May 2018 – ThatGuyOverThere

03-12 Departing to the Royal Capital

Editor: Fractal

After a while, Alysia finally woke up from her second nap.
She moved her legs inside the futon and turned around. As she did, her hand touched something hard. Opening her heavy eyelids, she saw the present given to her by the black-haired beauty in front of her.

She was dumbfounded as to how it got there, before realising another fact. The cross pendant was already placed around her neck.
She could probably accept the fact the other items were placed next to her but for the pendant to be on her neck, truly a feat only a god could accomplish.

Alysia got changed and shifted her attention back towards towards the bed.
She wondered if Sheriana had woken up before her, since part of the futon had already been rolled up. Noticing this, Alysia placed the scythe and her licence on the table before heading for the living room.

“Morning! Ah, you were here, Claire.”

“Yes. I didn’t feel like returning because Sheria stayed here yesterday,” Claire said, seizing Sheria as she walked past. She was ready to leave, seeing as she had already put on her usual white clothing and academy robe.

“By the way, I will be going to the royal capital today… Sorry, but I can’t take you guys along.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Can you buy us some souvenirs in return?”

In response to Sherianna’s begging, Alysia thought for a moment before finally opening her mouth again.
“In that case, what kind of souvenirs would you like? I’m fine even if you’re a bit greedy.”

Having overheard the conversation, Fian popped her face out from the rarely used kitchen. Walking towards Alysia, her right hand held a tray with a glass of juice on top.

“For me… I’d love a relatively high-quality magic staff!”

“Got it. What about you two?”

“Ah, uhm…”

This thoroughly surprised Claire, because even though they were allowed to be slightly greedy, a new magic staff was still a hefty investment.

“…A short sword sounds good to me! One with a good magic conductivity!”

“A short sword, right, that’s fine as well.”

Alysia easily accepted Sherianna’s wish.
As a matter of fact, Sherianna had been talking about wanting a short sword for a while now. However, a short sword with a good magic conductivity was a bit expensive so she wasn’t able to locate one anywhere in the academy city.
Sherianna had asked Alysia for one, realising that this would be the only chance she had finally acquire one.

“What would you like, Claire?”

“What should I get…”

“You can ask for anything. The two of them want magic tools, but you can ask for something like an accessory.”

“Then, you can choose for me. Please get something that you think is good for me.”

“Got it, now I have gathered all three requests,” said Alysia, taking out a notepad from the holder on right side of her belt. She wrote their requests down in Japanese.

“Wait, actually, where’s Lisel?”

“He left just a short while ago.”

“Too bad. I wanted to ask him what he’d like…” Alysia grumbled as she slid her notepad back into the holder.
Never would Alysia have thought that this statement would spread the rumour about Lisel being her boyfriend.

—

“I’m leaving, bye.”

“Please stay safe.”

Alysia was sent off by four people in at the entrance of the academy. Even though they had class later in the day, Alysia received permission from the principal to skip it due to the guild’s commission.

Alysia would ride to the royal capital using the carriage waiting for her in front of the guild.
She was wearing her school shoes and a red, one-piece dress. The cross pendant lay on her neck. The right side of her belt held a grimoire and notepad, restrained inside a holder. Lastly, her beloved katana was on her left side. Even with all this, it was still more or less a formal look for Alysia.

She walked on the road for a bit before arriving at the guild. There were about ten carriages on standby in front of her.
Groove, the receptionist, waved exaggeratedly as soon as he saw her.

“Alysia, good morning!”

“Morning!”

After exchanging a fairly energetic greeting, they stood next to the carriages and began conversing.

“You will be riding this carriage right here. Have you got any luggage with you?”

“Nope. I’ve brought bare minimum with me.”

“I see. Then it’s fine.”

The carriage she would be riding was fully covered with a roof, which seemed to be pretty sturdy. This type of carriage was called a Prairie Schooner and was for the high-class. Nevertheless, it was something a noble like Alysia had seen many times before.

ーーHowever, riding it came with its own set of troubles.
By improving a part of an item, there was the chance you would end up sacrificing another part of the item.
This type of carriage was used often by nobles, and as a result was the primary target for bandits.

Therefore, she wanted for them to prepare a different kind of carriage. Although, in the end, she judged that it probably didn’t matter. If she was unlucky enough to run into bandits along the way, she would just ask for extra remuneration from the guild.

“So, when are we departing?”

“We’ve been preparing since yesterday so we’re pretty much ready to depart anytime, so it’s up to you.”

“It’d be best if we arrived ASAP, so let’s go now!”

“…you heard what she said. The princess has spoken!” Groove joked as the coachman appeared from inside the carriage.

He looked to be around fifteen years old in a human’s standard, but judging someone’s real age in this world was pretty much impossible.

“Nice to meet you, Mr Coachman.”

“Yeah, you too. …Come on, get inside.”

“Thank you.”

The coachman opened the door and urged Alysia inside.
Alysia went inside and let out a sigh of admiration at the soft, well-made cushion on her seat. There was a desk at the front, so she realised that she could use her time to read her grimoire there. She could say that this carriage left nothing to be desired.

“See you!”

“Aye!!”

The carriage started moving as soon as they finished their goodbyes.
She was relieved that the carriage was extremely comfortable, especially considering the fact that she would spend an entire day in it. As she thought about this she opened her grimoire and lay it on the desk.

03-11 A Gift

Editor: Fractal

Feeling the warm sunlight shining on her through the window, Alysia awoke from her slumber.

She turned to her right and stumbled upon Sherianna, whose body lay beside her in a tranquil sleep.
She softly caressed Sherianna’s blonde hair, its beauty only masked by the blood splattered upon it. Sherianna leaked a soft voice in return, cutting through the silence. While observing her Alysia spotted Sherianna’s blood red pupil, barely visible through her meagerly opened eyelids.
As Alysia flipped her body to face the other side, she was taken aback by the presence of Lisel curled up next to her.
Personally, she had no problem with him sleeping. However, the problem lay in the fact that Lisel was sharing a bed with two lovely girls.

Alysia brought her fist down upon Lisel’s head with tremendous force, expressing her fractious mood.

“Ouch!!”

“Why are you sleeping here?”

“…Well, there was no other place to sleep,” answered Lisel as clutched his head with right hand. Holding it there to nurse his pain, he gently rubbed his eyes with his other hand.
To remain completely unharmed after receiving a hit which could easily crush a giant boulder, Alysia was taken aback. It seemed that dragonkins were not to be underestimated, far past even Alysia’s previous expectations.

“Couldn’t you have slept on the sofa?”

”You’re being mean…” Lisel answered and he stood up, heading for the living room.

Her low-blood pressure being the culprit, Alysia couldn’t resist the temptation of sliding back into the comfort of her blanket. A certain warmth radiated from Sherianna’s body, and like a moth drawn to a flame, Alysia curled up beside her. She slowly drifted back into her sleep, the pleasant blanket engulfing her.

—

ーーEh? Where am I…?

Alysia suddenly found herself in a wooden house which she didn’t recognise. She looked around restlessly as the strangeness of the situation filled her mind.

Finally, having realised she had fallen into the floor, she hurriedly took the help of the large wooden table next to her to stand up.
The fact that that it took her that long to realise that she had fallen was strange, but she decided to put that aside for the time being. This was due to the extraordinarily great presence radiating from beyond the door, situated across from the table.

An ordinary person would have been petrified, or even lose their consciousness. However, Alysia was aware of whom that presence belonged to from the beginning.

“Long time no see, black-haired beauty-san. Won’t you tell me your name already?” (TL: Kurobi= black-haired beauty)

The door slowly opened and Alysia recognised the face emerging from behind the door. She was the provisionally-called, the black-haired beauty-san.
Today she wore a strange attire, like she had a cloth wrapped around her entire body. The cloth was coloured radiant white, symbolising purity itself.

”It hasn’t been that long, has it?”

”Well, it certainly doesn’t feel that way, because there’s been a lot going on recently.”

Lately, Alysia’s days had been filled. The tournament, bandit extermination quest, and rendezvous with Lisel had kept her busy. Truly a lot had been going on. As a result, it felt like a lot of time has passed since her last meeting with the black-haired beauty.

“Do you need something?”

”You see Alysia, you’ve been officially registered as a Grim Reaper.”

”…Ah, the application form that I got the other day.”

”Yes, that one! There’s something which I need to hand over to you in regards to that…” the black-haired beauty said. She waved her hand in the air and created a black hole. It was similar to the sub-dimensional magic which Alysia had used before.
She inserted her hand and groped inside, looking for something.

”…Yep, this should be it.”

The black-haired beauty pulled out her hand and showed Alysia three items. The first one resembled some kind of tools. If you were unaware of its real worth, it’d look like a cheap knockoff.

”This is?”

”A gift from me,” said The black-haired beauty with a proud look on her face. She handed over a black rod which was clutched in her hand. It was around 15 centimetres long and 2 centimetres thick.

”If you pour your divine power into it, it will turn into a Grim Reaper’s scythe. Care to try?”

”Yeah.”

Alysia poured her divine power in and, just like the black-haired beauty had said, the rod’s length extended to a six telms, with a four telms long crescent-shaped blade attached at the end. It had transformed into an enormous scythe.

“Why is the weapon taller than me?”

“…That’s because no one around your height has ever become a Grim Reaper before.”

“Ah, I see. It’s not that the weapon is too long, it’s just my fault for being too short, right?”

Seeing Alysia’s scary smile, the black-haired beauty involuntarily took a step back.

“There’d be no problem if I was only short for the time being. But, I’m practically stuck like this forever.”

“Right…Sorry…”

“It’s fine. I will definitely develop a height-extension magic someday,” Alysia declared as she once more shifted her attention towards the palm of the black-haired beauty’s hand. The next item was a silver plank as big as her student ID.
It was mostly likely some kind of credential that proved her status as Grim Reaper. She was about to ask the black-haired beauty regarding it when she got interrupted.

”This is a licence which is used to freely enter and exit the celestial world. The expiration date is 87 years from now.”

“…That’s long!”

Even though she had a wrong assumption about the said item, Alysia was more surprised by the length of the expiration date.
The celestial world was essentially a world where the gods and goddesses who had existed for hundreds and thousands of years lived. Inside of that world, 87 years probably meant nothing.

“Right, non-mortals are different after all…”

”That’s correct. Lastly, this is for you.”

Only a purple box was left on the palm of the black-haired beauty’s hand.
As Alysia reached out her hand to grab itー
“Stop. Now, turn around and close your eyes.”

“Oーokay.” Alysia did as she was told. Then, she felt a weight hanging around her neck. Regardless, she was still very confused.

“Okay! You can open your eyes now.”

As she opened her eyes, the black haired beauty held out a hand mirror in front of her.
Reflected in the mirror was the figure of Alysia with a beautiful cross pendant hanging on her neck.

“This is…!”

“I made it myself!. How does it look?”

The pendant gleamed silver, with a long black line resembling the night sky and a short gold line reminding her of the glowing full-moon.

“It looks amazing! I didn’t know you could make something like this…” Alysia said, completely captivated by the pendant.
The colour and the tint of the pendant were all chosen with a lot of effort, taking Alysia’s hair and eye colour into account. The true beauty of the necklace could only be displayed when worn by Alysia.

“Thank you so much!”

“Uwa!?”

Alysia, overcome with emotion, hugged the black-haired beauty. She clung to her and would not let go.
According to what the black-haired beauty told her later , the wooden house was built inside the dream using her imagination. Apparently, while inside the dream you could materialise anything which one could imagine.

“Well then, see you!”

“Thanks again!!”

Alysia kept thanking the black haired beauty until her consciousness became faint and she returned to reality.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the new layout, I hope you like it, and I KNOW THAT EVERYONE HATED THE OLD DESIGN. It was bad, but I liked it, but now that I think of it, I do like this one better.

I’ve also revamped the comment system and replaced it with Disqus. You can read the details here.