Chapter 1
Part 1
“……..What a bad dream that was.”
Yō tossed around on the thatched straw bed, mumbling. The street lights had dimmed, and it was late in the night. In Underwood’s underground city, there is always a cool breeze from the riverside, but at night it becomes a bit chilly. It was probably for this reason that the harvest festival’s main game was held in the daytime. Tomorrow would be the eve of the festival when the main game, ‘The Horsemen of Hippo Camp’, would be hosted. So she wanted to get as much rest as possible, but that dream was badly timed.
(………Wanting to be friends with a gryphon, huh? )
Remembering her last conversation with her father, she gripped her pendant. It’s been 3 years since that night of a full moon. Although back then, she didn’t really bring it up much after people around her had scoffed at her story, but now she could say it with confidence for the dream had just confirmed it— The place her father had travelled to is of this world, the world of Little Garden.
(─────,)
Breaking into a smile, she let out a sigh and tried going back to sleep. Indeed, she had said that she wanted to see the ‘outside world’, but not even in her dreams that she thought of had it as anything more than a metaphor. Her relatives said that her father was a vagrant, but to think he’d leave his daughter to go wandering around in a parallel universe, she was so far beyond anger that she couldn’t help but laugh. As she bitterly smiled, Calico, who was on the pillow, sleepily lifted his neck.
“………Ojou? Wus’ wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Sorry I woke you up.”
She apologized as she rubbed Calico’s neck. Calico purred in content and curled up into a ball.
(If I told Calico about what happened to Dad………would he say that we should look for him? )
She lowered her eyelids and silently grasped her pendant. But that would be impossible, Yō thought. There were three big reasons why Yō didn’t go looking for her father after coming to the Little Garden. The biggest reason was that Yō and the others were all summoned from different eras. Being summoned from any era suggested that there was the possibility of being summoned into the Little Garden at any time period. If Yō were to pinpoint her position on the time line, she wouldn’t know if her father existed in the ‘past Little Garden’ or the ‘future Little Garden’. If that was the case, there would be no way she could look for him. Another big reason was………indeed, the aforementioned invitation.
‘Cast aside your family, your friends, your belongings, and the world, and come to the Little Garden.’
Cast aside your past, your family, and your identity, and come; that one sentence swayed her heart, and was why she was here in the Little Garden. To cast aside the Yō that distanced herself from other people, and only conveyed her heart to animals, for new relationships………to make new friends was the reason she came here.
Izayoi and Asuka also probably cast aside the same things to answer their summons. But she was the only one dragging around her past, which slowed her down. Moreover, this time she’d tried to cheer on Izayoi, causing issues for the community. She wanted to avoid causing anymore trouble than this.
(………Come to think of it, Izayoi was supposed to come over tonight, wasn’t he.)
Yō got up from the bed and picked up the cat ear headphones next to the candlestick.
(……..As I thought, makeshift headphones won’t do the job. I should at least win the gift from tomorrow’s ‘Horsemen of Hippo Camp’ as a present………)
And she’d apologize. They might not forgive her even if she did, but it was a rule of the herd to follow through with one’s ideals.
(It seems Ayesha will also be participating, but I can’t afford to lose this time. Tomorrow, the first thing I'll do in the morning , is to go find a Hippocamp I can rely on.)
She tightened her grip on the cat ear headphones and slipped back into bed.
………But maybe because she was overflowing with motivation, she was so excited that she couldn’t sleep. While she thought about how to get to sleep, she heard the sound of heartstrings loudly out of nowhere.
(………Nn……)
*Bolin*[1], the relaxing sound stimulated her eardrums. It was a sound she’d heard somewhere before, but she was too tired to care. Yō’s eyelids became heavy at that moment, and she fell into a deep slumber. Entrusting herself to a gentle Sandman[2], her consciousness faded and then.
A streak of lightning flashed as the lodge collapsed in a cloud of dust along with the ground.
“Fugyaa!?”
“W-wha………!!?”
Lightning poured down, ripping up the ground. The blast sent Yō and Calico into mid-air towards Underwood’s steep cliffs, nearly falling down the cliff where the huge waterfall leap off edge to the depths below. Righting her stance and with all traces of her drowsiness gone, Yō immediately started thinking to get a grasp of the situation.
(That sound just now………! That’s the sound of the harp that was stolen yesterday………!?)
Heartstrings that steal one’s consciousness. It was the [Golden Harp] that Yō took from her opponent. It took no time for her to realize that for some sort of reason, it was safe to assume that it was retaken by the enemy. Shaking off the Sandman, Yō immediately decided upon the course of action to meet up with the other [No Name] members. But the lightning showered down again and again, burning the roots of the trees and caused the ground to cave in.
Just like a cascade from a waterfall, the debris and shattered stones rained down after the initial explosions that launched them into the air. While skillfully maneuvering to dodge the rocks, Yō spotted a Kodama girl out of the corner of her eye.
“Kyaa!?”
“Look out!”
Summoning the wind and taking flight, she pulled the Kodama girl’s hand out from the caving ground. Dodging the burning roots of a falling tree, Yō was surprised by the girl she had just rescued.
“Are you alright………e,eh? Aren’t you the receptionist at the harvest festival?”
“Ye, Yeas. I’m Kirino. You are [No Name]’s……”
“Mhm. I’d like to have us introduce ourselves to each other, but let’s save that for later.”
“A-alright.”
The Kodama girl who called herself Kirino lowered her head in a bow as her flowered hair ornament rocked about. Yō hugged Kirino as she flew through the wreckage. Meanwhile, the rumbling of the thunder echoed throughout Underwood. To get as much information as possible, Yō raised her hearing to the maximum and tuned in to her surroundings. When she did, she heard a suspicious conversation from the watch tower.
“B-bad news! The Titans are also coming this way!!”
“What’d you say!?”
“Dammit, they’re coming out of the woodwork at a time like this………!!!”
No sooner had Yō heard of this before the bells started to ring to warn the people about the Titans’ attack. In the midst of the whirling pandemonium, there just had to be more bad news to top it off.
“The bell that signals an invasion………! It can’t be, even the Titans have appeared………!?”
Kirino let out a desperate cry as she trembled, holding onto Yō. But Yō’s problem laid elsewhere.
(………The Titans, too? )
She furrowed her brow in uneasiness and it was soon after that black sealed letters began to fall from the sky. Upon grabbing the black letter that brushed the tip of her nose, Yō suddenly turned pale,
“Ku………A sealed black Geass Roll letter!? It can’t be─────!?”
Touching down to the ground to drop Kirino off, Yō cut the seal with a nervous look.
<<GIFT GAME NAME: “SUN SYNCHRONOUS ORBIT in VAMPIRE KING”>>
List of Participant(s):
*All living things engulfed by the Circle of Animals
*#Upon the disappearance of the Circle of Animals, the game will be put on hold for an indefinite amount of time.
Defeat Condition(s):
*None [Death of Participants will not be counted as being unable to clear the game]
Prohibition(s):
*None.
Punishment(s):
*A time limit will be imposed upon all the participants who have targeted and fought against the leader of the game.
*The time limit will be a continuous time loop that occurs every ten days.
*The choice of punishment will be chosen randomly from [Impaling], [Crucifixion], and [Immolation].
*The only way to be freed of the punishment would be to clear the game or during a pause in the game.
*#The death of the participant is not included within the conditions to be freed from the punishment and they will continue to suffer indefinitely.
Winning conditions of the Host:
*None.
Winning conditions of the Participant:
*Kill the leader of the game: [Draculea Demon Lord].
*Kill the leader of the game: [Leticia Draculea].
*Gather the broken fragments of the constellations, and bring the Circle of Animals to present to the throne.
*Following the proper procedure and using the Circle of Animals that have been restored to the throne as a guide, strike the heart of the revolutionist who is bounded in chains.
Oath: I hereby respect the above conditions in the name of pride, our banner, and the Host Master to uphold this Gift Game.
“ ” Seal
“Wha………What kind of game is this………!?”
The letter’s contents were pure nonsense. Yō had lived in the Little Garden for two months, but this was the first time she’d seen something like this. Worthy of note were the evil penalty conditions. It was completely different from the gift games Yō had seen up until now, foreign and dripping with malice.
(A,And it says that Leticia is a game master………What’s going on─────!? )
“It’s dangerous, get out of the way!!”
She had leapt back at Kirino’s cry. Just next to the two, two large objects like rocky masses fell. Yō looked at the two rocky masses, mystified by their momentum, which seemed a bit strange to have been caused by a cave-in. They stared on for a little while, but without any information, they didn’t know what to make of it.
We should get back to the surface, Yō thought as she turned her back, and then—
Massive tentacles shot out from the rocky mass, capturing Kirino.
“Kyaa!!”
“K-Kirino………!?”
*Crap* was the word that flashed in her mind but it was too late to regret. Looking at the rocky mass, it had grown not only ten massive tentacles, but four legs as well, and had started to move. In addition, the other rocky mass emitted intense heat from its entire body and became a 20 foot long salamander; its fiery breath scattered about, burning down a house.
“O,O,Ojou! The boulder turned into a monster!?”
“………A salamander and………a tentacle monster………!?”
The two monsters were not as large as the Titans, but their presence felt far more oppressive. In need of backup, Yō looked around for help, but she couldn’t find anyone. Yō glanced at the residents of Underwood, who were running around avoiding the burned down roots of trees and the cave in, and with a look of determination, she dropped Calico from her arms.
“O,Ojou………!”
“………Calico. I’ll take on those two, so go find Asuka.”
“Y,ya got it, but takin’ on those two monsters is………!”
“I’ll be okay. I won’t do anything crazy. When I save Kirino, I’ll meet up with you. ─────Go!”
Just as she said this, Yō took flight in a whirlwind. Clenching his teeth, Calico turned his back and ran off. In the next moment, a flash pale streak of bluish-white lightning lit up the night sky of Underwood.
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