Chapter 15

A moment later, he heard several screams. One after another, the ten-plus insects had leaped into the air, hurtling themselves at nearby students and knocking them to the ground. The students who hadn’t been attacked either froze in fear or began screaming themselves, unable to help their other classmates. Yuuma had to do something—but he couldn’t think. It was all he could do just to keep the chomping bug away from his face. In Actual Magic, he would have just slammed the creature on the ground and stamped it to death, or even crushed it between his fingers while it was still in his hands. But the real thing was so gross and raw and disgusting that he couldn’t will himself to move. Before long, the caterpillar stopped trying to bite Yuuma’s face and began twisting side to side instead. It’s gonna bite my arm, he realized in terror. Just then: “Yu, hold it still!” It was Sawa. She circled around in front of Yu and then kicked straight upward. With a dull thump, the caterpillar was booted vertically into the air, splattering against one of the exposed pipes on the ceiling before bouncing back toward the ground. “Kenk!” “Aughh!” Kenk dashed forward with a scream of rage. He brought his giant hammer high into the air and then swung it down. The sound of the impact reverberated like an explosion as the expensive-looking floor tiles shattered in a radial pattern, leaving a crater in the floor. He missed! Yuuma gritted his teeth. The hammer had struck the ground just two centimeters from the insect’s head. Barely a miss, but under the circumstances, it might as well have been a whole meter…or so Yuuma thought. Just then: The air shimmered like summer haze as a shockwave emanated from the point of impact, catching the creature in its blast. Its round, plump body was crushed flat before exploding with a terrifying little splat. Instead of gore and ichor, gloomy fragments, just like those that had appeared when they had killed the Conehead Bruiser, went flying in all directions. The bug was definitely dead. “Huh…?” Instead of excitement, a cry of confusion escaped Kenk’s lips. Apparently he realized he had missed. Sawa, who was standing next to them, seemed surprised as well, but a look of understanding soon crossed her face. “It must be splash damage…,” she whispered. Splash damage referred to AoE damage that was added to many special weapon techniques and even to normal attacks for some giant-size weapons. In the real world, the only things that could create shock waves of similar force were explosives; but just like the monsters, it seemed weapons like Kenk’s Bruising Hammer were supernatural in that they had special effects in the real world, too. That wasn’t important right now, though. The caterpillars were so weak that they could even be killed by splash damage. Yuuma had to let the other students know. “Everyone! These bugs are pushovers; just find something hard to use and hit them with it…!” he shouted, turning to look over his shoulder. The sight that awaited him was like a scene out of hell. A dozen or so students were lying on the ground, with the caterpillar creatures attached to their necks and chests. The creatures made a horrible slurping sound as they fed. They seemed to be drinking the students’ blood. Since they weren’t in his party, he couldn’t see the HP bars of the students currently being feasted upon. Their arms and legs twitched occasionally, letting Yuuma know they were still alive, but it was only a matter of time before there would be deaths on their hands. There had to be around ten students who were still unharmed, but they had all either frozen in place, screaming, or had huddled up in a corner. None of them looked ready to fight. Peering around the room, Yuuma hoped that Oono, Hokari, and Sera were okay—but they had already fallen victim to the caterpillars, either because their big size made them easy targets or because they’d put themselves in the way to protect the girls. What about Sugamo? He was always eager to assert himself, wasn’t he? Yuuma glanced over toward the eat-in corner. Unfortunately, Sugamo had tipped a round table over on its side and was hiding behind it together with Aria Misono and Kai Kisanuki. Yuuma doubted he would come back out until the danger was past. It was Sugamo, after all. All these thoughts ran through Yuuma’s head in a millisecond. He turned toward Sawa and Kenk and shouted, “We’re gonna have to do it ourselves! Sawa, you kick the bugs off the students! Kenk, you hit them with your hammer!” “Got it… But what about you?!” “I’ll see what I can do with these!” Yuuma shouted, waving his balled fist in Sawa’s direction before rushing toward one of the girls who was currently lying on the floor being attacked by a caterpillar. She had fallen face up, with an insect attached to her neck. It was drinking her blood. Her hair was in disarray, covering her face, but Yuuma could see the temples of her eyeglasses where they protruded from her ears. There was only one girl in their class who wore eyeglasses, and that was the student librarian, Tomori Shimizu. Yuuma chose to help her first because, as one of only three Priests in their group, she was one of their most valuable members. The creature was entirely absorbed in drinking Tomori’s blood. Praying Tomori was still alive, Yuuma wound up with his sneakered foot and booted the creature in its side as hard as he could. Torn free from Tomori’s neck, it flew through the air in a straight line before smacking against one of the display racks in the back, its six-fanged mouth stained with fresh blood—Tomori’s blood. Since Yuuma had attacked it, an appropriately sized HP bar appeared over the caterpillar’s head. Yuuma wasn’t specialized in close combat and kicked it only with his ordinary sneakers, but the caterpillar’s HP bar still went down by about 20 percent. He was right—the creatures had almost zero defense. The monster’s name, Tabanus Hellfly Larva, appeared underneath its HP bar. Yuuma wasn’t sure what a Tabanus was, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to look it up. All that mattered now was saving the other students. Every second counted. Yuuma leaped over Tomori and dashed toward the caterpillar he had just kicked into the display rack. “Hyah!” he shouted, thrusting his fist toward the creature. Unfortunately, the benefits of upgrading his class didn’t include making Yuuma any more graceful. He was still wearing the ashen leather gloves. Despite his awkward punch, he somehow managed to hit the creature. His fist sank deep into its spongy body. For a brief moment nothing happened, and then its gray skin expanded like a balloon, and it exploded with a giant pop. As soft as those caterpillars might have been, there was no way they were weak enough to be entirely obliterated by one limp punch from Yuuma. The leather gloves, which had been dropped by the Conehead Bruiser, must have had their own supernatural strength, just like Kenk’s hammer. We’ve still got a chance! Ignoring the gloomy, insubstantial fragments that spun through the air, Yuuma searched for the other two Priests—Aoi Soga and Takeshi Moro. He found Aoi almost immediately. Fortunately, it seemed she had not been attacked by one of the caterpillars and was instead huddled in a corner with several other girls. He couldn’t spot Moro anywhere, though. Moro was the heaviest kid in the class, and the room was only about ten meters deep. He should have been pretty hard to miss. Reluctantly, Yuuma ran toward the closest boy being attacked instead. It was the basketball player, Youichi Oono. He was lying face down, with a caterpillar attached to the nape of his neck. Maybe it was because Yuuma had already smooshed one of the creatures, but he had mostly gotten over his sense of revulsion by that point. He grabbed the caterpillar by its neck with his left hand and pulled it free from Oono, then he immediately lobbed it onto the floor and splattered it with his right fist. Sawa and Kenk seemed to be making good progress as well. There were about seven or eight bugs remaining. They needed to get rid of them as quickly as possible so they could look for Moro and start treating the students who had been bitten. Takato Sera had also been knocked down. He was lying on the ground next to Oono. Yuuma grabbed the caterpillar attached to Sera’s neck and was about to yank it free when— “Eeeek!!” A high-pitched shriek reverberated through the shopping area. Yuuma turned to see what had happened. The last time he looked, Sugamo had still been hiding in the eat-in corner. He was now collapsed on the floor, with a caterpillar attached to his back; Aria Misono stood next to him, screaming helplessly. She couldn’t seem to build up enough courage to touch the creature with her bare hands. She lifted her head, and her eyes met Yuuma’s. “Ashihara, help him! Help Ruki!!” Yuuma wasn’t so immature that he would try to get back at Sugamo at a time like this. Besides, Sugamo had upgraded his character class, too. He was now a valuable fighting resource, just like everyone else. Yuuma would have to help him eventually. But a lot of the other students were already running out of time. They needed help first. Since Sugamo had been hiding, the caterpillar hadn’t gotten to him as soon as the others. It had probably only just started sucking his blood. “Sug should be fine for a little while longer!” Yuuma shouted back at Aria. “I promise I’ll save him, but he’ll have to wait!” Surprisingly, Aria didn’t argue. “O-okay… But hurry!” There was no time to respond. Yuuma was still holding the bug he had torn free from Sera. He grabbed it around the middle and squished it to death between his fingers, feeling like he might be sick. He saved Haruki Hokari next, followed by a girl named Chinami Nushiro, at which point Kenk shouted to him from across the room. “We got rid of all the bugs on this side, Yu!” “Okay!” Yuuma yelled back, dashing over toward the eat-in corner. The caterpillar on Sugamo’s back had sunk its six sharp fangs in just below the shoulder blade and was slurping away at his blood through several tentacles that extended from deep within its mouth. The bloodsucking caterpillars were about fifty centimeters long. Much larger than any cabbageworms or inchworms found in the real world. But they still weighed only four kilograms at most. Maybe large enough to hold down a smaller student, but it didn’t make sense that bigger students like Oono and Sugamo couldn’t get free on their own. Yuuma didn’t have time to worry about that at the moment, however. “Hurry! Hurry!” said Aria, urging him on. She was almost in tears. Yuuma grabbed the creature in a viselike grip around the back of what seemed like its neck. It struggled for a moment until its fangs slipped free from Sugamo’s back, at which point it was easy to pull off. This was the last bug. It didn’t seem to be very high level, so if Yuuma damaged it a little, he could have probably captured it instead. But the revulsion on Aria’s face was obvious. “Hurry up and kill it!” she pleaded. Giving up on the idea of capturing it, Yuuma turned around and swung his fist into the ground, bug and all. With a splat, its exoskeleton exploded. The gloomy black fragments that spilled out from inside formed a vortex, spinning up into the air, only to be sucked into the same mysterious black ring that had appeared for the pinhead creature earlier. “Whew…” Yuuma sighed softly. As if waiting for that moment, the level-up fanfare played, audible only to Yuuma’s ears. A message box appeared. Yuuma Ashihara Level 8 → 9 +3 stat points +40 skill points Item: Tabanus Hellfly Larva Fang x5 Item: Tabanus Hellfly Larva Venom Gland x1 It had taken a mere single hit to kill each bug. The fact that Yuuma had leveled up from killing just six of them must have meant either that he still had a lot of experience points left over from defeating the Conehead Bruiser or that the creatures were dangerous in a way that wasn’t immediately apparent. Either way, now was hardly the time to celebrate. The screaming and shouting of the other students slowly died down and then ceased entirely. The silence lasted only a moment, however, before Aria started shrieking again. “Ruki!” Her scream apparently broke the floodgates as student after student began rushing toward their injured classmates’ sides. Yuuma knelt down as well and stared into Sugamo’s face. His eyes remained closed. Yuuma wished he could check Sugamo’s HP bar, but in Actual Magic, another player’s health bar was visible only if they joined your party or if they became an enemy. Yuuma tried placing his fingers against Sugamo’s neck. His pulse was fast, but it still seemed strong. His back had almost stopped bleeding as well. So why isn’t he waking up—? “It’s probably poison,” Sawa said quietly. Yuuma hadn’t realized she was standing behind them. He nodded and stood up. “Yeah… I think you’re right.” “P-poison…? Is Ruki gonna die?” asked Aria as she slumped down to the floor on the other side of Sugamo, her eyes welling up with tears. At some point, the other member of Sugamo’s entourage, Kai Kisanuki, had emerged from his hiding spot behind the table. He stared down at Sugamo’s face through his long bangs. Yuuma hesitated for a moment and then shook his head. “No… I doubt a monster of that level would have fatal poison, and if it was just normal DoT poison, he’d still be able to move. It must be paralytic poison.” “Paralytic…?” “I don’t think his life is in danger. Just hold on, okay?” said Yuuma, turning away to search for Aoi Soga. He spotted her immediately. She was kneeling down next to Tomori and pressing a handkerchief to the wound on Tomori’s neck. Yuuma raced over to her side. “A-Ashihara… T-T-Tomori, she…!” Aoi managed between sobs. The girl sitting to her right began speaking. Tears were streaming down her face as well. “Tomo protected me…but then I…I just ran…,” said the girl. Tomo was her nickname for Tomori. The girl, who wore her hair in a ponytail hanging down her back, was named Chise Tsuda. Student number 10. She was their class’s petkeeper. If Yuuma recalled correctly, she was Tomori’s closest friend in class. “It’s not your fault, Tsuda. I didn’t do anything, either,” said a third girl, comforting Chise. This girl’s hair was tied back in a braid. Her name was Mimi Hariya. She was friends with Aoi. Yuuma was pretty sure they were both in the cooking club. Yuuma knelt down across from the three girls and took Tomori’s wrist in his hand, confirming that she still had a pulse. “I think she’s been poisoned. Soga, do you know any antidote spells?” “Antidote spells…?” Aoi looked baffled for a moment but then stared at the giant QREST on her left hand and nodded quickly. “Y-yes! I’d just learned it, but I think I should be able to cast it.” “Can you try casting it on Shimizu, then?” “Okay…” Chise took over responsibility for holding the cloth against Tomori’s wound as Aoi sat up on her knees. Aoi placed both hands over Tomori’s chest and began chanting the spell. “Sacre!” The QREST on Aoi’s left hand pulsated with a yellow glow, and a ball of white light appeared. “Pluvia!” The ball split into several small droplets of light, which floated in the air like raindrops. “Tersus!” The droplets of light formed wispy tails as they rained down, permeating Tomori’s body. Nagi had used the same spell, Holy Purification, back in Actual Magic to heal Yuuma and Kenk whenever they had been poisoned. Yuuma took a deep breath to calm himself as he waited for the magic to take effect. He wished they could start searching for Nagi already. After about five seconds, the shower of light ceased, and Aoi lowered her hands. The other students had gathered around at some point. After several tense moments of waiting, Tomori’s eyelids began to flutter, and then suddenly—she opened her eyes. “Haah…haah…,” Tomori panted, taking several deep breaths before looking up at Aoi. “Thank you, Soga. And you too, Chi. I’m glad you’re all right.” “Tomo!” Chise hugged Tomori tightly, tears streaming down her face once more. Yuuma wished he could let them have their moment, but now wasn’t the time for that. “Shimizu, were you still conscious while you were knocked down?” Tomori nodded, still lying on the ground. “Yes. I couldn’t open my eyes or speak, but I could still hear people’s voices. You were the one who killed the bug that attacked me, weren’t you? Thank you, Ashihara.” “Don’t mention it… Once you’re able to move again, can you and Soga go around and cure everyone’s poison?” “Of course. I think I’m fine now,” she said, standing up with help from Chise. The bite wound on her neck looked painful, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Yuuma stood up as well and glanced around the shopping area. Things appeared to have calmed down a bit. There were twelve more students who had been bitten by the caterpillars and remained paralyzed. Curing them on their own would probably use up all of Tomori’s and Aoi’s MP. They could use Takeshi Moro’s help right about now, but Yuuma still couldn’t seem to locate the other Priest. Yuuma was still scanning the room, wondering where Moro could have gone, when Kenk and Sawa came rushing over. “We can’t find Moro anywhere,” Kenk whispered worriedly. His hammer was slung over his shoulder. “Do you think he left the shelter?” said Yuuma. “I took a peek out into the lobby,” Sawa replied, “but he was nowhere in sight.” “You don’t think…he went up to the second floor, do you…?” Yuuma bit his lip, glancing around at the shopping area one last time. This time, he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. The display racks pushed against the wall had made it hard to spot, but there was a nondescript door behind the cash registers and counter. Of course a store would have a back room—why hadn’t he thought to look there? Since the incident had happened during business hours, the door would probably be unlocked as well. “Sawa, Kenk… Over there…” Yuuma gestured toward the door with his chin. Sawa’s and Kenk’s expressions turned grim. The students who were still on their feet were either taking care of their paralyzed friends or standing around and watching as Tomori and Aoi used their antidote magic. Yuuma and the others slipped between them, crossing the room and approaching the door behind the counter. As they drew closer, they could see that the door wasn’t closed entirely. It had swung inward by about half a centimeter. Yuuma listened first for noise and then gently nudged the door with the toe of his shoe. The latch was only partially in the hole. It made a metallic clicking sound as it popped up the rest of the way, and the door swung open another three centimeters. It was pitch-black inside. Nothing seemed to be moving. There was probably a light switch somewhere on the wall, but with all of Althea now on emergency power, Yuuma doubted the lights would work. He would have to rely on just the vision correction from his QREST. Gathering up his courage, Yuuma began to step inside when Sawa pulled him back by the shoulder. “Wh-what is it…?” “I’ll go first,” she said, slipping the small LED flashlight out from the pocket of her windbreaker and switching it on. A round beam of white light flooded the room. “Nice! Where’d you find that at, Saps…?” said Kenk, sounding jealous. Sawa ignored him, slipping sideways through the crack in the door. Yuuma followed. As soon as they entered the back room, Yuuma’s night vision turned on, magnifying the LED light. The room was long and narrow. The area toward the front seemed to be the break room space, while the back was lined with rows of steel racks for storing inventory. Unlike the teachers’ room at school, there were no office desks with computers and flat-screen monitors. They must have been planning on handling business administration completely through QREST. Sawa glanced around carefully as she proceeded toward the back of the room. As the LED light traveled over the ceiling, they spotted another exposed vent cover—the same kind installed on the ceiling in the shop area. It had come undone. Keeping their guard up, Sawa, Yuuma, and Kenk passed through the break room area and entered the storage area in the back. Sawa was still holding the light in her left hand as they tiptoed down one of the aisleways, which was boxed in on either side by storage racks. They had gone only about three meters when— Sawa flinched suddenly in surprise. Yuuma leaped in front of her to protect her. The white circle of light had just revealed a body, lying face down on the floor. It was a heavyset boy dressed in the Yukihana Elementary School uniform. Takeshi Moro, no doubt about it. Yuuma’s gaze, however, was not drawn to Moro but rather to the thing on Moro’s back. It resembled the Tabanus Hellfly Larva in both color and fleshy substance—but now it looked almost completely different. It had swelled up to about twice its original size, a ball with neither eyes nor mouth nor legs. Multiple tentacles extended from its underside. They had wormed their way into Moro’s back like the roots of some grotesque tree. “Wh-what the heck…is that…?” croaked Kenk, peering down the aisle over Yuuma’s left shoulder. “I think…it’s one of those things from before? Maybe it’s growing, from the blood…,” whispered Yuuma, still in shock. As soon as he said that, Yuuma knew instinctively it was true. The bugs were larvae. And when larvae feed, they turn into pupae. That round thing on Moro’s back was a pupa. The Tabanus Hellfly Larva’s cocoon. As if confirming Yuuma’s suspicion, the upper surface of the ball split with a dry crack. Sawa shouted, immediate panic in her voice. “Kenk, crush it!!” “You don’t have to tell me twice!!” Kenk dashed forward, brandishing the Bruising Hammer. He was already a natural with the weapon, swinging it deftly in a powerful horizontal swipe. The hammer hit the pupa sack with a powerful thwack and embedded itself deeply. The already cracked surface of the skin ruptured from the force of the blow, and some sort of slimy mass careened out of its center and smacked into the rack on the left. It fell to the floor with a splat. It was a huge winged insect, about eighty centimeters in length. Its giant compound eyes resembled a fly’s, but its body was long and narrow, and its mouth was filled with knifelike protrusions. A wasp—no, a horsefly maybe. The creature lay trembling on the floor. Without hesitation, Kenk raised his hammer high into the air and brought it down in a single, finishing blow. The HP bar displayed over the insect’s head—including its proper name, Tabanus Hellfly—dissipated instantly, and the creature scattered into gloomy particles. Kenk breathed heavily, the head of his hammer still resting at the point of impact. “Nice job,” said Sawa approvingly. “A few more seconds and it would have gotten free.” “I hate horseflies…” “I’m pretty sure everyone does.” As the two continued their exchange, Yuuma crouched down by Moro’s side. Moro had probably been paralyzed, like the others. In order to cure him, they would need to either carry him back to the shopping area or have Tomori or Aoi come in here. Let’s see if me and Kenk can carry him first. Yuuma slipped a hand under Moro’s neck, hoping to turn him over… “Ah…!” As he did so, a gasp escaped his lips. Cold. Moro’s skin was cold. Not an ounce of body heat remained. He was completely and utterly cold. “What is it, Yu?” asked Sawa. Unable to respond, Yuuma reached out and touched Moro’s neck. He tried pressing harder, but he couldn’t find a pulse. Moro’s skin almost felt fake. It reminded him very much of how Yukihisa Miura’s skin had felt when they found him in the playroom on the second floor. Yuuma glanced up at his sister and his best friend. They had fallen silent, sensing something was wrong. “…He’s dead.”