“Ooooraa!!”
As I dodged the spear that a Draugr thrust at me, I grabbed its head, jumped off of a desk, and swung my sword with my right hand to slash at the torso of another monster.
My left hand was still grabbing on the first monster’s head, so when I swung my left arm, that monster’s feet hit another Draugr in the face and knocked that down.
As I watched that Draugr be pierced by a spear of ice, I violently threw the head of the first one against the floor and stomped on its skull.
“Alright, so…”
We had neutralized the monsters that were within our immediate surroundings, so the question now was what to do next.
“Master”
“…Layla. How far do you think this dungeon has overflown?”
“I am not an expert on spatial Superpowers…but I don’t believe this could have expanded all the way to your home.”
“I, see…”
For one brief moment, I closed my eyes shut under my helm.
“Reinforce, you go back home. As for the rest of us—”
“Hey, Kyotaro”
A voice from behind interrupted me.
“Kumai-kun…?”
Wondering what it could be at such a busy time, I turned around with my brows all wrinkled up.
There, I saw Kumai-kun and Uoyama-kun standing all imposing in front of a door.
And in the hallway behind them, I could see our teachers angrily yelling and the other students screaming as they ran around, all confused. By the looks of things, the evacuation efforts wasn’t going well.
“If you’re going to split your squad up, can you have someone stop by my house too? And if that’s still easy enough, I’d ask that they keep the area along the way to my place safe too. I won’t force you to do it, but I have to ask at least”
“…I mean, rather than that, won’t it be better if you guys were to escape as well? You two can blend in with the other escaping students or maybe slip away—”
“Nope. I’m staying to fight.”
“Me too.”
“…Huh?”
What are these two saying?
“If this dungeon continues to expand, it can very well impact our homes as well.”
“Exactly. We have to somehow cull the monsters before the dungeon expands to its full potential.”
“…but this is a C rank dungeon, you know. The monsters that appeared are called Draugr. They’re a type of undead that, in addition to the use of weapons and their claws, can harm you with poison and curses.”
“Ohh. Thanks for the info. Alright, let’s go, Uoyama”
“Right”
“No, just wait!”
I grabbed Kumai-kun who was turning around to head to the hallway.
“Try remembering your recommended dungeon ranks and tell me! This dungeon is outside of your safety margin!”
“And what about those times you got caught up in dungeon overflow incidents?”
“…that’s diff—”
“It’s the same thing”
Kumai-kun grabbed my wrist and released himself from my grip. All while doing an exaggerated snort.
“If we don’t help here, our homes and families will be in danger. This is not something we can entrust to somebody else. Besides, have you already forgotten what we said just 3 months ago?”
“Has your mind been so full of lewd thoughts that your memory’s failing already, Kyotaro?”
As they asked so, Kumai-kun folded his hands and Uoyama-kun readjusted his fake glasses.
“We said we’ll absolutely catch up to you, remember now?”
“We have no plans of forever being left behind by you.”
Was it when we decided to disband our party?
Being glared at by the two of them, I naturally took a step back.
“You two…”
I didn’t know what to say. This place was too dangerous for them. It was one thing if they could limit fighting monsters of the same rank to one each at a time, but it was a different thing entirely to face head-on a group that outnumbered them.
When it came to me, I could move about the battlefield to whittle the enemy numbers or make use of circumstances to deal a great blow against enemy numbers in one go.
Were such options available to these two?
That rational side of me, especially the part that could be mistaken for condescension, was telling me that it would be too reckless for those two. But the emotional side of me were appealing for something else. It was as though I wanted to rely on them.
After all, I was worried about my mother. I also had relatives who lived only a few hundred meters away from us. I didn’t have fond memories of the elementary school and the junior high school I went to, but even so, I was worried about the children in those places who surely still haven’t finished evacuating.
Honestly, it all came back to the fact that if we didn’t hold our ground here, the dungeon could and would expand all the way to my home.
Argh, we’re short of hands, have no time to breathe, and everyone’s in a state of panic. I really, really want to just go back home, have my mother gather stuff she can’t live without, and get out of here as fast as possible. And that’s probably the best move for me. I mean, I’m a civilian, so I have no duty or obligation to fight here! Anyone who would criticize me have no ground to stand on! But I don’t know!
My head was a mess. My thoughts kept getting pulled this way or that. I was so stuck in my own head, I couldn’t move. That was how much of a fool I was.
“Hey, you guys! This is no time for a chat, don’t you think!? Give me a hand here!!”
Pushing his way through a wave of people, Aihara-kun called out to us. For some reason, a number of students were clinging on to him.
“You’re Awakened Ones too!? Please, help us!”
“Nooo! I don’t wanna die! I don’t wanna dieee!!”
“Hurry! Hurry up and fight! That’s your job, isn’t it!?”
“Shaddap!”
He brushed aside the students clinging to him and briskly walked inside a classroom.
“Clear the desks away! I’ll etch a summoning circle on the floor and use that to call my order of knights! We need numbers badly right now!”
“Ahh, Aihara-kun, you’re going to fight?”
“Isn’t that a given!?”
With a blood-curling look on his face, he glared at me. All of a sudden, there was chill on my spine.
“There are many potential employees of Plump Plump Land here! How can I abandon them!?”
“I wanna punch you in face so bad right now”
“Enough of this, my brother in plump!”
“Who are you calling brother in plump!!?”
I’m being serious here, dude.
I could, begrudgingly, sympathize with what he trying to say though, so I ultimately helped him move the desks and chairs.
“Alright, that should do. Michiru, your wide-area attacks are less effective when used inside the school building, right? So, sorry, but I think you should fight outside instead. I’ll send you backup later.”
“It’s fine! Leave it to me!”
“As for you guys, get moving and fight. Do everything you can for the sake of my ambitions. I’ll treat you to ramen if you do.”
“Can you believe this guy…?”
Aihara-kun was pulling out a stupidly large sheet out of his Item Box as he barked those commands. And upon hearing those for us, all tension left my shoulders. At the same time, my face also twitched under my helm.
Aihara-kun was just…something else.
“…can’t follow that. I’ll stay here.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll be guarding your scrawny ass, you scrawny bastard”
“…good to hear. I’ll make full use of you, you muscle gorilla”
“Then, I’m heading outside too. Indoor battles is a horrible deal for a mage, after all. Kyotaro, you should do a sweep inside the building, I think”
Kumai-kun and Aihara-kun spread out the sheet of paper with a magic circle drawn on it. Meanwhile, Uoyama-kun began casually exiting the room we were in.
Confused by the course of events, I tried to voice out my concerns.
“Wait, wait, wait. Do you guys understand the situation we’re in right now? The danger—”
“Kyotarooo!”
My shoulders flinched in surprise of Aihara-kun’s loud voice.
“Tell me what you want right now”
“What do you mean what do I want?”
“I want to protect future members of my harem. Gorilla and Four-Eyes want to protect their homes and families. At the same time, they want to show off to you. So, what about you?”
“Well…”
“If you want to protect those 2 idiots, that’s good enough. But that’s not it, is it?”
“Who are you calling idiots!?”
“Hey, Gori. Read the room. I’m being serious right now”
Aihara-kun, with all his refined features, looked straight at me.
“Are you their protector? Or are you their friend?”
“That’s an unfair way to ask, you know.”
“Let’s just chalk it up to me being good in negotiations.”
After scratching the back of my head through my helm, I turned around and faced the girls who were waiting behind me.
About 3 minutes had passed since I first saw a monster in school. Each minute and each second was valuable, yet it took me this long before I issued Layla and the girls my command.
“Layla, you stay with me and fight indoors. Yukine and Reinforce, the two of you patrol my neighborhood while also checking up on these idiots’ homes every couple of laps.”
“““Roger!”””
“Reinforce, you have the map in your memory?”
“Yes, Meister. The Doctor has already input that data.”
“Alright, then please go now. Oh, make sure you two prioritize yourselves and my mom above all others. I’ll leave it to Yukine to decide on whatever comes up.”
“Understood. Let’s us be off, Reinforce.”
“Roger.”
After that sort of farewell, the two of them broke through a glass window and jumped down from the 2nd floor. Reinforce’s armor wasn’t complete yet, so I was a little uneasy about this, but I chose to believe in them.
“So, now that I’ve gone pretty much all in, you guys better not be dead weight.”
“You say you guys, but Uoyama has already gone outside, dude”
“Crap, I forgot he’s that kind of guy”
Whenever someone turns away from him and tries to look cool, that Four-Eyed Tentacle Fanatic would disappear in an instant, just like this!
“Hey come on, Bucket-headed NPC, get moving already”
“Get working, Bucket-headed NPC”
“Since when did you two idiots get along so well? But fine, I’m going. Seriously though, don’t either of you die, you hear!?”
After giving the finger to both the pointlessly handsome guy who says awfully rude things and the old-looking gorilla man, I made my way to the corridor.
And just like before, the corridor was full of people in panic. The school had done drills for emergencies like fire and earthquakes, but none for when it turned into a dungeon. The students didn’t even know where best to go, whether to the first floor or climb up to the third floor. There were even some who tried to get out through the windows, screaming as they fell. Chaos had taken its hold here, or something like that.
“Now, what should we do…”
“We simply have to deal with each case with a great deal of flexibility, while of course keeping in mind possible 3-dimensional maneuvers.”
While I was rather confused on how to proceed, Layla cheerfully stated so.
It was subtle, but I felt like she was in a good mood.
“Is something the matter, Layla?”
“Nothing, it’s just…I’m relived to see you with composure to spare right now.”
“There is nothing to spare right now though…!”
I grabbed the ricasso of my sword and held the zweihander as though it was some spear. A Draugr which had kicked down the door of a nearby classroom had made its appearance. There were 3 others behind that one too. As I gave sidelong glances to the screaming students who ran as though they were escaping from me as well, I pointed the tip of my blade to the actual monsters.
“Lend me some support.”
“Of course, Master.”
The situation was probably just a step behind the worst case scenario. There wasn’t anything to spare, none at all. I could hear the death throes from everywhere. Blood was splattered all across not only the corridor but also inside the classrooms.
My daily life had crumbled away before my eyes. In such a place, I breathed deep through my nose, held it in for a good moment, and exhaled the air through my mouth.
I can do this. I’m doing this.
I stomped on the floor and began my charge at the Draugr who was holding a spear.
I have to settle things here before this dungeon expands all the way to my home!!
* * *
POV: Kumai Nobuo
As I listened on the sounds of battle from the corridor, I glimpsed every now and then at Aihara who was uttering stuff behind.
He was sitting cross-legged in front of a sheet of paper about 3 meters long on each side. In the center of sheet and on top of the black magic circle was something that looked like a collection of boar heads bound together. No matter how I looked at it, he definitely gave off the vibes of a manga’s villain right now.
Based on what I had heard, Summoning Magic wasn’t something this overblown usually. But the fact that this was what he was going with meant…
<<Can you hear me!? You can hear me, right!?>>
“Huh?”
Still a little surprise to hear that loud voice, I looked up at a speaker.
It was the school’s broadcast system. Radio waves shouldn’t be usable right now, yet this apparently still worked, somehow.
<<This is Wakasugi, a teacher! Students, follow the instructions of any nearby teacher and make your way outside of the school, by way of the school field! From there, head to the city’s gymnasium or wherever else available that is considered to be a refugee destination in times of calamities. I repeat!!>>
If I wasn’t mistaken, Wakasugi was new to the school this year, much like us freshmen. In addition to being a young teacher, I also remember Kyotaro complaining about why she wasn’t assigned to be our homeroom teacher.
And based on what I heard just now, she seemed to be quite the gutsy teacher. I now had a better opinion of her.
She probably mentioned going through the school field to deter as many students as possible from going through cramped spaces. The students could still very well be attacked in the field, but they were also better off being attacked there. She also said to get away from the school, but well, even a non-Awakened One could tell from the black canopy in the sky that the school was the center point of the dungeon.
As I was thinking like that, I heard the sound of mushy footsteps.
I immediate uncrossed my arms, lightly spun my head around, and got into a fighting stance. Soon enough, 3 Draugr appeared at the door to the classroom we were in. One had a sword, another a spear, and the last an axe. They had no armor, with only rags for clothing.
They looked at us with their cloudy eyes of the dead.
“…oi, Gorilla, I know it’s late, but will you be alright alone?”
“Don’t worry about it; just focus on your chanting, you fatty-lover.”
I was unarmed. The difference in our reach was clear. And reach was said to have such a great impact on combat that someone practicing an unarmed martial art must possess triple the rank of someone practicing kendo just to keep up.
I didn’t know whether it knew of that concept or not, but the Draugr with a spear thrust at me almost without caution.
Now then, time to test for myself once again if martial arts are helpful in this new era of Myths. Time to test how meaningful it is to learn anti-personnel techniques.
The Draugr thrust its spear straight at me. I parried it with my right hand and launched a left overhand—a left hook punch—as a counter
“…!”
Despite being a corpse, the monster was wordlessly agitated. That surprised me. This was my first time to fight an undead, but it would seem they were still capable of thought.
And although it was still staggering from my blow, that Draugr swiped its spear at my feet. I intercepted the shaft with my shin and immediately drove my knee into the monster’s abdomen. And just as there was some distance being formed between us, I followed up with a kick to its temple.
There came a sensation and then a sound, both of which confirmed to me that the monster’s skull was crushed and the stuff inside squashed. It wasn’t as discomforting as I expected, to be honest.
Casting aside what remained of the spear-bearer, I retook my stance and readied myself to face the other two monsters.
So, the answer is that martial arts is still useful. That said, I still can’t say that martial arts is more relevant now than ever.
There were an endless list of things that martial arts were useful for. How to form a proper fist, how to turn one’s hips, how to aim, how to take up a stance, the impact of a proper step-in stomp. A good understanding of martial arts could double or triple the power any attack.
Yet, currently-existing martial arts had the limits of humanity in mind. Like, was there any martial arts out there that assumed a practitioner would be on head-on collision with a truck? Similarly, was there any martial arts out there that took into account when the practitioner had strength equal to heavy machinery? Maybe there were such martial arts, but I for one didn’t know of them.
“What’s wrong? Come!”
I provoked the remaining 2 Draugr which seemed to have been vigilant against me. Maybe thanks to that, the 2 began to rush me at the same time.
…ever since the Return of the Age of Myths, I had been continuously training myself.
I had been helping out a rather distant relative with their public works company by carrying steel beams and such. As compensation, they let me practice my kata—my forms—against dummies made of their company’s scrap materials in a vacant lot owned by their company. Of course, I put those katas into actual use and honed it further in battle in the dungeons.
I had stopped learning karate around the time I graduated from elementary school. I wasn’t anyone that could be considered talented at it, but I figured taking up karate again was necessary for me. After all, given my ideal for women, I must refine myself too or else risk being seen as insincere. But even more important than that, I took up karate again in order to catch up to my friend.
Anyway, I threw a crescent kick and hit a Draugr in the abdomen. When it lost its balance, my fist made immediate contact to its jaw. I felt right away that my fist shattered the skull and made a mess of the stuff inside.
Just one more to go. I retracted my outstretched fist and turned halfway around. I then slammed my fist to the belly of the remaining Draugr until I broke its spine. And with it losing strength in its lower half, it began to fall. Despite that, it still clung to me. I brought down my elbow to the back of the axe-bearer’s head and soon enough, it grew quiet and still. I tossed it aside and scanned my surroundings, alert for anything.
…but this still isn’t enough. Not enough to reach Kyotaro’s level…and this is all I have. But in that case, the path forward is simple: I must come up with a school of martial arts specifically for use of Awakened Ones!
It was said that we were still in the early days of dungeons, but the same could be said of martial arts. It was time to make something new out of the already-existing techniques. I didn’t know how long, how many years it would take to reach that goal, but nevertheless, I would take on the challenge. For when I finally discovered and mastered a karate fit for an Awakened One, I would become stronger, strong enough to stand side by side with my friend.
It was a great bonus that I should also have muscles that I wouldn’t be ashamed to show my ideal partner by then.
“New enemies? Sure, come on in; humanoid enemies are just the right enemies to check on my progress, anyway…”
Even in such circumstances, I found myself getting excited.
I took a stance and faced the new enemies that appeared after they broke through a wall.
“Alright, let’s spar.”
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