archmages.

“...Phew,” she breathed.

She took a break from her story there and sipped her tea. Every one of her movements were so refined, she still seemed to me like someone of noble origin.

“Well, that’s how I became one of the Seven Celestial Archmages,” she said.

Her expression was tinged with melancholy. Normally I would have expected her to take pride in all her hard work, but I was evidently mistaken.

“Did...something happen?” I asked.

“Do you remember what led up to me coming to this island?”

“Yeah. A royal decree, right? You’re one of the most outstanding magicians on the continent, so you were entrusted with obtaining the elixir of youth.”

“Yes, about that... I didn’t tell you at the time, but...I was set up.”

“Set up?”

Coming from Reina, that remark was awfully unsettling. As I hesitated, she lowered her eyes with frustration.

“A short time after I became a Celestial Archmage, there was a duke of the kingdom who demanded that I be his personal magician. I’m one of the strongest magicians on the continent, so of course supporting just a single noble was out of the question, and I turned him down. But then...”

Reina made an expression that said she hardly wanted to remember, then with some effort, she told me what had happened.

“It seems that the duke wasn’t pursuing me just as a magician, but as a woman. After I turned him down, he used his authority to constantly harass me... The kingdom was willing to accept it, if it meant acquiring me. He even started to mess with the orphanage where I grew up.”

After that, backed into a situation where she was unable to refuse, Reina took on the job of obtaining the elixir of youth on Arcadia—or in the kingdom’s parlance, the Furthermost Lonely Isle—and thereby managed to temporarily escape danger.

“Oh... I see...”

“I imagined that the kingdom wouldn’t bother harassing the friends of someone presumed dead, and...well...I was a bit tired.”

That was the first time I heard Reina complain. She had undoubtedly lived her life pushing herself many times harder than the average person. From her early years onward, she had spent all her time practicing magic, and she had entered the ranks of the top adventurers and joined the most powerful group of magicians on the continent. But after having achieved so much, she had been sought after as a woman. That had to have been incredibly hard on her.

“Reina...”

I had been about to ask if there was anyone important to her back on the continent, but then I clammed up. I was sure that if I asked, she would tell me about the orphanage, and that would only lead to her inevitably having to bring up the kingdom again. So I decided to ask her something else.

“You finally became one of the Seven Celestial Archmages after working so hard for it. Are you really all right with giving that up?”

The title was proof that she was one of a truly select group. It was impossible to attain with mediocre talent and half-hearted effort, and she had sacrificed the greater part of her youth in order to achieve it. But no one on this island knew the value of that title. All her hard work would have been for nothing if she stayed here. I couldn’t bear the thought that someone who had worked so hard would not be rewarded. However, I was very much aware that reality wasn’t so kind.

Reina smiled weakly, then nodded. “You know, Arata? I actually never really wanted to be a magician in the first place.”

I was silent.

“I would have been satisfied with becoming someone who could be kind to others, like one of the nuns at the orphanage. But my teacher told me that if I became a magician, I could make things easier for the orphanage, so I worked hard. That’s all.”

“Oh...”

Talent wasn’t necessarily a blessing. She might have had endless options open to her, but reality wasn’t so indulgent. For those who possessed talent—whether it was in magical prowess, fighting ability, or good looks—there would always be others who sought to use them. That was the way of things, all the more so for Reina, who was gifted in all three. That was why the kingdom had been so desperate to acquire her. And as a result, her future had become something very different from what she must have envisioned.

As I saw this girl who was younger than me show a more vulnerable side of herself than usual, I felt that I wanted to be of help to her, even if only a little.

“So, when you say you want to stay here, is it because you don’t want to go back to the continent?” I asked.

Reina raised her face like she was thinking, then shook her head.

“No. Being here is just...cozy, that’s all. I can be myself around you, Luna’s sweet, and Elga and the others are all great friends.”

“You’re right. This island is really cozy.”

That was no doubt thanks to the fact that everyone I had met here was a good person. They were why I no longer wanted to be alone.

“Rather than wanting to go home, I’ve decided that I want to live a second life here,” Reina said.

“I see...”

If that’s what she had decided, then I would respect it. When she was in trouble, I would help her out, and she would do the same for me. I wanted to continue building that sort of ideal relationship with her going forward, and I was sure I’d be able to do it.

“All right, then. That means we’ll still be together,” I said. I held out my hand to Reina, and she shook it with a smile.

“Yes. I’m looking forward to it, Arata.”

“Me too, Reina.”

This act surely wasn’t all that meaningful. We were simply shaking hands to reconfirm that we were friends and equals. But even so, it was incredibly important to us.

Chapter Ten: Family

I was relaxing and watching Reina from behind as she made lunch as usual, when I noticed something strange going on in the forest. The monsters had been spooked by the presence of something powerful, and the trees were trembling as if in fear. This was a phenomenon that commonly occurred when one of the island’s insanely strong locals was running around.

“Who could that be?” Reina asked. “It can’t be Tailtiu or Luna, because they come as they please.”

“Everyone usually takes care to not stand out so much, so this is weird,” I said. “Are they in a hurry or something? Anyway, I’ll go greet them, so you can just keep making lunch.”

It was midday, so the number of visitors who would come here was rather limited. They were dashing through the forest, so if I had to guess, it would be the Divine Beastfolk warrior—

“Hey, Arata, sorry to interrupt,” Elga said.

“Ah, it’s you, just as I thought. What’s going on?” I asked.

“I’m here to pick up Luna. I told her to make absolutely sure to come back this morning, but she’s still gone.”

“You’re looking for Luna? I mean, she ate here last night, but then she just left like usual...”

I had heard before that Luna didn’t have any parents, so Elga and Livia had taken her in as family. The two of them didn’t have children, and it was obvious even from an outside perspective that they doted on her like a little sister or a daughter. Luna said that Elga was like an annoying stepbrother, but...she was terrible at hiding how she really felt; she treated him kindly regardless and was always doing things together with him.

Elga sighed. “Hahh... Where’d she run off to?”

“Did something happen to Luna?” Reina asked. She’d headed over to us while still wearing her usual red apron, probably because I was taking a long time.

“Elga says that she didn’t come back yesterday,” I said.

“That’s serious! We have to go look for her!”

“You guys don’t need to worry. She’s our problem,” Elga said. Roughly scratching his head, he sighed and turned his back to us. “But if she comes here, tell her to go back to the village...and to get ready for what’s coming.”

“Ah, wai—”

Elga leaped away with tremendous speed; by the time I reached my hand out to him he had already disappeared from view. At times like this, I was keenly aware that he wasn’t an ordinary human but rather a descendant of the incredible Divine Beasts.

“What should we do?” I asked.

“I think we’d still better go looking for her, don’t you?” Reina said. “Luna may be strong enough for the beasts in the forest around here, and smart enough to find her way back home, but something might have happened to her...”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

This was Luna we were talking about—she had hunted a massive Emperor Boar without flinching. Maybe she had spotted some tasty prey and ended up wandering off to some unknown place by accident.

“All right, Reina, I’ll go.”

“Good idea. I’ll just be a burden if I go with you... Please find her.”

“You can count on me.”

I headed off in the same direction as Elga. With speed no less impressive than his, I raced through the forest in a flash.

◇

I focused as I advanced along the path to the Divine Beastfolk village, making sure to pick up any telltale noises around me. I heard leaves fluttering in the wind and the faint sound of water running, but I couldn’t sense anything that would hint to Luna’s whereabouts.

“At the very least, she was with us until yesterday evening...”

If something had happened, I would have expected it to have been when she was making her way home, but she was nowhere to be found, even once I made it to the village. There was some commotion, apparently since Elga had already reported Luna’s disappearance. With no information, I didn’t think that anything I could tell them now would be of any use, so I headed back into the forest.

Luna wasn’t on the path from the village to the tent, so it would be quite difficult to track her down. I agreed with what Reina had said earlier—Luna wouldn’t lose to any of the monsters around here. To put it simply, the girl was one of the Divine Beastfolk, one of the strongest races on the island.

“Still, she’s been gone for an entire day. She’s either gotten into some serious trouble, or she can’t come back even if she wants to...”

As I dashed through the forest, I recalled Luna’s behavior the night before. She had been the same as always, playing with Tailtiu in the afternoon and eating dinner in the evening.

“Actually, come to think of it, she was more cheerful than usual. Uhh...that’s right, she said that Elga and Livia’s wedding anniversary is today, and the three of them are having a party.”

That was when I remembered: Luna had excitedly talked about how she was going to get them a present for the occasion. She had said that she needed to get something ready, so she was going to go home a bit earlier than usual...

“So, does that mean something happened while she was getting that present? That’s not much of a hint to go off of... Wait.”

Just then, I sensed a presence resembling Luna some distance away. It was quite far, but I recognized it right away. There was no way I would mistake something else for her. She didn’t seem to be particularly weakened, which meant that she probably hadn’t suffered any physical harm. I was relieved, but at the same time I wondered why she hadn’t come back if she was okay.

“Well, I guess I’ll go see.”

I broke into a sprint, dashing over to her. On the way, various monsters looked at me with shock and bolted away, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to them.

“There you are! Luna!” I called out, discovering the girl with her back turned to me, sitting down next to a large tree.

Surprised by my voice, Luna turned around in a panic, then started making some sort of gesture at me.

Relieved that she was in good health and didn’t look to be injured, I slowed my pace and walked up to her.

“What’s up?” I asked.

Once I got closer, I realized that Luna was hiding something behind her back. But she was so short that I could see by peering down at her from above. There were two puppies...no, monsters resembling puppies, sleeping on the ground.

“M-Mister Arata...”

“Uhh... What’s this?”

“Well...” Luna said, then clammed up, as though I had found her at a bad time. But then, realizing she couldn’t keep it a secret anymore, she gradually told me what was going on. “Today is Elga and Miss Livia’s wedding anniversary, right?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“I wanted to get them a present... And Miss Livia said before that she wanted kids, so...”

The monster puppies behind Luna’s back were probably a variety of wolf. Well, they still looked like puppies, so I supposed it was all right to call them that. Basically, Luna had been planning to give these wolf pups to Elga and Livia. It struck me as a childlike, somewhat charming idea, but then I reconsidered. These wolf pups had clearly only just been born. Naturally, there was no way they would be able to make it in this harsh survival-of-the-fittest environment without the protection of their parents.

“Hey, Luna? Where are these wolf pups’ parents?” I asked.

Luna flinched, then hung her head.

“Luna? Could their parents—”

Already be dead?

Before I could finish asking my question, Luna raised her face and hurriedly shook her head.

“N-No! It wasn’t me! When I got close, they were already...”

“I see...”

I hadn’t thought she had killed them, but some sort of accident could have occurred. I was relieved to hear otherwise. And there was no way Luna was lying—she just wasn’t the type of girl to lie.

“All right, you can take as long as you need, so can you explain to me what happened?” I said.

“...Okay.”

Then, Luna began to tell me what she had been doing since leaving our tent.

◇

When Luna finished, I thought, How very much like her.

After she’d left, she had gone looking for wolves that had gotten separated from the rest of the pack, as a wedding anniversary gift. Normally something like that wasn’t easy to find, but apparently she had been confident that she would be able to. It was probably some special sense of hers as a Divine Beastfolk. And as a matter of fact, she had found wolves right away.

However, she had come too late. The mother and two pups had just been attacked by another monster. Luna saved them, but...

“In the end,” Luna explained, “the mom wolf was fatally injured, and she died...”

“Oh,” I replied.

“And then, I was afraid that the pups would be attacked by another monster, so I thought I’d bring them back with me... But they don’t want to come...”

“I see.”

I listened to every word she said without rejecting it, and she told me what had happened, little by little.

“Even when I tell them that their mom is dead, they don’t understand at all... They won’t leave. So I gave her a burial, and then tried to bring them home, but they still won’t leave.”

“Huh.”

“And, if they stay here, they’ll die... So...”

So she had spent the entire time protecting them.

“I’m proud of you, Luna.”

Luna shook her head and looked down, a pained expression on her face. “If I came here earlier, I would’ve been able to protect them.”

“But if their mother had been here, she might have attacked you, you know.”

“I would’ve held her down without killing her.”

That might have been true. But, it also might not have. Mothers were incredibly powerful when they fought for their children, and besides, it didn’t seem to me that Luna would be able to control her strength against something hostile to her. If anything, I thought it was a mercy that the mother had been killed first by another monster, so that Luna hadn’t had to dirty her own hands.

“So, what are you going to do now?” I asked.

“When they wake up, I’m gonna try to convince them again.”

“Can they understand what you say?”

“I don’t know.”

They probably can’t. Apparently, some monsters were intelligent, but as far as I could tell, these wolves weren’t the sort you could hold a conversation with. Above all, they had only just been born. There was no conceivable way they would be able to understand language.

What should I do?

It would have been easy to order Luna to give up on them. However, it wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong. On the contrary, by any normal perspective, she was thinking as hard as she could and trying to do something for the wolves—it was enough to make me want to praise her for it.

I looked at the two sleeping wolf pups. “What kind of monster are they?”

“Bloody Wolves... When they grow up, they’re really strong.”

“Oh, really?”

If Luna was saying it, it was probably true. At least, I hadn’t heard the word “strong” from her when the Emperor Boar or the other magic beasts had shown up. But if they’re strong monsters, then won’t they eventually become a threat, considering their dead mother? Besides myself, that could be bad for Reina. Maybe I should kill them now, before it comes to that...

“Ah,” Luna said.

“Hmm?” As I was thinking, the Bloody Wolf pups began to stir. They were waking up from their sleep.

“They’re awake.”

“Yeah, they’re awake...”

Luna spoke happily, while I sounded somewhat uncertain.

The two wolves exchanged looks, then rubbed their noses together and entwined their bodies with each other, behaving very much like babies. There was nothing threatening about them. Then, they swiveled their heads, looking around for something, before suddenly breaking into a run toward a spot on the ground a short distance away.

“Ah...”

“Luna? What is it?”

“That’s where I buried their mom.”

“...Oh.”

The two wolf pups scraped at the ground with their noses while making sorrowful noises. Being newborns, they didn’t have the strength to dig into the ground, and they just made the same movements over and over. I felt some sympathy for them as I watched this. The fact that they were monsters didn’t matter. These babies, realizing that they would never see the parent that had given birth to them ever again, just seemed so pitiful to me.

“Can you take proper care of them, Luna?” I asked.

“Yeah...”

“All right, then let’s wait until they finish saying their goodbyes, and we’ll bring them back with us.”

“Yeah!”

After that, Luna and I sat down there and patiently waited for the wolf pups to understand their farewell to their mother.

◇

“So this is where you were.”

“Oh, Elga.”

Around the time the sun took on a crimson tint, Elga pushed his way through the forest trees and came up to us from behind.

“So you found her first, Arata?” he said.

“Yeah... Sorry for not getting in touch with you.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. It definitely doesn’t look like you can move around right now.” As he spoke in a playful tone, he shifted his gaze to my lap where Luna and the two wolf pups, who had tired themselves out crying, were sleeping soundly. “Well, I’ll ask you about everything later. My bad about Luna being a bother.”

“I don’t think she’s been a bother at all.” I gently stroked Luna’s soft hair, and she stirred slightly. After that, I did the same thing to the wolf pups, who were sleeping next to her and hugging each other, and they reacted in exactly the same way. It was like they were siblings, or a mother and her children.

“Anyway, what should I do now?” Elga asked.

“I’m glad you’re quick. You won’t refuse to take them?”

“If I do refuse, there’s no telling what she and Livia will do to me later.”

“Aha ha ha, Livia’s got you wrapped around her finger.”

“Laugh while you still can. Sooner or later you’ll end up like me.”

Elga plopped down next to me. Then, while watching the sleeping Luna, he let out an exasperated sigh.

“She sure has a stupid look on her face when she sleeps.”

“Apparently she hardly slept at all last night, so let her stay like this a little longer.”

“Sure, whatever. Even Livia never gets angry at her.” Elga gave a truly manly laugh, then added, “She’ll take it out on me instead.”

Elga always spoke bluntly, but he was just as good at looking after others as Reina. From that perspective, it seemed to me that the two of them were actually quite similar, and I felt a bit amused.

“What are you laughing about?” Elga asked.

“Oh, nothing, I was just thinking that you sure are a good guy.”

“Hah, I don’t really want to hear that coming from another guy. Although, I guess I’d want to hear it even less from a woman, or else I’d have to watch my back.”

“She really loves you, doesn’t she?”

“That look on your face is pissing me off.”

Even to an outsider, Elga and Livia struck me as a wonderful couple. Their relationship made me think that I wanted to have a family of my own like theirs one day.

Luna grunted. “Mm-hmm...”

“Ah, it looks like the sleepyhead is waking up,” Elga said.

“Yeah, you’re right. Also, the wolf pups with her are stirring too,” I said.

It wouldn’t have been especially difficult for me to carry Luna and the pups by myself. However, Luna was protectively hugging them tightly, and I had merely thought that it would be sad to tear them apart. But now that Elga was here, it was a different story. Unlike earlier, Luna absentmindedly stared at Elga with faintly opened, sleepy eyes, then spread out her arms.

“Mm-hmm...”

“You want me to carry you? Sheesh, all right.” Elga took her in his arms, and she clung to him.

The wolf pups seemed just as drowsy, so I carried them. I didn’t know whether this was something unique to babies, but I was struck by the vitality and the will to survive that I sensed in the warmth of their small bodies.

“All right, let’s go back before it gets dark,” Elga said.

“Yeah. We’ll bring them to the Divine Beastfolk village, and you can take care of everything after that.”

“Sheesh, fine.” Elga sounded somewhat irritated, but I could tell that he didn’t feel that way in the slightest.

And so, while we would have usually dashed through the forest at tremendous speed, now we ever so carefully returned.

◇

A week had passed since Luna had brought home the two Bloody Wolves. She had been too busy taking care of them to visit our tent, so Elga and Livia told us about them instead. It seemed the wolf pups had finally grasped the fact that their parents had passed—and also that Luna had protected them. Perhaps it was thanks to that that they had now grown completely attached to her like family.

Today, Luna finally came to see us, holding a pup in each arm.

“Grr...”

“Garr...”

The two Bloody Wolves growled. Their names were Grr and Garr—Luna had seemingly named them after the different sound of their growls. Both of them had coats of bloodred fur, but Grr’s was slightly darker than Garr’s. I was grateful to have a way to tell them apart other than their growls.

“All right, you two, say hi to Miss Reina,” Luna said. As if they could understand what she was saying, the wolf pups cutely looked up at Reina, then growled.

“Grr...”

“Garr...”

“C-Cute,” Reina said, trembling at the sight of them.

“Hey, Luna, can they both already run?” I asked.

“Yep! But they’re pretty mischievous, so if I don’t hold them they go off to play somewhere right away.”

“I see. Well, monsters don’t come by here, so you can let them play a bit.”

My presence acted as a deterrent against monsters, so they hardly ever showed up. But that sensitivity and tendency to flee worked against me whenever I tried to go hunting.

“Hmmm... Do you want to play?” Luna asked the pups, who responded with a synchronized growl. “Okay... I guess I have to.”

She placed the two of them on the ground. Not a moment later, they broke into a fierce dash, as if they were having a race. They ran around everywhere, as if to say that the nearby buildings were nothing but obstacles in their path.

“C-Cute...”

“Are you okay, Reina?” I asked.

“It might be over for me. I’ve seen only dangerous monsters since coming to this island, so I’m totally calm around those two.”

“I see...”

Speaking of which, she had been under some quite heavy pressure on the island. When I thought of it that way, maybe it was a good thing for her to relax like this every once in a while.

As for Grr and Garr, they were running around us in circles, though I had no clue what they found so fun about it.

◇

A while after that, we spread out a tarp on the ground and sat down. The weather was good today, so the idea to eat outside had been raised. We had made boxed lunches, so it was like a picnic.

I casually glanced at Reina. She was happily petting the two wolf pups, making everything seem nice and relaxing.

“You look happy, Reina,” I remarked.

“Look, Arata. Just look at their calm faces as they sleep. They’re practically begging for someone to protect them...”

Reina was normally stiff and composed, but now her expression was much softer. Although it only made sense when I looked at the scene she was smiling over.

“Yeah, they sure are cute.”

“Right?”

The two pups were lying sprawled in Luna’s lap with their stomachs exposed. They were so vulnerable that it was hard to imagine that they had been brought up in the wild until only recently. They seemed to really trust Luna. Occasionally, Reina would mess with them, and they’d irritably shift, snuggling up to Luna. Then, Luna would softly pet them, and they would let out peaceful breaths and continue sleeping with satisfied looks on their faces.

“Hahh... So cute,” Reina said.

“Have you been stressed out lately, Reina?” I asked.

“Huh? I don’t really think so...”

“Oh.”

I had been thinking that, if I was unconsciously doing something to make her stressed, I would need to fix that. It seemed that my worry was unfounded. I breathed a sigh of relief, and as I did, Luna looked up at me.

“Do you want to pet them too?”

“Can I?”

“Yeah. They both know you’re their friend, so it’s okay.”

“All right, don’t mind if I do...”

I tried gently petting the two pups as they lay with their stomachs completely exposed. They looked like they found it a bit ticklish, but they didn’t behave in a way that made it seem like they disliked it.

“They really are asleep, right?” I asked Luna.

“Yeah, they are. But they can tell, somehow.”

They say dogs rank their owners, and these two looked to exhibit the same behavior. Number one was Luna. After that were Livia and Elga, then me. And, I got the sense that while they allowed Reina to pet them, it was only because Luna said it was all right.

“You know, they have cute faces, but they’re pretty harsh, aren’t they?” I said.

Well, if they weren’t that harsh, they wouldn’t be able to survive on this island.

“I wonder what will happen when they get bigger,” I continued.

“They’ll still be my little brothers, even when they grow up, so I’ll protect them,” Luna said.

“Huh... Well then, take good care of them.”

Luna was an only child, so these were her first siblings. If they helped her grow, I was sure that would be a good thing.

“Hahh...so cute,” Reina said.

I was incredibly satisfied as well, having been able to see another side of Reina, and I had these two pups to thank for it.

“Yeah, this is nice.”

Reina, Luna, and Elga had all been total strangers to me at first, but somehow or another, I really enjoyed this family-like atmosphere. I had wanted to live while having nothing to do with anyone else when I reincarnated here, but now I wanted to live together with them on this island for a long time to come.

◇

We had been able to get on friendly terms with the Divine Beastfolk, and as a result we had gotten all sorts of help from them that made things convenient for us. Our lifestyle had undergone a complete change because of this; I felt like we had gotten one step closer to civilized living.

“With that in mind, let’s build a house,” I suggested to Reina when she returned from the river.

“Umm... With what in mind?” she replied, confused.

Okay, sure, that was too sudden.

“Well, I mean, I’m a man and you’re a woman, so always sharing a tent means there are a bunch of things you have to be considerate about. That’s got to be difficult, right?”

“After all this time, what’s there for me to— Oh...”

Reina must have understood, because her cheeks turned slightly red and she broke off mid-sentence.

“The other day, Elga said that he’d get building materials and stuff. We should be able to save a lot of time,” I said.

“Come to think of it, it is strange that we’ve never talked about building somewhere to live until now.”

“Good point. But once we’re done, we’ll have our own private spaces; I think that will be much easier on the both of us.”

“You’re right... I’m sorry. I didn’t realize until now.”

“Yeah?”

Why’s she apologizing to me? If anything, I’m the one who should apologize for not realizing for so long.

“I mean, you’re a boy, after all. There’s all sorts of...well, you know...things.” For some reason, Reina suddenly started acting standoffish. She looked somewhat embarrassed, and her face was red.

What in the world is she imagining in her mind?

“I understand,” Reina went on. “Let’s build a home and make sure we each have our own separate rooms.”

“Uhh... Actually, rather than each of us having our own room, I was thinking that we’d just build two ho—”

“They say that once you’ve decided on a course of action, it’s best to get moving quickly, and we have a lot we need to get ready,” Reina said, interrupting me.“I’ve never built a house before...but I’m sure it’ll turn out all right!” she said, psyching herself up.

Can’t we just build two houses? I wondered, but she got going so briskly that I would have felt bad stopping her; I couldn’t even say anything in protest.

◇

After that, we devoted ourselves to building the house. The tent we were using as our base was in the middle of a forest full of tall and thick trees, so we certainly weren’t lacking materials.

“Are you making a house, Mister Arata?” Luna asked me when she came over to play.

“We are. Living in a tent has its issues after a while.”

“I’m excited for it to be done! In fact, I’ll help too!” she said, smiling from ear to ear.

In sharp contrast with Luna was Tailtiu, who looked strangely upset after I explained to her what had led to this decision.

“You know, darling, building a house to live in with Reina means... Well, I shall allow it. But I want a room for myself as well!”

“R-Really?”

“What’s with that attitude?! It’s not fair you get to build a love nest with just Reina. I want to share one with you too!”

“A ‘love nest’?”

Not only was Tailtiu using a rather old-fashioned expression, she had all sorts of wrong ideas about me and Reina, and I wasn’t sure what to say. She saw building a home for cohabitation as a milestone specifically for married couples. And as the one who lovingly called me darling, she couldn’t readily overlook this.

“Listen, Tailtiu. As I’ve said many times already, we aren’t building a ‘love nest’ or anything like that. Us building a house means, in part, that we’re making an effort to respect each other’s personal spa—”

“That’s just what you think, darling! But Reina definitely has other reasons!”

“I don’t really think that’s the case...”

I didn’t know what those “other reasons” were supposed to be, but I was sure that Reina didn’t have any such ulterior motives.

“Hmph...”

“There’s no need for you to pout so mu—”

“I am not pouting! I simply want a room for myself to live with you!”

“Oh? If that’s all, then we can just build one,” Reina said. She had come over with lunch as I was talking with Tailtiu and Luna while working. There was a pizza on the tray she was holding. I had taken the opportunity to build a sort of pizza oven while the house was under construction, and it looked like she was already putting it to good use.

“Are you sure, Reina?!” Tailtiu asked.

“Of course. We already have permission from Suzaku to use this land as we please, so it shouldn’t be an issue if we make a larger house.”

“Then I want a room too!” Luna chimed in.

Reina giggled. “Our home will be quite a bit bigger than we’d planned, then.”

Luna and Tailtiu smiled and immediately began to let their imaginations run wild, each saying what they would do once the house was finished. It was amusing to see them act like children getting their own rooms for the first time.

“Are you sure about this?” I asked Reina.

“Isn’t it all right? They seem happy,” she replied. “Also, it’ll be nice for the place to be more lively.” She took out the blueprint of the house from her Storage spell, then quickly began to redraw various parts of it.

At first, the house had been for only me and her, but at some point a large living room, various individual rooms, and even a guest room for Elga or anyone else to stay in had been drawn in. It had come to resemble a mansion more than a regular house.

“Now, this is going to change a lot, but let’s keep at it,” Reina said.

“Yeah. But so much of this is new to me, and it isn’t easy,” I said, but just seeing Tailtiu’s and Luna’s smiles was enough to fill me with motivation. “All right, let’s get to it!”

I felt like I could understand the feelings of all the fathers in the world, if only a bit.

◇

Naturally, building a house was not easy. Even on my Earth, it took many months and involved the intensive use of various machines, tools, and data, and all of it was based on minutely detailed plans. So...

“Phew... Well, I suppose that’s just how it goes,” Reina said.

“Yeah, we finished surprisingly quickly,” I replied.

“Is that so? This is pretty standard with magic.”

It had been a week since I had begun building with Reina, and a house that was larger than our original plans was now complete. The wooden building bore some resemblance to Suzaku’s mansion in the Divine Beastfolk village, though on a different scale. It was a slightly luxurious Japanese-style home, which gave me a strange sense of calm.

“It looks good,” I said.

“It does. It ended up a bit larger because we built rooms for Luna and Tailtiu, but it’s mostly according to plan.”

“Seriously, Reina, you can do anything...”

Though I was new to all this, I thought I had done the best I could. But this time, Reina had been completely in her wheelhouse. After getting paper from the Divine Beastfolk, she had rapidly drawn up blueprints and selected the necessary materials. Then, she had efficiently used magic to massively reduce the time needed to manufacture them. According to her, this was another skill her teacher had drilled into her, but it was enough to make me suspect that she’d been given more skills from a god than I had.

“Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses,” she said. “Or rather, if I’m being honest, it was only thanks to you that we were able to finish so quickly.”

“Did I really do all that much?”

All I had done was obey Reina’s instructions, like gathering lumber and using spells as she directed. At one point, just as I had been thinking that it would be difficult to build a house with only the magic I used regularly, she had taught me all sorts of spells. Thanks to that, I could now use various new kinds of magic, though they were all for the purpose of bettering one’s livelihood. I got the sense that, in spite of Reina’s status as one of the strongest magicians on the continent, much of her magic was directly linked with daily life. I didn’t have any particular desire to cast powerful attack spells like the ones in fantasy adventure stories, so I appreciated being taught this kind of practical magic.

“You know, Arata, you should be more conscious of all you’ve done. I can’t pretend you didn’t play a big part in building the house.”

“But didn’t you do more than I did?”

Reina suddenly touched the wall. “Look here.”

The wall was made of wooden stakes planted in the ground and coated using earth magic. This shape was one of the measures I had taken against Mina trying to break down the fence around the bathroom and force us into more of her rom-com shenanigans, applied as is to the house.

“Manual labor, magical labor, you name it,” she continued, “I basically relied on you for everything.”

“That’s only because I never run out of mana. I can rely on my mana for strengthening my spells, though precision is a different story.”

“You’re right about your mana being absurd.”

Thanks to that, the fence of the bath—which had been destroyed in a single blast at first—was now able to take many hits from Mina. The surprised look on her face when a mere fence had blocked her attack had been pretty funny, though her using all her power to smash it after that was a frustrating memory.

“I swear I’ll protect this place,” I said.

“You were so motivated when building it that we now have a fence tougher than an impregnable fortress...”

“It won’t collapse even if Tailtiu charges at it, after all.”

It had excellent durability, thanks to me enlisting Tailtiu’s and Gaius’s support. When I had finally made the fence strong enough to withstand countless attacks from them, they had looked at it with something like terror in their eyes. Honestly, even I thought this might have been overdoing it, but if I hadn’t, that True Ancestor Vampire was bound to come and pester us again.

“And besides Mina, it has to be strong enough to stop the magic beasts on this island if they ever run amok,” I added.

“Yes, that’s true. An Emperor Boar might come charging out of nowhere, so this much is necessary...right?”

“Of course.”

If a magic beast suddenly appeared while we slept, it would be a matter of life and death—at least for Reina—so it was only natural that we would put so much into defending our home.

“But I mean, you did more than just the wall,” Reina said. “I asked for your help for all sorts of things, like perfecting the house or moving large trees, didn’t I?”

“I could only do all that because you planned every step. I just did what you told me to do.”

“All your work was fast and high-quality. You should be more proud of that.”

Despite what Reina said, planning out the details of a project was generally more difficult than doing it. As a matter of fact, once the general structure and the procedure was decided upon, it could all eventually get done just by throwing people at it. But without that planning, it didn’t matter how many people you had. In that sense, I thought that Reina was far more incredible than me for coming up with everything. I only just so happened to have a body that could do the work of several people at once.

As I gazed at her with admiration, she seemed somewhat embarrassed.

“Jeez... Anyway, we’re done with the exterior, so let’s work on the inside,” she said, entering the house.

I followed after her, opening the door and heading down a hallway, where first there was a large room. It was still empty, without even any furniture, so it was a bit barren, but the plan was to set up a dining table here and make it a place for everyone to eat together. Past this room were each of our individual rooms. Tailtiu could fly and had said that she liked high places, so we had made her a sort of loft. Luna’s room was going to be below that, and it was set up so magic would absorb the vibrations from Tailtiu moving around above.

“Next, we need to make doghouses for Grr and Garr,” I remarked. Also on the list were two decent-sized guest rooms for any sudden visitors. “And then, this is my room, and the one next to it is yours.”

“All right. Just for tonight, why don’t we sleep in the tent like usual, and start setting up the furniture tomorrow?”

It would be dull sleeping in empty rooms, and above all, I had grown attached to the tent lifestyle after living in one for so long. At first, I had been nervous sleeping next to Reina, but I had gotten used to even that by now. On the contrary, I was actually concerned whether I’d be able to fall asleep alone.

The two of us returned to the tent, then cleaned up all of our tools little by little. Thinking about it now, I realized that while it was large, living in this tent without any partitions had been calm and comfortable. As we silently put everything in the tent in order, I started to feel a touch of loneliness for some reason, even though we were only going to live in a new home a short distance away.

I couldn’t tell if Reina was thinking the same thing, but she also had a slightly lonely look on her face. Our circumstances—a man and a woman who weren’t lovers or family sleeping next to each other—were unusual from any normal perspective, but it seemed that, for some reason, we had come to think of it as natural.

“You know...” Reina began.

“Hmm?”

“There’s nothing that says we can’t sleep here.”

“...Yeah. You’re right.”

Though we would generally be sleeping in our newly built home, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sleep alongside each other every once in a while, as we had been doing up until now. Luna, Tailtiu, Elga, and others could come too. We would definitely have fun spending the night noisily, sleeping whenever we wanted, talking, and laughing. Nothing about our relationship would change just because the house was done and we were leaving the tent—because we were friends, and, at the same time, something resembling family.

“Yeah, why not? Let’s still sleep together every now and then,” I said.

Reina nodded, somewhat embarrassed.

◇

The completion of the house resulted in a total transformation from our tent living into a more proper, human lifestyle.

“Hey, Reina, do you think we should hold a celebration for finishing the house?” I asked.

“Good idea. And since it’s a special occasion, let’s go all out.”

We had largely finished moving everything inside, and we were now using the couches, tables, and other furniture. The books Reina had brought with her were neatly lined up on bookshelves; the interior didn’t at all seem like it had been made from materials here on the island. We had also built a kitchen, and outside there was a bath and an oven. I had hardly any specialized knowledge that would let me make whatever I wanted, but Reina knew how to build most things, so she had taught me all sorts of stuff.

I was thinking about getting some vegetables from the Divine Beastfolk village and planting a field. Suddenly, the bell we were using in place of an intercom rang.

“I’ll get it,” I said.

Outside, all the usual members had shown up in full force.

“Darliiing! I have arrived!”

As always, the descendant of Bahamut embraced me with a tremendous bam.

“Congrats on the house, Mister Arata!” Luna said, then saw Reina. “Oh, Miss Reina!” And she instantly ran over to her.

“Hey, Arata, I’m coming in,” Elga said. “You’re celebrating the new house, right?” He was holding a container of what looked like alcohol in his hands, and he was carrying a large quantity of meat and vegetables on his back.

All of them were clearly very keen on having a party here. This abruptly struck me as funny, and I broke into laughter.

“Pfft, ha ha!”

This is just how things always are, so why am I having so much fun?

Maybe this was what it meant to have a house. It was my one and only home in the world, and it truly belonged to me. If so, then there was only one thing for me to say.

“Welcome, everyone. Take it easy today.”

Epilogue: Enjoying a Second Life on the Isle of Paramounts

Though I had reconfirmed my decision to live together with Reina, that didn’t mean that anything had changed. We did the same things as always; when it was time to eat, Luna and Tailtiu would come visit, we’d wait with bated breath for Reina to finish cooking, and we’d occasionally boast about the prey we’d hunted. If I had to point to a change, it was the one in my heart—I enjoyed this daily routine, and I wished that it could go on forever.

“To think that I asked the god to live by myself...”

Before I realized it, I was hardly ever alone, and there was always someone by my side. And someone was always smiling. Unlike in my previous life full of cold relationships, I felt lucky to be enjoying this wonderful everyday life.

I heard a familiar voice from outside the tent calling my name.

“Arata, are you ready?”

“Oh, Reina? Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Jeez, you took way too much time,” she said.

I went outside and looked at her.

“Wh-What is it? You’re staring at me so intently.”

Reina Mistral—the first person I’d met on this island, an irreplaceable friend, and someone I had always been able to count on. It would be no exaggeration to say that it was thanks to her that my life here was so abundant.

“I was just thinking that I’m glad I met you,” I said.

Reina silently averted her eyes. Her ears were tinged with scarlet from apparent embarrassment. She was normally cool and composed, but I thought this side of her was cute.

“Umm, Arata... Just so you know, if you go around saying that to just anyone, one day you’ll get stabbed.”

“Huh? What do you mean? That’s scary.”

“If you’re scared, then be a bit more careful.”

With that, she broke into a brisk walk, and I followed after her. We advanced through the untouched forest until what looked like a traditional Japanese village came into view. It was the village of the Divine Beastfolk, where some of the friends I’d made on this island—like Luna and Elga—lived. Today, we were here on their chief Suzaku’s invitation.

“Oh, Miss Reina and Mister Arata! Over heeere!” said Luna.

The moment she noticed us, she called out in a lively voice and came over from the entrance to the village. She must have been waiting for us.

From her perked-up fox ears to the tail coming out from her shrine maiden-style outfit, it was immediately clear that she was not exactly human, but that didn’t mean she was any different from us; she just was a bright, cheerful girl. She had been friendly with us since we had first met her, and it was thanks to her that we had met all sorts of other people. From that perspective, we owed our rich lives mainly to her.

“Grandma said she’ll show you guys something amazing today!” Luna said.

“Oh, really? That’s exciting,” Reina said.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Eheh heh heh, that’s a secret!” Luna smiled as bright as the sun, bringing a smile to both of our faces. It was amusing watching her hold back, despite how much she surely wanted to tell us all about it.

Luna guided us from there not to Suzaku’s mansion but to the main square of the village where the feast had been held. All the Divine Beastfolk—as well as the Beastfolk—were already there, standing at the ready and looking vaguely restless.

“Hey, guys! You’re finally here!”

“There’s nothing ‘finally’ about it! We still have plenty of time. You went and brought us all together despite that... What a waste of time.”

“Hah, didn’t I say that in this village, my word is law?! That means that I decide when we meet up!”

“Yeah, as if!”

The woman with an arrogant smirk in the middle of the group was Phoenix, also known as Suzaku, the leader of the Divine Beastfolk and the only original Divine Beast remaining on the island. Next to her was the Divine Beastfolk warrior Elga, whose Ancestor was the Divine Beast Fenrir; he was getting angry at her, but I could tell that he was just messing around. Beside them were the descendants of Behemoth, Leviathan, and others that were known as powerful beings even in my world, and they were smiling as they watched Elga and Suzaku’s exchange. It looked like everyone was having fun.

Suzaku spoke to me. “Anyway, ignoring this fussy guy—”

“Why, you!” Elga said, interrupting her.

“I called you here today because I want to give you a reward,” she went on. “Go ahead and shed tears of gratitude!”

She laughed heartily. Though she was a woman, she was a man’s man. However, it was hard to feel gratitude when I didn’t know what I was getting yet, so I was at a loss as to how to respond.

“Wait, a reward?” I asked.

“That’s right! After you beat Gaius, didn’t I say I’d do anything for you within my power?”

“Oh...”

“Even though I, the great Divine Beast Suzaku, made such a wonderful offer, you never asked me for anything.”

She sounded somewhat peeved, probably because she had lost a rare opportunity to show off her power. I had originally considered asking her to tell me a way to return Reina to the continent from where she came, but as that was no longer necessary, I had completely forgotten.

“Oh, yeah, well...”

“And so! With no other choice, I came up with a great idea myself!”

The moment Suzaku finished speaking, a beautiful set of dark crimson wings sprouted from her back. They contained a scorching hot energy, like that of the sun, and I could sense a deep, powerful strength within them that I’d never felt before. Yet at the same time, there was also an all-enveloping warmth, and I didn’t feel a trace of fear.

Standing next to me, Reina gazed at the wings of fire, simply transfixed. “Pretty...”

I couldn’t tear my eyes off of them either. And the surrounding Beastfolk beheld Suzaku as though she was a god.

“Well now, it won’t do for you all to be surprised by only this much!” Suzaku tightly wrapped her wings of fire around her body, hiding herself from view. Then, the cluster of flames gradually grew in size, becoming a towering pillar that pierced the heavens, and...

“A bird of flame?” I said.

“Amazing...” Reina said. “I’ve never felt power like this from the monsters on the continent, and I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

A dark crimson bird freely flew about the vast, far-off sky. It was comparable in size to the Emperor Boar, and it gave off an incredible power. It was stronger than anything else I’d seen here on this island, at the very least. I had been given this new life by a genuine god, and I’d never yet felt fear in the face of any of the power I’d been up against. But now, even if only slightly, I felt that Suzaku’s power might be frightening.

As we watched, fascinated, Suzaku called out to us from up in the sky.

“How about that! Is this godly form impressive enough for you all?!”

There was nothing different about her tone of voice, which assured me that this was the same Suzaku as always.

She then leisurely alighted upon the ground; contrary to her power, she didn’t give off any pressure, and she simply stood there.

“All right now, why don’t you all take a ride on my back? I’ll give you the privilege of looking down on this island from the sky!”

“Huh?” I exclaimed.

“This can’t be real...” Reina said.

“It is real. And just so you know, I don’t give this gift often! You guys gave me a good show, so this is special! Now, hop on!” As she spoke, Suzaku placed her wings on the ground so we could climb onto her.

Reina looked at me with uncertainty, but I knew that refusing here would just be rude. So, I grasped Reina’s hand and began to walk, escorting her over to Suzaku’s back. The Divine Beast’s body was like a flickering flame, but I didn’t feel any heat. However, I did clearly sense a sort of sanctity, and I also felt as though I was doing something incredibly disrespectful.

I stood in a spot overlooking the surrounding area, and I could suddenly see the villagers down below looking up at us with jealousy. In their eyes, riding on Suzaku’s back must have been an incredible honor.

“Hey, Suzaku?” I said.

“Huh?”

“You can fit everyone here on your back, right?”

Suzaku began to chuckle. She must have understood what I was getting at. “Whoa there! You’re saying something awfully blasphemous! I’m basically a god to them!”

“Oh? Does that mean you can’t fit them?”

“What?! As if!” she said, feigning surprise. Laughing, she looked down at the reverent villagers and raised her voice. “You heard the man! I’ll give all of you a lift, so line up and get on!”

“Oh, this has to be some kind of joke... Are you sure, Elder?” Elga asked her.

“Yeah, grandma, are you?” Luna said.

“I said I’d do whatever was in my power for this guy, after all!” Suzaku replied.

Luna moved first, then Elga, Livia, and Gaius followed after her. Maybe because Suzaku was special, the other Divine Beastfolk were reluctant to come up. But then—

“Grr!”

“Garr!”

Grr and Garr nimbly hopped on Suzaku’s wing and ran around. As they did, the Divine Beastfolk watching came up, first one, then many. It didn’t just stop there; the Beastfolk also began to climb up in turns, though they did so timidly.

“All right, that’s everyone! Now, don’t fall off!”

The next moment, Suzaku slowly fluttered her wings, then took flight, gradually ascending into the sky. Higher, then higher still—in one go we soared high enough to reach the clouds, then entered a stable flight.

“Whoa...” I exclaimed.

“Amazing...” Reina said.

I looked beneath me at the massive island far below. Traces of the Emperor Boar’s rampage were clearly visible in a spot that looked like our home forest. In the distance was a sprawling grassland, a volcano, a desert region, a massive lake, and other still-unseen lands.

I’d heard before that when people saw the world’s famed, majestic views, they were left speechless, unable to do anything except be blown away by the sight—that described my current feelings perfectly. At the same time, I felt an incredible thrill. This was surely my excitement over the prospect of the beings—people or otherwise—I was to meet and the places I was to see.

“Ha ha ha! What do you think?!”

“Amazing... It’s amazing, Suzaku!” Reina said.

“That’s right, just what I thought! Hmm, what’s that?”

There was a massive black creature flying in the same direction as Suzaku. To anyone else, it was a majestic form worthy of being called dragon, but...

“Oh, it’s Tailtiu,” I said.

“Bahamut’s brat, huh?” Suzaku said.

She moved with ease, enjoying her leisurely solo flight through the sky. Suzaku got closer to her, then spoke.

“Hey, brat! If you’re free, then come here too.”

“Hngah! Wh-What do you...”

Surprised, Tailtiu glared at Suzaku. But she soon noticed me and sweetly called, “Darling!”

She moved into action, closing the distance between us in the blink of an eye, then shone with light, transforming into her girl form, and—

“Here I come!”

“Oof.”

She plunged at me like when we first met, and I caught her. She happily nuzzled her head up against me, squeezing me in a tight embrace.

“Mm-hmm, I don’t have to worry about using my full power with you, darling, because you don’t break!”

“Aha ha ha. Well, just be sure to control yourself with everyone else.”

It sounded like she was hugging me so tightly that it was probably less of a cute squeeze and more like a powerful crush. Well, I’m fine, I guess.

“Hey, that’s unfair, Tailtiu!”

“Hrm, Luna? It is not unfair! At times like this, the early bird gets the worm.”

Luna whimpered. “Fine, then I’ll get Miss Reina to hug me!” She went to Reina next to me, then nestled herself snugly in her lap. Grr and Garr also went over into Luna’s arms.

“Jeez, you sure are needy, Luna,” Reina said.

“Eheh heh heh,” Luna giggled.

“Grr.”

“Garr.”

It was pleasant seeing them all smiling happily. Even though Suzaku’s back was so large, we were all sticking together like a school of fish.

“The wind feels nice,” Reina said. “And, it’s very pretty.”

“It sure is,” I said.

When I looked down from the sky, I was greeted by all manner of sights—a whole fantastical world was stretched out below me. Each of those spots must have races like the Divine Beastfolk living there. Really, I’ve only just arrived here and know nothing about this place.

I glanced at Reina sitting next to me. Slivers of flame carried by the wind made the air around her sparkle. It was a beautiful sight, as if she were being blessed by small fairies.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh... I was just thinking... How pretty...” I said.

“Yes, it’s quite a lovely view.”

I was referring to her, but she must have been talking about the view from Suzaku’s back. As she brushed back a strand of her hair fluttering in the wind, her eyes shone with delight. It didn’t seem that she had realized what I meant.

I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to correct her. I mean, it’s embarrassing.

“Ah, youth,” Elga remarked.

“Oh my,” Livia said.

Behind me, they smiled meaningfully, as if they had something they wanted to say, but I knew this was something I shouldn’t react to, so I pretended not to notice. Incidentally, the other passengers were also looking at us warmly for some reason, but I definitely wasn’t going to take notice of that either. But then, I suddenly sensed a familiar presence, and when I looked its way...

“Mwa ha ha, aha ha ha,” cackled Mina. “I thought someone special was up to something, and when I came to take a look... Mwa ha ha.”

“This is just awful,” I said.

With a satisfied grin on her face, Mina was flying through the sky alongside Suzaku. Not only that, she was looking at me and making no effort to hide her laughter. It seemed that she had witnessed my earlier exchange with Reina.

“Well, no need to worry,” she said. “I’m not so boorish that I’d disturb a romantic comedy that’s already in progress. Still, you’ve shown me something rather nice. And here I was, thinking that you, at least, didn’t have much value in teasing.”

“Oh, is that so?” I said. It seemed that she didn’t have any intention of doing anything for the time being. Feeling relieved, I once again viewed the beautiful scenery of this new world. “Yeah... It really is pretty.”

Then, I looked around me. Reina was there, along with Luna, Elga, Livia, Tailtiu—who was clinging to me—Suzaku, and the teasing Mina. Regardless of what race they belonged to, they were all good people, and my days with them persisted in my memory as nothing but happy times.

“Grr!”

“Garr!”

The two wolf pups growled, as if to say, Don’t forget us!

A smile crept onto my face. “Oh yeah, you guys too.”

I’m truly glad that I reincarnated here.

“Hey, Reina?” I said.

“Yes?”

“I’m sure these happy days are going to continue.”

“Of course.” She smiled and nodded.

◇

To the god that gave me this second life—this life in which I can say, from the bottom of my heart, I’ve had incredible times and have made irreplaceable friends—I’m going to keep living a fun life on this island. So if you can, please watch over me from now on.

Interlude: A Roundtable of the Seven Celestial Archmages

Gathered at a certain location on the continent, six magicians encircled a round table.

“Wait, seriously? Reina’s actually dead?” a man said with surprise. He had hair that was a mix of scarlet and black, and it was trimmed short.

“In all likelihood,” an already elderly magician replied. “Her ship was caught in a storm, and there were very few survivors. They say that Reina was swallowed up by the storm and disappeared into the ocean.”

“Hah! She might’ve been our youngest, but she was still only Number Seven in the end! Dying in some storm? Pathetic!” the man said. He didn’t seem the slightest bit sad that one of his fellows had died, and his peers felt much the same.

“What will we do about the kingdom now?” asked a woman with an enthralling air about her. “They may be large and powerful, but if they believe they can use us like pawns, we may need to crush them, don’t you think?”

“There is no need to worry,” the old magician said. “Reina was inexperienced, and aside from her, they are a trivial matter to us. Still, it could perhaps damage our reputation as the Seven Celestial Archmages if we let the request from the kingdom remain unfinished...”

Just as the atmosphere grew heavier, the man who had ridiculed Reina earlier stood up.

“Then I’ll go. I’ll find the Furthermost Lonely Isle that Reina couldn’t, and come back with that elixir of immortality, or whatever it is.”

“Is that so, Zelos?” The old man paused. “Then very well, the mission is yours. Take care not to further dishonor us.”

“Yeah, you got it.”

Then, just when they had reached a decision, the female magician stood up.

“I’m worried about that simpleton going by himself. Should I go as well? I’ve been getting bored with only dull missions and duller men lately.”

“Hey, who’re you calling a simpleton, huh?! And besides, just me is more than enough for a mission like this!”

“Tee hee hee, are you sure? It’s more fun going as a couple than alone, don’t you think?”

“There’s no telling when someone like you will pounce on me if we’re together! I won’t be able to sleep at night!”

“Oh? Even though it’d be an honor for you? What a dull man.”

As the two glared at each other, the old man sitting at the round table let out an exasperated sigh.

“Number Seven has failed already. It will be safest to send both of you—Number Six, Zelos, and Number Five, Merlyn. I’ll allow it.”

“Thank goodness, there’s actually someone reasonable around here!” Merlyn said.

“Come on, you old geezer! I said I’m fine on my own!” Zelos said.

“Now then, Zelos, why don’t we get going right away? To that Furthermost Lonely Isle place.”

“Tch!” Zelos clicked his tongue in frustration.

And so, the magicians at the round table parted. To the very end, none had expressed any concern about Reina Mistral.

But these people who believed themselves to be the strongest would soon learn—in this world there were beings far more powerful than them. True paramounts.

Afterword

Thank you very much for reading The Isle of Paramounts: Reborn into a Slow Life Among the Strongest in the World. I wrote this book with two mottos in mind: “A fun life where everyone can smile,” and “Everyone has their own unique characteristics, but having fun is universal!”

Also...camping! It’s very popular right now, and I’d like to try going solo camping myself! (I’m not saying that I’ll actually do it.) But doing anything for the first time is always pretty nerve-racking, and taking that first step is scary. So, I had an idea: If actually doing it is scary, then I can just write it in a story and enjoy it that way. After all, we’re writers!

And that was how this book got its start, lol.

To be honest... It costs quite a lot to buy a full set of camping gear, but you can enjoy camping without spending anything as long as you have a single laptop to write about it with! All the gear you could want, for free! You just need your imagination! And not only that, but if you post your writing on a certain online novel website, you can also get paid...or so the rumors say, lol. A book that allows you to enjoy camping, enjoy writing, and get paid on top of all that sure is wonderful!

That was the mindset with which I started writing this book, and I’m grateful to have received a great deal of support from many readers, and the honor of being published with SQEX Novel.

Though they know nothing about each other at first, as time passes they look each other in the face and talk, smile, and eat together... They come to understand each other. Without any concern for species, they become friends, then family. In that way, I hope to be able to continue writing about everyone going forward.

Now, setting aside my own thoughts for the moment, let me talk about the illustrator! I imagine everyone who picked up this book did it because they saw Noy’s wonderful illustrations at the bookstore or on an ebook site! I mean, they really are wonderful, aren’t they? They’re way better than anything I dreamed about, and when I first saw them my mind was blown. In fact, I still feel blown away! Reina is an incredible beauty, Luna and Tailtiu are cute, and Mina is Mina! The men are exactly as I imagined also, of course! Arata and Elga are just too awesome.

When I’m writing stories, I don’t really pay much attention to the characters’ designs; I just think, They’re sort of like this, and the rest is up to the readers’ imaginations, but when I got these illustrations, I was so excited, like, Yes, exactly! Lol.

Illustrators sure are amazing...

And Noy doesn’t only illustrate for light novels; they also work in video-game-related jobs, as well, among others, so they’re the best of the best. They draw all sorts of wonderful illustrations, enough to make you fall in love at first sight. So if you have the time, please look them up after this!

Now, for everyone who’s gotten this far...you’ve already read everything, right? Or are you the type of person who reads the afterword first? Either way, I hope that after seeing these wonderful illustrations, you’re very much looking forward to the contents of the book as well. I put everything I had into writing this book, and if you enjoy it, I’m happy.

Also, as everyone who’s seen the sleeve on the book knows, this book is getting a manga adaptation, believe it or not! At this point in time when I’m writing the afterword, I’ve only just received the character designs, but they’re fantastic, and they really convey a firm grasp of the book’s contents!

When I first published a novel, I never would have thought that I’d be able to become an author, and it still feels unbelievable that a day will soon come when something I wrote will be made into a manga. When I think about how a new world that even I don’t know everything about is going to expand from now on, I feel extremely excited! So please, look forward to the developments to come!

Finally, I’d like to use this space to express my gratitude to my editor Suzuki, my illustrator Noy, all my readers, and everyone else who played a part. It’s thanks to all of you that I was able to complete this wonderful book. Truly, thank you very much. As before, I’m going to do my best so I can keep writing about a fun, bright island life that brings a smile to many people’s faces, so I would be grateful for your continued support!

Owari Heisei