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High School Hack and Slash Chapter 84 Part 1

Promise

　Birdsongs were reverberating between the trees.

Above all else, the sound of cicadas, pouring incessantly from the tent of the forest, echoed in the surroundings.

It was the heart of the『Iwado Woodland』.

Outside of the hunting area map described in the outdoor school guidebook.

The cornerstone of the barrier laid out in an all-encompassing encirclement.

It was the『Misogi(Self-Shaving) Cave』, which led to the『Iwato Altar』, a himorogi where they enshrined the gods.

「… The guards are, of course there, huh.」

Seiichi, who was hunkered down in the bushes, was scouting the entrance with a contractible, portable monocular telescope.

There were skills that allowed one to observe remote areas, but as they were in a dungeon domain where the other side could also use skills, physical means of observation were more difficult to be traced.

On the entrance to the cave, huge fieldstones were serving as the gate.

The structure, where three flat rocks were arranged into two pillars and a top, was clearly an artificial structure constructed by means of man’s hands.

Standing on either side of the entrance like gatekeepers were those who were older than the students, the instructors.

They were graduates of the academy and part-time personnel employed by the academy.

In other words, having reached at least the fourth step, they were the powerhouses of the highest rank in their generation.

Even if they were being careless and letting their guard down, using the girls they had casually kidnapped from the campground as their flesh onaholes to kill time, they were not opponents he could fight and defeat in a head-to-head fight.

Slowly leaving the place in a sneaking state, Seiichi converged to where his comrades were.

「Welcome back~. Seiichi, and then Pugyu.」

「Shhhh… We’re keeping a bit more distance. The guards turned out to be more skilled than I thought.」

Seiichi, still covering Mai’s mouth, urged Shizuka and moved to another place.

「Your treatment of me is so rough!」

「My bad.」

Smiling wryly, Seiichi soothed Mai, who was pouting and puffing up her cheeks.

「Then, as planned, that means we will meet up with them at the back entrance as is, right?」

「I guess there’s no other way but that. Rather than the back door, though, I get the feeling that it’s more of a hole that a certain someone had forcefully made their way through….」

With Shizuka leading the way, they made their way through the forest, taking a detour as they headed to where Touma was.

「But still, you see… Was that place just now the『Misogi Cave』 you mentioned previously?」

「I guess. Based from what I can see from the bird’s eye view map, it’s located at the center of the Iwado Woodland.」

「Considering all that, you see… How should I put it, it didn’t look very much like that, didn’t it? I don’t feel any pressure even from around here, or like, there aren’t even any monsters. In this kind of pattern, there is normally a boss or something, isn’t there?」

「It’s not a normal dungeon, but a natural dungeon, after all. Well….」

「I believe we’d better off taking it as a kind of raid domain.」

Shizuka muttered as she cut straight through the forest without hesitation.

「Most likely it’s of the『Lore (Legend)』 type. Meeting the conditions by imitating the lore, they purposely made a『Lore (Legend)』 type raid domain descend. I think that’s the case with this one.」

「Eeh~, then it’s not a natural dungeon, but a man-made dungeon, isn’t it?」

「Maybe it’s a case of which comes first between the eggs and the chickens. Either that occurred first and then they spread it as lore, or a groundless rumor spread and then they made use of that.」

Shizuka, turning around, smiled cheek to cheek.

「I don’t know which, though?」

◇ ◇ ◇

　Nowadays, I enjoy bouldering, whose name has become well known.

After climbing up, I realized that I should have taken off the Stressor Armor, but I think the moderate overload served as good weight training.

When I met the Senpai sirs at the training room, I was unable to stomach the fact that my body had been reduced into such a disgraceful body.

Thinking as such, I came to want to do another round, but I get the feeling that retorts would be awaiting both at the bottom and at the top, so I refrain myself from doing so.

I wound up talking with Spirit-san for quite a while, so I thought they might be asleep, but they were all waiting for me.

After calming down, I got in touch with Shizuka again and asked her to make arrangements for us to meet up.

Apparently, it doesn’t seem to be a quest that I can clear on my own.

The help of Seiichi and the others, as well as these girls, is necessary.

The next morning, after doing a night bouldering training with the quartet, I cleanse myself in the barrel bath, having a mysterious maid replenish the hot water.

The mysterious maid is a Boing-chan that Yuki-chan had apparently scouted out as she no longer had a place to go back to.

She’s a face I’ve seen somewhere before, but according to Yuki-chan, she seems to be harmless since she’s completely lost her authority.

We’re talking about the sport-minded Yuki-chan here, so the discipline must have been strict in a lot of ways.

It’s just that, she seems to be traumatized to the level that when she sees my face, she becomes jelly-legged as she shivers royally and ends up becoming incontinent, so I try not to pull her out carelessly.

「Ah! So you’ve got a bath here. Don’t mind me using it too.」

Just as we meet up.

Mai, who has rushed at the barrel bath without even a word of greeting, readily strips naked and plops into it.

I think she should read the air a little more.

「’Sup… Rather, while it’s just a usual matter when it comes to you, what manner of mess are you getting into?」

「There are various circumstances behind it.」

As I exchange high-fives with Seiichi, who floats a bitter smile, rustling presences are moving behind me.

「H, he’s really come….」

「The genuine, total uke bitch character….」

「N, no. Toma-sama, you mustn’t be fooled….」

「Hmm, as expected, even in real life, I still prefer Toma-sama….」

Perhaps ending up feeling chilly after taking a bath, I feel a strange chill.

「Say, I’m getting chills up my ass, though.」

I’m troubled on how I should introduce the quartet, who are screaming「NOOO!」

「Touma-san. Let me.」

「I’m leaving it to you.」

Good graciousness, Shizuka-san is totally dependable.

Somehow or other, like pouring gasoline on a campfire, it’s not that I don’t feel like I mustn’t do it, but I have no choice but to leave it to her here.

「… So, what kind of situation have you gotten into? Shizuka told me to ask you directly, though.」

「Yeah. Well, feel free to calm down and listen to what I’m about to say.」

She asked me not to tell Seiichi.

It’s a temporary base, but let’s have a talk over a cup of tea.

◇ ◇ ◇

「In other words, what being sealed in the『Misogi Cave』 is a stall spirit… That means there’s a dungeon『Shop』 there, huh!」

Seiichi, who was half-rising to his feet and was about to stand up, was nodded to by Touma, who snapped a dead branch.

A slightly charred kettle was whistling, spewing out steam in the campfire where he threw the branch into.

With a towel wrapped around the handle, he slowly tilted the kettle to the drip bag coffee placed on top of the mug.

Although not freshly ground, the aroma of the beans spread out, different from that of instant coffee.

Seiichi, accepting the offered mug, scratched his head and sat down.

「My bad. So that’s what you meant by calm down, huh ….」

「No. I also have some idea of your circumstances.」

Touma, pouring some coffee into his own cup as well, put down the kettle.

「Turns out they’ve been hiding such a thing, huh, this academy, I mean.」

It was said that『Shop』 that frequently appeared in the dungeon allowed you to purchase all kinds of things in exchange for something of equal value.

And, that was not an incorrect cognition.

It was part of the dungeon system that embodied the concept of trade contract.

It was a stage setting terminal that possessed the authority to access『LIBRARY (Akashic Code)』 and rewrite the world.

More or less, as long as you desired it, you could『trade』 all sorts of desires.

If you could prove something of equal value, that was it.

「Just how in the world do they seal such a thing…?」

「I don’t know. But it’s said that as an anti-god barrier, it has a frighteningly high degree of perfection. I don’t know what that means, but it seems that even if I were to get into it, I won’t be able to destroy it from the inside.」

「Then that’s seriously sick, huh.」

The advantage of being able to keep a Shop, which wandered through the vast dungeon and was difficult to even encounter, in the same place was immeasurable.

It was an all-purpose exchange counter where you could convert all sorts of objects into value.

Even the ability to trade precious metals such as gold and platinum alone posed enough risk to end up destroying the world economy.

「True enough, as far as the academy is concerned, I guess this one is an S class confidential information. Just how long they’ve been hiding it, I wonder.」

「It seems that Spirit-san doesn’t know either. It’s just that, it’s said that it was about 100 years ago when a large number of people started coming there.」

A railroad was built and a large-scale development project was planned for the surrounding area, but it was falling through amidst the postwar turmoil.

Moreover, at that time, the area, which had been dungeonized due to the influence of the miasma attracted by the sealing god’s barrier, had turned into a den of iniquity full of monsters.

Currently, as they periodically sent in sacrifices and performed a ground-clearing ceremony, the miasma concentration in the surrounding was decreasing.

「You mean they are collecting crystals and items produced from the dungeon from us students and making a killing on their own, huh.」

「No, not exactly.」

It was not used in such a mundane manner.

It was used for more vulgar purposes.

「It seems that they come there to buy Elixir, or rejuvenating water (Amrita).」

「… The Elders, huh.」

*Crack* The mug in Seiichi’s hand creaked.