Volume 2 Chapter 6 (1/2)

Even in the middle of the night, the strange heat and activity were obvious from the outside.

The special stage this time was a stadium outside the train station shopping area of the harbor sightseeing district.

The elliptical wall surrounding the entire stadium had more than 20 gates, but I wasn't led to any one of them. I used a staff entrance.

The stadium could hold more than 4 million people.

And that meant this Colosseum had the audience, popularity, fame, and recognition to fill those seats.

Instead of the stands up above, we were in a s.p.a.ce that seemed half underground. We left the rarely-seen pitching practice s.p.a.ce and continued into the team locker room.

Lockers lined the walls and a bench ran down the center.

Itou Helen was waiting in her witch outfit and with her gla.s.s wand.

”Itou-san.”

”…Senpai.”

I doubted it was just the cheap fluorescent lights making her face look so pale. I didn't even need to see the cold sweat on her small forehead to tell that. Shedding her skin was not enough. The damage in the 2nd round had reached the core of her body and it had stuck with her.

”It'll be over soon,” I said.

I sensed that I needed more words to encourage her.

”I've found the Bright Cross's Achilles' heel. I can manage with about another day. They're done for if we can get through the 3rd round. So, Itou-san, be honest with me. …How bad are your injuries?”

”I'm fine. I-…”

I didn't let her finish.

Without warning, I lightly touched her side through the cape wrapped around her body. That was where Hanesaki Minori had beaten her so harshly the night before.

The touch was as light as the stroke of a feather.

But Itou Helen's shoulders reacted by dramatically hopping upwards.

”Ah, ghhh!?”

”…I knew it.”

I did my best to keep the emotion from my face as I spoke slowly.

”That must hurt a lot. Is this…broken?”

”…I-it's better than it could be. The ribs are at least properly connected.”

The small animal of a blonde girl tearfully answered me while trembling.

So was it like the grooves in a chocolate bar? They were connected, but it wasn't perfect, so even the slightest shock would cause them to break.

”Does anything else in particular hurt?”

”Not really…”

”If you won't tell me, I'll touch all over your body to find the answer.”

”O-okyay! I'll tell you!!”

Itou Helen blushed, rubbed her risqué bare legs together, and trembled as she counted off each injured place with her slender fingers.

There were a lot of them.

In fact, her red-manicured fingers weren't enough. Apparently blocking two metal clubs barehanded was too much even for a witch.

And when her life was on the line, the dark elf's team would of course have checked over the recorded footage again and again.

…As would the simulator of the malicious Bright Cross.

”Maxwell.”

”Sure. Without accurate equipment, I can only base this on her self-a.n.a.lysis, but Itou Helen can likely only produce 65% of her physical ability.”

The number might not mean much to you, but that meant she had been weakened to the point that running full speed would not look at all like full speed. If she grappled with someone and rolled along the floor, she might just collapse from within.

”So I guess we can't let her get close to Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf.”

”Sure. Also, her opponent will likely actively target the injured areas. But if we know that in advance, we can take advantage of it.”

”Oh, I get it. If she puts a poison stinger there…”

Of course, it would be best not to take any more damage to those injured areas. But if that was not an option, we would need to knock out our opponent as quickly as possible. And if the other side learned about the poison stingers, she might hesitate to attack.

The blue bunny girl's voice rang from the speaker on the wall.

”Pin pon pon poooon! Okay, okay. All related individuals, please hurry to the special stage. Let's go all out and provide the hottest form of entertainment around!!”

”…This isn't going to be an easy battle,” I honestly admitted. ”But if they set up this ridiculous situation, it means they're panicking. Freedom is within reach. The Bright Cross are the ones in a bind here. So let's overcome this 3rd round.”

”Right. If you say so, Senpai.”

An official guided us down a long, long pa.s.sageway.

Our information on the dark elf felt inadequate because I had been so focused on the supercomputer. And unlike vampires or zombies, the amount of texts on them seemed minimal. The only clues the Cla.s.s Rep had given me were elflock and elfshot.

Tying up a person's hair or a horse's mane.

Wielding an invisible flint arrow or fire iron to cause mysterious, intense pain.

”Is that so…?”

The blonde girl in a witch's hat sounded impressed, but to be honest, this power would not have seemed very frightening had Itou Helen been healthy. A potion that remade humans into monsters seemed much more flashy and frightening.

The lingering damage was the worst part by far.

The Five Battles Precipice. The demon of statistics. The Bright Cross simulator that had designed that weighed on me like a heavy shadow.

Then we arrived at the stadium's entrance gate.

We had yet to enter, but the loud cheering reached us as a vibration. The blue bunny girl was probably getting the crowd worked up with her mic performance. I could tell the vibration was irregularly rising and falling like a wave.

”Let's get started.”

”Yes. Let's do this, Senpai.”

We faced h.e.l.l together.

The Colosseum's 3rd round, the fight to the death with Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf, was finally beginning.

”Ladies and gentlemen! If you look in this corner, you'll see Itou Helen the Witch who is our repeating champion in the Colosseum! What ever happened to that adorable girly face when she started!? Now all I see is a man-eating witch! I hope you're all ready to fill your wallets tonight as well!”

The light was dreadfully bright and the deluge of sound shook my entire body. The blue bunny girl stood atop the giant die-shaped bug cage in the center of the field and she held a mic to her hot mouth to increase the madness of the audience.

I glanced over at Itou Helen.

She pulled her feathered witch's hat deep over her eyes to hide her expression. This was not something she could ever get used to. I could tell her small heart was close to being crushed by the malicious announcer and the unquestioning pa.s.sionate cheers of the audience.

”And in this corner we have Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf! Will this unknown newcomer become a dark horse? You never know what's going to happen in the world of gambling! Simply believing in the odds is a good way of going broke. But either way, let's see what happens!”

The concentrated fire of the bright spotlights revealed a small but slender girl. She had brown skin that looked well-tanned and long, silver hair. She wore a thin, white sleeveless blouse and a tight skirt. The fabric must have been really thin because the brown of her skin showed through the white in places. For shoes, she wore long boots that rose past her knees. …And her ears were as pointy as you would expect. She must have been able to move them at will because they would sometimes shake and point this way and that like a cat's.

She carried a quiver at her hip and her left hand held a composite longbow that looked like a combination of wood and animal tendons.

So they weren't even bothering to hide their weapon this time.

But what was this? The quiver didn't have any of the crucial arrows inside?

The second was a plump middle-aged man who looked twice her age. I was hardly one to talk, but I had trouble telling what their connection was. But if he had made an enemy of the world to stick with the dark elf for this long, he couldn't be a bad person. They looked nothing alike, but it was possible he was her father or another relative.

”By the way, you outdid us again last time, so we'll be updating our method for confirming the Archenemy's death.”

…Not again.

”From now on, the Archenemy in question will be covered in gasoline and set alight. The corpse might be a little grotesque when you take it with you, but you don't mind, do you? It's just a corpse, after all!”

I didn't have the right to object either way. We would have to find a way to take advantage of that condition to overcome it.

But why?

They could always forbid all tricks or simply strip us of the right to take the corpse with us. Why did they leave any possibility at all? Of course, I wasn't about to ask that because I didn't want those big, round eyes to light up as she said, ”Nice idea! Then we'll do that!”

Or were they leaving a glimpse of possibility so we would go for it and get more badly injured?

”Senpai, in that case…”

”Yeah. Let's overcome it this time too.”

I handed her the small earpiece and watched the small witch walk forward with cape fluttering behind her.

The brown-skinned Archenemy also quietly entered the bug cage.

It bothered me that the middle-aged second was holding a hand to one ear.

…An earpiece?

The fighter was one thing, but the second shouldn't need one. And he didn't seem used to it, so had the Bright Cross given it to him? A connection to the people running the game was hardly fair, but lives were on the line. I wasn't confident I could have resisted the temptation had I been in his shoes.

”Warning: I have detected a cyber attack on your smartphone and am just barely holding it back.”

”Already? Maxwell, how long can you last?”

”It is hard to say. In addition to the simple difference in specs, the device cannot be entirely isolated because the line between the smartphone and me and the connection to Itou Helen's earpiece must remain intact.”

”Put a pi trap in the blank s.p.a.ce of the packets. Make it so an attempt at a.n.a.lysis will get them stuck in an infinite calculation.”

”Sure. Although this will have little effect if the Bright Cross machine is capable of logical thought and not just simple calculations.”

Inside the bug cage, Itou Helen and Muramatsu Yukie faced each other from a distance of a few meters.

The blue bunny girl placed a hand on her skinny waist, peered down at the living sacrifices from atop the bug cage, and made an announcement through the mic.

”Now, let's get this night started! Who will win: the witch or the dark elf!? The Colosseum's 3rd round, a death match with no time limit, begins now!!”

A low and deep buzzer sounded like when a cell door opened in a prison.

The first to move was Muramatsu Yukie.

She took a few steps back and did not hesitate to draw the bowstring. All of her muscles tensed and her slender chest bent slightly back.

But she didn't seem to have an arrow nocked…?

It was almost like she was pantomiming, but we did not have time to wait around. Itou Helen's gla.s.s wand was not a cane that an old person used to take a walk. It was possible that bow was in its completed form. It could be an occult weapon that borrowed some cruel power for the dark elf.

And only one thing came to mind:

”The flint arrow! Elfshot!”

Firing an invisible arrow caused intense pain of unknown cause in whoever it hit.

It could split the skin, paralyze the entire body, or create bruises where you don't remember hitting anything.

”Maxwell, make ballistic predictions! For both straight lines and curves!”

”Sure. The arrow cannot be visually confirmed, but its size can be calculated from how far back the bowstring is drawn. There are 5 patterns in all. I have discovered a safe spot that dodges all patterns. I will display it on the screen footage.”

”Itou-sa-…!”

I trailed off as I shouted her name.

Itou Helen tried to cautiously move back, but then she tripped.

It was obvious what had happened.

The straps of her shoes had gotten tangled together like unmanaged cables. It was almost like a small child's prank. But a skill that prevented anyone from escaping was too perfect a combination with a projectile weapon!!

”Elflock!? Dammit!!”

It didn't matter how much we predicted if Itou Helen couldn't move.

Then something tore through the air.

The reverberating roar sounded like a giant balloon had been pierced by a sharp needle.

The blonde girl's small body arched backwards like a bow. While lying on her back, her body rose more than 20cm from the floor.

What…was that?

Not even kicking her in her wounds would cause that dramatic a reaction!

As I watched Itou Helen crash back to the floor, scream, and writhe around so intensely I thought she was going to tear her dress, Maxwell gave a warning.

”Itou Helen is showing a certain pattern to her movements. She appears to be s.h.i.+fting her body weight to protect her right side.”

”Oh, no…”

If we could tell that, so could the dark elf's side via the Bright Cross's simulator. They would focus their attacks there!

For a brief moment, brown-skinned Muramatsu Yukie came to a stop, spread her legs despite her tight skirt to firmly plant her feet on the floor, and adjusted her grip on the bow. But we could not make good use of that opportunity. Once again, she drew the bowstring without nocking an arrow and took accurate aim.

This was the elfshot that used a flint arrow.

There was no visible blood, but it had to provide an impact even greater than a stun gun. This was a horrible matchup for Itou Helen who was fighting while hiding her injury.

”Maxwell, it doesn't matter if we can see the arrow or not! Find every possible ballistic path Muramatsu Yukie can use from here. Then search for a nearby safe zone Itou Helen can roll to in order to avoid them all!”

”Sure. I will provide the coordinates.”

We supposedly had an accurate evasion spot.

I supposedly pa.s.sed that onto Itou Helen.

The witch supposedly worked hard to do as told.

And yet.

The nightmarish sound rang out once more. Itou Helen's body rolled over, her back arched, and her mouth opened beyond the limit as she screamed. Her risqué bare legs thrashed wildly around.

”What happened, Maxwell!?”

”No. My ballistic calculations were certain and Itou Helen moved as instructed. If she was still hit, then the initial conditions were wrong. Is your opponent using a magic arrow that can turn at right angles?”

If so, there was nothing we could do. She was already using invisible arrows, but did this mean they could unpredictably turn any which way as they pursued Itou Helen? There was no way we could beat that!

Meanwhile, the dark elf with long, silver hair maintained her stance even in her superior position. She kept her distance, spread her legs, and drew the bowstring. There still was no arrow. No, I just couldn't see it. All I could do was glare resentfully inside the bug cage.

But, no, wait…

”Maxwell, have you recorded all of Muramatsu Yukie's actions so far? Rea.n.a.lyze her actions up until she draws the bow. We don't have time, so hurry!”

”Sure. If you have time for meaningless demands, then please provide more precise instructions.”

”She must be nocking invisible arrows. But where is she carrying them? There's nothing inside that thing that looks like a quiver. She also doesn't reach toward her hips or back. The dark elf just reaches for the bow. She ignores the part where she grabs an arrow and pulls it out!”

I had no proof of anything.

But all I could do now was look into any theory I had.

”Perhaps drawing the magic bow causes an unlimited supply of magic arrows to appear,” suggested Maxwell.

”Perhaps. But isn't there another possibility? Muramatsu Yukie isn't pulling an arrow out of anywhere. In fact, there might not be an invisible arrow at all.”

My chat with the Cla.s.s Rep replayed in the back of my mind.

English elves used invisible arrows made of flint to cause mysterious pain in people. There was a wide variety of results: cutting the skin like a Kamaitachi, paralyzing the body, or mystery bruises.

But why that wide variety?

If those were just multiple results and types of damage from a single phenomenon…

”Maxwell, pay special attention to Muramatsu Yukie's bowstring and the fingers holding it. Is there some kind of liquid or powder on them?”

”Sure. Your smartphone camera is not the most reliable source of information, but I can indeed see something white on Muramatsu Yukie's fingers.”

”It could be salt or iron sand. It's probably something that conducts electricity.”

That would explain the unnatural way Itou Helen moved in response.

”The dark elf fires the fine dust she's rubbed on the bowstring and she sends electricity out over that ballistic path! That could suddenly cut the skin, paralyze your body, or create bruises from internal bleeding. It fits all of the Cla.s.s Rep's info. It was an electric shock! That's why your ballistic predictions failed! Recalculate it using a powder and a high-voltage current!!”

The exact voltage and amperage were unknown, but a high-voltage current would cause irregular movement of the organs and muscles. That was obvious from the fact that they were used in medical AEDs. And AEDs would warn you not to use them if you suspected the patient had damage to their sternum. At this rate, Itou Helen's involuntary movements could harm her organs with her own ribs!

”Itou-san! Can you fight back as a jellyfish like we discussed!?”

”Kh.”