Chapter 76
The place we reached by following the scent was the school.
"......Momo, are you really sure this is the place?"
"Woof!"
I asked again just to be sure, but Momo nodded emphatically, as if to say there was no mistake.
Thanks, Momo. Good work. I patted her head in praise.
Momo wagged her tail happily.
But I never expected the trail to lead to the school.
Apparently, the person we'd been tracking was far more dangerous than we'd imagined.
The Dark Wolf that had suddenly appeared at the school.
The multiple monsters whose scents Momo had picked up at the park.
A human carrying those scents.
With all these pieces in place, the answer was obvious.
Someone was controlling monsters.
I'd figured there would probably be people with Skills like that.
My options had included the Job 'Monster Tamer,' and given the precedent of Aka the Slime becoming my companion, there was no reason Skills or Jobs for making monsters into companions, controlling them, or forcing them to obey couldn't exist.
So we'd assumed this school attack had been carried out by someone who had obtained one of those Skills.
The purpose was... strengthening their pawns—the monsters—or leveling up, most likely.
The more people they killed, the more experience the monsters would gain. Maybe the person controlling them received a share of that experience too.
If they wanted to gain a large amount of experience, having them attack a place with lots of people was logical.
It would be a highly efficient method... except for treating people as less than human.
I couldn't care less what happened to other people's lives, but even so, I wouldn't want to level up badly enough to kill someone.
For that matter, who would normally even think of something like that?
If someone could carry this out without a second thought, they would be completely insane.
An extremely dangerous person.
This is bad... The situation might be more serious than I'd thought.
The mastermind behind this attack—I'll call them the Monster Tamer for convenience—was very likely to strike again if they were hiding out at the school.
Since no one can see anyone else's Status, faking a Skill or Job would be easy, and the culprit could hide among the evacuees. They might even be a student.
Momo said she could smell multiple monsters.
That meant they had pawns besides the Dark Wolf.
If they used them to launch another mass attack, the school wouldn't come away unscathed this time.
For that matter, how had they managed to subjugate a Dark Wolf that strong?
Judging by the timing, it was probably after our fight with it, right?
Maybe someone had tamed it while it was weakened?
No... Even so, wasn't that Skill way too powerful?
Maybe there was some condition? Or perhaps some troublesome restriction...
No, there was no point thinking about it now. I'd set it aside.
"W-what should we do, Kudo-san? If we leave things like this, the people here will be attacked again... Rikka-chan too..."
Ichinose-san already looked beside herself with worry.
She kept looking back and forth between the school and me, unable to settle down.
Yeah, that was the problem...
To be honest, I couldn't care less what happened to the people here.
My own life came first, and I didn't want to throw myself into danger for no reason.
As for the school, my honest feeling was that they should handle things themselves.
If they wanted to survive, they'd have to do something about it themselves.
At least, in the world as it was now.
But... well.
"......"
I glanced at Ichinose-san beside me.
She looked at me with pleading eyes.
They must be incredibly important to her.
That girl—Rikka-chan.
Her friend.
"......"
What should I do? To be honest, this was a pain.
But if I abandoned Rikka-chan, Ichinose-san would probably despise me...
She might even say we should dissolve the party.
I didn't like that...
Ah, this was it.
It was the same as with Momo.
If someone was just a stranger, I could think it didn't matter what happened to them.
But the moment I grew close to someone, I immediately started caring about them.
I started thinking that I didn't want them to hate me.
I started feeling like I had to do something for them.
I couldn't bring myself to cut them loose.
Nishino-kun and Rikka-chan were the same.
We weren't strangers.
Though they probably didn't even know who I was.
I found myself hoping they wouldn't die if possible.
...No, that's not right, I thought, scratching my head vigorously.
The important thing was my own life.
Other people came second.
That's how I'd acted all this time.
Wasn't that why I'd kept my distance from other people?
....................................... Ah, what a pain in the ass. I don't want this, I don't want this, I don't want this.
I didn't want to stick my neck into trouble. I didn't want to do this.
I never should have formed a party.
My behavior was changing. My whole approach was starting to waver.
So I let out a huge sigh.
"......Momo, if we infiltrate the school, will you be able to identify the person those scents belong to?"
"Woof!"
Momo nodded.
"Ichinose-san."
"......Yes."
"First, we'll infiltrate the school just as we did before. If possible, we'll identify the Monster Tamer. Then we'll leak the information we've gathered to Nishino-kun and Rikka-chan by 'Mail.'"
"Ah......"
"After that, if possible, we'll meet up with them somewhere deserted. We don't know when the Monster Tamer might make their move. We'll take care of this quickly and leave."
"K-Kudo-san!"
Ichinose-san's expression brightened.
Ah, seeing that made me hate how relieved I felt.
It made me feel as though I was being shown just how hopelessly wishy-washy I was.
Well, anyway.
A Monster Tamer actively hunting humans was far too dangerous, and in the long run, there was no guarantee I wouldn't end up having to deal with groups of people.
It wouldn't hurt to have them owe me one now.
So this was for Ichinose-san's sake, and for my own.
I used that line of reasoning to convince myself.
Otherwise, I couldn't have gone through with it.
"Woof!"
What?
What are you grinning about, Momo?
Oh, enough! Let's get going already, damn it!
And so, we infiltrated the school once again.