In Another World With My Smartphone_Volume 6 Page 18

  “Th-Then... What do you want from me...?”

  “We’ll forgive you... If you give each of us a kiss, one by one. Your actions have made us insecure in our relationship with you, Touya... You have a responsibility to make us feel better.” Oh... Oh Geez. I’ve kissed Yumina and Linze, but... N-Not the other three.

  I looked over to see Yumina smiling, Linze blushing, Lu holding her hand to her fast-beating heart, Yae fussing around with her hakama, and Elze fidgeting with her hands.

  In all honesty, I was very embarrassed. I thought this would be the best moment to escape and leave their request unfulfilled, but I had nowhere to run.

  So, with Leen and Paula jeering and yelling at me... I did it. I kissed them one-by-one. It was weird.

  But... After I kissed each of them... Lu turned a shade of scarlet and ran away, Yae grabbed me by the arm and threw me across the room while screaming.... Elze pulled her arm back and pummeled me in the chest, sending me flying backwards in a tailspin. Ghah—!! Even if you’re embarrassed, there’s no need for a corkscrew blow! I started to get worried that my life might actually wind up in danger if I didn’t make romantic things a little more regular and casual with my girls.

  As I faded out of consciousness, I asked a small, profound question in my head. Is this misery, or is this joy?

  Interlude: Mystic Eyes of the Catoblepas

  “Have you ever heard of the monster known as a catoblepas before?”

  The elven guildmaster Relisha broke the ice by bringing up some kind of monster.

  I thought that she’d taken me aside to talk about the guild branch, but it didn’t seem to be the case.

  “No, I haven’t. What kind of monster is it?” Relisha opened up the book in her hands and showed a certain page to me. It looked like the monster encyclopedia that I’d seen in a guild reading room some time ago.

  “They have the face of a pig and the body of a bull, but their necks are very long. The way their heavy heads hang low to the ground is considered to be their trademark.” The page Relisha thumbed to had the illustration of a monster that fit her exact description on it.

  “They spit poison gas so noxious from their mouths that they kill plants just by breathing on them. But what’s most fearsome of all is their mystic eyes. Anyone who makes eye contact with a catoblepas ends up paralyzed on the spot, and before long their entire body turns to stone.”

  “What?! Stone?”

  “Yes. They are classified as a red rank monster on the same level as a low-tier dragon due to their eyes, but no higher than that due to their overall peaceful personality. On to the main point. A quite large and uncharacteristically aggressive catoblepas has made a nest in the Melicia Mountain Range. It is believed that three parties consisting of around thirteen people total have already died fighting them.”

  Thirteen people, dead...? And the Melicia Mountain Range is just north of Brunhild, wedged between the Kingdom of Belfast and the Regulus Empire...

  “Naturally as guildmaster I couldn’t just ignore this problem, and so I hired two silver-ranked adventurers in Regulus to take of it. Unfortunately, it seems that they too were turned into stone.”

  “Even silver-ranked adventurers couldn’t handle them?”

  “Indeed. I heard that this catoblepas is not a normal one, but rather one that has evolved and has begun growing massively in size. I can only imagine the havoc it will wreak if left alone. That is why I would like to request that you lend your services as a gold-ranked adventurer, my Lord. To say nothing of your immense strength, your null [Recovery] spell should be the key to defeating this beast. Not only can you nullify any petrification cast on yourself, but you may also be able to save the adventurers that have already been petrified.” I get it. The catoblepas’ petrification is nothing to be afraid of because of my magic. A catoblepas without its demonic eyes should be a piece of cake to take down. It won’t be able to turn me to stone just by looking at me, after all.

  “Under normal circumstances I would never bring an adventurer’s quest such as this to one of your royal status, my Lord, but I heard that you yourself were seeking quests to complete and thus I took it upon myself to make this request of you.” Yeah, I did say I was looking for quests to do. It’s all about the money. I need money and a lot of it. Partially to make some Frame Gears, partially to support my royal knights.

  “By the way, what would you do if I declined this quest?”

  “Under normal circumstances I would offer the quest to other adventurers of your rank, but the only other gold-rank adventurer in the world is the former king of the Lestia Knight Kingdom. Naturally I could never bring this quest to a seventy-year-old retired king, so the end result would be our guild declining this quest in its entirety. I believe the Belfast and Regulus royal knights would then work together to defeat the beast, but I am unsure.” No need to worry about that. I’ll take it. Can’t just leave it there and let more people die. I also wouldn’t want to force Belfast and Regulus to take care of it.

  “How much is the reward?”

  “This is how much the neighboring towns and villages will pay. And this is how much the neighboring countries will pay as a sign of appreciation. And this is how much you will earn by selling parts of the catoblepas to our guild.”

  Oh man. That’s a lot of money.

  I grinned after seeing Relisha calculate just how much money in total I would earn from taking this quest.

  It was exactly the kind of big bucks I needed.

  “Understood. I’ll accept the quest and go take down the catoblepas.”

  “A catoblepas, huh? That’s a pretty rare monster.” Leen started talking to Linze while the latter looked over the catoblepas page in the monster encyclopedia I’d borrowed from Relisha.

  “That’s because nature has no need for strong species to proliferate. Not to mention, it must be difficult for catoblepas to form bonds.”

  “Eh? What manner of difficulty might they find, Leen-dono?”

  “Just imagine how much trouble they’d have trying not to turn each other to stone!” Leen answered Yae’s question with a laugh.

  What? Catoblepases can turn each other to stone? Isn’t that a bit much?

  “Does that mean they would both turn into stone after making eye contact with each other? ...I feel that there’s something sad about that.” Lu spoke with a pained tone. She had a point. That would also mean they can’t directly look at their children.

  “It seems that it takes several months for newborn catoblepases to develop fully functional mystic eyes. The parents leave before that happens. If they stuck around until their children mature far enough, they might end up being turned to stone.” So the kids only get to look at their parents for a few months in their whole lives, huh? And even then they never get to look each other in the eyes. Makes sense that they’d end up being lonely.

  Yae looked like she was close to crying a little. Couldn’t blame her, she was probably imagining how the catoblepases feel.

  “Anyway. Can you turn the petrified adventurers back to normal with your spell? I mean, they’ve been stuck in stone for months. Won’t they have starved by now?”

  “That’s a good question, Elze, but I heard that when a person gets petrified, their bones and organs turn to stone too. That’s why I should be able to completely heal anyone whose stone statue hasn’t broken.” Although petrification turned one into the stone, the stone itself was weak enough that wind and nature itself would be enough to break down the statues of petrified adventurers after a few years. If I were to use my magic on a worn down statue, blood would likely go everywhere... I decided not to think about it.

  “Alright then, I’m gone. I should be back before the sun sets.”

  “Eh? We’re going with you, though.”

  “Huh? Why?” Yumina’s question threw me off. There was no need for them to come somewhere so dangerous. I’d be able to easily take care of it, too.

  “You’ll be able to protect us from being petr
ified, Touya, and we all want to see what a catoblepas looks like.”

  “Not to mention, it’s been awhile since I’ve fought any monsters. Ever since coming to Brunhild, there hasn’t been much need for me to do any fighting.”

  “I too wish to wield my Touka in battle. It has been too long, it has. It would be unreasonable for me to duel the royal knights in a serious life or death battle, it would.” Lu, Elze, and Yae all seem really eager to come with me.

  What?! Not only do they want to come with me, they want to fight too? This quest is for gold-rank adventurers, though. It is true that with my spell, they don’t need to worry about being petrified. And the catoblepas itself doesn’t seem to be too strong on its own... Yumina and Linze look like they want to join too... That’s pretty much everyone. Why do they all want to go so much? Thankfully Leen said she didn’t want to come.

  Ehh, this isn’t going to be a picnic or anything, but... Sure, why not? We’ll fly there on Babylon. Naturally they don’t want to fly through the air using magic, so Babylon is our only choice. The Babylon was pretty big with the Garden, Workshop, Alchemy Lab, Hanger, Tower, and Rampart all docked to it at once.

  Cesca took care of controlling Babylon on the whole. She was more or less the captain of the ship. To carry on the ship metaphor: Rosetta and Monica were the mechanics, Flora was the doctor, and Liora was the navigator and gunner. Not sure if I could call Noel the engineer considering how she just napped all the time.

  “Master. We have reached the airspace above our destination.” Towering mountains were all over the place below us. We’d reached the Melicia Mountain Range, located directly north of Brunhild. The mountains were covered with a thick layer of snow and thick green forests.

  “Where’s the catoblepas?”

  “It is somewhere in the plains to the east of the mountain below us.” The monolith in front of Cesca was displaying video footage of what appeared to be a catoblepas, recorded from one of the Babylon’s sky cameras.

  So it was in Regulus. Relisha’s report was right, it must have nested there.

  I shouldn’t just rush in and fight it immediately. There are petrified adventurers all around it. If I’m not careful, they could get broken... And if that happens, there’s no helping them. It’d be the same thing as killing them.

  We needed to get off somewhere and approach it quietly.

  Everyone else agreed with me, so Yumina, Elze, Linze, Yae, Lu, and I all got off Bablyon using its onboard teleporters.

  “Which way is the catoblepas?”

  “Wait. We should save the petrified people first.” I turned in the opposite direction of the catoblepas and headed towards where most of the petrified adventurers were.

  I soon found three stone statues within the forest, each wearing terrified expressions.

  They were in a bunch of difference poses, with one in particular cowering on the ground, but they all seemed to be in one piece. Even their clothes turned to stone. What an awful curse.

  I guess to be more accurate it’d be better to say that if you make eye contact with a catoblepas both you and your immediate surroundings turn to stone.

  “Touya, hurry and use your magic on them.”

  “Wait, hold up.” I don’t want them to get mixed up in my battle with the catoblepas. I’ll use my magic on them later. For now, we’ll just recover their bodies. “Storage doesn’t work on living beings. How will we carry them?”

  “I think it’ll be fine since they’re stone right now and technically not alive... See? It worked.” I successfully used Storage to recover and store their bodies, thereby washing away Linze’s doubts.

  According to Relisha, there were fifteen adventurers confirmed to have been turned into stone: thirteen red-ranked adventurers and two silver-ranked adventurers. Since I just secured three of them, that left twelve to take care of.

  “Touya, there are statues over there too.” I looked where Lu was pointing and saw four adventurers all frozen in place with similarly terrified expressions on their faces. I stored those four as well and started looking for the rest.

  I advanced while paying attention to my map and steadily stored adventurer after adventurer. Luckily, not a single adventurer ended up being broken.

  I successfully recovered thirteen statues and then finally found the last two. That was all of them.

  “These two are likely the silver-ranked adventurers. I can tell from their expressions alone.” Indeed. These two were wearing expressions of vexation and anger, not fear. Their equipment also looked pretty good. These two were definitely the silver ranked adventurers.

  “This must be the shield one of them was using. It looks pretty new, not worn at all.” Elze picked up a big shield and indeed, it was shining brightly and reflecting light like a mirror.

  “They were probably trying to use this to fight the catoblepas without looking directly at it.” The hero Perseus took down Medusa the same way in a Greek legend. Seems like these two failed in their efforts, even though their plan worked for Perseus.

  I took the shield from Elze. It was surprisingly light. It was likely made from Mithril. They must have polished it for hours until it reflected light like a mirror. The whole thing shone madly. They probably got turned to stone after dropping it by accident.

  I decided to store it along with them. I’d give it back to them later.

  “That should be all of them. I’m glad none of them were broken.”

  “The catoblepas must have lost interest in them after turning them to stone. Unlike living humans, stone statues can’t be eaten.” Oh yeah. I wonder if catoblepases are carnivores. If they turn their prey to stone, they can’t eat them. Maybe they try to eat them before turning them to stone.

  “So, where’s the catoblepas now?”

  “It’s in the forest to the south of us. Let’s approach it from downwind.” Naturally, all of the girls had the [Recovery] skill thanks to their wedding rings. Even if they looked the catoblepas directly in the eyes, they should’ve been able to cure themselves of the petrification curse immediately.

  Yae, Elza, and I took the front with Yumina and Linze in the back and Lu in the middle as we approached the catoblepas.

  “There it is...!” It seemed to be eating an animal it had killed. A deer or a horse. That ruled it out as a herbivore.

  But more importantly, it was way bigger than I expected. It was a little hard to tell from behind, but it looked to be about as big as a fairly large wagon. The catoblepas turned its long neck around to look in our direction. Its face looked more like a boar than a pig. Not to mention the bull horns sprouting out of its heads. It had the body of a cow, but for some reason its fur was fairly long.

  I quickly looked towards its feet so I could avoid making eye contact with it.

  “The best defense is a good offense. Linze and I will attack it with magic. Everyone else, rush it down while we distract it. If you accidentally make eye contact with it, quickly use the [Recovery] spell through your rings.” After seeing everyone nod in understanding, I gestured towards Linze and we started casting magic at the same time.

  “Come forth, o light. Dazzling glare, [Flash]!”

  If the catoblepas had eyes that caused petrification, we just needed to make it unable to use its eyes. These spells would probably only serve as a momentary distraction, but that’d be more than enough time for Elze and everyone else to close the difference between them and it.

  “GRAAAW?!” The catoblepas let out a roar after sand was kicked up into its eyes alongside a flash of blinding light.

  That roar served as a signal for Elze, Yae, and subsequently Lu and I to charge forward with our weapons in hand.

  “Hyah!” Yae’s Touka easily cut straight through the catoblepas’ large tail. No surprise there, considering Yae’s strength and the sharp edge of her blade. That Touka of hers could cut through even solid steel like butter.

  “Take this!” Elze’s follow up punch hit the catoblepas in the side and caused its skin to ruptu
re.

  “BGGRAAAAH!” The catoblepas flailed its body and spits out purple gas from his mouth. That stuff was definitely poisonous. It coated nearby plants, causing them to wilt and die instantly.

  “That’s poison gas! Be careful!” Unfortunately, since we attacked from downwind, the poison gas was heading straight in our direction.

  We split to the left and right to avoid the gas while once again charging towards the catoblepas.

  Lu’s twin blades were made from Phrase Crystal, and thus successfully cut through the catoblepas’ hide as well, but they were too short to cut deep into it. Despite that, it looked like she did some pretty heavy damage.

  It looked like I’d need to use a gravity-assisted swing to finish this thing off once and for all. I take my Phrase longsword out of storage, but the moment I moved to swing it, the catoblepas looked my way and made eye contact with me.

  I immediately felt my body starting to harden. A cold sensation crawled up from my toes as if I had just stepped into ice cold water.

  I couldn’t feel anything below my ankles. I looked down and saw that my shoes had begun turning to stone.

  “Ngh! [Recovery]!” I cast the healing spell and felt the sensation returning back to my feet. But something happened that I never expected.

  [Recovery] didn’t turn my shoes back to normal. They were still stone.

  “S-So heavy!” I couldn’t fight wearing stone shoes. I immediately went to take them off, but it wasn’t so easy to take off shoes made of stone.

  “Get off!” I kicked a nearby tree and smashed the stone shoes to bits. They may have been made of stone, but it was overall easy to break them since the stone was as thin as the fabric that was used to make my shoes. I hated to lose my shoes like that, but it wasn’t the time to be worrying about that kind of thing.

  ...Crap. My socks were turned to stone too. Now I’m in my bare feet.

  Bang! A bullet flew by my head, interrupting my silly antics.

  The bullet from Yumina’s Colt M1860 hit the catoblepas directly in its left eye before detonating. Seems she’d used the [Explosion]-imbued ammo.