v1 prologue (1/2)

Prologue

“Uwaaa! I’m dying! I’m gonna be killed!”

Really, what the heck was that!

When I came to, I was sleeping on a gra.s.s plain, and I was immediately attacked by a pack of wild dogs.

Isn’t this too much of a development?

Furthermore, they weren’t normal wild dogs, they were aggressive savage dogs. Their ears were standing straight, and they had a sharp glint in their eyes, were they dobermans?

They had long brown fur, and were unbelievably big, supersized big dogs that had an overall length of over one meter. The bulging muscles on their shoulders were overwhelmingly wild. Their teeth weren’t normal either, they resembled those of a man-eating wolf.

They were almost like, monsters.

It wasn’t just one either, it was a pack, so there was no helping it.

While I was running, I found a tree branch that happened to be there; I grabbed it and swung it like a wooden sword, not that a weapon like this would help anyway.

After fumbling around, I was finally surrounded by over 10 dogs.

“s.h.i.+t!”

I resolved myself, and rather than letting out a brave shout, I shrieked and swung at the dog within my reach. Unexpectedly, as I continued to swing my long tree branch, the dogs backed away and opened up a path.

Good, I thought, and dashed out of there like a startled bunny.

Alas, that was a trap by the pack of dogs. After being chased for a while and running out of stamina, I was bitten, with a chomp, from behind.

“Aaagh!”

From the weight that was tugging at my leg, I understood that I was bitten around the ankle. Even though the sharp teeth stuck deep into my leg, somehow I didn’t feel any pain.

Even though my heart was beating like crazy, I was extremely calm and acknowledged the situation. The wound on my leg felt incredibly hot, but thanks to the thick jeans, the teeth didn’t reach bone.

Rather than the wound, the problem was that its teeth were plugged into my leg, and I couldn’t pull my leg out even if I tried.

Together with the running momentum, it made me tumble and roll forward.

I rolled once and slammed into the ground.

I lay sprawled on my back, looking at the blue sky. I felt that time was flowing extremely slow. Only the beating of my heart, echoing in the silent world, could be heard.

I thought to myself that it was true that when you were about to die, everything would be in slow motion. Next, I would see my life flas.h.i.+ng before my eyes, maybe. As I was carefreely thinking so, I felt the weight of a big dog slamming onto my chest.

Even though I didn’t feel any pain when I was bitten on the ankle, the weight of the dog that jumped onto my chest was heavy and painful, almost to the point of losing consciousness. s.h.i.+t, don’t joke with me, a bunch of ribs were probably broken. However, the dog didn’t jump on me to joke around.

It didn’t jump on me to break my bones - my whole body will now be masticated, and I’ll be killed. That is very scary, I don’t want that.

The dog mercilessly opened its big jaw as it prepared to eat my face.

‘Aaagh’, my pathetic scream leaked out.

The slow motion became even slower. From looking at the red mouth of the dog, my sharpened intuition told me that there was nothing else I could do.

A lot of sharp, white teeth, ah, it has a decayed tooth beyond saving.

‘Haha, The last thing I see before I die is a dog’s decayed tooth’, I thought to myself and laughed.

Even though I was going to be shredded by the dog, I laughed at such a thing, maybe I had lost it already.

Aaah, I don’t wanna to see myself getting eaten. I wished this was just a nightmare, gave up, and closed my eyes.

─Thud

Something dropped with a thud, and the weight of the dog on my body was gone.

Aaah, I guess I died.

I thought I didn’t want to feel pain, but I guess dying wasn’t all that painful. At least that was nice.

Nevertheless, it was strange that I didn’t feel anything at all. As I thought, ‘don’t tell me it was all just a dream’, I tried to open my eyes, and I saw the overgrown gra.s.s and the wide blue sky.

The sky was a deep blue color, like it had been painted. I’ve never seen a blue sky this beautiful. There were some thin white clouds, and the almost see-through moon was beautiful. I was still alive.

Now that I think about it, where is this? Even if I asked, there was no answer.

My half asleep consciousness was brought back to reality by the intense pain.

“It hurts, more like, IT HUUURTS!”

I trembled at the pain from my bitten ankle. When I couldn’t bear it any longer and tried to get up, I saw a sea of blood.

I forgot to scream, and also forgot to cover up the wound on my ankle. I was stupefied and just stared at the terrible spectacle.

There was too much going on, so my brain short-circuited.

Lying around were a bunch of corpses of the big dogs, covered in blood due to being chopped up by some kind of edged tool. Rather than corpses, they were already just chunks of meat.

I snapped out of it, looked at my own hand, and saw that it was dyed with dark red blood. My blood…… not, it was the blood of the dead dog beside me.

It was the dog that had been on top of my body, it had a knife stuck in its head, which had been split open, and its pink brain matter was leaking out. Of course, it had completely stopped breathing already.

Then, a little further away, I found the last living dog lying on its back, showing its belly to show complete submission, and a female warrior, who stabbed it with a somewhat large sabre.

‘Kyuiin’, the dog shrieked softly as it died instantly.

The pack of dogs that was about to kill me until just now had all been killed by the female warrior?

“Are you okay?”

“Haa, well......somehow.”

The female warrior was wearing lightweight equipment comprised of just a thick leather jacket and black fustian (something like thick cheap jean) pants. To a warrior, lightweight and easy to move equipment were important. Just a look at the way she casually handled the roughly designed, dull-looking sabre was enough for me to understand that she was just simply strong.

Wait…...I accepted that fact like normal, but what, female warrior?

Was it Western RPG cosplay? No, as if it was something that stupid. I saw her kill the pack of dogs with the sabre.

The leather armor, sabre, and the knife too, they were all real. If that was so, then…...

“What’s wrong? Is my face that strange?”

“No, that was…...”

Red hair that was brighter than fresh blood reached down to her shoulders, casually tied up in a high ponytail that was swaying a little. Her build was larger than the average woman’s. She was slender, but her lean muscles looked sharp, like a drawn sword. It was a very nice figure.

Her finely chiseled features, characteristic of a Westerner, looked very beautiful to the j.a.panese me. Her age, was probably around the mid-twenties.

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She was an incredibly beautiful oneesan. If it was the normal me, maybe I would be breathing roughly already. Maybe I would have even flattered her with something like ‘You are very beautiful’.

If only she wasn’t holding her naked, specialized sword, and didn’t have any blood on her despite ma.s.sacring a pack of dogs.

Even though I felt bad, since she had rescued me, the gruesome scene dyed with fresh blood was scarier than the dogs that attacked me.

“Can you stand?”

“I’m okay….nngh.”

This is bad, the ankle where the dog bit me hurts so much.

ジーパンの分厚い布がビリビリに破れて、血がズボンの上にジワーと広がってきてる。

The thick cloth of my jeans were badly ripped and blood was spreading out over my pants.

かなり傷が深く血が止まらないようだ。裂けた肉を見ただけで、気分が悪くなってきた。

The wounds were rather deep and blood wouldn't stop flowing. Just seeing the torn flesh made me feel ill.

「私でも手当ぐらいならできるが、この傷はもう回復ポーションを使ったほうがいいか」

”I can give medical treatment, but wouldn't it be better to use a recovery potion for this kind of wound?”

「回復ポーション？」

”Recovery potion?”

ビックリする俺に、何を驚いているんだと笑って、戦闘前に投げ捨てたらしいリュックサックを拾ってくる。戦士のお姉さんは、その袋の中から青い色の薬瓶を取り出すと、俺に渡してくれた。

I was surprised and she smiled saying, ”What's so surprising?” as she picked up the backpack she had thrown away before the fight. The warrior nee-san took out a vial of blue potion from the bag and gave it to me.

回復ポーションって初めて見たよ。ファンタジーだよ。からかわれているわけじゃないよね。

I've never seen a recovery potion before, you know. It's fantasy, you know. She's not making fun of me, is she?

「どうした、遠慮せずに飲め、元気になるぞ。その足じゃお前は動けないだろうし、ここから街までは結構あるからな」

”What's wrong? Don't worry, just drink it. It'll make you feel better. You can't move with that foot after all, and it's quite a distance to town from here.”

「ありがとうございます」

”Thank you very much.”

それだけ言うとお姉さんは、ナイフを取り出して黙々と転がっている犬の死体を解体する作業にかかりだした。

After saying all that, the onee-san took out a knife and began to work on dismantling the dead bodies of the dogs that were laying around.

俺は、少しためらいつつも、もらった青い液体を飲み干す。

I hesitated for a bit, but downed all of the blue liquid she gave me.

少しほろ苦い味がして、身体に薬効が広がる。

The liquid had a slightly bitter taste and it spread out inside my body.

破れたジーパンの裾は戻らないが、深い傷口はほとんど塞がっていた。命は助かったし、ホッと一息もつけたけど。

My ripped up pants didn't go back to how they were, but the deep wounds closed almost completely. Since my life was saved, I let out a sigh of relief.

次々に殺した犬の腹を切り裂いては、ホカホカと湯気を立てている内臓を取り出しているお姉さんを見て、俺はだんだんと絶望的な気持ちになっていた。

As I watched the oneesan cut up the dead dogs’ stomachs one after another and take out the steaming entrails, I felt more and more hopeless.

もうここが日本のどっかの田舎だなんて勘違いはしない。

I can no longer think that I'm somewhere in rural j.a.pan anymore.

地球上では見たことない、凶暴なデカイ犬の化物[モンスター]。それを鮮やかに殺して見せた女戦士。そして、傷を治す回復ポーション。

Seeing fiendishly large dogs never seen before on Earth, and a female warrior skillfully kill them all, as well as a recovery potion that heals wound—

これは、本格的にファンタジー世界だぞ。しかも、よりにもよってとびきり残酷でリアルなやつだ。

This was an honest-to-goodness fantasy world, and of all things, an incredibly harsh and realistic one at that, too.

●

日本で平凡な大学生をやっていたはずの俺が、気がついたら異世界ファンタジー世界に飛ばされていた。

I, who should have been a normal college student in j.a.pan, had been tossed into a fantasy world before I knew it.

俗に言う、異世界トリップ。とりあえず、この世界を酷幻想[リアルファンタジー]と名づけてみる。

It's the thing they call an Otherworld Trip. For now, I'm calling this world a Real Fantasy world.

隠れオタクである俺は、幻想物語[ファンタジー]にはちょっと詳しい。

As a closet otaku, I was a little knowledgeable about fantasy stories.

この手の古典については、指輪をめぐる戦争から始まって、呪われた島の戦記までしっかり読み込んでいる。近年の異世界ファンタジーも、召喚、転生、転移の別け隔てなくきちんと予習済み。

I had thoroughly read the cla.s.sics of these sorts of stories, from the one about the war regarding a ring to the annals of a cursed island. As for recent otherworld fantasies, I was also well versed in summoning, reincarnation, and transfer stories, without favoring any over the other.

使い魔として召喚されたり、ゲーム世界に飛ばされたり、変わったところでは、ＶＲＭＭＯに閉じ込められて仮想世界から出られなくなった近未来ＳＦファンタジーなんてのもある。そこら辺は数え上げると切りがないが、ラノベ読みとしての知識を駆使して、現状を断定する。

There were also recent SF fantasy stories where they were summoned as familiars, tossed into game worlds, and the unusual ones where they got locked in VRMMOs and were unable to leave the virtual world. These ones were too numerous to count, but by using the knowledge from reading light novels, I could deduce my current situation.

これはゲーム世界でも、お手軽ファンタジーでもなく、古典的なハイファンタジーの世界だと！

This is not a game world, nor is it an easy fantasy, but a cla.s.sic, high fantasy world!

これがゲームの世界なら、お姉さんに斬り殺された犬型モンスターは、一瞬で『野犬の肉』とか、『野犬の皮』とか、ドロップアイテムに変わっていたはずだ。

If this were a game world, the moment the oneesan killed the dog monsters, they would have immediately transform into drop items like [wild dog meat] or [wild dog pelt].

そうだったら、どれほど良かったことか。

I would have been really glad if that were the case.

しかし、眼の前には真っ赤な血の海が広がり、戦士のお姉さんに内臓を取り出されて皮を剥がれている犬の死体は、吐き気を催すほどリアルでグロテスクな有様を晒している。

However, a deep red sea of blood spread before my eyes, and the dog corpses that the warrior oneesan had gutted and skinned were nauseatingly real and grotesque.

つまりこれは、分かりやすいレベル制とか、便利な魔法とか、ご都合主義なプレイヤーチートとか、お手軽ファンタジーに有りがちな救済は期待できないってことを意味する。

This meant that I couldn’t expect anything like an easily understood level system, convenient player cheats, or any help like you would find in an easy fantasy.

むしろ、油断すると一瞬で死ぬ。

On the contrary, I could die from a moment of negligence.

厳しい世界なのだ。

It's a harsh world.