Heroine-Saving System: Reborn In A Third-Rate Manga As The Protagonist-Chapter 102: Miyuki’s Power

Itsuki bit his lip as he raised a pair of binoculars he had bought from the base of the tower to his eyes.

’I can’t believe it.’ He thought. The instant he stopped watching her she had hitched along with Amagi Koya. ’Is he forcing her to come along with him?’

He zoomed in on their location and saw something he had never dreamed of seeing in his life. Miyuki was smiling.

She was talking with Koya and actually smiling... it was not the polite pressured expression she wore at clan functions or the small distant one she offered when she was trying not to draw attention to herself.

A real one, it was the kind that reached her eyes and stayed there. He had not seen that expression on her face in years and he was watching it happen because of a commoner from Class 5.

’When last did I see her smile?’ He thought from his position in the tree with one hand braced against the branch and the other holding the binoculars steady.

It had been a long time... long enough that seeing it on her face now being aimed at someone else, felt like being shown something that belonged to him that he hadn’t noticed was missing.

He wasn’t cold to her because he wanted to be.

Everything he did was because this world didn’t reward softness... it consumed it.

Even within the Aozora clan, Miyuki wasn’t respected as the heiress the way she should have been, purely because of how she carried herself.

The only reason Kaede had been assigned as their maid at the Academy was because she was one of the few people who treated Miyuki with genuine respect, and Itsuki had noticed that and liked her for it.

’Everything I do, it’s to protect you from this damned world.’ He thought, watching the blond moving alongside his sister through the trees.

She had never smiled like that for him... not once in such a long time and here she was, smiling for this bastard.

"Itsuki-kun, what are you doing?"

The voice came from directly beside his ear. He turned and there was a bat sitting on his shoulder and he fell off the branch entirely, hit the ground, and scrambled to his feet.

"Why...?" He moved his hands instinctively into a sign formation before catching himself. He remembered what happened in the cafeteria.

Matching up against Mirei in a direct exchange was not something he could afford to do, here or anywhere. "Here for Round 2?"

Mirei waved him off with one bat wing and looked completely unbothered.

"Not at all. I’m actually doing the same thing as you, so I’m suggesting we do it together." She tilted her head. "Are you not focusing on Koya-kun and Miyuki-chan?"

Itsuki’s face went slightly pale.

"How do you know, I could have been—"

"Just shut up. They’re giving us distance. I already have a Familiar in mind but I’m more interested in what they’re doing right now." She landed on his shoulder and folded her wings. "Move."

Itsuki didn’t have a choice in this matter so he began walking.

...

"So did you actually read your manual before you came out here?" Koya asked.

The forest spread out in every direction around them, it was dense and purple-leafed. Familiars were visible in every layer of it... moving through the undergrowth, sitting in the branches overhead, and even one small bird Familiar that had landed on top of Miyuki’s head at some point and apparently decided to stay there.

She hadn’t seemed to notice and it flew off immediately after.

"Yes, I actually did." Miyuki said. "Onii-chan and I got copies back in the clan so I’ve been studying it since I was a kid."

She was honestly a little flustered that it was just the two of them walking together, but Koya was focused on her and only her, not looking past her at the Familiars or checking the map. It made her feel happy.

"Hmph." Koya moved his face to the right. "Guess that’s the privilege of being nobles, huh?"

"Ah." She wasn’t sure if she had said something wrong.

She didn’t want him to be unhappy. "I can h-help if you want... I know a whole lot of—"

Koya patted her head and she blushed immediately.

"No, it’s not like that." He said, and took his hand off. She averted her eyes to the right because she didn’t know what to do with her face. "So do you have an idea of what kind of Familiar you want?"

’This is actually her second time here.’ He thought.

It was in one of the manga volumes as a flashback.

Miyuki and Itsuki had come to the Isle when they were kids, trying to bond with Familiars early, and she hadn’t been able to bond with any of them.

One had attacked her and Itsuki got hurt saving her so she had been carrying the guilt of that quietly ever since.

’To be honest... she’s a well-written character in this third-rate manga.’ He thought. It was genuinely a shame what the author had done with her later.

After falling for the main character she had stopped being shy entirely... and though he liked when a character developed, It was like the equivalent of watching a stuttering woman suddenly turn into Hakai the next day.

It had left a bad taste in his mouth. ’How could someone so cute...’

He looked at her flowing blue hair, her rosy cheeks, the particular way her shyness sat on her face genuinely and her lips especially.

He found himself wondering what they felt like... they looked soft though. Miyuki glanced up and caught him looking.

It made her blush harder.

"Uh... I don’t... really have a Familiar in mind, Koya-kun." She said, trying to redirect. "But we can focus on your own Familiar first. What kind are you searching for?"

Koya smiled.

"Let’s go for yours." He said. "You want a water Familiar right? According to the map, there’s a body of water nearby."

"B-but..."

He took her hand. It was soft and small in his and she went pink to the ears immediately. He looked into her eyes.

’If we haven’t ruined the plot too badly, it should be around here.’ He thought.

"Trust me, okay?" He said.

She blushed with a small nod.

"O... okay. I trust you." She said, and they continued walking toward the lake with their hands still linked.

In the trees far behind them, Itsuki crushed the binoculars.

The frame crumpled in his grip and the pieces fell to the ground between his feet... He held every instinct to go there and wrap his hands around that blond’s neck and kill him but he had to be careful, mostly because he knew it would be a genuinely close fight.

’And I can’t use mana to cast spells either way.’ He thought, and turned to the bat on his shoulder.

Mirei was very quiet, a bit too quiet in fact.

"Mirei, should we move closer?" Itsuki asked, keeping his voice level and every ounce of the rage that was sitting behind it carefully out of it.

Succubus had naturally stronger bodies than humans... If she decided to use physical force on him it would be easy for her and she knew it.

"..."

"Is this human companionship?" She murmured, more to herself than to him.

Her eyes were still on Koya and Miyuki through the trees. "It is a lot more than Succubus companionship... where the man is the pet and the woman is the dominator."

She flew off his shoulder without another word, moving in their direction, completely forgetting about the Aozora heir entirely.

’I need to learn more.’ Mirei thought as she curved forward through the trees. ’It looks very interesting.’

...

They reached the lake and Koya immediately noticed that the Familiar cries were far fewer than he had expected.

The area around the water was quieter than it should have been for a documented water Familiar territory... there was barely anything moving along the banks and the surface of the lake was left undisturbed.

"Did something happen?" Miyuki muttered, opening her Guidebook to check. "There are supposed to be different kinds of water Familiars here like Deepfin, Mistpaw and even Glasseel."

She hadn’t finished reading when a blast of water erupted from the lake and hit the shore.

The ground broke apart as a gust of cold wind and water hit them both and when the spray cleared there was a Familiar sitting in the crater it had made.

It was small like a bear but it was puppy shaped at the same time with ice-blue fur all over its body and ears that looked slightly rounded. It was cute... however one of its legs was twisted at a wrong angle and bleeding.

"Hold on." Miyuki ran past him.

The shyness was completely gone... she crossed the broken ground confidently, stepping over the upturned rocks without slowing, and dropped to her knees next to the Familiar.

She picked it up carefully. "Don’t worry, I’ll heal you..."

She tried and hit the wall immediately, after all, the mana didn’t exit her body so she couldn’t materialize anything to treat it.

Her hands hovered uselessly.

’No. I need to help.’

Something moved at the edge of her vision. It came out of the water fast... a massive long tail covered in scaly spikes, moving directly at her face.

She registered the speed and nothing else, there was no time to move neither was there time to do anything at all... however at the last minute, a blur crossed in front of her and a wrist caught the strike.

The shockwave of wind blasted her off her feet. She planted both feet and skidded backward across the broken ground while holding the Familiar tight to her chest and looked up.

Koya was between her and the water with one hand extended where he had caught the tail, the defense suit holding against the scales but the sheer force behind the strike pushing him back by degrees.

"Koya-kun..." She let out.

The tail threw him sideways.

He went through several trees and they snapped at the impact, shattering behind him and then it was just Miyuki standing at the lake’s edge with the Familiar in her arms as the thing that owned the tail pulled itself out of the water.

’A Seadragoon.’ She thought.

It was an immensely territorial familiar and one of the few Familiar species that had to be raised from infancy or they would never accept a master... an adult wild Seadragoon had no interest in bonding with anything and no patience for anything that entered its space.

Its body was enormous and long, scales running dark green to black along the spine and the tail that had hit Koya still trailing water as it pulled the rest of itself clear of the lake.

Four short powerful legs hit the bank and the ground sank slightly under the weight. It roared and every remaining bird in the surrounding trees scattered at once and didn’t come back.

Miyuki’s legs trembled.

"Stop..."

Her voice came out small while the Seadragoon opened its mouth, The water in the lake lifted... all of it within reach,rising in streams that flowed into its mouth and began compressing, tighter and tighter with the air around it distorting from the pressure building inside.

"I said Stop..."

She wanted to protect the small Familiar in her hands.

She wanted to protect Koya, somewhere behind those fallen trees, who had put himself between her and that tail without a moment’s hesitation.

Just like Itsuki had the last time she’d been here... she was tired of needing to be saved and she was tired of her legs trembling.

The orb of compressed water released and came directly at her face.

"I said Stop It!"

She yelled it at the top of her lungs and the water stopped.

It didn’t slow neither did it deflect partway, It simply stopped, hanging in the air in front of her face with the surface of it trembling.

The Seadragoon cried out, watching its own attack suspended by nothing then the orb reversed.

It shot back the way it came and hit the Seadragoon across the face with a crack that echoed across the whole lake, it was hard enough to send the massive Familiar flying out of the water entirely and into the trees on the far bank.

Miyuki let out a small whimper and her knees gave out however arms caught her from behind before she hit the ground. They wrapped around her waist and held her upright, letting her lean back against someone solid.

"You did a good job, Miyuki." Koya said close to her ear. "Now you can rest."

Something in her chest let go entirely and she closed her eyes with the Familiar still held tight in both arms, and fell asleep.

’What an overpowered heroine.’ Koya thought, looking down at the Familiar in her arms. The broken leg that had been twisted and bleeding when she picked it up was fully healed now.

Miyuki had the highest water affinity in the Aozora clan by a margin that nobody in that clan fully understood yet.

It was high enough that she didn’t need mana to control water... she could simply will it and the water would respond however it took a lot of her mental power like Saki.

It was where her Hydration condition came from, the fact that she needed water to survive at a higher rate than any normal human, and it was why her sweat and her tears carried enough of that affinity to induce calm sleep on contact.

Everything she had just done... stopping that compressed orb mid-flight and sending it back, she had done because she decided to with no mana involved.

She had never discovered the full scope of what she could do in the manga volumes he had read and maybe the author had moved on from her too fast.

’I guess it’s time to hand her over then.’ He thought, and turned.

Itsuki was standing behind him with several veins visible on his face.

"Ah, Itsuki. What perfect timing." Koya said pleasantly. "You need to get her and the Familiar she’s holding to the Tower. Miyuki is your sister after all."

Itsuki stood very still for a moment then he walked over and extended his arms without speaking. Koya placed Miyuki in them carefully... She didn’t stir at all and then placed the Tidecub alongside her.

Itsuki turned and walked back the way he had come, not looking back once and Koya watched him go.

"You can show yourself now."

The bat sitting on one of the fallen logs transformed and Mirei stood there with her tail flicking once behind her while she looked at him with an expression he couldn’t entirely read.

"Koya-kun, so you could feel me this whole time?" She asked.

"It’s not like you were trying to hide yourself." He said. "Also stop following me around. It’s like you’re a stalker."

Mirei giggled.

"Fortunately for you, I admit I’m a stalker and you’re my prey." She said. "Was there any reason to put yourself in the line for Miyuki-chan? Now you could get in trouble for engaging with a Familiar."

Koya placed a hand on his waist, pulled out his guidebook, and glanced through it like he was reading it.

"I did it because she’s cute." He admitted.

Mirei raised an eyebrow.

"Don’t you find me cute...? I know I’m the most beautiful but it would matter to me if I was cute to you." She said.

"No, you’re not." Koya said. "Cute people don’t try to mind control the other person every chance they get."

The glow that had been building quietly in her eyes vanished. She had been trying it again... Even now, even standing here in the middle of a conversation, she had been running it in the background. She was trying to make him submit.

"Well sorry then." She said, without sounding particularly sorry. "Anyway, I came here to invite you to my room. There are three days on this trip... maybe we could spend quality time together."

She transformed back into a bat and flew off before he could respond.

’Not interested.’ He thought, and opened the System.

’Pull up the Cindervix territory on the map. Let’s go there first. Also run scans for Familiars here that would fit Akemi and Yuna.’

Individual Points worked on the Isle the same way they worked at the Academy... he had already used a lot of IP to purchase the right to acquire two additional Familiars on their behalf.

The process was straightforward: find the right match, get the Familiar to agree, sign a temporary contract on their behalf, convert it to a permanent one when he got back.

He just needed to find the right ones first.

「Location locked. Mini Map of Familiar Isle booting...」

...

"Finally here." He muttered about twenty minutes later.

The purple trees ended at the edge of a small cave formation, the rock face jutting out from the treeline in a rough semicircle.

The ground here was softer, dark and warm from whatever the rock retained, and the air smelled strange.

At the wide entrance of the cave, several Cindervixes were visible... some were moving in and out of the shadows while some were sitting completely still at the mouth of the entrance and the ember-like veins in their dark fur pulsed irregularly, like breathing.

They were more alert than they looked and there was also already a student standing near the entrance, studying them from what he had apparently decided was a safe distance.

He had been wrong about the distance.

PAH!

The back legs of a Cindervix caught the student directly in the face and launched him backward in a clean arc.

He slid to a stop at Koya’s feet... The young man looked up at Koya and Koya looked down at him. They both opened their mouths at the same time.

"Hey?"