The Big One Is Coming

The sensation of having his body disassembled and put back together was unpleasant, but it didn't stop him from making a rational assessment.

Technology so far beyond the current limits of human science clearly didn't belong to this era.

If they had technology capable of such a one-sided dimensional blow... then it wasn't so hard to accept that they knew my background, or even understood that man's ambitions.

His vision finally cleared.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka tilted his head and immediately looked around.

Not far away stood a huge floor-to-ceiling window. Blood-red dusk slanted through the glass, casting long reflections across the tiled floor.

On either side of the window stretched wide, shadowy corridors lined with shops whose shutters were firmly closed. A few lights on the ceiling flickered as if their wiring were faulty.

"Looks like a large shopping mall?"

Kaneda Satoru, who had been transported here with them, had put his regular glasses back on.

He looked around and said gravely:

"There's no sound, no living people. Was the place cleared out beforehand, or are we being cut off from the outside?"

"If it's the latter... are we still within the school grounds?"

Ayanokoji and Machida Koji didn't interrupt his almost self-directed muttering.

They simply exchanged a quiet glance.

Seeing that Kaneda seemed to be thinking, Machida spoke first:

"We don't know how many Intruders there are, or how far we are from the main group."

"Let's not split up for now. We should find somewhere conspicuous, or get a map of the mall so Kanzaki and the others can find us."

Ayanokoji gave a slight nod of agreement.

At the same time, he sized up his two temporary teammates from the corner of his eye.

Faced with a desperate situation where death could be just around the corner, neither of them had panicked. Instead, they had calmly assessed their surroundings and come up with a plan at once.

He didn't think these two necessarily represented the average level of Class A and Class C. They had probably been handpicked by their respective class leaders.

Just as Ayanokoji was considering this, he suddenly stopped and raised a hand in a quiet signal.

The two behind him fell silent at once.

Kaneda adjusted his glasses and narrowed his eyes, looking down the corridor toward a shadow dimly illuminated by fluorescent light.

A dark figure was slowly emerging from it.

"That build..."

Kaneda swallowed.

"Doesn't look like a normal adult. Its pace is steady, but not fast... It's not a Kabane, and it doesn't look like a disembodied Evil Spirit."

"Could it be... a Parasite?"

He suddenly looked troubled. "Wait, that doesn't make sense. According to Ryuen, Parasites are usually hidden high-score bosses. We just got here. There's no way we've already hit the jackpot, right?"

Machida's mouth twitched. He lowered his voice and cursed:

"Shut up! If it really is a Parasite, blurting that out without even trying to hide it is just giving it a reason to kill you!"

"It's fine," Kaneda said through gritted teeth. "You don't have to outrun the little monsters, and you can't outrun the big ones... So, what do you say? Want to take a gamble? We've got two lives, anyway."

Machida fell silent.

Just as his eyes flickered and he was about to abandon Kaneda and run with Ayanokoji, who seemed relatively normal—

"Thud, thud, thud!"

A burst of hurried footsteps suddenly came from the corridor behind them.

Caught between a wolf in front and a tiger behind?

Before the despair of being surrounded could sink in, a distinctly human voice rang out through the empty corridor.

"Why are you dragging your feet, standing around discussing what kind of stupid tactics to use?"

"Look ahead! That monster's practically got its face against your noses! If you ask me, when you find one alone, you just charge in and get it over with!"

Ayanokoji's eye twitched almost imperceptibly.

"It's Sudo, from our class."

Kaneda and Machida finally let out a long breath of relief.

With Ken Sudō's arrival, the dark figure ahead came to a stop.

In the light of the setting sun, they finally saw what it looked like.

It was a creature with a hunched back, dressed in an ill-fitting suit. Its build was roughly human, but its arms nearly reached the ground, and its face was that of a wrinkled gorilla.

"What the..."

Machida stared in disbelief. "Did a gorilla cheat on its partner, or did some pair of siblings get up to something? How can anything look this ridiculous?"

Kaneda and Ayanokoji were surprised too. The whole thing looked bizarre, almost like a joke.

But before they could give it much thought, Sudō spoke up.

"Holy crap! I thought that picture looked familiar. So it really is one of those freaky Ape-Men!"

Sudō swung the Combat Knife in his hand and pointed it at the Ape-Man, his face full of scorn.

"Haha, perfect! I'm going to show you bottom-of-the-food-chain animals exactly why humans are at the top!"

Ayanokoji frowned.

Judging by Sudō's reaction, the gorilla in front of them was clearly one of the targets in this Black Sphere Exam.

But the Black Sphere only ever provided a monster's traits and catchphrases. It never revealed its fatal weaknesses.

That meant they could only determine how dangerous a monster really was after fighting it.

Come to think of it...

That was probably one reason Hirata hadn't revealed Su Wei and Kushida's identities to everyone.

It kept those blindly overconfident fools in the class from thinking they could sit back and do nothing because experienced players had their backs.

He hadn't expected Hirata's concern to come true so soon... Was this Murphy's law?

As Ayanokoji pondered, he casually shifted half a step backward, hiding himself in Kaneda and Machida's shadows.

To everyone's surprise, the Ape-Man didn't fly into a rage and attack like a wild beast.

It merely raised its head and looked at Sudō impassively.

"Actually... I only came over to ask for directions."

"But I'm very interested in what you just said."

The Ape-Man tugged at its tight suit collar, as if it found human clothing uncomfortable.

"Biologically speaking, you humans do seem to be at the top of this world's food chain."

"But unfortunately, I don't see any fundamental difference between the humans in your world and those in the world I came from."

"Just as arrogant, and just as... fragile."

"Honestly, I could easily take down a fully armed human unit a long time ago. I don't think you're anywhere near their level."

The Ape-Man sighed and delivered its final judgment:

"You're nothing but ordinary men born in an era without me."

Faced with the Ape-Man's mockery, Ken Sudō immediately lost his temper.

"Don't look down on me, you beast! You're just an animal with no manners!"

He roared and raised his knife, bringing it down in a mighty overhead slash to gut his opponent.

The Ape-Man, whose name was Charlie, merely shook its head.

"Such a slow blade... Are you trying to put on an acrobatic show?"

"Never mind. I don't like hurting animals, but that doesn't mean I'm afraid of violence."

Charlie shifted slightly.

The instant Sudō's blade came down, it sidestepped, letting his slash cut through empty air.

Then it tripped him with one foot and reached out with its long arm to snatch the weapon from Sudō's hand.

In that split second—

"Bzzzt—!"

Accompanied by a low hum, a triangular Laser Rope shot straight toward Charlie.

Charlie immediately abandoned its attempt to take the knife. Instead, it grabbed Sudō by the collar as he was about to fall, trying to pull him in front as a human shield.

But it had underestimated the Black Sphere's technology.

The Laser Rope moved as if it had eyes, curving around Sudō in an extremely strange arc. It instantly crossed behind Charlie and bound it tight!

"Thump!"

With nothing holding him back, Sudō pitched forward onto the cold tile floor and slid several meters.

When he got to his feet, covered in dust, and saw who had arrived, he felt no relief at having survived. Instead, humiliation gave way to fury.

"Who asked you to help me?! I could've handled it myself!"

A short distance down the corridor,

Su Wei lowered the Capture Gun. "..."

For fuck's sake.

Sometimes, when a person got annoyed enough, all he could do was laugh.

Honestly, was there any way he and Ichinose, both wearing Reinforcement Suits, couldn't catch up to Sudō?

Of course not.

It was just that this guy was acting like he didn't take the Black Sphere Exam seriously at all.

As soon as they'd landed, while everyone else was checking the Dragon Radar and working out an initial plan, Sudō had taken one quick look at the survivors' positions. He'd completely ignored the second red dot near Ayanokoji and the others, then rushed off alone.

Even when Ichinose tried to stop him and tell him not to go charging to his death, Ryuen Kakeru had coldly held her back.

"Let him go," Ryuen had said. "He won't learn to listen until he takes a beating. That mad dog needs to suffer first."

After all, they were practically old hands by now.

They knew how the Black Sphere operated—it liked to place a hidden boss beside the last ordinary monster, just to surprise you.

Now that two Ape-Men were so close together, the meaning was obvious.

That's right. Su Wei had arranged this on purpose.

The battle was supposed to become a decisive showdown from the very start. He wanted this tense, hair-trigger atmosphere! That was what made it exciting!

But to keep up his "ordinary student dragged into all this" act, he'd still timed his arrival to save Sudō at the last possible moment.

And this was the thanks he got?

Fine. Very bold.

How many lives did you think you had, talking to the Main God like that? You'd be the first one he dealt with!

"Monsters assigned by the Black Sphere usually have physical abilities several levels above those of ordinary people."

Su Wei ran his fingers over the Magic Glove, which was invisible thanks to the Invisibility Spray, his tone calm: