-10 minutes before the encounter-

“E-Eh!? Y-You want me to go meet the monster!? Right now!?”

“Why not…? We better keep an eye after her…”

Yes, that is a logical explanation to send him out.

But why the hell was his master sending Ilgua out to essentially fight the monster!? And just after he got stabbed and injured by an Ice Phoenix, dragged himself through the blizzard, and nearly dropped dead at the front door too!?

“B-But-!”

“Just go already~…I’m sleepy…”

“T-Then…I have to go myself…?”

Now that he thought about it, that monster was several continents away from where he currently was. It’ll take several years for him to fully make it all the way there, and even then, that monster would have moved to a completely different location.

After some thinking, he forcefully took hold of Ilgua and made him float in the air, much to his distress, before creating a portal and throwing him into it. The scream of his young disciple quickly disappeared into the closing void.

…………………

On the other side, quite close to where Diana and her group were, a portal suddenly opened and Ilgua fell out, hitting face-first into the grass. Rubbing his aching nose, he hid behind a nearby hill as he watched them.

And then,

“…!”

With incredible speed, Rei lunged at the two men and tore them apart, before picking them up and eating them. Diana and Crystal weren’t particularly disgusted, maybe a bit repulsed, while Anna was in full terrified mode and took 7 steps back in fear.

And the woman, also known as Paulena was just standing there, ‘cause she’s a zombie now.

Seeing as he didn’t see who or what those men were, or what they did, the first impression he got about them wasn’t pretty. With his trusty iron sword in hand, he stealthily made his way towards them, making sure to silence his steps as he made his way there.

But then, a shiver ran down Diana’s spine, and she turned around, to see him slowly approaching.

By reflex, and fear of what they would do to him, he stiffened up and took a battle-stance, speaking in a manner that almost sounded like a broken radio.

“I-I-I’m I-Ilgua! C-C-Come a-and f-f-fight me, m-m-monster!!!”

“…Eh?”

And Diana was just staring at him, with her head cutely tilted to the right in confusion. Her friends also happened to hear her and turned towards him too.

“H-Hii!!!”

He was especially scared of Rei, who had blood all over her naked body and was still radiating her bloodlust from earlier. Crystal was just being careful, Anna was silently observing him, and Diana was just looking at him as if he was a lost animal.

“Umm~, I don’t think he’s dangerous.”

But deep inside, Diana was quite excited for this. After all, this was the first male in the story that wasn’t a middle-aged man or some bastard bandit!

“…Agreed.”

“That’s obvious. He looks like he’s about to piss his pants or something.”

“…True.”

Ignoring the two’s casual talk, Diana happily made her way over to Ilgua, who was currently stuck in place from fear.

“Hey~! Uh, Ilgua, was it? Don’t worry! We come in peace!”

She said with the friendliest tone she had, but he seems to have taken that as a taunt from the enemy and let out a soft squeal before he swung his sword, by reflex. Her [Danger Perception] told her beforehand though, so she easily moved out of the way.

But, that’s odd. Why would her danger sense ring just from a sword swing? Physical attacks don’t do any damage to her. Unless…that sword has some magic inside, which then would cause some serious damage to her.

“Hey~! How rude! I’m serious!”

“R-R-Really?”

“Yep yep!”

Thankfully, after that near deadly attack, he seems to have calmed down considerably. She could still see some sweat trailing down his neck and he was still clearly nervous around her, but hey, it’s a start!

But first-!

“Anyways, wanna join us and eat lunch?”

“L-Lunch? A-As in, h-h-human meat!?”

“…Huh? No no! Just some bread!”

“B-Bread with h-human m-meat then!?”

‘Muu~, does this guy like to assume before she even says anything?’

As proof that she wasn’t a part of the Baker Family, she took out some bread from the bag she made Crystal carry and split the bread with him.

“See~? No human meat, right?”

“Y-Yeah…T-Thanks.”

He’s still not fully convinced, so he took a quick nibble at the bread, and no human meat has been inserted! Even then, there were still some doubts lingering in the back of his mind, but the cute smile Diana had convinced him otherwise.

And so, with a new temporary addition to the party, the five of them had a quick bready lunch. The bread was meant to be eaten with soup or stock, but they haven’t encountered any monsters yet, so that’s a no go.

Taking her chance, while they were eating, Diana asked Ilgua about why he was here in the first place, and-

*Cue a long explanation and gloating about the mission he was tasked with*

“I see…It must have been painful~!”

“Obviously!! I would have died if not for my master’s healing!”

In the short span of around 15 minutes of storytelling, Diana and Ilgua had gotten pretty close, with Diana intently listening in on the many experiences he has had in his life.

Anyways, with his story over, it was time to extract some information! With a serious face, which was still somewhat dyed in fear, he looked her straight in the eye and asked,

“S-So, coming from another world, what do you want to do now?”

“Eh!? You knew that I’m from another world!?”

“Hehe! It is due to my master!”

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He~, his master must be amazing! She thought in her head. So, in total, that makes 5 people who knows about her otherworldly origins-, no, wait, 6 people. Because Anna was also there and listening, and her jaw just hit the ground just then.

Paulena doesn’t count. Cause she’s dead.

“Hmm~, well, nothing much really! All I wanna do is explore the world, fight monsters, and all the other cool JRPG things I can do in this world!”

“J…RP, G? I-Is that some kind of ultimate spell!?”

She didn’t bother to correct him and simply continued on.

“I’m also going around to look and learn new cooking recipes to cook, and other stuff I haven’t thought of yet!”

With all that said, Ilgua was pleasantly surprised.

He knew that he was quite good at sensing anyone’s strengths, and looking at this group of girls, the big trio definitely had some mad power levels.

It’s over 9000!

Moving on, such a power could bring some about some huge damage if they decided to give everything up and go against the world, but thankfully, they were quite happy as they were, so there’s no harm then!

Now, if there’s nothing to worry about, then it’s time to head back to his master!......Wait-

“H-How am I supposed to go back!?”

“Go back? Go back where?”

Diana did ask that, but put two and two together, then it’s quite obvious that he was talking about getting back to his master. He did fling him through a portal and bring him here without any extra info on how to get back, so…he’s pretty much stuck here now!

“Hmm…? What were you talking about…?”

“Huwa!? M-Master!?”

Or not. Suddenly, a small rift opened beside them, and on the other side, the face of a young boy could be seen. He was lazily sleeping on his bed, resting his head on a pillow that looked quite comfortable.

“Woah~! Your master’s a little kid!? That’s awesome!”

“Oya~…You must be the monster from another world…right…?”

“Yep yep! Nice to meet you, uh…what’s your name?”

The boy had a moment of silence, before he answered.

“Just…call me Leo…”

“Leo it is then! Nice to meet you~!”

“Nice to meet you too…”

They then shared a slow inter-continental handshake through the portal, which…feels kinda weird, but awesome at the same time. After all, she was putting her hand through the portal, and bringing it out several continents away from her current one! That’s awesome!

And, of course, Crystal was silently fangirling in the back, staring excitedly at the portal with eyes shining so bright it’ll put the sun to shame!

“Alright then~…I’m sleepy, so bye bye…”

“E-Eh!? W-Wait! Master! My training-!”

Before he could say anything else, the small portal closed, leaving a small note behind that read: “This is your training” in a badly, written manner that practically looked unreadable to anyone. Ilgua was still able to read it though.

“I…I see! As expected of my master!”

‘…Is this guy Genos or something?’

References aside, with this, there’s another member temporarily added to their party! Now, they’ve got a full party of five people!

Either ways, after she shared her plans to go to [Gazelle] with Ilgua, they packed up everything they had, got Rei to carry Anna, and ran off towards their next destination!

Oh! And Ilgua’s surprisingly fast at running too! He was able to keep up with Diana and the other’s steady sprint across the grassy hills!

…………………

Skippin’ a bit, later on, at night time,

As you would expect, everyone was soundly asleep. Crystal and Anna were silently sleeping separately, Diana was hugging Rei, pretty much snuggling her, and Ilgua was several meters away sleeping alone, due to his ‘insecurity’ or something.

But Diana was having a slightly different experience from the rest,

“Hmm~? Isn’t this…?”

She soon found herself in a dream, standing on an empty white plain with a gigantic tree growing at the centre of it all.

Her memory wasn’t very clear, but if she recalled, she had a dream like this before, when she fell asleep at the graveyard(which she’s still unsure why that even happened). Pretty sure she tried to cut this tree down using a chainsaw, and then…a sign appeared?

*Looking for me, Diana?*

Talking about signs, before she noticed, a wooden sign suddenly appeared before her, with said words written neatly on it.

“Hey~! It’s Sig! How’re you doing?”

*Me? I’m fine, just living my life out in this empty plain, alone*

Somehow, she could guess that Sig was pretty lonely sitting alone. After all, if she was here all alone, she would’ve-…Wait, Sig was conscious this whole time then?

*Pretty much*

Uwah!? This damn sign read my mind!?...Actually, this guy’s another personality of Diana, isn’t he? Then her fourth-wall breaking skills was also inherited…Hah…How troublesome.

“Anyways~, isn’t this place just a dream though?”

*Actually, while you were busy going around, I looked into this place a bit, and it’s interesting*

“So, what is it?”

*Remember that weird place you were in when you died? That place was similar to this place, but also completely different*

Similar but different…yeah, no sh*t sherlock.

*Shut up. Unlike what we expected at first, this place isn’t some kind of dream or a place inside our heart and soul. No, instead, this place seems to be linked to the gods*

“…Eh? EH!? Gods!? Gods exist in this world too!?”

Gods. As she knew them, they were some kind of entity that ruled over human lives and drove them with ‘fate’. The details differ according to the religion, but they’re usually the creators of humans and stuff.

*Apparently. See that giant tree there? The one you tried to cut the first time you got here, like an idiot?*

“You don’t need to bring that uupp~”

*Remember when I said that if you cut it, you’ll die? Apparently not*

“Which means that I can cut it, yeah~?”

*Nope, if you cut it, everyone on this world will die*

And after reading that, *Silence…*. Not everyday that you could cut down a tree and get everyone on the damn world killed, if ever!

*You didn’t let me finish*

“……So! What am I doing here then~?”

*Nice topic change. To answer that: I don’t know. For now, it seems you just come in randomly, but once this ‘dream’ ends, I’ll look into it more*

And with that, the important ‘talk’ was now over.

Now…What to do?

Obviously, she could train, but that’s boring~. She could also just have casual ‘conversations’ with Sig, but that’s bound to get boring too, so what to-

It was at that moment, that an idea struck her mind and kicked its gears into motion.

See, one of the interesting quirks of this place was that she could fabricate and create anything her mind can come up with. If so, then-!

*Oi oi…Seriously?*

She could just create her gaming computer and play some games! As she thought so, her gaming computer, kitted out with a nice desk, a blue swivel chair, a pair of red headphones, and a mouse appeared before her.

If Sig had hands and a face right now, he would’ve facepalmed himself so hard, even Saitama will be impressed.

With no further ado, she booted up her computer, and much to her delight, her huge digital cabinet of games were still there, waiting to be played! Well, she couldn’t do online games anymore, since Wi-Fi wasn’t even a thing here, but offline games should do!

After 5 minutes of randomly scrolling through her list of games, she ended up playing a nice relaxing game of Stardew Valley for, about, 2 hours most before she stopped and played something more, thrilling.

And it ended up being a nice long session of Call of Duty, with her playing through the whole entire story mission in one sitting, before her head started to feel foggy, ending with her passing out.

……………………

“Nguu~…”

Slowly, she rose up and stretched her arms up into the air. Looking up, the sky was still quite dark, so she woke up too early it seems. But, it’s became quite a habit for her really, since she’s been doing a lot of tests on her [Slime Cloning] skill.

Around her, Anna, Crystal, and Rei were all still soundly asleep. And…Ah, Ilgua’s not there?

To her surprise, Ilgua wasn’t sleeping at the spot she last recalled, which was somewhat worrying. Actually, he probably got up earlier than she did, since, if she recalled, he mentioned something about ‘training’, so him getting up early wasn’t that odd.

But, once again, she had another one of those ‘dreams’, the one where she stands inside that boring white place with that giant tree and Sig. She did play some games though!

Talking about games, she wondered if the gameplay saves…

Anyways, now that she’s awake, she might as well-

“Huh? You’re already awake, Diana?”

“Hmm? Aya~! It’s Ilgua! Morning~”

Speaking of which, here’s Ilgua, standing there with his clothes sweaty and a towel slung over his shoulder-, wait, a towel? And not just any towel, a modern towel, the one you’d usually use to wipe your sweat off.

Well, she wasn’t expecting to see that in this fantasy world!

“By the way, what were you doing? Training?”

“Huh? O-Oh, yes. I ran several laps around the area and practiced martial arts.”

“He~, you practice martial arts? That’s cool! Can you break stone with your hands and stuff!?”

At that, the boy shook his head and replied, saying, “I-I’m not that strong…I still need my magic sword to do that…” She wasn’t sure if he was just being modest or not though.

‘Magic swords, huh…’ Either ways, it did confirm though that the sword he usually carried around wasn’t any normal sword. It did make her wonder if it was just a sword enchanted with mana, or something else more spectacular.

Well, Ilgua’s all sweaty and tired out now, so he sat down as he drank some water from, what seems to be a water canteen? She’s not really sure actually, but that’s what it looked like.

And then, silence.

A serene, almost pleasant silence floated between the two. Diana was still groggy from waking up, so she didn’t bother starting a conversation, while Ilgua was tired out, and blushing for some odd reason.

After a while, she picked up his staring at looked at him, which only seemed to make him even more embarrassed.

“Ilgua~? What’s wrong?”

“U-Umm…Y-Y-Your c-clothes…”

“My clothe-, ah.”

Looking down, she saw that her shirt had several of the top buttons undone, giving quite the nice view for Ilgua there. And for some reason…she didn’t mind.

“Do you not like it~?”

Was the question that seemingly slid out of her lips, and of course, she added a bit of an accent to it, just to seem more sensual. After all, she’s seen several of these kind of scenes in anime, and it’s always a pleasure to watch.

“I-I do-, I-I mean, p-please button y-your shirt!!”

“Ehehe~, okay~”

Just like asked, she buttoned up her loose shirt, not after she gave him one last teasing look though. ‘His blushing face is cute…’ She thought silently as silence dawned on them once again.

And with that, the two pleasantly watched as dawn came, and the sun slowly rose from the horizon, painting the dark sky a beautiful gradient of orange and red.