To the Promised Land

「Young ladies, are any of you tired yet? Don’t worry, even if you are, as unworthy as I may be, I, Tanaka, shall humbly carry you on my back. There’s nothing to worry about. If you lean your body…, especially your upper body close to me, this Tanaka shall take you to anywhere and everywhere tirelessly without fail.」

「…..」

Tanaka led the group in a jubilant mood. His light-hearted speech seemed to gently soothe the women who had suffered emotional trauma.

「Oi, Tanaka.」

Suppressing his voice down a bit, Kaku-san called out to Tanaka.

「Look at their eyes. They’re totally afraid of you.」

「Is, is that so? In my eyes, it looks like we’re only a few steps away from the So cool! Embrace me!’ event, though.」

Tanaka had been sparing no efforts to conquer the women. 「What the heck is that?」

Tanaka’s visionary thoughts that were far above and beyond that of ordinary beings’ seemed to be beyond even the understanding of Kaku-san, a spirit that was one of the administrators of the world.

「For the time being, our top priority is to first send them back safely to their village-degozaru.」

Suke-san made a calm decision. Someone a year and a few months old. He had grown up splendidly.「… My bad. Looks like I got a bit impatient in the face of the opportunity that has finally presented itself. I almost showed an opening that could be taken advantage of by the world.」

Tanaka thrusts out his fist.

「Now we’re talking.」

「We’re sailing in the same boat-degozaru.」

The three of them bumped their fists together. With this bond between them, they would definitely be able to overcome any and every vicious trap the world might throw at them. The hearts of the beastmen grew even more distant in the face of such a passionate event of a middle-aged man, bones, and muscles.

Then Tanaka and the others resumed their movements again.

Currently, team Tanaka were on their journey towards the forest where the beastmen were said to have built their settlement at. It seemed that what team Tanaka had encountered was a scene of a small group of slave traders being raided by bandits, and the ones imprisoned in the cage were these beastman women. Their line-up was a magnificent assortment of a wide range of women, from young girls, who could only be called children, to blooming girls. It was truly a one-way event ticket to the uhauha otherworld life that Tanaka had been pursuing. On the contrary, however, the perfection of the event had caused Tanaka to lose his cool. The bond between the three of them had aided them in splendidly overcoming the incident this time, but the event had only just begun. Tanaka straightened up his mind and focused himself on sending the beastmen back to their village. While having his mind preoccupied by delusions of the debauchery event that would take place there….

◇ ◇ ◇

「Oh! What in the word….」 An old man, who seemed to be the village chief, leaked these words of surprise in the face of the women who were previously captured by the slave traders. Speaking of the women in question, they were merely standing quietly there.

Someone among them found such reactions of theirs suspicious, it was Tanaka. The beastmen were gathering in droves, and as they observed what was going on, they soon fell into wonder and confusion. It wasn’t like there was completely no joy in them, but it was considerably on the smaller side.

Tanaka had a bad feeling about this. This time, he had also challenged to conquer the event alone with the resolve to die. He had asked Suke-san and Kaku-san to be on standby at a place quite a distance away from the village.

Tanaka began to feel restless at the premonition that he was about to have to deal with some kind of problem by himself. Truly a man who could foresee the future.「Big sis!」

「Kanabun!」

A boy jumped out of the crowds of beastmen and hugged the person who appeared to be his elder sister. As Tanaka screamed ‘What is with this Kanabun (drone beetle)? Aren’t you a beastman?!’ in his mind, as though triggered by the scene of the sibling, one by one, people began to step forward as well. Seeing the joyous scenes that were unfolding all over the place, Tanaka shouted ‘Kanabun. Good job!’ in his mind to thank him.

「Am I right to assume that you were the one who released these girls?」 The village chief spoke to Tanaka.

「I merely happened to be on the scene when the slave traders were being attacked by bandits. At that time, the slave traders had already been killed, but the girls were safe, so I brought them here. Was it an unnecessary meddling?」

Of course, he didn’t forget to strike a cool pose. The event was about to begin in earnest from here on. Intuitively sensing that, Tanaka braced himself for the challenge.

「No, not at all, thank you very much. The whole village is grateful to you.」

「That doesn’t seem to be quite the case to me, though….」

「No, that’s….」

Tanaka decided to tread upon the hard route. Thanks to Kanabun, it might seem that the path toward the normal route of the debauchery events was hereby cleared up for him. However, in the end that was only on the surface. In reality, nothing had been cleared at all. Most likely, this was a trap set by the world to entrap Tanaka. Having arrived at that conclusion, Tanaka readily abandoned the debauchery event route. He abandoned the sweet fruit that was being offered in front of him without hesitation. From these momentary exchanges, he could already perceive that something quite serious was looming over them at the moment. As well as the fact that the real battle was finally about to begin.

「Well, well, well, it seems to be quite lively here.」

A plump middle-aged man appeared along with a large group of armed men.

「Wha, what’s this all about? This term, we’ve already….」

The village chief called out to the plump man with a faint voice. The man floated a grin and interrupted the village chief as though he had expected such a question.

「It’s kind of troubling if you underestimate me that much. I’ve already confirmed that the trading group was attacked enroute, you know? Moreover, it seems that you happen to have even arranged enough replacements, so I guess I’ll gratefully accept the goods for this term」