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High School Hack and Slash Chapter 8 Part 3

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Pasifista

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「Seiichi.」

「What’s it, a monster?」

「No, but at this rate, I don’t think we’ll be able to make it through without encountering any enemies.」

　If it’s Seiichi or me, we will probably be able to defeat and subjugate mere goblins.

　But Shizuka and Mai are somewhat worrisome.

　If we don’t decide on how to deal with them when we encounter some, it’ll be inevitable for panic to break out.

「Well…. You’re right. Being panicked won’t help anyone.」

　Turning off his meaningless stalking mode, Seiichi takes a deep breath.

「We can’t afford to continue running away from here on. At any rate, we have to conquer the dungeon and raise our levels, after all.」

　Gazing at Seiichi, who braces his expression with a flash, Mai, who goes puff, seems to possess choroin quality.

　As for Shizuka, who’s displaying a gallant figure with her spear at the ready, she is reeking of a clumsy girl scent.

　I can’t shake the image of her stumbling over nothing in the face of a goblin and falling into crisis.

「That raising level thing, am I right to assume that our stats will increase with each level up like in RPG games?」

「Yes, you should be right. Your strength will become stronger, your HP…. Perhaps it’s like a barrier, your flesh will become more resilient to damage in proportion to your HP. Rather, so that’s the case, Touma, that damned toughness of yours is due to you leveling up during the first dungeon dive, huh.」

　Seiichi is showing a bitter smile, but it was actually pretty painful.

　However, true enough, for someone who has been thoroughly beaten, my face isn’t swollen, and there’s no trace of injury on it, either.

　In contrast, Seiichi has his face adorned with bruises, turning it into a manly face.

「In short, that means even Shizuka and Mai will be able to fight if they raise their level, right?」

「Eh, m, me too?」

「Y, yes.」

　Mai is flustered, while Shizuka is stiffening in nervousness.

「He’s right. I think there’s a need for you to level up too. Because that means you will be able to ensure your safety in proportion to it.」

「Do, do we really have to fight too?」

「Otherwise there will be no path ahead. I… want you to come with me, too.」

「Seiichi….」

　As I give Seiichi and Mai, who are locking eyes with each other, a sidelong glance, Shizuka is staring fixedly at me.

　Perhaps she wants to do it too, but please spare me of it.

　After all, there’s no option for Shizuka.

　It’s been decided that I’m going to have her come with me until the end.

　Yes, nodding as such, she quietly moves next to me.

 

◇ ◇ ◇

 

　Just like on the first and second stratums, the monsters on the third stratum were mainly goblins, but they served as the first trial for a party battle that would let them die helplessly.

　The reason for this was because the goblins, which used to act alone, were now moving as a group under a goblin leader.

　In the uncharted domain, monsters existed according to the initial, natural systems.

　That was to say, they naturally emerged out of the void when the miasma concentration exceeded the control value, and when they could no longer maintain their pseudo-life function, they disintegrated into miasma and returned to the void.

　Control value was the border that dominated the stratum.

　The reason why the uncharted domain was considered dangerous was because there was a higher probability of the existence of transcendent individuals, over-border, which deviated from the cycle of emergence to disintegration and survived by devouring other monsters.

　In the case of goblins, a transcendent individual would change class to become a being named the Goblin King, and its form would also change to something else.

　Having survived in a corner of the uncharted domain, he wandered the dungeons, following his newfound instincts.

　A transcendent individual was a being whose miasma had been condensed, and was a singularity of the dungeon.

　In order to equalize the stratum laws distorted by the singularity, the sacrifices sent out from Rashomon stabilized the void by having their essences dissolved.

　He, who as a special individual had been eating his own kind and just surviving without purpose, had awakened to the taste of the sacrifices that were sent every day.

　Goblins, which had no female kinds of themselves, did not awaken to their reproductive instincts until they encountered female kinds of intruders.

　But once they were awakened to it, the seething flesh of the goblin would begin to madly seek for the flesh of females.

　The body that had become so huge that one couldn’t help but look up to it had no shreds of the feebleness possessed by goblins, and the Gaki Lord Metal Rod in his hand was an over-border item that also exceeded the stratum control value.

　Due to the whiff of female scent, the nether region was raging and towering as if raising a fist.

「Shei-ha!」

　The hand axe, which was swung down along with a mysterious yell, turned into a guillotine that decapitated the king penis from the sideway.

　A cry that rattled and shook the air in the dim chamber was raised from the goblin king’s mouth, as he fell forward, fainting in agony.

　Throwing away the hand axe, whose edge had shattered, Touma mercilessly stomped and trampled down the back of the goblin king’s head, which was lying flat on the floor.

　The goblin king’s head, sandwiched between the bottom of his combat boots and the floor, made a vivid, crunching sound.

　Touma continued to raise crunching sound for a while longer even after the cry of the goblin king ceased, before launching a yakuza kick on his forehead.

　The goblin king, whose neck was obviously bent in a dangerous direction, twitched and spasmed without raising any cry.

「Alright. —It’s a combo chance.」

　When Touma wiped the sweat on his forehead and turned around, the party members, each with their weapon at the ready, drew them with everything they had.

「Let’s go.」

「Y, yea… then, let’s go?」

「Y, yes.」

「I, I’m coming.」

　Seiichi and Mai, with short swords in hands, and then Shizuka, with her spear at the ready, timidly stabbed the edge of blades at the goblin king

　The blades cut into the skin, which had more or less turned into an armoring on the same level as an armor, for a bit.

「S, so hard. Is this guy’s body made of concrete or something?」

「I can’t seem to cut it, though.」

「Let’s try.」

　Touma, who, with a bang, launched a kick to the goblin king’s head each time he moved or twitched, raised his thumb.

　Eiei, Shizuka, who was poking around her stabbed spear along with such a yell, stumbled forward.

　With a swoosh, as though its silhouette was crumbling, the figure of the goblin king vanished as he disintegrated into the dungeon.

「Phew…. It was a victory for teamwork.」

「It’s not! That definitely was not it.」

「It’s totally… power leveling.」

　Shizuka, who was having distant eyes, quietly murmured.

　Power leveling was an online game term for a means of high level players raising low level players with any means necessary.

　It was also a problematic play where as a result, it produced dicey players who were only high in level while their player skills remained unpolished.

「I can understand your feeling of thinking that you can do better than that, Seiichi.」

「Huh, no, I think that’s a bit too harsh….」

「… Seiichi~.」

　Mai stared fixedly at Seiichi, who shrunk back, and let out a sigh.

「However, I wonder if it would be better for us to proceed with our dungeon conquest with safety as our top priority here? Most likely, I’m the one with the highest level here, after all.」

「Totally! My bad, but today I’ll leave it to you, Touma.」

「Yeah. At any rate, we should raise our level here in this first stratum for a while, right?」

　Touma surveyed the third stratum that emitted heavy pressure.

「I guess it’ll have to come to that… But I never expected goblins to be this strong. I thought they were more of a small fry, you know.」

「Yes. I wonder if I can do it….」

「I will do, my best.」

　The strength of the monsters was fixed by the level sash of each stratum.

　It was fixed in accordance with the concentration of miasma drifting in the void, as well as the existential pressure tolerance of the void that dominated the stratum.

　In the upper stratum, where the miasma was thin and the pressure was low, low-level monsters such as goblins emerged in a large number.

　In the lower stratums, where the miasma was thick and the pressure was high, low-level monsters couldn’t even exist due to the pressure of the void, so it wound up only the more condensed and powerful high level monsters that would emerge there.

　This was the law of monster emergence, known as the stratum control value.

　The stratum control value of the first stratum was 1.

　Speaking of the strength of level 1 monsters, they possessed only abilities befitting their appearances, as a reference, they were existences on the same level as ordinary human beings.

　Neither did their physical strength surpass their muscle strength, nor did they have any special skills.

　The stratum control value of the second stratum was 10.

　The kinds of monsters spanning from level 1 through 10 were mostly goblins just as in the first stratum.

　However, even if they possessed the same appearances, their physical strength surpassed their muscle strength, and the kinds capable of using special skills also began to appear.

　The stratum control value of the third stratum was 20.

　The level sash of the monsters rose from 10 to 20, and even if they were similarly goblins, they now possessed power beyond what ordinary humans could handle.

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