Chapter 13

A voice. He could hear it now in the back of his mind. The voice of a boy, about the same age as Yuuma. But it wasn’t Kenk’s voice or the voice of anyone else in their class. So then, whose was it…? “Well? Say something already!” Yuuma was pulled back to reality by more shouting. This time it had been Youichi Oono. He stood next to Sugamo, wielding a deck brush. His lower, raspier voice was almost done dropping. It grew angrier with each word he spoke. “You’re all gonna turn into monsters, too. I know it! We’re not letting you through those barricades. There’s injured people back there!” Sawa leaned in closer to Yuuma and whispered, “We should probably deal with him instead of Sug.” Yuuma agreed. Oono was the tallest boy in class; he was popular, good at sports, and had gotten almost as many votes as Sugamo in the election for class president. Oono seemed more like someone who could be reasoned with—at least Yuuma hoped so. Oono usually looked honest and trusting, but at the moment he appeared to be the wariest out of all four boys. Yuuma and Kenk weren’t friendly enough with Oono to hang out or anything, but they weren’t exactly on bad terms, either. So why was he treating them so suspiciously now? Granted, Sugamo’s argument that only a monster could defeat another monster was pretty persuasive, but it still seemed unfair of Oono to insist they were “gonna turn into monsters, too.” Unless, of course, he had already seen that happen once before. Oono spoke again, confirming Yuuma’s suspicions. “You can’t fool me! You’re gonna change into monsters and attack us, just like…just like…Watamaki did!!” Yuuma could sense the rage and grief in Oono’s voice. He felt a lump grow in his own throat and resisted the urge to reflexively touch the card resting in his left pocket. “Oono…are you saying you saw Watamaki transform?!” “Yeah, I saw it! Everyone here did! We all saw how Watamaki turned into a faceless monster when she exited her Caliculus capsule…and how she attacked Beloshi!” True, Yukihisa Miura—aka Beloshi—hung out with a different group in class, but he and Oono were both on the basketball team. They were probably friends outside of school. Yuuma had even heard Miura call Oono by his nickname, Yoi, several times while in class. Sugamo and Hokari were standing on either side of Oono, their faces as white as sheets. Yuuma guessed they had also witnessed Sumika kill Miura. But if they were all there to see it, then why had Yuuma, Sawa, and Kenk woken up later than everyone else? By the time Yuuma had exited his capsule, all his classmates were gone. Only Sumika remained, roaming the playroom in a monstrous form. No, that’s not exactly true. Yuuma had heard Miura scream while he was still inside the Caliculus. Which meant that Miura had still been alive at that moment… That must have been when Sumika had attacked him while Oono and the others watched. “…What’s that supposed to mean, Yoi?” asked Kenk, calling Oono by the same nickname that Miura had used. Kenk was still standing against the wall, behind the others and to their right. The four boys spun back around again, clutching their mops and brooms. Now that Yuuma had calmed down a little, he realized that the boys’ makeshift weapons were actually pretty ragged looking. Kenk, meanwhile, held a proper weapon in his right hand—the massive hammer that had dropped from the Conehead Bruiser. A few random cleaning supplies were hardly going to be a match for the hammer in terms of attack power. Kenk’s hammer remained lowered as he spoke. “Are you saying you all just ran away and left Beloshi to die? How many of you were there? You’re all big and tough. Are you saying you used him as bait so you could run away?” Even from this distance, Yuuma could see Oono’s face flush red and the muscles in his neck clench. A tremor ran from his neck down to his shoulders, to his arms, and finally to his hands. The deck brush he was holding shook with anger. But it was Haruki Hokari—the half of the skateboarding duo with the shaved sides—who shouted angrily. “Yeah, well, where the hell were you, Kondou?! Where do you get off?! Watamaki almost killed Tada and Aida! They’re over in the store right now and seriously injured! We were all about to die until Miura jumped in to save us… What else could we do besides run?!” Takato Sera, the long-haired skater, spoke next. His tone was menacing. “We made it to the lobby by the skin of our teeth, just to find that huge thing stomping around next… Ms. Ebbers and Frankfurt were nowhere to be seen, and we were carrying Tada and Aida. We never thought we’d make it into that store alive. I’m glad you took care of the monster and all, but Sug is right. I don’t know how you did it, but it ain’t normal. What happens if we let the three of you inside and you turn into faceless freaks next? There’d be nowhere to run. Until you can prove that you’re human just like us, we’re not letting you through.” Sera’s expression and tone of voice may have seemed threatening, but his words were logical enough. Looking more closely, Yuuma noticed that Sera’s and Hokari’s baggy T-shirts and Oono’s school jacket were slashed up in multiple places and stained with what looked like blood. They must have been the ones who had carried the injured Tomonori Tada and Shinta Aida downstairs and who had set up the barricade. I always thought of Oono as just some meathead and Hokari and Sera as a couple of troublemakers. Maybe all this time I’ve been looking down my nose at them without really meaning to… “It wasn’t just the monster with the pointed head,” said Yuuma, feeling guilty for the way he had treated them. “Huh?” The boys stared at him suspiciously as he revealed the truth. Or a part of the truth, at least. “We also neutralized Watamaki while we were upstairs in the playroom. And we laid Miura to rest in one of the Caliculus capsules.” Oono’s face suddenly fell. “You mean Beloshi’s…dead…?” Yuuma nodded wordlessly. The anger slowly drained from Oono’s body, and the tip of his deck brush wilted toward the floor. His eyes welled up with tears. Sugamo, however, only gripped his mop tighter, becoming more hostile than before. “Forget about Miura… What do you mean, you neutralized Watamaki, Ashihara? What did you do to her?!” Oono glared at Sugamo out of the corners of his eyes, which were still wet with tears. Hokari’s and Sera’s lips also curled up in disgust. Sugamo, however, was too busy chastising Yuuma to even notice he had just told them all to “forget about” Miura’s death. “You didn’t kill her like you did that pointy-headed creature, did you?! I don’t care if she was a monster. Watamaki was… She was our friend!” Our “friend”? That’s rich coming from the guy who was just calling us monsters a minute ago. “We didn’t kill her,” said Yuuma, resisting the urge to retort. “But it’s hard to explain what happened to her.” “Don’t try to talk your way out of this! I know what you—” Sera suddenly cut Sugamo off. “Sug, why don’t you just shut up for a minute?” he said in a low voice. “Me…?! I…I’m class president, I’ll have you know! If anyone should shut up, it should be you all!!” Oono was also starting to make his displeasure known. “Class president?! When Watamaki attacked Beloshi, you didn’t do a thing—you just ran away. And then you left the three of us to hold the barricade while you hid in the back.” “Well…” Sugamo seemed tongue-tied for a moment, but he soon regained his usual overbearing attitude. “That’s ’cause I’m the leader! The class needs me. If I die, who’ll be left to take charge?! Wasn’t it me who found this safe spot?!” “Safe…?!” A mixture of anger and disgust crossed Oono’s face. He exchanged a look with the skateboarding duo before turning back toward Sugamo. “Okay then, you go back to your ‘safe spot’ while we deal with Kondou and Ashihara. We wouldn’t want any danger to come to our leader, after all.” Oono chose his words carefully, but the undertone in his voice was unmistakable. Sugamo still put on a show of arrogance, although he clearly knew better than to argue. “F-fine, if you really want to take care of this situation, I guess I will allow it. But don’t you dare let them in here. None of them!” he spat before disappearing back inside the shopping area. Looking closer, Yuuma realized that the hastily built barricade consisted of just a couple of steel display racks, which could hardly be expected to stop anything. The metal shutter must have done most of the work in keeping the Conehead Bruiser out. Now that the shutter was destroyed, the barricade would hardly protect them if a similar monster showed up. In fact, never mind the barricade. Considering the size of the hole the Bruiser had put into the concrete earlier, with just one strike of its head, it could have probably just busted down the wall separating the shop from the lobby if it had wanted to. “Some safe spot…,” Sawa murmured from behind Yuuna. She apparently had the same thought. Kenk rushed over to join them. He seemed to have relaxed now that Sugamo was gone. “Hey, Yu, I was thinking: How do we know there’s just one of those pinhead creatures walking around? I don’t think that barricade would last ten seconds if another one showed up…” As Kenk’s gaze turned from the shopping area back to Sawa, he did a double take, sizing her up and down. “Uh, Sawa…Is that really the only clothes you could find? That’s just a windbreaker. Why aren’t you wearing anything underneath it?!” “Stop hassling me. I can’t get my legs into pants with my feet like this, and I’m not about to wear some stupid skirt.” “So just take your boots off first!” Kenk looked exasperated. Yuuma nudged Kenk’s left knee, urging him to be quiet. Oono, Hokari, and Sera were huddled a few meters away, whispering quietly to each other. They shuffled over cautiously, still gripping their mops and brooms, and stopped about three meters from where Yuuma and the others stood. Oono began speaking first, keeping his voice as low as possible so as not to be overheard. Sugamo was probably still watching them from inside the barrier. “Ashihara…what happened to Watamaki? If it’s true that you didn’t kill her, then how were you able to subdue her?” Yuuma had been dreading that question. He took a deep breath, steeled his nerves, and answered in a single word. “Magic.” “Wha…?” They stared slack-jawed for a moment before their faces contorted with anger. “This is no time for your stupid jokes, Ashihara!” Hokari growled. With his hair in an undercut, Hokari looked pretty scary for an elementary school kid. If he’d spoken to Yuuma like that just yesterday, Yuuma would have probably been shaking in his boots. Well, maybe not shaking but cringing, at least. But after facing off against Sumika Watamaki—who had been turned into a monster—and the Conehead Bruiser—which had been a monster all along—Hokari suddenly didn’t seem so bad. Or maybe it was the new boost to his physical abilities, from upgrading his character class, that made Yuuma feel so brave. If that was the case, Yuuma was going to lose his newfound advantage over Hokari and the other boys once he explained everything. But it wasn’t like they could keep it a secret forever. And besides, someone in class was bound to try starting up Actual Magic eventually, with or without Yuuma’s help. “It’s not a joke,” Yuuma said softly. He lifted his left hand and rolled up his jacket and shirtsleeves, revealing the huge circuitry pattern extending from the back of his hand to just below his elbow. “Wh-what is that…?” murmured Sera, comparing his own left hand with Yuuma’s. Oono’s, Hokari’s, and Sera’s QRESTs were all still normal size, indicating that none of them had upgraded their character classes yet. “Once your own QRESTs change, you’ll be able to use magic, too,” said Yuuma. “And it’s not just magic. Your strength and durability increase, too. Enough to fight monsters like that creature that was running around before.” “What…?” The anger faded from their faces, but they still looked like they only half believed him. No, less than half—maybe 10 percent. Kenk thrust the giant hammer he was holding in their direction. “Don’t believe him? Try holding this. If you think you can hold it, that is.” Kenk kneeled down and placed the hammer on the floor, kicking it over to Oono and the others. Yuuma wasn’t sure if Kenk’s potshot had been intentional. Either way, it seemed to have hit its mark. Oono and Kenk were almost the same height, but Kenk didn’t even take gym class, let alone do any sports. Oono took a step forward, crouched down, and reached for the hammer, probably convinced that there was no chance Kenk could best him in a feat of strength. He gripped the glittering black handle and began to stand— “Urk!” A groan escaped Oono’s lips as he fell to one knee. He blinked several times, visibly shocked, before dropping the deck brush and gripping the weapon more firmly with both hands. The result, however, remained the same. He could lift the hammer’s shaft, but he couldn’t get the metal head to rise even a millimeter from the floor. “No way!” “You’re kidding!” Hokari and Sera exchanged glances from behind Oono and then stepped forward. Oono sat back, out of breath, as they tried to lift the hammer as well. The results were the same. “Satisfied yet?” asked Kenk. The three stared in amazement before backing away. Kenk stepped forward in their place. He reached down, grabbed the hammer by the shaft, and lifted it easily into the air, almost as if it were a mere plastic toy. Yuuma knew it had probably taken him a lot of effort to lift it like that, but the other three boys didn’t know that. Kenk returned to Yuuma’s side. A few moments later, Hokari spoke. “So if our QRESTs get bigger, we’ll be able to lift the hammer, too…?” “Maybe,” Yuuma replied. If they had chosen a class like Mage or Priest during the playtest, then there was a chance their strength wouldn’t actually be boosted very high even after upgrading their character class. The boys, however, were too excited to notice. “Tell us what to do!” Hokari begged. “Is it an in-app purchase? Where do I sign up?!” asked Sera. Yuuma almost laughed at the question but forced himself to put on a serious face. “I’ll tell you… But this is very important, so I want everyone to hear. Either let us inside the shopping area or bring everyone else out here.” Oono, Hokari, and Sera exchanged glances and then whispered furtively to each other once more. Yuuma was worried they were going to say no, but after a few seconds, they had apparently come to an agreement. Oono turned back toward Yuuma and nodded. “Fine… But I’m pretty sure Sug’s gonna have something to say about it.” “Well, don’t expect us to convince him,” said Kenk. “That’s your job.” Hokari scratched the side of his clean-shaven head. “Fair enough… Wait here a second.” The skateboarding duo slipped back inside through a gap in the barricade. Immediately they could hear loud voices from within—more than a discussion but not quite an argument. Eventually one half of the skateboarding duo, Sera, poked his head out and gestured for them to follow. Yuuma exhaled despite himself. All this commotion just to rejoin their classmates. He didn’t even want to imagine how upset they would be once he had explained the bad news—that they were trapped in Althea, that the place was infested with monsters, and that the game system of Actual Magic was encroaching on the real world. But Yuuma and his friends had no choice. If they were going to accomplish their goals of restoring Sumika Watamaki to normal and finding Minagi Sano, then they would need a safe base, somewhere they could rest. At the moment, the shopping area seemed like their best option. Yuuma stepped over the broken metal shutters, following Oono as he slipped through a gap in the barricade. He almost expected another earful from Sugamo the moment they entered, but Sugamo was nowhere nearby. After checking to be sure that Kenk and Sawa had followed as well, Yuuma glanced around. The long, fan-shaped shopping area took up about one-sixth of the first-floor lobby. The area extended back another twenty meters or so but seemed larger, likely owing to the dimness of the emergency lighting and the fact that most of the display racks had been pushed back against the walls on the left and right. The cash registers were located along the back wall. A large pile of mismatched towels and blankets had been laid out on the floor in front of the registers, with two boys lying on top of them. They were probably the two injured boys Oono had mentioned, as there were a couple of girls tending to them. The other students stood huddled in small groups around the room. Yuuma did a quick headcount: seventeen in total. Adding Oono, Hokari, and Sera, who were still standing nearby, as well as Yuuma, Sawa, and Kenk made twenty-three. Nagi was missing, Sumika was now a card, and Yukihisa Miura was dead. That still only brought the count to twenty-six. There were forty-one students in their class, so that left fifteen students unaccounted for. “…Where is everyone else?” Yuuma asked Oono. Had they all been killed by the Conehead Bruiser…? Yuuma shuddered. Oono, however, just muttered that he didn’t know. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Didn’t you all come down from the second-floor playroom together?” asked Sawa. Hokari shook his head swiftly in response. “When we left the playroom, the elevators weren’t working. We all tried to go down the staircase, but it was so cramped. We were like sardines in there. Some of the people in the back ran up to the third floor instead. Out of the girls, I know Fujikawa and Teragami ran up instead of down, and as for the boys, I know Niki and Haizaki ran up as well. There might have been more; I don’t know.” “The third floor…,” said Sawa, biting her lip. She had her hood pulled all the way up. Yuuma understood immediately why his sister seemed worried. They had already taken care of Sumika Watamaki on the second floor and the Conehead Bruiser rampaging on the first. If the other fifteen students had all fled upstairs, why hadn’t they come back down yet? Something had to be preventing them from doing so. “Even if there’s another monster on the third floor, I doubt Niki and Haizaki would get taken out so easily…,” said Kenk. Yuuma nodded briefly. Those two boys were also stars of the class, like Oono and Sugamo, but for very different reasons. Kakeru Niki, student number 33. Shin Haizaki, student number 35. They were the class brainiacs, constantly competing for the highest score on tests. But that didn’t mean they weren’t good at sports, too. They were fairly tall, stylish, and very popular with the girls. Knowing those two, there was a pretty good chance they had already figured out how to upgrade their character classes on their own. In fact, they might even know things that Yuuma and the others hadn’t discovered yet. It was probably a good idea to join up with them as soon as possible—but first, they had other things to do. Yuuma glanced around the shopping area, making eye contact with the other students who had noticed them. Everyone looked apprehensive. They remained huddled against the walls or beside the display racks. They were probably afraid that Yuuma’s group would turn into monsters, just like Sumika Watamaki had. One person’s glare in particular seemed especially hostile. Yuuma directed his eyes toward the small eat-in corner in the back-right part of the room. Teruki Sugamo sat there sulking, an irate expression on his face. Next to him stood Aria Misono and Kai Kisanuki, both of whom had been in Sugamo’s party during the playtest. “Well…? Aren’t you going to tell us how to power up our QRESTs?” asked Sera, eager to hear more. He seemed barely able to contain himself. Yuuma nodded slightly. “Okay, I’ll tell you… Have everyone gather in front of the registers.”