Chapter 58: Clear Difficulty

Chapter 58: Clear Difficulty

Arriving at a café, I head for a seat near a wall. Our meeting spot should be just around here somewhere. As I looked around, wondering where those two are, I heard a voice calling me out saying “We’re over here!” from behind me, slightly to the left.

It’s Rio. She peeked out of the booth, lightly beckoning me over as she keeps sitting down. She was, unusually for her, in her casual clothes, donning a white knitted sweater as a dark blue scarf wraps around her neck. The table hid what she’s wearing on the bottom pretty well, but I assume that it’s a flared skirt with the same color as her scarf that compliments her white sweater well. Her one leg that sticks out from her seat showed that she was wearing a jet-black stocking, and the slightly transparent parts around her knees made them strangely captivating. All in all, her dress code is something I could find in a teen-oriented fashion magazine that were made for enticing men, and combined with her looks, she’s almost no different from a model, it’s as if she’s shouting “I’m here to make guys fall for me!”

Obviously though, that poor guy is me.

That said, I turned my eyes towards another person whose presence had almost been completely drowned out by Rio. The girl was wearing a hat all the way down to cover her eyes, and even beyond that, she was also wearing a pair of sunglasses. She’s none other than the cloning girl that rocked the world several days ago: Saeki Kana. Her looks were complemented by a thick, long-sleeved coat that were so thorough it was nigh impossible to judge her figure. She seems to have tried too hard to disguise herself to the point that she ends up drawing attention to herself.

Pulling a chair and sitting down in front of Kana, I lowered my voice and asked:

“Why are you hiding your face? It’s not gonna help our case if we whisper to each other too. I get it since my face is as plain as yours, but I can hide myself better if I dress normally.”

“…You can’t be any ruder, huh” Kana said, while Rio silently whisper “I’m jealous…”

I’ve no idea what part of that exchange she’s jealous of. I tried to think of it, but the only thing I can come up with is the possibility that the showstopper like her somehow admires a generic look Kana has.

“Does Kana always trash talk you like this, Nakamoto-san? Isn’t that like, unfair? I don’t like how you can just naturally diss each other like that.”

In response, Kana looked perplexed, surprised to learn that this is the type of character Rio is. Since the latter is one of the girls living in the top of the school caste, the fact that Rio acts like this is a huge shock for her. I guess it can’t really be helped since I had the same reaction at the beginning.

Here we have two former summoned heroes trifling about a girl just with their words. Unbeknownst to us at the time, though, Rio had gained a considerable amount of strength.

“Let’s get straight into it,” I said, regaining my composure and begun talking to Kana. “You said you’d tell me about that world.”

“Yeah, so the coffee’s on you, okay?”

“Talk about shrewd.” I yapped, showing her a weird smile as I did. “Sure then, I’ll do it. Just tell me everything you know.”

Not like it’s going to go past several thousand yens, and I should have enough money anyways.

I called the waiter and ordered drinks for all three of us, not forgetting to order today’s recommended cake for the girls as well. Not because I’m trying to act cool, mind you. Instead, I did this to purposefully make Kana lower her guard and loosen her mouth a bit. When the bill came, I dragged it closer to me as a sign that I’m paying for it. Kana thought it was obvious for me to do that, but Rio on the other hand was blushing deeply.

“Are you paying for my share too? You don’t have to.”

“I’ll lose face if an old man like me is letting teenagers like you pay. Just shut your mouth and let me pay.”

“…okay.”

【Saitou Rio’s sexual arousal has reached 70%】

【Requirements for consensual sexual actions met. Do you proceed?】

【If proceeded, there is a constant probability of conceiving】

【The child conceived would gain combined status pattern of both parents; some skills would be inherited, and equipment and item sharing is possible】

【Assignment of child’s class is also possible】

I showed you just a bit of generosity and this is how you react? Aren’t you being too loose right now? Heck, even without the status popups I could see that her face had melted and her breathing is getting rougher by the second. She’s being so conspicuous that Kana’s disguise and my plain-faced camouflage is getting cancelled out. I’m even considering casting a Concealment spell if this keeps up.

“Let’s just exchange information and be done with it.”

“Sure, let’s do just that.”

I closed in on Kana and begun whispering.

“To start, I want to know how the people of that other world came to be. You said they were earthling clones, didn’t you? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean it as it is. I heard that world had nothing but plants and bugs at the start, and a dimension that had vertebrates living in them were a rare one. It was at that point where they took earthlings and cloned them, and what followed was just…normal reproduction.”

“Rare, huh…”

“But then that wouldn’t explain the existence of monsters there, right? They said it’s in my best interest not to ask about that, and it’s not that I’m that interested in it…wait, are you telling me that you’ve never been to those hidden dungeons? I’ve always been taught that there are things like that in every other-world situation.”

“Hidden dungeons?”

To my question, Kana raised a single eyebrow and showed an exasperated face.

“You really know nothing, huh? You’re telling me you never heard that a new dungeon would spawn in after the demon lord had been subjugated? Is that also news to you?”

“…yeah. There were no hidden dungeons when I was there.”

“Hmm, then doesn’t that mean that the world hasn’t been completely conquested?”

The coffee we ordered came. I took the smallest cup of the three and took a sip, while Kana poured some milk in hers and stirred it.

“I assume these hidden dungeons kindly gave information about the dark dealings of the world as well? What are those hidden dungeons anyways? Your world’s last boss?”

“When I went there, a guide appears in a snap and he began talking without asked…he even had Yuuta’s face on his mug. He’d appear with the figure of someone I want to see the most, but I’m sure his true form is something else.”

“That’s a problem and a half…Isn’t his purpose to make you hesitate in attacking them though?”

“I wonder why you had to choose a gloomy approach like that…Anyways, the guide led me deeper into the dungeon, but something felt weird in there. It looks like a ruin made of stone with lots of murals drawn on the walls. There’s the image of the solar system, humans, and even some weird spirals drawn here and there…thinking back to it, it looks like the image of genes.”

Solar system and genes, huh…an alternate world set in medieval Europe shouldn’t have information about the galaxy or microbiology. It feels out of place for the settings.

“The hidden boss was weak. Even the demon lord had more bite than it was.”

At that time, a waitress came with plates containing chocolate cakes and served them to Rio and Kana. The glint in Kana’s eyes visibly changed as the girl picked up a fork and said “thanks for the treat” gleefully.

“Woah, this is so good…wait, can we even talk about all this openly in a café like this?”

“Even if someone catches in, they’ll just think we’re talking about a game.”

“True” Kana agreed, still stuffing her mouth with her share of chocolate cake.

“Ever wondered why alternate worlds had the setting of a game?”

“Beats me. It’s fun so whatever, right? I was surprised at first though, like all of a sudden you got text streaming right in your face so I thought I’ve lost it.”

“Right? By the time the system messages pop up I was ready to be admitted to a mental hospital.”

“Word” she said, and the two of us nodded simultaneously. This is the complains only us summoned heroes could understand.

Looking at us from the sidelines, Rio puffed her cheeks in anger.

“Did someone artificially create that world? The more I hear the more I believe that’s the case.”

“Isn’t that the case anyways?”

“Ever thought of who made it?”

“Could be alien or gods for all I care. Not like it matters to me anymore.”

“It could matter. I myself am targeted by the people from that world. The chances of them doing the same thing again is not nil.”

“…Huh? Why?”

“Hell if I know. Could be because I got too strong or they had some resentment against me.”

“…resentment, huh. What was the name of the world you were sent to, Nakamoto-san?” Kana asked, wiping her mouth as she directed her probing glances at me.

“…don’t know. Do they even have a name in the first place?”

“Mm…the world I was summoned to was called Aquala. They just randomly put a watery name in their world. There should be like a naming convention in that world though right? Did they not tell you about them? You should know from that.”

“Aah,” I groaned, trying hard to remember. “It was something about moons. There’s plenty of towns with the names that had stuff to do with moons. The capital was called Lunatius or something.”

“Oof, you’ve been sent to the most difficult world then…” Kana responded, her eyes filled with pity. It was the first time I’ve seen her with that expression.

“…what do you mean?”

“There’s apparently 3 different difficulties of alternate worlds. Let’s start with the easy one: the easy world is named after water. The residents held the hero in high regards, and the monsters were weak. You can gain information easily and there’s plenty of pretty boys and girls to find if you just walk around a town. The normal difficulty world is named after earth. Seems like everything in that world is about as normal as it could be, and the Earth falls into that category…and the harshest one is the world named after the moon. The people hate the hero, and the monsters are so atrocious and crafty. Even if there’s someone who loves the hero, they’ll be so isolated you might as well not meet them at all.”

Isolated, huh. The moment I hear that word, Elza and Angelica’s figure appears in my head. The former was a slave imprisoned in a goblin nest, and the latter was a sacred maiden who could never take a single step out of the monastery.

“The demon lord in the Moon world couldn’t be taken out by normal methods. You’d have to obtain the most important item or else you wouldn’t even be able to lay a finger on him. That’s how it’s supposed to be…so…hey, what did you get compensated with after clearing that world?”

“I’ve no obligation to tell you that.”

“Huh, alright then…I heard if there’s someone who cleared that world, they’d stop being humans completely because they’d be broken somewhere in the journey…hey, can I go home now? I’m scared.”

“What?”

Kana put her hands in her pockets and began rummaging through them.

“Now that I know you’ve cleared the most difficult world, I’m getting too scared to even get close to you. Here, have this.”

She fished out a coin-like object from her pocket and gave it to me.

“…what’s this?”

“Press that button on the middle when you get home and it’ll show you a projection, so don’t do it with people around. I’ll go home now, thanks for the treat.”

Kana stood up from her seat and made a beeline for the exit. Talk and go, huh.

“There’s still too much I wanted to ask though…”

Left on a cliffhanger, I put both my hands behind my neck and turned to another party: Rio who had been cutting through her chocolate cake while looking at Kana’s back, looking bored out of her mind.

“I’ll go home after you finish eating tha…hm…?”

Before I finished my sentence, I noticed something weird. I felt something smooth poking on my foot. It started from there but it slowly begun to creep up inside the hem of my pants and crawled its way up to my shin.

In a slight panic, I looked under the table to check and found…a girl’s leg stretching towards me from the front.

What is going on in this girl’s head? We’re in public, what are you doing?

Rio had took her shoe off and began fiddling with my leg. The pointed end of her toenails poked at my leg and at times she would move her foot around to caress my shin. She even went as far as to touch my inner thigh with her big toe.

I lift my face from below the table in a hurry and spot Rio staring at me directly.

“…so it’s just the two of us now” Rio whispered, her face seductive and excited.