Shoot Him, God Spear!

"Something's not right!"

Kamuro Masumi, who had lowered her head to study the Black Gun's tracking map because she didn't want to deal with Sakayanagi Arisu, suddenly cried out.

She held up the screen in her hand.

"Look!"

"There's suddenly another red dot over by Ryuen's group...!"

There should have been only one red dot left, but now a huge crimson blotch had appeared beside it.

And that blotch was closing in at tremendous speed on the green dots representing Ryuen and the others!

"Isn't it obvious a Hidden Boss just spawned?" Sakayanagi said with a scowl.

"A Hidden Boss?!"

Worried about losing points, Horikita Suzune immediately set off toward it, almost the moment she heard.

"Hey! Horikita!"

Kamuro Masumi tried to call her back, but Horikita didn't listen and only ran faster.

"Honestly..."

Su Wei sighed and started after her, too.

"I'll go take a look. You can take your time. Don't run too fast, or you might fall."

Watching the two of them run faster than each other, Kamuro Masumi clicked her tongue.

"Those two... They're really not afraid to die."

"They were almost scared to tears just a moment ago..."

"By the way, aren't you in a hurry?"

She turned to look at Sakayanagi Arisu, who was still standing where she was, unhurried.

Sakayanagi Arisu shook her head.

"What's there to hurry about?"

"Don't underestimate this trial."

"Since it's making a grand entrance at the end, it definitely won't be as simple as those grunts."

"Sometimes..."

Looking at Su Wei's retreating figure, she couldn't help feeling a little anticipation.

"Running too fast isn't necessarily a good thing."

Chapter 14: Shoot Him, God Spear!

Just as Sakayanagi Arisu had expected, things were indeed looking bad for Ryuen Kakeru and the others.

In fact, they were... downright awful.

Let's turn back two minutes.

At the end of the corridor, Ryuen Kakeru had encountered the last Evil Spirit. Instead of killing it right away, he decisively used the Y-GUN he had gotten from Shiina Hiyori to fire a capture net, binding it firmly in place.

"As long as we keep this thing alive, the exam won't end."

"We'll use the time to find that Hidden Boss. If we can beat it, we'll make a big score. If not, we'll kill this Evil Spirit and call it a day."

It was a sound plan, allowing them to attack or retreat as needed.

The logic was flawless.

But just as the Laser Rope tightened and the Evil Spirit was still sizzling with smoke—

"Tap, tap, tap."

The sudden sound of leather shoes echoed down the silent corridor of the Old School Building.

Everyone looked toward the sound.

At a shadowed corner not far away,

a middle-aged man in a cheap suit, with an utterly unremarkable face, slowly emerged as if out for a stroll.

He glanced at the bound Evil Spirit, then at the students holding strange weapons. A trace of confusion flickered in his murky eyes.

"Strange..."

The man stopped, expressionless, and muttered to himself.

"This time, there wasn't that invisible wall blocking me."

"Is it because of you?"

As he spoke, the man raised his head.

With dead, lifeless eyes devoid of any light, he stared straight at them.

"Hey, can you explain something to me?"

"Where exactly is this place?"

Looking at the man in front of them, who seemed like an ordinary office worker in every way,

Shiranami Chihiro and Shiina Hiyori, experiencing all this for the first time, froze in confusion and alarm.

'Why is this exam dragging an uninvolved passerby into it?'

'A teacher? Or a janitor who wandered in by mistake?'

Of course, they didn't say any of that aloud.

The few people beside them—the ones they relied on—had completely changed their demeanor.

Katsuragi Kohei instantly gripped the Black Gun, sweat beading at his temples.

Ichinose Honami and Ryuen Kakeru exchanged glances, each reading the same answer in the other's eyes.

That unnatural calm.

That inhuman gaze, looking at people as if they were bread.

It was exactly like the monster they had encountered in the convenience store during the previous exam!

"Heh. Found you."

Without hesitation, and without needing to exchange a word, Ryuen Kakeru raised the Y-GUN he still had in his hands. He aimed at the man's torso and pulled the trigger without the slightest hesitation!

"Go to hell, monster!"

His reasoning was clear:

The Parasite's tentacles were ridiculously fast. They'd be dead in close combat.

But if they could pin it in place with the Laser Rope, even for just a few seconds, the X-GUNs in Ichinose's and Katsuragi's hands would be enough to blast the monster to pieces!

"Watch out! It's not human!"

Ichinose shouted a warning, while the Black Gun in her hands and Katsuragi's began charging at the same time.

Their reactions were nearly perfect.

But accidents always happened because of the tiniest oversights.

"Vmmm—"

The Y-GUN in Ryuen Kakeru's hands didn't fire a second net of light as he intended.

Instead, several scanning beams like barcodes instantly enveloped the bound Evil Spirit beside them.

It was as if it were being scanned and printed in reverse.

The Evil Spirit vanished from top to bottom, transported away.

So that was the Y-GUN's hidden function?

Ryuen Kakeru's pupils contracted.

The others were just as startled.

Although Shiina Hiyori and Shiranami Chihiro hurriedly raised their guns after hearing Ichinose's warning, and Ichinose and Katsuragi had already begun charging their weapons,

that one- or two-second gap might have been no more than a blink to an ordinary person.

But to a biological weapon whose instinct was to kill...

It was more than enough.

"Though I don't know what this is..."

The middle-aged man's facial muscles suddenly twitched in a bizarre way.

"Since you're hostile..."

"I'll just eliminate you."

As the newcomers watched in terror,

the man's head bloomed like an opening flower bud, while both arms split sideways at the same time, transforming into several blade-sharp tentacles!

"Swish!"

A shriek of tearing air exploded through the corridor.

"Dodge!!"

Ryuen Kakeru reacted fastest. He roared and leaped backward on instinct, almost in sync with Katsuragi Kohei.

But even though they had reacted as fast as they possibly could, the lightning-fast bone blades still carved wounds down to the bone in their arms and thighs.

They were already lucky.

"Ah—!!"

Standing in the back row, with no combat experience at all, Shiranami Chihiro and Shiina Hiyori didn't even have time to finish screaming.

Though they were on full alert, though they had weapons in their hands,

two tentacles still pierced straight through their chests and abdomens.

There wasn't much of a gory scene, because the Black Sphere's protection mechanism had activated just as they were on the verge of death.

Blue light flashed, and the two girls vanished from where they stood, leaving behind only a shocking pool of blood to prove they had ever been there.

"Chihiro!!!"

Seeing her friend die right before her eyes, Ichinose Honami let out a cry of grief.

She had narrowly avoided a fatal blow, but she was injured too.

A blade had sliced away most of one shoulder, and blood instantly soaked half her body.

At that moment, this little angel of Class B showed astonishing resilience.

She didn't retreat or cry out.

Flames blazed in her usually gentle, water-clear eyes!

"Go to hell!!!"

She aimed at the Parasite's head.

Katsuragi, who had steadied himself against the wall, finished charging his weapon at the same moment.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" ×2

Six Gravity Wave Bullets exploded in the narrow corridor.

There was no surprise.

The Parasite, in the middle of withdrawing its tentacles, had no time to dodge.

The tremendous impact blasted its head apart, and the violent energy pulverized the entire left half of its body into a mass of flesh!

A rain of blood fell from above.