“All three!”
“Okay, even I’m surprised at that answer. That’s pretty trashy.” Randy was cringing.
“Huh? But a lot of the people in my parents’ generation had about a dozen women around them at any given time. So I honestly figured I could at least do with three or so…”
“Honestly? I think I need to give you a crash course on modern relationships sometime soon.”
“That’d be great! Frankly, I don’t really know the first thing about male-female relations or love.”
“Man, seriously? What kind of environment did you grow up in? Though it’s almost weird to ask at this point.”
“Anyway, what about you? Do you have a girl you like?”
“Heh, me? You really want to know? Heh-heh-heh…” Randy sounded like he had been dying for Rix to ask. “Actually…just recently, I met a real goddess at the academy…”
“Oh?”
“And the moment I met her, I knew—I knew I was born to meet her! She’s in the third year, and her name is…”
Just as Randy was starting to passionately explain…
Crack! A sound like something breaking rang out above their heads.
“Wh-what was that?!”
Rix and Randy looked up to see a huge fissure in the sky shaped like a cross.
And out from that fissure, darkness began to spread at a tremendous rate—it quickly began to form a dome-like shape that covered the entire western ward’s third district, where Rix and the others were.
Panic and confusion began spreading through the town. There was definitely something unusual going on.
“What is that? What the heck’s happening…?” said Rix.
“…It’s an Otherworld Barrier…!”
It was Shino who answered his question.
“Otherworld…Barrier…?”
“Yes. It’s a basic faith magic spell…a barrier that blurs the boundary between the Material Plane in which we live and the Astral Plane that exists on the other side of it! We’ve been dragged into another dimension that projects the landscape of the Material Plane we were originally in! This place has already become part of the Neverwhere!”
“I have no idea what any of those words mean!”
“Ugh… It means this place is extremely dangerous! But we can’t escape! Get it now?!”
“Got it!”
Then—
““““GROOOOOOOAAAHHHHRRR!!””””
—something strange started to appear around them—no, all over the town.
As if seeping out of the shadows, a pitch-black darkness like sticky coal tar swelled up, wriggled, and took various forms and shapes one after another.
Some appeared as four-legged beasts like wolves and horses, others as birds like crows and hawks, some as reptiles like snakes and lizards, more as insects like gigantic centipedes and spiders, and still others as sea creatures like octopuses and squid.
Their basic forms were familiar, but they were somehow distorted; their sharp fangs and claws sparkled unnaturally, with multiple eyes glowing and blazing ominously red.
And since they were made up of a black, irregular substance that seemed to absorb all light, they looked more foreign than any other monster that could be seen in this world.
“Wh-what are those things…?!” Randy yelled.
“Chaos Beasts—dwellers of the Astral Plane! Though these are low-class monsters!” Shino replied the next instant.
“GWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!”
A Chaos Beast in the form of a lion started heading right for Annie.
“Eek!”
Annie went pale and froze, unable to react.
But Rix was quicker.
“Annie!”
As usual, Rix rushed with unnatural speed into the space between Annie and the lion. And using that momentum, he slammed his log into the lion with ferocious power.
Bam! At the impact, the log instantly broke into tiny pieces.
“M-my loooooooooog!!”
“This is no time to be fooling around!”
“Dammit! My beloved log that fought by my side all this time…! I’m sorry, I wasn’t skilled enough to wield you…!”
“Don’t go making up memories that don’t exist! Incoming!”
The lion, which had righted itself once again, was now headed for Rix.
In an instant, Rix deflected its claw attack and took out his sword. In a flash of light, he sliced the lion’s neck.
Clang!
But his sword wasn’t able to slice even a fraction of a centimeter into the lion.
“…?!”
“It’s no use, Rix! The Chaos Beasts are from the Astral Realm! Unlike beings that exist in the Material Plane, physical attacks are meaningless against them!” Shino shouted.
She pulled out her wand and pointed it at Rix.
In that instant, Rix’s sword took on a bright white light.
“In order to defeat them, we need mana—we need to use magic!”
“Thanks, Shino!”
Sensing what she meant, he slashed his sword like a bolt of lightning.
Instantly, the lion’s head was sliced off and went flying, and the beast turned into a kind of black mist before disappearing completely.
Rix was strong as usual, but this was something more.
“Was that an enchantment spell…? She infused Rix’s sword with mana…?”
“They’re fast…!”
Annie and Serephina were dumbfounded by Shino’s quick thinking and spellcasting.
All the while, the Chaos Beasts kept increasing in number.
“Everyone! We need to run!” Shino called to the others, who were still in shock. “At this rate, we’ll be surrounded! We have to look for someplace safer…!”
“Y-you’re right…! This is no time to be waiting around!”
This made Randy come back to his senses.
The group dashed through the town in search of safety from the Chaos Beasts that came forth at every turn.
With Rix in the lead, taking down the Chaos Beasts that appeared, the group made their way through the town.
“Tch! I never imagined this gear I bought would come in handy so quickly…!” Randy shouted. He took a fighting stance. “Slice, sword of wind!”
Chanting the incantation for the Wind Blade spell, Randy swung his hand clad in his new studded gloves.
Following the movement of his hand, a blade of wind flew forward and bisected a Chaos Bird that was coming at him.
“Oh, whooooaaaaa!”
Then, just as a Chaos Dog was leaping at him from the front, he landed his right fist on its snout while simultaneously chanting the incantation for Air Bullet.
“Unseen to eyes, bullet of mana!”
As soon as the impact landed, a bullet made of air flew out of Randy’s fist point-blank and sent the dog flying.