Instant Death

By the time Yogiri and Tomochika arrived at the city it was already dusk.

"Ended up being quite the distance. Since we walked for about an hour I guess around four kilometers?"

"Wow―― To think it would take us this long to arrive, I certainly didn't expect that, hmm――"

Tomochika replied with quite some sarcasm. They could have arrived much sooner, but Yogiri suddenly fell asleep and their departure was delayed.

"Not my fault I get tired from using my power."

"Isn't that pretty dangerous then?"

Since their safety relied almost entirely on Yogiri's power Tomochika couldn't help but be worried by the sudden drawback.

"Not really? The sleepiness isn't so bad that I can't wake up when I feel like it, and since I can sense killing intent even while asleep there isn't really any problem."

"What's up with that utter lack of demerits…"

Tomochika mumbled next to Yogiri, who looked at the city now in front of him.

The wall they could already see from the bus appeared to circle the entire city, restricting access to a few guarded locations.

They saw what appeared like an entrance and headed there.

"Hey, doesn't it look like they're about to close the gate?"

"Isn't it normal to close them over night?"

"Well let's hurry up and make a run for it!"

"Hurrying's fine, but can't we just wa――"

Tomochika broke into a run right away and Yogiri followed shortly behind.

"E-excuse me! We would like to enter the city!"

"@@@@@@@@@@?"

"I have no clue what you're saying!"

Tomochika approached who appeared to be a gatekeeper, but the response she got were words she couldn't even assign a language to. The gatekeeper had blonde hair and strong facial features, a face far from Japanese; hearing fluent Japanese come out of his mouth would probably have been more perplexing than whatever language he spoke instead.

"Well, it would be strange if it were any different."

Yogiri considered that this would be the case, although he hoped it wouldn't. The inability to speak with the locals would be quite an issue.

"A little, understand. Japanese people?"

Suddenly the gatekeeper addressed them in Japanese, albeit fairly broken.

"Right! Can we please enter?"

"Wait. Feudal lord, I'll get."

The two students were lead to a room in the wall and after waiting in their chairs for a while the gatekeeper returned with a man, most likely the feudal lord he mentioned. He was covered in extravagant clothes and clearly Japanese.

"More Japanese, eh. You from a different group than the ones that got here at noon? You guys are such a headache, what do you want?"

The man didn't even try to hide his bad mod.

Feudal lords. According to Hanakawa, they were acolytes who received a particularly influential social rank.

Yogiri replied without letting the feudal lord's tone get to him.

"We lost sight of those guys from noon and are trying to catch up to them right now. Could we enter the city?"

After discussing the matter they decided that their first objective should be to regroup with their classmates. It was questionable whether they could reconcile with the rest of their class after being left behind as bait, but since the sages seemed to be the key to returning to their own world they decided that tagging along with the group currently trying to become sages was their smartest course of action.

"Tch. Usually there's a fee for entering, but not like you've got money anyway. You're lucky the sages ordered not to obstruct any sage candidates. Fine, enter."

"Appreciate it. Just wondering, how much would the entry fee be?"

"Thousand en a person."

They probably carried that much with them, but Yogiri decided to go along with his hospitality and enter for free.

"Apparently the ones that entered before us left for the royal capital, any advice on how to get there ourselves?"

"Just because I was told not to obstruct you doesn't mean I'm gonna help you, go figure it out yourself."

"Well thanks."

There didn't seem to be any point in staying and they got up from their chairs.

"Oh right. Since you ain't got any money you also got no place to sleep, right? Just the girl, I wouldn't mind letting you stay at my mansion. How about it, eh?"

"I'm fine!"

She ignored the vulgar expression on his face, grabbed Yogiri's hand and dragged him along as she left. When they exited the wall and arrived in the city she finally stopped and let go of Yogiri's hand.

"Were you so against the idea?"

The way she hurried outside struck Yogiri as odd.

"Well, yeah, it did bother me, but what I was more worried about was his life. You know, just in case you decided to kill him."

"Come on, I'm not some serial killer."

"Oh my. I must say, your lack of self-awareness is a little surprising."

"Hey now, not like I'd kill someone just because I can't stand them or something. You should reflect on your eye for people."

Yogiri was a little hurt. It felt like he was thought of as going around killing anything and everything, harmful or not.

"Ah, look! It totally feels like a fantasy town here! Aa! There's even people that look like cats! Catpeople, I guess?"

Tomochika was in high spirits as she looked around the town, not taking notice of Yogiri's hurt feelings.

Stone-built houses were lining the stone-paved street and the city's level of civilization didn't appear that low, a little like Europe during its later half of the Renaissance.

"Are those street lights electrical? Maybe they've got outlets to charge at?"

"You and your console. Anyway, about what we should do from here…"

"Whatever we do we should probably do it before nightfall. Did you have something in mind?"

"I think we should start by getting some weapons!"

Tomochika seemed very passionate about her proposal.

＊＊＊＊＊

They couldn't read the letters of this world, but thanks to the pictures drawn on the shops' signs they could more or less find their way and soon they discovered a weapons dealer.

"Honestly, I don't really see the point of relying on weapons for self-defense."

"But using your power for self-defense basically means killing your target, right?"

"Well, yeah, but getting killed for trying to kill someone is a 'reap what you sow' sort of deal if you ask me."

"Sure, but don't you think people are less likely to come attacking in the first place if they see us carrying weapons?" 𝗳𝒓𝙚e𝓌e𝚋𝙣𝚘𝐯𝙚𝙡.𝑐૦ｍ

"You think? I don't know, doesn't feel like it'd really make a difference."

But since Tomochika was so eager about it he decided to at least give it a try.

The inside of the shop was booming with customers, a clear indicator that this world was dangerous enough for weapons to be in such high demand. All kinds of equipment were on display and everywhere were shoppers inspecting them closely. There was some more in the back of the building, most likely the high-grade items.

Some of the customers were clearly different from humans, ranging from mostly normal looking people with no more than cat ears instead of regular ones to people covered in fur or even scales, far from comparable to humans. They all appeared to coexist in this world.

"How about this?"

Tomochika passed Yogiri a short sword, roughly 30 centimeters in length. It was lighter than he expected and lay well in his hands, but he couldn't say it gave him a feeling of safety.

"If it's for the sake of threat then wouldn't a rougher looking one be better?"

"Yeah, but how are you going to walk around with something like a greatsword? You don't seem the muscle-man kind of guy."

"Well, anything's fine by me."

"Alright, so this one it is!"

Tomochika was oddly enthusiastic about it.

The way she handled the weapons somehow looked like she was used to it. For herself she picked a quarterstaff and a bow.

"The balance is a little, well, hmm. I kind of want to try adding a hazuyari, but that doesn't seem doable without some remodeling…"

(Note: A blade attached to the tip of bows for sake of melee combat.)

Tomochika was lost in grumbling as she fiddled with her bow.

"Sorry to interrupt, but can we even pay without talking their language?"

"I guess we just show him what we want to buy and hand over some money?"

Putting her words into action she went up to the counter, the weapons in hand.

"Excuse me, do you speak Japanese?"

"OK! Understand! Japanese, regular customers!"

You couldn't call him fluent, but it appeared the residents of this world were used to dealing with Japanese.

Tomochika tried guessing an appropriate sum and put it on the counter, but the shopkeeper was visible surprised. It was probably too much, but since they had more money than they knew what to do with Tomochika urged him to take it. Probably not wanting to rob them of their money he went ahead and added on things like arrowheads and a scabbard to their purchase.

"It's nice that we've got all these weapons now, but aren't bows pretty difficult to handle?"

"Ah, no worries. Used to them."

"Oh, were you part of the archery club?"

"Not a club, but yeah, something like that."

They made their way back outside while talking about their purchase, when suddenly a girl with cat ears walked up to them. It seemed she was waiting for them to finish shopping.

"Are you two Nyapanese? First time seeing you in this city, you wouldn't be looking for a guide, nya?"

They were addressed by someone with fluent Japanese, cat ears and a strange verbal tic.