Jujutsushi Wa Yuusha Ni Narenai

Before heading into the dungeon, we started off by refres.h.i.+ng our equipment.

“The area ahead from here is largely divided into two types”

“One side is shown by the magic circle, and it continues deeper into the dungeon. The other route goes through the forest outside. The forest route has Skeleton soldiers, and also Goma who we think may possess equipment stolen from the Skeletons. If we go there first to gather materials, we should be able to take care of our equipment to a certain degree”

Souma-san and her group had apparently done some investigation after landing on this area. If they had finished preparing after their first scan of the area, they’d have left already, and wouldn’t have been involved in our crisis.

“So the Armor Bear got here because it’s connected to the forest huh”

“Souma’s the only one of us who fought that bear, but I’ll bet we can take it down with our current power”

With a proper vanguard, and attack magic shooting from the rear, even an Armor Bear would down on its luck. Kenzaki-san isn’t just being over-confident here. Fact is, that Armor Bear backed off right away.

“Then should we head off after a bit more rest? Futaba-san, you just woke up after all”

“No, I’m perfectly fine. I can move anytime”

Replying like a veteran mercenary, Mei-chan was munching on a bunch of fairy walnuts, acc.u.mulating that nutrition in a wild fas.h.i.+on. How utterly manly. That demeanor fits the Berserker to the T.

“Futaba-san, you know, you don’t have to force yourself”

“No really, I am fine. Look, my arms are healed up too”

Wow, they really are. Mei-chan put out her arms to show us, and though her sleeves were still a mess, the actual arms underneath not only had no wounds, but was back to their original spotless, beautiful skin.

“Souma-san, you used your magic to heal me right? It worked wonders see, thank you”

“Uh, huh... But my Healing Light isn’t all powerful alright. Please don’t overestimate it. What I’m wondering is, Futaba-san, you’re trememdously quick to heal aren’t you?”

“Yeah, maybe it’s that. I think I have a skill for that too”

Her talking so fluently with that Souma Sakura is kinda like, like they’ve been on equal footing since forever. When standing amongst these all-star pretty girls from cla.s.s, Mei-chan who has attained beauty not losing to their own, she somehow seems stunning.

Feels like she’s gone to a different planet. Honestly, right now you could say I’ve gotten myself in a harem-like situation with 6 total hotties surrounding me. But I can’t be happy about this at all. My shoulders are simply too thin. The only guys who ought to stand amongst girls like them are Souma Yuuto, or Tendou Ryuichi. Any other boy would be like me, just gawking awkwardly, or get into a crazed high like a horndog.

“Ah, that’s right, Natsukawa-san, do you still have my knives?”

“HHhe!?”

Natsukawa-san jolts so hard, I kinda feel bad for her. Faced with the kindly smiling Mei-chan, she’s already in tears. Yup, this girl is absolutely terrified.

“I’d like to get it back, if I may? I lost most of my weapons in the fight before”

“HYea.s.s! I has it right here!”

Hii, replies Natsukawa-san in tears, while she clutters around her waist to retrieve a short-sword, and hands it over to Mei-chan. The shorter than average Natsukawa-san standing face to face with the tallest girl in cla.s.s, Mei-chan, really paints an fierce picture. Their height difference is like that of an adult and child. Line them up, and their busts would show a similarly grand dissimilarity.

“Thank you”

Mei-chan who recieved the knife cheerfully, had surpa.s.sed any delinquent extorting someone out of their pocket change, and looked like a yakuza（mafia) member collecting all their belongings and property.

Well then, about this, now returned to its rightful owner, knife...

Now then. We got ourselves this Kill Carver with a very ominous name and description, but with that I now have an idea of just how powerful weapons can become from Takanas.h.i.+-san’s remodeling.

“Hey lookie Kotarou-kun, this spear isn’t rusty at all!”

Mei-chan was coming over with a spear in hand that looked to be in very good condition. I could use it, or give it to Rem, and this iron spear would work great.

Behind her, there’s numerous iron helmets wearing Skeleton soldiers, all looking bisected, and piled in a mountain. All of this was Mei-chan and her Kill Carver.

Once unsheathed, you can see a s.h.i.+ny blade and, a slight red aura drifting from it. It’s the same sinister aura let out by Mei-chan when she uses Reagent X. The thing’s unnatural ferocity is now out in plain sight, and its practicality was demonstrated right before my eyes.

Currently, she has Hirano-kun’s sword in her left, and Kill Carver in her right hand in a dual wield. She would usually use the long reach of the sword, but vying to get familiar with the sharp knife as well, she settled on a blade in both hands. The Berserker Mei-chan’s physical strength is off the charts already, so swinging around heavy iron swords is a cake-walk.

“I never though Futaba-san would get this strong... it’s like she’s a whole new person”

After gifting me the spear, she went back energetically to the front lines. Seeing that valiant back, Cla.s.s Rep made a complicated face.

“Yeah, a lot happened after all. And look, Mei-chan’s a Knight so this kind of power must’ve been in her all along”

“But you’re the trigger to let that out that power, Momokawa-kun. Just what kind of magic did you use to change that perpetually scared girl into a heroic knight like this”

“Ahaha, it wasn’t me at all... I’m thinking she just broke through the proverbial gla.s.s ceiling after fighting so desperately for a while”

I slide the subject with a dry laugh. What changed Mei-chan wasn’t some amazing magic, but narcotic drugs that mess with your reasoning. It isn’t a big secret, but it’s not something to be open about either.

“How about we go a bit more?”

“Yes, sounds good. Let’s”

Kenzaki-san calls out and Souma-san replies, and all of us keep moving along the stone pa.s.sages.

There’s been quite a few combat situations like the one just now, and I somewhat got a grasp of their powers.

Their vanguard is Kenzaki-san the Dualwielder and Natsukawa-san the Thief. Rearguard is Saintess Souma-san and Ice Mage Cla.s.s Rep. Finally there’s the Sage Takanas.h.i.+-san, who needs guarding. Now adding to that, there’s Mei-chan the Berserker, also in the vanguard, and me, the Shaman positioned in the rear. We’ve never had a party so well balanced. Yeah, I feel like with all of us, any group of mob monsters will be dispersed easily. It’s like we’re in a well balanced dungeon crawler game.

“Hey uh, Souma-san, between Souma-kun and Kenzaki-san, Hero and Dualwielder, how much of a difference in power did you see?”

“Eh, between nii-san and Asuna? Let me think... There’s wasn’t that big a difference in raw power. Just that, the Hero is somewhat, it feels like that cla.s.s grants a special sort of power”

“Like when he beat the Cerberus?”

“Yes, no matter what the crisis, he can make a breakthrough. It’s that sort of seemingly bottomless strength.”

“So without that, him and Kenzaki-san are basically equal?”

“That may be true. Both of them have grown up with a lot training after all. It’s almost similar to the power from a vocation”

d.a.m.n I’m cool. Just look how I’m having a normal conversation with that Souma Sakura. While somewhat really surprised how this is actually happening, I quietly a.n.a.lyze the new information I’ve received.

I guess that’s what you get being a Hero, it’s one h.e.l.l of a special vocation. This mysterious power that suddenly awakens and bursts through all obstacles when it counts the most, would be the meat and potatoes of Souma-san’s story. But I can’t be so optimistic about such an unknown power that seemingly rescues you from any pinch. I’ll have to consider Souma-kun’s solid skill as a swordsman and how it fairs against Kenzaki-san.

“Then how’s Mei-chan? Compared to Kenzaki-san I mean”

“It’s hard to believe, but Futaba-san looks to have the same level of ability as Asuna”

Natsukawa-san is in track and field as we all know, and her along with Souma-san have no experience in martial arts. But with the vocation of Thief, she attained a high prowess in combat... However, her experience in this world is a large contributing factor to that prowess, and she clearly falls behind the actually experienced ones like Souma-kun and Kenzaki-san. If you think about it, it’s an obvious result.

Even if they get supernatural powers in this world, compared someone with similar powers, what matters in the end are individual differences. But throwing that theory completely out the window,

“Futaba-san isn’t supposed to have any of this sort of experience, no, she’s supposed to be a normal girl”

“And you’re saying she has the skill to match Kenzaki-san?”

“It may be her natural talent, or else, it’s a result from their difference in vocations. I don’t see the real reason”

Strengthening one’s vocation is up to the individual. But then, if you’re granted high-spec powers, you can overcome things like experience just like that.

“Yeah, I’m kinda relieved hearing that”

“Relieved? How so?”

“Err look, Kenzaki-san and Natsukawa-san have been using so many different skills while fighting. Mei-chan doesn’t have such a rich array of skills after all”

“... Momokawa-kun, you can see them using those?”

“Yeah well, it’s pretty obvious”

Like, both of them have been doing double jumps and all. No way they had those back in j.a.pan.

“Kenzaki-san has one-shot attacks like Slash. A single bladed one, and one let out from both swords. Also, there’s one that lets out a shock wave after piercing through. Well, these are just my guesses from what she’s been using, for the past while?”

“And Minami? What about her?”

“I know from Mei-chan that she has Slash. But it looks like she can do two of those back to back. But what’s more amazing is that Natsukawa-san can dodge with Foresight even while moving super fast with High Walk. I think she also has Repel, but maybe she’s not too confident in its power. I didn’t see her use it often”

“I wonder, did you happen to watch martial arts matches often Momokawa-kun?”

“Nope, not at all”

I have literally no interest in that area. I’m more if a big fan of anime, manga and games. Always looking forward to epic finis.h.i.+ng moves or super-tier magics being used in fantasy battle stories and such. But say I did watch martial arts, I’d have no idea what move was used or what technique was being carried out.

But no way am I spilling out all that jargon. I at least have the judgement to avoid my otaku fanboy-ing in public.

“I, see... You’ve been watching well”

“It’s life and death after all”

Depending on how the vanguard fairs, us in the rear could get into deep s.h.i.+t before we know it. So obviously we need to understand each others’ strengths and weaknesses. Though it’s not like a total noob like me can tell much from just looking.

“I’d like to talk a bit more about everyone’s skills once we get back, that alright?”

“Yes, of course. We need to do that or else we won’t coordinate well after all”

And like that, we smoothly finished gathering materials. The groups of Skeletons or Goma weren’t a match for our amazing trio in the frontlines, so us in the back didn’t have much to do. Nevertheless, the shamefully weak nature of my curses have indeed come to light.

I can’t just use Rotten Bog with party members who aren’t used to it, and I haven’t reconstructed Rem either. In the end, all I could manage was some hara.s.sing from Blackhair Bind. I can’t help but be jealous of Souma-san and Cla.s.s Rep shooting off light and ice attacks left and right.

But the most annoying part about being in the rearguard was that Takanas.h.i.+-san. As if using me as a s.h.i.+eld, was always standing right behind me. Well, that was the formation so I can’t complain too much... but having someone right on your tail is pretty annoying.

Don’t bring along non-combatants dammit, I want to complain, but even though the fairy square will hinder entry to monsters, it won’t do the same for beasts. In other words, h.o.r.n.y b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like that totem-pole trio could come in so we always have to be together, is what it is.

Takanas.h.i.+-san has this super convenient self-defense skill, namely Sacred Tongue: “Word of Rejection”, so frankly speaking, her safety is guaranteed even more than mine. In live combat, I may as well count as the bigger piece of excess baggage.

She also has this Mana a.n.a.lysis skill. It’s like her remodeling ability with the fountain, but with this it doesn’t even have to be a physical magic-imbued object, but also stuff like magic shot out by monsters. Depending on the type she can understand it, so she’s not entirely useless in combats either. And it even feels like Mana a.n.a.lysis can act as a higher form of my Intuition Pharmacy. If it has mana, she can handle magic and objects the same, so the skill’s multi-use capability isn’t limited in the least.

But the least you can do is carry a spear or knife like, for self-defense, are my honest thoughts. Takanas.h.i.+-san being so frail, she only carries cores in her bag. Though I’m not in any position to tell her that. I’m pretty much the same level of useless as her at this point.

Anyway, there were some annoying points, but our harvest was excellent. Plus I got to see first-hand how these girls fight. You could say it was a very fruitful practice session.

Incidentally, we were doing so well, that we made it to the exit into the forest outside. Since it was a good opportunity, we tried heading in a bit and... h.e.l.l yes! We found ourselves those some of those delicious snakes, three even. This is great Mei-chan, tonight shall be a feast.

Well, when those 5 pretty girls saw how Mei-chan was joyously hunting down snakes and brute forcing apart their skin, we got a real jump out of them but... Fufun, once they know this taste, they too shall become avid Snake Hunters no doubt.