Chapter 21.1
Episode 21 — Bloodstained Nucleus～ Part 1 ～
“Uu…”
Kyousuke raised his upper body with a little groaning voice. At that time, Kyousuke finally realized that his upper body had returned to its original form. Due to the battle with the red winged devil, his cervical spine and every ribs were supposed to be completely shattered and rolling fruitlessly on the floor.
However, Kyousuke who was lying on the bed surely confirmed that the bones of his whole body that should have been crushed was back to normal. Has Gofunkawahara rearranged me? But in that case, whose parts are they from….
“U–Utsurogi-kun…”
As he heard a trembling voice from the side, he looked toward it and saw Rin who was trembling ∗puru puru∗.
Rin was not the only one. Sak.u.ma, Selena and Akira were surrounding Kyousuke, and a little further away was Akai who was polis.h.i.+ng her nails with an uninterested look. Apparently he seemed to have worried them considerably. Kyousuke scratched his head and once again looked around at everyone.
“Ah, no, everyone…”
“Utsurogi-kun~!!”
“Eeehh!? Th–thaaattt～!?”
While tears were forming in her eyes, Sak.u.ma hugged Kyousuke’s body, and Rin gave a panicky voice.
“Wait–wait a moment!? That, let’s me go there … th–that～…”
“What is Himemizu saying…”
“W–well okay…. Utsurogi-kun~!”
“O–ou…”
Rin came winding around his empty left arm. Being hugged by Sak.u.ma, entangled by Rin, and this time Selena jumped at Kyousuke’s femur, rendering it completely immobile.
“W–well, me too! Utsurogi-san~!”
“Selena-san too!”
“He–heheheh…. Utsurogi-san, you have a nice femur…. A creature who walks biped like a human being, the bones here developed well. The skeleton’s frame weathers and weakens with the pa.s.sage of time so it tends to become brittle, but Utsurogi-san’s femur feels like it’s rich in calcium…”
Just that the viewpoint of a certain someone was different.
“Well, it’s good that you’re safe, Kyousuke.”
Although he thought that Akira was surely angry, but the words that he said while floating was calm.
“Ah, right…. It’s good that I’m safe but…. Why am I unharmed? Was it Gofunkawahara?”
“No. As expected, there was no time to go pick up spare bones to help you whose body was physically destroyed.”
Saying so, Akira looked at Selena who was stroking the femur with great interest.
According to her story, it seems that monsters such as slime and skeleton could survive only by preserving the shape and ma.s.s kept in a special information nucleus called the conceptual nucleus. Although it is possible to rearrange parts of the skeleton by changing the parts of the body, if the cervical spine or ribs were destroyed, the shape of life cannot be maintained unless the destroyed parts were temporarily filled. Or so it seems.
Seem, because the name is «conceptual nucleus» in the first place. It was unknown if it was common sense of this world or because Selena was familiar with monster information, but the words came out naturally.
In any case, Selena said such a thing, so there was a possibility that Kyousuke would die before they managed to gathered new parts in order to help him. It seemed like so.
“Well then, what happened?”
“That is, it’s Akai…”
“Akai?&rdq
uo;
While Kyousuke kept his body still, he turned his eyes only toward Akai.
Cla.s.s Queen Akai Asuka, as usual was polis.h.i.+ng her nails and had no interest in Kyousuke. Without giving him a single glance, she spoke in a bored tone.
“What?”
“Ah, no, Akai … what did you do?”
“I used my blood.”
“Akai’s blood?”
Akai had a special skill called b.l.o.o.d.y Corps (named by Akira) which allowed her to freely manipulated soldiers created with her own blood. Was it a racial ability as a vampire or was it Akai’s unique ability? Using that «blood», it was said that she «resurrected» the skeleton of Kyousuke who broke down into pieces.
He could hardly believe it, but it seemed to be true since everyone in the place including Akira didn’t voice out in particular. So then, it was said that Akai’s drops of blood were circulating Kyousuke’s entire body right now.
“Something like that, I can’t quite seem to grasp the sensation…”
“Well it’s fine even if you can’t. Your life was saved in the end.”
“Ah. Thank you, Akai, I was saved.”
“I didn’t do it for you.”
Well then for whom. Was it because the one hugging Kyousuke’s body right now, Sak.u.ma was sad?
He decided to keep quiet as it was likely to be confusing if he asked about that. It seemed that thought was conveyed to Rin, as could be understood from the fact that Rin’s power entangled on his left arm strengthened abnormally.
“Anyway Sachi, can you separate from Utsurogi soon.”
“Ah, y–yeah. Sorry, Utsurogi-kun…”
Sak.u.ma apologized and released her hands hugging Kyousuke.
The situation had finally calmed down, and Kyousuke had just come back to thinking calmly. However, even in the somewhat calm place, there was too much to worry about, all the mysteries and circ.u.mstances needed to be processed in turn. Kyousuke put a hand on his forehead, thinking about it.
“I’ll say it first but Kyousuke, Kogane was caught by that red winged devil.”
“…Ahh, I know that.”
Without at least one souvenir, it was impossible to tell the King. That devil said so. Kogane became that souvenir.
“In the first place, what exactly was that devil? It seemed like he knew our circ.u.mstances.”
“I don’t know. He said something about hits and misses. Ryuzaki-kun is a hit and Hibiki-chan is a miss.”
Rin was bouncing ∗tappon tappon∗ and said so.
“I don’t understand saying that Inugami is a miss. I think in our case, it’s a big miss though.”
“Afterwards, it was said that Kyousuke who grasps his own unique ability and incorporates it in tactics was «Phase 2».”
“Phase 2, does that mean there’s also Phase 3?”
Kyousuke thought with his hand on his chin.
I wonder if Akai’s blood that regenerated my bones is a unique ability. Or is it just a racial ability? Like b.l.o.o.d.y Corps, it is also a part that could not be understood well. In this one case, the mystery about her deepened greatly. It is a problem that we are not friendly enough to ask about it in detail.
“In any case, that red winged devil holds clues about the former world…”
And as he was saying so, Kyousuke saw Selena. Was this information supposed to be kept secret from her?
However, Selena stopped her hand stroking his femur and laughed lightly.
“Ah, no, don’t worry. Ryuzaki-san told me all the circ.u.mstances after that.”
“Re–really?”
“It’s already not a situation where we can hide something from each other. Along with Selena-chan, we hold another meeting. Now, Ryuzaki-kun and the leaders of the exploration teams are discussing the main parts.”
Regarding information that came out at the meeting, they decided to discuss further, Rin said.
“I was surprised. Utsurogi-san and everyone are «trippers».”
“Do you mean people teleported from different worlds?”
“That’s right. They’re also called «foreigner», there are also some in my country. However, to be honest, I’ve never heard of anything like changing your appearance to a monster, so it may be more just that…”
“Really…”
Kyousuke dropped his shoulders. Even among the other faces that should have already heard the story, the heavy mood gloomed.
By the way, what are other students doing now? Some was still frightened by the overwhelming power that the red winged devil showed, but most of the remaining people seemed to have headed toward the heavy cruiser with Gofunkawahara (Goblin) and Kuremori (Gremlin). They were to promptly execute the heavy cruiser remodeling plan raised at the previous meeting.
That red winged devil said 『(I will) come again』. They wanted to have as many cards as possible before that. It would be such a thing. To be honest, they didn’t know how much time was available before the devil came.
“Well, the situation is pretty bad, isn’t it?”
Sak.u.ma floated a weak smile.
“What kind of cooperation would we do with Selena-san? Including that, the story was decided at the meeting just earlier.”
“With Selena-san?”
“Yeah…. When Utsurogi-kun wake up, he wants everyone to come to the strategy room…. Ryuzaki-kun said.”
Everyone looked at Sak.u.ma when she said that. Kyousuke, Rin, Akira, and Selena as well. Kyousuke once again confirmed the feelings in both hands.
Whether the bones infused with Akai’s blood were working properly or not, he didn’t feel any sense of discomfort when moving his body at all. Rather, there was a feeling that the movement of his whole body was strangely light. It seemed to be better than before.
“I have no problem in particular. If everyone is okay, we can go now.”
“All right, let’s go then!”
Rin gave a cheerful voice, such a thing was decided. Kyousuke got up and tried to leave the room.
“Ah, Utsurogi…. In case you’re wondering.”
Again, without even sparing him a glance, Akai raised her voice.
“Because the side effects may not be small. I’ll warn you now.”
“Don’t threaten me too much…”
“I’m not threatening you in particular though.”
The side effects of blood. I wonder what it is. For Kyousuke, even the fact that he was resuscitated by her blood was still difficult to come to terms with. While half ignoring the words of Akai, Kyousuke left the nap room with Rin and the others.