Evil Avalon - Volume 2 - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: Satsuki Oomiya - Part 1

Satsuki Oomiya

Souta turned around and dashed away. He’d traveled just as far as the rest of us through the dungeon while carrying my and Risa’s bags, and he hadn’t broken a sweat.

He headed off to confront the orc lord, a monster infamous for its high adventurer casualty count, yet he was as calm as could be. Just who was he? I thought back to the first time I’d met Souta Narumi.

***

In the breaks between lessons, Class E students sought out their roommates, their middle school classmates, and acquaintances to talk with them to get to know them better. These interactions weren’t just an exercise in making friends. Everyone knew the party they formed would determine their grades, so they wanted to use their connections to find the best possible party members.

Once homeroom ended, everyone worked to trade gossip about other students and the school. They’d talk about which students were strong, who had joined whose party, who had what skills, how exams and events had gone, or how best to prepare for them. Like this, they would scrupulously gather information and use what they’d learned to ensure their position was sound.

A natural consequence of this behavior was that most students would try associating themselves with groups containing strong students like Akagi or Majima. I was no exception. Risa and I tried approaching Akagi’s group and found out they’d already formed a party, so we had no way to weasel in. Majima had spoken to me once, but nothing had come of it yet.

While all the other students were driving themselves crazy, trying to claw their way into a good party, the overweight boy in the seat farthest to the back of the classroom did nothing but stare out the window. That was Souta. He was quiet, and I rarely saw him speaking to anyone, which wasn’t to say he was forgettable. Quite the opposite, in fact. Everyone knew who he was...for all the wrong reasons.

Even though he had the lowest entrance exam results of the entire year group, he didn’t try to find a group and would leave school as soon as the evening bell rang. When he finally entered the dungeon, a slime had defeated him... Even a grade schooler wouldn’t lose to such a weak monster! In the eyes of Class E and the rest of the school, this earned him the title of the worst student in the history of the school.

Our other classmates turned their gossiping toward him, giving him a nasty nickname and making their disgust as clear as day. From that point, his isolation within the class worsened. Nobody wanted to invite him to their party, saying that he couldn’t possibly perform well on a raid, given his obesity and lack of any notable skills. Life at Adventurers’ High revolved around networking, so isolation was as good as fatal.

Without a party, he’d have to raid the dungeon alone, which would only work up to the third floor. My classmates whispered among themselves that his academic career was dead in the water, that they should stay away from him unless they wanted to get dragged down too.

But none of them were looking at the big picture. Soon enough, we’d have to face the upper classes in the Battle of the Classes and the Arena Tournament, where the fight would be brutal. We couldn’t afford to give up on any of our classmates. Why did none of them seem to consider that? What good was there to write him off so soon after we’d joined anyway? He’d have plenty of chances to get stronger throughout the year. Plus, he took our lessons seriously and did well in tests, so I wasn’t sure he deserved the reputation they’d given him.

To find out, I summoned courage and invited him to join a party during orientation. All my classmates quickly praised me for being so kindhearted and pitying him, but they’d misunderstood my intentions. My roommate, Risa, didn’t argue when I brought up inviting him. She actually supported me, which was surprising. She often came across as carefree, though I knew that she had an insightful, logical side and probably had reasons to let him in.

After speaking with him, I discovered he was quite intelligent and prudent. It wasn’t a lack of social skills preventing him from communicating with our classmates, but a lack of interest in them and what they thought of him. His confidence in his abilities was so secure that it didn’t matter what anybody else did.

That didn’t change how there was a limit to how far he could raid the dungeon by himself, and he’d reach that limit soon. And so, I had hoped that my invitation would be the impetus he needed to start associating with the rest of the class. I believed he might venture to our desks to talk to his new friends the day after orientation. Alas, my hopes were dashed when I saw him leaving school the moment the bell rang, as he’d always done.

Was he really good enough to make it by himself? I checked his level on my terminal, which hadn’t moved from level 3. This stat suggested he was struggling to get farther than the third floor. Maybe he didn’t think I was good enough to raid with? Maybe he had someone better in mind? Either way, I had more important things to worry about than Souta Narumi... And that was when we all learned how much the rest of the school despised our class.

The club fair was our first taste of this. Every upper-class student had subjected us to ridicule, and for the first time, we realized how little they thought of us. We’d all been dying to join a club, then found out that applying for membership would be nothing more than signing up to carry out menial tasks for them. It was a depressing discovery for all of us, and the classroom became gloomy.

Our situation deteriorated further after the duel with Class D, where our classmate Akagi got beaten to a pulp, and they forbade us from joining the club the older Class E students had founded. This opened the floodgates for the rest of the school to treat us like dirt openly; other students would march into our classroom to mock and deride us.

How could they be so cruel to their fellow students? Strength was certainly important at a place like Adventurers’ High, but what good could come of depriving us of the chance to become strong before we’d even started? The teachers didn’t do anything to address the bullying either. We’d all signed a waiver when we’d joined, acknowledging that attending the school carried a risk of bodily harm and death, so I’d known to expect things to be a little rough... This treatment was too much. I spent every day feeling like darkness had swallowed me, unable to see a way forward. Sometimes, I even felt like throwing in the towel. But I wouldn’t let my parents down. All my efforts, the hopes of my classmates, the dream of a bright future... I didn’t want any of that to be in vain.

One of my friends felt the same way. We spoke about the situation all night, crying at times, shouting, and arguing with others before falling back to crying again. In the end, we established that we’d need to form our own club. I wasted no time in getting the application sent off and should have known the student council wouldn’t approve it. Discrimination against Class E ran deep.

I found myself with him again while trying to solve the student council problem. He looked more dependable than before, probably because he’d lost a lot of weight compared to just after the entrance ceremony. His aloof attitude remained unchanged, though. It seemed like he was unaffected by all the worries and frets that plagued the rest of us. Risa could be like that also, but Souta’s quiet optimism was on another level.

Later, I suggested that we go on a dungeon raid. I wanted to blow off some steam, and this was when things started to get strange. We talked about good places to raid, a magical contract got somehow involved, and I was suddenly learning about these crazy things called “gates.” I suspected they were playing a joke at my expense, but they sounded serious.

***

Now, the orc lord charged toward us with what looked like a hundred orcs following through the dust clouds kicked up in its wake. At the very head of the pack was a boy moving at incredible speed despite his light jogging motions—Souta. I expected the bridge to sway violently based on how fast he moved, yet it barely did so as he slid over to join us. Maybe Souta was using some kind of magic.

“Wait for my signal!” he shouted.

The orcs piled onto the fifty-meter-long bridge in a roaring frenzy, pushing each other out of the way in an attempt to be the first one to reach us. The bridge wobbled and moved from side to side, sending a few of them tumbling over the edge, but about fifty were still on the bridge. The closest was the orc lord, whose crazed eyes seemed intent on attacking Souta. It was easy to see why all but the best adventurers stayed away from this monster... And it was getting closer! Close enough now that I could hear its breathing and—

“Now!” shouted Souta. “Cut the rope!”

I was so scared that I wanted to curl up into a ball, but I sliced with my weapon. The rope grew slack. Yet the bridge and all the orcs fell and screamed. Ten seconds later, I could feel myself leveling up, the sensation stronger than ever before. My heart was on fire, and I struggled to breathe.

“D-Did I just level up...?” I mused.

“I did too!” said Risa.

The excruciating pain from the sudden surge of experience points caused me to hunch over. I looked at Risa, who pumped the air with her fist.

“Looks like you’re level 5 now,” remarked Souta. I’d felt an odd sensation like someone was rummaging through my soul. He’d probably used Basic Appraisal on me. It appeared I’d acquired the Basic Appraisal skill, proving I was at least level 5.

It amazed me how easy it could be to level up. All I’d done was cut a rope! Killing so many orcs at once would obviously be enough to level up, but who in their right mind had crafted the idea to drop a bridge after using the orc lord’s behavioral patterns to lure monsters?

Souta made sure Risa and I had both received experience points, then he performed some stretches and said, “I’m gonna go shut the rest of them up quickly.” He dashed away. Dozens of orcs remained on the other side of the ravine—the ones that hadn’t made it onto the bridge in time. Their menacing roars echoed in the dungeon.

I wondered if he had another trick up his sleeve to deal with that many orcs, and to my surprise, Souta circled to the other side of the ravine and charged straight into the pack of monsters! That was the first glimpse I had of Souta’s true power. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. Souta dodged attacks from all directions more quickly than my eyes could follow, and his attacks were so fast that all I could see were blurs where his arms should have been.

This movement definitely wasn’t the basic technique we’d learned in sword fighting class. The instructors had drilled into us that the most important rules in fighting against multiple enemies were to keep your blind spots covered and stay on the move to avoid getting surrounded. And yet, Souta stood dead still in the center of the group of orcs while being attacked from all sides. Despite this, none of the orcs’ attacks struck him, and each succumbed to his swift sword. Was he guiding their movements where he wanted them to go? Had he developed his own unique sword fighting style? At any rate, his charging into the group of orcs so confidently could only mean that he was at a much higher level than them. As further proof, he was slicing through the giant orcs’ bodies like they were butter, which would be impossible without an extremely high strength stat. The sword must have been heavy, but he swung it around like it weighed nothing.

Souta was much stronger than Akagi when I watched him duel... Stronger even than Akagi’s opponent, Kariya. No wonder he hadn’t bothered telling anyone his level. He was too strong for it to matter.

Afterward, we met back up with Souta’s sister, Kano—who was just as strong as Souta!—and repeated the bridge-dropping trick several times, killing many orcs. Every time we did that, I’d wince as the orcs screamed and plummeted to their deaths.

At some point, Kano and Souta turned it into a contest to see which of them could lure the greatest number of orcs to the bridge. Things came to a head when Kano, wanting to beat Souta’s score of 150, accidentally caused the orc lord to pass out due to lack of mana after she’d gotten him to summon two hundred orcs.

Thanks to the trick, I reached level 6 in a few hours. I couldn’t believe how easy it was... I’d spent most of the time just chatting with the others. Level 6 had been the target I’d set for myself to reach by the end of summer vacation, expecting to pull out all the stops and work hard for it to be realistic!

Today’s raid had been so full of surprises, so packed with fun, that I found myself freed from the gloom that had clung to all of Class E at school. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed from the heart like this. And I’d never known that Souta was such an interesting person!

We agreed to continue to go on raids together for the time being, and I had a feeling there’d be plenty more fun if I stuck around with this group. I sensed the dull, gray, faded world inside my heart glow with bright new colors.

Mom, dad, just you wait. Your girl will come home so much stronger than when she left!