14 The Monster Girl Starts Talking

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/17/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

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“Eh? Mizuki——you didn’t know Yachimata Alice is Isshiki Alice?”
“Isshiki Alice is who?”

Tachibana Mizuki tilted her head.

(Or rather, who are you)

Tachibana Mizuki had bought “natural-water grape juice” from the shop vending machine at Yurigahama South High and was enjoying forest bathing in the woods on school grounds when a classmate whose name she didn’t know called, “Yesterday’s match was amazing!”

“Not knowing Isshiki Alice, that’s so Mizuki~”

They can’t have known each other a month yet, but she was surprised to be told “that’s so you.”
Or rather, why is this person talking to her.
Or rather, what’s her name?
The classmate whose name she doesn’t know seems to like talking, and doesn’t stop.

“Isshiki Alice is Yachimata Alice’s stage name. From model to actress, she sings and dances, that kind of superwoman.”
“She can do things besides kendo?”
“You kind of don’t care about Isshiki Alice besides kendo?”
“Maybe.”

The nameless classmate’s short ponytail bounced cheerfully.
“She looks way more like a woman kendoka than I do,” Mizuki felt.

“Mizuki~! You’re so cold~, so blunt~! We’re friends, aren’t we!”

Even while her sitting-in-a-triangle body was rattled by the classmate, Tachibana Mizuki skillfully kept drinking grape juice. However much her body was shaken, she relaxed well and only her face and hands didn’t move a bit.
Then when she finished drinking she turned a surprised face on the nameless classmate again and asked.

“Are we friends?”

The nameless classmate reeled as if hit in the head with a blunt weapon and crouched looking truly in pain.
But Tachibana Mizuki, who doesn’t read the air much, followed up.

“I don’t even know your name.”
“Ough——”

The nameless classmate, clutching her uniform chest as if taking a fatal wound, stayed crouched and started convulsing.

Tachibana Mizuki listed classmate names she thought she might have heard for now.

“Ogaki-san? Tajima-san? Nakano-san?”
“Enough, stop! My life is zero——! Nakajo Yuko, remember it!”
“I remembered——but these days a name with -ko is rare.”
“It’s a precious treasure my parents gave me! And names with -ko are proper names continuing from ancient times! Like Soga no Umako or Ono no Imoko!”
“Both of those are men.”
“Eh, Ono no Imoko is a man!?”
“I’m impressed you got into our high school.”

Nakajo face-planted into the ground again, taking a fatal wound. The taste of this school’s dirt was bland.
After a while Nakajo somehow got up and casually sat beside Tachibana Mizuki.

“Why sit next to me?”
“We’re friends!”
“When did we become friends?”
“Do you need that explained!?”
“You don’t?”
“Then we’re friends from when we both thought we were friends!”
“Then I don’t think we’re friends.”
“Your words are like blades! Because you’re a kendoka? Because you’re a kendoka!?”

Tachibana Mizuki ignored Nakajo’s appeal and took out her phone.
Then she started playing one video.

“Ah! Is that yesterday’s match?”
“Yes.”
“Show me show me.”

Nakajo’s face came close.
Tachibana Mizuki secretly felt the short ponytail swaying in the wind tickling her cheek was annoying.

Nakajo asked cheerfully.

“Researching Isshiki Alice?”
“I don’t do that. If I image the current Yachimata Alice, I can’t beat the future Yachimata Alice.”
“That’s how it is?”
“That’s how it is.”
“Like ‘if you don’t see a girl for three days, look with new eyes’?”
“There are any number of things you understand by seeing in person and crossing swords.”
“As expected of a genius kendoka, what you say is different.”
“I’m not a genius. Genius is what you call someone like my little sister.”
“You have a little sister, is she cute? Can I have her?”
“Take her if you want, she’s annoying.”
“Annoying, huh.”
“Super naggy.”
“Ahaha.——If you’re not researching, why are you watching this video?”
“Because it was fun.”
“It was fun, huh.”
“I got to do kendo for the first time in a while.”
“Uhe, the senpai aren’t opponents or something?”
“This high school has no boys, so it’s a problem.”
“For real, no practice partners?”
“Right.”
“Then how about becoming a Fate Link: Legendia player?”
“Fate Link: Legendia?”
“Some game? run by a mystery admin. You can experience real fights apparently. There are swords and stuff too.”
“Not interested.”
“Oh……”

A silence flowed for a while.

Tachibana Mizuki and Nakajo kept watching the video.

At a certain point Nakajo noticed the voice “Ya-Yachi, mata-saaan, do your beeest.”
And looking at the characteristic clothes of the owner of the voice—not quite gothic lolita, but lots of black-based frills——I’m pretty sure they’re called “virgin-killer clothes”——she went “ah” and tried asking Tachibana Mizuki.

“Then Mizuki, do you know this? The friend Isshiki Alice respects.”
“Me?”

Looking at Tachibana Mizuki, who answered instantly, Nakajo involuntarily laughed “ahaha.”

“I got laughed at.”

Tachibana Mizuki looked a little sullen, muttered “I was pretty serious,” and pulled the video away from Nakajo and started watching alone.
Even so, Tachibana Mizuki asked as if interested.

“You know the person Yachimata Alice respects?”
“I know. I’m best friends with Yachimata from middle school.”
“You know Yachimata Alice?”
“Best friends. We met——”

While Tachibana Mizuki looked aside and thought (I came from another prefecture so I don’t have friends, but if they lived in the same prefecture maybe), Nakajo next to her also took out a phone and found one video.

“——The person Alice said she respects is the person in this video.”

Tachibana Mizuki had become interested in the person Yachimata Alice respects.

The footage she peeked at was like a game world.
The person on it had her eyes wide, no light in her pupils, and wore a black dress.
That girl was piloting a fighter racing through space, shooting down monster-like things one after another.

At first Tachibana Mizuki was only watching the flowing footage somehow, but eventually she started staring as if eating it.

“Lend it.”

Tachibana Mizuki finally snatched Nakajo’s phone and, forgetting herself, got glued to the screen.

“What is this person———what is this.”

The path is different, but she understands.

“What——is this, this a-w-e.”

Tachibana Mizuki too is a being called a monster.
With that sensibility she understood. That the girl on this screen is an outrageous monster.

“This is the person Yachimata Alice respects———?”
“That’s right.”

(——I want to meet her———)

At the reply that “the person Yachimata Alice respects is her,” a little jealousy, and interest in this monster, were enough feeling to make Tachibana Mizuki set foot into Fate Link: Legendia.

“Hey, Yuko.”
“Ou!”
“How do you ride these planes and robot-like things?”
“I think you just become a player……?”
“Tell me how.”