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Chapter 173.2: Red Sport Car
Anyhow, there was literally no need for me to prepare Rem-type mount for Mei-chan. The reason being she reacted way faster when she was on her feet than on her mount. At least, this had already been proven when she was using a fishing pole made with Arachne Rem’s thread.
Thus, I rode once again on Alfa’s back and we advanced through the ruin along the beach.
The one walking in the front was Rem-Dark Knight who had safely returned from the forest. Behind her was me who rode Alfa and Mei-chan by my side, followed by Arachne Rem as our transportation unit.
Last in line was Rem the 4th, Minotaurs.
The matter of being unable to use Dark Knight and Minotaurs didn’t mean that it was impossible to move them together, it was in the end, a matter of specs.
The abilities of Minotaurs which were made from boss materials were quite high. It was even more obvious during yesterday’s battle, thus we naturally couldn’t just abandon such precious war potential. In the end, I was just being stingy.
Because of that, we took Minotaurs along with us as Rem-Dark Knight’s spare. Anyhow, we moved forward without meeting any obstacles.
But upon a closer look, Living Armor, Red Raptor, Arachne, Minotaurs, the four of them looked like a splendid monster collection. The skeleton and high-zombie were kinda like the freebies in this kind of setup.
It wouldn’t be strange if our classmates chose to attack us first, no question asked when they saw such a lineup.
「But the place we’re going to capture today is just over there… it’s already close by, Mei-chan.」
「Uhm, understood.」
Everyone paused right at that moment. I also descended from Alfa. No, we had no plan on taking a break around this place.
「One block from here seems to be a similar resort hotel which we used as our base.」
「Shall I try to take a look?」
「Let Rem go first. We’ll only move forward after she confirms the detailed situation.」
「Kotaro-kun, are you… going to kill them?」
「That would depend on their abilities.」
Ooyama Daisuke and Sugino Takashi, I had been long looking for those two.
After we found their trace in the hotel that we used as our base, I made as many bird Rems as possible to scout their position.
My first purpose was to confirm whether Ooyama-Sugino combi was waiting nearby to ambush us during the battle against the red raptor. Though I included them in my list of hostile parties, I couldn’t let them disturb our decoy tactic. Though they had yet to notice us, we might’ve to revise the decoy tactic to avoid taking unnecessary risks.
Fortunately, Rem bird’s squad didn’t see Ooyama-Sugino nearby the red raptor’s troops.
As a result, we managed to safely turn the red raptor into my personal vehicle, but it didn’t mean that we could stop looking for Ooyama-Sugino after we defeated the red raptor. Honestly, I wanted to be spared of meeting those as*holes again right after a battle.
And now, we were moving forward to our second strategy, tracking them down… the bird we sent had just returned, meaning that she had already located our target.
「We gained a huge advantage by discovering them first. We’re gonna ambush them once we see the chance, or else, just let them be in case their strength surpasses our expectation.」
「In short, we’re going to observe their movements or spying on them, right?」
「Yup.」
What I needed the most was information.
It was obvious that the two’s combat capabilities were cut above the rest. Especially Sugino, who was endowed with real combat skills, martial arts, and tough defense of 『Heavy Warrior』 could instakill Yamada who had the same vocation. Maybe he could easily choke Mei-chan just like he did Yamada. Thus, I wanted to avoid unarmed hand-to-hand combat against him.
As for Ooyama, seeing the corpses left in the hotel, he seemed to have quite a lot of firepower. In the first place, fire element was something akin to flower of attack magic in another world. But then, seeing that there were almost no burn marks around the battlefield, I assumed that Ooyama could control his power very well.
Having extreme control over his flame magic would make him an extremely dangerous rear guard.
That was my current estimation about the two’s power, but there was a high possibility that they still had an ace-in-the-hole. Thus, I wanted to confirm their combat capabilities as much as possible by spying on them during boss battle or monster battle.
「Maybe we should let them take care of the boss in this area, and then ambush them right after the battle.」
「You don’t wish to kill them, Kotaro-kun?」
「About that… I still feel some resistance to killing someone up till now, but honestly, it isn’t convincing coming from me.」
I had killed two of my classmates, after all. Higuchi Kyouya, and Reina A Ayase. I didn’t regret my action. They were enemies, that’s why I had to kill them at all costs.
Yeah, that was the only reason I killed them, they were enemies. As for Ooyama-Sugino combi… those two did humiliate me and even robbed us of the cores that we were working so hard to gather, but if you ask me whether I really wanted to kill them, my answer is no.
I didn’t resent them for their actions. Nor did I hate them to the point that I wanted to kill them like that shitty Reina.
But still, I had a reason for wanting me to kill them. I had to remove the hostile factor preventing us from working safely as equals, in short, we either exclude them or get rid of them.
「Sorry. So you really aren’t actively seeking murder.」
Higuchi was the only one who would go as far as killing someone for his own benefit. Sorry but, I refuse to become that kind of a scumbag… was what I wanted to say, despite having such cool and prideful reason, I honestly couldn’t be proud of myself for doing this.
Let me rephrase it, murder was scary.
Nevertheless, Mei-chan and I, the two of us advancing so far into the dungeon, our progress had turned even the timid me into a cruel, killing machine.
I wouldn’t have felt anything if it was someone who I wanted to kill no matter what. But I would feel it was a waste to kill someone who I didn’t really want to kill.
「Yup, it’s okay. You’re a kind boy, after all, Kotaro-kun.」
「Only to my comrade, that’s it.」
I mean, everyone would do the same. Look, those yakuzas and Yankees were kind to their comrades and friends too, right?
「Fufufu, I know about that. That’s why I’ll do the job for you. There’s no need for you to do the dirty job, Kotaro-kun.」
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「Eer, thanks, but I’ll feel bad if I keep relying on you on that matter, Mei-chan.」
How can you puff up your che*st while saying that you’ll do the dirty job of killing people for me? But still, it sounded nice when she said it with a dead serious look on her face, I mean, the powerless me who would be killed too easily by small fries enemies got one in million chance to use a super-efficient killing machine which would turn me nearly invincible. I didn’t even have to move an inch to kill the unarmed enemy who couldn’t move on the battlefield anymore. I didn’t have to kill the enemy or land the finishing blow, all I had to do was break their limbs or immobile them. But under modern laws, leaving an enemy incapacitated in the battlefield, knowing well that such an action would kill them, was prohibited. Just like leaving a baby in the car to go to pachinko parlor would kill them.
「Then if we really have to kill those two, let’s kill them together to share the burden between us.」
Yeah, that’s much better. It’s better to be accompanied than take the burden on her own.
「I see, then, let’s keep this as a secret between the two of us.」
Ha~ha, here we go, the romantic moment was wrecked by the content of the secret that reeds with blood.
「Anyhow, it isn’t clear yet whether we’ve to kill those two or not. That’ll wait until we have all the necessary information about them.」
In the end, I decided to take action with a half-hearted resolution.
I feel like I’m a sorry excuse of a man for not being able to say「Yeah, let’s kill ’em!」 to Mei-chan even after I went this far, but I felt that this was important to prevent me from breaking down mentally.