Heroine-Saving System: Reborn In A Third-Rate Manga As The Protagonist-Chapter 129 - 130: Family Outing? [II]

They dropped from the air down a tube-like place that was really dark and Mable's hair whipped in the air.

The darkness was total with no light from above and no light from below for the first few seconds. I was just the rush of air and the two of them falling.

Mable had both arms out at her sides like she was enjoying it while Riffi had her claws in his shoulder and was not enjoying it.

"Papa, I can sense magic from down here." She said, looking at the bottom of the tunnel that was still far off and had light coming from it. "What do you think it is?"

"If there's magic, I'm sure it's some kind of illusion magic." Koya replied. "You know what that is right?"

"Of course Papa, I'm not dumb." She said with a smile on her face. "I'll turn off my Mana Sensitivity so that I can get scared."

Koya sweatdropped.

"I'm not really sure that's how it works." He said as they fell out of the tube forcefully, the fall wouldn't kill him but it would kill a mundane person which made him wonder how deep this place really was.

It was just an amusement park, did they really need to go all out with this specific one?

However there was a blue square-like spot on the ground below them and as they fell toward it, the speed of their fall decreased until they landed safely on the ground.

The deceleration hit like stepping into water, it was smooth with no jolt. Koya looked down at the square under his feet then back up at the town around them.

"Ehehehehe~ Welcome to the Haunted Town~" An eerie voice sounded all around. "A Haunted House would be too boring after all so here you have it… This is the town of Lordi and the citizens have all strangely disappeared being replaced by creatures. You must survive by heading from one end of the town to the other~ I wish all of you goodluck~"

"Papa, that guy's voice sounds weird." She pointed out. "It sounds like he's choking, shouldn't someone help him?"

"I think he meant for it to be like that." Koya said with a sigh. "Alright then, let's head to the other edge of the tow–"

He looked up and one of the wrecked buildings had a being that looked like a very malnourished human on all fours looking at them with blank eyes, he admitted he would be scared shitless by this if this wasn't a figment of Illusion Magic as he sensed.

Mable looked at the monster and immediately tugged on his shirt.

"Papa, that weird thing is looking at us. Should I kill i– Where did it go?" She looked around curiously.

It seemed she had really deactivated her Mana Senses but she wasn't dumb enough to think it was real, or so he thought.

"Let's just head to the end of the town." Koya said as he began walking, he cleared strides easily since he was tall and most importantly, he leaned out to touch one of the houses.

It felt real, he could feel the texture of old wood and even the slight give at a rotted corner. He might have believed it was if it wasn't all made from mana if he didn't sense it.

'While I'm saved against Mind Control with my Aegis Skill, Illusions on the outside can still affect me huh?'

"Papa, look up there." He tilted his head in that direction and someone was looking at them, it was the same illusion before it faded.

"It's not even that scary." Mable said and the next instant it appeared in front of them, leaning forward on all fours with its tongue out.

"GRAHHHHH!!!" It let out a flinching sound that could terrify Mundane people easily… however it was standing in front of a Protagonist, a Dragon and a very powerful cat Familiar.

Koya raised an eyebrow and kicked the Illusion in the face, surprisingly his foot connected and it shot backward slamming into the wall of a building and collapsing.

The wall cracked from the impact before the whole thing dissolved.

"I think I hit it too hard." Koya said as the monster slumped over and collapsed, burning into black flames before dissipating completely.

"Ding ding ding~ Yes you can kill these monsters that are chasing you but avoid being attacked by them too. They can inflict damage upon you and the more monsters you kill, the more rewards you can get at the table~"

Koya sighed and started moving again while holding her, the place really looked like the Outer Zone… it was very abandoned and old with broken and crooked windows too and it seemed the town wasn't too big in itself since he could hear screams all around.

"Papa, why are these people screaming?" Mable asked while drawing down his bow tie a bit to get his attention. "I can hear them and it seems like they're afraid."

"Naturally, these are regular humans so they can't tell the difference and think it's real, plus they won't have the super strength to deal with these monsters too." Koya said as they walked quietly. "This place would be more fun if we were regular humans."

There was a scream from somewhere in one of the houses to their right then another from the floor above it.

He reached an interval between the streets leading left and right and he went left, while he would normally expand Domain Sense… This was Mable's first Haunted House and honestly, he wanted to do as much as he could to ensure that she enjoyed it and let it be unpredictable.

She deserved the full experience.

"Papa, do you wish you could be an ordinary human?" Mable asked while looking around, there were things staring at them from the windows.

"Not at all." Koya replied, being a regular human in this world?

Reality was much harsher for Mundane people who did their everything to survive but even if he was, he would have still been streaming. "Besides, if I was a regular human, I wouldn't have had you."

"Papa…"

"Yes Mable."

"Do you like me?" She asked. "I know we play around but you're barely spend time with me and I'm happy that we're able to spend this time together but what if you don't want m—"

He lifted her up by under her arms and looked at the cute girl.

"I'll never hate you Mable." He said with a smile as he looked at her smile. "You're my daughter, sure I wasn't prepared for the exact moment you hatched but from that day… until forever, You'll always be my cute little daughter. So even if you're old and you want to spend more time with me, we'll do it."

"Okay…" She said and he held her close to him again, if she had her tail or wings out, they would shake happily. "I love you Papa."

"I love you too." He patted her head and Riffi sighed lightly on his shoulder. She didn't want to talk since the moment she did, Mable would grab her to play.

They reached the end of the road and it was a dead end.

"Ding ding ding~ It's a Dead-end." The eerie voice said again. "You will be attacked by monsters now~"

Right on cue, the voice really committed to the bit.

'So we get attacked for reaching dead-ends?' He thought, everyone was surely getting their money's worth.

The door of the house that created this dead-end opened and several monsters came outside, rushing toward them.

They were very similar to the first one except they had different horrifying heads.

"Papa, aren't we going to attack?" She asked looking at Koya only to realize he was looking at the monsters with a bland expression.

"I'm scared." He replied, Koya realized he really couldn't look scared… especially when he was not in a scary situation so he resorted to freezing up. "Why don't you protect Papa for the whole Haunted House?"

"Protect Papa?" Her eyes lit up completely and he let her down to the ground. "Fine, I'll protect Papa throughout the whole Haunted House and I won't even use magic!"

To ensure that she enjoyed her whole experience, he would make her fight the monsters instead of him until she got bored.

The first monster closed the distance between itself and Mable and got hit by a kick sending it splat to one of the buildings.

It was clean contact with all of her hip put into the kick, it had the force that would have caved in a real ribcage.

The next one attacked her with a punch but she ducked under its long legs and took hold of one, lifting it off the ground and using it to whack the other and throw it at the other two.

The one she was swinging didn't even have time to register what was happening before it hit the second one with enough force to fold both of them in half.

The last two got buried under the combined weight and none of them got back up.

All of the monsters turned into black flames and she turned back to Koya with a smile on her face.

"How do you think I did, good right?" She asked and he nodded, patting her head and lifting her up.

"You did very nicely, you studied fighting well. Who knows, we might spar too later." That made her grin widely. She had been waiting to hear that for a while, he could tell because she didn't even try to look casual about it.

"I'll beat you and force you to spend more time with me at home." She said with a puff of her cheeks and they went right this time leading them to a straight road crawling with monsters. However they weren't the only ones there.

"Runnnn!!!" A young man with a stubby beard dragged a younger girl behind him.

"Onii-chan, wait up!" She let out as they were chased by one of the monsters.

"We should have brought Reona here." Koya said with a sigh. He would have loved to see her scared expressions as she clung to him.

"Aunt Reona? Yes, we should have." Mable said and kicked his stomach. "Now onward… Let's keep going, we need the first place prize!"

"Alright alright my lady." He said and began walking, the monsters on the street looked at them with curious eyes and Mable was ready to jump out of his hands at a moment's notice however one of the house doors opened and the same receptionist from earlier ran toward him with a monster on all fours behind her.

"Hellllllppp!" She said and they both looked at her, she was the owner of this place so naturally she was supposed to know that this was an Illusion, so why was she trying to get attention like this?

"Papa."

"Yes, let's continue." Koya sighed, several people were running around and there were screams from houses too. The woman kicked at the monster in the face, making it crack the first time before destroying it the second.

'Onii-chan really improved them.' She thought while rushing over to Koya, she really couldn't believe it.

This man had really left her behind like that… Was he sent from her wildest dreams or something? He was really acting just how she wanted her dream man to.

"I apologize for disturbing you." She said as soon as she got to his side.

"Sure." Koya said, he wanted to maintain as least conversations as possible.

He could feel something moving in his shadow and Hakai most probably stuck one of her Darkness summons to him, she was unusually overdoing it today and though he didn't hate it. He didn't know why she was doing it either.

"Sorry again sir, but may I ask… for your name? It's okay if you don't want to tell me."

"Albano Shirou." Koya answered with a sigh. "I'm from Isle Supercity. What about you?"

This was basic politeness.

"I'm Lili from Omni City, I came here to help out." She said, "And you have a really nice name."

Lili could only hope that he hadn't seen her posts about stealing married men from their wives and other perverted posts she made.

She also hoped the cat on his shoulder hadn't seen them somehow, the cat was looking at her in a way that was making her deeply uncomfortable.

"Lili, huh? It's nice to meet you then." Koya said. "Why don't you introduce yourself?"

Mable smiled at Lili, noticing Riffi looked horrified for some reason.

"I'm Albano Mable." Mable said with a nod. "You look very beautiful, Miss Lili."

Not as beautiful as her Mamas though but Aunt Reona had taught her kindness so she wouldn't say it.

"Thank you very much, Mable." Lili said and even reached up, barely being able to touch the cat on Koya's shoulder who shrieked as soon as she touched it for some reason. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Riffi had recognized the username and she was not going to sit quietly while that hand was anywhere near her Master.

"Please don't touch her, she doesn't like people." Koya said and tried to speed walk since he wasn't outright being rude and running but she speed-walked as well.

"Alright Mister Shirou, would you go out with me?" She asked straight up since men liked confident women. "I'm in my final year of college and can help your business most certainly and even take care of your daughter."

Koya sighed, was she not noticing that the shadow beneath him was twitching? Regardless he didn't turn to face her but lifted his hand to show her the ring.

"I'm married. Thank you for the suggestion but I'd appreciate it if you no longer spoke with me." He said and then leapt upward, landing on one of the roofs of the houses and began moving.

"Papa, what does 'would you go out with me' mean?" She asked as he let go of her to land on one of the monsters on the rooftop, crushing its head without batting an eye.

"You don't need to know that now." Koya replied. "But it means something very bad and everybody that asks you that question, you should tell them no."

He stepped on the next monster's head as he moved across the rooftop. It didn't even get the chance to turn around.

"If you say so Papa." She said and they continued moving, he was grateful that he wasn't seeing Lili anymore and they were almost to the end now however right at the exit which was a blue gate with nothing but white on the other side, there was a small horde of monsters chasing down a mother and son and the mother tripped… falling across the ground and somehow exiting the gate vanishing while leaving the child behind.

"Okaa-san!" He looked around and gradually creeped backward, he was too scared to move.

"Papa, should I save him?" She asked. "Do we even need to save regular humans?"

"If you can, you should save them." Koya replied. "Saving a life isn't a bad thing to do, as long as you don't risk your own life to save someone that you don't know. Your main priority should be protecting the people you love, everybody comes after."

"I see Papa." She said and then hopped off his hands, jumping down and crushing several monsters under her feet while walking to the young boy.

The ones she landed on didn't dissolve immediately… they flattened first, then burned.

One tried to sneak her from the left but she didn't even turn, just swung her arm backward and her elbow connected, sending it through the wall of the nearest building.

She kept walking without breaking stride and approached the boy, cleaning his tears with her hand.

"Boys shouldn't be crying… you should be strong so you can protect your own Maa–"

She was interrupted by Koya who suddenly appeared and carried her up.

This was how love stories started in manga… Someone saved you at your lowest moment and then you wanted to get stronger to meet that person again.

He wasn't going to let that blossom at all.

He had seen that exact sequence play out in too many stories… Boy cries, strong girl helps him up… Boy spends five years training to find her again.

That was not happening.

Mable was still a little girl, she wasn't going to bring any guys home at all… until she was like 30.

"Come on Papa, I was sounding really cool." She hit his chest a bit and then hugged him instead while he took hold of the young boy's hand and went out the gate vanishing from the Haunted Town.

…

"How did you enjoy the Haunted Town?" He asked as he got out of the tent, another person had been behind the register and he had paid to that person receiving a gift from them which was a big teddybear.

Now the thing in his shadow had completely receded too.

"Yes very much Papa." She said. "I enjoyed protecting you and I'm glad you allowed me to protect you."

"Anytime." He pinched her cheek and laughed. She swatted his hand away but she was still smiling when she did it.

"Papa, can you let me go for a minute?" She asked and he lowered her to the ground.

She ran off to the side of the tent and jabbed her fingers forward. "Bad Mamas… Today is meant for me and Papa, why are you watching us?"

Hakai and Victoria were completely speechless.

Neither of them said anything for a full three seconds. Hakai recovered first, fixing her expression back to neutral while Victoria did not recover at all then she ran off, taking Koya's hand and dragging him forward.

"Come on Papa, let's run and enter that one next… I think it's called the Drop Tower." She said pointing at the tall tower that was towering high into the air and as he looked, Koya gulped.

It was very tall. The people at the top were barely visible and the sound of the drop was audible from here… a rush of air and then screaming cutting through it.

'Fuck it... I'm scared of heights.'