"Senpai! Miko!" Watching helplessly as Chris and Yotsuya Miko were swallowed by the dim blue beam of light, Ichinose's heart skipped a beat.
Going against the flow of the crowd, completely ignoring the staff's reminders, she hurried over to the spot where Chris and Yotsuya Miko had just been standing.
It was completely empty.
Not a single trace had been left behind.
Seeing Ichinose standing frozen in place, her face full of anxiety, a kindly-looking auntie leaned in and asked:
"Little miss, is something the matter…? Did the younger sister who was with you get lost?"
Ichinose Honami turned to glance at her.
Then she looked around—the bustling tourists, the ticket-checking staff, everyone going about their business as usual, no one reacting to any of this.
Putting the current situation together, Ichinose understood.
Everyone's perception had been blocked by the Black Sphere…
"Ah… it's, it's nothing, thank you for your concern. I just remembered she went to the restroom."
Ichinose forced out a smile and politely declined the passerby's kindness.
She stepped aside, her delicate brows tightly furrowed.
Why had this exam suddenly selected senpai?
Yotsuya Miko being dragged in could still be explained by her class not having an intrusion-exemption privilege.
But what about Chris?
After all, in the current Class A, because Ayanokoji and the others had won quite a lot in the advance tests, they definitely had plenty of intrusion-exemption privileges on hand.
Could it be… that from the very start, they hadn't intended to use this privilege?
Or was it because of some anomaly that the exemption privilege had stopped working?
Ichinose pondered the deeper meaning behind it.
The more she thought, the more uneasy she felt. Biting her lower lip, she resolutely pulled out her phone and called Karuizawa Kei, wanting to find out what was going on.
But what Ichinose had no idea of was this.
At a spot less than half a meter beside her.
Shiranami Chihiro—who, having lost her anchor due to Yotsuya Miko's disappearance, was about to be forcibly teleported back to her hometown again—was watching Ichinose's anxious expression with eyes full of heartache.
Shiranami Chihiro reached out a hand.
'Honami-chan… don't make that kind of expression…'
She opened her mouth, wanting to say something comforting, but under the rule that the living couldn't see her, she didn't know how to even begin.
In the end, she could only dissolve into faint specks of light, vanishing helplessly into the clamor of the amusement park.
She opened her eyes. The first thing Yotsuya Miko felt was not the steadiness of solid ground beneath her feet, but a sensation of weightlessness.
A fierce wind howled in her ears, lashing her cheeks until they stung.
'It's like… I'm falling from a great height?'
She blinked in a daze, looking down through the bangs the wind had whipped across her forehead. Uh… so she really was!
A dense green sea of forest was rapidly expanding in her field of view.
Yotsuya Miko instinctively gripped Chris's hand tightly and let out a scream: "Aaah!" "We're going to fall to our deaths…!"
Faced with this sudden situation, Chris's expression didn't change in the slightest.
He gripped Miko's hand back and with his other hand swiftly pulled a capsule from his pocket, crushing it directly.
As a flash of white light passed, a broad, long greatsword appeared in his hand.
"Demon Possession!" Chris bellowed.
Silver-white armor swiftly covered his entire body like flowing water.
At the critical point less than ten meters from the ground.
Chris pulled Yotsuya Miko into his arms.
Then, he used the branches of a towering giant tree beneath his feet as a cushion.
"Crack!" Accompanied by the muffled sound of the branch snapping, Chris successfully cushioned his landing and stood steadily upon the ground, amid the flying dust.
Chris released his arms and gently set Yotsuya Miko down.
Feeling the solid sensation of soil firmly underfoot, Yotsuya Miko's heart, which had been lodged in her throat, finally dropped back into place.
Patting her chest, she took a good while to recover, then tentatively spoke up:
"Are we… already inside the exam grounds in another world?"
Chris raised his hand and glanced at his Black Sphere Wristwatch.
"Four o'clock. About the time the upperclassmen's advance test begins." "But…"
Chris said with feigned puzzlement, "I remember telling Ayanokoji and the others to use up the exemption privileges… and yet I still got selected."
"Could it be that I was specially chosen by the Black Sphere to become the 'Mysterious Merchant' of this exam, or some other kind of staff member?"
Hearing this, Yotsuya Miko fell silent.
She even deliberately slowed her breathing, afraid that the slightest sound she made would disturb the Black Sphere communication and cause Chris to miss the prompt issued by the system. Unfortunately.
The two of them just stood there staring blankly at each other, waiting in place for about two minutes.
But the Black Sphere's signature electronic prompt tone never once sounded.
Instead, from above the canopy overhead, a sudden flapping of wings came. "Skreee—!"
An ant-like creature, fully as tall as a person, its whole body covered in hard chitin, with dragonfly-like wings on its back, dove down from the sky!
Roaring, it moved to snatch up Chris and Yotsuya Miko. "Eek!"
Facing this giant insect that was only marginally better-looking than an evil spirit, Yotsuya Miko let out a short, mournful cry and hurriedly hid behind Chris.
Chris merely reached out.
The instant the Chimera Ant made contact, he clamped its neck and forcibly held it suspended in midair.
"Can you talk?" Chris asked. "Jii… guga…"
Seeing the creature only flailing its limbs wildly, making illogical, mumbling sounds from its throat.
"Forget it, there's no communicating with you." Chris's five fingers tightened. "Crack!" Once the Chimera Ant had gone limp, Chris casually tossed it aside.
Then, Chris extracted a Combat Rifle from the Black Sphere Wristwatch and passed it backhanded to Yotsuya Miko hiding behind him. "Take it."
Chris lowered his head and patiently instructed:
"The Combat Rifle's built-in radar has a friend-or-foe identification function. Last time during the test, you were together with Horikita, Karuizawa and the others, right? You should have seen them use it."
"The range is roughly a thousand meters. Just raise the gun, lock on through the scope, wait three seconds, then pull the trigger. There's almost no recoil, so you don't need to worry about not being able to hold it."
Yotsuya Miko took it with both hands and nodded obediently.
She glanced down at the radar screen lit up on the Combat Rifle's stock, and her face instantly went a little pale:
"Chris-kun… there are so many red-dot monsters showing on the radar. Shouldn't we find a place to hide first?"
She looked around. "The terrain here is fairly open, and the trees are pretty dense too—it shouldn't be like last time, where there was nowhere to hide at all, right?"
But Chris shook his head.
If the one standing before him right now were Kushida, Sakayanagi, or Horikita Suzune.
He would say this was a weakling's way of thinking.
But facing Yotsuya Miko, an ordinary girl with whom he had no real bonds for now, Chris thought about it and softened his tone:
"When you have no defensive capability whatsoever, choosing to hide is the right call."
"But when you have basic means of defense, there's no need to be so passive…"
Noticing that Yotsuya Miko, while warily aiming the gun around, glanced at him quizzically out of the corner of her eye because of his pause.
Chris nodded with satisfaction and continued:
"Running away is something you only need to do after you've given it your all and still have no other option."
"What's more, because the monsters hunted by intruders are also counted within the system…"
"So at a time like this, our optimal choice is actually to find other classmates nearby and gather into a group."
Chris said bluntly:
"That way, whether it's pulling classmates in to share the pressure as cannon fodder when encountering a strong enemy, or the odds of being rescued, both increase manyfold."
"Ahem, ahem…" Yotsuya Miko gave a light cough.
Cautiously stealing a glance at Chris, she couldn't help muttering inwardly:
When real danger struck, would Chris-kun also throw her out to take the blade without hesitation?
But this was only a momentary thought.
She quickly dismissed the idea in her mind.
After all, with the strength Chris had just displayed, there was absolutely no need for that.
These words were, in essence, advice offered by putting himself in her shoes, for her sake as a weakling.
And moreover, as a man whom Ichinose trusted—and even faintly admired—Yotsuya Miko found it hard to imagine he'd be a selfish person.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Miko's gaze grew a little firmer.
She raised the Combat Rifle and tried to aim the muzzle at a Chimera Ant in midair that seemed to have spotted them and was circling, preparing to dive straight down.
Aim, lock on. "Beep—beep—beep!"
Yotsuya Miko pulled the trigger. "Bang!"
After the muffled gunshot, the Chimera Ant seemed to be crushed by an invisible giant hand, snapped clean in two at the waist!
Yotsuya Miko's eyes brightened slightly, and her hands—which had been trembling a bit as they held the gun—now strangely steadied.
'This thing… is surprisingly useful!'
If only she'd had this thing before—if any evil spirit dared come scare her again, then she, Yotsuya Miko, would absolutely show that bunch of evil spirits the meaning of cruelty!
However, after a brief flight of fancy, Miko quickly returned to reality.
She glanced down at the radar.
Not too far from them, there were several green dots representing classmates, as well as red dots gradually closing in on those green dots from all directions.
Yotsuya Miko looked up at Chris, who was fiddling with a controller panel, and softly asked:
"Um, Chris-kun. So shouldn't we… go join up with them first now?"
As a three-dimensional map unfolded above the controller, Chris tapped open one of the red dots and said offhandedly:
"No rush. Let's take a look at the monster type for this test first—it won't be too late to decide after that."
Yotsuya Miko nodded obediently and leaned in a little closer, looking at the monster data that surfaced on the screen:
[Target: Chimera Ant Soldier]
[Value: 2 points]
[Traits: Born of the Chimera Ant Queen, serving as the main force for predation, directly carrying out the capture of food. They obey the dispatch orders of the Army Commander; generally, 10-15 soldiers form a squad, with a strict social division of labor.]
[Weak point: Individual strength isn't particularly great; they can be breached by conventional human firearms such as submachine guns. But they are fearless of death, and their overwhelming numbers and teamwork are their greatest advantages.]
And while Chris and Miko were still analyzing the intel.
At the other end of the forest.
When she recovered from the dizziness of teleportation, she found that she had actually been teleported together with Kushida Kikyo.
Shiina Hiyori, still clutching a novel tightly to her chest, couldn't help falling into thought for a moment.
And beside her, Kushida Kikyo, looking at the unfamiliar vegetation around her, was so shocked her eyes went wide, her face full of disbelief.
'Are you kidding me…!'
What do you call luck? This is what you call luck!
Just yesterday she'd been selected as the exam's "Mysterious Merchant" and barely escaped with her life; now, only the second day, she'd actually been dragged into it once again!
If you told her the Black Sphere didn't have a secret crush on her, Kushida Kikyo wouldn't believe it even if it killed her!
The problem was, this was absolutely not something worth being happy about!
'Could it be… because this morning when I was bragging to Chris-kun about how lucky I was, the Black Sphere overheard me…?'
Just as Kushida Kikyo was making this guess, too miserable even to cry.
Before Shiina Hiyori, accompanied by the familiar Black Sphere prompt tone, a blue light screen unfolded out of thin air:
[Shiina Hiyori, congratulations on being selected as the 'Mysterious Merchant' of this exam.]
[As the Mysterious Merchant, you enjoy a death-immunity privilege within the exam grounds. However, each time you resurrect from a lethal blow, the cost will be the permanent disappearance of one item from your shelves.]
[At the same time, you may collect ten percent of the sales turnover in item points as your remuneration.]
[Below is the list of goods you need to sell this time:]
[Explosive Tag, Pauper's Rose, Random Heroic Spirit Class Card, Divine-Slaying Tool · Light Wings of the White Dragon Emperor, Random Imperial Arms, Stone Mask]
Hearing the Black Sphere prompt tone, Kushida Kikyo finally came to her senses and noticed Shiina Hiyori's presence.
Although she was puzzled why the Black Sphere hadn't given her an identity prompt this time, she remembered perfectly clearly that Shiina Hiyori had a Combat Suit!
Moreover, Shiina Hiyori counted as a bit of a veteran who'd participated in several Black Sphere exams.
She ought to have some combat experience, right?
As a fellow unlucky soul favored by the Black Sphere, they ought to get along, right!
In a flash of thought, Kushida Kikyo immediately put on a smiling face, about to speak up and get chummy, so that in the upcoming exam she could naturally cling to a thick thigh… no wait, help each other out.
"Hiyori-sa…" However, Shiina Hiyori's response seemed oddly off.
Her attention had been completely drawn to the surrounding environment.
From the dense forest in the distance came a faint, piercing screech.
And it seemed to be drawing closer to them!
The girl quickly skimmed through the shop list and directly selected the [Explosive Tag] that she could afford.
Just as Kushida Kikyo had adjusted her expression and taken a step forward to strike up a conversation.
Shiina Hiyori suddenly warned:
"Kushida-san! Look out!"
Kushida Kikyo started in alarm and instinctively looked up.
There, in the sunlight piercing through the gaps in the canopy, a winged monster shaped like a beetle magnified several times over was diving toward them, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws!
"Aaah—!"
Kushida Kikyo panicked, no longer caring about her image, and screaming, she was about to find a tree trunk to take cover behind.
But that Chimera Ant paid Kushida no mind at all; instead it flew straight toward Shiina Hiyori, intending to scoop her up directly as premium food to offer to the Chimera Ant Queen!
As for Shiina Hiyori.
Although she was essentially a literary girl who disliked fighting.
But after all, as someone who'd personally experienced Black Sphere exams, she knew very well that completely giving up was tantamount to courting death.
On top of that, as one of the few people who possessed a Combat Suit.
Therefore, when Chris had called Ryuuen, Ichinose and the others to train together in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, Shiina Hiyori had gritted her teeth and trained along with them for a while.
Although she couldn't be called all that strong, with the unreasonable boost of the Combat Suit, pulling off some moves she'd normally never dare imagine was a piece of cake.
And so.
Shiina Hiyori didn't flinch; instead she bent her legs slightly and made a sidestep slide.
At the same instant as she slipped past it, she slammed the Explosive Tag she'd just redeemed hard onto its chitinous head!
Then, the girl used the momentum to do a backflip, nimbly retreating to a safe distance.
Before the Chimera Ant—which had nosedived headfirst into the soil from inertia—could climb back up.
"Boom—!!!"
Flames shot into the sky!
It was blown to pieces on the spot, severed limbs scattering across the ground.
Kushida Kikyo, hiding behind a tree, saw this scene and was about to praise her with a "Hiyori-san, you're amazing."
A somewhat scatterbrained, teasing voice suddenly came from the tree behind her:
"Oya oya… what powerful force."
"Truly a curious item… I wonder if you have any more on you? Could you give me one to take a look at?"
Kushida Kikyo stiffly turned her head.
There, on the branch above her head, a Chimera Ant with a massive spider's body but, of all things, a sleazy human face, hung upside down from the branch.
"Eek—!" Kushida Kikyo's legs went weak.
Not far away, Shiina Hiyori's face also paled slightly.
She gripped the other Explosive Tag she'd deliberately hidden under her sleeve, her mind racing as she pondered how to stick this Explosive Tag onto that spider Chimera Ant and drive it off without harming Kushida Kikyo.
Suddenly.
A faint breeze swept past her ear.
"Swoosh—!"
Immediately after came a muffled penetrating sound.
"Squelch!"
That chattering spider Chimera Ant had its skull pierced clean through!
The immense impact sent it flying backward until it was nailed dead to a tree, finally coming to a stop.
Shiina Hiyori looked at that all-too-familiar weapon, her mouth opening slightly, and instinctively turned her head to look around.
Until, beside a large tree to her rear flank, she spotted a black-haired girl holding a Combat Rifle, warily keeping watch in all directions.
Then Chris's voice sounded by her ear:
"Stop looking, I'm over here."
As the optical camouflage was lifted, Chris lifted his chin to point at Kushida Kikyo.
"Go check on Kushida."
"I'll clear out the surrounding monsters first. While I'm at it, I'll use the radar to see if there are any other stray classmates nearby."
Hearing the familiar voice, Shiina Hiyori nodded firmly.
This sense of security—finding something to rely on in a desperate situation—instantly filled her whole body, giving her strength.
It wasn't until Chris gradually walked away that she remembered her current special identity as the "Mysterious Merchant."
She had been about to call out to stop Chris, to tell him he could update his gear at her place before going. But on second thought.
The exam had only just begun, and with Chris's strength, dealing with these vanguard troops shouldn't trip him up.
So the girl extinguished the thought of calling him back.
She put away the Explosive Tag and quickly walked over to Kushida Kikyo, who had already slumped limply at the base of a tree.
Extending a fair little hand, her gaze full of concern:
"Kushida-san… you're not hurt, are you?"
But at this moment, Kushida Kikyo.
Did not immediately reach out in response.
She lowered her head, both hands clutching her skirt hem tightly, her body trembling slightly.
After a long while, she finally raised a face ghastly pale with fear and, in a voice as thin as a mosquito's whine, spoke up a bit awkwardly:
"Hiyori-san…
"Um, could you come help me up…? My legs have gone a little numb…"
____
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🔥 New history: COTE: Counterattack System
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