Episode 68 — The Country Where Oni Lives
～ Part 1 ～
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Suddenly, black flame gushed forth from the side. That swallowed the poleax wielding adventurer woman and roasted her body. Right in front of Kyousuke, the woman was screaming, no, shrieking. The flame — without any mercy or conscience — was burning Kyousuke’s body as well.
Kyousuke knew this flame. One of the monster specific magic that was named darkness magic or chaos magic, the «Evil Flare».
For a moment, Kyousuke thought that other classmates had come to save them.
Because Evil Flare was the signature move of Sakuma the succubus. Or it might have been Okama Kaoru who could also use darkness magic.
But screams could also be heard from behind, so he instantly discarded that thought.
Even if one tried to assume that attack was released in order to save Kyousuke, its power was obviously too excessive.
The sword wielding man who seemed to be the leader of the adventurers called the woman’s name. Black flame coiled around the woman’s body, burning it. A sickening smell of burning meat filled the surroundings. The female adventurer in the clergy-like getup raised her staff and kept on casting healing magic.
“This is bad, it comes out again. That’s a lesser demon!”
Saying so, the bandit man pointed in the direction the flame came from.
The adventurers moved their gazes over there at once. Kyousuke was also lured by it.
“(What, is that…)”
Standing there was an atypical being with lanky stature and ominous outfit.
Its fleshiness could never be considered high. The physique with its ribs standing out even looked feeble. Its head resembled that of a goat, on its back grew a pair of wings. Its height exceeded 2 meters. Its eyes a bloody red, carrying an ominous glare.
The adventurers who had been attacking them so far, had already completely switched their attention over there. Their face carried a deep color of tension.
Lesser demon, they said?
Perhaps it was a monster endemic to this land. Kyousuke could investigate its ability based on his game knowledge but first, he prioritized escaping. The adventurers were preoccupied by the lesser demon, the lesser demon also didn’t aim at them but the adventurers.
“Rin! Mitarai!”
Kyousuke turned around and called the two.
“Ah, Kyo, Kyo, Kyousuke-ku…”
“We’re running! Can you combine!?”
“Ah, uh…”
Rin’s reply was stiff, but she smoothly coiled around Kyousuke’s body, composing his flesh. It was still a little heavy, but better than making her crawl on the ground as a slime.
Mitarai Azuki was looking at the adventurers with a blue face. She might be enduring the scene of a woman being whole-roasted right before her eyes. But Kyousuke didn’t have time to worry about that. Now was the only chance to save their lives.
Kyousuke held Azuki and strongly kicked the ground. Thunderous roar echoed in the back. Without even time to look back, without even caring about the direction, only whole heartedly running, somehow, he succeeded in leaving that place.
After running for some time, they arrived at a place with different scenery. The wasteland finally changed to a grassland, there was a relatively gentle hill with thick grasses growing. Coming to this place, the battle just now should be quite far away. But he felt that they had plunged a little inland and left the sea far behind.
Kyousuke who was a skeleton had no relation to physical fatigue. Without particularly getting out of breath, he finally, softly put Azuki down on the ground. Rin also canceled the combine with Kyousuke and slipped her body down on the hill.
“We somehow escaped alive.”
Kyousuke sat on a nearby rock, sighing.
“……”
“……”
There was no reply. Azuki’s face was still blue, Rin was trembling.
This situation was very bad. Kyousuke’s communication power was frankly not very high. But this wasn’t the time to be complaining. First, he tried to choose his words, but without finding anything good enough, he finally decided to just throw out his thought as it were.
“First, I want to confirm out situation. Mitarai, can you talk?”
When called, Azuki raised her face, she opened her mouth in order to speak. But it appeared that words wouldn’t come out just yet. She who was trying too hard to speak, Kyousuke held her back with one hand.
“Understood. You can do that after calming down. I think I’ll talk about our situation first, how about it, Rin?”
“Nn, if it’s just a little, I’ll be okay…”
“All right then, it’ll mostly be me who do the talking. I’ll leave any supplements to you, Rin.”
Did class rep Ryuzaki always do this kind of thing? Thought Kyousuke. If only there is at least one comrade who excels in negotiation ability and opinions summarizing ability like him, how easy would this be?
Asking for the moon is pointless. If there’s no one like that, I can only take the mediator role myself.
“First, when I and Rin woke up, we were on a sandy beach. Perhaps, in the battle between Akai and the Rook, a warp-like phenomenon has occurred. We didn’t see any other classmates. Mitarai is the first.”
Azuki was nodding.
“Next is the question of where is this place. The adventurer sometime ago did say something about the New Continent. I didn’t see too much of the map Ryuzaki had but…”
Thereupon, Kyousuke looked around.
“Is there something written there…? Anything?”
For now, he wanted to make clear even if it’s just the position relationship between the New Continent and their destination.
At first, Kyousuke and the others were aiming for Werneus Peninsula which was northeast across the sea from the Maritime United Nations Albadanba. But not much time on the sea after departing Albadanba, they were attacked by the Rook.
The New Continent was a continent on the southern part of the sea. Its full portrait had not been clarified, it was said that other than some visiting adventurers, there was mostly no human interference.
“If that’s true, then we’re sent to one hell of a place, didn’t we…”
Muttered Rin.
“That’s right…”
Kyousuke crossed his arms and nodded. He didn’t want to think too pessimistically, but plainly speaking, the situation was very bad.
“First, if there are classmates other than us who were sent here, I want to link up with those guys. Mitarai, did you see anyone?”
Azuki shook her head sideway.
“Me too, that is, umm, when I woke up, I was in the middle of a desert so, you know…”
“And then you was attacked by adventurers?”
“Ah, yes…”
Since a while ago, Azuki had been excessively rubbing her hands together. Was that her habit?
Speaking of which, Mitarai Azuki was a clean freak. During the battle, being chased by the adventurers had made her clothes dirty with mud. And when escaping, he had hugged her quite tightly.
“…Mitarai, wash your body?”
“……”
When Kyousuke timidly asked, Azuki hesitantly nodded.
The reincarnation as the youkai Azuki-arai might have been good news for her. At least, even in this situation with no water, Azuki could use her racial ability to wash something.
Though this place is a field, a grassland, there was mostly no cover or anything.
“First of all, errr, Rin, can you stand watch? Try make do with the bush over there.”
“Oh–, that’s right–. I’ll stand watch. Azu-nyan, you okay with that?”
Azuki wordlessly nodded.
Rin who was trying to head to the thicket together with Azuki, was stopped once by Kyousuke.
“Rin, are you all right?”
“Eh, what is?”
“Can you cope with it if monsters attack? Would it be better if I do it?”
The slime girl stopped moving for a moment. Kyousuke had become able to read her expression quite well.
“…I don’t know. Strange, isn’t it? Somehow, I suddenly got scared.”
“Perhaps, it’s the thing Akai said.”
“Filter, is it? I also think so…”
Now that they tried thinking about it, it was strange. Although there was some chaos, each of them had naturally accepted their form, their adaptation was also fast. They mostly didn’t feel any aversion to fighting human-shaped things or killing those.
That was the thing called the Filter Akai was trying to tell them, so guessed Kyousuke. A filter was applied to things that those who were once humans would felt aversion and hesitation to do. Therefore, Kyousuke and Rin was able to kill 3 people of the blood clan so far.
“How about Kyousuke-kun? Are you cool?”
“For now.”
While saying so, Kyousuke somehow got a feeling that his own filter had also run out.
Just before leaving Albadanba, he felt a slight sense of discomfort to the fact that he had taken care of Tokihara. Thinking now, that might have been the proof that the filter had run out.
But that’s all. When he saved Azuki from the attacking adventurers, Kyousuke had clearly declared: «If it’s necessary, I’ll kill humans». Was that itself an abnormality, or else a normal response in an extreme situation? For Kyousuke, it was already inconsequential, he just didn’t want to say things that would frighten Rin more than necessary.
“Really…. Is there individual difference?”
“Looking at that appearance, I think Mitarai’s filter is also off.”
“Yeah…. But, it’s all right. I’ll be fine if it’s only monsters. It won’t feel too pleasant, but I can fight.”
“Understood. Call me if something happen.”
“You’re not saying that to get an excuse to peek, right?”
There was no spirit in her words, but at least, it seemed she had recovered enough to tell jokes. Kyousuke — instead of a bitter smile — kicked Rin flying.
In terms of looks at least, Mitarai Azuki would attract the monsters around. Her outfit was Japanese clothings wrapped in a straw rain cape and a sedge hat. Therefore, if said that she was going to wash her body, it would be naturally for Kyousuke to be nervous, but for Kyousuke now, that kind of leeway didn’t exist.
“Thanks for waiting, Azu-nya~n. OOH, you’re bigger than I thought.”
“Hi, Himemizu-san, stop…. I’ve been worrying about that…”
Really. So she’s unexpectedly curvy.
From the bush, the sounds of Mitarai Azuki’s washing her body could be heard. Kyousuke suddenly recalled the clams he had abandoned at the beach. If there was Azuki who could freely take out and in buckets and water, it would be quite simple to remove sands from the clams, no?
Anyway, we’ll secure food again.
And then, how are we going to link up with the other students? How are we going to fend off attacks of adventurers and stray monsters? There are going to be many problems.
“(Adventurers … humans…?)”
It would be the first time they were hostile against the humans of this world, the humans with arms might among those.
At this moment, he was made to renew the reality that they themselves were monsters. The class was scattered, the filter was off, in this state with so many crises piling up, this wasn’t a desirable development.
“(Even so, we’ll survive. And then, we’ll reunite with everyone)”
If it is necessary, I’m prepared to take care of any opponents, even if they were to be humans.
Looking up at the blue sky, Kyousuke silently decided his resolution by himself.
To be continued…
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