Encounter with the Unknown

Encounter with the Unknown

"Ah, aaaaaaaah!?"

The boy's scream rang out.

The suited man nearby and the other middle schoolers all stared at him in astonishment. Their eyes widened when they saw him sitting on the ground, bleeding.

Ignoring their screams and cries of confusion, the skeletal monster slowly raised its axe again.

Their movements were sluggish, but they hadn't noticed the monster's presence. No—they couldn't see it in the first place.

The bare skull seemed to grin.

What should I do? What can I do? No, there's no time to think────.

"Uwaaaaaah!"

I shouted and ran.

I had to do something. That thought drove me forward, despite myself.

But it wasn't as though I had no chance of winning. I knew a fair amount about that monster.

Shouting to work up my courage, I leaped at the skeletal monster—the 'Skeleton'—and ran past the middle schoolers, whose faces had gone pale with shock, thrusting my fist at its skull.

────Slip.

"Ah!?"

But something caught my foot. My fist cut through empty air, and I slammed into the Skeleton with all the momentum of my run.

The impact sent its bony body flying, and I somehow managed to keep my balance despite staggering.

Looking down, I realized I'd slipped on the blood of the middle schooler who had been attacked.

I turned my face toward him as he crouched on the ground.

"A-are you okay!? Um, er..."

"What the hell are you!?"

"More importantly, the bleeding won't stop!"

"An ambulance! Hey, somebody call an ambulance!"

The other middle schoolers stood around the fallen boy in a panic. One immediately took a towel from their bag and pressed it against the wound, but the bleeding showed no sign of stopping.

Even without any medical knowledge, I immediately realized I had no time to answer them.

I held my left hand over his shoulder, above the towel pressed against his wound.

It's okay. I'd practiced this visualization over and over. So...!

I gave the mana—the strange power flowing through my body—a direction.

'Ochi no Chishio'

A pale golden radiance appeared in my left palm. It swirled like liquid before being sucked into the boy's wound in an instant.

At once, color returned to his deathly pale face.

"Cough, ah, uh... me..."

"Yamada! Hey, are you okay?"

"What was that light...?"

Thank goodness. It seemed to have worked.

But no sooner had I breathed a sigh of relief than my Magic Eye showed me the axe coming down.

In two seconds, I would be cut down.

"Whoa!?"

I hurriedly leaped away, and the Skeleton brought its axe down where I had been standing.

With a loud clang, the blade struck the asphalt.

"Take this!"

I instinctively clenched my fist and drew it back to strike the Skeleton.

My Magic Eye showed me a future in which I could dodge it. Following that vision, I forced my arm to move.

My fist caught the white skull, cracking it with a violent impact. Several front teeth flew away, and the Skeleton reared its upper body back.

I grabbed its shoulder with my left hand and slammed my right fist into the top of its head like bringing down a hammer.

The two impacts shattered the skull. Then the bones below its neck fell apart and scattered across the ground.

"Haa... haa... I did it...!"

Perhaps from the excitement, I was breathing hard. Sweat clung damply to my back.

The scattered bones turned into black haze, leaving behind only a stone about the size of my little fingertip. At the same time, I felt something enter my body.

I had defeated a monster. Realizing it, I couldn't help smiling.

Just as I'd expected. No—as I should say, just as I knew.

Skeletons were weak, frankly.

Dungeons and monsters varied in danger level. The Skeletons I'd heard about in the adventurer course were enemies found in beginner dungeons.

During that course, I'd also had a Self-Defense Forces member with a thoroughly blunted knife stop the blade just short of me, so I had at least a little experience dealing with opponents carrying weapons.

I thought I could win in a one-on-one fight against a Skeleton.

"H-hello!? Is this emergency services? Someone's collapsed! They're bleeding! No, I mean, they were bleeding—is it a boy? A girl? Anyway, someone who looked like a Gifted person healed them... I think?"

When I turned toward the voice, a man in a suit was talking on the phone. Apparently, he was calling an ambulance.

"Um, excuse me! This is a spiritual disaster... A monster appeared."

"Ah, uh, I understand... Wait, really?"

"Yes..."

The man looked confused, but nodded anyway.

A Gifted police officer should come now. I thought that settled things, but then I heard that 'clink' again.

When I cautiously turned toward the sound, several Skeletons were standing across the road.

Wrapped in rags and gripping rusty swords and axes, they stared at me with empty eye sockets.

"Eek...!?"

"Um... thank you?"

The middle schoolers, who apparently still didn't understand what was happening, spoke to me.

I spun around in a panic and raised my voice.

"Never mind that—run! There are still more! More monsters!"

When I shouted desperately, they seemed to understand the danger. Their eyes widened as they looked at one another.

"There's a place called Café 'Alf'... over that way. Run there. There are adventurers there...!"

Clans also served as evacuation shelters when a spiritual disaster—a monster—appeared in the city.

I felt a little bad for Inoue-san, but pointed the middle schoolers in the direction I had come from.

"You too! Hurry and run...!"

Fortunately, the Skeletons were only ahead of us. There were no enemies behind us. Besides, this area was far from anything resembling a city center, so there weren't many people around.

"Huh?"

"Hurry!"

"Y-yes!"

The shout was louder than anything I would normally produce. In the process, I felt as though something had sprouted from my forehead.

Every now and then, a horn would grow from my left forehead—one about fifteen centimeters long.

Perhaps it gave me enough of an intimidating presence, because the suited man clutched his smartphone and ran off with the middle schoolers.

At the same time, the Skeletons charged toward me.

As expected, they were slow on their feet. But I'd heard in the course that despite having nothing but bones, they were physically powerful.

How had this happened? I'd only come to the clan for an interview because I wanted to become an adventurer.

My thoughts were still a mess, but I knew what I had to do. I had to run too.

With that in mind, I turned my back on the Skeletons.

"Agh!?"

"Huh?"

I heard a short scream and turned around before I could stop myself.

About twenty meters from the crossroads where we'd been standing, an old man was sitting on the ground.

He hadn't been there a moment ago. Maybe he'd heard the shouting and come to see what was happening.

A great deal of blood flowed from his right arm, and a child who looked like an elementary school student had come out through the open front door behind him.

A Skeleton holding a sword had apparently slashed the old man. It raised its badly chipped blade, then cut straight through the old man's torso.

Fresh blood sprayed as he fell onto his back. The child merely cried while shaking the old man, who was twitching in small convulsions.

"Grandpa! Graaandpa!"

"Tch...!"

The Skeleton's eye sockets, lit by blue flames, were now turned toward the child.

As if confirming that it couldn't be seen, it dangled its blade in front of the child before raising it to strike.

"Oh, come on!"

I couldn't bring myself to abandon them.

The scenery streamed past me as I accelerated with speed I couldn't believe myself capable of. Before it could bring down its sword, I ran past the other Skeletons and reached the child.

For some reason, becoming Gifted had enhanced my physical abilities too. Right now, I was faster than an Olympic athlete.

I drove my raised fist straight into it. I wouldn't miss this time.

One blow sent the skull flying, and the headless bony body scattered across the ground.

I immediately turned toward the old man. He was coughing blood. He was still alive.

'Ochi no Chishio'

Without thinking, I activated my Unique Gift. I doused him with pale golden water, as though hurling it at him.

His wounds closed in an instant. He even seemed a little younger, but I decided that was just my imagination.

"Cough...! W-what in the world...?"

"Grandpa!"

"I'll explain later! Run with that child! Get up! Run!"

I shouted at him as I turned my eyes toward the Skeletons.

As expected, they had clearly recognized me as an 'enemy.' It was nearly impossible to read expressions from their skulls, but the fact that they were pointing their weapons at me meant as much.

Leaving the front door open, the old man took the child's hand and ran in the direction I had pointed. The monsters didn't even try to pursue them.

...It's okay. It's okay, Yahiro Kota.

Come to think of it, I'd fantasized about situations like this countless times, almost as often as I'd imagined terrorists attacking my classroom.

Then all I had to do was put those fantasies into practice.

I focused my awareness on the mana flowing through my body. I imagined drawing it thinly over the surface of my body and wrapping it around me.

That alone was enough. I was ready to fight.

────'Day of Return.' No wonder I'd felt something strange about my clothes.

After all, what I was actually wearing had changed at that moment.

Perhaps they sensed the flow of mana, but two Skeletons attacked from either side. Each carried a sword, and they brought them down at the same time.

I blocked them with my raised arms. The sound that rang out was not blood splattering the ground, but the hard clang of metal striking metal.

Crude armored gauntlets, like ones used during the Sengoku period, covered both my arms. The metal plates attached to them had caught the blades.

Wincing at the impact and pain, I forcibly knocked them away. The black jinbaori with gold patterns draped over me swung from the recoil.

Beneath it were a gold-shining Western breastplate and shoulder armor. A sword belt was wrapped around my waist, with another Western hand-and-a-half sword hanging from it.

The clothing beneath the armor was black as well. This equipment, a mixture of Japanese and Western styles in black and gold, was my 'Spirit Armor'—the battle garb of a Gifted person.

Naturally, these items made of mana could oppose monsters, which were likewise 'beings made of mana.'

My exhaled breath struck the mask shaped like an oni's mouth covering my lower face. Feeling the weight of the forehead guard on my head, I glared at the Skeletons I'd knocked away.

"Come on, you monsters...!"

...But if possible, I'd really rather you went away!

Whether it was the influence of my oni blood or my elf blood, I had regained my composure once I put on the Spirit Armor.

I'd blurted out that challenge on a surge of adrenaline, but scary things were still scary.

My legs began to tremble as the Skeletons half-surrounded me. My throat tightened at the sight of their dull-glinting blades. One-on-one was one thing, but there were far too many of them. There had to be ten.

I did have a way to escape even from here. But I couldn't use it immediately. That thing left me far too exposed.

My right hand unconsciously started reaching for the small tube attached to my sword belt, but I summoned all my reason and grabbed the grip of the 'staff' behind my waist with my left hand.

Perhaps in response, the Skeletons all started moving at once. Clattering their teeth as if raising a mocking laugh, they lifted their weapons to kill the living.

Just as I was about to squeeze my eyes shut in fear—

"Huh?"

The future I saw made me let out a foolish cry.

A motor whined from somewhere. At the same time, the Skeletons closing in on me were all sent flying.

The bony monsters bounced away like bowling pins, showering the road with their remains.

With my mouth hanging open beneath the mask, I watched the gray object pass by.

It had crude steel armor and massive limbs. It was missing everything from the right shoulder down, and sparks crackled from the cables visible at the stump.

It was a roughly three-meter-tall giant that had drawn black lines across the road with wheels like roller skates on the soles of its feet.

A pair of impassive camera eyes turned toward me.

I lightly rubbed my eyes with the fingers enclosed in gauntlets. It hurt a little.

Then I looked again, but the gray object was still staring intently at me.

...Yeah.

"This is a robot!?"

Is the Age of Gods actually science fiction?