Even Arakawa herself realized that she had misspoken. Fortunately, just then they reached the top of a small hill, and a prey target ahead diverted everyone's attention.
It was a long serpent formed entirely from piled-up rocks. Bursting from the ground, the part aboveground alone was five or six stories tall. It had no obvious head; the place where its head should have been was merely an inverted cone. The serpent was visibly three or four meters in diameter, and counting the unknown length buried underground, it would normally have required five people working together to defeat.
"I can handle it alone." Miss Niiki said this anyway.
"Are you sure you'll be all right?" Nijika looked at her worriedly.
"Piece of cake." Niiki shot the five of them a sidelong glance, signaling them to stand farther away. Then she kicked off the ground and leaped toward the serpent, rising as high as a story. In midair, a gunshot rang out, opening the battle.
Yuki Arakawa
Physical: 328
Reaction: 246
Intelligence: 100
Shine: 150
Mental Strength: 342
Ability: [Hundred Deaths No Regrets]: Nothing can kill her before her mental strength is depleted
Additional: Black and White Twin Guns: [Belobog of Goodness] [Chernobog of Evil]
Skills: Music Production Lv10, Jazz Drum Technique Lv10, Gun-fu Lv6...
Yuki Arakawa had arrived in this world long before Marina and the others crossed over. Not long after crossing over, she found the Black and White Twin Guns, then learned Gun-fu from dreams sent by the guns. From then on, she wandered the land, constantly strengthening herself. The Black and White Twin Guns were immensely powerful, but used vitality as fuel. In other words, only because Niiki's ability provided an endless supply of vitality could she use them so freely.
Her purple hair streamed through the air as Niiki descended toward the serpent's body. The bullets moved faster than she did, blasting a dent into its body. The serpent reacted, raising its pointed-cone head and ramming toward the figure in midair. In the eyes of the other five, barely a second later, the completely one-sided crushing had already begun.
The serpent brought its enormous body down on Niiki. She braced herself backward and narrowly slipped through a gap beneath its rocky body, emerging completely unharmed. She flipped through the air and raised her guns again, spinning in the middle of the battlefield. Firepower completely unlike that of pistols poured from both her hands, leaving countless bullet holes in the serpent's body. The serpent seemed enraged. More of its body tore free from the ground and swept across the earth, trying to raise a cloud of dust, but Niiki remained completely unaffected. Instead, she leaped up, stepped on the serpent's body, and flipped to the other side. Niiki focused her attacks on one spot. Soon, half the serpent's body had caved in and was about to be severed completely!
The serpent struggled helplessly, seemingly reduced to prey awaiting slaughter. Watching the purple figure whirl through the battlefield, the five nearby relaxed. But then, a sudden change occurred! The ground between the five split open, and stone pillars as thick as bowls drilled out of the earth! If they had not reacted quickly and dodged, they would likely have been entangled!
Where there was a head, there was a tail. The rock serpent's tail had remained hidden underground all this time, and the five had forgotten about it! Unable to deal with Niiki, the rock serpent turned its attention to the five. Of course, they were not easy prey either. After getting over their initial fright, they all prepared to face the enemy. The serpent's tail emerged from the ground and coiled through the air, blocking out the sunlight and casting a huge shadow over the five.
While still battling the serpent's main body, Niiki raised the white gun in her left hand—[Belobog of Goodness]. Her purple hair fluttered in the wind. Her face instantly became gaunt, then recovered in the next moment.
Belobog was the god of light and the sun in Slavic mythology. By fusing with guns based on the original Slavic myths, as long as enough energy was invested, it could unleash a trace of the light god's former might!
A sunlike bullet flew from the barrel, passing through a gap in the serpent's main body and piercing its still-lengthening tail. It then ricocheted and skipped between the stone pillars, leaving a trail of light behind. The pillars shattered inch by inch before the five's eyes and fell to the ground, no different from ordinary rocks.
Sunlight once again spilled across the five stunned faces.
"I told you. I'd carry you." Miss Niiki gave a soft snort of laughter.
This could be called their easiest hunt yet. Although the spoils still fell short of what they had obtained before the black shadow passed through, the five had barely done anything. Their greatest exertion had been strolling around. By the time they started back, all five clearly held Miss Niiki in much greater respect.
"Stay with us, Miss Niiki! We can't survive without you!"
"As long as you stay, I'll offer you five basses—no, six!"
Kita and Ryo each clung to one side of Niiki. The calm confidence she had shown in battle was gone, and she could not respond at all.
"All right, all right. She has her own plans, so stop pestering her." Nijika grabbed both girls by the backs of their necks. "Miss Niiki is very strong, but we can't rely entirely on her. Remember those two seniors? They were so powerful, yet they still failed. We have to keep working hard ourselves if we want any hope of returning to reality."
Faced with Nijika's righteous lecture, the two could only nod in agreement.
Shiko walked behind them, rubbing her chin. Whether last night or today, she kept feeling that there was something a little... how should she put it? Exaggerated about Miss Niiki's fighting style.
She looked at Niiki's slightly raised head.
Could she be the type who likes showing off in front of children?
Shiko suddenly felt that Miss Niiki was not quite so unfamiliar after all.
Everyone was a musician, so on the way back, the conversation naturally turned to music.
"...Since you're a band, have you written any original songs?" Niiki asked the others.
"We have." Nijika answered, "But we only wrote them after crossing over, so we haven't performed them officially yet. We're working on our second song now."
The second song must be That Band, Shiko thought. She thought back carefully and remembered that neither the anime nor the manga had gone into detail about That Band's creation.
While she was thinking, the subject changed again at some point.
"Miss Niiki, are you hurt anywhere?" It turned out that Niiki had not been watching where she was going and had tripped. Fortunately, she reacted quickly and did not fall.
"I'm fine..." Before she could finish, Nijika's starlight had already reached her. Feeling its effect, she looked surprised. "My mental strength is recovering rapidly... It's this powerful?"
Hearing her senior's praise, Nijika became smug as well. "Everyone here comes to me if they get even the slightest bump or bruise!"
Niiki grew serious. "What kind of injuries can you heal at your strongest?"
Nijika narrowed her eyes and recalled carefully. "Hmm... I've never tried. We've never suffered any serious injuries. Even when we were blasted around underground last time, everyone came out completely unharmed."
Only then did Shiko remember. This was clearly a dangerous wilderness, yet no one had suffered a serious injury during all this time. Normally, being tied to a copper pillar and slammed into rocks from dozens of meters away—surviving at all would have been lucky. Being packed into a shell and launched, then having the shell explode—having a complete corpse left would have been fortunate. Yet none of them had been injured in situations like that, not even a scrape. They had always attributed it to luck and Ryo's cushioning. However...
At dinner, Niiki drank a little and loudly recounted Marina's embarrassing stories from the past. Tragically, she discovered that only Kita and Nijika were laughing.
"What's wrong? Wasn't my story funny enough?" When someone's embarrassing story was not funny enough, the most awkward person shifted from the one being laughed at to the storyteller. Marina covered her mouth and looked at the embarrassed Niiki.
"The other three have always been like that. Don't mind them..." Nijika glanced at Shiko. She had thought Shiko would laugh too, but Shiko now seemed distracted.
Could she still be a little shy around strangers? Yet Nijika remembered that Shiko had quickly grown close to them before.
After dinner, Shiko intercepted Marina as she was about to head underground.
"...Shiko? Is something wrong?" Marina had a feeling that Shiko was about to say something important.
Shiko opened and closed her mouth, then finally spoke.
"Miss Marina, when we go out, have you been watching over us the whole time?"
Chapter Twenty-One: The Secret Room
The five girls had already left CiRCLE to explore the cave they had discovered. The enormous CiRCLE suddenly became quiet. Marina turned around, returned to the dormitory, picked up a bedroll and quilt, and walked into the storeroom.
The resources piled inside the storeroom formed a maze. Some had originally belonged to CiRCLE, such as various instruments and audiovisual materials, including Marina's own guitar. Another pile had been prepared after they crossed over: easy-to-store food, drinking water, and homemade medical supplies, eighty to ninety percent of them made by Shiko. They were all reserved for emergencies. However, that was not Marina's destination this time.
Holding the bedding, she skillfully turned through the narrow paths left between the mountains of supplies and continued all the way to the deepest part of the storeroom. She braced her elbow against a brick in the wall, and a hidden door opened in front of her.
This hidden door had absolutely not existed in the original CiRCLE. She was certain of that.
During an inspection of CiRCLE early after crossing over, she had discovered this place as if guided there.
She gently pushed the door open.
"Welcome back, Miss Marina Tsukihiro." An emotionless voice rang out. Marina nodded and walked inside.
Behind the door was a dark space, but she knew every corner of it and did not trip over anything. In an open area, she spread out her bedding.
The room was not large, and its structure was simple. There was only one hanging lamp on the ceiling, along with a ventilation opening leading somewhere unknown. Opposite the door Marina had entered through was a structure resembling a fish tank. There were no fish inside, only about half a tank of glowing golden liquid. This was CiRCLE's current energy supply, the final destination of the spoils brought back by the hunting party. Marina checked once more and confirmed that even if everything remained as it was, the remaining energy could keep CiRCLE operating normally for at least a week. She looked to her right. Beside the bedding was enough dried food and drinking water to last Marina a month, and a makeshift latrine had been prepared in the corner.
The entire wall to her left was embedded with old-fashioned television screens. Only five of them were lit, showing the viewpoints of the five members of the hunting party. In front of the screens, a control console rose from the floor. This console was different from ordinary ones. A pipe extended from it and connected it to the energy supply. Every button and knob was installed in its own module. All the modules were detachable rectangular blocks, and a structure resembling an old-fashioned phone, with a screen and keyboard, allowed Arabic numerals and English letters to be entered, with uppercase and lowercase letters distinguished. The string of characters on the screen determined the enhancement provided by each module, while modules with knobs could adjust enhancement intensity. After extensive exploration, assisted by the AI C.C. that came with the room, Marina had partially understood the patterns behind the characters. She had recorded the summarized rules in the notebook on the right side of the console, filling it completely. During the day, she either had to focus on the five girls' safety outside or deal with miscellaneous matters outside the secret room. Only at night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, did she have time to explore her own abilities.
That was right. The enhancements CiRCLE could provide went far beyond the minor boosts shown on the panel. However, the more enhancements she activated, the faster the energy was consumed, so Marina generally kept only the basic boosts active. Even so, she had prepared special enhancement modules for various possible emergencies.
"Would you like me to use last night's settings?" the AI asked Marina for confirmation.
"I'll make one final check." Marina inspected the console as she spoke.
Marina
Skills: Electric Guitar Technique Lv8, Livehouse Operation Lv9, Baking Technique Lv8, [Attribute Boost] Lv3, [Imaginary Field] Lv3, [Shock Resistance] Lv3...
Everything outside was quiet, and there were no wandering monsters. The five were moving along easily, leaving Marina temporarily free. She confirmed CiRCLE's condition through the console again. [Imaginary Field] was used to distribute the damage suffered by the five. The walls of CiRCLE would bear the transferred damage, with large amounts of damage received by the five shifted onto CiRCLE according to the ratio Marina had set. Most of the time, that was enough. CiRCLE also possessed the damage-immunity ability [Shock Resistance]. If they encountered a blow too powerful to withstand, one even the entire building could not bear, only then would the damage absorbed by [Imaginary Field] be directed toward Marina herself. Fortunately, that had never happened.
The group had reached the cave entrance.
"As we said before, Ryo will scout the inside first. Once we enter, I'll provide the lighting, and Shiko will use fluorescent powder to mark the path. Everyone be careful." Nijika-san gave the final reminder.
Marina remembered the scan of the cave entrance she had conducted yesterday by calling on CiRCLE's abilities. Unlike the results obtained when scanning monsters as usual, everything inside the cave was unknown. That was why she had opposed the five exploring it so strongly. Now, another trace of regret rose in her heart.
"(Shiko was right. If we want to find a way out, we have no choice but to go somewhere like this.)" She took a deep breath and focused herself, slightly increasing everyone's [Reaction Specialization Boost]. The various specialized boosts and [Imaginary Field] were among the modules she used most often.
The group entered the cave. Marina scanned again, but the result was still nothing.
She looked at everyone's status. Everything was normal.
Suddenly, the image began to shake. Smoke and dust blocked the view, and the AI sounded an alarm: an enemy attack! Marina immediately placed her hands on several commonly used modules. By then, the girls had already seen the enemy's appearance.
"Small. Armored. Average mobility." The AI identified the enemy type. Marina quickly adjusted the ratios of the panel enhancements applied to the girls. The total amount of her enhancements had an upper limit, so she could only change the allocation. Now, she converted the allocation into a mode specifically suited to dealing with this type of enemy.
The enemy was quickly eliminated, and no orb appeared. Marina scanned carefully but found nothing resembling one. Although disappointed, she returned to her actual task and adjusted the enhancement allocation back to marching mode.
She looked at the energy on her right. There was still enough for the short term, but factoring in the extra consumption this exploration might cause, supplies were already tight. If the underground monsters continued to resemble this one, she could only pray that the monsters frightened away earlier would return soon.
To ease her anxiety, she opened a bag of bread. She had not made it herself; it had been left by Shiko. They were all chocolate twists.
The next stretch passed relatively uneventfully. Yet instinctively, Marina still felt that something was wrong, and she kept her left hand on the knob for [Imaginary Field]. When she saw Shiko's stone steps begin to collapse, her premonition came true.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Marina
For the next half minute, Marina operated the console entirely through muscle memory. She was even busier than Lock, who had discovered that not a single band performing live followed the program and could only hurriedly adjust the stage effects. As the five rolled downward in a ball, she concentrated all the enhancements into [Imaginary Field] and [Shock Resistance], constantly adjusting the ratio to find the best balance. At the same time, she kept [Consciousness Maintenance System] running at the lowest level possible to ensure that the five remained conscious. Extra protective fields were precisely applied to the parts of their bodies receiving impacts.
She saw Ryo-san's viewpoint go dark. It seemed she had passed out. Marina pressed her right hand down, activating an auxiliary function of [Consciousness Maintenance System], and Ryo-san's viewpoint lit up again. By then, the five had fallen into a large open space. If they used Ryo-san's ability, she could create cushioning pads for everyone in midair. But she had only just woken up—could she react in time?
Marina glanced from the corner of her eye. Her right hand was already resting on the [Consciousness Projection] button.
However, before she could press it, Ryo-san had already struggled to pick up her bass and plucked the first note.
Marina froze, then revealed a faint smile. At that moment, a warning popped up on the screen: the five's [Shine] values were falling. With no time to consider the reason, Marina slapped the [Firewall] button. The warning vanished immediately. This enhancement consumed a tremendous amount of energy and was designed specifically to deal with situations like this that made no sense.
Next, thanks to Shiko's flash of inspiration, the copper pillar flew up and struck the rock wall. Even though she had been prepared, Marina still flinched in shock. She did not stop working, either. While raising everyone's physical values, she focused on maintaining Nijika-san's consciousness, allowing her to provide recovery support in time.
"Bang!" The instant the copper pillar collided with the rock wall, even Marina, deep underground, heard the impact rumble through the walls aboveground. She winced and hissed, "Tss—" but kept her eyes on the screens.
Apart from Nijika-san's, all four screens went black. Yet their statuses showed no other abnormalities, forcing Marina to marvel at the power of [Imaginary Field].
"Bang!" Another deafening crash rang out, and Marina nearly jumped. The copper pillar struck the rock wall again, embedding itself deep in the stone. Marina watched as Nijika-san struggled onto the nearby platform. Without waiting for her trembling legs to recover, she carried the others down one by one and used the last of her strength to treat them.
They were temporarily safe. Marina exhaled and wiped the cold sweat from her forehead. She checked everyone's condition again. Waking up was only a matter of time, and the value in the [Shine] column had not fallen either. According to her guess, [Shine] represented the upper limit of an ability, so nothing could go wrong with it. After confirming that the abnormal environment had vanished, she turned off [Firewall] and glanced at the energy supply. It had visibly dropped a little.
Then she waited for the five to wake up. It was a good opportunity for both the five-member team and Marina to rest.
"Little Shiko, you're going to suffocate Little Kita..." The light from the screen flickered across Marina's speechless face.
"C.C., tell me. Do I still have to intervene in something like this?"
The emotionless voice gave no hint of feeling. "Please determine that yourself."
At that moment, Ichiri's soul drifted back into her body.
Marina stopped thinking. "C.C., explain."
"Please determine that yourself."
The relaxed period did not last long. When the "grapevine" approached, Marina returned to a tense state. She activated [Temporary Night Vision] at the right moment and pressed her palm against the [Energy Transmission Broadband] button, which consumed a huge amount of energy. She stared at the monster along with the five, not blinking once. When the "grapevine" finally moved away, she had only just relaxed when she heard Kita's words.
"I think we could hang underneath that thing and let it carry us up!"
Marina blankly turned her head and looked at the Kita in Shiko's viewpoint, the Kita in Nijika's viewpoint, the Kita in Gotou-san's viewpoint, and the Kita in Ryo-san's viewpoint. No matter which perspective she watched, Kita wore a pure, innocent expression and was clearly making the suggestion in complete seriousness.
She checked the maximum damage CiRCLE could bear once again.
Soon, Marina grew six more pairs of arms.
When Shiko stood on the liver and said she had drawn inspiration from a science-fiction novel, Marina seriously considered burning every book in the lounge. Some of those books had been bought back then with the thought, I'll definitely be able to recommend these to someone... To make matters worse, CiRCLE's scan had detected a supposed risk of taint contamination. Although she did not know what that meant, she had activated specialized protection against taint to prevent the five from being contaminated too quickly. The rate of energy consumption was enough to make anyone wince.
As soon as the five decided to rest, Marina slapped the console and sprinted outside.
Her destination was the lounge—or, more precisely, the magazines about weaponry and aerospace inside it.
"Why did I put these in a livehouse lounge in the first place?" Marina had long forgotten. Still, they could be useful now.
When she returned, she was lucky enough to discover that the five had not yet begun their first experiment. She immediately bent over and flipped through the books.
"Common cannon structures... Ah, there really is something." While complaining, "Do magazines really have everything?" she forcefully pressed the [Deep Consciousness Interference] button. This module could be used when the girls needed an outside hint but there was no need for Marina to log in and take over directly. Marina sent all the information about cannons from the magazine straight into Shiko's subconscious as she repeated the cycle of misfires.
Then she immediately opened the aerospace magazine. "Rocket components... common cushioning devices... cushioning devices..."
"Do you know how much energy I burned to keep you alive through that explosion?" Marina gestured at the energy tank. "Before you set out, the upper limit was here!" The spot she indicated was at least a palm's width higher than the current energy level.
Shiko felt a little awkward. She was responsible for more than half of the consumption.
So Miss Marina had been here all along.
Before you continue