Chapter 23: Summer Event <Chaos> / Swimsuit Rene Goes on a Rampage

"What happened!?"

"Tierra-dono. I have apprehended the culprits."

An abnormal incident had occurred: with a deafening BOOM, a gigantic hole had been blasted into the lake. When I rushed to the scene, I found Nanashi-kun holding Rene and Liz by the scruffs of their necks.

The people from the surrounding villages must have been absolutely terrified, so as the responsible older-sister figure here, I suppose I had to give them a proper scolding.

"Would you mind telling me what happened, Rene, Liz?"

However, first things first. I needed to hear their explanation. I couldn't for the life of me imagine what could possibly have happened to cause a disaster like that.

In response to my question, Rene put on a strangely proud expression, raised one hand in a V-sign, and answered without a hint of shame.

"Heheh. Diving, accomplished. V."

What the hell is this idiot girl talking about?

"I'm very sorry... I sent her flying into the sky with my magic..."

Liz answered as though trying to defend Rene, but the more I listened, the more question marks appeared in my mind.

Still, by having them explain everything slowly, step by step, I was eventually able to piece together what had happened.

First of all, Rene, who had no memories, apparently didn't really know how to enjoy summer, so she had decided to observe Kizuna-kun and the others for the time being.

That's when she saw Kizuna-kun jumping into the lake from a slightly elevated spot.

Rene thought it looked fun, so she asked Liz to use magic to launch her into the sky. It wasn't flight magic. Instead, Liz had Rene use her giant scythe to block an offensive spell, sending her flying through the force of the impact.

...Things were already weird at this point, weren't they?

Why didn't she just imitate what she had seen normally? She watched someone do an ordinary dive, so why did she come up with the idea of diving from way up in the sky?

Rene was certainly crazy for thinking of it, but Liz, who actually went along with her, was pretty crazy too. Even the sensible one, Liz, couldn't resist that mysterious power. Spirit swimsuits are terrifying. No, spirits themselves are terrifying. Oh, right. I'm a spirit too.

"I understand how you ended up diving. I don't understand or accept it in the slightest, but I understand it. ...So? Why did things turn into that after you dove in?"

No matter how much momentum she had, there was no way a small girl like Rene charging into the lake by herself could make an enormous amount of the lake's water simply disappear like that.

"I probably can't swim. So, if I blow the water away, it'll be fine."

?????????

What is this idiot talking about?

By asking questions one at a time, just as before, I was eventually able to understand most of what had happened.

To begin with, Rene had never actually swum before.

Apparently, she remembered that fact at the exact moment she hit the water.

Realizing that she might drown if she stayed like this, Rene instinctively activated her ultimate technique.

She blew away the water around the point where she landed—or rather, she erased it using the power of World Eater.

On top of that, she exhausted all her strength doing so and became unable to move. Then she was caught up in the water rushing back in to fill the empty space and ended up drowning anyway. Apparently, Nanashi-kun had to rescue her.

This is just unbelievably stupid, isn't it?

"Thankfully, no one was directly harmed this time... well, aside from the fish and other creatures living in the lake. Let's leave it at a very serious warning."

"I'm sorry, Tierra-san..."

"I'm sorry, Mama."

"I'm not your mama, Rene. If you're going to fool around, I'll make your lecture even longer, you know?"

And with that, the incident came to an end.

However, the original problem that had caused the whole thing in the first place remained unresolved.

Rene couldn't swim.

"Getting her to learn how to swim in just three days isn't exactly realistic, is it?"

Padron-kun was right.

This wasn't some short-term skiing class. Three days was obviously impossible.

Besides, simply learning to swim a little wouldn't be enough. In a world where there were even fish-shaped magical beasts, swimming for fun would be difficult unless you could also fight underwater.

"I can't play...?"

Rene looked dejected. Seriously, every single thing this girl did was cute. I really wished she'd stop doing that. She's going to steal all my popularity.

"Can't we do something about it?"

Unable to bear seeing Rene like that, Kizuna-kun asked.

And it was wonderful that the very first person he looked to was me, Kizuna-kun.

The more attention he paid to me, the more screen time I would inevitably get in the game.

I was in a good mood, so I decided to cooperate with him willingly.

"Rene, swimming isn't the only way to enjoy summer, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"For now, look forward to lunch. And I have something special planned for tonight as well."

For the sake of my popularity, it seemed the time had finally come to unveil one of the secret weapons I'd gone running all over "Chaos" to acquire.

After all, when you think of a summer night, you think of that.

"Then leave things to me until lunchtime. I have a traditional game passed down in my homeland."

As Nanashi-kun said this, he held a round bundle in his hands. It looked like there was a ball inside. Was he planning to play beach volleyball?

"A traditional game?"

"Fufufu... What else could it be? Watermelon smashing!"

With Kizuna-kun's question, Nanashi-kun dramatically unwrapped the bundle as though a BAA-BAM! sound effect should have accompanied his movement, revealing a large, round fruit... or something resembling one.

Apparently, he had switched into high-tension mode to match everyone else going wild in their spirit swimsuits. Good grief. You're working hard, Nanashi-kun.

"It is not exactly the watermelon of my homeland, but I found a similar fruit earlier. I believe it will suffice for the game."

Watermelon smashing. Now that's a good choice.

Actually, I have quite a bit to say about watermelon smashing.

Taking my sickly younger sister to the sea wasn't exactly realistic. So instead, we used to come up with all sorts of "summery things" we could do without having to travel far.

Watermelon smashing was one of them.

My friend Midorigami Renji's family home was an old-fashioned Japanese house, complete with a fairly spacious garden and a veranda. Thanks to the kindness of Renji's grandfather, we were allowed to use the garden, and smashing watermelons with a few friends became an annual tradition. His dialect was so incredibly strong that I could barely understand eighty percent of what he said, but he was an incredibly kind and wonderful old man.

After smashing watermelons every year like that, I came to understand just how deep the art of watermelon smashing really was.

Though when I say it was "deep," I'm not talking about the person holding the stick and hitting it. I'm talking about the person preparing the watermelon.

Have you ever had the experience of hitting a watermelon only for it to end up completely smashed to pieces? It's incredibly difficult to eat afterward, and it doesn't exactly look appetizing either.

So how do you avoid that?

It's actually quite simple. You make a few hidden cuts in the watermelon beforehand—in other words, you score it.

And you mustn't forget to place the watermelon with the stem end facing downward rather than upward. I don't really know the science behind it, but doing this makes the watermelon much more likely to split cleanly.

By paying attention to these two details, you can get the watermelon to split neatly without it exploding into pieces. Then you can still enjoy eating it afterward.

Those were nostalgic memories.

Remembering all that, I took the watermelon substitute from Nanashi-kun and made a few cuts in it.

It was just watermelon smashing, so surely nothing too troublesome would happen. At worst, we'd have a watermelon explode spectacularly or something.

Now then. Lunch that children can enjoy, huh? I can already feel my creative juices flowing.

Since we didn't have much time on the first day, barbecue should be fine. It's delicious and plenty of fun.

But having barbecue the entire time would be a little unimaginative, and we'd get tired of it.

What kind of food makes you think of summer?

Summer... Summer means festivals... Festivals mean shaved ice and yakisoba... Yakisoba?

Soba... in other words, noodles. And when you think of noodles...?

Hmm? This might actually be pretty good...

Meanwhile, at around the same time.

The thunderous roar caused by that excessively powerful dive.

Naturally, anything beneath the water would have perceived it even more strongly.

And so.

Deep at the bottom of the lake.

A gigantic monster was beginning to awaken.