“Konnichiwa Washiyama-san,” I said and bowed like we did in Japanese investor meetings. Just like the investors back then, Kaito looked surprised and irrationally pleased to see a westerner following Japanese etiquette and she returned the bow. It was too bad I wasn’t selling securities, as I’m pretty sure this would have pumped up my commission fee by 20 percent.

It was night, and we were in the forest. Getting out of the town hadn’t been hard, for all that Talnier was besieged, most of the attack was coming from only two directions. The monsters didn’t understand tactics beyond ‘head straight for the tasty humans, so at least half of the wall was free of attackers.

Kaito was, as Isidre had said, a cat-girl. She still looked kind-of Japanese, in that her skin was tanned and her hair and furry bits were black. I wouldn’t have picked it without already knowing though. Her eyes were much rounder than the Japanese stereotype and softly glowing purple to boot. Her ears… well they derailed any comparison to Earth ethnicity that I could imagine. Cute though.

She was wearing leather, like me, but with much less coverage. It looked like it was designed for freedom of moment rather than protection, but [Mana Sense] told me it was enchanted, so it might actually be better than my own suit.

I was alone - using the [Disguise] spell instead of puppeteering an illusion. Beast-kin were supposed to have good senses, and they might pick up my imperfect lip sync. Kaito was backed up by a bevy of varied beast-folk, all of whom were female. They were giving us some space but were staying close enough to join in the conversation if necessary.

“You have the advantage of me,” Kaito said, also in Japanese. “How should I address you?”

“I had thought you would have gotten my name from your patron,” I said. [Charm] kept a sudden frown off my face. There was something about her speech that seemed a little off.

“Orino, could you repeat the Goddess’s words about our meeting?” she called over her shoulder in what must have been the beast-kin common tongue. That sounded alright.

A smaller beast-kin with rounded fluffy ears stepped forward. “She said that as long as the Chosen wasn’t going to take an active stand against us, she would respect their cover.”

Huh, a friendly gesture and a not-so-hidden warning at the same time. Pretty classy, Naldyna.

[Thank you for the compliment]

Something must have shown on my face because Kaito suddenly looked concerned.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“I just… there was…” I stammered. What the fuck was that? “I think… did Naldyna just speak directly to me?”

“Perhaps?” she said, looking closely at me. “She is more communicative than the other gods, I’m told. And you have to assume that both our Patrons are watching this meeting closely.”

“Figures that some other god would deign to talk to me before my own Patron does,” I said sourly. Did she do that so that I would lose my shit right before I start dealing with her Champion? There was no answer this time. I got the feeling that someone was laughing at me, but it was probably my imagination.

“Just how communicative is she?” I asked.

Kaito cocked her head consideringly. “She mostly talks to her priests - the druids,” She said. “But she has spoken to me more than a few times. And I think that she spoke to everyone here before we came to be companions.”

As Kaito spoke more, the feeling that she was somehow speaking wrongly continued, but I still couldn’t pick up what was wrong. It wasn’t an accent, I could understand them as easily as any other language or dialect.

“Right then, I’m-” I paused. I was going to give an alias, but then I suddenly recalled I’d given my real name to Isidre, which might make things difficult later. Oh well. “ - Kandis Hammond,” I said. “Call me Kandis, us Aussies are an informal bunch.”

“Very well Miss Kandis.” I blinked until I realised that we were still speaking Japanese and she’d thrown a -san on the end of my name. “Then you must call me Kaito.”

I bowed again and resolved to either put a Mr when I went to say his name or make sure there was a -san on the outgoing speech. Hopefully [Charm] would be up for navigating the various levels of Japanese polite speech, for myself, I knew they existed, but that was the limit of what I - Wait. That was it.

“Your speech is wrong…” I said, reviewing what he’d said so far. It was difficult since I didn’t know Japanese, but when I remembered what she’d said in English and tried to translate it into Japanese in my head, it came out different from what she’d said. “You’re…” and [Charm] finally came through with what was going on. “You’re speaking as a man… did you change your gender as well as your race?”

“Ah!” she exclaimed in surprise. “You’re right! I suppose that since I haven’t been speaking Japanese all this time I never got into the habit of speaking to match my new form.”

“Ah, I see,” I said, awkwardly. “Were you trans, back home?” Hopefully, that translates right.

“No… at least I don’t think so,” she (he? Let’s stick with she.) said. “I never thought much about such things before. But back then it was cat-girls I was obsessed with, not cat-boys, so it seemed the obvious choice.”

“Obsessed with… oh, I think I read a story about guys in Japan…”

“Otaku,” she said, the word coming through untranslated. “Yes, here I am, an Otaku in an isekai. It’s very stereotypical.”

“Otaku and isekai- those words didn’t get translated,” I said.

“Oh? I had heard that anime was more popular in the West now - perhaps they’ve entered English lexicon?”

“Maybe?” I thought back to my uni days, [Memorise] cutting through at least some of the alcohol fog. There had been a movie night or two, and someone whose name I never got, explaining things…

“Shit, you’re right, this is an isekai. Hang on…” I glance back at his companions. “Aren’t a lot of isekais harem stories?”

“Uh, yes…” Kaito said, looking embarrassed.

“Is there…” I checked. Yes, there was. “Did you take the [Harem] option?”

“…Yes,” she admitted. “I didn’t really know what was going on and it seemed such a great option…”

I brought up the System entry.

Harem: Acquire up to [Charisma] companions of appropriate age, gender and attractiveness. (5 points)

Typical System notes- leaving out all the details. “How did you ‘acquire’ them?” I asked. “Are they being mind-controlled?”

“I don’t know how it works,” Kaito said, anxiously. “I met Ettalle before I took it, and it didn’t seem like it changed her at all. She was already very… friendly.”

“They’re all girls, obviously because you’re a guy… are they all into girls then?” I was trying to work through the implications of this. Did the System find five gay girls at short notice, or did it make them?

“I didn’t - we haven’t - done any of that stuff!” Kaito protested, blushing. “Just some hugging.”

“How old are- No,” I said, interrupting myself. “I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit disturbed by… all of this, but it's not my business, and I couldn’t do anything about it if it was. I came here with something else in mind.”

“They seem happy?” Kaito offered. “And it’s not like they do everything I say or anything.”

“Fine. Not my problem. My problem is the griffins that are supposed to be attacking soon. Can you stop them?”

Kaito shook her head. “We don’t control them, we’re only predicting their behaviour. The griffins will come here because they know that’s where the humans who took… the grifflet live. If they don’t find him here… We don’t know what they’ll do. They might head further into the Kingdom, even though that would doom many of them.”

“They couldn’t take the low mana levels,” I guessed.

“Exactly.”

I groaned. “I really don’t want to take a side in this thing that your two Gods have got going.”

Kaito shrugged. “To a certain extent, doing nothing is choosing a side, is it not? We’re not doing anything because we can’t think of a course of action that wouldn’t make things worse, but it sounds like you have more avenues than we do?”

“Maybe,” I said sourly. “But speaking of making things worse, you are responsible for the double-outbreak going on right now aren’t you?”

“That wasn’t my decision,” Kaito said, grimacing. “The tribal council doesn’t have good relations with the Kingdom, and they felt slighted by Miss Tamayo ignoring our warning.”

“Are you taking orders from them?” Not that I could judge, I’d accepted orders from Kingdom authorities already.

“Not personally, but…” He shrugged and looked back at the girls. “As I said, they don’t do everything I tell them.”

“I see.” Weirdly, that made me feel a little better about the harem things. If political allegiances trumped whatever the harem bond was, it couldn’t be too strong a mind-control? Mind you, Kaito wouldn’t have done more than ask politely I was sure. “Why don’t you call them over for the rest of this conversation.”

He did so and introductions were made. I got them to identify their species as well, so I didn’t have to guess based on their ear shape. Okay, Fassi, the rabbit was easy to guess. Wolf-kin would have been my third guess for Zichy, and I didn’t really have any idea about Orino and Nori; Mouse-kin and Otter-kin respectively.

“Okay,” I said switching back to Latorran and relishing the fact that for once I could say the untranslated word. “Let’s say I want to take Manchas away from Isidre. Not because I’m taking sides, but because I want to stop a slaughter. Isidre is bonded to the griffin, right? So is there a way to stop him from just breaking free and heading back to Isidre?”

The girls conferred. I think they switched back to their native tongue, but it made no difference to me of course. However, it was still pretty much all gibberish to me, since they were talking about skills and magic that I didn’t have much knowledge of.

Orino was the one who relayed the results. “There’s a kind of spore dust, from the Hatiem puffball, that induces deep sleep. So deep that it will suppress the bond between a [Tamer] and their Beast.”

“Suppress, but not break,” I said carefully.

“Yes. If you use it on either one of them, they will fall into a deep sleep and will be unable to awaken for at least an hour. After that, if they are not disturbed, they will sleep for up to eight hours. When they do wake, the bond will be gone, but it can be instantly established again if they see each other. If they’re kept separate, the bond will eventually fade, but I don’t know how long that will take."

“What about those magical control collars?” I asked.

The group conferred again. “That might stop the animal from obeying commands through the link, but the link would still be there. She would know where the beast was, and even see through its eyes if she’s learned that ability.”

“So…” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Do you have any of this dust?”

“Sorry, no,” Orino said apologetically. “We might be able to find some in time, but I wouldn’t count on it. Your best chance is in town. It will be known to most [Alchemists] and [Herbalists] but…”

“It’s a controlled substance isn’t it,” I said.

“Banned,” she agreed. “But Priestess Tonet might be able to find some for you. She will know if there are any beast-kin herbalists that don’t follow Kingdom law.”

“And she’ll go against the law herself?” I asked in surprise. “Isn’t she supposed to be a law-abiding citizen of the Kingdom?”

“It’s for Naldyna,” Orino said simply.

As simple as that, was it? “Well, I’m not going to promise anything, but I’ll look into it. I may have to send him to you for repatriation.”

“We’ll help however we can,” Kaito assured me. I sighed, knowing that I was going to regret this.

“There is something else you can do for me. Do any of you know of an [Enchanter] living in the mountains?”

They all looked at each other. “I do,” Nori said. “Mander or something, right?”

“Mandel,” I said. “You don’t seem to have a problem moving through the forest. Can I ask you to escort his daughter to him?”

“Now?” Ettalle asked.

“No, once I’ve sprung her from prison,” I said. “She’s a hostage right now.”

“So the Baron might be coming after her?” Kaito asked. He looked back at the group and seemed to sense some sort of consensus. “We can keep her safe, and get her to her father.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Can I pass messages through the Priestess? I’ll get back to you when I have an actual plan.”

“Please hurry,” Kaito said. “We don’t know when the griffins will arrive, and they will make everything more difficult.”