CH 170.2

Chapter 170.2: Traces

We finally arrived at the beach resort-like ruin. With so many huge buildings, there should be a fairy plaza somewhere around this place, and even if there weren’t any, the buildings alone were enough to serve as our base.

First, we’d to find a place for our base.

「Uhm, by the way, that building over there is the best candidate.」

Among the ruin that had been covered in greens was a single building that was still in beautiful condition, for some reason. Well, its color had faded due to the passage of time, but it hadn’t collapsed or cracked. In addition, the non-existing greenery made it look like the plants were avoiding that particular building. And it wasn’t just the building, even the garden was free from the encroachment of nature.

Was this place filled with herbicide? Or else, it might be protected by a magic barrier that preserved the building. If possible, I wished it to be the latter. Thus, we walked toward that building.

We entered from the front, it was then that I realized it was just as I’d imagined. Though this building looked like a hotel from afar, from the remnant of palace-like ornaments in various places, and an atrium-like structure built until the third floor, this building was definitely an important facility.

「GYOGYO, GYOAAAAAAAAAAAA!」

And then, its jiras’ employees welcomed us, the first guests in who knows how long.

「Since there’re jiras inside, there’s a high possibility that there’ll be a treasure box inside.」

「Let’s pray for that.」

Mei-chan annihilated the jiras in a flash, and their corpses were carried by summoned skeletons. We couldn’t leave nature to take care of their corpses right now after all. Their foul smell might attract the other monsters.

Now, let’s explore the hotel while letting the skeletons do menial, albeit, troublesome jobs.

「It seems no one is here aside from jiras.」

We didn’t encounter any other monsters other than jiras on the second and third floors. It was completely different from a ruined city where we would chance upon wild animals every now and then inside the building. However, I didn’t feel their presence at all in this building. In the end, even those jiras might also be looking for the treasure box.

In short, the thing that drove the monsters and plants away from this place was poison but…

「Kotaro-kun, there’s a huge jajiras over there, but… it has already died.」

Mei-chan, who goes in first to clean the route, returned and reported that information to me.

When I tried looking into the hall that looked like a multi-purpose hall from the opened doors, I did see the corpse of jajiras and a few other jiras around it.

After checking our surroundings to make sure that we’re alone, like when ambushing gomas’ trap a long time ago, we charged in with weapons in hand.

But nothing happened after that. There was no trap whatsoever, only jiras corpses left in this place.

「Is this, an internal discord?」

「Since this huge jajiras seems powerful, I don’t think these jiras could kill it.」

Since that was the case, were they―― killed by another monster? But upon a closer look at their corpses, it didn’t seem to be the case.

「There’s a cut wound on their chests… and the sign of their core being taken out. Our classmates.」

「!!??」

Hearing the result of my investigation, Mei-chan’s vigilance rose at once. She didn’t forget to prepare her halberd and walked toward the entrance.

「Since the blood has already dried, more than half-day should’ve already passed since the battle. I think they should’ve left this place if they didn’t turn this place into their base.」

I want to inspect the corpses a bit more. I asked Rems and Mei-chan to be on an alert while I continued inspecting the corpses.

Starting from the biggest one, Jajiras, there were clearly traces of its core being gouged out. But the real reason for its death was that half of its head had been crushed by an extremely powerful blow.

This jajiras was covered in a thicker shell compared to the one we’d seen so far. And yet, its heavily protected head had gotten smashed like that.

It seemed to be done in one hit with strike-type martial arts.

The other jiras were also having the same traces all over their body. The state of their corpses was even more tragic than the jajiras, such as corpses whose heads had been blown off, corpses whose bodies dented inward, etc, etc.

「Uhm, there’s no traces of strike on this fella’s corpse… these are, signs of burning.」

Though half of the corpses of the jiras in this place had traces of being beaten to death, the other half had been charred.

No matter how one looked at it, this was definitely the result of flame magic.

Also, the burn marks weren’t on the entire body, they were at only certain places such as the stomach, chest, and face with pinpoint accuracy. Maybe they’re holding back from using explosion magic since they’re fighting indoors. Or else, they’re using a fighting style that enabled them to hit such places with pinpoint accuracy.

Even if I were to ignore the fact that jiras was a small fry monster just like goma, the battle that happened in this place seemed to be a clean-sweep victory for our classmates. Well, that was only natural since anyone who reached this area had proven themselves to be quite skillful.

「There’s no other external injury that I can find aside from these… meaning that one of these jiras fought was a combi of a strike-type warrior and pyromancer.」

That dead shitty NEET, Reina aside, meant that the culprit was a duo. And the answer came upon me as soon as I concluded it was strike and flame duo.

「That gay couple, Ooyama and Sugino, huh.」

Back when Yamajun and Reina were still alive, those fucking gays appeared before us, who were exhausted after the battle in gomas’ castle, and robbed us of our cores.

They said themselves that Ooyama was 『Pyromancer』 and Ogino 『Heavy Warrior』.

「What shall we do, Kotarou-kun? Shall we kill them off?」

Mei-chan was looking into my eyes with unshakeable willpower, ready to hunt those fu*king gays as long as I said “Let’s kill them”. Since I’d told her about the instance in which those fu*king gays had robbed us of our cores, she knew that I’d already placed them under the list of my enemies.

「If possible… I don’t want to kill them.」

「But they robbed your cores back then, right?」

I knew that she was trying to say, “Then they shouldn’t be complaining if you robbed your cores back from them and kill them off”. It was a cruel, yet simple logic.

「It might look like I’m turning into a hypocrite if I say because they did not kill me back then.」

「Yeah, I don’t mind. There’s no need for you to dirty your hands any more than this. Leave everything to me.」

My chest tightened a little upon seeing her smile since I had no idea whether she was serious or joking when she said that, I mean she was a berserker after all.

「Don’t mind about it, it doesn’t affect my mental state. Sugino’s vocation is 『Heavy Warrior』, and he’s really strong. Ooyama’s power is still a mystery. To be honest, there are too many risks to take if we choose to fight them.」

There was no merit even if we confronted them from the front.

「If we’re going to fight them, we’ve to take them down at once with a sneak attack. We should be able to gain high-ground as long as we can take down Ooyama first … Wait a minute, this might be a good chance.」

Perhaps it was the two of us who noticed them first while the other party had yet to discover us.

「Understood, let’s look for them and wait for a chance to ambush them. Fufufu, we’re the same as those raptors I guess.」

Yeah, we’re currently being chased by the red raptor.

The raptor was chasing after us, while we were chasing after our classmates. What a strange situation.

「One mistake might land us into being flanked by the red raptor and those homos, but…」

If we played our card right, we could defeat both the red raptor and those two homos. Or, we could guide the red raptor to attack those disgusting ho―― no, wait a minute, don’t get impatient, me.

""

Wasn’t this just like the saying about a person who was chasing after two rabbits? Moreover, this gambling-like tactic was ill-suited to me. I’m a timid person, that’s why I detest gambling-like tactics and prefer more down-to-earth tactics no matter how despicable it seems.

「Okay, it’s decided. Let’s sever our source of anxiety and exterminate that annoying red raptor first. We’ll leave the matter of those homos for later.」

We set the matter of those homos aside for now and focused on the matter before us. In so doing, we could allow them to defeat this area boss while all we needed to do was wait for the right timing to ambush them.

Since they had yet to notice our presence in this place, let’s keep the matter as it is for now. There was a low chance they noticed us as long as they didn’t suddenly turn around.

Thus, we’d to take care of that stalker raptor first. Crush them one by one ― was the basic of the basic in war.

「Well then, let’s take control of this hotel first.」

「Uhm understood.」

Well, since all the monsters had already been exterminated, we just needed to finish the others’ arrangement.

But there were three treasure boxes in this hotel whose contents had already been taken away by those fu*king homos.

Though I knew that it was first come first serve, I couldn’t help but feel annoyed at the sight of the empty treasure box…

===

TN: Next release 16/04/2022