Chapter 15 — I Love Getting Good Results Easily!
The ships were sturdy enough that they didn’t seem to take any damage from falling. Dying should have meant that they stopped moving entirely, but one ship exploded as it struck the ground. Some kind of internal pressure must have caused it to rupture. Darkness gushed out of it as chunks of the ship scattered across the landscape.
Yogiri moved their group a little bit to avoid the falling pieces of debris.
“What is that?” Tomochika had gone pale and was trembling. She must have been feeling the effects of the overwhelming miasma.
All at once, the darkness spilling out of the destroyed ship collected in one place into the shape of a tiny person right in front of them. It was like a concentration of pure evil, a being whose existence itself seemed profane. A crystallization of pure hatred. It was the most malicious creature Yogiri had yet to encounter in this world.
“——”
“Die.”
It had tried to say something, but Yogiri wouldn’t allow a single word from that creature to reach their ears. It could steal a person’s sanity and crush their mind with ease, so he decided to get rid of it immediately. The darkness dissipated, dissolving into the air. Its influence on the area around them immediately stopped.
“Uhh...what was that?”
“No idea. It looked dangerous, though, so I killed it before something could happen. I hope there aren’t many more like it.”
The ships were falling to the ground, but it seemed the passengers had all survived. Even if there had been only a single person on each ship, there were a tremendous number of them. If there were more beings like that concentrated evil lying in wait, it wasn’t something they could ignore, so Yogiri simply killed everyone within the ships.
“Uhh, did you get them all?”
“Some of them might have made it out of the ships already. There’s no way for me to catch them.”
There were likely some beings inside the ships who hadn’t specifically aimed killing intent at them, but they were still aboard a vessel that had tried to fire its cannons. He figured that made them complicit.
“So, should we try leaving the forest now?” The baby at Yogiri’s chest began to whine at his suggestion.
“Is she hungry?”
“If she is, we have nothing suitable for an infant,” Mokomoko pointed out.
“I heard goat’s milk can be used as a substitute. Not that we have any of that either.” Yogiri did remember that giving cow’s milk to a newborn was a bad idea, but they didn’t know if this creature was remotely similar to a human newborn.
The baby stretched out a hand, desperately reaching for something that wasn’t there.
“Is it trying to tell us something?” Yogiri tried turning, but the baby kept stretching out in the same direction. “Looks like it’s pointing in that direction. Does it want to go that way?”
“I don’t know about this. There are a lot of urban legends and stories of things like youkai trying to lead you to your doom, aren’t there?”
“You think she’s a youkai?”
“Something like that. Aren’t there a lot of youkai that look like babies?” Tomochika spoke softly, clearly uneasy about the whole situation.
“But aren’t you curious?”
“I guess. We can’t really ignore her.”
They started walking in the direction the baby was pointing.
◇ ◇ ◇
Hanakawa watched blankly as Kris danced about, slaying the bizarre creatures with ease. For now, her appetite hadn’t gotten the better of her, so he was safe. But he had no idea how things would go in the future. Most likely, her mind was being slowly corrupted by Carla, so he was going to have to do something before the two personalities integrated fully. Right now, however, there was nothing he could do. His best bet was to wait for a chance to show itself.
“You seem rather powerful already. Is there really any need for you to gain more strength?”
“Well, probably not, but I love getting such good results so easily!”
Kris was making use of the Summon Anything ability. She summoned anything that seemed willing, then killed them immediately. In this way, she continuously gained more skills, and even if her opponents had none of their own, she could raise her stats like strength and stamina. Regardless of who her opponent was, if she killed them, she got stronger. As a result, the forest around them was filled with mounds of corpses, countless bodies carpeting the ground.
“I got something good that time!”
“Oh? What was it?”
“A skill called Skill Search. Now I can find people who have special skills.”
“Ha ha ha...running away is starting to look more and more impossible...”
“Combined with my original power, I can prioritize taking skills when I hit people. Let’s see if there’s anyone with rare skills nearby!”
Even if she didn’t know the skill’s name, she could use the search function to tell how many skills her opponent had and how rare they were and could limit her stealing ability to target skills of a certain kind. She wouldn’t have to waste her time slicing people up over and over until she got the skill she was looking for.
“How is that fair? You already get stronger by randomly killing people, and now you have found an efficiency boost as well?!”
Kris focused on her new skill. After a short wait, she began walking.
“Does this mean you found someone with a rare skill?” Hanakawa asked. It was hard to believe there was someone useful out here in the middle of the forest.
“Yes. Two hundred meters in this direction.”
Hanakawa followed her. If he tried to linger behind, she would only force him to move, so he preferred walking on his own.
After a time, they came across a cave. Someone with a rare skill must have been hiding inside.
“Would it not be easier to attack them from out here?”
“Maybe, but if I don’t hit them with the sword, I can’t take their powers.”
They entered the cave. It was dark and hard to see inside, but there were two figures. Kris wasted no time, promptly closing the distance between them. She hadn’t even stopped to consider whether they were strong opponents.
Her victims were incapable of reacting. The first was beheaded without any resistance. The second managed to lift his arms to protect himself, but Kris’s sword sliced right through, neatly bisecting his torso.
The man screamed. Somehow, he was still alive as he jumped backwards. As Hanakawa’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of the cave, he realized that he recognized the person in front of him.
“Well, if it isn’t Sir Mitadera!”
Shigeto Mitadera. One of the classmates who had been transported to this world with him.
“Hanakawa! What the hell are you doing?!”
“I am doing nothing at all! I would like to make that perfectly clear!”
Shigeto dropped to the ground, clutching his wounded stomach. Blood poured out from between his fingers. The injury had clearly reached his internal organs.
“Femme Fatale and Master Oracle? Not very useful in combat, are they?”
The other figure, now headless, was another one of his classmates, Rei Kushima.
For having the power to take control of others, she died awfully easily...
Rei’s class was Femme Fatale. It allowed her to seduce members of the opposite sex. She had two ways of fighting. The first was to enrapture and dominate her opponent. However, Kris was a heterosexual woman, so Rei’s abilities had no effect on her. The other option was to enslave a powerful man to fight for her, but of course that wasn’t helpful in this situation. The only male around was Shigeto, and he wasn’t particularly strong. In the end, a woman who was powerful on her own was an opponent Rei couldn’t win against.
“Wait, were you two not with Yoshifumi?!” Hanakawa looked around in a panic for the Sage, but it didn’t seem like anyone else was there.
“Are these two friends of yours?”
“They are...acquaintances, I suppose.”
They had traveled together for a short time, but the pair had spent that time mercilessly tormenting him. Even now the memories made him angry, and his grudge hadn’t faded. It didn’t bother him in the least to see them die. He could hardly call them friends.
“Dammit! Navi, you never warned me about this! What am I supposed to do now?!”
In response to Shigeto’s shout, a small girl appeared. But she appeared at Kris’s side.
“I never thought it would turn out this way,” she said with a sigh. “Game over because a serial killer appeared out of nowhere. What a terrible way to end things.”
“What do you mean, ‘game over’?!”
“Sorry. Your powers of prophecy have been transferred to this person. She is my master now. Your journey ends here.”
“What?” Shigeto was stunned. His only ability was that of prophecy. If he lost it, he had nothing left.
“Master, I propose you use your Femme Fatale abilities to enslave him.”
“Sounds fine.” Kris must have activated her power, as the hatred burning in Shigeto’s eyes immediately vanished.
“Hanakawa, could you please heal him?” Navi continued.
“Uh, very well.” Hanakawa had no obligation to do as she said, but he complied nonetheless. Shigeto’s arms reconnected and the wound in his abdomen closed.
“There is something deeper within this cave, isn’t there?” Kris asked, walking farther in.
The other three followed her. The cave quickly came to a dead end, where they saw a sphere of water, just large enough to be held in one’s arms, floating in the air. A number of objects floated within it, moving around inside as if carried by some internal current.
“What is that?” asked Hanakawa.
“The cocoon of the World Sword Omega Blade. The World Sword is being reconstructed inside it,” Navi explained.
Now that she mentioned it, Hanakawa could see something like the grip of a sword floating within.
“So that is the World Sword. It is supposed to be extremely powerful, is it not?”
“Correct. It possesses an invincible power.”
“Well, it is called the World Sword, after all,” Hanakawa remarked. “It appears to me that this reconstruction will take quite some time, though.”
“That’s right. It will be a while before it’s finished.”
“And I assume we cannot bring it with us?”
“Correct. Once the reconstruction begins, you can’t move it. If you do, you’ll have to start from the beginning.”
“Hm. What do you think we should do with this, Miss Kris?” Hanakawa asked his captor.
“I don’t like relying on weapons for my strength, so I don’t care.” She didn’t seem all that interested in the weapon. The sword she had right now wasn’t famous enough to have a name, but it was working well enough for her.
“Would it not be a nuisance to have it fall into someone else’s hands?” Navi asked. “How about leaving Shigeto here to watch over it until the reconstruction is complete?”
She had predicted Kris’s lack of enthusiasm and had suggested dominating and healing Shigeto for that reason.
“I’ll leave it to you then. I’m going to go look for some more rare skills.”
Now that she had the pair’s skills, Kris had no further business there. She and Navi made their way to the mouth of the cave.
Hanakawa followed them. He thought it might be all right for him to stay behind, but she had told him to follow. He was too scared to disobey.
At some point, Navi disappeared. She didn’t seem to have much advice to offer at the moment.
“What do you intend to do now?” Hanakawa asked Kris.
“Good question. There seems to be someone with a rare skill not too far away, so I think I’ll head there.”
“I believe you are already sufficiently powerful...”
Walking through the rainforest, they came upon a clearing filled with rows of stone structures. A huge scar cut through the center of the clearing, like something enormous had passed through. The melted earth stretched in either direction in a perfectly straight line.
“That damage looks pretty recent, doesn’t it?” Hanakawa observed.
“Who knows?”
Something was clearly wrong, but Kris didn’t seem to care. She stepped into the scar in the earth, walking along it into the clearing. Eventually, they came across a hole in the ground.
“It’s down here.”
“Ha ha, it is too dark to make out much in there, isn’t it?”
It appeared to be an entrance to an underground area. There wasn’t any light inside, so they had no idea what kind of place it was.
“It’s fine. I have a night vision skill.”
“That does not help me in the slightest. Are we going in?”
“Yes.”
Hanakawa’s heart jumped in his chest as Kris grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him into the air. She was unimaginably strong.
“Wait, are you planning on just falli— Gaaaaaaah!”
Hanakawa in hand, she leaped into the darkness.
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