Chapter 2: Just Ask
A man with a buzz-cut ground his teeth loudly. "What an annoying speech style," he muttered.
"Eek!" Hiyomu ducked her head back into the tower, but soon stuck it out again. "You're so scary. So dangerous. Don't get so maaaad. Okay? Okay? Okay? Okay?"
Buzz-Cut clicked his tongue in distaste. "Then don't piss me off."
"Yes, sirreeee!" Hiyomu hopped out next to the tower, raising her hand in a salute. "I'll be careful from now on, sir! I'll be reeeeal careful, sir? Is this okay? It's okay, right? Teehee."
"You're doing that on purpose, aren't you?"
"Aw, you could teeeell? Ah, ah! Don't get mad! Don't punch me, don't kick me! I don't like being hurt! Generally, I want you to be niiiice to me! Anyway, is it okay if I movet hings along now? Can I do my job now?"
"Hurry it up," I said in a low voice. Unlike Buzz-Cut, I didn't do it with visible agitation. Still, my tone should be intimidating enough.
"All righty, then," Hiyomu began with a grin. "I'm gonna do my job now, okay?"
The sky was getting brighter by the moment. It was much brighter now than it had been earlier, which meant it must be morning, not dusk. The dawn was breaking.
"For now, just follow after meeee. Don't get left behiiiind!" Hiyomu started to walk, her twintails swaying behind her.
Looking around, we saw a path from the tower leading down the hill. Grass fields spread out on both sides of a dark path of exposed earth that had been hardened with use, and there were large white stones scattered around the grass that covered the hill. A whole lot of them. Too many. It looked almost like they were in orderly rows.
'Someone had lined them up, isn't it?'
"Hey, are those..." Curly asked, pointing at the white stones. "Could they be... graves?"
He shuddered.
Speaking of which, I noticed some sort of writing carved into them. Flowers had been placed in front of some, as well. A graveyard, huh?
At the head of the group, Hiyomu giggled without turning around. "I wondeeeer. Well, don't you worry about that now. Don't woooorry. It's too soon for any of you. I hope it's too soon for any of youuuu. Hee hee hee..."
Buzz-Cut clicked his tongue in distaste again, kicking the dirt. He seemed pretty ticked off, but it looked like he still planned to follow Hiyomu for now.
Gangster had already started walking. Glasses, Flashy, and Tiny followed him.
Eccentric shouted, "Whoa! Me too, me too! Me too!" and began chasing after them, then tripped.
It looked like there was no choice but to go along. But where was Hiyomu planning to take us? Where was even this place?
This woman, it's really obvious that her personality was made of. Even if she 'tried' to act like a teenager, I'm pretty sure her age doesn't even match up. If you look closely at her skin, there are a number of wrinkles that, although faint, indicate that she is not as young as she looks. From the looks of it, she must be in her thirties or even forties.
There are pretty much things I want to ask her, to the point that I won't even hesitate to use violence. However, since I came out from the Tower, I've already decided to just watch-and-learn for now.
Someone sighed, turning in that direction, I saw a sleepy-eyed boy scrutinize the sky. "Ah..."
'Yeah, I know, right?'
It was pretty low in the sky. It couldn't be the sun. It was too big to be a star too. It wasn't even a full circle. Its shape was somewhere between a half and a crescent moon.
'A moon, but the weird one.'
"It's red," he said out loud. He blinked, taking another look at it. However, no matter how many times he looked, it was still ruby red.
Behind him, Timid gulped audibly. He turned around to see she was gazing at the moon, as well.
"Ahh," said Airheaded as she seemed to notice it, too. She blinked repeatedly, then chuckled. "Mr. Moon is red. That's super pretty."
Curly said, "Whoa..." with a wide-eyed stare.
An excessively large, but seemingly quiet, man let out a low groan.
I don't know where this was. Where had I come from? How had I gotten here? I didn't know those things, either. I couldn't recall. But... there was just one thing I was certain of.
'This isn't the world I know of. I'm sure of it.'
"Why are we here in the first place?"
Needless to say, if I wanted to know, I'd ask the person directly.
"I wondeeeeer. Hehehe..."
Well, she didn't seem like she wanted to answer, though.
"Then why are you pretending to be a young woman?" I quickly changed the question.
Her expression froze for a moment.
"Uh, she faked it?" Curly mumbled in surprise.
Hiyomu skillfully continued her act.
"Aww, don't you think it's cruel to say that to a maiden? Hiyomu is veeeery hurt, you know?"
"Do you need me to line up the reasons one after another in detail to show that I'm not joking?"
Buzz Cut saw our conversation with obvious pleasure. He's probably still upset about how Hiyomu treated him.
Gangster and Four Eye looked at me in silence. I could see the interested look in their eyes.
Sleepy Eye, Bear, and Eccentric looked confused. Curly was like Buzz Cut, and as for the girls, except for the oblivious Airheaded, all of them were staring with worry.
"Are you threatening me?" The tone of her voice was clearly different. It was sharper, yet, I felt it suited her better. The smiling expression on her face was still the same, though.
"I wonder," I gave a vague reply.
She laughed at that. "You think a threat like that would work on me?"
"Yes."
She paused. "Are you underestimating me?"
"Yes."
"Haven't you ever heard to not judge someone by their looks?"
"That's what I did."
"Don't joke with me!"
She picked up some sort of hair ornament from her hair, and without hesitation, threw it to me.
'That's surprisingly fast.'
Although I could avoid it by simply stepping to the side, someone behind me couldn't just do that. A bear-sized man was hit right in the chest.
"Gwuh!" He groaned.
"Whoa!"
Sleepy Eye who was beside him let out a surprised exclamation along with the others.
I raised my eyebrow a little at that.
'That's definitely not an ordinary hair ornament, is it?'
Bear easily tipped backward the instant it made contact. I heard a horrible cracking sound from him. Some of his ribs were probably broken because of that.
After it hit him, as if alive, Hiyomu's hair ornament jumped back up towards Hiyomu's gently outstretched hand.
I wrinkled my forehead lightly.
"Yeahhh, that reaction is appropriate for you." She burst out laughing. Her mask was off. "Don't think that I only have this, okay? I still have a lot of things on my side to discipline you quickly. Now I know that some of you think that I'm just bluffing. But I'm not! I have the whole army of town there to back me up. How about I put one of you in a state of death to get it?"
To be honest, I did think she might be bluffing.
The colorful clothes that looked out of place didn't have anything you could even call pockets. The only storage I could see from her was from the small pouch from her waist. But if following the illogical logic of her hair ornament, while the small pouch didn't look like it could store anything out of the ordinary, it probably had a capability that was just as illogical as her hair ornament. Something like infinity space or something, maybe?
"I understand," I said in the end, bowing slightly. "Please forgive my impoliteness earlier."
I didn't think that my attempt would work right at the start, anyway.
'But I still got something worth from it,'
I knew that she basically was very sensitive about her real age, it got to the extent that she would do almost anything to shut up those who mentioned it.
'I noticed that she actually wouldn't hesitate to kill me if she could. She seems to be avoiding it on purpose. Did someone tell her to? Who?'
"Hiyomu is very forgiving, so I'll let it go just for this once," she turned around reluctantly.
'And yeah, another thing, she is very easy to manipulate.'
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone