Maid Extra 04: Shell Upon Shell

From Suzumoto’s perspective.

This falls between episodes 1 and 2.

Be advised, it contains somewhat cruel depictions.

It may tarnish the image of the characters.

As usual, there is no romance element.

Please be cautious.

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We were weak. That’s why we needed shells.

“Wake up! It’s the forest! The forest, I tell you! Hey!”

While being shaken awake by such incomprehensible lines, I saw Maito dressed ridiculously before me.

I didn’t understand, but it seemed like we were all seeing hallucinations… or perhaps, we had been blown away into another world.

For now, assuming the latter, we decided to explore outside. If asked why, the only answer would be that we were realists to the extent that we couldn’t imagine the situation improving just by staying put.

And so, it was decided that only Maito would be left behind. Well, it couldn’t be helped, right? For some reason, inexplicably… while we were all dressed somewhat appropriately for a fantasy world, she was the only one… dressed ridiculously in a maid outfit.

Maito wasn’t lacking in physical ability. She was surprisingly fast when running down the hallways. However, given the outfit she was wearing and, more importantly, even if her physical ability was slightly better, she was still from a cultural club. She lacked stamina, and in other respects, she was surely inferior to us.

Therefore, it was concluded that there was no need to take someone who might become a burden.

Afterward, we distributed equipment found in a cleaning box. Aside from swords, the presence of fantastical staves made us wonder if this might indeed be what’s known as an “isekai” trip, but even then, we weren’t thinking too deeply about it at the time.

“It’s a forest.”

“A forest, yeah.”

“It’s a forest, indeed.”

Stepping outside with Hagasaki-kun and President, who were also in the chemistry laboratory, we were greeted by a strange sight.

The forest, thick with giant trees, clearly had a different atmosphere from those in Japan. And the sounds of animal cries coming from within the forest were all of beings that shouldn’t exist.

…Had anyone in modern Japan ever heard the cries of birds and beasts filled with clear hostility? And if they heard such cries for the first time. If creatures of impossible, bizarre forms suddenly appeared.

Normally, one wouldn’t be able to move.

Yet, I moved.

Without thinking, my body acted on its own.

If I kicked the ground, my body soared to an unbelievable height, and before I had time to be surprised by it, I had already cut off one of the bird’s wings with the sword in my hand.

I couldn’t even remember when I landed.

As I watched the bird, now deprived of a wing, crying and thrashing about on the ground, I finally came back to myself. Feeling unbearable pity for it, I delivered the final blow… and then, we had to admit it. We truly had arrived in another world.

Before I knew it, my hand was gripping the sword so tightly, independent of my will, that it was hard to let it go.

If this is another world, it’s truly in poor taste, I thought. It would be better if monsters just vanished when defeated. The corpse of the bird I killed remained there.

The slickness and warmth of the bird’s blood that reached my hand along the blade seemed unforgettable.

I found a nearby water source to wash my hands and the sword, but a disagreeable sensation lingered on my hands. My fingertips were cold, hardly moving properly. It seemed killing a living creature with my own hands was too much of a shock for me, who had never been prepared for anything like this.

I was much weaker than I had thought.

“What the hell is going on here? Suzumoto’s movements just now, that’s impossible, right? And that bird too.”

The moment we decided to take a break by a fruit-bearing tree near the water, Hagasaki-kun started talking as if the floodgates had opened.

“Yeah, I still can’t believe it myself.”

The sensation that my body wasn’t my own. Were my legs always capable of kicking off the ground with such force? I flew to that height and then landed without any issues. It was undeniably strange.

“Maybe the gravity is weaker, or something like that… but maybe it’s simpler to think that our physical abilities have just bugged out.”

I couldn’t help but agree with President’s words. Among us, I knew the abnormality the best.

“Also, since earlier, I’ve been feeling weird too. About that fruit…”

President pointed towards fruit that was clearly unfamiliar to us.

“You can eat it. I just know, somehow.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Just that information flows into me when I focus on an object.”

Saying this, President held his head, seemingly in pain, tormented by the influx of information about the object that was independent of his will. However, once that settled, President made a significant discovery.

The discovery of skills. On our dog tags, skills had somehow been inscribed. “Appraisal” was the only one, but it was shocking enough.

My dog tag also had “Slash” and “One-Handed Swordsmanship” inscribed on it. The reason I was able to kill that bird so easily was because of these skills, I realized.

Once I became aware of it, it seemed I could control it, and President showed us by “appraising” various things. Being able to distinguish between edible and inedible things was a significant advantage. If we couldn’t do that, we would never dare to eat fruits of strange colors that we had never seen before.

We ended the break and started gathering fruits. Without food, we would surely starve to death. We had no idea how long this situation would last.

As I climbed the tree to collect fruits and threw them down to President and Hagasaki-kun, I noticed something box-like between the trees. Focusing my attention and looking closer, I realized it was a wooden box with a hinged lid. My eyesight wasn’t bad, but even so, the way I saw things was odd. I could see the grain of the wood. While focusing on the box, I heard the sound of wings behind me.

Being distracted elsewhere, I reacted too late. My sword was sheathed. Besides, I was in a tree. The footing was terrible. There was no time to balance myself.

I wouldn’t make it in time.

In that instant, as these thoughts raced through my mind, and before I could even scold my unresponsive fingertips, there was a heavy, solid sound as each bird crashed into the tree and then fell to the ground. Three large birds, each with about half of its body frozen solid, were dead.

“It seems I’m also affected in some way,”

Hagasaki-kun said, pulling his fingers off the staff with a pale, forced smile, staggering a bit.

After that, we took another break for Hagasaki-kun, who seemed to have exhausted his mental strength, and then returned along the path we had come, carrying the fruits, the bird corpses frozen by Hagasaki-kun’s “Ice Magic,” and a kitchen knife found in the box under the tree.

The indescribable sense of relief at seeing the familiar door of our classroom in an unfamiliar place was immense. As my tense body relaxed, we knocked on the door as decided, heard bustling noises from inside, the lock clicked open, and the door swung open with force.

“I’m back.”

“Welcome back, master.”

Maito, unlike us exhausted ones, seemed to still have the energy to jest.

“Stop it, it’s creepy when you say it.”

“How rude.”

At this point, our tension completely dissipated.

Maito knew nothing of the anomalies or the fear we felt. She could laugh because she was ignorant. She could joke… because she was still normal. It was infuriating, yet also relieving. We realized we had strayed from normalcy in just around 30 minutes or so.

After setting down our things and trying to explain the situation, the words coming out of my mouth felt like they belonged to someone else, as if I was recounting a story.

Amid this surreal explanation, we discovered that Maito likely did not possess the same combat abilities as us. “Cleaning,” really? Maito’s expression of despair at that moment was amusing—not in a mean way. At that instant, we were certainly normal.

Perhaps, what we all somewhat thought at that time was the same among the three of us. After some more discussions, we went outside to get water.

“We’re definitely going to break at this rate.”

President said with a self-deprecating laugh, mercilessly impaling a bird with “Earth Magic.” He was much stronger than me. Unlike me, he could pragmatically accept what needed to be done.

“What do you mean?”

Hagasaki-kun was scooping water. It was where I had washed the blood earlier, but there was no room for complaints.

“We’ll probably get used to this strange situation as we go along. To the skills, to the abnormal physical abilities.”

“Yeah.”

“And surely, we’ll become accustomed to killing too. We’ll wear down; we are definitely wearing down.”

The notion that becoming accustomed meant wearing down resonated oddly well. So, I was worn down. Eroded. That’s why it hurt so much.

“When we become accustomed to killing, what would become of us, I wonder?”

We were far too detached from the exchange of life. We could eat meat without dirtying our own hands, and exterminating vermin was a tale from a distant world.

If you consider that the bill for this has come due, it’s still possible to accept it. It’s not like we were gradually accustomed to it; the distance to the exchange of life suddenly closed in on us, and that’s surely why we’re going to break. As compensation for having been soaking in lukewarm water, we’re probably going to lose something important.

“Deciding to dismiss reality as fiction might also be a way.”

Thinking of it as a lie, as a dream, or perhaps as a game. Thinking and convincing oneself, making it into a shell to protect oneself. That was indeed an attractive proposal. But if I did that, I wouldn’t be “me.”

“That, somehow pisses me off,”

I think that’s very much like Hagasaki-kun. Choosing the pain that continues to wear down with the word “pisses off.” I think that aspect of Hagasaki-kun is cool.

“The moment you turn reality into fiction, you’re as good as broken,”

“Well, yes. We hate that sort of thing, don’t we?”

Hagasaki-kun capped the flask and stood up. With this much, we should manage somehow through today and perhaps tomorrow.

“So, why don’t we do this? To avoid breaking, let’s create reasons and meanings for wear.”

“…What do you mean by that?”

“Become dependent. On the person among us who seems the least likely to break, who seems like they can remain sane, mentally.”

I see, President had felt what I had felt.

“Originally, women have a higher ability to endure stressful situations. In exchange, their combat abilities are lower than men’s, but this time, that’s convenient. Watching someone weaker than yourself is calming.”

“Dependent?”

“Let’s make it our reliance. By looking at Maito-san, we can regain our sense of normalcy. To keep Maito-san normal, for that purpose. If we have the excuse of Maito-san, we should be able to endure the wear.”

An excuse not for our own survival, but to keep another alive. In a sense, a worse escapism than retreating into a shell of fiction. But without doing so, we surely couldn’t endure. We are weak.

“She doesn’t want that, though. Because she wants to share.”

“Right?”

Maito is trying to share as much as possible. That’s surely to bridge the gap between us and her. Knowing it will never fully close, yet still, Maito wants to do so. …It may be egotism, but being dependent is mutual. She must be mentally dependent on us, too.

“As long as it’s not discovered, it’s fine, if it’s not found out.”

President had finished packing the water-filled flask into his bag. It’s about time to head back. The sun will set soon.

“Well, as long as it’s not found out, it’s fine, isn’t it?”

For Hagasaki-kun, too, this must be a settling point. To turn into fiction is only within the laboratory, no, only Maito is enough. It’s not us retreating into a shell but enclosing Maito in a shell. The egoism of “protecting” a weaker creature is nothing but. Maito doesn’t want that. I understand, but even that becomes a shell, and I protect myself.

If Maito knew this, would she get angry, saying she didn’t want this? Or else.

“Now, we are accomplices.”

President smiled slyly as he gripped his cane.

“Right.”

Hagasaki-kun also had a face as if he had come to terms with something.

“Well. Don’t break the flask, alright?”

Looking around, three birds had come flying, but before I knew it, my fingertips could move freely.

I drew my sword of my own will.