Chapter 9
INVULNERABLE HARMLESS (CONTINUATION)
If you think running in wet underwear and a T-shirt, barefoot, in a stupid hat is easy, you're mistaken. It's unpleasant not only physically, but mentally as well. Although you won't meet many travelers on the road this early in the morning, that doesn't account for the local farmers, who get up with the dawn and tend to their fields. I could just feel it in my skin, how they stared in amazement at the idiot running past in his underwear and hat.
By the end of this cross-country run, I had gotten so heated that my T-shirt and underwear were almost dry, though I myself was sweating heavily, like a winded horse. The Twilight Blades were almost at the dungeon entrance when they came into my line of sight. I was gasping for air from the fast run, so I was no longer capable of shouting. Only a crow-like caw escaped my throat. Not loud enough for them to hear. I despaired. It was impossible to catch them before the dungeon entrance. And once they went in, players of such a high level would quickly clear the dungeon down to the fifth level. Besides, in the dungeon's confusing labyrinth, I might not even find them.
However, in the next moment, luck finally smiled on me; Elayna, who was bringing up the rear of their group, glanced back and noticed me. She told her companions about me, and they stopped. I, spurred on by my achievement, put on another burst of speed and finally ran up to them, gasping like a marathon runner after a forty-two-kilometer race.
"What happened? Why are you without clothes? Did monsters attack the city?"
I desperately tried to catch my breath, bent in half and shaking my head, denying all the versions of possible events they were throwing at me.
"Don't go!"
I blurted out the phrase, again gulping for air, for life-giving oxygen. Damn it! How can I get enough air?
They exchanged glances? Apparently, because I was barely clothed, they didn't initially recognize me as the person from the other shore they had passed an hour ago.
"You won't come back. You'll all die. Don't go into Tavna today," I finally managed to say between gasps.
"What nonsense are you spouting? Who are you?" asked a puzzled Leonidas.
"My name is Timm Thaler, I am an envoy from a high-tech civilization on your backward planet." I was spouting any nonsense just to delay them longer. Although, why is it nonsense? It's not nonsense! Though, for them, it sounds like that… What the hell am I saying?! Is 1939 really high-tech? It's more like dieselpunk!
The captain of the Twilight Blades' eyebrow shot up questioningly. "Whaaat?"
He was bewildered, and that was good. The more I puzzled them, the better!
But Stratos suddenly complicated the situation.
"Ah! I recognize him! It's that same asshole from the other side of the river. He swam across. See, his clothes are still wet."
"The queen's lover?" asked Elayna, standing slightly behind the party. As expected, the men of the party had unconsciously moved between me and her. A protective reaction, just in case.
"I am not the queen's lover!" I retorted indignantly.
"Then who are you?" Gawain asked sternly. It was the first time I'd heard his voice. A low baritone. As if someone were speaking from a pipe. It would suit a priest for sermons.
"I already told you, an envoy from a high-tech civilization."
I was desperately thinking of what else to say. My heart was still pounding wildly. I couldn't tell them they would kill each other over Elayna. What to do? Father, what would you do in my place?
"Well, since you're an envoy, we're about to send you somewhere," Leonidas said, suddenly harsh. He stepped up to me with his drawn sword and placed the very tip of the blade at my throat. Literally an inch away. Turning halfway to the rest of the company, without taking his eyes off me, he explained his behavior, "He's very suspicious!"
Then it hit me. Exactly! Father said that in such cases, you have to use authority. They didn't know anything about me yet, except for the "warning poster" in the guild that Stratos had seen.
"I am an envoy of the goddess Aya, Patroness of Aramia," I announced importantly, ignoring the tip of the blade, which had a blueish gleam. It was too large to be practical in reality, but perfectly suitable for people who support all their physical abilities with magic.
"You're lying."
"Aya has blessed me with invulnerability. You can't harm me."
I had won a point in this match for now. I wasn't lying. Not about Aya, nor about the invulnerability. Or rather, I mostly wasn't lying.
"I'm not lying!"
Well, or not entirely. Or halfway. Don't pressure me, okay!
"I'll strike you and you'll die, on the spot. This is a high-level, magic-reinforced blade. You will die instantly," Leonidas remarked in a serious and menacing tone, calculated to frighten me.
"Go ahead. Try," I replied nonchalantly.
"You asked for it."
"No, Leonidas!" Elayna cried, suddenly intervening. "You'll kill him! Can't you see the boy is crazy!"
Leonidas hesitated.
"He won't," I reassured him in the calmest tone I could muster. "Try to wound me in the arm, if you doubt it…"
For a whole five minutes, they tried to harm me. With a sword, a spear, and magic.
"Maybe he's just a high-level mage with an impenetrable defense? Did he grind his defense to level ninety-nine somewhere?" Stratos suggested, already poking me with the tip of his spear without much enthusiasm. The spear would hit an invisible field and its momentum would instantly brake. I had seen the exact same thing when my father showed me an experiment in my childhood with a copper plate and a strong magnet. The large magnet would immediately lose energy if it was moved too quickly toward the thick copper plate, as if an invisible hand were squeezing it in a super-grip, just millimeters from the metal's surface. "These are called Foucault Currents or Eddy Currents," Father had explained back then, in a lecturer's voice.
Seeing their confusion, I really got carried away.
"Maybe that's enough? It seems clear that I'm an envoy of the great Aya."
"Why would the Goddess send us a moron?"
"You're the moron!"
I was getting more and more angry at Stratos. Of the whole foursome, he was the most obnoxious. It was clear Leonidas was a narcissist, but at least he wasn't such a stubborn and distrustful ass.
"Your world will soon be destroyed. I was sent by the goddess to save you. And I received this blessing to complete this mission. Believe me!"
"There are no red giants. That's a thousand-year-old myth. Besides, no giants are scary to us. There are monsters in the dungeon many times stronger than mythical ten-foot giants. Even adventurers who aren't that high-level could chop them up," Stratos commented on my words, finally stopping his poking and leaning on his spear.
I realized he was hopeless and shifted my gaze to Leonidas, then Elayna, and finally to Gawain, looking for support. And Gawain did indeed offer it, but it only made things worse.
"If the Goddess Aya blessed you with such a gift of defense, then what about offense? To help us destroy the giant invasion army, she surely must have given you an equally strong gift of attack. Am I right?"
He'd cornered me! I bit my lip. And after a pause, I answered deliberately.
"I cannot interfere in your war with the giants directly. I have no gift of attack."
"Then what's the point of your help, O Invulnerable Harmless?" Stratos mockingly bestowed me with the derisive nickname, a rude smile on his face. "Now I get why the queen kicked you out of the palace, lover-boy!"
If it weren't for this damned system restriction, I would have hit this guy. Even knowing he would beat me up afterward. Stratos was already pissing me off.
"Stop it, Stratos," Gawain said calmly. He thoughtfully stroked his chin, considering the situation.
I could only guess what was going on in his head right now. He was just as crazy with jealousy and love as the other two. But apparently, due to his age, his mind wasn't as consumed by love fever. Besides, it seemed he was the real captain here. The informal one. The ten-plus year age difference made itself known. The other two seemed strangely timid around him.
"When will the invasion happen?" he asked.
"In exactly one month and one day."
"Does the queen know this timeframe?"
"Yes."
"Then it's not our business. We are adventurers. A month is enough time for her to gather an army and deal with this evil. If it's true, of course. Let's go, guys, we're wasting time here."
I grabbed my head and desperately shouted after them. "You don't understand a damn thing! No one can handle it. Not your army, not the adventurers, not the beastmen. You need to be taught how to kill them. You don't even understand what's going to happen to you!"
However, my desperate plea was in vain. Without looking back, Gawain strode toward the dungeon entrance. Leonidas and Stratos followed. Leonidas just shrugged, while Stratos, before leaving, gave me another mocking smile:
"Farewell, Invulnerable Harmless!"
I was in despair. My second attempt to change the course of events in this world had failed. Now this party would disappear into the dungeon and start betraying each other. Gawain would set up Stratos, then Leonidas, but Leonidas would manage to deal him a mortal wound before dying. Unable to defend himself from a level-nine monster, Gawain—who, by the way, secretly had a second profession as a swordsman—would also die. And Elayna, left without protection on the lower level, would immediately fall victim to high-level monsters. As she ran down the corridor, crying, some kind of armored lizard would catch her and run her through, spilling her guts. She would scream. The end of the fairy tale and the dreams of the village beauty who dreamed of being a famous adventurer. I vaguely remember the drawings from the manga. The horror on her face, Gawain bleeding out. Stratos bitten in half. Now this tragedy would become reality. No matter what I told them, they were, as if programmed, for this ending. I can't change anything. I'm nobody. Back in the game, the player could change and influence things. But here, I'm not even an NPC—a non-player character. I'm a non-player in the sense that this isn't a game anymore. I'm more like an NPOC—a non-participating outside character. I need to become a Playing Outside Character to have an influence. But giving up my citizenship and staying here isn't an option. I'm not here to get stuck among android dolls for my whole life. They're interesting, but they aren't real people. Father said that AIs have some kind of natural, unnoticeable flaw that makes them slightly different from real people. What is this flaw? Why didn't I ask him then? I don't see it! They're like people! Perfectly ordinary. A bit rude and overconfident, true. But that's a product of transformer training. Each of them has been trained on trillions of combinations of their weights to be exactly the character they are meant to play. And again, why do those aliens, those "First Ones" even need to leave them as they are? It would be enough to change their personalities a little, give each of them a little house on the shore of a picturesque lake. And let them live out their days. What a complicated way to let everyone commit mass-suicide! What should I do? What should I do? There has to be a way out! Father! What do I do now? Why did you drag me into this? We're not going to get any antibiotics. The Red Giants will kill everyone! And Earthlings will be stuck in the "technological year" 1939 forever. Stop! Why am I giving up so quickly? I have to fight to the end, that's what Father taught me. To the end!
"Elayna-san!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as the group was already entering the dungeon. "Elayna-san, don't go with them, leave this party! They will kill each other because of you! You will also be responsible for their deaths! You'll die yourself and get the guys killed, guys who could kill at least one giant in the future!"
I kept yelling even after they had completely disappeared into the dungeon. I knew they would still be able to hear me for a while. At least two minutes.
"Elayna-san, I know you're a good person and not evil. You had a very good little white dog that your father gave you, I know how hard it was for you when she died. You bounced along country roads for a week to get to the capital, listening to that tedious, balding merchant. Was it all just so the best adventurers would die because of you? Ever since you were a child, you've loved that book about Ophelia, the holy swordswoman, the coolest adventurer of antiquity, who casually chatted with gods and goddesses. And she could defeat a minotaur for breakfast and a dragon for lunch. Would she have acted as dishonestly as you are now? Provoking men with your beauty!"
I fell silent after that burst of arguments. Really stupid ones; it was all I could read, remember from the manga. There really was a picture in the manga of her puppy, which her father gave her deep in her childhood. And in the novel, she died. Anyway, it didn't seem to have affected her. I sat down on the grass, then lay on my back, fixing my gaze on the endless blue sky, trying to relax for a minute. To release the tension. The sun had already risen quite high. I was tired, I was hungry from that damned run and the stupid dialogues and Stratos's taunts. My thoughts flowed sluggishly now that the tension was released. I had to do something. Wait for the event in the next chapter. Maybe I should just go after them and try to interfere somehow? That would probably just anger them. So what if it does!
"How do you know about my dog?"
I opened my eyes in surprise and saw Elayna looming over me. Her legs shone with the gleam of perfectly smooth and well-kept skin, and her dark blue—the color of her eyes—short dress, like an ancient Greek tunic with a gold border, hugged her very feminine yet athletic body. Her witch's hat, from under which a silver waterfall of her long locks spilled, cast a shadow on my face, and I didn't have to squint from the sun to see all this splendor. If she had moved literally an inch forward, I would have seen an even more interesting picture.
"How do you know about my dog?" she repeated the question, smoothing the lower part of her dress just in case, apparently having tracked the trajectory of my involuntary gaze. A purely automatic gesture, nipping any advances in the bud.
I broke into a huge grin. Jackpot! I'd stolen Elayna from the Twilight Blades and prevented the deaths of those three idiots. Isn't that a point for me? Is the score 1:1 now? Deal with it, Kunisada-san!
Kunisada-san: A long-dead author of extremely sad Japanese light novels, full of anime clichés. Of little interest to anyone until one crazy trillionaire created the Divine Game with sentient NPCs based on his unpopular novel!