Nameless: Three-Stage Thrust!

But in this world, by the line between good and evil he'd drawn, there seemed to be an unusually large number of people who crossed it in the name of the Silence.

That was also one of the reasons he'd decided to add a DLC patch to this exam.

He'd better not let the currency system get inflated.

As he pondered,

"Su Wei."

Sakayanagi Arisu, who was walking ahead, suddenly turned around and gave him an amused look.

"You promised to protect everyone. Why have you fallen behind?"

"Slacking off like that is very unbecoming of you~"

Su Wei kept a straight face. "Don't talk nonsense if you don't understand. I'm covering your rear."

"Covering our rear?"

Sakayanagi Arisu blinked.

"If I remember right, the Gantz Sword doesn't have a Dragon Radar. Are you worried you'll get ambushed?"

Su Wei replied casually, "I'm doing a great job protecting you. See? Is anyone hurt?"

As someone immune to pressure, if they really got ambushed, he'd just turn around and accuse them of failing to warn him!

Seeing that he wouldn't budge, Sakayanagi Arisu didn't get annoyed. Instead, she looked toward Horikita Suzune, who was walking ahead, anxiously reciting her score under her breath.

She nudged Kamuro Masumi with her elbow.

"Hey, Kamuro."

"How many points do you think Horikita will get this time?"

Kamuro Masumi rolled her eyes, giving her a look that said, "Are you crazy?"

"I'm not a Beater. How would I know the Kabane's score?"

"I just know that you and that guy got two each, while Horikita Suzune got three. You were fighting over them like crazy. As for me, heh... I had nothing to do."

Sakayanagi Arisu shook her head with a laugh. She seemed not to have heard Kamuro's blunt complaint and smoothly changed the subject.

"I saw the threat response next to the survivors disappear from the Dragon Radar just now."

"They must have run into Ichinose and the others."

"How lucky..."

The girl sighed.

"At least we have a fallback now. We won't lose all our points just because every survivor dies~"

Kamuro Masumi's mouth twitched.

So the only thing you cared about was the score?

How is someone like you ever going to change... Poet's Grip!

Looking down from above, Su Wei caught a glimpse of the screen in Sakayanagi Arisu's hand.

"Our objectives match. Looks like we can still meet up and do a raid together at the end?"

Sakayanagi Arisu glanced at him.

"If we're doing a raid, someone like you, Su Wei, who's been slacking off the whole time... would get kicked from the team at the end~"

Su Wei ignored her.

Horikita Suzune, walking ahead, remained silent and continued to lead the way.

She was already thinking about the Hidden Boss at the end.

Before long,

the two groups met up at the corner on the fifth floor of the school building, where the stairs led to the rooftop.

Su Wei looked at the unconscious Hirata Yosuke on the Black student's back, surprised.

"He's hurt this badly? Is it really okay not to take him to the infirmary?"

"We don't have a choice," Ichinose Honami replied helplessly.

"The passage connecting this building to the other school buildings is sealed off. We could only use the first-aid kit in the lab to give Hirata some basic treatment."

"If we want to save him, I'm afraid we have to defeat the last Kabane and end the exam first."

She paused.

"There's no time to look for the Hidden Boss. Hirata won't last much longer."

"Not necessarily."

Sakayanagi Arisu suddenly cut in, pointing upstairs.

"Look. The last Kabane has been on the top floor this whole time, and it still hasn't come down."

"This setup, luring us in... it looks an awful lot like it's waiting for us!"

Ichinose Honami fell silent for a moment.

She glanced at the unconscious Hirata, then at Amikura Mako and Ayanokoji Kiyotaka behind her, whose faces were also grim.

Ichinose turned around.

"Shiranami, Shiina."

"Stay here and look after Hirata. And Ayanokoji and the others... I'm counting on you to take care of them too."

"We'll handle the fight from here!"

Even Shiranami Chihiro had no reason to refuse.

After all, everyone feared death.

No exceptions.

"Ichinose, good luck! I believe in you!"

Shiranami Chihiro handed over her Capture Gun, her gaze resolute.

Ichinose thought for a moment. Instead of taking it herself, she passed it to Su Wei beside her.

"Su Wei."

"The stairs are narrow, so they probably won't be a good place to use a long sword. Could you use this gun?"

"I think it'll be more useful in your hands."

At that,

Shiranami Chihiro's face fell.

That was my gun!

I gave it to you for self-defense, not so you could hand it to some other guy to impress him!

"Shiranami?" Ichinose asked, looking back in confusion. "Is that okay?"

Looking into Ichinose's clear, untainted eyes, Shiranami Chihiro could only force a smile, her heart bleeding.

"...Of course. Of course it's okay."

Su Wei took it, barely keeping his expression in check.

Fortunately, Shiranami didn't have much time to dwell on her heartbreak.

"Stop dawdling! It's right up there!"

Horikita Suzune and Ryuen Kakeru, eager to end the exam—or rather, to claim the final Hidden Boss—had already started up the stairs.

The remaining Qualified Ones followed close behind.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka hesitated, then decided to accompany them.

He had the feeling he'd forgotten something.

It wasn't as if he could remember everything perfectly.

But when people forgot something that had really happened, the reason was often that it had displeased or troubled them.

The lingering pain in his mouth, however, reminded him that this was important.

And that it had happened not long ago.

The higher they climbed, the more oppressive the strange feeling in the air became.

Ryuen Kakeru simply kicked open the rooftop's iron door.

Then, when he saw what lay beyond it, he froze.

"What the hell is that thing?"

The last remaining Kabane was bouncing wildly against the rooftop water tower, howling like a child who hadn't gotten the candy he wanted.

And the thing it was chasing was even more horrifying.

In the shadow of the water tower, a dense swarm of bizarre creatures hung upside down. They wore black suits, and their gray-white skin was wrinkled.

Though this was the first time he'd seen them,

Ryuen Kakeru felt an inexplicable sense of déjà vu.

As if... he'd seen those things countless times in his nightmares.

"Damn it..."

The intense unease made him raise his gun instinctively.

Forget the feeling. Better to make sure he could end the instance at any moment!

"Zzz—!"

The Laser Rope shot toward the last Kabane and bound it without resistance.

But it also succeeded in waking the group of Silences hanging from the ceiling.

Whoosh—

Three or five pairs of gray-white eyes without eyelids turned toward them in unison.

At that moment,

everyone's memories went briefly blank.

Chapter 27: Nameless: Three-Stage Thrust! ### This strange feeling...

Ayanokoji narrowed his eyes as he looked at the scene before him, like a reversed version of The Scream, and listened to the insect-like cries.

The faint taste of iron in his mouth, along with the pain, stimulated his cerebral cortex.

Even though he still didn't know what kind of monsters he was facing,

the gap in his memories had finally closed.

I've seen them before... Was it today? Just now?

Ayanokoji was certain.

He was rational and rarely dwelled on things.

In his memory, only today stood out as especially unusual.

If even zombies had appeared, what was so strange about another kind of memetic monster that could block or even alter human cognition?

Science, after all,

was the constant challenge, breakthrough, and surpassing of what people considered common sense.

The insect-like cries abruptly stopped. The Silences hanging beneath the water tower had already flipped around and stood on the ground.

Though they had no discernible features, their faces, warped by the distorting influence of arrogance, were steeped in contempt for humanity. They seemed to be looking down on people, yet also to regard them with indifference.