“Yo, looks like ya ca to. Guess I should say it’s good to see ya again?”
“Higuchi, Kyouya…”
“Woah there, you can relax man. I ain’t looking for a fight, promise.”
What kind of idiot did he think I was? There was no way he forgot what he did to … no wait, knowing this piece of crap, he might’ve actually did.
He was the sort of scum that could go on ruining others’ lives without a care. His victims would obviously never forget, but for him, it’d be just another day.
Just my luck. If only i-chan was here. I’d even encourage her bashing his shit sideways, which I’d follow up by stripping him to his underwear, tying him up with my Blackhair Bind rope, and tossing him into the middle of a monster infested room.
“Stop right there, don’t you co any closer,” I cautioned him.
“Haha, I’m not gonna bite.”
Higuchi was still talking casually, but he listened and stopped coming closer. He also had his hands raised as if to show that he didn’t an any harm.
There was a good amount of distance between us, but then again, I knew that he was a Thief. Natsukawa-san, the other Thief I knew, would be able to dash across this distance before I could react, so if I assud that Higuchi was at least as strong as her, I was already within his range.
Rem and #2 had, of course, sensed my distress and had swiftly taken up arms to defend . But in all honesty, Rem, as she was currently, just wouldn’t match up to an actual Job holder. The most she could do was buy a few seconds for to prepare my next move.
But there was still the fact that he hadn’t tried to kill instantly when I warped into this Fairy Square… Which ant that he, Higuchi, had sothing he wanted, sothing big enough that he’d try to get friendly with soone he once tried to kill for no reason other than convenience.
“I don’t want to fight you either. But I have no plans to join your party, or talk to you for that matter. I’ll be leaving right now, and I hope we don’t cross paths again.”
“Aw, don’t be like that man. This zone’s Boss is a real tough one, help us out will ya?”
“You haven’t tried any other routes?”
“Getting past this Boss is the easiest one.”
“What about Masaru and Ayase-san? Are they dead?”
“‘Course not. They’re still with . Oi~, it’s safe now.”
Maybe he’d sohow sensed that I was teleporting in and made them hide just in case.
On Higuchi’s call, Reina A. Ayase peeked inside from the Square’s entrance, and then quickly ran in with her usual cutesy manner. She maintained enough distance from so that we wouldn’t need to communicate.
“Kotarou…”
Masaru followed soon after, his face looking extrely awkward. He obviously had a lot of things to say to , but I didn’t want to have to bother. I didn’t have to deal with whatever sort of guilt he might’ve been feeling and I wasn’t the sort of big-hearted person that could simply forgive a once friend turned traitor.
“See? I know I don’t look it, but I treat the people on my side real nice. And those two are living proof, aren’t they? Seeing as I’ve brought them all the way here.”
“Sure, and since you have 3 people already, you don’t need , right?”
“Gotta admit, there was a ti when I was thinking along those lines, but uh, you could say I’ve seen the light? Anyway, I realized that the dungeon’s too tough with a party of only three.”
‘Too tough’ as in he couldn’t beat this zone’s Boss.
That being said, Higuchi’s proposal itself wasn’t all that strange. I’d even experienced it once when the Hirano x Nishiyama couple requested basically the sa thing of and i-chan. Even for trash like Higuchi, he’d have the sensibility to cooperate in beating a Boss before yapping on about the 3 people rule.
So if that really was their current situation, I at least didn’t carry the risk of getting back-stabbed before we beat this Boss.
“Alright, fine. I can work with you… but in return, once I show you how capable I am, you need to make your 3rd mber. Masaru’s the 3rd now, but he’s a slave, so be sure to get rid of him when that happens.”
“Sure, I’m totally okay with that. It’s true that we gotta decide who to keep on the team based on rit. It’s only fair, right?”
“Fair, yeah.”
So Masaru’s standing in the party hadn’t changed since I last saw them. Since Higuchi could still say he was fine getting rid of him, Masaru didn’t matter to him at all.
And currently, that traitor was very overtly listening in to our conversation, but didn’t dare cut in. He’d already been made to know that he was in the lowest rung, a place from which he even lacked the right to speak without proper permission.
“So, what do you say, Momokawa? Deal?”
“I’m not exactly happy about it but… sure. I’ll cooperate.”
“It’s great that you catch on fast. Thanks man. Oh, and sorry about last ti. Let’s both try to forgive and forget since you’re joining us and all.”
“I can promise to not bring in my personal grudges while we’re cooperating.”
“That works too. Looks like, we got ourselves a deal. Thanks Momokawa, you’re a real lifesaver.”
“Sure, don’t ntion it, Higuchi-kun.”
Higuchi and I exchanged a stiff handshake. And then, at that mont, I made my resolve ―― I’d kill him. Here. I swore it.
But first, I needed sleep. I stationed Rem and #2 to stand guard, but going to sleep here was my biggest anxiety, to be quite honest.
Higuchi had left alone as I slept. I hadn’t woken up to find a knife in my chest and neither had I been bound and gagged. This at least confird that the previous conversation wasn’t just so big charade to make let my guard down. His story about the high difficulty Boss now seed a lot more plausible.
“*Yawn*…”
I yawned, looking a bit dazed as I’d just woken up, but in my head, I was already thinking up plans.
The first and foremost thing on my list was to kill Higuchi.
Why? Naturally, because of the simple fact that this guy was crazy.
Even if everything he said was true and he genuinely wanted my cooperation, I’d still want to kill him.
It was his psychopathic ntality. His attitude towards on our first encounter and his treatnt of Masaru clearly showed how far gone he was. I didn’t consider that a bad thing, per se. His ability to make on-the-spot, ruthless decisions could be considered an important factor for survival.
But it was that sort of ntality that completely negated any form of trust I could have towards him. Sure, I could work with him, we might even beat this zone Boss with on the team. But then what? Higuchi was unfeeling to the point that any sum of effort on my part would garner not even the slightest amount of his loyalty or trust. Even if I, say, saved him from a grave wound with my ointnts, he wouldn’t turn into a trusting companion like i-chan. He wouldn’t bat an eye at letting be fatally wounded even if he had the ans of defending .
Higuchi Kyouya was a threat to , maybe not now, but eventually, and definitely. So since we had this chance re-encounter, it was only natural that I try to eliminate him as soon as possible.
But maybe I was just as crazy as him, what with how I was already making plans to commit first degree murder. No, I wasn’t the sa, I wasn’t always like this. My ntality was learned.
That ti Higuchi stole my core from inside the Armorbear that I killed. That was when I learned true humiliation.
And that ti when Yokomichi attacked our party. That was when I learned that one of us students could, and had, killed another.
I had a clear motive, and even a logically just cause to kill Higuchi. So I just needed to do it. Kill him.
I wasn’t harboring any doubts. There was no law and order in the dungeon. I had to do everything in my power to survive. When I attacked Yokomichi with my spear, I struck him with the intent to kill. I just had to do that again. My conscience hadn’t stopped my hands back then, and it wouldn’t do it this ti either.
Anyway, enough about my resolve, that wasn’t an issue.
The big problem was the how. How was I supposed to kill this powerful Thief with the asly abilities of a Shaman? I had to think up a viable plan, and fast.
“Yo, had a good sleep there?”
“Sure, whatever… morning.”
“Hey man, you don’t need to glare. What, you the type that gets cranky in the morning?”
“Nah, I was born with this face.”
“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it.”
Higuchi was acting too friendly for my liking. He was the type that would wait right up until we beat the Boss together, and then pat on the back saying good job, while simultaneously plunging his knife. And I wasn’t the sort of naive idiot who’d start getting friendly just because he was.
What was he really thinking? That if he acted friendly, I’d let my guard down? Or did he really not care… It felt stupid to think too much about it. If he wanted small talk, I’d just give him small talk.
“Ya didn’t eat yet right? Want walnuts?”
“Just asking, but you don’t have anything else, right… like snake at?”
“Huh? Snake?”
“Snake at can be surprisingly tasty. Ah, I an the non-monster variety.”
I an, I couldn’t exactly say since I hadn’t had snake monsters.
“Momokawa, you really eat snakes? Like, no joke?”
“Yeah. You can roast them over a fire and use the rocksalt that Gomas use.”
“That’s pretty out there, you a hero or sothing?”
What did Souma Yuuto have to do with this?
“Try catching a snake if you see one.”
“Haha, sure, I’ll think about it.”
Fucking Higuchi, he made a face like he’d rather bear it with those tasteless walnuts than deal with eating snakes all of a sudden. What a fool, to not have realized the true bliss that is at.
I tried not to commit even a trace of this aningless dialogue into mory while I ate a dreary breakfast of walnuts and water. Everything said and done, I hadn’t thought up any good ideas on how to kill Higuchi.
“If you’re done, let’s go for the Boss.”
“You what now?”
As if he was waiting for the mont I finished eating, Higuchi went and said sothing that heavily implied that we were sohow ready to face off against a Boss that I knew nothing about. Of course, my response was a firm ‘no’.
“Ah? The hell Momokawa, don’t be a lazy ass.”
“I’m not going. You haven’t told a plan or anything.”
“We don’t need that. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m saying it won’t be fine. Aren’t you stuck on that Boss yourself?”
If this was i-chan with her Berserker strength, we could’ve viably attempted winging a fight against strength based Bosses, and co out on top most of the ti. But let just put this out there: a Shaman is soone that needs precise information about his target, and even after aiming only at its weaknesses can the Shaman only barely manage to win.
“Ah well, you got a point.”
This idiot… No wait, maybe his apparent idiocy was a ruse.
Yeah, I couldn’t imagine Higuchi actually being that stupid. He’d made it this deep into the dungeon mostly relying on himself, that is, he didn’t have a strong supporter like i-chan or Class Rep to rely on. Heck, he was practically carrying 2 extra pieces of baggage.
If he was only relying on his Skills like Yokomichi, he would’ve parted ways with Ayase-san and Masaru by now. And unlike , Higuchi had the power of sociability. He had The totempole trio as underlings, and could communicate fine with girls too.
There were even rumors of him going out with Randou-san, the one girl who was even close to i-chan in terms of bust size.
In other words, unlike who was always minding my own business and being an otaku in a corner of the classroom, he was making connections to people left and right. There was no way soone of his smarts would talk this senselessly for no reason.
Just as I’d been acting friendly while biding my ti… Higuchi was also showing a facade.
aning that he was only pretending to be retarded, just to see if I would let my guard down.
For instance, say I accepted his offer just now. Say I went with the flow, didn’t at all try to get more info about the Boss, made no plan or preparation, and just went for it. What would he think of then? He would, from that point on, think of as a pawn, that I was sure off.
And once he thought that, Higuchi, being the scumbag he was, was sure to make full use of until I wasn’t needed any more. I’d be a second Masaru, his slave number 2.
Like hell I’d let that happen.
“You need to tell everything you know about this Boss first. How it moves, how it attacks, any special abilities, weaknesses, even things you might think it can do, I need everything.”
“Sure sure, but relax man. The Boss ain’t going anywhere.”
“I know, so we don’t need to hurry. But I’ll still need to know everything first.”
“Ah yeah, explaining’s gonna be a pain in the, I an, I’m not really that good at that stuff, so instead―― Oi, Saitou, you do it.”
“Eh?”
Gasped Masaru, clearly alard at suddenly being called. This whole ti, he was sitting still at a corner of the Square.
“I don’t really,”
I was trying to say ‘no’ .
“Co on Momokawa, don’t be like that. Sure, there might be so bad blood between you two, but back then, I was the one who forced him to do it, and you know, he’s been pretty sorry about it.”
Of course Masaru didn’t do it by his own will, and I knew that. I could also imagine him being depressed over the fact that he was made to do that to . But that didn’t an I was ready to forgive him. Actually, did Higuchi really expect to listen to his platitudes when he was the root of that whole incident?
“Look, we’re gonna have to fight a Boss as a team, right? And I know you two were best pals, I’m sure you can get along again like old tis.”
“… I don’t think I can get along, but I can talk to him.”
“Good good. You gotta start sowhere.”
I wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up.
“A’ight, he’s all yours.”
Higuchi showed a smile, that I knew was fake, as he switched places with Masaru.
Next
Reviews
All reviews (0)