One passionate night with a clingy sister later.

The first thing we did in the morning was supposed to be packing, but when I crawled out of the tent, I saw Kasumi sitting right outside.

I almost hit my head against hers, she was this close.

“Wow! What are you doing here this early?”

“I reckoned thee would need help with waking up.” She lazily opened her eyes, and gazed at me.

“Thanks~.”

“Thee art welcome. Though I did not compliment thee.” (K)

Suddenly, the miko closed her eyes again, and reached for a stack of wooden tablets she put nearby.

“Choose one.” She showed them to me, with her eyes still closed.

[Luck, come to me!]

I pulled one tablet. For some reason I couldn’t read kanji, even though I was supposed to be able to due to my past experience.

“This.” When I chose, Kasumi opened her eyes, and took the tablet.

“Thee art blessed with luck today. And thy luck will help in guiding us.” (K)

“As expected of…” me…!

Even more suddenly, Kasumi leaned closer and gently kissed my forehead.

“???”

“If thee had done anything bad yesterday, I would have walked away.” With a ‘hm!’ she stood up, and left while I was speechless.

[He-he! Guess she still loves me~!]

Later, when the camp was packed, we were about to head out, when Kasumi approached me again.

“Kakka. Thy hand.” She grabbed it, and put a handful of dust into it.

Then, Kasumi said something in Japanese, and threw my hand up, scattering the dust. A gust blew the dust away, making me wonder what did the little maiden do.

“Erhm…?”

“The gods guide us there.” The next moment, Kasumi confidently walked in the direction the dust was scattered to.

---

For some reason the way we were heading did not have even a far resemblance to a road, a path, or a trail. But despite all that Kasumi was heading there. Soon the vegetation became denser, and she started having trouble moving forward.

“Baby, let me do this.” I easily lifted the light girl, and put her behind me. I already logged the heading she was following.

“Elina, I need your sword.”

“You’re sure…? You being a good fighter is not among the things I remember.” (E)

“Hush!”

After a short pondering, Elina reluctantly gave me the sword, and I started cutting us a way through the forest. To her immense surprise.

It all was going well, until we reached an opening.

[Why do I have a bad feeling about this…?]

Before the others stepped out from bushes, I signaled for them to wait.

“Bretagne.”

‘-1 Bond’

[WTF?!]

Without saying a word, she approached my side.

‘I have a bad feeling.’

‘I too, sœur.’ (B)

We started cautiously looking around, but found nothing noteworthy.

“In the name of Holy Iris!” (B)

“WA-WA-WAIT?!”

For some reason Bretagne deployed her guns, and started loading them.

‘Fshhh’

When I heard a weird sound, I deployed the guns too.

On our eyes, a plant type monster broke out of the ground. A huge carnivorous plant, with dozens of tentacle-like stems slithering around it.

“FIRE!”

BOOM BOOM BOOM

The ‘secondary’ triplet hit the giant ‘head’ of the plant, turning it into scattered mess.

“God, guide my hand!” (B)

KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM KABOOM

I was thinking that was it, I blasted the plant, but then Bretagne unleashed the big guns. And unlike my peashooters, those 500+mm things had the real punch.

Just the blast wave from them was enough to do a little damage to me, while the entire opening was cleared not only of the predator plant, but also of the innocent grass below us, and the innocent trees at the far end of the opening. Though that bleaks in comparison with a huge hole in the ground, right in front of Bretagne.

“That was… something…”

‘+1 Bond’

“U-fu-fu~! Sœur praised me~!” All of a sudden, Bretagne started hopping.

“Y-yeah, sure…” I exchanged glanced with my stupefied wives, and we continued going.

When we crossed the remaining forest and entered a plain, I noticed that we walked out to farmlands. In the distance I saw a walled town, right where the set heading was directed at.

It was supposed to be something good but I couldn’t shake off a weird feeling, because the way the fields were set up reminded me of the machine town I visited when we just arrived here.

“I am impressed, you remembered something that happened more than 5 seconds ago.” When I turned around in surprise, I saw the familiar loli, devilishly grinning at me.