DAY 24: EVENING — INTERLUDE: OMUI CITY

DAY 24

EVENING

Of course a bunch of scruffy, incomprehensible idiots would get arrested by the guards.

INTERLUDE:
OMUI CITY

 

ON OUR WAY BACK to Omui City, we came across a group of five scruffy-looking guys standing outside the gate. I raised my guard but only for a moment.

“Kakizaki-kun, is that you?” I exclaimed. “What—what happened to you? I guess Haruka-kun isn’t with you.”

“Hey, Class Rep!” he said.

All at once, the five bowed and yelled, “We were stupid! Please forgive us!”

The athletes, Kakizaki-kun and his friends, were alive. Haruka-kun had said he was going to check in on the meatheads, as he liked to call them.

They all had black hair and dark eyes. Just another reminder of Haruka-kun. The athletes looked like they’d been dragged through hell. The gatekeeper couldn’t understand their babbling, so he detained them. They were so battered and exhausted that they could hardly move. Kakizaki-kun groaned as he shifted his weight to his other leg and leaned against the gate.

It sounded like they, as injured as they were, ran here straight from the cave without even stopping to sleep. They ate stamina mushrooms as they journeyed so they could keep running.

Their armor, once whole, was now in ragged pieces. Some were missing pauldrons; others had gaping rents in their hauberks. Their tunics underneath were tattered, blood-stained shreds.

They must’ve been healed somehow, but their armor told the story of what had happened.

The athletes suffered horrific injuries trying to protect us. They almost died for us. That’s why Haruka-kun kept trying to leave. In our shameful selfishness, we held him back. It was our fault. Kakizaki-kun and his friends had rushed back to tell us what happened, to tell us that Haruka-kun was still out there.

That was the worst news of all. Some of the girls started bawling. No one expected this to happen. If Haruka-kun knew about Tanaka-kun all along, then of course he had to leave.

If we had chased after him as soon as we found out, we would’ve been killed as well. Despite how high level we were now, we still stood no chance.

I’d originally assumed that our enemy was that group of wannabe delinquents led by Katsuyama-kun. I noticed that the other boys were acting strange, but I ignored my suspicions—I was preoccupied with making sure everyone didn’t kill each other. That’s why I didn’t want Haruka-kun to go; there wasn’t any point to him putting himself in danger like that. I thought that if we really did have to fight, as long as we didn’t hesitate, we could help.

But I miscalculated. If we chased after him, willing to kill without hesitation, we would have only doomed ourselves.

I didn’t even want to think about what would happen now. It was too horrible.

I couldn’t understand why Haruka-kun left the way he did, but it was too late to think about that.

“He’s a total beast,” Kakizaki-kun said. “He’s mastered swords and spears completely, and he has unlimited magic.”

A friend of Kakizaki-kun’s said, “What was the name of that one bastard? Katsuyama? He fought them first. He blindsided them and killed all six like an assassin! They totally thought he was their bro, bro!”

“Yeah, yeah! Now he can use Katsuyama’s illusion skill! He’s unstoppable!”

That sounded a lot like my skill, Hijack—it allowed me to steal skills from anything I killed.

Another athlete said, “We couldn’t even lay a finger on him, no matter what we tried! Five-on-one didn’t make a damn difference.”

“Dude was practically immune to magic, too! It was like, yo, how many skills could you possibly have, know what I mean?”

“He paralyzed, blinded, and poisoned us! If it weren’t for those shrooms, we would’ve died!” Kakizaki-kun raised his voice, emphasizing his point, and then winced in pain.

“Like, he’s supposed to be a conjuror, right? How the hell did he get so good with spears?”

“After he killed Katsuyama, he started using swords too! He could use all of Katsuyama’s skills, bros.”

“He’s got so many skills to choose from you can never guess what’s coming! Damn bastard!”

“We couldn’t even dodge, his attacks always hit! It was total BS!”

Kakizaki-kun and his friends were all level 43. Their instincts were far sharper than average. They had Super Speed, Vorpal Slash, Continuous Sword…all kinds of max-level cheat skills. Still, they hadn’t stood a chance.

The athletes should’ve been unbeatable in melee, but they were no match for him. They retreated without landing a single hit. Meanwhile, twelve other boys were murdered despite their incredible cheat skills. They were betrayed.

His abilities sounded strange and incomprehensible. He apparently had both Hijack and Inflict Ailment. No one could hit him with melee or magical attacks. On the other hand, his attacks always landed.

How did he become so powerful? Haruka-kun, who was supposedly the weakest of us all, was just as inexplicably powerful. Haruka-kun always claimed that he would die if an attack connected, but I’d never once seen anything hit him. At the same time, he insisted that he was weak, but I’d never seen an enemy survive more than one attack from him.

They were both contradictions. Fighting them was out of the question. No wonder Haruka-kun left us behind. They were each other’s match.

 

Kakizaki-kun told me that Haruka-kun had a message for me. He said, “Sorry for being stupid.” His last words.