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High School Hack and Slash Chapter 172 Part 3

「UmM, Touma-kUn?」

Kotarou-kun calls me with a pleasant accent.

*Creak creak creak* Like a tin toy that has run out of oil, he turns around, twisting his head.

「Now, let’s do some leveling.」

In front of us is a huge body, nearly three meters tall.

The name is『Man Oni』, with no inherent name.

Of all the onis that spring up on Onigashima, they’re probably the lowest-ranked small fry.

When they go one step higher and become『General Oni』, they’ll have what appear to be name attached to them.

Incidentally, all of the Null MOBs that spring up in this other world seem to have horns.

The same is true for fishes and birds, and rabbits with horns are also cute.

For some reason they attacked me, though, so I turned them into ingredients.

For Null Mobs, which are supposed to be harmless, to be aggressive here, this raid seems to be special in a lot of ways.

Well, let’s take advantage of this specialness and fulfill Kotarou-kun’s wish.

「Gaaaah!」

「Hmph!」

I intercept the swung down club with my fist and crush it.

Following that, I shatter the right ankle with a low kick and drive a Hiji Uchi (elbow strike) into the left knee.

His SP armor is New World class, but he’s lacking in both speed and technique.

He’s like an ogre or cyclops that’s grown a little tougher.

No, with how he’s looking down on us, he’s inferior to even the monsters from the normal dungeon.

Grabbing the horns of the man oni that raises an earth tremor as he collapses to the ground, I look into his face.

「… Ah. Is it because they can return from death?」

As expected, I think it is harmful to make a tactic based on returning from death.

Since he lacks in desperation, I guess he ends up letting his guard down.

*Creak creak* The horns creak, but it seems that the neck will get torn off before the horns break.

It seems that the horns are not their weak point.

He’s looking at me with shrinking, frightened eyes, but this part, too, is different from ordinary monsters.

Ah, no, maybe being looked at with frightened eyes is not at all unusual, but….

Let’s not worry about it.

「Now.」

「Hiii!」

「Don’t hiii me.」

It brings back the memory from when I leveled the Senpais.

When it comes to this kind of thing, it’s always faster to make them cross the line, even if you have to do it by force.

The point is to get used to it.

Dragging the jelly-legged Kotarou-kun over, I hand him a short katana that cuts very well.

It’s a kodachi made from the material of『Moby Dick』, the raid boss we defeated before.

It’s the sibling katana of Saki’s Wakizashi『White Beard Cutter』.

It has no name attached to it, but I use it as a kitchen knife.

「Now.」

「A, ahi, i, impossible.」

「Now.」

「Hii, nooo!」

Mm, it’s a short katana that cuts well.

The man oni that Kotarou has slit in the throat is reduced to miasma and vanishes.

It’s the same as when we knock down monsters in the normal dungeon.

And then, Kotarou-kun’s level has also increased.

In a normal other world (raid), you do not gain experience points 【EXP】 even if you defeat the monsters inside.

It being distributed to all participants with a bang once you conquer the raid is the common practice.

However, things are a little different on this Onigashima.

I had expected as much after hearing that they were an immortal oni army, but it seems I was right.

Although the mechanism is unknown, it seems that the onis of Onigashima are also equipped with the same undead system as those of Rashomon.

And then, that system replicates the normal dungeon level-up system.

Is this that?

I guess the same kind of EXP scramble occurs when we, the student side, are defeated by monsters.

Not only in Onigashima, but also in the normal dungeon.

I couldn’t care less about the system whatnot, but it’s just right for Kotarou-kun’s training.

If he earns EXP, he can level up, and having a class change will also be possible.

「What’s wrong, get up.」

「… Ah, ah, why do I, have to do this kind of thing?」

Stunned, Kotarou-kun’s face turns pale.

He sinks down to the floor, still clutching the kodachi.

With no splattering fresh blood, no sticking pieces of flesh, and a gentle aftermath, I’ve set it in beginner mode.

「If you want to save your friend, get up.」

「It’s, i, impossible for me.」

「I don’t care if it’s impossible or a lie, get up.」

Even I myself think I’m saying unreasonable things here.

This is just like the final push (hang in there call) in muscle training.

In order to put a high load on the『character』 known as Kotarou-kun, let’s harden our heart and play the role of a trainer here.

「What’s the matter, are you giving up already? Don’t you want to help your friend with your own hands?」

「N, no, from the very beginning, I’ve wanted you to save her.」

So it begins.

When a person’s heart is about to break, they start looking for an escape route to justify themselves.

They fool themselves by saying that they will try harder tomorrow, that they weren’t cut out for this, that it was sour grapes, and so on.

Therefore, it’s important to have a pusher and objective advice.

「True enough, if it is a girl who is snatched, it’s only natural that she’ll be taken away and eaten. Since ancient times, the purpose of snatching women in war has been a given. I bet she’ll be used as a plaything as well as tool to bear their children.」

「Ah, aaah.」

Kotarou-kun, who is holding his head, lets out a groan.

「Or perhaps, the snatched girl, too, would eventually accept her circumstances. I bet your other friends won’t blame you either. They may even comfort you, saying that it was inevitable. However, the only one who can decide whether to accept it as okay or not is you yourself.」

As I thought, I’m not good at long sentences.

I’m losing more and more track of what I’m saying myself.

「Whether to close your eyes and ears and cower in the bog-like darkness. Or to reach out to something you can’t reach even if you have to shit and piss your pants all the while… Do choose for yourself.」

Kotarou, holding his mouth with his hand and looking as if he would vomit at any given moment, stands up.

He’s shivering like a newborn goatling, but….

This is how a boy should be.

「Are you sure about it?」

The place where Kotarou-kun and the others were confined seems to be a town of onis, which should also be called a fortress.

He seems to have made full use of his skills as he ran from one place to another to escape, but he said that there were man onis wandering around in the forest and also a village that looked like a settlement.

From the onis’ point of view, we are invaders.

It has a different nature from the usual raid quests.

It’s not a monster extermination, but an anti-personnel war (war conquest).

「L, let’s go. I’m a liar, an otaku, and no more than a fake, but I, I have to go.」

「Fake, huh.」

「Isn’t, that so? Even you, Touma-kun, must have never expected me, to be such a pathetic guy, I bet. I’m just a pretender, a fake….」

His crooked, mud-covered smile is twitching.

「It doesn’t matter whether it’s fake or real, no?」

All that’s visible to the others is always your outward appearances.

Whether it’s fake or real, it doesn’t really matter to others.

The figure I see is the real him.

Getting weak on the knees, pissing his pants, and even miserably going down into a dogeza as he pleaded with me to save his friend.

Even if he tells me that he’s a fake after showing me those figures, as if I’d be able to believe it.

「The me I show you is the real me….」

Kotarou-kun, staring at his own palm, starts mumbling and chanting something.

I wonder if I’ve pushed him a little too hard.

Opening his eyes wide, *smack smack* he begins to engage in a self-face-slapping.

*Scrape scrape* Just when I thought he’s scratching off his head, he sweeps back his hair with his mud-covered hands.

「… Phew. Looks like I’ve ended up showing my shameful appearance to you. Now, let’s go. G, guiding you will be my job.」

「Yeah. Leave the path-clearing to me.」

As miserable as it may be, floating on his twitching face is a man’s smile.