(Rukaru POV)
We stood behind the glass at the side of the classroom’s only doors in and out. I’m a bit wary.
In-front of us was the scene of a dead stampede of animals that don’t exactly look like they would have been the friendly or neutral kind.
“From what I can tell, it’s been a while since they died. They look stiff, and unmoving.” Toukai gave her assessment.
“Cut in half. Huh.” Shohi muttered what is visibly the way these animals died. Well, most of them.
There was a period of silence as we just stared outside. The more nothing happens, I just feel more uncertain.
“We’ll eventually need to go outside.” Toukai started speaking aloud her thoughts. “In the morning, we’ll need to eat something.” She said, and afterward takes a look at our still-sleeping classmates. “We need something soft to sleep on…”
“If it’s about going outside, I think Rukaru is the best fit.” Shohi nominated.
“Me?” I don’t have a good feeling about going out.
“Oh, uh. It’s just because you have that [Division] construct. It said that it’ll use your mana if you don’t have a blade or sword, right? To be honest, I’m thinking we’ll probably be ambushed by something when we go out, and you’re the only one with an attacking power. I’ll need time to see if I can make fireballs.” Shohi explained.
“Is that so?” I don’t really have much to say, his reasoning for nominating me seemed all right. But, that explanation of his did mention a risk.
I glance toward the other two. Toukai seems deep in thought, while Reshidou is just silent.
And then, even though a few seconds have yet to pass, we get surprised as a light suddenly pops up. “Heh~ It seems like I didn’t need much time”, Shohi said.
Atop his hand hovered a ball of flame. It was small, but not negligible.
“You did that?” Reshidou asked.
“Yeah, I sure did.” Shohi did not hide himself being proud.
“That easily?” Another question from Reshidou.
“Yup.” Another positive answer from Shohi. “I just imagined a fire, and here it is.” His joy visibly hits its peak.
He can create fire that easily, huh.
I go back to the status. I’m seeing that mana is a thing, along with HP and stamina. Like in a video game? Magic? Now, it exists?
“This is quite something…” I utter beneath my breath.
I see Reshidou pause, and his facial expression expresses some kind of reoslution. He aims his hand toward an empty chair, the palm open.
I hear a creak from the floor, and then see that the chair moved for a second, nudging towards Reshidou until he had retracted his hand in surprise.
Toukai and I were surprised as well, while Shohi was the only one who did not even so much as flinch.
“Heh~ that’s awesome. I’m like a telekinetic user, huh.” Reshidou seems to have become giddy.
“How much mana did that consume?” Shohi asked.
“Not much. Far from even ten percent.” (Reshidou)
“Well, you did just move it for only an inch or so.” (Shohi)
“What about yours?” (Reshidou)
“I stopped when I drained two tenths.” (Shohi)
Shohi’s ball of fire went away sometime in his conversation with Reshidou, the fire lasted a good couple of seconds.
They both seemed to be matching each other’s knowledge quite well.
I sigh a little. I’m a bit clueless in this situation. “What do you think of this, Toukai?” I’ll try to get some insight for myself as well.
“Hmm, you three will have to do quite a bit of work if everyone is to survive.” Toukai shows me a troubled expression. Compared to us three, the constructs she has are only brainy things. If in terms of what Shohi had said, she has the least attacking power out of us, I think.
“Of course, I’ll help.” I’ll just say that, something assuring. I suppose there shouldn’t be too much of a difference with how she’ll be like a leader figure for us, she was good at taking the initiative to organize our class activities, I won’t hold her back from going for that kind of thing.
“Thanks.” Toukai’s expression relaxes, she is relieved. That’s good, I don’t want the person I tried to rely on for ideas to be down. “Considering I don’t see the moon through this side, or through that side, it’s probably right above us. That means we’ll probably have around 4 to 6 hours of night left.” She said.
“In that case, it’s best to be sleeping right now?” I said the first thought that popped up in my mind.
“Eheh”, Toukai let out a short dull laugh with an unhappy smile, “that would be ideal. If only it were warmer… Shohi, do you think you could keep us warm?”
“Hmm, I don’t know how to, I’ll try to learn how to.” Shohi seemed unable to. There was a silence for a moment as we waited to see if he just learns how to do it quickly like with the ball of fire, but his eyes just stared back at us in that time.
“It’s a little difficult, I can’t just imagine lighting you guys on fire, after all”, Shohi joked. The three of us don’t know how to react, other than with a blank face.
“Anyway, maybe you should try out your [Division]. Shohi said that you could slice things with it.” Toukai told me to slice something. Shohi also told me to try it out, but the only viable targets I can see are the only familiar things in consideration of whoever knows where we are.
“Are you sure we can just damage these things?” I asked to confirm.
“Hmm, no reason against it.” Toukai pushes forward with her instruction.
“Alright…” I focus on the closest desk that had no one on it. It was the partner of the empty chair that Reshidou magically pulled a little.
The description said something about upon an intent to slice.
Then, the desk immediately got cut into two even while I was still approaching it.
It seems like quite the trigger happy ability, I’ll have to be careful with it.
Would it recognize if I’m just joking? How difficult is it to hold it back? I can’t answer those questions for now, as long as I stay clear of mentioning cutting down someone willy nilly, it definitely won’t activate, I think.
Is [Division] limited by distance? Ah, I’ll find that out later, it probably is, it should be.
“Well”, that’s all I said for how quick it happened.
“You can cast it eleven more times… I think… considering what you cut through… two layers… one layer a bit thicker.” Toukai started analyzing the details of it.
“Did you use [Evaluation] to see Rukaru’s mana?”
I look at my mana bar when Shohi asked that to Toukai who was analyzing things.
Right. Being observant is quite fitting of her. “Yeah.” Toukai gave a simple answer.
“What does [Evaluation] tell you…? How different is it from just straight-up seeing our status?” Shohi wanted to know.
“Hm. It’s definitely showing me the same things that [Open Status] tells me about me.” (Toukai)
“Oh. Then, how about you use [Evaluation] on that?” Shohi points Toukai’s attention over to the dirt mannequin.
Some time passes, and, “well?” I asked. I’m fairly curious with what it is.
“All it’s saying is please wait, and that explanation will come.” Toukai answered.
“Ain’t that mysterious, what do you think, Shohi? Would you expect it to be good, or bad for us?” Reshidou asked.
“Uhh… considering how it’s in the middle of the classroom, I guess it is what teleported us here… I’m thinking it’s a good thing for us… it should be.” Shohi answered.
“It’s what sent us here, you say, so it’s our ticket home, right?” Toukai asked, her perking up showing in her voice.
“Uh, for now it’s just a guess, but I suppose it makes sense that we can be teleported back. If this guess is correct, then my guess about how we could return to Earth is that we might have to do something in exchange, to be brought back to Earth. Maybe…” Shohi then slowly turns his head to the window, looking at the dead corpses of the creatures outside, as if intentionally letting some sort of suspense build up.
“We might have to defeat a demon lord.” Shohi said, his thoughts of the case concluded.
“A demon lord… Huh.” Reshidou quietly repeated, and the three of us aside from Shohi go into contemplation.
“How long do you think that would take?” I asked Shohi.
“Well, I assume we won’t be able to accomplish it anytime soon. It depends on how quickly we grow powerful, I suppose.” (Shohi)
“So it won’t be easy, huh.” Reshidou commented.
“So… we have to wait for that to start moving?” Toukai asked.
“Yes. We’ll have to wait for it.” Shohi answered.
Then, we go silent.
The only significant thing we could do is… I have my doubts about going outside.
The night is fairly well-lit by the moon, so I don’t feel an issue with visibility, but Shohi expressed a concern about getting ambushed.
Well, it won’t be an ambush if we can see it, and I don’t think such large wolves would be able to hide if they were whole and not lying flat on the ground, but I suppose the problem is if we can fend such a thing off… and if worse, multiple of them.
All four of us just started idling quietly.
“Shohi, how much longer will you take?” Toukai spoke up in a low tone. She’s facing an issue… Yeah, she isn’t as covered as we are in cloth.
“Huh? Oh, right, sorry, I forgot. I’ll get to it quick… Give me some time…” Shohi stumbled on his words, apologetically. Since he can magically manipulate heat, he’s going to be quite the necessary guy, huh…
Though I have [Health Regulation] to take care of me… I feel a little sorry, but I suppose I should just be more so thankful that I don’t have to mind the cold as much.
