ocean-life Chapter 411
Chapter 411
Day 96 – Evening, White Weirdo Inn Keeping alert and scanning the area, he stepped through the door without letting his guard down, and just like that, the ever-familiar black-robed, black-caped Haruka-kun was back. All units, target acquired!
「「「Welcome back! Great work out there!」」」
「Come on, have a seat~」
「「「If you don’t sit down, we’ll have to arrest you! ❤」」」
Everyone was fully into it, Mini-Skirt Police mode. They were decked out in tight, blue, figure-hugging mini-skirts, matching blue ties and police hats, and Haruka-kun was completely frozen.
Stunned and immobilized, he was seized from both sides by the Mini-Skirt Police officers and dragged to a seat. Target secured. Mission complete. That’s right, hit him with an unfamiliar costume, catch him off guard, and march him dazed into the dining hall, where he’s now being spoon-fed katsudon with a sweet 『Aahn』 still totally in shock. Oh? System reboot complete?
「Wh-wh-wha… Why are you dressed as Mini-Skirt Police? I don’t remember ever making that outfit, but the design does look familiar, and now there’s a whole variety of multi-color cosplay police uniforms, and this inn is dangerously close to being shut down for criminal-level high school girl labor violations, yet the Mini-Skirt Police are the ones enforcing the law and now it’s 『A~hn ❤』 ugh, ngh, munch munch?」
Yes, all we really did was take a multicolor shirt, pair it with a tight mini-skirt and set it to blue too, then add on top some matching handmade police caps and badges, and for makeshift ties we got some scarves. Voiola, improvised Mini-Skirt Police. But it caught him so off guard that he was swiftly arrested, dragged off, and brought in for katsudon 『interrogation』 with a sweet 『A~hn ❤』. For the record, the katsudon was from Haruka-kun’s own meal prep stash.
「「「Thanks for your hard work today~ ❤」」」
「Would you like dinner~?」
「Or maybe a bath~?」
「「「Oor… maay… beee.. mmmm……」」」
「Lalalala I can’t hear you, I’m totally channeling Hoichi the Earless right now, or maybe Beethoven in his later years, deaf but spiritually resonant, so no, I decided I can’t hear you~? And if this is a setup with the Mini-Skirt Police being the actual cause, and I end up being reported with 『Officer! It’s this guy right here!』 then that’s entrapment by law enforcement! What kind of messed-up system is it where the Mini-Skirt Police are lewder than the people they’re arresting?! Who do I report this to?」
His pupils were darting around like pinballs, looking like a kaleidoscope on overdrive, but we already had him disarmed. Leave him alone for five minutes and he’d be back to training or crafting, so we had him disarmed and restrained. All of that work is surely for our own protection, be it training so he could grow stronger, or the equipment he is making for Arianna-san and us, or crafting self-defense tools.
Between outfitting Oda-kun’s and Kakizaki-kun’s teams, he was running on sleep deprivation with no days off. Even if you gave him time off, he’d just go mining for ore. That’s why we had to force him to rest. Using costumes to create an opening, we closed the distance, stripped him of his gear, and swarmed him with a hands-on contact strategy that was less of a bodypile and more of a slightly inappropriate cuddle pile, and following the flow he was now completely at our mercy. Wow, that was easy?
「And you know? Just a tiny bit more, okay~? We’d like to tackle just slightly deeper floors~ ❤ (*squish squish*)」
「I promise we won’t do anything reckless, okay? We’ll make sure we have an escape route and emergency gear and everything? (*jiggle jiggle*)」
「You’ll say yes, right? Riiight? If it ever feels even a little dangerous, we’ll fall back immediately? (*boing boing*)」
「「「Please? Just to the 89th floor with four parties! Even the 85th would be fine~ (*squeeze squeeze, squish squish, rub rub…*)」」」
They were hanging off his neck, one on his lap, the others clinging to his arms from both sides, pressuring him to say 『yes』. They pressed against him, twined themselves around him, hand-fed him with『A~hn』 and puppy-dog eyes, gently rubbing his thighs, taking turns in a rotating shift of relentless plea-attacks. Since coming back, he’d been frozen in place, eyes swimming and ears bright red, stuck in a full-blown panic-confused berserk state, and still somehow trying to resist.
But if we want to get stronger, we must to go deeper. We’ve hit another wall at Level 110. And if we stay weak like this, Haruka-kun will keep pushing himself far beyond his limits, forcing, straining, and tearing himself apart. His body yesterday was covered in bruises. Even on hot days, he wraps himself completely in a black cloak. His casual clothes all hide his skin… and the boys’ bath is the only one without a public bathing area, just a private tub. Angelica-san and Nefertiri-san tearfully talked about how his body is breaking down, shattered, fractured, torn, bleeding, vomiting as he fights, collapsing, crawling, and still pushing himself through battles that break him apart from within.
They say he smiles while gushing blood, pats them on the head, and says,『I’m fine』. How is any of that 『fine』?!
We were just starting to believe that maybe his body wouldn’t break anymore, but then he kept adding more equipment, upgrading his weapons, training new techniques, and putting more and more strain on his body. We thought he was just adjusting his body after it could no longer endure his previous fighting style… but turns out he was getting even stronger. So strong that even two Dungeon Emperors put it into words. Strong, and brittle.
That’s why we have to grow stronger. We have to be strong enough to say,『It’s okay now. You don’t have to push yourself anymore』. That’s why everyone is being so persistent. To be honest, we’re all pretty embarrassed, but compared to what Haruka-kun’s body is going through, it doesn’t matter anymore.