Kazuto stared across the fifth puzzle room. By now he'd experimented enough to know that there were portals all over the floor and ceiling. He also knew that thinking too much was likely to end with him bleeding out of his ears again, so he rushed forward one more time, attempting to jump across the room at a different angle.
He wished Ise-chan was with him. He was too stressed and needed to relax. She always helped him relax when he went to her for relief.
His next leap across the room was cut short as he flew with equal velocity out of a spot just over the entrance, landing in one of the floor portals and then shooting down from the ceiling to land hard in front of the door he'd come in by.
He couldn't stop to think now. If he did, he'd probably start dwelling on how his favorite ever web fiction series, Harem Core, had apparently been banned from the site it had grown famous on and that the movie adaptation he'd been looking forward to more than anything had flopped even despite it starring his favorite porn actress, who looked a lot like Ise-chan if he ignored her tattoos.
He really wished Ise-chan was here. Seeing her ahegao always—
"YOU HAVE VIOLATED DUNGEON RULES: SEXUAL CONTENT IS NOT ALLOWED."
Kazuto struggled against the urge to curse. He'd considered briefly after the core had started policing him that maybe it was a good thing to have someone trying to make him more pure and hero-like in some ways. His mom had always complained that he spent too much time in VR—though she hadn't known exactly what he was doing there—and he'd wondered for a very short time whether she might've been right. Maybe there were more worthwhile things he could be doing?
He'd considered it briefly, but then he remembered the feel of Ise-chan under him, and how she whimpered beneath him as she trembled and came from the slightest of his touches, and how soft she was, and—
"YOU HAVE VIOLATED DUNGEON RULES: SEXUAL CONTENT IS NOT ALLOWED."
Kazuto yelped, clamping his hands to his ears as he had so many times before. He was never going to give up his girls. He'd changed his name to be a reminder of who he'd been, how average and generic his life as Norman was, and he'd never go back.
He was a hero now.
Heroes always got the girl.
And in isekai, they got all the girls.
He steadied himself, ready to try jumping across the room at yet another angle, hoping to pass through the wall of portals and land on a floor tile that wasn't also a portal. He paused for a moment. I should put my stat points in; it's been a while. "Status."
Name: Normannus Title: Hero Level: 128 Next Level XP: 701,212,1
"YOU HAVE VIOLATED DUNGEON RULES: SPAM IS NOT ALLOWED."
Kazuto shuddered in agony, then groaned when he noticed his status window had been closed somehow. How is that even possible?
Abruptly the room shrank.
The walls closed in from either side until the room was a small square, and he stared for a moment. He cautiously poked the floor with his foot, the same spot that had been a portal a moment earlier, but it was now solid. It was a regular tile!
Kazuto broke into a wide grin and bounded over to the exit door. This is it! This was the last room! He must've deactivated the puzzle for some reason! Ise-chan, Neko-chan, I'm coming to save you!
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The door opened slowly, revealing the figure of a…
The door continued to open, and it continued revealing more figure.
Kazuto stared. He wasn't short—he was five-foot-eight, which, based on national averages, was actually taller than most people—but this was a giant!
The man who was revealed seemed to have more in common with ogres that Kazuto had killed than regular humans. His torso was wide, slightly stretching a worn white dress shirt that had a gray vest with a green dragon over it. He wore fancy gray pants while his feet were bare, but that didn't seem to be bothering him. He had a gigantic axe with an eye in its head slung over his right shoulder, holding it with whitened knuckles. His face was covered in a full, brown beard with short, matching hair on top, and he was currently glaring down at Kazuto.
"So you're Carl?" Kazuto asked, regaining his sense of purpose. This must be the guy! Neale said he was big and barefoot!
Carl didn't respond, continuing to stare down at him.
"The guy who kidnapped Izzy and Neko?" Kazuto prompted. Carl was a bad guy, so he had to give his speech before he was killed by the hero.
Carl's glower lessened slightly. "Who?" he asked in a deep, rumbling voice.
"I'm the hero, Normannus! You kidnapped Isemeine Charus, my fiancée!" Kazuto shouted, his already-limited temper strained by hours of puzzles and the core screaming at him. "And Neko-chan, my NPC!" He clenched his fists inside his gauntlets. Even without his giant Guts sword, he still had his armor. It was one of the gifts Lucia had bestowed upon him before sending him down to the world, and it was incredibly powerful. It boasted completely impenetrable defenses, able to repel any and all attacks as well as reflect hostile magic that was cast against him.
The gauntlets, in particular, were special: they quintupled his stats—though such an effect wasn't reflected in his status window—meaning that if he attacked while wearing them, it transformed the blow into one with a million Strength behind it. That power hadn't been enough to leave a scratch on the walls, or the floor, or the ceiling but against a person?
Kazuto was furious, but he could take care of business at any time, especially considering how fast he could move with his three hundred thousand Agility, which was actually over a million and a half since he was wearing his gauntlets. He could run from one end of Charus City to the other in seconds. He could react in time to dodge bullets.
He wasn't worried about Carl escaping.
Right now he wanted answers.
"You," Carl said in a hoarse voice, seeming stunned to find out that he'd acted against a hero. "You're her fiancé?" The axe fell from his shaking hand.
He didn't even know it was me? Kazuto gritted his teeth. He hated it when people didn't know who he was now. He was a fucking hero! "Yeah, she's mine!" he yelled, confirming the idiot kidnapper's worst fear.
He didn't even fucking know he'd kidnapped the fiancée of a hero?
Yeah, this guy was going to fucking die. What an asshole.
Kazuto zipped past Carl into the room, ready to see the scene he'd been expecting to see all along. He steeled himself to kill this Carl guy, then grab a struggling girl in each hand…
There was only one girl, however, and she had no head.
He stared. Is that…
The body had no head, but Kazuto would recognize its shape anywhere. He'd spent more than enough time with it, and yet, maybe not enough after all.
Ise-chan! Kazuto felt the blood drain from his face. He'd expected her to be naked, to be used, but he'd never expected… He felt his eyes start to burn. She's… She's dead?
Ise-chan was just an NPC, sure, but… She was the one he was supposed to marry when he finally finished his big quest and wiped out all the demons for Lucia! There would be a big parade in his honor, and he'd finally ask to make the marriage official since he couldn't marry his best girl before he finished his big quest, and then he'd sweep her off her feet…
He felt a tear run down his cheek. Ise-chan wasn't just an NPC though. She'd been his first human girl.
He remembered the day they met perfectly.
It was one of his most cherished memories.