Dungeon Streaming in a Chastity-Reversed World with 1:99 Male-to-Female Ratio! I Might Be a Rare Man, But I’ll Risk My Life to Find a Wife! - 58

Chapter 58: The Approaching Man and the Approaching Women

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“I’m so sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

Ittou prostrated himself on the ground. Heike stood stunned for a moment as she stared at Ittou’s. Her long legs were clad in black stockings. Then she rose lightly, crouched beside him, and patted his shoulder.

“Wait, Itsukushima. What were you thinking? I—”

““Kyahahahaaha!! I mean, I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but it must be because -I  Heike-sensei’s pressure is just so intense that you can’t stop yourself from going into a dogeza, right?”

“No, um… After that, my cousins really scolded me properly…”

Still in the dogeza position, Ittou remembered the events of the previous day. After leaving the Blue Serpent Marsh, they had followed Kondou-sensei’s instructions and broken up on the spot. He had said goodbye to his classmates and, the moment he arrived home, Marin and Manao had grabbed both his shoulders and hauled him in.

“’Ikkun (Icchan), sit down.’”

They had dragged him to the living room sofa and, with him trapped between them, gave him a dressing-down. Whether it could even be called a scolding was debatable from Ittou’s point of view. What they had done was whispering near his ear in the exact same way Katagiri and Unohana had at the Blue Serpent Marsh.

“Um… What’s this, you two?”

“Shh. Icchan, this is purification, and also a lecture.”

“Yep. This is to restore Icchan’s hearing to normal from that ‘cousin-I-love-you’ syndrome, after being trampled by ever-heat-and-pubescent girls all year round.”

He didn’t understand it at all. But faced with the force of their argument, Ittou quietly nodded and listened to their A-team and H-team complaints as they vented and then…

“Okay, last thing. Icchan, don’t recklessly take bets that other people throw at you.”

Marin’s words carried weight, unlike her earlier grumbling.

“Icchan, I stayed out of it this time because it wasn’t ‘that kind’ of thing, but among ‘Original’ there are word-spell types, and they can bind you with that. If that slutty teacher Kondou had an Original like that and you had taken her bet on a whim, the moment you lost you could have become her slave. Bound by magic so you absolutely couldn’t resist.”

Their words, spoken as if from lived experience, forced Ittou to imagine “what if.” His body stiffened and sweat poured down his face. He didn’t yet fully understand Original, but he suspected they referred to powerful magic like Kondou’s Mist Frog. With that level of magic, it might be possible to force Ittou into absolute obedience. If that happened, he could easily imagine what Kondou might do to him and how easily his own bright future, his path to his goals, could be closed off.

“Icchan, unlike those kids, we’ve gone through danger many times. In actual combat. In a world with adults. That’s why we worry about you.”

“Icchan. I think you now understand your position as a man in this situation. So sometimes running away is the right thing to do. Please take care of yourself. I’m begging you.”

Having said that, the two left Ittou behind and went off somewhere. Ittou pressed a hand to his ear, feeling the residual heat there, and was angry at his own uselessness. After that, Heike sent a message: “Come to the Dungeon Instructor’s Office first thing tomorrow.” Ittou spent the rest of the time thinking about what he should do next.

“…So that’s what happened. First, I wanted to apologize.”

When Ittou had recounted the whole story, Heike scratched her eyepatch with her thumb as usual, stood, and returned to her chair. She sat down with a creak and stared steadily at Ittou.

“Well, if those two already taught you that much, let’s not harp on it. Itsukushima, I’ll tell you again. Don’t act thoughtlessly. Of course, the Association’s overlooking of the Blue Snake swarm was unforgivable. But that’s a different matter entirely. Didn’t your masters tell you anything about contracts and promises?”

“No, they did tell me. Repeatedly. They kept saying not to make casual verbal promises. In this world those can be a matter of life and death. Over and over.”

Ittou recalled the serious faces of the old women in the countryside and sank again. Betraying their expectations hurt him most of all. Even if others felt envy toward their high abilities or good character, to Ittou they had been his models and teachers. He had broken the promises he had solemnly made to those grandmothers, and that hurt more than anything.

“Hmm. It’s hard to believe your grandmothers didn’t do something about Original for you.”

“Excuse me?”

Raigou said this as she slapped her flashy twin-tails, and Ittou asked her to explain.

“Hmm—~ Like your cousin girls said, putting magic into words is now very common. Sure, it can be strengthened into brainwashing or hypnosis. But people nowadays have magic in them, so they’ve developed something like antibodies.”

What Raigou was saying was exactly what they had covered in class, and Ittou had been taught this thoroughly even back in the countryside. Ever since the Year 2000 Incident, the existence of magical power had become clear and had steadily increased. In places saturated with magical essence, like inside dungeons, magic could be used. Magic flowed through the air like oxygen and circulated within bodies, and those were used to trigger spells. 

Modern theory even suggested that weak forms of that power had always existed, things called ki or spirit. Clench your fist and you could concentrate magic into it to increase striking power. On the defense, you could focus your awareness on the targeted spot and reduce impact. The theory said all those things were possible due to magical power. 

“So, well, if there’s a speech-based Original, a really strong word-magic user, your magic alone might not be enough to stop it. So what do you do? You cast a protective charm. Basically, you make the same kind of promise as your grandmothers did: don’t make casual promises. That makes it easier to resist forced promises or contracts placed on you. It’s like a family-love sort of magic. People raised in affectionate households get it. Right… Heike-sensei?”

“Yeah. Several protective magics have been placed on Itsukushima. That’s probably what it is.”

Heike agreed with Raigou’s explanation, and Ittou bowed his head and clenched his fists.

My grandmothers protected me even from afar…

Grateful for the grandmothers’ kindness, and yet infuriated by his own helplessness, Ittou felt like crying. He hated being only protected. Of course, one had to value oneself. He had felt that sharply at the Blue Serpent Marsh. Still…

“I want to get stronger.”

He had been thinking this over and over since the marsh. After being scolded by Marin and the others, he’d kept turning it over in his head: how could he become stronger? His conclusion was to learn.

He realized he knew almost nothing. Just being able to fight a little in a rural dungeon had made him complacent. But in the city that wouldn’t be enough. He needed more knowledge, he needed to learn non-combat tactics, and he needed to increase what he could do if he wanted to protect anything at all. That was what Ittou was thinking. He lifted his face and looked steadily at Heike and Raigou. His dogeza was not only an apology. It was a plea.

“Please. Teach me.”

When he thought about what he should learn first, Kondou came to mind: Kondou’s Mist Frog. Annoying as it was to admit, Ittou believed that with just his current magic and the help of other girls he still couldn’t beat that kind of powerful magic. It was an astonishing spell, overflowing with extraordinary magical power and could be activated at a fearsome speed. He wanted to know how that magic worked, why it worked, and how one might counter or replicate it.

“Teach me about ‘Original.’”

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