For a while, I had just stopped thinking.
I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment after all was said and done… But then, I wasn't feeling any weird guilt either… I just didn't know what to think after doing something like this.
I was tired. I was just, tired. I felt dull and fatigued after having done what I had to do, wanted to do.
“… Shouldn't waste time at this point.”
Higuchi hadn't been lying. Not long after he fell into the pitfall, a magic circle, one that's supposed to get me out of this zone, came to life. I used my notebook compa.s.s to check, and confirmed that it was now pointing at this new transfer circle and not at the door leading to the boss room.
First things first, I went about gathering the bits and pieces of loot. As for Masaru's body, it had turned to ash at some point. I imagined it was an aftereffect of using him as a corpse-doll. Sorry Masaru, I wanted to at least give you a proper burial… but well, I think I avenged you, so let's call it even.
I didn't want to waste time mourning his death right now. I wasn't sure how long this transfer circle would remain active, and I seriously didn't want to make the mistake of missing my ride due to something like tiredness.
I was exhausted to the point of having to almost drag my body to the glowing circle. The long, dark pitfall had gone back to being solid stone floor and this magic circle had appeared with the white monolith at its center. I'd almost gotten there too, if not for――
“Do it! En-chan!” cried a sweet, bell-like voice, which was followed by a gruff, beastly bark of compliance, “Orf!”
“What the――” I turned around quickly, only to find its fiery, crimson mane right in my face.
“――Ahhh!?” I shrieked.
I had been suddenly knocked down to the hard, stone floor. My whole body ached, but, I was okay. I hadn't suffered any new wounds, and the wound on my right shoulder wasn't bleeding out.
My aching body was ordering me to stay put, but I had to get a look at who or what had attacked me out of the blue. I forced myself up to see,
“Ah! Reina!!”
A remarkably adorable little girl was running by me in a particularly cutesy little girl manner. This blond haired, twin-tailed young beauty to behold was unmistakably Reina Adelhyde Ayase. Of course she was. She'd been standing outside this room all this time while I was having a deathmatch with Higuchi.
“Oooorrf!!” came the savage bark from above me.
“Huh!? Wait, no, don't!” I cried.
Let's get to the one who attacked me. It was basically a really big red-haired dog. This one was in a cla.s.s of its own compared to the mob called red dog. It looked even more vicious than the Orthus, and actually, it was more like a lion now that I got a better look at it. It had a voluminous mane all around its head that had a red to yellow color gradation, giving an impression that it was actually on fire.
This blazing lion was, at present, staring me down with its red eyes, like I was its worst enemy. Yeah no, I had no chance against a monstrosity like this.
“Thanks En-chan! You can come back!” Reina called.
“Orf!” went the beast, giving me a final look as if to say ‘You live for now, boy.'
It raised its ma.s.sive body and nimbly ran over to Reina's side.
Now I knew that it was absolutely obedient to the small girl. So this was the so called Spirit Master Job and its Guardian Beasts… I could understand why Higuchi was treating her like an untouchable princess now. I wouldn't dare mess with someone with a killer guard dog like that either.
“Dammit… D-don't!” I stammered.
Reina and her En-chan were standing on the transfer circle. My transfer circle, the one that I staked my life, my pride on.
No way in h.e.l.l was I letting them take it from me.
But, that girl, Reina, it was as if she wasn't acting on malice at all… she was, not even looking at me as I yelled out to her…
“Don't do it, Reina, Reinaaaaaaaa!!”
That girl, as if she'd done nothing wrong, as if she was just a pure and innocent little girl, was holding her Guardian Beast close, her eyes closed as if she was afraid where the transfer would take her. All too quickly, she vanished within the ensuing light of transfer magic.
“What…”
What, what was with that girl… Now that I thought back, she hadn't spoken one word to me this whole time, had she. During the short while I had joined Higuchi's party, she had acted as if I didn't exist at all, she seemed completely oblivious to my addition.
Then again, we had neither need nor motive to talk to each other in the first place. I had no idea what sort of relations.h.i.+p she had with Higuchi, so I couldn't know if she was safe to talk with.
Seeing how uninvolved she was about everything, I figured that, even if she had a strong Job like this so-called Spirit Master, she'd be too scared to actually fight, and was simply tagging along with Higuchi and Masaru while they did all the work. That was why I completely excluded Reina A. Ayase as a potential threat, and in fact, not once had she come to Higuchi's aid once our fight had started.
“Dammit, dammit!” I cursed, “… f.u.c.king Reina, she… she was aiming for this, all along…”
I was now sure of one thing: Reina A. Ayase was no ally of Higuchi. In addition, she had no intention of becoming my ally either. She had no conscience to help either of us. We didn't register as something she needed to be concerned about.
That was how she was able to ignore Higuchi even as I pushed him down to his death… that was how she felt no guilt at having left me here. She had, in effect, succeeded in getting rid of two meddlesome boys in order to reach her goal, all without so much as lifting a finger.
And at the end of her goal, that is, once she meets Souma Yuuto again, she'd go all ‘Yuu-kun, I was soo scared!!' acting like she always did in the cla.s.sroom.
“I should've killed her too… nah, who am I kidding, I don't stand a chance against that monstrosity…”
Fighting that was like asking to die. Higuchi had mentioned that she had 2 more of those Guardians, lightning and ice element. That En-chan was without a doubt her fire element Guardian, and just that one seemed impossibly strong. The fact that she commanded triple that strength basically meant… it was practically a cheat Job the likes of a Hero.
“Ugh, haah… s.h.i.+t, I need to calm down…”
I felt so humiliated I could vomit, but anything I felt wasn't going to change the fact that she had stolen my exit pa.s.s and I was stuck here.
Think. There's gotta be another way, I could look for a different route for example.
“No, impossible… if there was one, Higuchi wouldn't need to resort to preparing a sacrifice…”
There were apparently multiple other routes out of this zone, but Higuchi still chose this method. He did it not just to get rid of me, but because it was the safest and only way left to him. I'd experienced first-hand how strong he was, but even then, he wasn't strong enough to beat this Goliath that was waiting in the boss room. He had surmised that fighting the boss had a strong possibility of getting him injured fatally, and he'd also determined that all other routes were just as or even more dangerous.
Maybe this really was the end of the line for me.
My mana was practically nil, I was beaten and battered and the only weapons I had on hand were my red knife and Higuchi's b.u.t.terfly knife which I took as my spoils. The strong Rem who I made with the hard earned knight mantis parts was broken and unsalvageable, Masaru was gone.
Could I even make it back to the fairy square like this? This room was made different from the rest since it was right before the boss room, but it was no square. Monsters could come in normally, and who knows, maybe some of the sensitive ones were following the stench of blood leading here already.
“It's fine… it'll be fine, I can do this…”
Right, it was still too early to give up. But I couldn't find any strength to put in my legs. The one light of hope that I'd fought so hard to obtain had been stolen so easily, that my body wasn't listening to me under the frustration.
Did all my struggling matter at all? Did Masaru sacrifice himself for nothing? Wouldn't me dying here be the same as Higuchi killing me?
“I-I can do this…” I repeated.
Really, who was I kidding? The inside of my head was dyed in despair. I couldn't not imagine trying and inevitably, failing. I'd rather die, taking Higuchi along with me if this was the sort of end waiting for me in this white zone.
I lay there, wallowing in self-pity, for who knows how long.
Footsteps. I could hear footsteps.
“!?” I went alert.
Must be monsters.
It sounded like there were a number of them. And since they weren't concerned with being quiet about it I could imagine it was… a skeleton platoon.
“Uh, um…”
I deliberated on what to do. I could manage dual wielding my knives with a pair of blackhair tentacles, but that'd be it. If I even tried to make a Rotten Bog I was sure to run out of mana and pa.s.s out.
This was looking bad. There was no way I could take down a bunch of troopers with two knives.
So this is it, this is where I die huh――
“―― Ah? you're, Momokawa?”
The guy who had addressed me did so intimidatingly as I gripped tight on to my two knives, tears already gathering in the corners of my eyes, and frozen stiff in fear.
This was a guy from our cla.s.s, and one that practically everyone recognized. His hair was dyed blond (against school rules), and his whole body was armored in a layer of tough and toned muscle. An oppressive air marked the room as our cla.s.s' most famous delinquent stood tall in front of me. He was,
“Ah, oh… Ten dou -kun?”
The only one who had stood on the same ground as Souma Yuuto: Tendou Ryuichi.
“You wanna fight or what?”
“Eh?”
Wait wait wait, how come me calling his name turned into me wanting to fight him? Was it my eyes? It must've been my eyes. Like, I know how my face looks like an angry stray cat, but unfortunately, I was born with it, and am certainly not as rude as I look. So please don't take this the wrong way, I'm just an ordinary boy with ordinary…
“Looks like you don't. Makes this simple――”
Tendou-kun approached closer, taking large, purposeful steps while I still sat stiff.
“―― Stay out of my way, I'll beat the boss.”
His gleaming golden pupils radiated as he pa.s.sed by me. The enormous sense of pressure from his presence had left me completely befuddled and speechless.
He should've easily figured out how s.h.i.+tting in my pants scared I was, and so, without any further words, he headed straight ahead towards the door to the boss room.
W-w-wait, by ‘fight', did he mean if I wanted to fight the boss? That's just plain ridiculous, I'm half-dead already at this point, and I sure as h.e.l.l am not suicidal!
The errant thoughts rushed into my head only after that dominating presence was gone. Wait, did Tendou-kun even have a weapon? He was completely empty handed right? … But he did look confident, which likely meant that he had a Job that could rival that of Souma Yuuto's Hero. First Reina's Spirit Master and now this… cheats seemed to be a dime a dozen, where do I get mine?
I was having sardonic thoughts again, when something else felt off… Tendou-kun's eyes, how come they were golden? I mean, sure he bleached and dyed his hair, but he never wore color contacts. His eye color that should've been black were definitely golden just now. They were glowing too――
“Wew, Momokawa looks like he's about to p.i.s.s his pants.”
“I kinda feel sorry for him. Well, that's Tendou-kun for ya.”
My head was getting swarmed in more thoughts when I heard 2 girls giving open remarks on the situation. I was still sitting so I had to look up to see them. They were also cla.s.smates… but I couldn't seem to recall their names.
These two were more fas.h.i.+onable than plain, so I, who didn't have much interaction with girls in the first place, hadn't had even the faintest interaction with them. I could recognize that they were from the same cla.s.s but nothing more. I didn't know their names, and had had no reason to learn them.
Meaning that they wouldn't have much interest in me either, which was true, since they quickly ran after Tendou-kun without a moment to waste.
What were they? A party of course. It was another harem party, not exactly my strong suit. But then again――
“Oh? Momokawa, you don't look so good.”
And there was the fas.h.i.+on diva of the cla.s.s. She came walking in a slow, relaxed gait, someone who was also far out of reach from my measly social circle, but whom I made sure to know the full name of nonetheless. It was the girl who'd been heavily rumored to be going out with Higuchi, one Randou Kyouko.
Her long, wavy blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and with those sleepy, seemingly uninterested half closed eyes, she looked me over.
“Wait, there's blood all over you, are you really alright?” She asked.
“Uh… sort of.”
I managed to answer her question, sure… but as this Randou-san was bending down to talk to me, I got a full, frontal view of the ginormous jugs judged widely as the best of the best in cla.s.s 2-7. Holy moly, no wonder those things are number 1 (※ Mei-chan excluded) in size.
My gaze dreamily veered towards her chest, exposed due to the couple of undone b.u.t.tons on her uniform blouse. I was quickly becoming enraptured by the tanned brown, bewildering bosom whose deep cleavage was laid before me.
“Mm, kay, wanna come with us?”
Oh wow, like wow. Up until just recently, I'd been despairing how it was the end of the line for me, but this pair of brown b.o.o.bies blew it all away. It was as if the engine of my body had started spinning again, telling me to live on.
Thank you Randou-san. You just saved my life.
“Sure, why not.” I said.
Somehow, by pure luck, I ended up joining another party of cla.s.smates, this one led by Tendou Ryuichi.
This chapter was sponsored by Nolan N. Shaman/Jujutsus.h.i.+ - 30
Kuro no Maou - 30
Nidome no Yuusha - 23
Nii-san - 27
