Chapter 37

Nyarin and I tried not to laugh. Honestly we did. Sadly, we were not up to the task and ended up ugly laughing, rolling on the floor as Truck-kun, as the villainess received a heartfelt confession of love.

Truck-kun’s eye twitched as he listened to how his feminine wiles and demure demeanor had won the young man’s heart. It was rather touching.

Truck-kun made a great villainess. He got into the role of laughing mockingly, plotting, and pouting when he didn’t get his way.

Of course, to complete this Isekai with the best ending Truck-kun hadn’t just won the heart of just one young man.

“No, I love you more!” a blonde man with a charming bouquet insisted, dashing in onto one knee.

“Oh, you heartbreaker!” Nyarin said, blushing with mock shame.

“I want to kill you both,” Truck-kun said.

The young men were shocked.

Truck-kun gestured at the two young suitors. “Not you two. Well, I want to kill you both too, but that’s different. Go on. Confess and propose. I have places to be.”

The two infatuated bachelors looked at each other, shrugged, and restarted their doomed attempts to woo the villainess. They were joined by a third and fourth.

That completed the Isekai plot. The world began melting and I used a technique Truck-kun taught me. I pushed the spell to go back a layer instead of making a new substitute Isekai.

We moved backward, and suddenly Nyarin and I were naked above hot water in the Dogo Onsen. We barely had time to act embarrassed before we hit the water.

I wasn’t ready for that heat. We came sputtering up with ineffective attempts at covering ourselves.

Truck-kun laughed. “You hung out at an onsen while I worried about those fake memories? Very bold. I was plotting to kill you and you were relaxing.”

That answered my question about how much Truck-kun could see us while trapped outside the Isekai.

Truck-kun finished laughing as I turned and let Nyarin leave the hot pool first. Part of me wanted to enjoy time with Nyarin, but Truck-kun wanted to hurry. I didn’t think he’d agree to leisure time in the hot springs.

We needed time for planning. Truck-kun summoned a pencil and paper. We wrote through all the Isekai. “Sixteen, including the villainess humiliation ritual you just put me through.”

I thought it would be hard, maybe impossible to solve the essential story of an Isekai based around Onsen, but Nyarin told me to stay in one hot tub as long as possible. Eventually I passed out and moved us to the previous Isekai.

The next Isekai level was the gun world, with the top-heavy and inexplicably grateful maiden. I had created a messy knot when I rearranged the Isekai to travel backward and trap Truck-kun using a bug.

I hoped we could use my manipulations in reverse to skip many Isekai, but Truck-kun assured me we’d have to go through all sixteen to escape. Worse, my manipulations would likely make the next Isekai malfunction.

When we arrived, the damage announcer noticed. “They’re back! We’re doomed! Everybody run!”

Truck-kun glowered at the sky “Seo,” Truck-kun asked in a dangerously calm voice, “can I borrow that little dog and one of your grenades?”

Sure enough, the little dog Poochi was still in my inventory. Truck-kun took the puppy and a grenade.

He chased down an NPC with a yellow exclamation point over his head.

“Should we, uh, find out what he’s doing?” I asked Nyarin.

Truck-kun picked up a quest from the NPC and the exclamation marked turned into a question mark.

Nyarin laughed nervously, tail low with anxiety. “I’d never met him before this, but now I know why no one in Kisshin’s organization ever crosses the Baku. I’m not sure if I should be more afraid of him or Kisshin-sama. Best not interrupt him.”

We decided that whatever Truck-kun wanted with a little dog, a quest, and a grenade was better left unasked.

I looked at Nyarin. “So, what are the stats on that red bikini armor?”

Her eyes sparkled. “Would you like to examine that armor closely?”

I nodded vigorously and she laughed.

Another voice boomed over the damage announcement system in the sky. It was the top-heavy maiden. “Where am I?”

My eyes widened. Truck-kun had taken the little dog to complete the quest. That would mean…

“Please don’t kill me!” the damage announcer said.

Yep, Truck-kun had used the broken quest from the top-heavy maiden to re-enter the space outside of the Isekai’s structure, where the damage announcer was.

Nyarin looked at the sky, tail twitching nervously. “Do you think Truck-kun is going to kill the announcer just because he’s annoying?”

There was the sound of a pop bottle opening, then Truck-kun’s voice saying, “Thanks for the soda earlier, and the crackers. But your taste in food is awful. Try this.”

Nyarin and I both looked at each other in shock. Then we started laughing. Apparently Truck-kun didn’t intend to use the grenade on the damage announcer guy.

I looked up at the sky. “The fearsome Truck-kun picks up an NPC’s quest, borrows a grenade, and all he wanted was to pay someone back for a soda? I can never tell what this guy is thinking.”

Nyarin wiped away tears, tail now moving smoothly since the treat of violence had passed. “The Baku is mysterious. I really thought he was going to use that grenade.”

“Is that what you call him, the Baku? Doesn’t he have any other name? He doesn’t like being called Truck-kun.”

Nyarin tilted her head with a frown. “The Baku supposedly went extinct centuries ago. Then he showed up, far stronger than past Baku. No one knows his name. Spirits don’t share their names. Names have power. We keep them secret.”

It was my turn to tilt my head at Nyarin. “So, is Nyarin not your real name?”

She smiled. “We don’t share those, except in special circumstances.”

The damage announcer and top-heavy maiden reminisced with Truck-kun about the time he was unceremoniously trapped with them. Actually, the damage announcer was reminiscing. The maiden was following her pre-programmed dialog.

“Thanks for the drinks, mister. I’m just so inexplicably grateful.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, what was the grenade for?” asked the damage announcer.

“Oh, right, thankfully these training grenades have a long timer.”

“What are you doing! Don’t set that thing off in here! I’ve literally announced to the world how much damage those things can do!”

Oh no, Truck-kun was going to use the grenade on the damage announcer.

Truck-kun appeared nearby with a middle aged man and the top-heavy maiden. They appeared next to the NPC from which Truck-kun had gotten the quest.

“Huh,” I said, “this game must have a ‘return to quest giver’ mechanism to avoid unnecessary walking. Smart way to return from…”

An explosion blasted through the damage announcement system. It was loud, but thankfully the system malfunctioned quickly and the sound faded after echoing over the countryside.

Nyarin covered her ears with her palms, whimpering at the loud sound.

Then everything malfunctioned. The sun broke like in a crashed video game. The stars and moon despite it being midday. The rivers flowed backward. Then all the artificial lights went out and most NPCs fell over.

Truck-kun clinked his soda bottle with the stunned damage announcer’s, who was stunned. He walked over and asked, “are you ready to go?

“What did you do?!” I asked.

“We’ve got to break down and rebuild this world to fix it after your incompetent meddling, Seo. I started with a grenade on central systems that I noticed when you imprisoned me outside the main reality with the damage announcer.”

“Anyway,” Truck-kun pointed at the malfunctioning reality around us, “the fastest way is to break down and rebuild. The grenade was just the first step. We complete this Isekai, then the Wizard of Ounce Isekai, and so on until we’re free.”

Nyarin surveyed the malfunctioning Isekai, crumbling buildings, and terrified NPCs. “This going to be a lot of work.”