Chapter 122.2 - Exposure Convention
TN : Sorry for the delay, it's NICE BOAT!
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「I mean, look, when the three of us are betting our lives to survive in this dungeon, that b*stard Souma had formed a harem of his own! Like he*ll we're going to forgive that!」
「So da*mn right, I understand your feeling.」
I also felt quite envious upon hearing that Souma-kun's dungeon diving was more like a walk in the park. And the factor that empowered my envy was the fact that he formed a harem upon doing that. Naturally, I'd be more than willing to hand over that hysteric woman AKA his own little sister on the top of the list. Even more so if Reina was joining in.
「As for me, I'm more surprised knowing that you guys can get away from Souma-kun alive.」
「That's largely thanks to my 『Aqua Mist』.」
It seems these guys were barely fleeing with their lives thanks to vision obstruction skill. I have to praise Shimokawa for his quick wit at that dangerous moment.
But, I guess scattering mist alone wouldn't be enough against someone like Souma-kun. I guess he still hesitated to kill his classmates.
He's a vi*rgin huh.
Well, I guess the three of them would really be killed by Souma-kun if Takanashi Kotori was really kidnapped and then raped by them. I guess he didn't cross the line since that incident had only ended up as an attempt.
「Hey Momokawa, do you have something to say about that Souma?」
「About whether he forgive us or not.」
「Yeah, he said that he absolutely won't forgive you guys.」
Welp… their morale dropped immediately. Seriously dudes, resenting Souma-kun is literally a matter of life and death you know.
As a matter of fact, it was a lie. I never formed a party with Souma-kun, rather, we didn't even speak to each other back then. If there's someone I couldn't forgive, it would be that Kenzaki F*cking Asuna, the culprit who separated Mei-chan and I.
Moreover, thinking about Souma-kun's personality, I think he wouldn't take the matter to his heart and would eventually forgive you guys. See, you should've differentiated between those guys.
「Don't worry. I'll become the mediator in the case we met with Souma-kun's party.」
「Yeah, I hope you will, Momokawa!」
「Very please!」
「You absolutely must do that dude!」
The trio was desperately clinging to their chance for survival.
But that's only if our fortress's capture plan proceeded in our favor, after that, we just needed to capture the next area which would eventually lead us to meet Souma-kun's party again. Otherwise, I would be the one who would be in deep shit since I absolutely had to reunite with Mei-chan.
Anyhow, seeing that there might be too many frictions and destinies jumbled together at that moment, I would try my best to ask for Souma-kun's forgiveness. As for me, the most urgent matter was how to reunite with Souma-kun's party as soon as possible.
I think that I would have a bigger chance for an open transaction with Souma-kun by using Asuna's case. Moreover, we had the most OP arbiter on our side, Yamajun. You did a good job Class Rep, now you wouldn't be the only one to be suffering from trying to arbitrate your classmates.
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We dispersed after chatting idly for a while after that. The trio was returning to the plaza together.
「Sorry for troubling you this late at night, Yamajun.」
「Don't mind it, it's still too early for me to sleep after all.」
Yamajun was staying behind to teach me the ancient language.
「And yet, what the heck is with this moon rune!」
「Yup, I can understand your feeling, the letters aren't as simple as the alphabet after all.」
The first thing to do when you want to decipher an unknown alphabet is to write it again and again until you know its meaning. Anyhow, the alphabet comprised only 26 characters. The meaning of the word became clear once all of its composition assembled.
But ancient letters were far more similar to kanji in this regard. There’re many letters that could be considered as the most basic letters, but those letters were more like hiragana or alphabet.
「Indeed, we have yet to find its pattern.」
「Yeah, maybe we have to mix and match it like Japanese hiragana, katakana, and kanji to form a proper word or words.」
In that case, the difficulties in deciphering the ancient language would jump to a whole new level. It was obvious that clarifying a full sentence of the ancient language with just 『Ancient Language Decoding?Beginner』 was far from enough.
「Anyhow, let's start with memorizing the words first.」
「Yeah, we've to return to the basic in this situation.」
And then, as our study session continued on, Yamajun suddenly broke the silence.
「Momokawa-kun, I wonder if there's an ability outside of your vocation.」
It was when I received an explanation regarding the ancient letter which read as 『Vocation』.
An ability outside of your vocation, is it something like ESP or the power of the mind? Nope, clearly not those two. That kind of cr*p only appeared in manga or anime, Yamajun might be referring to ability in this world.
「They exist you know.」
Yamajun brought up this topic when it was just the two of us. I had no idea about the value of this information, I could even play dumb and lie to him, but I got this feeling that I should listen to him right now.
「How did yo— Nay, first, this should be the first time you hear about this matter from me, right?」
Even though he displayed a slightly perplexed behaviour, Yamajun eventually started revealing things to me.
「The truth is, we were with Himeno-san.」
When I was about to say "Who's that?", I stopped as I finally recalled her as Mei-chan's friend. I'd heard about her before from Mei-chan when she was expressing her worry for her three friends, namely Kizaki-san, Kitaooji-san and Himeno-san.
「Could it be, she has died?」
「… I don't know. We were separated in the jungle when heading towards this tower.」
When I heard the rough situation from Yamajun, I concluded that she was actually running away.
The result of the meeting between Himeno-san-who at that time became the princess whose sole purpose was to satisfy the male party member's libido- and Reina- who’d just come out of teleportation portal after she knocked me out of teleportation circle- was she being thrown out like a second hand, busted se*x doll by the male party member who rejoiced in the coming of a blonde lo*li?
「It seems, Himeno-san wasn't just using her body in exchange for the boys to protect her. It's more like she has something else… some kind of ability to seduce the boys.」
「Her vocation wasn't 『Harlot』, right?」
「There's also that possibility. But maybe it's different with vocation, my- no, basically her healing art is different from mine.」
I see he knew it by intuition huh. This case might be regarded as an extremely simple possibility if we're in Japan, but for the magic in this world, we had to rely on this intuition.
So I was sure that a 『Healer』 vocation had been equipped with some sort of intuition-like skill in their hidden status.
「I've met Yokomichi you see.」
「Eh, that Yokomichi Hajime? Er, was he all right?」
「We managed to drive him off somehow. That guy killed Nagae-san… and ate her.」
Yamajun was completely at loss for words when he heard me say "ate".
「Is that in… sexual meaning?」
「Nope, in literal meaning. Yokomichi ate Nagae-san's corpse. Well, he might've left her skeleton somewhere since I didn't see the scene firsthand.」
But the fact that he ate Nagae Yukiko's corpse was the undeniable truth. That truth was revealed by the 『Sage』, Takanashi Kotori, and the culprit himself.
And most of all, he had tried to eat all of us too.
「Su-su-such things…」
「I understand your feeling, Yamajun. I'm absolutely sure that Yokomichi has gained power outside of his vocation.」
I was sure that Takanashi Kotori shouted 『Man Eating Demon(Cannibalizer)』 at that time. Come to think of it, she might not have been shouting at him at that time, but just read the name of Yokomichi's power aloud with her 『Sage』's power.
That's why the name that he called 『Skill Eater』 might actually have a different name. In short, he became the most disgusting person through and through as he gained a skill that allowed him to gain the skills of the others by eating their corpse.
「Though the degree of their danger level is different, both Himeno-san and Yokomichi have gained power outside of their vocation. Perhaps it comes from something like an evil god or devil.」
「Ah, I see now―― so this 『Dependents』 thing is real huh.」
「Dependents?」
Yamajun used the word I had never heard before with a face as if he understood something. Just, what in the world did he discover in those ancient letters?
「I don't understand too much about this matter either. But in the room in which I awakened, I discovered an ancient letter which read as 『Dependents』 which feels like it was paired with 『Vocation』.」
I finally understand the meaning behind the letter dependents that was written in Yamajun's note. It was written with 『眷(Regard Affectionately)』.
The meaning of dependents are either relatives, family, or else things like social status such as someone's subordinate. In this case, it means God's Envoy.
「I see now, in short, Himeno-san is something like 『Succubus』's dependents huh.」
「It can't be helped if someone is getting carried away like Yamada-kun for example, since the power granted by vocation is powerful. But the dependents' power is far more terrifying to the point that it… twisted the owner’s personality.」
It seemed that Himeno-san who was fooling around with Yamada-kun and the trio could still be considered as a docile one. But for someone like Yokomichi who would kill you and then eat your corpse, it was almost impossible to say whether he was still a human or not.
「That's why, even though we can't tell how to differentiate them for now… Momokawa-kun, the next time you met our classmate, make sure to see through their list of skills carefully to see whether it's vocation or dependents.」
「Yeah, you're right, thanks.」
Though I'd a faint suspicion in this regard after my encounter with Yokomichi, it was thanks to Yamajun telling me the existence of 『Dependents』 in the ancient language that I fully realized their threat.
The information regarding that matter wasn't that clear yet as long as I'd yet to master the ancient language. This was an extremely important piece of information.
「Sorry for suddenly mentioning something strange like that. But I get this feeling that I've to convey this information to you as soon as possible.」
「No, it's quite the opposite, it's an extremely important piece of information. Thanks a lot for telling me about this.」
And then, maybe due to the mental fatigue of the serious discussion with Yamajun, my body was suddenly assailed by listlessness. I was no longer in the condition to continue our study session.
I guess it's time to end this study session.
「Ah, come to think of it, Yamajun, I want to ask one last thing.」
「Eh, is something the matter?」
「Are you really not having a thing for Mei-chan?」
「Ahaha, don't worry about it Momokawa-kun, I've no feelings for her.」
I could finally feel at ease as I saw Yamajun was smiling wryly from the bottom of his heart. Now, I could finally sleep in peace.
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