Chapter 47: Auto-Battle in Gacha Games Is Perfect for Multitasking

"Seriously!? That's Hime-chan!? Whoa, you've gotten so big!"

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me Hime-chan, Big Sis Pahal? It sounds like a girl's name, and I hate it!"

"But Hime-chan is Hime-chan, you know~!"

"Stop hugging me, stop patting my head, and stop rubbing your cheek against mine!"

...Huh. That's strange. Weren't things supposed to be serious just a moment ago?

Somehow, we'd shifted into a heartwarming scene where Pahal-san was hugging a young elf boy and fussing over him like crazy.

"Um... Could you introduce us now? Since he calls you his big sister, is he your little brother?"

"Oops! I got carried away. My bad!"

At my prompting, the boy was finally released.

However, despite muttering, "That was awful..." his face looked delighted. If anything, he watched Pahal-san move away with a somewhat lonely gaze. It seemed that his protests were mostly an attempt to hide his embarrassment.

"Hime-chan isn't my actual little brother. He's from the tribe next to ours, and we used to play together all the time. How old are you now...? Huh? How old did you turn?"

"Twenty this year. I've already had my Spirit Festival, so I'm not a child anymore."

Elves had different lifespans from humans. Tierra-san had told me that before.

If I remembered correctly, an elf's twenty years was equivalent to ten human years.

"The Spirit Festival?"

"It's the elves' coming-of-age ceremony for reaching adulthood halfway. See that ridiculously tall tree over there?"

I looked in the direction Pahal-san was pointing. There stood a tree of absolutely absurd height.

...That's a tree, right? Seriously?

All the trees in the Great Forest were enormous, but compared to this one, they looked like tiny babies.

It was so tall that I could barely make out its top. I could easily believe someone who told me it reached all the way up to the clouds.

"That's the World Tree, towering over the center of the Great Forest. It's the core and center of our elves' world, the Great Forest."

The center of an entire world...

Did that mean anything happening to that tree would affect the Great Forest itself?

"When an elf turns twenty, they give thanks for being born into this world and being able to live in it by offering their magic power to the World Tree."

"They offer their magic power...?"

"Through the ritual, they channel their magic power into the World Tree. Then, after twenty years, a fruit containing their condensed magic power grows. At the coming-of-age ceremony when they turn forty, they eat that fruit and are officially recognized as adults. That's how it works. ...Man, though..."

As Pahal answered Lies's question, she looked rather proud.

Perhaps she was happy to share the traditional customs of her homeland with us.

I had no memories of my own homeland. But watching her speak so enthusiastically made me feel happy, too.

It must be a really wonderful festival.

"Hime-chan has grown into such a fine young man, even though he once started a huge fire trying to cover up wetting the bed~!"

"Don't suddenly expose my embarrassing past!!"

...And once again, Himeros-kun found himself trapped in Pahal-san's arms while she patted and fussed over him.

Honestly, I couldn't help feeling sorry for him this time. Imagine having your embarrassing childhood past exposed by the beautiful older girl next door—or someone like that. At ten years old, that sort of thing must be especially devastating.

"The Spirit Festival... The coming-of-age ceremony, huh...?"

"What's wrong, Lies?"

"...Oh. It's nothing."

...I wonder what was wrong?

Lies-san looked a little sad just then. It was an expression so unlike her usual composed self...

"Could it be...?"

"All right, everyone! This isn't the time to reminisce and catch up! We've got Tree Soldiers and mechanical soldiers to deal with, and a mountain of other problems to address!"

"Ah! That's right! Things are super-duper dangerous right now!"

That's right. Before anything else, we had to focus on the invasion by the Machine City.

"I'm sorry, Kizuna-san. Were you about to say something?"

"No, it was just me talking to myself. Don't worry about it. Let's deal with the problem right in front of us first."

I needed to get my head back in the game.

By now, Tierra-san and the others were surely fighting for their lives, too.

"Heh-heh! See? Once you get the hang of it, it's a piece of cake!"

Using Tetoma's power of Aggregation, we'd built a huge humanoid weapon—apparently called T²—to fight back against the mechanical soldiers.

As usual, I couldn't help being amazed by Tierra-san's ideas.

At first, T² had done little more than trip over itself and swing at empty air. But it soon began to show what it could really do.

It wielded two enormous pairs of swords that reminded me of Tierra-san's twin blades. One moment, they were slicing the tough mechanical soldiers clean in half; the next, T² was firing countless bullets and wiping out mechanical soldiers across a wide area.

Watching it cut down and blast away wave after wave of enemies, you'd have to call it a one-machine army.

However...

"Correction. Tierra is not currently operating this unit. This unit is moving according to its own judgment. Tierra is merely sitting in the cockpit."

"Could you at least read the room a little?!"

"The current atmospheric composition is oxygen—"

"Are you doing this on purpose?!"

Apparently, Tetoma was responsible for T²'s current movements, and Tierra-san had nothing to do with them.

...She must have been unable to pilot it properly, so Tetoma had taken over.

"That explains it, nyah. No wonder its movements suddenly changed. ...Well, I can understand why she said that earlier, too. After making such a cool entrance, she couldn't even pilot the thing. She must've been embarrassed, nyah."

Tierra-san was a capable, mature woman, but everyone in our group knew she could be a little absentminded at times.

Even in the middle of this brutal battle, I couldn't help letting out a chuckle.

"What is it, everyone?! Stop looking at me with those painfully sympathetic eyes! I'm not making dinner tonight!"

What?! That would be disastrous!

"That was Piska talking! I'm not involved, Tierra-san!"

"Nyah?! That's sneaky, Padron! You were thinking the exact same thing! You have the stingiest little heart imaginable for someone who wants to become a lord!"

"What did you call me, barbarian?!"

"Don't call me a barbarian, nyah!"

This guy...!

For once, I couldn't let this slide.

I had to make this barbarian acknowledge that I was the man truly worthy of becoming the next lord.

"Minia doesn't understand why you two are fighting in the middle of a battlefield where you're hopelessly outnumbered~."

"Those two are fine just the way they are. You know what they say: the more they fight, the closer they are."

...Huh? What kind of nonsense was Nanashi spouting?

"We are absolutely NOT close, Nanashi!"

"We are absolutely NOT close, Nanashi!"

For some reason, Piska and I denied it in perfect unison, word for word.

"Stop copying me, barbarian!"

"You're the one copying me, nyah! And I'm NOT a barbarian, nyah!"

"See? You're perfectly in sync."

"He's right~!"

"Complaint: Stop leaving all the fighting to this unit and get back to combat already."

"How did things end up like this...?"

Tierra-san's final mutter summed up this utterly ridiculous situation perfectly.