CH 6

Chapter 6 – Visiting School

“…….Pheeeeew.”

That was close. That arrow just now… was a trap. I didn’t think that the residents here would set up such a dangerous trap in their own house. It was most likely a result of the dungeonization.

“Still, there are even traps set up, huh? I’ll have to be more careful from now on.”

This room seemed to be a study, and there was nothing of note in the room. Did this mean that the key was in the other room…?

I left the room while listening carefully and approached the door of the last remaining room. I put my ear to the door to try and figure out the state of things inside.

I could hear the faint sound of footsteps that belonged to something about the size of a regular human being.

After preparing myself for the worst, I flung the door open wide and took a large step backward. Naturally, the presence in the room turned its attention towards me.

As expected, a goblin―but blue?!

Until now, all of the goblins had been green from head to toe. But the one here had a different skin color, even though it looked the exact same.

Could this guy be a boss monster?!

“Giggity!”

The blue goblin held a hatchet in both hands as it rushed towards me with murderous intent. Gauging the timing of the guy charging straight at me, I suddenly shut the door on its face. The blue goblin crashed into the door that suddenly appeared in its face with such force that it went tumbling backwards.

While it was down, I jumped on top of it and pinned it down, swinging the knife in my right hand. There was nothing the blue goblin, who had been caught off guard, could do, and it froze there in shock.

―Zssshhhh!

Having been stabbed in the forehead, the blue goblin began to twitch and convulse before it could even scream, and it gradually stopped moving.

A few seconds later, the blue Goblin, which was bleeding profusely from its forehead, turned into particles of light and disappeared.

“…..Haaahh. I managed to defeat it…”

But then, I heard the sound of something running up from below.

Whoa, whoa, I thought I’d cleared it after defeating the boss-like guy!

I immediately got up and ran into the room that the blue goblin had been in a moment ago, and I closed the door behind me so that nothing could get in.

“Geez, that freaked me out. Now then, this place…huh?”

I looked around the room and discovered something strange. There was a crystal embedded in the wall, shining and sparkling with a beautiful light.

I thought it was a decoration of some sort, but judging by the fact that this place appeared to be a guest room due to its plainness, the crystal was the only thing that stood out from the rest. In other words, it didn’t match the atmosphere of the room at all.

“Speaking of dungeons, there are cases where there are dungeon cores, but this…”

It was just some iffy game knowledge, but I approached the crystal, which was about the size of my face, and lightly poked it with my knife to see what would happen.

I kept tapping it, but there was no reaction.

“…Maybe I’ll try breaking it.”

Immediately after that thought crossed my mind, there was banging at the door, causing me to jump in fright. Along with a goblin-like grunt from the other side of the door, there was the sound of a violent impact.

Before it could break down the door, I tried lightly scratching the crystal with the [Acid Knife]. The corrosion spread from the scratch, and then―ptchhh!

In that instant, it dispersed and vanished. At the same time, the presence of the goblin that should have been there a moment ago also disappeared.

I cautiously approached the door to check, but there was no sign of the goblin.

“Just now, did I perhaps… clear the dungeon?”

I looked in my <Box> to see if there was anything that might indicate that. There was a [Core Fragment] inside, which I had never seen before. Upon looking it up, it seemed to be a [Dungeon Core Fragment].

“So that was the Core, huh? That means this house was a dungeon until a moment ago, and in order to clear it, the Core had to be destroyed.”

Upon doing so, it seemed that the monsters would automatically disappear as well. For now, I remained cautious as I went back down to the first floor.

“But as expected, the bodies won’t go back to the way they were before.”

The corpses were still sprawled out in the yard. Under normal circumstances, I would have buried them and performed a memorial service for them, but I couldn’t stick around for that long. After shortly pressing my hands together in a prayer, I hurried back in the direction of my house.

—

I had gotten more out of that trip than I’d expected, especially with the experience regarding dungeons.

Well, the scene itself had been really traumatic, but such sights would no longer be a rarity in the future.

Incidentally, the [Core Fragment] that I had obtained could be sold for a great price, but since it was something rare, I decided to keep it in case the worst case scenario happened (like if I ran out of money).

“Well then, I ended up finishing what I wanted to do much quicker than I’d thought…”

There was nothing to do once I got home anyway, so I decided to look around the city.

When I got to a main street, I saw a lot of cars driving around as I expected. Some of them probably already knew about the existence of the monsters, but they might have thought that they would be safe in their cars.

Certainly, if it was something like a goblin, there was always the method of running it over with a car. But for giant monsters like the ones I had seen at school, it would definitely require tank-class weapons.

…School, huh? Come to think of it, I wonder what happened over there.

Although I was a little curious, I could only imagine that the place was a scene straight out of hell.

I guess I’ll go check it out a bit to kill some time.

I boarded the bus, which was still running, and headed for school. I seemed to be the only passenger on the bus, so I thought I might as well talk to the bus driver and see what was on his mind.

“Excuse me. It’s pretty empty here. Has it been like this since the morning?” (Bouchi)

“Eh? Yeah, well you see… there was something about monsters appearing in town, right? I guess that’s why people have been trying not to go out too much. Ah, look. There are police cars and fire trucks rushing about again.” (Bus Driver)

I certainly had seen several police cars and fire trucks several times before getting on. The sound of sirens was constantly echoing through the city.

“I wonder what’s happening. Can I really keep doing this job?” (Bus Driver)

“….It must be difficult.” (Bouchi)

“It really is. Ah, what will I do if the company closes down or something?” (Bus Driver)

Unfortunately, there was a very good chance that such a situation would happen in the near future. Now that I knew that monsters could step out of the dungeons, it wasn’t surprising to me that they were being found all over the city.

Once that happened, the roads would no longer be safe. I mean, who would want to drive in a place where monsters roamed freely?

As it was now, the rate of monsters appearing was still low, so the roads were relatively safe. That said, the traffic seemed to be getting worse.

I got off at a stop near school and continued to head towards it. But when I got there, I found that it had already turned into a battlefield. There were tons of police cars and ambulances parked around the school, preventing civilians from entering.

“Just as I thought…”

A goblin came running from the main gate, approaching the police officers who were standing at the ready.

―Bang, bang bang!

The harsh sound of gunshots rang out, and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. The goblin collapsed, bleeding out of its head and body before eventually disappearing. As expected of the power of bullets. They still seemed to work well against these monsters.

The sound of gunshots and explosions resounded from the inside of the school. But at the same time, I could also hear the howling of some monster. It seemed that the riot police had entered the school to protect the students.

The school was quite large, and it had only been one day since the incident, so there were probably a lot of students who failed to escape. They probably barricaded themselves in the building and prepared for the attacks from the monsters.

“Aaah, what a disaster.”

Even though my alma mater had been turned into a warzone, I didn’t feel shaken at all. I didn’t think that it should be destroyed, nor did I think that it would be nice if everyone could be saved.

I just really didn’t care. I had only come here out of pure curiosity.

Some of my classmates had probably already been killed, while some might still be alive and wished to be saved, but I seriously couldn’t care less.

Well, I suppose I would feel better if Ohsaka, the main culprit behind the people bullying me, had been killed. If such news came around, I couldn’t wait to say, ‘well, serves you right’.

Three more goblins came rushing out of the main gate, but they were killed by the riot police’s gunfire.

But all of this was futile. After all, as long as the Core wasn’t destroyed, they would continue to spawn indefinitely.

“But finding the Core in such a large school would have to be a struggle.”

Besides, there was probably a ferocious monster waiting in front of the core, just like the blue goblin of that time. As a boss monster, it would definitely be stronger than other monsters.

In other words, it was even stronger than that giant monster that had come out of the gym storehouse. If that was the case, then even the riot police might not be able to do anything about it.

It was highly likely that the strength of the JSDF would have to be deployed to deal with it. The only way would be to use tanks and aircraft to finish it off with massive firepower, but… this was probably not the only place that had been turned into a dungeon. No matter how I thought about it, the JSDF wouldn’t get around to this place any time soon. Even now, they were probably being dispatched somewhere else.

“…Hm?”

At this point, a crowd of students, led by the riot police, were being brought to the main gate. There seemed to be a little less than 100 of them. Among them, there were injured students whose battered and bruised figures were being carried out on stretchers.

Those with the most severe wounds were given priority and taken to the hospital by the ambulances.

I went over to ask a question of another one of the people who were watching from a distance just like I was.

“Um, excuse me.” (Bouchi)

“Hm? What is it?” (Onlooker)

“This rescue operation… how long have they been at it?” (Bouchi)

“Since yesterday evening, I suppose?” (Onlooker)

“Oh, have they managed to rescue a lot of people then?” (Bouchi)

“Dunno, as far as I’ve seen, this is the first time they did. It’s crazy, it’s just like a movie.” (Onlooker)

In other words, the rescue had been quite difficult. Well, it was understandable. Aside from monsters, there also had to have been traps in the dungeon, so it was probably more difficult to rescue them than like in a normal terrorist attack.

At any rate, the monsters would have no thoughts to hold humans hostage, so in the first place, there was no hope for negotiation. As soon as they saw the police, they would try to kill them without question, so it would surely be a struggle to secure the safety of the students while dealing with the monsters.

“So, uh, have you heard about any students or teachers who were able to take down the monsters easily?” (Bouchi)

“Huh? What do you mean? I mean, who’d even be able to do that?” (Onlooker)

Apparently, there was no one who had any strong skills or received a Status system. At least, they hadn’t appeared yet, I guess.

If there were otakus out there, they would definitely try to open their Status and stuff like that, just like I had done. And yet, people like that hadn’t been discovered yet.

Nevertheless, I had a feeling that I wasn’t the only person with a skill. I also wasn’t certain that my <Shop> skill was something that had awakened in the face of a crisis situation. It was powerful, that was for sure, but as expected, it felt strange to me.

I wasn’t a special existence by any means. I was an ordinary human, born and raised in an ordinary family. If I was told that it had to do with my previous life, I’d probably be at a total loss. But even still, I didn’t think that I was the only skill holder.

“Hey man, can you say ‘skill’ for me?” (Bouchi)

“Hah? What do you mean by skill?” (Onlooker)

“….Well, in times like these, I just thought it would be cool if we could use skills and magic like a manga protagonist.” (Bouchi)

“Oh, that sounds nice. But I suppose there’s no way I’d be a chosen one.” (Onlooker)

…Sorry. It seems that I’m one of those chosen people, though.

At the very least, the man in front of me didn’t seem to have a skill. This pretty much eliminated the possibility that there were latent powers or skills existing in all humans.

It seemed more likely that a skill would be awakened when certain conditions were met, but for now, it appeared to be something that only a limited number of people could manifest.

Using the [Appraisal Looking-Glass], I watched the rescued students as figures who seemed like their guardians rushed over to them. I recognized the faces of some of my classmates among the rescued.

I turned my cold gaze away, putting the [Appraisal Looking-Glass] into my pocket as I quietly left that place.