Post-Tournament

The match was finally ended. But no one was able to speak for some time due to the shock they received. It was ended in a way they completely did not expect where the prodigious should have been the one to achieve victory.

The winner was in the end fell to the hands of a previously unknown young man, the dark horse who kept showing various surprises. They all thought he was going to lose for sure near the end, but who would have known, he's once again displaying a very unexpected spectacle and prevailed against his opponent.

Both of them were knocked unconscious with the young man dropping to the ground as soon as his victory was announced. The situation turned very rowdy afterwards and there's a bunch of people trying to approach the two fighters. Haruto was retrieved by the Kaori and the others while Lumina immediately went and secured Natasha, carrying her somewhere to treat her without anyone disturbing the sleeping elf for the thing she did.

A few days had passed since then and Haruto had long since he regained his consciousness. Right now he, along with his party members were facing several numbers of ladies with Haruna in the middle of them.

"Hmm, how should I say this... sorry for the troubles." Haruto rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

"It's alright, I owe Haruto-san a great debt and I personally decided this." Haruna smiled softly.

Around her were young women in their twenties or below. The majority of them were showing various kind of reactions from reluctance, hesitation, nervousness, confusion, and even fear. They seemed some kind of afraid when they made eye contact with Haruto while a few of them have determined and resolute faces too.

They're actually some of the victims from Erick's case, they had regained consciousness and now prepared to go with Haruna.

They all woke up just the day before. At that time it was quite chaotic since there's lot of cases where's the women suffered from severe PTSD as a result of their sufferings. It took some time with Kaori's help to stabilize their minds.

Once they all regained their clarity, they were crying loudly while also hugging each other. Thanks to Kaori's magic, their memories were partially deleted, that's why they wouldn't remember those gruesome experiences clearly in order to prevent them from breaking down again.

But they still remembered the chronological events and greatly shaken to the core. They wondered why they have to live after all of that, all of them hope for Haruto and the others to kill themselves because they couldn't bear living anymore.

Kaori who heard this became sad and conflicted, it was exactly how Lumina described the situation would be. Even Haruto was taken aback when the numerous women pleading him to kill them all in the same time.

After a very difficult effort on pacifying them, he offered to revert back their body conditions to before the incident happened. Using Regeneration Magic, he would undo all the 'damages' caused by Erick and his goons while also removing their memories regarding the case.

The offer made them to be stupefied with disbelieving face. To return them back from before, undoing everything that happened, wasn't that the thing they gave up on hence they chose the path of demise? There's no way they could believe what he said.

And yet, once Kaori shown her power, they were all forced to accept the changes of their bodies as the truth. They returned back to their selves from months and years ago. But because their memories were completely deleted this time, they fell unconscious and wouldn't remember anything regarding what Haruto and the others did. They were returned to their respective families using the beastman royalty's help. Now they would continue their lives as if nothing happened.

Even so, there's still another problem. Not every women were ones that were taken from their families, a few of them were obtained through legal meanings. They were those that sold by their families due to various reasoning like debts for example. Another case was they did not have family or parents since the very beginning, in other words, orphans.

These women numbered around 70 people. Haruto was racking his brains on what to do regarding them. He could use some of the money gained from the tournament's betting and prize money to buy them a lodging, having them take care of themselves afterwards. But then Haruna proposed to take care of them in his stead, giving the place where her hometown was located for them to create a new village or something.

A small part of the group would also accompany her on her journey on exploring the world by their own volition. Thankfully, Haruna's past village was a very peaceful place that never been attack by monsters before, so it should be a good place to live. She would also personally trained them for self-defense in order to protect themselves in the case she's being absent.

For some reason when she mentioned something about training the young women, she's showing some kind of suspicious grin against Haruto. Although the boy did not know what's the meaning of her grin, the other girls in his group were displaying a reaction as if their radars detected suspicious intentions related to girl and boy.

In the end Haruto shrugged thinking the half-dwarf girl could do what she wanted. She truly intended to take care of the victims, feeling some kind of resemblance between her and them. That's why she wouldn't do a bad thing for them.

This group of women was not completely gotten rid of their memories because there's nothing to start over as they did not have relative and family to return to and Haruna would handle them after this, they would be confused and made some kind of unnecessary troubles without having their awareness regarding the event partially intact. It's also the reason why they were some kind of terrified against Haruto, they're deeply traumatized by the case and became afraid of men. Of course he didn't mind this.

"Okay, I'll be leaving now. I'm looking forward to meet you again someday, Haruto-san. Once again, thank you very much for everything." Haruna bowed her head.

"It's alright, it just happened that way. And I'm sure we'll meet again soon too so make sure to take care of yourself as well you hear me?" Haruto smiled.

Haruna smiled wryly and nodded. And thus she left alongside the crowd of women, going to the northern continent together. Haruto and the others stood still on their place, a valley some distances away from the city island. He was attracting too much attention and needed to lay low for awhile until the commotions subsided. The prize for his victory was 1 million quartz and the right to become top rank adventurer (silver and above). He would be promoted to silver rank any moment while at the same time, he wouldn't need a lot of effort to rise into gold and platinum rank as his achievement was satisfied by winning the Tenkaichi Budokai.

"You should just shown yourself to them you know?" He said while turning his head to the side.

A girl wearing pure white clothing appeared from behind a large rock. Her soft looking silver hair fluttered in the air as her blue eyes radiated strong will and strength. Her sublimely beautiful face that resembled a fairy remained as stoic as ever, the same female elf with divine bloodline he fought recently, Natasha.

"....I'll just cause more burdens on those ladies if I showed myself." She said.

"Really? And here I thought it's because little Natasha is a shy girl." Haruto made a teasing smirk.

Natasha's eyebrows twitched, she was feeling complicated and annoyed to be called so casually. Furthermore, he had the gals to tease her, fully knowing she's just feeling awkward to make her appearance. Naturally, there's no possible way for her to admit this.

"....Enough about that. I'm here to tell you something." She changed the topic.

"Sure, that's the original reason we came here." Just like Haruto said, it was Natasha that called them here through Lumina who was treating her and safeguarding her as the person who had drawn the most attentions even compared to him.

"Right, what's your plan after this? You've become quite a great superstar in the world now. Every countries, except for Filtrania maybe, would chase after you." He asked with a hint of concern on his tone.

"....I'm aware of that." Natasha nodded.

"Hmm, what is your plan then?"

"....Do you know anything about the western continent?" She asked.

"Western.... it's where elves live in now right?"

"...Yes. I will return back there. I still have unfinished matters in that place and it's a perfect place to hide from the world."

"Is that so...."

Haruto pondered. He then remembered that almost nothing was known regarding this specific continent, it was an isolated domain unreachable to most people. There must be something inside this geographical land that he didn't know about.

"Is there something special about that place?" He decided to ask.

".....Kind of. In any case, I'll be going there and the reason I'm here was so you wouldn't have the wrong idea." For a moment, her face contorted before she avoided the question and said to Haruto with strong eyes.

"Wrong idea?" Haruto raised his eyebrows.

"....I admitted my lost this time around, but the next time we met, I will be the victor." She said with a sharp gaze, looking very fiery.

"Huh, I never thought you're the sore loser type."

"...."

Haruto laughed knowing she's frustrated by losing to him and wished to have a revenge for her lost. Natasha averted her eyes with a faint of redness on her cheeks, she couldn't say anything back. The girls looked at the interaction between the two with doubtful and piercing gazes but Haruto did not aware of this.

And then, similar to how she appeared out of a sudden, she left the place in an instant, leaving a small trace of cold wind in the place she was before.

Haruto knew Natasha was purposefully avoiding his question regarding the affairs on the western continent but he didn't force her to reveal them. He wondered what happened in that island and what made them so special compared to other continents?

He wondered while gazing at the direction the fairy-like elf gone to.