Chapter 20 — You Should Help Them! As a Human!
Yogiri felt like things had gotten bad. He had considered a number of possible risks that taking a ship might entail, and those risks had all occurred exactly as he’d imagined.
The ship hadn’t sunk yet, but being stuck in the middle of the open ocean was still plenty dangerous. If they didn’t get moving again, they’d be in trouble. No matter how much food they had stocked up, they would eventually face starvation. He would probably have been fine on his own, but if he wanted to keep Tomochika safe as well, he would need to resolve the situation and get the journey back on track.
As Yogiri considered the situation, he continued at his usual unhurried pace through the ship. If he ran, he would only exhaust himself, so it wouldn’t reunite him with Tomochika any faster.
“This is a kraken, I guess? I don’t feel any killing intent. If pirates are coming from it, I guess it’s some form of transportation?”
He could see the enormous tentacles through the windows. It looked alive, but once the possibility of it being artificial was in his mind, he could see that too.
Each of the tentacles had grown a set of stairs, allowing for multiple parts of the ship to be captured at once. He was still in contact with Tomochika and Mokomoko, so he knew what was going on there as well. If the pirates’ objective was to collect the ransom, then Tomochika would be safe for the moment.
Yogiri headed for the elevator. He was on the tenth floor of the ship’s living quarters. He felt that walking all the way down would be too much effort, but the elevator wasn’t working. The pirates must have already disabled it.
“Man, what a pain.”
Looking at a map of the ship close to the elevator, he found a staircase nearby. There weren’t many on the ship, so it looked like he’d have to use the emergency stairs.
Walking through the halls, he opened the door leading to one stairwell but quickly found he could only make it three floors down that way. The walls had buckled, destroying the lower sections. It must have been damaged by the tentacles.
“I guess they aren’t taking that much care with the boat...”
If this staircase was no good, he’d need to find another one. With a sigh, he began walking through the halls yet again.
He was currently on the seventh floor, so it should have been made up of first-class cabins. The atmosphere was chaotic. Everyone was in a panic over the giant sea creature’s attack. Some were sticking their heads out to see what was going on while others were running down the halls.
Yogiri headed for the next staircase. Turning a corner, he found a pile of clothes lying in the middle of the hallway. They had likely belonged to the man he’d just seen running by. While he thought about how odd it was for the guy to have stripped off his clothes as he ran, a group of three maids suddenly charged at him. He killed them before they could get close. They had swords in their hands and had been emitting a clear killing intent.
“What are you guys doing?”
A short distance from the now-dead maids stood a man. With a face so well-sculpted that it seemed artificial, he looked down on the fallen maids, half confused and half exasperated.
“Oh, it’s you,” Yogiri said. “I figured you’d end up doing something like this.”
It was Yousuke Hiiragi, the guy who had thought this world was a game. Yogiri had known to keep an eye on him, and it seemed like he was planning to take advantage of the confusion to accomplish some personal objective.
A moment later, Yousuke too was on the floor. He had directed killing intent at Yogiri, so Yogiri had reflexively used his power.
“Were you related to the pirates somehow?” Yogiri wondered.
He only remembered speaking with the guy briefly at the port, so he didn’t feel like Yousuke should have held any animosity towards him. It was possible he had boarded the ship to guide the pirates to it, but now they would never know. Thinking about it was pointless, so he once again set off in search of stairs.
After walking for a while, he heard a scream. It was coming from behind the door that led to the staircase he was going towards.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this...”
He might have been better off finding another route to avoid getting caught up in further trouble, but he didn’t have time to keep taking different paths. Mentally readying himself, he opened the door and stepped inside.
“H-Help!”
Yogiri looked down to see a number of people sprawled across the landing below him. He couldn’t tell if most of them were alive or not, but there were two among them who definitely were. One was a well-built gentleman, reaching desperately towards him, and the other was a woman grabbing the man’s hair.
As Yogiri wondered whether he should do something, he lost his chance, the life quickly draining from the gentleman’s face. His skin turned dark as earth, drying out completely. It was hard to believe he was anything but dead.
The woman let go of his hair and stood up, looking at Yogiri. Although her eyes seemed vacant, she was clearly aware of him.
Yogiri felt killing intent coming from her, so he promptly used his power. The woman tried to jump towards him but instead tripped over herself and fell.
She wasn’t dead, though. It wasn’t that Yogiri had gone easy on her, but the source of the killing intent had been something inside of her, not the woman herself.
“That was pretty small. Was it some sort of parasite?”
When Yogiri used his power, he could get a general impression of what he had killed. This time it had been something tiny inside the woman’s head. It must have been controlling her. He had heard of some parasites being able to control their hosts like that.
“Are you okay?” Yogiri asked, crouching down by the fallen woman. She was alive but unconscious.
He was a little worried, but he didn’t have the time to wait around for her to wake up. He decided to hurry on.
“You should have helped her! As a human!”
Tomochika was with the other hostages who were gathered in the lounge. Except for the pirates blocking the two exits, they were free to do as they liked inside. So even as she secretly contacted Yogiri, they made no move to stop her. From the outside, it just looked like she was talking to Enju, who was still being controlled by Mokomoko.
That’s easy for you to say, but she did attack me, so I didn’t feel like I had to do much.
“That’s the kind of thing you need to do if you want to be popular, you know?”
“There’s no way you’ll ever become a harem king with that attitude,” Mokomoko added.
“Not that he said he wanted to be one!”
Anyway, there’s been a whole bunch of people like that popping up. I can’t take care of them all.
“‘A whole bunch’?”
“Yeah. They’re being controlled by something and attacking everyone around them. When I try to walk by, they attack me too.”
“That sounds different from the pirates, doesn’t it?”
The pirates had yet to harm any of the passengers and had said their objective was ransom money. It wouldn’t make sense for them to be hurting their prisoners.
The ones coming at me looked like rich passengers. I can’t see them as pirates.
Tomochika studied the thugs in the room. They were all dressed very differently from each other, with no unifying characteristics, but they each had a dangerous air. At the very least, they were far different from the passengers of the luxurious cruise ship, so there was no way one would be mistaken for the other.
“So, there’s something here besides the pirates?”
Probably best to assume that.
“But we can’t get out of here, so I feel like it has nothing to do with us...”
Thinking about the other passengers, Tomochika had decided against trying to force her way out. Instead of their original plan, she had chosen to wait for Yogiri to arrive. Once he rejoined them, he would be able to deal with the pirates without bringing any harm to the passengers.
“I guess we’re free enough while they’ve got us in here, but I kind of want to change out of my swimsuit...”
She had been getting all sorts of looks at the pool, but they’d been somewhat shy and sporadic. The blunt stares of the pirates, however, naturally made her feel uncomfortable.
As she was thinking about what she could put on over the swimsuit, someone entered the lounge. It was an older man wearing glasses. Apparently, he was a friend of the pirates, as the ones blocking the exits let him through without a word.
“Now then. We’ve explained our objective is to ransom you,” the knight who had first boarded the ship announced. “In order to do that, we need to properly appraise your value.”
Huh? What happened to that guard lady? Tomochika wondered.
Degul was nowhere to be seen. She hadn’t accompanied them when her crew had locked the passengers in the lounge. The pirates had called her “boss,” though, so she was likely their leader, and she had clearly infiltrated the ship’s staff and drawn the pirates there herself.
“This man will carry out the inspection. He is well-informed in regards to all noble and royal lines as well as those of particular wealth, and has a good grasp of the current political situation, so please take it easy,” the knight said, introducing the older man.
“How is that reassuring?” Tomochika muttered as the newcomer began walking around the lounge with his retinue, inspecting each passenger individually.
Eventually, he reached Tomochika and Mokomoko.
“Hmm...there is no record of you in my directory. There’s no one to demand a ransom from, so I suppose you’re worthless!”
Tomochika felt conflicted. It wasn’t like she was hoping for a great evaluation from a pirate, but she wasn’t too pleased about being called worthless either.
“What do we do with her, then?”
“The boss said to kill all combatants. That rule is absolute.”
“But she’s a passenger. And to the boss, she’s worthless.”
“So basically, the boss won’t care what happens to her, right? Or about what we do to her.”
The speaker gave Tomochika a vulgar look. It was the man who had killed the mercenary girls by the pool.
“Umm, didn’t she say you guys had no time to deal with women who aren’t worth any money?” asked Tomochika.
“Don’t sweat it, girl. Look around. We’re here with nothin’ to do. We’ve got all the time in the world!”
“You can’t just interpret what she said however you like!”
As she yelled that, Tomochika struck the man’s jaw, heart, and crotch simultaneously. It was the fastest close-quarters technique of the Dannoura style: the Triple Checkmate. It struck three vital points along the central axis of her opponent’s body in rapid succession, giving them no chance to counterattack. She had taken him down before he could even draw his weapon.
She who strikes first wins, after all.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login