Inside the Black Sphere Space.
One by one, the participants of this advance test opened their eyes.
Thanks to their earlier mental preparation, and the fact that everyone had long since grown familiar with this wretched place called the Black Sphere Space, no one showed any real signs of panic. Most of them were already geared up and ready to move.
But after waiting a short while, the Black Sphere still hadn't teleported them into the exam grounds.
Katsuragi Kohei rubbed his bald head and stepped forward on his own initiative. "GANTZ, I suppose we can skip the pleasantries."
His gaze fixed on the Black Sphere hovering in the center of the room. "We're all wearing our Combat Suits now and fully prepared… Since you called us in early with the excuse that 'a classmate is in danger and needs saving'—"
"—then please just read out the rules directly, so we can get in there sooner."
"Time waits for no one."
In response, the surface of the Black Sphere shimmered with flowing light, and white text emerged right on cue:
[I don't know how you came to misunderstand me and think I'm such an easy-going fellow… but, whatever.]
[This advance test's mode is—King of Squares · Salvation]
[Time Limit: 24H]
[Game Rules as follows:]
[This test is actually quite simple. In a foreign land, a gigantic creature has appeared and is rampaging through the bustling streets of Tokyo. Because it was mutated by nuclear radiation, it can evolve itself at a speed beyond human comprehension.]
[By now, this monster named 'Godzilla' has fully evolved into an upright, bipedal form. If nothing goes wrong, once it evolves through a few more stages, it will be able to effortlessly wipe out all of human civilization.]
[Your test objective this time is: in the extreme environment of Godzilla's rampage, help rescue and evacuate the trapped populace.]
[Because there are so many disaster victims, this test does not come with a fixed scoring standard. Rewards will mainly be determined by the system's judgment of your 'rescue contribution value.' For now, there is also no shortcut to earning item points other than hunting the monster.]
[Suffice to say, this is a grand narrative in which you fight for the sake of humanity. Apart from the special rewards reserved for the top few, the basic rescue rewards will be shared among all.]
[Calculated by the percentage of the population you assist in evacuating, each person can earn up to 100,000 item points multiplied by the corresponding percentage score!]
[Exam Ends: when Godzilla enters a complete berserk state; or when 30% of the remaining population has been successfully evacuated.]
[Note: the total number of people currently within the monster's strike range and not yet evacuated is: 565,267.]
[Now then, teleportation will begin in thirty seconds.]
[Good luck to you all.]
Having read through this sprawling wall of rules,
everyone inside the Black Sphere Space exchanged glances, and in unison, they couldn't help but suck in a cold breath.
"Over five hundred thousand people?!"
"A monster that can effortlessly destroy human civilization…"
Housen Kazutomi clenched his fists and couldn't hold back a sigh.
Even someone like Housen—who feared neither heaven nor earth, who thought the Black Sphere games were practically tailor-made for a lunatic like him, and who wasn't the least bit bothered by losing a single life—
was stunned speechless when faced with the sheer absurdity of this test.
"You're telling a bunch of ordinary high schoolers who can't even beat a high-score monster to go save the world?"
"That presiding god sure knows how to pick 'em."
Hamaguchi Tetsuya, his classmate, quipped with a bitter smile.
Hirata Yousuke pursed his lips and spoke up with concern:
"A full one hundred thousand item points alone is worth 200 S Points!"
"Sure, everyone knows there's no way we'll claim the full reward. But if we can even save ten percent… that's still an incredibly handsome fortune. It's just… that number does feel a little unsettling, doesn't it."
Katsuragi Kohei offered some reassurance from the side:
"At the very least, this time we aren't required to go toe-to-toe with that monster, and there's no hard survival quota either. Do our best, and leave the rest to fate…"
Amanatsu Kazuha, however, stroked her chin, the Parasyte on her left arm squirming restlessly.
She spoke thoughtfully:
"The Black Sphere said Godzilla evolves, so it probably hasn't reached the so-called 'world-ending' final stage yet."
"That means what we need to do now is race against the clock. Before its next evolution triggers even greater destruction, we should move as many civilians as we can."
After hearing everyone's analysis, a sharp glint flashed in Horikita Suzune's eyes.
She first handed the Stand capsule for [The World] to Kouenji Rokusuke, then immediately said:
"Since this is happening in Tokyo, there's absolutely no way we can meet the evacuation conditions in such a short time on our own. We have to make contact with the local forces."
Horikita Suzune looked at Kouenji, her tone leaving no room for argument:
"Kouenji, you're one of the few among us who can perfectly synchronize with 'The World' Stand. This is yours. We also need to search for those classmates who got dragged in as Intruders… Ideally, once we land and confirm the intel on the monster, we split up and act separately."
Kouenji Rokusuke took the capsule, toyed with it between his fingers, then swept back his glittering golden bangs and laughed with composure:
"Hehe… A most Beautiful judgment, Horikita Girl. As for negotiating with the authorities—leave that kind of work to me with peace of mind."
"My Kouenji family happens to have a fair few connections in both politics and business. When it comes to dealing with those rigid bureaucrats, I have a wealth of experience."
...
When the blinding light before them faded,
Kushida Kikyo found that in the blink of an eye she had appeared right on the streets of Tokyo's bustling downtown district.
"RUMBLE, RUMBLE—!"
The ground beneath her feet trembled, and thick smoke billowed from a distant skyscraper.
Air-raid sirens, the roar of helicopters, the despairing wails of countless pedestrians, and the blaring horns of cars piling into one another all wove together—like standing in a living hell on earth.
To be fair, when actually confronting this oppressive sense of an apocalypse descending,
Kushida Kikyo's mood was hardly any better than Hoshimiya Chie's had been the first time she became an Intruder.
Fear was like a formless giant hand, gripping her heart with a death-tight clench.
Still, she was after all wearing a black Combat Suit.
And when she turned to glance around, she discovered that Kamuro Masumi and Hasebe Haruka had been teleported not far from her.
With familiar companions present—whether to draw a little psychological comfort from it, or to preserve her own flawless image—Kushida Kikyo forced her buckling legs to stay steady and put on a strained smile:
"Kamuro, Haruka…"
"Looks like for the time being, we're going to have to depend on each other to survive, huh."
Kamuro Masumi drew in a deep breath.
No matter how hard she tried to make herself look strong, her face simply refused to brighten.
She lowered her head and took a Y-GUN out of her Black Sphere Watch, staring at the radar screen as she said:
"I've got the Y-GUN I exchanged for earlier. I can use the radar screen to scout out the monster's direction… Shall we try heading the opposite way from it?"
Hearing this, Kushida Kikyo immediately nodded in agreement like a chicken pecking rice:
"Exactly! It's still afternoon, but as long as we find a hidden basement or air-raid shelter that isn't hit by direct sunlight, we can totally rely on the vampire bloodline granted by the [Stone Mask] to keep ourselves going, right?"
In the face of a massive disaster, "hunkering down" is forever the first instinct of the weak.
But then, the only one present without a Black Sphere Combat Suit—Hasebe Haruka—paused for a moment before suddenly voicing a different view:
"You two have Combat Suits anyway, so a bit of travel won't drain your stamina. Rather than blindly hiding, why don't we first try to find the other companions?"
"Don't worry about me on this front, I can still hold up for now." As she spoke, Hasebe Haruka gave a little hop to show she was fine.
In truth, Haruka was a little scared inside too, and rationally she rather agreed with Kushida Kikyo's play-it-safe, avoid-combat strategy. But right now they counted as "Intruders" who'd been randomly swept in, and they didn't have the [Controller] needed to view a monster's detailed information.
That meant their current understanding of this world…
beyond the emergency news playing on the flickering electronic screens around them, was essentially a complete blank.
With intel this severely lacking, making a rash decision would be truly unwise.
Finding others to band together with means at least there's someone to serve as a meat shield… no wait, at least there's a greater margin for error and more exchange of information, right?
"And besides…" Hasebe Haruka pointed at the Y-GUN's radar screen, then pointed toward that terrifying colossus in the distance, towering into the clouds like a mountain range:
"Judging from the news on the electronic screen in front of the mall, combined with the radar—this time there's really only one monster, but its target… is honestly just too big…"
"If it has some high-powered area attack, and we're hiding in a building or basement without enough defense, the moment the structure collapses, that's just waiting to die."
Kushida Kikyo carefully weighed what Hasebe Haruka had said in her mind.
Deciding it couldn't be called wrong, she didn't voice any objection.
But just as they huddled in a street corner discussing countermeasures,
up in the sky, the squadron of armed military helicopters that Chabashira Sae had witnessed earlier had already reached the airspace above the monster and launched an assault on Godzilla.
"DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA—!"
After a round of utterly ineffective 30mm cannon fire, the helicopter squadron decisively switched weapons.
"WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!"
Accompanied by the sound of splitting air, a volley of TOW missiles and Hellfire missiles streaked with trailing flames and slammed viciously into Godzilla's face.
"RUMBLE, RUMBLE—!!!"
Rolling smoke surged upward. But when the smoke cleared, what appeared before everyone…
was still that same terrifying form, utterly unscathed. Godzilla didn't even bother with any superfluous response.
It simply and stubbornly kept striding toward the nuclear power plant.
But with its colossal build, even simple walking made it a moving natural disaster.
It plowed straight between the skyscrapers, and the narrow, cramped steel-and-concrete buildings were smashed clean through the middle by it!
"CRACK—BOOM!"
Countless shards of glass curtain wall and multi-ton chunks of concrete rained down from the sky like a meteor shower.
One massive shadow among them was, visibly, about to crash down right onto the heads of Kushida Kikyo and the others, who were only a single street away from Godzilla!
"Kyaa—!!"
Kushida Kikyo shrieked and, with the boost of her Combat Suit, was about to search for suitable cover to dodge.
In that split second of mortal peril—
"Shoo—" A huge metallic sphere suddenly flew into the airspace above them.
Then, a surge of powerful energy erupted!
First it forcibly gathered all the shattered rock and mud in midair together, and then, as if shoved by an invisible giant hand—
"BANG!"
it all was flung directly outward.
It carved out, right in the middle of the stone rain, a patch of absolutely safe open ground at the spot where Kushida Kikyo and the others stood.
Seeing this, the several girls instinctively turned to look for the one who had come to their rescue.
After all, on the Black Sphere weapon's radar, there was indeed only one red dot representing an enemy.
So this was clearly not Godzilla's doing—it was very likely a fellow test-taker who had purchased a special item from this exam's "Mysterious Merchant."
And then—
when they made out, through the still-lingering smoke, that figure slowly emerging from the dust,
all three of them couldn't help but freeze on the spot.
It was an exquisitely crafted, fully metallic doll-girl.
She wore a mechanical skirt resembling a ballet dancer's, gears meshing at her joints, but the most eye-catching thing of all was the enormous winding key on her back.
Kushida Kikyo swallowed, glanced once at the Y-GUN radar to confirm, and tentatively asked:
"Um… who are you?"
Oriana tilted her cheek to one side.
A hollow yet gentle mechanical voice rang out amid the thundering gunfire:
"Are you the ones taking part in this exam?"
"I'm this exam's Mysterious Merchant."
She reached out an arm to stroke the metal doll that had flown back to her side: "Papa said… you can become my friends."
"So, we're going to protect you."
Hearing this, Kushida Kikyo and Kamuro Masumi exchanged glances.
They didn't quite understand it.
But to put it plainly… thanks to that one move just now, they'd been saved?
At this moment—because the airborne armed helicopter formation had found that the missiles caused no substantial effect on Godzilla whatsoever,
after receiving the order from the top to "lift all attack restrictions," the Self-Defense Force finally couldn't restrain themselves. They let the heavy tank battalions and multiple-launch rocket artillery vehicle formations, already deployed along Godzilla's line of advance, begin pouring firepower onto it without regard for cost!
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
In an instant, the artillery roared in unison!
The entire district was ablaze, flames soaring skyward, as huge clouds of dust mixed with blasted-apart asphalt and building debris flew in all directions.
Faced with a bombardment of this scale, the girls had no time to verify the other party's identity.
"Move, now!"
Kamuro Masumi shouted, then fell in behind the steps of the Clockwork Spirit and retreated.
Oriana, for her part, multitasked. On one hand she led the way up front, and on the other she controlled the metal doll, unfolding a shield behind them that blocked all the flying debris and shell fragments outside.
In a roundabout way, it also verified her identity as their "protector."
But in reality, the command Chris had given the Clockwork Spirit was actually quite simple.
It was to have her play the role of the "Mysterious Merchant" afterward—to wander around the exam grounds as she pleased, look for some fun, and maybe even make a few friends.
That was all; the degree of freedom he'd granted could be called immense.
Everything that happened afterward was purely the Clockwork Spirit's own spontaneous action after she'd thought it over.
After all, even though Oriana had become a doll, that heart of hers…
was still a gentle girl who yearned for companions.
A lot of the time, she just needed a logically sound reason to spur herself into action.
Over on Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's side.
After confirming that the several green dots showing up on the nearby radar were all just staff members he'd once crossed paths with at the White House—none of them Advanced Nurturing High School students—
Ayanokoji stood at the entrance of an underground passage that had been cracked open by the tremors, and fell into brief contemplation.
'Could it be… that beyond its original function of testing and selection, this exam is also the Black Sphere seizing the chance to give a show of force to those outside financial conglomerates and politicians who keep trying to pry into its secrets?'
Otherwise, there was simply no way to explain why the Black Sphere—neither earlier nor later—
specifically chose only these two exams to have off-campus agents and government personnel show up so frequently.
This was clearly a case of killing the chicken to scare the monkey.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka pondered, yet he did not simply leave this group of White House staff behind to fend for themselves.
Using the Parasyte tentacle on his right arm, he directly bound the several staff members—already so terrified by the monster's overwhelming presence that their legs had gone weak—into tight little bundles, like sticky rice dumplings.
Then, carrying them along, he headed toward the shelter below.
Having done all this, Ayanokoji turned and departed, planning to head over to the nearby green dots in other directions to check and confirm them.
He paid no mind whatsoever to the gasps of shock behind him, from those ordinary humans in the shelter who had witnessed this inhuman scene of his.
In any case, according to the usual time patterns of the advance test plus the main exam, the whole thing wouldn't last more than two hours.
Naturally, he didn't care in the slightest about exposing how different he was.
Once the time was up, he'd dust off his behind and be teleported away by the Black Sphere.
Even if he really did leave behind some kind of mess, that was a headache for this world's administrator to deal with—what did it have to do with him?
However, what Ayanokoji didn't know was this: his use of the Parasyte just now, along with the inhuman posture of the Clockwork Spirit,
had by this moment already been clearly displayed—via the roadside surveillance network—on the big screens of the temporary disaster-response command center hastily assembled by the authorities!
Granted, with Godzilla bearing down on the nuclear power plant, and with even the Prime Minister's residence lying along its advance route and forced to relocate,
obviously no one had the spare attention to bother with these few super-powered individuals.
But—likewise swept into this world—
Ayanokoji Atsumi and Tsukishiro Tsunenari, who with a politician's keen nose had contacted the authorities early on,
had, by drawing on years of hard-won experience, successfully established a line with the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary stationed at the frontline command post.
They were now using the extraordinary traits displayed by Ayanokoji and the Clockwork Spirit as bargaining chips to build up the most basic groundwork for negotiation.
Of course, these two old foxes were perfectly clear-headed about it. They knew they had no substantial bargaining conditions in this other world.
So mostly, they were serving as educators, explaining the origins of the "Black Sphere" and the "qualified ones" on its behalf. Their hope was to try and win the authorities' trust and assistance.
At the same time, it was also to hope that this Self-Defense Force, when the time came, wouldn't go red-eyed with bloodlust and treat those students preparing for the exam—Chris, Ayanokoji, and the rest—as attack targets as well.
After all, as founding partners of the White House—although the White House was not fundamentally a military organization for training agents—how could they possibly not understand the horror of modern heavy firepower?
Not to mention, with a body as enormous as Godzilla's serving as the target for a mad deluge of explosives,
whether or not Godzilla came out fine was hard to say.
But apart from a handful of top-tier combatants like Chris and Ryuen who possessed powerful items, the vast majority of ordinary students would, beneath that sky full of artillery fire, absolutely be blown to death at least once.
Ayanokoji Atsumi could not, for the moment, allow anything to happen to Ayanokoji.
Unfortunately, no matter how silver his tongue,
the man they were speaking with, Hasegawa Hiroki, was for the time being merely a Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. Before witnessing any concrete results of Black Sphere technology substantially turning the tide,
his specific decisions still had to be reported up to a higher level for a meeting before anything could be decided.
And during this long stretch of waiting,
the Self-Defense Force, having exhausted their stockpiles, naturally had no choice but to watch helplessly as Godzilla continued to rampage across the land of Tokyo.
____
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