A Peaceful Day of River Play in Okutama

By mid-August, summer was in full swing.

Hiyori, thrilled to be visiting Okutama in the brand-new robe I'd given her just yesterday, headed for the riverbank while humming a tune and carrying the cooler, beach umbrella, barbecue set, and a bag containing swimsuits and sunscreen all at once.

I followed behind with only a dip net, diving mask, and tin bucket.

After Hiyori climbed down to the riverbank and immediately began setting up the beach umbrella, I took the case of cola out of the cooler, stuck it in a slow-moving part of the mountain stream, and weighted it down with stones so it wouldn't be swept away.

If all I wanted was to chill it, freezing magic would have done the job.

But this was about atmosphere. We'd come to enjoy the feeling of playing in a river, so we'd better enjoy it to the fullest.

"Clear skies today. Perfect weather for playing in the river."

"Crap, I forgot sunscreen. Hiyori, lend me yours."

Having finished setting up the beach umbrella, Hiyori gazed up at the cloudless blue sky with an already satisfied look and tossed me the sunscreen she'd taken from the bag. I had been wearing nothing but swimming trunks since I left home, so I squeezed some cream into my hand and slathered it on.

I was thinking how amazing it was that such a relic from the old days as sunscreen still remained when I looked at the label on the little bottle and saw that the manufacturer was listed as "Kita Ward, Health Promotion Division."

Wow, this was made after the Gremlin Disaster! Humanity, which had been struggling with food shortages, had finally reached the point where it could worry about sun protection too. Naturally, reconstruction was progressing in all sorts of ways I knew nothing about.

Still, the price printed directly on the label was 1,980 new yen (19,800 old yen), so discretionary goods not considered daily necessities must still be quite precious. I hadn't seen a 1,980-yen price display in years. It really felt like "the economy has recovered."

While I was getting sentimental over a bottle of sunscreen, Hiyori had somehow already changed into her swimsuit.

She had shed her deep-blue robe, displaying her stunning figure without the slightest reserve, and was wearing a black bikini. Naturally, since she would be going underwater, she had taken off her mask too.

Her white, translucent-looking skin, so characteristic of an ice-type witch, dazzled my eyes. Then again, the sunlight itself was making it a little hard to see. Maybe I should have brought sunglasses.

As I stared blankly at Hiyori's swimsuit, which somehow felt fresh and new to me, she began looking me up and down too.

"You've got quite a bit of muscle, don't you...?"

"Of course I do. I work in the fields, so what did you expect? Don't underestimate me."

"No, I was impressed. Huh..."

Hiyori looked me up and down from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes, and I grew uncomfortable, fidgeting awkwardly.

I'd said I didn't need it today, but maybe I should ask her to put her mask back on after all. Feeling her gaze directly made my insides feel weird, and I wanted to look away.

But I had things I wanted to say too.

When I stared right back at her competitively, Hiyori noticed my gaze and bashfully drew herself in a little.

"D-do I look strange? My figure shouldn't have changed much since high school."

"No, you're beautiful. I can believe that story about you modeling. If you were on the cover, the magazine really would have sold like crazy. Beautiful, beautiful."

"So I'm beautiful, am I? Heehee...!"

"But there is one thing I was thinking about—or rather, something I've been thinking about for a while. Can I say it?"

Hiyori, who had been grinning happily, suddenly made a face that said, "I have a bad feeling about this," but silently urged me to continue.

"A girl's swimsuit is basically underwear, isn't it? Especially that kind of bikini. Aren't you embarrassed to wear it?"

"Huh?"

Hiyori gave a low growl, and her eyes turned cold.

No, I understood that she wasn't wearing it because she thought it was underwear. Of course she wasn't. I got that.

But come on, it really does look just like underwear! Even if someone insisted that underwear was a swimsuit and wore it like one, I was confident I'd be able to tell. The materials were probably different, but I didn't know anything about the materials used for women's underwear or swimsuits.

"There's no way it's underwear. It's a swimsuit, isn't it? Is something wrong with your head?"

"But your skin is just... totally exposed, you know? It makes me feel unsettled just looking at you. Like, is this really okay? It makes me nervous."

"Ah, don't worry about that. Witches are tough even with bare skin. I'm sturdy enough to shield you from a surprise attack. Relax."

"What are you talking about? I'm saying it's embarrassing to look at you, so cover up! Here, take my hoodie. Put this on."

I pulled the hoodie I'd brought for hot weather out of the bag and tossed it to her. Hiyori caught it and looked at me with an indescribable expression.

"Did my swimsuit make you embarrassed, Oori?"

"Huh? Well, probably...? Anyway, I can't relax when I look at you. If someone else were looking at you, I'd feel like telling you to put some clothes on. So hurry up and put it on. That hoodie can get wet."

"I see. It embarrasses you. Well, I suppose it can't be helped?"

Hiyori thumped me on the shoulder, grinning, then put on the hoodie and zipped it up.

I felt relieved with fifty percent less skin showing.

Phew, that's better. Now, let's play!

We immediately headed into the water. First, we split up, one of us searching upstream and the other downstream, for softshell turtles. We had an hour. Each turtle was worth one point, while one with a shell at least twenty centimeters long was worth two.

Hiyori put up an unexpectedly good fight for someone raised in the city, but she couldn't beat my experience. I won by a landslide, with a seven-point lead. Take that...!

Hiyori counted up the softshell turtles we'd caught and immediately tried to release them, so I hurriedly stopped her, took them back, filled the now-empty cooler with water, and dumped them in.

Obviously we're going to eat them. You idiot, why were you trying to let them go? Softshell turtle tastes like chicken, and it's delicious. Ones that have been burrowing in mud tend to taste muddy, so I soak the smelly ones for several days to draw out the odor and eat them later. The ones without a smell can be tonight's dinner.

Since she'd gone along with the softshell-turtle hunt I wanted, next we played the watermelon-splitting game Hiyori had wanted to try.

If Hiyori brought the stick down with all her strength, the watermelon would be obliterated, so I kept telling her to hold back. She held back too much, though, and the watermelon didn't break even after ten swings. Annoyed by my uproarious laughter, Hiyori brought the stick down with all her might. In the end, the watermelon was obliterated and the stick snapped in two.

I had anticipated that, so I'd prepared a second watermelon. This time I took the role of breaking it and split it neatly in half.

We took a lunch break under the umbrella and washed down the sliced watermelon with ice-cold cola.

Hiyori complained as she diligently picked watermelon seeds out with the tip of a fork.

"There was no point in my giving you directions. How did you know where the watermelon was without any instructions? Could you see it?"

"No. After I put on the blindfold, I spun around and around so I wouldn't know which direction I was facing. I kept count of how many times I spun. Then I walked the exact number of steps in the direction of the watermelon and brought the stick down. Simple trick, right?"

"Stop brute-forcing everything with your Dexterity."

We laughed over silly conversation, gazed up at the white clouds floating in the summer sky, bit into cold watermelon, and let the valley breeze wash over us.

It was so peaceful that, for a while, I forgot this was a world after the collapse of civilization.

Tokyo had overcome hardship after hardship, rebuilding civilization little by little—falling seven times and rising eight—and drawing closer to peace.

However, the fact that we could enjoy such a leisurely day playing in the river was entirely thanks to Okutama's particular circumstances.

In Okutama, for some reason, only monsters up to Class C appeared. According to Hiyori and Fuyou, who were in charge of monster extermination, even the lowest-ranking Class B monsters did appear occasionally, but they were few and far between.

That was why we could afford to let our guard down this much.

"Hey, why do you think Okutama is so peaceful?"

"What? Are you talking about monsters?"

"Yeah."

When I brought it up, Hiyori answered while reaching for her second slice of watermelon.

"I don't know. There are precedents for places like this, though."

"There are?"

"There are. The Dragon Witch's territory, for example, or Daidarabotchi's territory."

"Ah."

If examples like those counted, then she was right.

The Dragon Witch was a beast, but she was also a mighty dragon. Lesser monsters wouldn't approach her territory, and weak monsters that appeared inside it would sneak away. Even monsters strong enough not to fear competing for territory couldn't defeat the Dragon Witch.

Daidarabotchi was the opposite: it overlooked weak monsters and animals. Apparently, its territory had been teeming with such small fry. In exchange, it was quick to notice powerful monsters or witches and wizards trespassing in its territory, and would set about killing them persistently and thoroughly. That was why stronger monsters avoided Daidarabotchi's territory.

If some incredibly powerful monster of the Daidarabotchi type was hiding in Okutama—one whose mere presence kept strong monsters away and that instantly killed any that approached—then Okutama's peacefulness could be explained rationally.

"But there aren't any powerful monsters in Okutama, right?"

"Right. That's what I don't understand. I've investigated extensively, and there's no possibility that a powerful monster is hiding in this area. If a powerful monster isn't the reason peace is maintained, then what is? That's the question."

"Maybe since the strongest witch comes here now and then, they think it's your territory."

"Strong monsters didn't appear even before I started coming to Okutama, did they? And even with me here, monsters came and went as they pleased in Ome City. I have nothing to do with it. There are two possible explanations."

"One is that this is a special land. I don't know the logic behind it, but I don't think it's impossible."

"The other is that there's an Octameteorite here. It's possible the Octameteorite is claiming territory and expelling monsters, the way certain types of monsters do."

"Hmm... I wonder."

I tilted my head at both possibilities.

I'd never felt any power emanating from the earth in Okutama.

If anything, the Octameteorite enshrined as the guardian deity of my workshop seemed more likely to be the cause, but I'd never heard of a magical stone claiming territory.

"If I had to choose, I'd say the Octameteorite is the cause... Maybe? No, there's also the possibility that monsters are afraid of me."

"Hahahah!"

Hiyori actually laughed out loud. I couldn't forgive her.

You don't know that! Maybe monsters are afraid of dexterous creatures! We know next to nothing about monster ecology, so it could happen!

Hiyori had become a beast tamer for a while after having a Fukurozuzume gremlin implanted in her (it has since been removed so she can meditate).

Before taking it in, she'd borrowed books from the university and researched monsters, but apparently she didn't remember seeing any information from the perspective of monster studies that could explain Okutama's peacefulness.

Even from a wandmaker's perspective, I couldn't understand how the Octameteorite could be claiming territory.

For one thing, if the Octameteorite rejected Class B monsters and above, it made no sense that the fire lizards and Fuyou—presumably Class B—could remain here without a care. Both the fire lizards and Fuyou had gremlins from birth, so despite being a witch's children, they should technically count as monsters.

The idea that the Octameteorite was intentionally excluding the fire lizards and Fuyou from its targets was far too much of a stretch. The idea that a magical stone possessed a will was surely a logical leap.

It was a mystery.

We talked about the mystery of Okutama's peacefulness over watermelon for a while, but reached no conclusion.

Well, it wasn't causing us any trouble, so whatever.

After lunch, we skipped stones with flat rocks, played at Sai no Kawara, and had a courage test by jumping into a waterfall plunge pool. Finally, we barbecued beef and softshell turtle meat before calling it a day and going our separate ways.

We played all day and were exhausted. But it was fun, so it was worth it!

Next year, we should invite Professor Ohinata and the Spider Witch too.

It would be even more fun.