Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: A Tragic Heroine

Because it was Saturday, the line for the turnstiles leading to the dungeon portal was longer than usual, as busy as the queues for attractions at Japan’s premier theme park. On any other day, I would’ve grumbled at such a long wait, but today was different.

The wait would’ve been long and dull on my solitary days, except I had two cute girls to keep me company today. First, we discussed what strategy to use to hunt orcs on the third floor and turned to things we’d remark on at school, like our classmates and lessons. The conversation made the time fly by, and we were heading through the dungeon portal before I knew it.

Adventurers came and went, and they were tightly packed on the main street leading to the lower floors. It was too cramped for the three of us to walk together. Oomiya walked slightly ahead of us, leading the way as Nitta and I followed, trying hard not to get separated.

Nitta leaned over and whispered into my ear, “So, Narumi. How high is your level?”

She’d told me her level before, but I realized I’d never informed her of mine. I wanted to continue working with her, and keeping secrets wouldn’t help, so I told her.

“What?!” she stammered, clasping her hand to her mouth to show surprise elegantly. “You’re already level 19?!”

I had difficulty identifying the girl walking beside me with the Black Executioner—her nickname in the game due to her trademark black plate armor—that every PK had feared.

“There’s a funny story behind that,” I whispered back.

Reaching level 19 in such a short period was a tough feat even in DEC. Nitta would know from her raids that this world was far more daunting than the game, justifying her surprise.

If I had followed my original schedule, I would’ve been level 8 or 9, preparing for my first trip to Granny’s Goods. The schedule had gone out the window when I’d fought a unique boss since that had shot up my level.

That fight had left me with a question: what was Volgemurt doing there? I’d never heard of such a monster in the game. Judging from the number of experience points I had received after defeating him, he must have been around level 25. It made no sense that a strong monster would appear so early in the dungeon.

One would expect to find floor bosses significantly stronger than the other monsters on their floor, like the orc lord, but only by about five levels. A party of ten to twenty adventurers at the floor’s recommended level could defeat the floor bosses if they used the right strategies. With Volgemurt, you could amass a large party of adventurers at the right level for the seventh floor with no hope of victory. Their attacks wouldn’t land, and they wouldn’t survive a single hit from Volgemurt. In games, you sometimes found monsters that would catch adventurers unaware and kill them. The strategy was to flee and kill them later, yet it was impossible to run away from Volgemurt. His presence ruined the game balance... But this world wasn’t a game, and complaining about balance wouldn’t get you anywhere.

I told all of this to Nitta.

“Was there a monster like that in the seventh-floor expansion area...?” mused Nitta. “I don’t remember ever seeing one.”

She’d apparently visited the expansion area once in DEC and was sure she would remember encountering a powerful monster in a location as distinctive as the lord’s chamber. I trusted her because she would have visited the fortress and the lord’s room.

It seemed Volgemurt was exclusive to this world. I hadn’t encountered any other discrepancies from the game besides in that expansion area. Should other ridiculously overpowered enemies lurk in the rest of the dungeon, I might have my days numbered.

“I’m surprised you beat an enemy strong enough to shoot your level up to 19, though,” said Nitta.

“It almost killed me,” I replied.

My arms, legs, and nerves had all suffered because I had repeatedly used skills more powerful than my physical enhancements could handle. The fight had given me many experience points and a few unique items. The return wasn’t worth the risk, and I didn’t plan on doing that again anytime soon.

Nitta asked me whether I’d used my game character’s skills, and I remarked I had done so. She, too, had picked up on the fact that we could use our game character’s skills.

Her game character had been a Dark Knight, a job whose skills were mainly weapon skills that inflicted various debuffs on enemies after successful attacks. Unlike my character’s Weaponmaster job, which needed a high strength stat to use its skills, Nitta’s Dark Knight had several debuff skills that didn’t depend on stats. She could inflict devastating damage on enemies with high defense stats, even at her low level. I prayed she would never find a reason to use them on me...

We paused our conversation when we arrived at the rest area on the second floor to take a short break and use the bathroom. Unfortunately, we wouldn’t stay long since we had to return later.

While I waited in the long line for the bathroom, I grumbled at how long it had taken us to reach the second floor. It would’ve gone quicker if it weren’t Saturday.

Perhaps we should leave a little earlier to beat the rush next time, I thought.

When I returned from the bathroom, I regrouped with the two girls and set off for the third floor. The crowd wasn’t quite as densely packed here, so we could walk side by side.

After a few minutes of idle conversation, Oomiya turned to us like she’d summoned her courage and said, “There’s something I want to ask you. If, um... If I can’t get an official club up and running...I want to create a student circle.”

She’d been unable to get what had happened in the student council room out of her mind.

It took me a second to think about the prospects of a circle. For an official club, we’d need approval from the student council. Since we didn’t have high-level students in our class or well-connected contacts, we weren’t likely to get approval based on Sagara’s attitude the other day. It would take a long time to reach higher levels and buddy up with contacts, and if we twiddled our thumbs in the meantime, the other students of Class E wouldn’t improve themselves.

Oomiya planned to establish a student circle, which we could probably get approval for instantly and use to create an environment where Class E could get stronger without delay. You only needed three students to form a circle, and the student council approved them more easily. Oomiya’s main objective was to strengthen Class E, and forming a club wasn’t the only way to achieve that.

She was happy for our classmates to make use of the circle when they saw fit. They might eventually leave to join a proper club but have a dedicated place where they could train, letting them grow stronger, and they could decide what to do afterward. All she wanted was to help our classmates, even a little, in their struggle to better themselves.

The downsides were that circles received next to nothing in their budgets and generally had no access to facilities like the Arena because the clubs got priority. Also, circles couldn’t participate in tournaments and events like the Battle of the Clubs that gave students extra credit. In short, there’d be a lot of hurdles to overcome.

She’s really thought this through, I thought. But...

Everything so far had followed the game’s storyline, which meant there was trouble to come. I remembered that in DEC, Oomiya had created a circle and worked hard at running it until older students and other classes didn’t like what they’d seen and targeted her. She’d then suffered ongoing verbal and sometimes physical abuse, pranks, and other forms of bullying. She stoically resisted the attempts to demoralize her...for a time. But the abuse had whittled away at her, and she eventually transferred out of the school.

“So I was thinking,” continued Oomiya, holding her hands out to me while flashing an innocent smile. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the three of us formed one?”

She seemed to direct this spiel at me. Nitta was her roommate and had probably heard all of this already, and she was grinning at me too.

To DEC players, Oomiya was a tragic heroine. If I didn’t do something to stop it, she’d probably suffer the same fate as in the game. In fact, there was no “probably” about it. Everything I’d seen from this world’s adventurers and the school made me sure it would happen.

If I were to help Oomiya, I’d need to develop solutions for the various game events that would trigger once she began setting up the circle. Annoyingly, it wasn’t lone students that we’d contend with; entire factions would try to stop her, and I could get dragged into the ensuing violence if I wasn’t careful. Plus, I would put all of us in danger if they discovered any of my game knowledge. If I wanted to remain safe, my best option was to refuse her offer.

However, Oomiya was a kindhearted soul whose sole purpose was to help others, whoever they might be. I couldn’t just stand by and let a sweet girl like that be traumatized by the game’s events. I was still grateful to her for making a space for me in her group during orientation when nobody else wanted anything to do with me. I owed her, and I would repay my debt with interest.

“I’m joining,” Nitta said, displaying a cheerful smile. “Satsuki and I are, like, best friends after all. You’ll join too, won’t you, Narumi? Won’t. You.”

I didn’t know whether Nitta had plans to deal with the game events, but she was planning to join. I felt comforted knowing I’d have my strongest enemy and rival from the game as an ally.

“Yeah, obviously. I’ll join too,” I said. I tilted my head to one side and gave a thumbs-up...but it didn’t generate the reaction I’d hoped for, and we all stood there in awkward silence.