The World Is Overflowing with Monster, I’m Taking a Liking to This Life

I run, run, and run some more. In the process of doing so, I meet quite a number of monsters and humans, but I ignore them all. Since my skills are activated, it’s not like they can see me anyways.

“Haaa… Haaaa… Coming this far, we should be safe…”

Catching my breath, I observe my environment. We are current at… a park near the City Hall. It’s quite wide. With trees and small hills present here and there, I don’t have a clear view of everything.

Around the edge of the park, I can see a fountain without water and a convenience store that was recently built.

(There isn’t any presence of monsters…)

“Enemy Detection” isn’t picking anything up, and I don’t see anyone within my view. Of course, there is the possibility of creatures hiding… “…Mm?”

Now that I think about it, isn’t this where we’re supposed to meet Nishino-kun? While running around, it appears that we have arrived at our destination.

Yoisho tto.

I put the two girls down.

“U….uge~e~e~e~e~e”

As soon as her feet touch the ground, Ichinose-san throws up. Yup, I expected no less. After all, she was moving at an incredible speed while being carried in an uncomfortable posture. I knew this would happen to her. She must have been holding back for a while.

“How do you feel, Natsun? Should I pat your back?”

Rikka-chan cares for Ichinose-san. She puts her arms around Ichinose-san’s shoulder and supports her back. What a gentle child.

“Wan!”

Momo comes out from the shadows and pounces on me enthusiastically.

“…♪ Furu furu.”

Similarly, Aka undoes its mimicry and latches itself around me.

“Aka, Momo. You guys have worked hard.”

Since I know that there aren’t any monsters near us, I mofu-mofu to my heart’s content. The soft sensation of the furs and the jelly-like sensation of Aka heal my heart.

“Ah, right. Momo, here.”

“Wafu?”

I take out the Zombie’s Magic Stone (Small) from the Item Box. It’s the one that the death knight dropped just now. Let’s give this one to Momo.

“Wafu…?”

“Furu furu.”

Momo looks at Aka for a moment. Aka shakes as if to say, it’s fine.

“Wan!”

Thanking Aka, Momo swallows the magic stone. She’s wagging her tail a lot. She must be delighted by the treat.

“Uuu… even now, the world is spinning…”

With Rikka-chan’s assistance, Ichinose-san comes over here. As expected of her, despite all this, she doesn’t let go of her gun.

“Sorry. At that time, I thought it was the best method to survive.”

“Oh no, it’s not Kudou-san’s fault. It’s because I’m not fast enough…”

“Even so, I apologize for treating you girls so roughly.”

“It’s fine. It wasn’t that bad. Also, I’m sorry if I was heavy.”

“No, no. It was my bad. You weren’t heavy either. Rather, you were very light. No problem at all.” “No, really—”

“No, no, no—”

While bowing our heads at each other, I hear someone cough next to us. Rikka-chan is staring at us.

“Hey, onii-san. I’m here as well, you know.”

“Ah, sorry about that…”

“S, sorry, Ricchan.”

“Why are you both apologizing immediately? Is this a habit?”

It’s probably our instinct. This is a unique skill of Japanese people that I developed during my years as an office worker, also known as “Apologizing for the time being and lowering my head”.

Rikka-chan might be unaware, but communication starts with bowing one’s head in society. By receiving training little by little by one’s boss, one would eventually develop into a full-fledged corporate slave.

Well, in Ichinose-san’s case, it’s just her issue with speaking to others. Anyways, this isn’t what’s important right now.

“More importantly, Aisaka-san, Nishino-kun and his group don’t seem to be here?” “Eh? Oh, now that you mention it…”

Rikka-chan also notices that this is where we were scheduled to meet. She looks here and there, but Nishino-kun is nowhere to be seen. The likeliness of them hiding is… pretty low.

It’s understandable if only one or two members have it, but it’s not likely that the entire group possesses stealth-related skills. Also, their skill levels shouldn’t be high enough to trick Momo and I’s “Enemy Detection”.

“… Perhaps something happened to them?”

“Ricchan, try checking your mails. Did you get anything? ”

“Wait a second. I’ll check right now…”

Tapping on her status screen, Rikka-chan checks her mailbox.

“Nothing… arrived.”

“…”

Did an accident occur? No, there must have been one. An emergency. An emergency so urgent that he didn’t have the time to write a mail.

“Let’s try sending him a letter. There might be some reaction from him.”

“Okay, got it.”

Rikka-chan immediately shoots a mail at Nishino-kun.

“And just in case, let’s search around this area. They might be hiding.”

“You’re… right.”

I do not tell her that the chances of this are low.

Thereafter, the three of us searched the entire park. We encountered monsters once, but nothing big happened as they were just two goblins. Nevertheless, we weren’t able to find any trace of Nishino-kun’s group.

“Where are you… Nisshi…”

As if the sky is reflecting her emotions, dark clouds begin to spread in all directions.

—Some time ago.

When Kazuto and his group were having their confrontation with the death knight, Nishino’s group was running away from the army of ants.

“Haa…haaa… Shibata, are they there?”

“No, I don’t see any from over here.”

“Fuuu…Fuuuu….None here either.”

Shibata and Goshogawara responded. Currently, they were hiding at one of the corners of the shopping district.

Although the shopping street was near the station and the City Hall, large chain stores in the suburban areas attracted customers away from the district, making it less crowded and even deserted.

It was a place with very little traffic in the first place, but now there were no more signs of human life. Of course, monsters were still present everywhere.

“Seems like we were separated yet again…”

“Yeah…”

Nishino immediately sent “Mails” to his team members. Some responded instantly.

“Good, everyone is alive… and they aren’t far away. We should quickly gather up.” While they weren’t together, they could communicate with each other due to the “Mail” skill. Nishino was glad from the bottom of his heart that he told the others about this skill.

(Looks like even those that didn’t acquire the skill are moving with those that did.) This was something Nishino had arranged as well. In case they were forced to flee in different directions, those that didn’t possess the skill were to stay near those that did. Just by doing this, they were able to respond to situations in a different manner.

Nishino was relieved that the others were following their previously agreed arrangements. Nishino didn’t realize at this point that this was due to the correction coming from his occupation as the “Commander”.

A person who was a “Commander” could strongly influence his peers through words. It didn’t have the brainwashing effect of Igarashi Touka’s “Enchantment”, but it could make people take action to a certain extent.

“What are we going to do, Nishino-san?”

“Nothing else to do but to go to the park.”

It wasn’t so far from where they were. They could arrive in minutes if they ran.

(But this also means that it the distance is within the range of the ants’ activity.) Nishino’s expression did not look good. Their enemy had superior numbers. Even if they joined up with the others, it was unknown whether or not they could survive.

(Chi… and here I thought we could make use of our teamwork to becoming stronger…)

Having “Mail” made it much easier for them to cooperate. They could deal with monsters possessing strong “individual” strength.

As soon as this became true, they encountered the ants. They were monsters that formed societies to create “hordes” rather than a mere “collection of individuals” like what they encountered yesterday at school.

Their enemies were ants. Individually, they were at lower levels. However, the horde consisted of dozens, even hundred of ants. They were giant black ants that were around one meter in size, with red eyes and jaws that could chew anything as hard as the floors of the convenience store.

While they were slower than them, they had exoskeletons like normal ants, and using iron pipes could not deal a fatal damage against them. Restraining them with “Command” was possible, but only 3-4 ants would be affected. Since they could receive “Commands”, it meant that they had the ability to hear.

Since they appeared from underground, there was also the possibility of their “nest” being nearby.

(That’s about how much we know about them…For the time being, I should be wary of attacks from below.) The more he thought about it, the more Nishino realized the precarious situation they were in.

A game-like world? No. From his perspective, he only felt malice from the appearances of game-like systems, skills, and monsters. It felt like they were being forced to fight and kill. Don’t mess with me, he wanted to cry out.

(But I can’t give up…)

He had to survive. He couldn’t stand the possibility of dying without knowing what was going on in this messed up world. That being the case, Nishino thought hard of a way to break through and survive this situation.

While watching out for assaults from ants and monsters, Nishino and his company started walking through the shopping district towards their destination.