Chapter 83

Chapter 83 \n\nFirst, I needed to hold him in place. I cast a full chant, full power Blackhair Bind, and manifested it from within Higuchi’s own shadow as he was walking away with his back to me.

The reason I didn’t use Redhair Twine was because that Curse needed my blood to function, and I’d need to at least raise my arms to shoot the red, acidic wires at him. So instead, I figured that with Blackhair, I could be attacking from closer, ergo faster, coming from right under his feet, in addition to having a guaranteed element of surprise.

 

“Uoh!?”

 

Got him!

The worst case scenario, where Higuchi’s intuition would sense my attack coming and thereby dodge the close range tentacles, didn’t happen.

The nimble Blackhair tentacle quickly wrapped itself around Higuchi’s ankles, winding up to his waist so fast that it looked like he was being swallowed whole. His arms had been in his trouser pockets so the tentacle was able to wind around his whole body in a way that made him completely immobile.

The thinning tip of the tentacle spiraled up still more, now squeezing around his throat as if resonating with my antipathy towards him. But I wasn’t about to waste precious time strangling him.

 

“Go!!”

 

I commanded as I let go of my spear, in its place, unsheathing the Red Knife and a normal one and launching them straight at Higuchi. I had of course, attached the duo of knives to a pair of Blackhair tentacles, making my chance of landing both hits on him, practically 100%. Higuchi was currently standing stalk still like a scarecrow in an open field. He was a target I couldn’t possibly miss.

As I’d commanded them, Rem and #2 were also charging at my restrained prey, holding their respective weapons.

My dual knife strikes in addition to flanking attacks from both Rem and #2 should leave Higuchi in dire straights no matter how superhuman his current strength was. But even if all that still can’t put him down, I only need to repeatedly stab him until he breathes his last.

 

“Die!! Higuchiiiiii!!!”

“― ― Wow, takin’ big risks there, Momokawa.”

 

I felt my knives strike only air. Why, how come I missed?

No, more importantly, why wasn’t Higuchi there anymore?

 

“And here I thought Thru Bind was gonna be useless. Hehe, the God of Thieves really knows his stuff.”

 

Thru Bind. Dammit, that’s right, Higuchi had actually escaped through my Blackhair Bind, effortlessly even.

The sheer speed with which he performed this feat was so fast it was practically magic. Even though I’d bound him up so completely, I couldn’t even register him escaping.

And my knives that were dead set on gutting Higuchi only moments before, were now stabbing the space he was supposed to be, but in fact, wasn’t. Even the Blackhair tentacles that had been binding him still maintained the contours of his body.

Higuchi himself was currently standing just one step away from the mishmash of knives and Curses that should’ve guaranteed his death.

What the actual fuck. No way could he have prepared for this. How can there possibly be a specialized Skill that can get him out of any sort of bound state… No, this might just be the sort of Skill that’s unique to the Thief Job.

 

“Fuuck! Rem!!”

“Hahah, too late!!”

 

Higuchi raised his leg to make a kick, his hands still stuffed in his pockets. His casual kicking posture didn’t have the elegance the likes of a polished technique delivered by Kenzaki Asuna, but he more than made up for it with his superhuman strength and speed.

The sole of Higuchi’s foot hit squarely on Rem’s abdomen just as she’d come close enough to strike him with her sword. Reinforced with Knight Mantis parts, the current Rem should’ve been as heavy as me, but she was nonetheless, easily sent flying.

 

“Oof, the hell, that thing’s harder than I thought.”

 

He must’ve expected to break Rem’s armor with that kick, which fortunately, hadn’t happened. I didn’t see any cracks on Rem’s green body armor while she was still rolling on the ground from the previous impact.

 

“But this one―― Haha, broke like a sand castle.”

 

Higuchi had speedily landed a second kick on #2 who reached him at almost the same time as Rem. But unlike her Mantis framed sister body, #2 only had a Skeleton base with a few Mandragoras added in. Her body, far less resilient, had shattered as it was also sent flying by Higuchi’s war-hammer of a kick.

#2 crumbled apart at the stomach, her two halves landing separately… Nope, nothing, I wasn’t getting any more reaction from her. #2 was gone.

 

“Weak. You’re still weak, Momokawa. And your stupid mud dolls are, heh, junk, that’s what they are. Fitting minions for the weakest Job.”

“Wait. Higuchi, I’m sure you didn’t forget that one special ability I have, right?”

“‘Course, I remember. It’s hard to forget a punch to the gut like that.”

 

Shit, shit, shit… Think, Momokawa Kotarou, think. With things as they are, I should give up on killing Higuchi and just focus on running away.

I could imagine Higuchi being completely furious right about now, and even if he wasn’t, he had surely labeled me as a hostile enemy. But as long as I had Pain Return, he wouldn’t try to kill me directly.

 

“Don’t you dare think of killing me, Higuchi. Spare me from going down to hell with you.”

“Heheh, ya don’t hafta tell me twice, Momokawa.”

“I promise I’ll never get involved with you ever again, so let me leave from here right now. Peacefully.”\n 

Your move, Higuchi. Even if you try to kill me here, I’m not as weak as I was back then. I won’t let you beat me to a pulp like that, ever again.

True, my surprise attack ended in failure, but I was far from powerless. If he sent Masaru, who still couldn’t harness his Warrior abilities, to beat me up, I could think up a few ways to deal with him with Blackhair Bind and Rotten Bog. He should realize that, like a cornered rat, my bite wasn’t going to leave him with just scratches.

 

“Chill out Momokawa. Honestly, I’m not even that mad at you.”

 

Higuchi shrugged as he sneered out those words. What kind of bullshit was it this time? He obviously wasn’t still planning on making me join his party, that I knew for sure.

 

“Momokawa, you got balls, I’ll give you that. I didn’t think you’d try to kill me this early. This kind of thing is literally impossible for a loser like Saitou. Heck, you might just be better at this than anyone else.”

 

Thanks, I’m putting my life on the line here, so I’ll take that as a complement.

 

“You don’t feel like you killed anyone yet… but I can tell, you’re dead serious.”

 

He was able to tell stuff with his Thief intuition, which likely also clued him in on the fact that I was up to something. There was also the possibility that he only let himself get caught in the tentacle bind because he knew he could get out of it with Thru Bind.

 

“… What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that I’ll admit it. I’ll admit that you’re a worthy enemy. It takes some serious balls to try and kill me with your shitty excuse for a Job, but you’re the sort that might just pull it off. That’s why you’re a threat, an enemy.”

 

His tone remained casual in spite of his serious words, which could only mean…

 

“So I did some thinking too. And I came up with a good way to kill you.”

 

Dammit, Higuchi had already thought up a way to kill me!

 

“Blackhair――”

“Hahah!! Too slow, Momokawaa!!”

 

I had attempted to bind him from his own shadow once again, but he nimbly jumped away, evading the tentacle. Shit, so he was able to dodge just fine if he could see me do it. A Thief’s agility was not to be underestimated.

Wait a second, Higuchi didn’t only dodge just now. Didn’t I see him do something else?

 

“Akh!?”

 

I heard the clink of metal hitting stone, probably the monolith, behind me. At the same time, I felt a sting on my cheek. Wait what? A knife? Goddammit, I didn’t even see him getting ready to throw that. This might also be one of his Thief Skills.

 

“Ukh, fuck, that stung like hell.”

 

But the fact that he cut me also meant that Higuchi himself had to bear the same pain. I could see a smooth cut on his cheek and a clear line of blood dripping down from the wound.

But that repulsive smile was still stuck on his face.

Calm down. No matter where he cut me, so long as he was also damaged in the process, Higuchi wouldn’t dare aim for any vitals. He also couldn’t afford to limit my actions by targeting my arms and legs. The status quo was still――

I suddenly heard a mechanical crank of moving parts, and the next thing I knew, the ground underneath me was gone.

 

“Eh?”

 

My feet stood on nothing. The solid white stone floor that I was standing on had simply disappeared.

Huh? What is this? No no no, wait, it can’t be… a pitfall?

 

“Uaaaaaaaaaaah!?”

 

I reached out my hands in delirium. No good. The area that had vanished from below me wasn’t so small that I could reach for the edge. No matter how desperately I stretched out my arms, they didn’t have anything to grab on to.

 

“Reeeeeeeeemmmmm!”

 

Blackhair Bind shot out of my palm. I made the tentacle rope as quickly and as tough as possible. That pre-Boss Room had nothing other than the monolith at its center, so only Rem could grab the rope that separated me from life and death.\n 

“GAGA!!”

“Urgh!?”

 

I felt a jolt as my body abruptly stopped its descent. It felt as if my arm was going to tear off of my shoulder. I only barely swallowed the pain.

 

“Urh… holy, fuck…”

 

I looked down only to see endless darkness underneath me. I could feel a cold breeze coming from below. That settled it, falling down there meant absolute death.

No, what mattered now was getting back to solid ground. I slowly absorbed back the tentacle, gently pulling myself upwards.

On Rem’s side, she had wrapped the other end of the tentacle rope around her waist and was worriedly peering down at me. Good. It looked like Rem had a firm hold on the rope and the rope itself was tough enough to support my weight. I should be able to make it like this.

 

“Wew, an instant rope, not bad. Not bad at all, Momokawa. It looks useful, so you must’ve practiced a lot.”

“H-Higuchi…”

 

Higuchi’s face screamed of morbid joy as he clutched on to Rem’s skull, mockingly peering down the hole. Rem was giving it her all just bracing herself so I wouldn’t fall, and couldn’t really do anything about it.

 

“What now, Momokawa? What’ll you do once I push your cute little Mud Doll off and it falls with you?”

“Shit, shittt. You, you planned this. You planned on using this pitfall all along.”

 

He couldn’t just stab me normally since he’d die too, but he could try all manner of indirect methods. For example, he could push the switch to a pitfall trap. This wouldn’t be the same as physically pushing me off a ledge. He could pull a lever, push a switch, or make me unknowingly do any of those.

But would that sort of indirect attack… really work to deter Pain Return?

I’d never tried it, but my gut was telling me that yes, it would work.

Pain Return would have absolutely zero effect on him if he were to push Rem off and let me fall to my doom.

 

“This isn’t your normal pitfall, just to let you know. Go on, try to guess how I set it off.”

 

Higuchi spoke to me while swiveling Rem’s head with his palm, as if to tell me that any strange moves from me and he’d do it.

He now had control over my only lifeline. It might seem like him gloating about it was a stupid move, but maybe the position of power really got him going. Higuchi looked like he was having a blast.

 

“The knife… no, it was blood.”

“Oh. Good job, you’re right.”

 

This pitfall mechanism had activated right after Higuchi threw his knife. The knife had grazed past my cheek and only stopped after hitting the monolith behind me. If he only needed to use the knife, it would be meaningless to injure himself by cutting me.

Which meant that he needed to somehow get my blood to the monolith to make it work.

 

“If it works by blood, that means that the monolith is some sort of sacrificial altar. You knew this and you guided me here for that purpose.”

“Wow, you’re on a roll Momokawa. You damn otakus really know your stuff, eh? I bet you played games with this sort of stuff all day.”

“Hey listen Higuchi. Don’t mess with shady stuff like sacrificial altars. You never know what it might do. Most times, this sort of thing just summons a really powerful monster.”

“Nah, not this one. This is just a teleporting device.”

 

How did he know that? He clearly wasn’t bluffing, he was saying it like it was a fact.

 

“Do the words, Ancient Tongue, mean anything to you?”

“Wait, you have a Skill to read that!?”

“What, you can read it too? No, you know someone who can… well too bad you didn’t notice it.”

 

So that’s it. He must have gained a reading Skill like Takanashi Kotori’s Decode Ancient Tongue: Basicwhich he used to read the instructions for activating the trap set up in the monolith. This was how he also knew for sure that this was some sort of transfer device that needed a sacrifice. I hadn’t seen anything that looked like letters when I was scrutinizing the object… no, maybe it was just that I couldn’t, since I didn’t have the required Skill.

 

“I’m gonna be using this to get to the next zone without needing to beat the Boss. It all comes down to whether you have the right Skills or not in this dungeon. If you’re gonna curse anyone, curse the God of Shamans who only gave you shit Skills. You can do that plenty once you’re dead――”

“W-wait Higuchi!!”

 

Shouted a voice that wasn’t mine.

 

“Ah? Fuck off, Saitou. And add the ‘-san’ you fucking fatass.”

\n“Masaru!!”

“―― Haah, these guys are trying to bore me to death.”

 

All the while Masaru was desperately crying out his heartfelt apology and reaffirming his resolve, the heartless Thief sent his merciless gaze down at the two of us.

And the gleaming knife in his hand had already swung down.

 

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

“Hope you had a nice chat there, Saitou. But playtime is over.”

 

The knife stabbed into Masaru’s shoulder. It had gone very deep. Deep red blood flowed down his arm, streamed across Rem, and dripped on my face.

 

“You can let him die now. Don’t worry, just letting go probably won’t count as you killing him, probably.”

“Urgh, u-gh… no. I won’t… please, Higuchi, don’t…”

“Oi oi, what’s with this piece of trash. Where’s all that courage coming from, bitch.”

 

Masaru screamed, once again Masaru screamed in pain. Higuchi had grabbed the deeply lodged knife handle and twisted it further into Masaru’s shoulder.

 

“It’s fine, Masaru! Let go already! I can handle it, don’t worry!”

“W-what do you mean, you can handle it… Kotarou, I got this, don’t worry, I’m not letting go…”

 

How was he even doing this? He was being subjected to pain he shouldn’t be able to handle. It shouldn’t be possible for him to act like it was nothing.

 

“Let go, dammit, come on!”

“No… If I let go now, I can never, be your friend, anymore… I won’t do it. I won’t be a worthless piece of trash like that… again! I won’t let go, even if I die, I won’t let go!”

“A’ight, then die.”

 

Higuchi instantly pulled out his butterfly knife, as if to trample down that courage, as if to crush that wish, as if to silence that scream, as if to laugh as he burned it all down. Blood spurt out from Masaru’s shoulder , scattering everywhere as Higuchi flicked his knife and aimed once again.

 

“Ah, kh, hhh…”

 

A raspy noise leaked from Masaru’s throat as blood flowed out. Sprayed out. Higuchi had aimed precisely at his carotid artery.

 

“No, Masaru… Masaru, say something…”

 

He couldn’t. Blood was overflowing from Masaru’s mouth, so much that he couldn’t even breathe let alone answer.

 

“Ah well. That’s another idiot gone. He only had to be my slave and he would’ve lived a while longer. Courage don’t work for idiots. Once he disobeyed me, he was as good as dead already.”

 

Rambling on like he was annoyed, Higuchi stabbed Masaru on his back. This wasn’t to deal any fatal damage but just because he felt like doing some extra violence. He kept stabbing his weapon on the back of another human being, of a classmate, needlessly, callously, endlessly.

 

“M-Masaru…”

“Woah, is this legit? He didn’t let go even after he died.”

 

I’ve killed lots of monsters, and I’ve seen people die. So I could tell immediately. I could tell that Masaru was dead. His life had been exhausted and he was gone. My ointments wouldn’t do shit at this point. Masaru would never open his eyes again.

But He still held on. He still held on to Rem’s leg, he still held on to me so that I wouldn’t fall into the hell below.

 

“Haha, this is rich. This his pride or something? Even a loser like him got to show off in the end. Good for you, Momokawa――”

 

Laughed Higuchi as he kicked Masaru’s corpse off the edge.

 

“―― You got to be friends again before you died. Have fun in hell together.”

“Higuchiiii!! youuu, bastaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrddddddd!!”

 

And then, for the third time, I was falling. Together with Masaru’s dead body, I fell into the depths of the sacrificial pitfall.