51: First Encounter In A New World

"Whoa! It's so big!"

Seeing the black SUV, Ai exclaimed excitedly as she ran over and started touching it, examining the vehicle with curiosity. She then looked back at Natsuo and asked, "How did you do that?"

"That's what she said." Kana nudged him with her elbow and whispered with a wink.

"..." Natsuo gave her a sidelong glance before answering Ai's question.

"I stored it in my Inventory. If you get the chance, you should buy it as well. It only costs 3,000 points."

"Anyways, get in." Natsuo walked over to the driver's seat, climbed inside, and started the car.

Kana immediately rushed over and claimed the passenger seat, while Ai, who had been looking at her strangely, climbed into the backseat.

"Did you buy this car?" Kana asked.

"No, I stole it." Natsuo shook his head as he drove.

"You stole it?!" Kana and Ai both exclaimed in shock.

"Yeah. I saw a group of yakuza doing some shady stuff near the port, so I decided to borrow one of their cars." Natsuo replied casually.

Natsuo might have been somewhat rich, but he had recently been trying to tighten his spending because of the new business he was planning to start. This car would have cost him around $50,000 if he had bought it, but by simply "borrowing" it, the price was a much more reasonable $0.

"Aren't you afraid you'll get caught if you drive it?" Ai asked curiously.

"Not really. It's not like I'm planning to drive it in my world anyway." Natsuo shrugged.

"Did you prepare enough fuel?" Kana suddenly asked.

"Yeah." Natsuo nodded.

Hearing his answer, both girls stopped asking questions. They felt that Natsuo had come much more prepared this time.

While driving, Natsuo felt that he had made a smart choice by 'borrowing' an SUV. If he had taken a sedan or a sports car instead, they would have been in serious trouble on this bumpy, rocky road.

Technically, the path they were driving on was considered a road, but that was only by the standards of this medieval world. There was no asphalt anywhere, and the rough dirt path was little more than a trail of rocks and uneven ground.

Oshiete ♫, oshiete yo sono shikumi wo ♫

"Hey, did you sleep with your stepsister when you returned this time?" Kana played with the touchscreen, connecting her phone to the car's Bluetooth before starting some music.

"I was about to, but the quest interrupted me," Natsuo answered without taking his eyes off the road.

"Really?!"

"Natsuo-san, you really were about to do that kind of thing with your stepsister?" Ai, who was hearing them talk about it for the first time, was shocked. She leaned forward from the backseat and stared at Natsuo with wide eyes.

"Of course not. It's just that this perverted girl over there won't stop bringing up the matter unless I shut her down." Natsuo replied calmly before quickly changing the subject. "How do you feel about being in a completely new world surrounded by strangers?"

"Well, it's a strange experience, but you're wrong about one thing." Ai held her chin and replied with a thoughtful look before suddenly bursting into a bright smile. She raised both hands and made peace signs toward Natsuo and Kana. "You two aren't strangers. You're my friends, right?!"

"Friends?" Natsuo and Kana exchanged a glance before smiling as well.

"How does it feel, Natsuo, getting friend zoned by a cute girl?" Kana teased.

"I have a girlfriend," Natsuo replied flatly.

He was very satisfied with his girlfriend Chelsea. She was kind, thoughtful, and even her teasing was fun. At night she was wild, and he would never get tired of her. Dating her felt like dating multiple people at once because she could always change her appearance, which gave everything a refreshing feeling every night.

"I miss Chelsea. Why the fuck did you come instead of her?" Natsuo let out a long, disappointed sigh, earning him a sharp glare from Kana.

"Hmph! Just you wait!" Kana snorted coldly.

"Haha, you two really do get along!" Watching their interaction, Ai laughed. "You make a perfect couple."

"Really?" Kana smiled. She felt that Ai was surprisingly perceptive to notice something like that so quickly.

"I have a girlfriend." Natsuo immediately ruined her good mood.

The car drove for a long while, passing through the rocky mountains. Ai took out her phone and recorded videos of the journey. Although the scenery looked boring to Natsuo, everything was completely new to Ai. She couldn't stop looking around, fascinated by the unfamiliar world surrounding her.

Unfortunately, her excitement didn't last long. As they approached the forest, they suddenly encountered an obstacle blocking the road.

Behind the large boulders, a group of men suddenly jumped out and blocked the road. They were all wearing what appeared to be leather armor and carrying various weapons. Some held swords and spears, while the men in the rear carried bows.

At the front stood a man wearing metallic armor, who appeared to be the leader of the group.

"Bandits?" Kana reached down to her waist and drew her two guns, narrowing her eyes.

"What do we do?" Ai asked nervously, becoming frightened as she looked at the large group of menacing men blocking their way.

"Kill them, of course!" Kana replied calmly as she opened the car door and stepped out before Natsuo could even react.

After killing countless parasites in her own world, Kana had become completely accustomed to killing people. To her, killing a few humans was hardly any different from killing parasites. In her eyes, both were simply living beings that looked alike and could be killed just as easily.

"Wait here. It'll be over quickly. You'd better cover your eyes," Natsuo told Ai before stepping out of the car as well.

When Natsuo walked in front of the car with Kana by his side, the bandit leader stared at the vehicle and the two girls. He slammed his heavy sword against the ground and declared, "This mountain was opened by me, this tree was planted by me. If you want to pass through here, leave the women and the money behind!"

"..." Natsuo felt that the line sounded strangely familiar, but he figured that perhaps all bandits learned their lines from the same book. He raised a hand and calmly said, "Leave a few of them alive."

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As soon as he finished speaking, the loud crack of gunfire rang out. Kana immediately pulled the triggers of both guns, and one of the bullets struck the bandit leader in the shoulder. It pierced through his metal armor with ease and embedded itself deep into his flesh.

The leader's hand went limp, causing him to drop his sword as he let out a painful cry.

"Kill them! Kill them! Agh!"

The bandit leader dropped to the ground and desperately crawled backward, roaring furiously as he clutched his wounded shoulder.

Immediately, the frightened bowmen raised their weapons toward Natsuo and Kana, preparing to draw their strings.

Natsuo obviously wasn't going to let that happen. He stretched out his hand, and a massive fireball quickly condensed in front of his palm. The sphere was over two meters in diameter, its intense heat causing the air around it to distort.

With a simple motion of his hand, Natsuo sent the blazing sphere flying in a wide arc toward the bowmen in the rear.

"Ex-Flame!"

BOOM!

A huge pillar of fire erupted behind the leader and his subordinates, swallowing the ten or so bowmen in an instant. The explosion unleashed a scorching shockwave that sent the other bandits stumbling forward, while the sheer force of the blast shattered the large boulders surrounding them as well.

"So strong! When did you learn that?" Kana stared at the explosion in shock, waving her hands excitedly as she exclaimed.

"Don't freaking aim your guns at me!" Natsuo immediately moved to the side and cursed at her.

"This is an intermediate spell called Ex-Flame. Mom gave me a bunch of spells when we returned, so I've been training with them."

Although he said he had been training with it, in reality, Natsuo had only cast the spell a few times. It was difficult to practice something like this without attracting attention. If he used a spell of this magnitude in a forest or on a mountain, he could easily start a wildfire and cause a huge disaster.

Because of that, he mostly practiced it at night near the beach, where he could unleash the spell without worrying as much about setting everything around him on fire.

"Run! Run! Mages! They have mages!"

Terrified out of their minds, the bandits turned around and began running frantically for their lives.

"Kill them all. Leave one or two alive." Natsuo pulled out an AK-47 and chased after them with Kana.

He was worried that if he kept casting spells, he would end up killing all of them before they could capture anyone alive.

Bang! Bang!

"Please, spare my life! Spare my life!"

In less than two minutes, all but two of the bandits were lying on the ground, blood pooling around their bodies. The two survivors dropped to their knees and desperately begged for their lives, staring up at Natsuo and Kana with terror in their eyes.

"Hey, don't you find it strange that we can understand them?" Kana kicked a corpse at her feet and asked.

"It must be the work of the Chat Group. Having to travel to different worlds and learn their languages would be a nightmare for 'smart' people like you." Natsuo snickered as he aimed the still hot muzzle of his AK-47 at one of the surviving bandits. "Tell me, where are we? How far are we from the capital? Do you know the direction to a place called Alnus Hill? How far are we from Italica? And has the war between the Empire and the people beyond the Gate already started?"

Hearing all his questions, the bandit tried to ignore the burning sensation on his forehead as he hurriedly began answering, "I'll tell you! I'll tell you..."

"So we're quite far away, huh?" After questioning the two bandits for a while, Natsuo gained a good understanding of where they were. He asked them to draw a map for him, but they were illiterate and didn't even know how to hold a pen, much less draw a map.

"Thank you for your cooperation." Natsuo smiled at them, and before either of the two bandits could say another word, he pulled the trigger and killed them both.

"Let's go back." He turned around and calmly walked toward the car.

"You were cool just now." Kana followed behind him and spoke in a soft voice.

"I'm always cool," Natsuo replied.

...

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