Chapter 3 (1/2)

“Aya-chan~~ I don’t want to do this anymore!”

It was difficult to breath with the stench of death around us

Crying on the ground in front of irl with blood all over her sailor uniform

Her face was splattered with blood and her glasses were cracked The schoolgirl covered in blood hugged the lifeless body of her friend as alive justout her name

And in moments, it turned into a futile scream

It was like the end of the world I averted uished voice irl with brown hair was probably Matou Aya

Maybe she went forward to try to protect her friends But she took a direct hit from an arrow to her chest I was close by her, so I could al

The brown haired girl who had a large arrow pierced through her cheek breathed h a flute, but died soon after In situations like this, good people who try to save others seem to die first

It may have been lucky that she didn’t die instantaneously after the arrow pierced her chesthead, but if there was no way to save her, she ht as well have died immediately For us, who didn’t have any doctors or medical supplies, there was no way to save the people ere heavily injured

I had a scary thought that maybe Sakamoto Ryouma, who died from a cut to the head, felt this way as well If a pink mixture of brain and blood came out, there was no hope for survival

I never expected to see such sad sights unfold right in front of ht in front ofmyself and them from somewhere far away

Everything looked like someone else’s probleood at all Wake up You’re going to get dissociative disorder if you go on like this

Even a bystander liketo avoid reality I suppose a half-crazed and crying girl with dishevelled hair who had just lost a friend couldn’t help it either

No, I had acted coldly froet involved with them Unlike them, I chose not to be friendly to anyone because I knew that there would be sacrifices in the future

Just trying to survive was a chore

I couldn’t afford to think about others either

But this group’s leader, Nanashi+ Shuichi’s charisedies like these He walked over to us, took off his uniform jacket and covered Aya’s corpse with it

He pulled the blood spattered friend of that girl away froed the despairing girl and squeezed out his voice

“Sashi+ki Ena-san, everybody here is feeling the loss as well, but, you need to keepforward and survive Live to the fullest for Matou Aya-san, who died protecting you Let’s go forward together and we’ll soon reach a safe place We can’t give up!”

Nanairl who had just lost her friend to not lose hope and keep going forward I could al hi!” while at the sa Ena’s hands

Sashi+ki Ena, as filled with despair just ement, and just like Nanami said, tried to walk forward

What kind ofNanaerous as well In my mind, I just said ‘what a load of shi+t’

It was hard for soet swept up in anything, but I suppose it was too irl who just lost her friend in ato what Nanami said

On Nanami Shuichi’s words alone, 60 out of 180 students voluntarily joined this extreroup This was an extreirls who nor like this were mixed in

They say people show their true colours in tiether was beyond words He ht as well have a special skill called “Sympathy”

Though roup, were the ones who hung around him They were called “Nanami Girls”

There were ly superior vice-president Nanaed to everyone Still, they were absorbed so deep into hiirls had auts

Excluding hly 120 students and teachers remained in the classrooms Another 60 students moved without any sense of cohesion and wandered on their own Right now, there were three groups: Nana with the teachers and those scattered on their own

The casualties of the battle group, including Matou Aya who just died, were six Furthero any further, were four Countless had minor injuries All of the students who died fro after they had stepped on a trap or roasted froirls

The ones alked at the front of the battle group were the fe If this hat the leader of battle group, Nanareat manipulator But he wasn’t the one responsible

The one who planned this was the glasses guy close to Nanauchi Tsukasa I wanted to nicknao, but he had finally shown his true colours

His coh prescription glasses with a silver fraloves which caloves were still white was evidence that he wasthe others do the dirty work

He was ranked 3rd in the first years’ curades and he was part of the Student Council’s Enforceht noas no different

He was short, and wasn’t as handso His expressions were soft and he always smiled warmly Just froular model student, but in reality he was rotten to the very core His leering was not because he was squinting due to bad eyesight, but because of his personality

To put it nicely, he was a Planner, Thinker or Strategist In reality, Jinguchi was a sucker fish that used vice-president Nanaood for himself behind Nanami’s back

The very fact he didn’t even blink despite people dying in front of him made me wonder if he wasn’t just cold but a psychopath Whoever said that in times of crisis, people show their true colour couldn’t have been ht

That scheuchi, had many bad rumours about him Some said that he cornered the student he didn’t like into expulsion, while others said that he took advantage of soirls around Nanami

There wasn’t any evidence, but there’s a saying that a chi out of it It sounded exactly like so that Jinguchi did was take in the situations around him and lick his lips

In his cold and calculating sight, there were only those ere useful to him and those eren’t There was no way I wouldthe weaker students at the front as a meatshi+eld for any traps

However, I couldn’t say anything because it wasn’t a bad decision either In eencies like this, those kind of decisions were inevitable So far, the group was fine, so I couldn’t do anything about it Looking at it positively, he was skilled in personnel atively, he was cruel

A passionate leader and scheroup, but I didn’t want to get involved in any of that

“Hey, that’s an obvious trap! Look around your feet carefully and avoid them”

“Ah! I’m sorry”

There was a feer I just couldn’t let her die and warned her So an eye on everyone, spoke tovoice

“shi+njo-kun, don’t go too far forward Your role is to stand ready for monsters”

“But this is…”

“I was entrusted with distributing the roles Are you going to be the one standing in the front instead of her?”

“Kuk…”

“Don’t o smoothly if everybody fulfills their role If you think you can give co roles”

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can do that”

I wasn’t such a generous guy as to voluntarily step into a dangerous role and step on a trap and knew I couldn’t take over in place of Jinguchi as well Whipped by his cold stare, I pleaded with the girls standing in the front with torches, ere essentially tasked with stepping on traps, to “Take a look around your feet to see if there’s so back

There wasn’t anything uchi had said, I didn’t want to risk myself for someone I didn’t even know

It see monsters at the back with Kujo kumiko and Seki, so it didn’t seem ere expendable yet I don’t think he would pay much attention to so if that sche four-eyes marked me out I decided I would lay low

Ah, damn it!

I told that girl it was dangerous, but that careless girl was i out the floor It ht not have been immediate death, but it was only a matter of time

The girl as caught by the trap was screa like blood and the contents of her sto It was dangerous to touch the blades in that trap and they were now exhausted from all of the previous traps It was clear in their eyes that they kneas too late for her even if they tried to help her

It was i you ht be next, the safety of others was already included in thought process This group’s coed their tired legs and walked forward in a search of a safe route without traps

I kept trying to convincewasn’t a bad decision Even if there were some casualties, ould all die unless we continued forward If the coo forith fewer casualties… However I didn’t have the courage to say that

In situations like this, where a single wrong step could mean death from a trap or a ether as a group was only possible due to Nanairl or boy as deeot sent forward and was killed by a booby trap, I thought it was a distasteful method, but I didn’t want to be the one who complains all the time I simply held it in

Nanauchi, as coht things for the group

Forward, let’s go forward, let’s all go forward If we stop, it was only going to get worse and the casualties would continue to increase

The only possibility was to go forward despite the dangers

Plus, if so the weak ones ere no good for co in theory either…

But the strangest thing was that those students who didn’t have an inkling of courage in their heart all went forward to die whenever Nanauchi told them to If it was me, I would have run away the moment they told me to stand at the front

Don’t they understand the danger they’re in right now? Or perhaps they truly didn’t understand That sent a chill down my back

Perhapsthe useless ones as expendables wasn’t wrong Was Jinguchi sending the ones that were clueless and would die anyways to the front on purpose? For the weak hearted students, it roup in this stressful situation

Manipulating group dynamics like this to send people to death, I could al or Pol Pot leading a group of guerillas It roup were really highschool students

They were Machiavellian and not the best, but next to the best choice Still, their method was so political, I truly despised theht, there was no way to wash this bad taste from my mouth

I probably wasn’t the only one who thought this way But there wasn’t a better alternative so far The others were probably keeping quiet because they didn’t have a better plan in their minds

“Seki, did you memorize the path we have taken and the locations of the traps?”

“Yea, I’ve remembered it all”

I walked beside Seki and confirmed with him Smartphones would be useless without electricity soon and I didn’t bring a notepad either, there was only memorization

“There’s another monster”

“I don’t want to fight anymore…”

Despite letting out a weak and tear-filled voice, Seki fought on with his knife He was ave him credit for Don’t worry, I’ll take care of your share of et my hands on a pretty useful weapon in the forfaced monster

I slashed at the pig’s shoulder and its thick veins spurted blood I slashed horizontally at the screauts spilled out and the screa orc collapsed in its own pool of blood

The pig’s blood was red, so it was hard to bear, but I delivered a blow to its head just in case Its head exploded and pink ’s blood was still better than a goblin’s sticky green blood