Chapter 87 (1/2)
「God… DAMN IT! F*ck!」
Currently, I’m spouting obscenities at the trap which I just walked into while trying to decelerate by plunging my spirit sword into the wall.
「Damn, stop!」
As the sword is scraping the stone surface of the wall with a rattling sound, the speed of my fall somehow gets a bit slower.
In order to stop myself completely, I apply more force to plunge the sword even deeper.
It has been confirmed at the first pitfall that this body will not suffer a single injury or even any pain at all as long as I mitigate the impact to some degree.
Considering that there was no real need to restrain my fall, but well, I probably got stubborn. I did not want to lose.
「Barely stopped, huh.」
And before I reached the end of this pitfall, which was not as deep as the previous one, I was able to reduce my velocity to zero.
I was hanging onto my sword that was stabbed 10 cm deep into the wall, holding it with one hand. Right at that moment when I looked below, I heard:
「Mm, What? Who are you?」
「…」
I could not reply to that voice.
What I saw there was a petite girl with the skin akin to white silk, with hair brimming with the color of deep crimson, and with black eyes that shined richer than black pearls.
The girl, that looked both beautiful and innocent, gave me the impression of being more than a child yet less than an adult.
To put it bluntly, she was a very cute girl. If this was my peaceful previous world, I might have fallen for her at first sight.
Both Alesia and Yumis were beautiful and cute girls as well but if we were to talk about preferences then this girl was the closest to my type.
The girl was sitting on the ground and continuously stirring something that was resembling soup.
However, the current me couldn’t care less about a person’s face, beauty, and figure.
This girl was wearing something that I have never seen in this world.
It was a traditional, national costume from my world, from my country, the「Kimono」.
With black as its base color, which went well with her red hair, it had a pattern of several white birds on it.
It seems that it wasn’t an authentic kimono. It appeared to be quite short, its length barely reaching to her knees. Rather than kimono, it would be more appropriate to call it a kimono dress.
Still, for the first time since I got to this world, I saw something with Japanese flavor to it.
A fleeting shadow of my original world that I so yearned for, felt like a blow to the head.
「？ I don’t know who you are, but could it be, that your aim is this pot? If so, I shall not permit it! This pot belongs to me, depart from this place at once.」
「？！ Whoa?!」
After showing a dubious expression for a moment, the girl let go of the stick that she used to stir the contents of the pot and with the palm of her hand, that she aimed my way, she instantly formed a fireball and threw it at me.
The magic activation was so smooth and so fast that I could only respond to it haphazardly.
The fireball lightly grazed my ear and exploded after colliding with the pitfall’s wall.
Seems like she only wanted to intimidate me and although the fireball did not have enough power to give a serious injury but due to the shockwave from the explosion, the「Soul Sword of the Beginning」that was stuck into the wall came out of it.
「I’m going to fall…」
「Ah!, Idiot, do not fall this way!!!」
I could see that the girl once again turned her hands to me.
「Damn, I am not going to just take it one after another!!」
Is it a fireball again or is it water this time? Or maybe it is wind? Or earth?
I don’t care which one is it, I will just cut it with my all!
「Eeh?」
But, the magic that was used, was of a different, unexpected nature.
A dome-shaped protective barrier, probably of the wind attribute, appeared in the direction of my fall and surrounded the girl.
No intention to attack could be felt. Most likely, this spell was really just used to prevent me from falling that way.
Moreover, if I didn’t try to do anything, it would not only cleanly stop me from falling but also would slowly lower me to the ground.
As impressed as I was by the delicate control over magic that would not allow you to suspect that the spell was cast in the spur of the moment, I knew full well that sadly, it will not be possible to stop my sword once I started to swing it downwards.
「Wha, it was cut…?!」
(Ah, damn, sorry, I guess.)
The girl surely did not expect that the wind membrane could be cut. Her face gets distorted, forming a shocked expression.
While looking at her surprised face, I, obeying the laws of gravity, fell to the ground. Right on top of that boiling pot.
「HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!」
With a loud bang, the pot tumbles over and something muddy spills on my right hand.
I hurriedly pulled out the leather bag containing water from the tool bag and splashed it over the burnt area, then I splashed some HP potion over it as well and healed the burn.
「Ah, Aaaaa!!! Even though it finally, finally became something more or less normal…」
In front of the tumbled over pot was the girl on her hands and knees, her head hanging down in despair.
「Ah, this, well…」
I could not say a word to the girl that was giving off such a strong feeling of tragedy.
Looking around, this room has a pretty similar design to the one where I was before falling down here. The only differences were that the room had something similar to a small water spring in one corner of the room and remains of a mysterious substance X that gave a subtle impression of being results of some kind of cooking in another.
From that alone, I already could understand a lot about this situation. In the name of a woman’s honor, I will omit how the “more or less normal” food actually looked.
First, I have to apologize.
「I am so…」
「You fool! What have you done!」
When I tried to lower my head, I received a hit in the form of a right hook.
(It, it hurts?! And that magic from before, just what is going on with this girl?!)
In this world, there are no gender-related differences in strength. No matter how frail the girl might look, in this world, depending on her Status, she might even be able to destroy buildings with her fists alone.
Even so, being able to damage me with a normal punch is definitely not normal.