Isekai Ryouridou: Chapter 33: ③Return

Final chapter~! (more details at the bottom).

Translator: Ai-sama
Editor: iwCJ

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“Naa, Ai-Fa” I called out, but of course, there was no reply.
She received her sword and mantle, and was making her way back home.

As we walked along the yellow, compacted road, we passing by people from the settlement here and there.

It was about an hour’s way from Ai-Fa’s house to here, so all the people living here were new to me. Hence, everybody looked back at me, seemingly startled.

However, none of that mattered.
I had to talk to Ai-Fa.

“It’s after all those surprising events, but I have something to tell you, Ai-Fa”

“…………”

“It’s kinda troublesome. I can’t do anything without your permission, so I want to hear your opinion. If you tell me to stop, then I’ll obediently give up”

“…………”

“This time, it’s not something about helping someone, it’s completely my own personal request. But, it’s something very important to me……so for that reason, I want you to listen”

“…………”

“Moshi moo一shi! Is my voice going throughh一?” (TN: Moshi moshi is what Japanese people say when they pick up the phone)

“…………”

This is no good.
What in the world should I do.

‘Suta suta suta,’ as I followed Ai-Fa’s back as she took big strides forwards, I contemplated for a while.

Should I appeal to her emotions?
Should I assert my legitimacy?
Should I tease her about it, and let it go away?
Or should I lash back and blame it on her?

As I reach the second half of the options, my survival rate drops sharply.
Oh well. Let’s try them one by one.

“Naa! If it’s because of what happened earlier, then I’m sorry! I feel really bad about it too, but I don’t want to ruin the trust between us with this. In consideration for all the time we’ve spent together until now, could you please hear me out?”

“…………”

“Also, it couldn’t have been helped, could it? I heard from Rudo-Ruu that there was a water place there. I never thought that the Ruu clan’s water place was such a stupidly big river that the people could even go into it. I peeked in without a second thought, thinking that everyone was cleaning up after dinner”

“…………”

“And well, it’s not like this is the first time! You don’t have to be that embarrassed about it at this point right? You’ve got proportions you shouldn’t be ashamed to show anyone! If you want to follow the rules, then you could even get married wi――” (TN: Wonderful grave you’re digging there, MC-kun)

With that, my fate was sealed.
With an explosive instantaneous force that was no less than the one used to kill the giba from 7 days ago with a single blow, Ai-Fa turned around, kicked the ground, and jumped at me.

My body was very easily dragged down to the ground, her knees were on my stomach, and I was grabbed by the chest with all her strength, strangled so intensely that I was suffocating.

“Ah, anona, Ai-Fa……”

“Shut up! You――you, utter fool!”

It seems that I completely overdid it.

Ai-Fa’s eyes were blazing like flames, she was biting her lips so tightly that they were almost bleeding, and on top of that, her face was bright red.

“I……Do you know just how much I prepared myself to have made the decision to live as a [Giba Hunter]? To that me, you casually asked to marry――”

With her squeezing out a voice that trembled with grief, my chest tightened.
At that moment――when I saw tears slowly welling up in Ai-Fa’s eyes, I completely, wholly, regretted it from the bottom of my heart, as if I was dying.

“Sorry! I’m sorry for teasing you! I just wanted to break up the awkward atmosphere! I meant no harm!”

Or rather, I would’ve never dreamed that she’d have such a sensitive reaction to “marriage.”
Last night, she was so calm when facing Darm-Ruu, what’s with this difference?

However, I’m the one in the wrong. 200 percent. Definitely. It’s clearer than looking into a fire. Like a seal on a stone.

For the first time in my 17 years in these worlds, I experienced how much guilt it evokes to bring a girl to tears not because of a legitimate argument or a misunderstanding of feelings, but because of a simple comment.

“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! If I make a stout-hearted girl like you cry, then I’ll feel so guilty that I’ll stop breathing! For the love of the world, please stop crying!”

“Stop messing around! Who’s crying!” As she shouted, a drop of warmth fell on my cheek with a potari.

‘Ai-Fa’s eyes are like flames, and since flames of such fierce emotion were burning, even tears would be evaporated;’ but unfortunately, such a miracle didn’t appear, and bombs crashed into my heart with a potari potari.

I really feel like dying now.

If Ai-Fa had broken down in tears like Rimi-Ruu, I might have died in agony from my own stupidity.

However, the proud female hunter Ai-Fa didn’t show such a situation, and eventually pulled away as if to throw my body away, turned around, and wiped away her tears.

I slowly raised the upper half of my body too, and called out to Ai-Fa, who was sitting on the ground.

“Eーto, Ai-Fa……?”

“I’m not crying”

“You weren’t crying, yeah! My eyes must’ve been mistaken! I was being squeezed really hard, so it seems that my vision was clouded due to a lack of oxygen!”

Ai-Fa stood up silently, wiped her face with her arm one last time, and started walking with a suta suta suta once again.

I sighed as hard as I could, and then chased after Ai-Fa.
Fortunately, during that time, no one else passed by.

(That’s right isn’t it. It doesn’t matter how brave of a female hunter she is, it’s only natural for a girl at her age to become emotionally unstable if she’s seen completely nude. The situation was completely different from that time when she was in a life-threatening situation.)

At that time, I was so desperate that I didn’t even commit it to memory, but this time, it was cleanly burned onto my retinas――no, let’s stop. This is a little too inappropriate.

Ai-Fa was staring straight ahead and kept moving her legs.
As expected of her, tears no longer shone in her eyes, but there was still a slight redness in her cheeks, and her expression felt more childish than usual.

‘Until her side profile regains its usual boldness, let’s stop talking unnecessarily’. Deciding that, I turned my face forward.

Then, as if she had been waiting for that, Ai-Fa’s lips, which were tied a へ shape, opened.

“……So, about the thing you wanted to tell me, what is it?”

“Un? Welll, it’s a little complicated, so I’ll tell you once you’ve calmed down a bit”

“Don’t joke around! I’m always calm!”

I couldn’t help but feel that even her tone of voice had become a little child-like.
I was worried whether it’d really be okay, but I thought I should respect her wishes, and so I decided to start off the conversation.

“Eーto na, this is a pretty crazy thing, so I’d like you to listen without getting angry. If you tell me to stop, I plan on giving in gracefully”

“……You’ve already offended me for a few years worth in the last few minutes, and now you’re going to make me listen to even more nonsense?”

“If you think that it’s nonsense, then say it clearly that it’s no good. I, for one, would like to steal a march on Donda-Ruu”

Ai-Fa narrowed her eyes a little, and gave me a stern, cold look.
I scratched my towel-wrapped head.

“At any rate, I was only told by him that it was poison and that it tasted bad as much as he wanted you see. I want to somehow burst that stubborn old man’s bubble. ……I want to make that old man say that my food is delicious”

Ai-Fa didn’t answer with anything at all.
She just stared at me with a disquieting half-opened stare.

“Well, this is all for my own personal reasons so yeah, uh. As for the people of the Ruu clan, I think it’s safe to say that I don’t want to get too close to anyone other than grandma Jiba and Rimi-Ruu, we’ve just peacefully come out of a rough patch, so it’s best not to get any deeper into that clan, I understand that. ……But, still, I’m really really frustrated”

“……It was something about that?”

“Un?”

“It would be unnatural not to feel regret if you were verbally abused that badly. I don’t need to be told about it over and over all the time”

“Aah. But, it’s also true that you can’t get involved with the Ruu clan so casually, right? That’s why I’m worried about it”

“……There’s no need to be worried about it” Ai-Fa dismissed.
“Do as you’d like”

“Eh? ‘Do as you’d like,’ so do you not mind me calling that stubborn old man for a challenge?”

“If that’s what you want to do, then do as you’d like. I won’t stop you”

“Why are you saying that as if it was somebody else’s problem! If I mess up, you’d be in trouble too wouldn’t you?”

Or, is she saying that I could just cut ties with her so that she wouldn’t be in trouble? If so, then I’ll resist as hard as I can, no matter if she cries or shouts.

However, that wasn’t the case at all.

“Donda-Ruu, seems to no longer have any intentions of making me marry. The idea of a woman hunting giba probably didn’t didn’t match with that man’s nature. ……Now, I can only feel hostility and mockery from that man”

“Fumu. But, isn’t it bad to get involved with someone who holds hostility towards you?”

“Why would that be? If they are an opponent, it’s simply a matter of forcing them to submit” Ai-Fa tossed out.

Seeing the probably confused expression on my face, Ai-Fa looked away with a “Fun.”

“It isn’t like you wish to defeat Donda-Ruu with your sword, do you? To make that man’s heart submit to your delicious food――that’s it, is it not?”

“It’s more so convincing him rather than making him submit isn’t it? Well, I can’t deny that there’ll be an aggressive atmosphere though”

“If so, then doing what you want is fine. ……However, there is one thing I want to make sure of”

Ai-Fa’s eyes took on an even more disquieting glow.

“You have a chance of winning, right?”

“A chance of winning, huh,” I thought for about half a second, and answered. “I have one.”

“You do, huh”

“I do. Well, I need to do a bit of research, but the key is giba meat. There’s still a surplus of meat, so I can research as much as I want”

“So, you can win with that?”

“Un? No well, whether I win or lose, only time will tell……”

“Win. I won’t allow you to lose” said Ai-Fa, turning away.

“I can no longer endure the food you make being disgraced by such boorish words. If you allow that man to behave in such an irreverent manner again……I would become so angry that I don’t even know what I would do”

In front of my eyes, which were widened blankly, Ai-Fa’s face was dyed red once again.

“Last night, while I was listening to that man’s words, do you know how much humiliation I was holding in, do you? If I were to do it over, I would have thrown the contents of that boiling iron pot in his face”

No, but, yesterday, Ai-Fa had a blank expression from beginning to end didn’t she?

However, thinking about it again, it’s true that Ai-Fa has a large range of expressions, but, come to think of it, when she’s dealing with people that she doesn’t know, she always has a cold expression.

That fury was blazing beneath that cold, dull expression huh.

“However, at another clan’s evening meal――what’s more, if you show such rude behavior in front of the Ruu clan, the Fa clan’s lineage would meet its end one day. So, you must be prepared to bear the name of the Fa clan”

“Understood!” I said with a big nod.
Something eager and hot was wriggling in my chest.

“Thanks, Ai-Fa. ……I didn’t think that you would be that frustrated”

“Fun! You are, even if only temporarily, a member of the Fa clan! If a clan member is unjustly looked down upon, it would be natural for the clan head to get angry!”

After tossing that out sharply, she pouted like a child.

“……Also, no matter what anyone says, that food is absolutely, delicious”

What’s with that.
Is she trying to make me cry in retaliation for what I did earlier?
However, I didn’t cry, but smiled.

“Thanks. You always give me the final push huh, Ai-Fa. Somehow, my fighting spirit is filling up to an unreasonable amount”

“……Fun”

“Aーah. I’m so glad that that silly situation didn’t break my relationship with you! Let’s keep getting along from now on, Ai-Fa!”

“……How dare you call it silly after violating the taboo twice” she said.

The face that wrinkled at the top of her nose like an angry wild cat, was already the usual Ai-Fa.
Seeing that scary face, made me even happier.

“No no, you being naked was a silly situation, Ai-Fa! I think that from the bottom of my heart!”

And so in my act of carelessness, I ended up getting slapped on the back of the head with a rather serious full swing.

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So, I’m dropping Isekai Ryouridou. The main reason is because I want to focus more of my (limited) effort and time on translating the other web novel I’m translating, since I find it more interesting.

And so, I want to thank everyone who’s read up until now! This was just a random novel that I chose because I didn’t have a series I particularly wanted to translate back then, but it was nice to see so many people come out to read the translation! Thank you for the past 8 months, and I hope to cross paths with you all again some time!

-Editor: iwCJ

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