Chapter 87
―――Hm?
I slowly regain consciousness.
"Huh? What was I doing again?"
Right... That's it. I fought the Dark Wolf and passed out―――.
"―――That's right, Momo!"
"Gah...!"
When I sat up, my head collided with something with a thunk.
"Huh...? Ichinose-san...?"
"Ah, y-yes. Thank goodness. You're awake..."
Holding her nose, Ichinose-san turned her face away.
"Are you all right?"
"I-I am, b-but... ah, w-wait, you're too close! Too close!"
"Ah, s-sorry..."
With the hand she'd been using to cover her nose, she pushed me away.
But when I wondered why she wasn't moving away, I realized that her other hand was holding mine. It was soft.
"Um... I have to keep holding you like this, or the Skill's effect won't be transmitted..."
Turning her face away, Ichinose-san explained, her face bright red.
Well, it should be fine as long as she touched me somewhere; she didn't really have to hold my hand... Actually, this is fine. Ichinose-san's hand is incredibly soft, and the slight sweat on it is a definite plus. This is pretty nice in its own way.
Wait a second.
What is going on here?
...Ichinose-san.
"Yes?"
"What happened? After I passed out."
When I asked, Ichinose-san lowered her eyes, her expression darkening.
...To be honest, I don't really understand it myself. Why did that thing let us go...?
"Let us go?"
For a moment, I wondered if I'd misheard her.
"Yes. That Dark Wolf disappeared somewhere without delivering the finishing blow."
"............Huh?"
What was that supposed to mean? I couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Why would it have let us go in the first place?
Ichinose-san seemed confused too, probably because she couldn't make sense of it herself.
"―――Oh, right! Then what about Momo!? Is Momo all right!?"
"Ah, Momo-chan is―――"
"Woof!"
Before Ichinose-san could finish, Momo emerged from my 'Shadow.'
"Momo!"
"Whiiine."
As soon as she emerged, Momo rubbed herself against me and licked my face over and over.
Her tail was wagging furiously, too.
I stroked Momo with my free hand.
Yes, this feels real. This is the real Momo.
"Ah, Momo, thank goodness... Thank goodness..."
"Whiiine..."
I hugged her tiny body with one arm, and tears began to fall before I knew it.
I was profoundly relieved that she was safe.
But that raised another question.
"So does that mean Momo was let go too?"
"It seems so..."
That only made things more confusing.
What had that Dark Wolf wanted, anyway?
Why didn't it kill me? Why didn't it take Momo away?
Various possibilities raced through my mind, but I couldn't find an answer.
There was no way I could understand the thought process of a monster.
"After the Dark Wolf left, Momo-chan woke up too. Then, with Momo-chan and Aka-chan's help, we carried you here."
"Here...?"
At that, I looked around me again.
Walls and a ceiling. At the edge of my vision, I could see a staircase and a connecting passage.
This is... inside the school?
Though there seemed to be surprisingly few signs of people for a place like this...
"... (trembling)"
"Aka."
I noticed that Aka was clinging to my feet too.
"...! (trembling)"
Aka was worried! Aka clung to me, shaking its body as if to say so.
Perhaps it hadn't fully recovered yet, because its body was roughly two sizes smaller than usual.
"Sorry, Aka. I made you worry too..."
"~~~♪ (trembling)"
When I gently stroked its translucent red body, Aka trembled happily.
"Huh? Now that I think about it..."
I checked my own body.
My wounds... are gone?
My clothes were torn and stained with blood, but the body beneath them was completely uninjured.
I felt somewhat sluggish and dizzy, but that was all.
"Could this... be because of you, Ichinose-san?"
"Ah, yes, exactly. ...I used a Potion. I got it from Gacha again..."
The Skill 'Gacha.'
It was the Skill belonging to Ichinose-san's Job, 'Shut-In.' If I remembered correctly, in exchange for 1 SP, it let her spin the Gacha three times and obtain various items.
The Potion she'd gotten from Gacha was what had healed me after I'd been injured in the battle with the High Orc, too.
"I used about three points, but I was lucky enough to get one..."
Looking deeply relieved, Ichinose-san showed me the empty glass bottle.
How did she get me to drink it? I was really curious, but I probably shouldn't ask.
"Sorry for using your precious Skill Points on me..."
Three SP.
For me, with my tenfold bonus, that wasn't a particularly large number of points, but for Ichinose-san, it must have been a considerable expense.
"Ah, no, it's fine. I got some pretty good Skills and Jobs out of it, too. ...And this all started because I was being selfish in the first place..."
The last part of her sentence trailed off, and Ichinose-san's expression darkened again.
She probably felt that she was partly responsible for what had happened this time.
That might not have been wrong.
If I had ignored Ichinose-san's suggestion and simply passed by this school, perhaps none of this would have happened.
But all of that was meaningless speculation.
Time doesn't go backward.
"Ichinose-san, don't worry about it. I didn't object, either, and there were countless points where I could have handled things better. After all that wavering and all those mistakes, if anyone should be blamed, it should be me for failing to handle things properly."
"No, but... if I hadn't been the one to suggest it in the first place..."
"No, no, if I had acted more skillfully..."
"No, I―――"
"I―――"
For some reason, we ended up arguing over which of us was at fault. Then we both bowed our heads at the same time and burst out laughing.
Thanks to that, Ichinose-san's expression brightened a little too. ...Though we still didn't make eye contact.
"―――Anyway, Ichinose-san, I'd like to check our current situation once more."
"Ah, yes."
"This is definitely inside the school, right?"
Ichinose-san nodded.
"Even so, it feels like there are strangely few signs of people..."
That's right. It was too quiet.
The uproar we'd heard when we entered was completely gone.
And if you looked closely... Actually, even without looking closely, it was obvious that parts of the walls and ceiling had collapsed.
Was this the aftermath of our battle?
I'd been too focused on the fight to notice, but the Dark Wolf's attacks covered a huge area. It wouldn't have been strange if people had been caught up in them.
If so, had the people here fled?
When I asked, Ichinose-san shook her head.
...I don't know. But when the Dark Wolf left, it let out a 'Howl.' It seems to have drawn a considerable number of monsters here.
...What?
Come to think of it, the Shadow Wolf and Lesser Wolf had also called their companions and other monsters by howling like that.
Perhaps their 'Howl' had an effect like that.
"And then... during that time, all I could hear was screaming, and screaming, and more screaming."
So you heard nothing but screams.
Well, of course.
Even the army of monsters under that Monster Tamer's command must have been an enormous threat to them.
On top of that, the Dark Wolf destroyed the school building, followed by the finishing touch of drawing in more monsters with its 'Howl.'
It must have turned the place into a veritable hell of screams and suffering.
"But I have no chance against them in close quarters inside the school, so we all hid here until Kudou-san woke up. We couldn't move, either, and thanks to 'Recognition Interference,' they never noticed us. Then, after a while, we stopped hearing anything..."
In that case, I should assume they scattered and fled...
The reason there were so few monster signs was probably that they had gone after the people who fled.
"I see..."
How many people had managed to survive...?
The world really is harsh on humanity now. What a load of crap.
"Um, sorry. By the way, how long was I unconscious?"
"About an hour."
An hour...
I suppose I should be grateful that it was only that long after sustaining injuries like those.
Come to think of it, how much had my HP recovered?
I opened my status screen and checked.
HP: 180/180
MP: 35/35
Both my HP and MP were completely full.
That must have been the effect of Ichinose-san's Potion.
Amazing, it must restore MP as well as heal wounds. Is it an Elixir or something?
"Speaking of which, Ichinose-san, what happened to your friends?"
When I asked casually, Ichinose-san's shoulders jerked.
...I don't know. I sent one more 'Mail' after that, but there was no reply.
What? The Ichinose-san who sent those ridiculously obnoxious spam emails only sent one more...?
A decision that sensible? Are you running a fever or something?
"Um... are you thinking something terribly rude about me?"
"It's your imagination."
I turned my face away and checked how my body felt.
...Yeah, it seemed fine as long as I just moved normally.
"For now, should we get moving? There's no reason to stay here anymore."
"I suppose you're right..."
I was worried about what had happened to Nishino-kun and Rikka-chan, but if she was able to send a Mail, they should at least still be alive.
If so, our paths would cross again eventually.
That said, the Student Council President and those twins might be near them too.
Monsters were a threat, but that president's Skill was troublesome in an entirely different way.
And those twins. I'll never forgive them. Next time I see them, I'll hit them with a fist (a rock) from the Item Box from a safe distance.
But seriously, even if we did make contact, we'd need to be extremely careful.
Now that I was able to move again, staying here was dangerous.
We should get to another location as soon as possible.
I activated 'Search.'
Under the influence of 'Job Enhancement,' the Skill had also been strengthened, and its effective range had expanded considerably.
There were no signs of any particularly strong monsters.
And living humans too... Hmm, there are a few. People who failed to escape?
But if they're staying in one place without moving, then either they're hiding or too injured to move.
"Woof!"
As I was lost in thought, Momo suddenly took off running.
"H-hey, what's wrong, Momo!?"
"Momo-chan!?"
I hoisted Ichinose-san up and immediately followed Momo.
In the dim school, blood and scraps of flesh were splattered everywhere, and corpses lay scattered about, making it easy to imagine what had happened.
"Woof!"
After running for a while, Momo came to a stop.
Someone was collapsed against a wall in the direction she was looking.
There were no other signs of people nearby.
"That is..."
I recognized the person lying there.
Brightly colored hair tied into a side ponytail, and a miniskirt.
A girl with her uniform worn carelessly, giving her an unmistakably gyaru-like appearance.
Quite a few magic stones were scattered around her feet.
Ichinose-san turned her face away from me to look at her too.
"―――No way... R-Rikka-chan?"
The person lying there, covered in blood, was the one Ichinose-san had been searching for: Rikka Aisaka.