Idol Gunner [Yuri Villainess LitRPG]

They decided not to get out of the cave. While they were only humans, and wouldn’t hurt them in any way, that didn’t mean there was no reason to be afraid. If Nobuko saw them there, it would give Tanaka enough material to make their lives worse.

That, without mentioning the personal grudge she herself held. In the case that Jina and her came face to face once more, Kana would not be able to keep up her narrative. Nobuko would probably make it immediately obvious where her loyalties lay. To ensure that didn’t happen, she ended up being unnaturally enthusiastic about staying away from them.

“Are you sure we didn’t all die and end up in hell?” Jina asked, “It’s either that, or you killed and replaced the original Kana.”

“Shut it.”

“Yeah, lackey. How dare you speak up in front of your master?”

“Kelsey, it’s about time to stop. How long are you going to keep teasing her?” Sanada groaned, trying her best not to doze off, “Do you think it’s a good time to go to sleep? I don’t get how you guys kept awake earlier.”

“We were walking the entire time, so it was easier.” Jina laughed, “RiRi-chan was very sleepy, though. She was pouting most of the time, but then she suddenly yawned once in a while. It made me laugh every time!”

The vocalist laughed too. Her voice bounced off the walls of the cave, almost like a melody. It soothed Kana for a short while. RiRi had not been wrong about her voice. She herself hadn’t been wrong either. Sanada had a quality that was rare to find. Normally, Kana would not have let go of such a talent. It was like shooting yourself in the foot. Things were not that simple anymore, though.

“She was horrible at staying angry. Famously horrible, actually. If you asked her to get mad at us, she would probably start laughing a few minutes in. I stole one of her pastries once, for fun. And then, she-”

“What is this? A support group?” Kelsey scoffed, “We’re not here to share stories, so keep it to yourself. They don’t need to know any more than they already do. Focus on what we’re going to do now that those other girls are outside. You think we can move freely if Ruby Passion is also roaming around with us?”

“Kelsey! Don’t start all over again.”

Kana rolled her eyes, “Also, it’s not going to be an issue. Don’t start speaking about things if you don’t have a clue. This place is way more massive than you think. The barriers should be down by now, and they won’t be anywhere near us. You think this is a game, do you? There’s a whole planet out there.”

Jina scratched her head, “A planet…might be an exaggeration. But, yeah, it’s still a huge place. I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of how big it might be, actually. But a planet? I…doubt it.”

“Oh look, the lackey has coherent, varied thoughts.”

“I’ve been having them for a while now, Kelsey-chan. I guess you’ve been speaking but not listening, if you haven’t noticed that.”

“Yeah, my ears are quite good when it comes to blocking out lower life forms. Maybe you should get Kana-chan to speak for you instead.”

“Can we stop now?” Sanada nervously chuckled.

“Is that so, Kelsey-chan? Looks like your logic is quite disturbed there, then. How did you hear what I said just now?”

“I decided to show some pity and open my ears up for a second, that’s it. Needed to show a certain lower life form her place in the world.”

“I really mean it. I don’t want us to be fighting right now, alright?”

Kana wanted to tell Sanada that saying anything was a waste of time, but that in itself was a waste of time. None of them were going to listen to her. As much as she enjoyed seeing Kelsey get angry, she had no motivation to do it right now. Speaking to that girl was a headache, so why do it without a reward on the other side? She wished she could tell Jina that, but that would allow Kelsey to listen in as well. She decided to close her eyes for now.

Ruby Passion Jr. outside, and these three inside. Maybe they had died and gone to hell.

The fighting went on for longer than she expected, too. Kelsey did not give up on her constant ‘lower life form’ remarks, and Jina was no better. She wondered if this was what she looked like to the others a week or so ago. Right now, Kelsey was in her position, and Jina, in Kelsey’s. It was a bit embarrassing if Kana was being honest with herself. She internally wished she never had to do that again.

After all, if you really thought someone was lower than you, you just stopped engaging with them. That was what Kana told herself as she tried to tune their voices out. Jina would have to mature a little and get out of this herself. It was good practice, given how tenaciously annoying Kelsey was.

_____________

By morning, Ruby Passion Jr. was nowhere to be found. She hoped that it stayed that way as they got to work.

There were very few monsters they spotted, and all of them were quite far away. It made sure they didn’t need to interact or get into a fight, which was good. The less of a physical toll this took on them, the better. This was supposed to be a quiet, quick mission to trick the Coalition. Nothing more, if they could help it.

Jina and Sanada worked fast. The latter activated her system just once. After that, all she did was equip and unequip one of her weapons at random intervals. The notifications it would send to the Coalition would make it look like she was fighting monsters. That was all they needed. Once she had done that a couple of times, they took a short break with her weapons out.

This was where Jina came in. Given her skills with a knife when cooking, it only made sense that they carried over. Sanada sat down, and she got behind her. With some precision, she lodged the knife into the back of the chip and took a long breath. Her hands trembled as her eyes tried to narrow down the exact position of the metal. One mistake, and this could lead to some very undesirable outcomes.

She gulped and stabbed the very edge of the girl’s skin. A small wince, but nothing more. Sanada bit down on a bit of her own dress, refusing to let any noise escape. Kelsey sat beside her. Despite all of the fighting before, she held on tight to the vocalist’s hand. They hadn’t done anything like this before, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t guess how painful it was.

“I’m gonna start, Sanada-san.” Jina barely managed to string together the words, “I’ll go slow, if that’ll help. Little by little, right?”

“No. Go at once. The slower you go, the worse it will be.” Kana explained, touching the metal and noting how perfectly it had blended with the skin, “If you start and stop, she will feel the pain of her skin but cut every single time. Do it once, and it’ll hurt more, but it’ll also hurt just once.”

“Yeah. That sounds better. Please, Jina-chan. I’m trusting you.”

“That…doesn’t make it better.” She chuckled, almost on the verge of tears, “Here I go, then.”

She took another deep breath, and her hands stopped trembling. The vibrations came to a halt, and the blade shone against the girl’s fair skin. This was it. Once they cut this chip off, the Coalition would believe that she had died. Since it was run on bioelectricity, that was the only viable explanation for them. That would be step one. Then, they would leave scraps of her dress as proof.

The knife touched her skin and started to move. Barely millimetres away from starting its cut now.

“Stop!”

Kelsey let out a sharp, but low cry. She gestured at the horizon. Jina withdrew her blade, and all of them turned to look where she wanted them to. Kana had one glance and wanted to die. Of course, she had to open her big mouth and fight back against Kelsey’s claims earlier. Now, things were going to get a whole lot worse if they did not handle them well.

In the distance, a massive cloud of red dust was rising. It could have been anything, but no option was good. A horde would be impossible to deal with, since they only had Sanada’s weapons. A larger monster would be an even bigger problem, since there wouldn’t even be a fighting chance. The last option, Ruby Passion Jr., was the safest. Yet, it was somehow the worst.

She didn’t even know which one she wanted it to be. At least the suspense would not last long, though. Kana braced herself for the reveal as the dust got closer, and its occupants came into view. The dust cloud was being led by Nobuko Ohara. Her two teammates, following her, were running. Running away from what, though, was the question.

“Is it a horde?” Jina asked, changing her grip on the knife to a fighting stance.

Kana took her own knife out, holding it in a similar position, “No. That as…girl wouldn’t run from a horde. It’s probably something bigger, more dangerous.”

“Just what we needed.” Kelsey picked up the axe that Sanada had kept on the rock beside her, holding it in both hands.

Left all alone without a weapon, Sanada cowered in the back. She had foolishly decided not to pick up a weapon, since she could rely on her system. Now, they were paying the price. She couldn’t use a second one either, since that would require her to remove the axe from her friend’s hands.

“Do you think they…” She started to speak, but then, before she could continue with a ‘see us?’, Nobuko directly showed signs that she could.

Wildly waving her hands, gesturing for them to get out of the way, she kept running at full speed. All four of them ran to the left, clearing the path for Ruby Passion Jr. and the monster behind them. As they got closer, that monster’s form became clearer. It wasn’t just any monster. It was one that they had seen before. The Four-Armed Demon.

“Who are y-!”

One of the girls running behind Nobuko shouted, but was stopped the moment they got close enough to recognize them. As she moved forward, Nobuko’s eyes met Kana and Jina, and stayed on them for an extended period of time. Then, the cloud swallowed them all.

The Four-Armed monster did not change its target, keeping its sights on the three who had been running from it earlier. They were the ones who had provoked him somehow, so they were the ones who would pay.

Kana coughed and backed up, hoping to get away from the commotion now that they were hidden. She held Jina’s hands and pulled her back. The goth girl did the same to the others. Feeling each other through the gravelly air surrounding them, the four girls managed to step back and stay away from the monster. But that, somehow, was not the end.

“Stop running!” Nobuko’s voice pierced through the dusty fog, and all the footsteps came to a sudden halt.

The dust began to settle as the monster stopped moving as well. Why had it done that? Kana took another step back, ensuring that they were nowhere near the fight. The heaving, mammoth figure was still at a distance and was only focused on the girls. It had stopped exactly when Nobuko had asked her group members to stop. Almost as if it had understood what she meant. Or at the very least, made an educated guess.

Once the battlefield was clear, Kana and her group kept moving back. Slowly, but surely, they could get out and make a run for it. It wouldn’t be that difficult if they kept their voices down. Four-Armed Demon was still exclusively aggravated on Ruby Passion Jr.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Nobuko screamed at them, revolver in hand, “You think you can just abandon us like this? Just because you weren’t there with us there, doesn’t mean you get to run away now!”

“What?” Jina muttered, confused.

For a second, Kana was, too. Only until the demon’s ears pricked up and it jumped back. Now, all seven of them were in its eyesight. Right hands aimed at Ruby Passion Jr., and left hands aimed at them, it growled. It was a low, yet threatening proclamation of battle. The creature’s brown skin, shining in the sun of their world, wrinkled with anticipation.

“En…emy…”

Kana stopped breathing. All of them did. Nobuko, however, kept her calm. The monster had just spoken. In their language. It had been comprehensible and made a declaration for them to hear. Eyes narrowing, it got ready to defend against any strikes.

That was why Nobuko had said those things earlier. It could not speak the language perfectly, but it could understand. That was what she had been relying on. She had convinced it that the four of them were with her. She had pulled them into this battle, whether they liked it or not.

With their lack of weapons, though, Kana was currently leaning towards the second way of thought there.