CH 160.2

Chapter 160.2: The One who He Wanted to Protect

「But… I can’t feel any presence inside. As if there’s no one inside.」

Upon hearing Mei-chan mutter so, I guessed that someone might have been living on this floor, but Hinagiku-san was definitely in another room. Or else, she might’ve some sort of skill which hides her presence from us. Depending on her ability, it wasn’t impossible to achieve at least that much.

「Let’s go looking for her carefully, she might be aiming for the moment of our carelessness.」

「Yeah.」

I summoned more skeletons in order to cope with any kind of situation that might happen and started looking for her but――Our search ended as soon as we started.

We found Hinagiku Saya.

「I see… so this is the reason huh…」

She was sleeping peacefully on top of the bed which was made by Sakurai-kun. I was sure that she would sleep peacefully like this, forever.

Because I knew that Hinagiku Saya had already passed away.

「K-Kotaro-kun, this mean…」

「Looking at her current condition, it seems quite some time has passed since Hinagiku-san passed away. Her body started to show the signs of rotting. I don’t know the exact time, it might be around one or two weeks ago, but it’s definitely not more than one month ago.」

Even my untrained eyes could tell that Hinagiku Saya had already died. I didn’t even have to check her pulse and breath to confirm that fact. Her body was clean without any external wound but… her complexion was something that none other human-made except for the dead.

「Then, Sakurai-kun is…」

「Maybe, he simply couldn’t accept the fact that his girlfriend had already died.」

He had gone mad. Yeah, that was the only explanation for his behaviour.

And that explained what he did to us. I couldn’t feel a shred of hesitation in Sakurai-kun’s actions even though he had never killed a person before. He was very straightforward in threatening his own classmate to go looking for a potion to cure Hinagiku-san.

Behind that seemingly calm facade turned out to be a boundless, raging madness.

「N-No way, Sakurai-kun…」

The one who was shocked the most was Mei-chan, the one to personally killed Sakurai-kun.

If only… if only Sakurai-kun had accepted Hinagiku-san’s death, we… might be able to work together with him.

But reality wasn’t that sweet. Sakurai-kun had no choice but to keep doing what he did, even if it meant risking his own life.

Surely, that was just how much Hinagiku-san meant to him, she was his entire world.

「Kotaro-kun. Let’s bury them together.」

""

「Yeah. That’s the least we can do for them――」

But as a shaman, all I could do for these two was mourn, I won’t let myself feel any sort of sentiment towards them.

Sakurai Touya was a formidable enemy who stood in our way. When you killed such a formidable enemy, it was only natural for you to loot them, no matter how insignificant the value of the loot.

I will mourn you guys, but I still have to go on living after this.

「That’s why I’ll only take your head as loot.」

『Archer’s Skull』：The skull of someone with 『Archer』 vocation.

『Shaman’s Skull』：The skull of someone with 『Shaman』 vocation.

Though I gained two new additional skulls for 『Fool’s Cane』 after summoner’s skull, I honestly wasn’t delighted.

I asked Rem I to behead Hinagiku-san. As expected, I couldn’t bring myself to ask Mei-chan to do this kind of a dirty job for me after she’d beheaded Sakurai-kun. If possible, I wanted to behead Hinagiku-san with my own hands, but my weak strength made it impossible for me to do that.

And then, I used 『Witch’s Kettle』 to bake the two, newly gained severed heads. Baking was the best method to peel off the skin tendon, muscle, and organs from their skull after all.

As a side note, we also cremated their corpses. I made a fairly huge kettle beside the building and cremated their corpses in it. And filling up the kettle with soil just like that for their grave. A multi-purpose crematorium and graveyard.

The reason why I cremated them like this was just in case, to prevent them from becoming undead. Sentiment or not, I really didn’t want to fight them again even if they became undead, this battle alone had left a bitter taste in my mouth.

They might have died due to my plot, but I wanted to at least honor their deaths. At least, I hope they’d enter paradise together, a place that would probably reject me.

「… Haah.」

I heaved a deep sigh. The classmate I killed today wasn’t the kind of hateful person that I wanted to kill from the bottom of my heart, it simply happened because we had no choice but to do that. And lastly, I felt really guilty for burdening Mei-chan with the crime of killing our own classmate.

But then, we really had no choice but to do this. Even if I couldn’t do anything about this situation, we cannot move forward unless we do this.

I inserted the still lukewarm Sakurai-kun’s skull, the 『Archer’s Skull』 into the eagle claws part of the fool’s cane.

『Presence Detection』：Your sense became sharper to detect the presence of your enemy.

『Presence Isolation』：Surpress your presence, become one with shadow so that you can move stealthily.

『Eagle Eye』：Eagle-like eyes, you can see something far away accurately.

Even though he was an archer, none of his basic skills were related to bow or arrow such as drill shots. Or else, my earlier assumption that the 『Fool’s Cane』 bestowed basic skills for the vocation was actually wrong, it might be actually selecting skills that suit its user. It prefers practicality since an archer’s martial arts are literally useless in my hand since I need to use both hands to execute archer’s martial arts. Archer’s martial arts were useless since I’d have to hold the cane in my hand when using the archer’s skill.

「But these skills were really useful.」

Rather than an archer, these skills were more suited for an assassin. And those martial arts skills might hardly show their effect in my hand, a shaman.

And I was particularly grateful to the 『Presence Isolation』 skill which helped me hide my presence. In addition, the 『Eagle Eye』 skill was also useful when looking at the situation in the field from a faraway place, it replaced the need for binoculars.

As for 『Presence Detection』, well since Mei-chan possessed sharp intuition and Rem could detect the enemy’s presence for me, this skill must lay low for the time being. However, there’s nothing wrong with having too many skills. I mean, in case I’m joining the battle, I, the rear guard would be vulnerable to the ambush of the enemy’s reinforcement when Mei-chan, the vanguard, was busy dealing with the enemy in front of us. But this skill allowed me to maintain vigilance against ambush.

Well then, next was a surprisingly plain and boring skill from Hinagiku-san’s 『Shaman’s Skull』.

「Never expected that there’ll be another 『Shaman』…」

Maybe she also received every single one of her skills from Ruinhilde-sama after undergoing all kinds of gruesome methods. I checked the abilities with half-anxiety and half-expectation for the power that resided in Hinagiku-san’s skull.

『Poison』：Makes someone fall into a disorderly state with the power of poison.

『Enchant』：Now you can add an effect of magic into materials.

『Simple Alchemy Formation』：Enable the most basic alchemy such as Comprehension and clarification. Disassembly and reconstruction.

「… Ooh?」

What the… The lineup of her skills was completely different from mine. Rather, the naming of her skill was completely normal like other spellcasters that I met before, yeah, unlike my wacky-sounding skill. Is this really the same shaman skill granted by Ruinhilde-sama?

「Could it be that even with the same vocation, there’s a possibility that it comes from a different god?」

Previously, I’d imagined a game-like setting that one vocation definitely came from one god but… now that I think about it more carefully, if the number of gods in this world is only as much as the number of vocations, it means that this world wasn’t created by a single god, this world was definitely created by many gods.

I mean, even if you lined up two warriors, you would find that they might use completely different weapons, they might use a one-handed sword, two-handed sword, dual wield, knives, halberd, etc.

Even in the matter of vocation, Kenzaki Asuna’s 『Twin Swordsman』 or Yamada’s 『Heavy Warrior』 must belong to a superior category. In short, even the God of vocation who used the sword as their weapon was divided into 『Swordsman』 and 『Twin Swordsman』.

That’s why the number of gods wasn’t equal to the number of vocations, there’s a high possibility that several gods might bestow the same vocation.

「I see, maybe Ruinhilde-sama is actually the minor existence amongst the God of curse.」