Chapter 185: Tsukishiro Tsunenari's Hint
The moment Chris turned down the Alien Mefilas's offer without a shred of mercy —
Horikita Suzune, standing toward the back, narrowed her eyes. She didn't waste a single word, but the fist hidden inside her sleeve was already clenched tight.
She was ready to summon Crazy Diamond at any instant for emergency restoration.
At the same time, she had already sent a silent order down to the Dark Shadow Legion: the moment Mefilas made any strange move, they were to drag Chris into the Kingdom of Shadows by force and get him clear of the damage.
They couldn't beat him. But they could absolutely run.
All they had to do right now was stall — hold out until the Black Sphere system's transport beam came down.
And on top of that, the trump card in Kouenji Rokusuke's hand, the time stop of [The World], still hadn't been exposed.
Horikita Suzune was certain that with the right coordination, even against this high-scoring alien monster, they wouldn't be completely without the power to fight.
True, in the end Mefilas had chosen to compromise and hand over an item, which turned all her battle-ready tension into "unnecessary" worry.
But Horikita Suzune saw nothing wrong with that.
Better prepared than sorry.
It was like sparring with Chris. Even during a break between rounds, you could never let your guard down completely. Because you never knew what angle your enemy would strike from.
That was the lesson Chris had taught her through pain — hands-on, personally delivered.
The familiar weightlessness faded.
Everyone was back in the Black Sphere Space, with its faint smell of mildew hanging in the air.
Horikita Suzune turned her head, swept her gaze across the room, and quietly counted heads.
When she confirmed just how many were missing — even though Ryuuen had already given her the bad news beforehand — her chest still went heavy.
A lot of the time, the line between living and dying sat very close together.
Against power on the scale of a natural disaster, a single wrong impulse was enough to put you on the other side of it.
Even Hirata Yousuke was dead.
And she no longer had a single spare life count left as a margin for error.
If she'd reacted half a beat slower back then, if her shadow soldiers hadn't hauled her into the Kingdom of Shadows to ride out the storm, she would absolutely have been one of the people vaporized in an instant by Godzilla's Atomic Breath…
'If one small slip is enough to end us like that…' Horikita Suzune's hands tightened into fists on their own. 'Then what kind of end is waiting for my brother, all the way out in a world like Chainsaw Man's, crawling with concept-level devils?'
She had no way of knowing. But you should always assume the worst.
She had to scrape together at least 100 S Points, and fast!
With that in mind, Horikita Suzune glanced down at the Black Sphere Watch on her wrist.
The S Points she'd been saving to buy the [Ultimate Uniform] had gone into the [Phantom Mask] partway through, leaving her with only 7.
Item points were another story. With the advance test finished, the Black Sphere had calculated the evacuation ratio and issued 15,000 item points to every surviving tester in their group.
"Fifteen thousand item points, equal to 30 S Points…"
Kouenji Rokusuke, standing a short distance off, glanced down at his own watch and sighed. "But the base figure for the original reward was one hundred thousand. Fifteen thousand against one hundred thousand… which means that after working ourselves half to death, we only actually saved fifteen percent of them."
Hearing that, Katsuragi Kohei walked over and clapped a hand on Kouenji's shoulder. "Kouenji, we did everything we could."
"In that situation, not being wiped out entirely was already a blessing. There's no reason to beat yourself up over it."
Kouenji Rokusuke gave his head a light shake. "Katsuragi Boy, you've misunderstood me."
"I, Kouenji Rokusuke, have never been the sort of man who regrets what he has done or grinds himself down over it."
"Even if Hirata Boy had the misfortune of being caught by Godzilla's Atomic Breath, I firmly believe we'll save up enough points to meet him again before long."
Kouenji's eyes narrowed slightly. "I'm merely lamenting… if the Alien Mefilas hadn't forced his way into our business, we would definitely have saved more people. And the item points we walked away with shouldn't have been this pitiful, either!"
"Even leaving Hirata's and Yamada's deaths out of the math, purely by the numbers, the visible losses Mefilas cost us come to no less than a hundred S Points," Amanatsu Kazuha said, stroking her chin, sounding genuinely pained.
Yagami Takuya nodded along, feeling it just as keenly. "Exactly. As it stands, our item points are already enough for each of us to buy one [Blank Card Box]."
"If that whole mess hadn't happened, we should've had a surplus — enough for two items, maybe more."
Listening to them tally it all up, Nanase Tsubasa stood off to the side. She felt the loss too, but that absolute self-interest of theirs simply wasn't in her bones.
What she felt most was guilt at failing to save more innocent civilians.
She felt she had betrayed the justice she'd always held to, and worse, felt hollow at how useless she'd proven in the face of a true disaster.
At the same time, the girl knew exactly where she stood.
With no powerful items to her name, she was really just a "tag-along" — a body brought in to make up the numbers so the advance test could start.
What decided this exam had been a handful of veteran players like Chris and Kouenji, throwing everything they had into it.
'Still, with this first pot of gold as a foundation, I won't be completely defenseless from now on.'
'Next time… next time I have to do better. I have to save more people!'
Nanase Tsubasa made the vow silently.
She reined her emotions in, and turning, she noticed that Yotsuya Miko's expression was clearly off. She hurried over and offered a soft word of comfort. "It's all right, Yotsuya."
"The casualties really were a heavy blow to us… but anyone who wants to improve in this exam hall has to go through a period of adjusting first."
"I'm sure we'll get used to the pace here soon. Whether that's to grow strong enough to protect more people, or to save up enough points to bring back someone who matters to us."
Hearing the concern in Nanase Tsubasa's voice, Yotsuya Miko came back to herself a little.
She looked at Nanase, her lips moving in a small mumble, then explained, a bit embarrassed. "Um… sorry, Nanase. Actually… I wasn't thinking about the exam at all just now."
"I was just… worried about my mom."
Yotsuya Miko's eyes reddened, her voice trembling. "I'm her only daughter, and my father died early. In the world I came from, the one full of evil spirits, I really don't know how she's supposed to live on her own…"
"What if… what if it's like the presiding god, the Black Sphere, said, and my world gets invaded by monsters like Godzilla or the Darkness Devil too… what is she supposed to do then?"
Nanase Tsubasa heard her out, then slipped an arm lightly around Miko's shoulders and let out a quiet sigh. "If that's the case, then to be safe, let's work hard to stay alive and stack up as many points as we can, Yotsuya."
"For your own sake, and for your family in that other world."
Yotsuya Miko nodded hard.
As she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, something caught at the edge of her vision — Horikita Suzune, alone, up close to the Black Sphere hovering in the center of the room, fingers flying across its screen.
Nanase Tsubasa followed her gaze and asked, puzzled, "Senior, what are you doing?"
Horikita Suzune stopped what she was doing and turned to explain. "I came over to check the Black Sphere's evaluation of our performance this exam, and I found something I wasn't expecting. There are hidden new functions in the system interface now."
"New what?"
Nanase Tsubasa and the rest perked up and crowded around.
Horikita Suzune stepped half aside and pointed at the Black Sphere's screen. "As a reward for this salvation test, the Black Sphere has added a 'Quick Use' function to our watch systems. From now on, when we use an item, we can tap the watch and skip the capsule materialization step — instant equip, instant use."
"And then there's the new function…"
Horikita Suzune pointed at an option marked with a cross-star icon. "For 10 S Points, we can unlock an accessory slot inside the Black Sphere Watch."
"Once it's open, we can store the [Phantom Mask], or any other special accessory item that's inconvenient to keep on us at all times, inside it. Those items will show up on our skin as branded stigmata, feeding us their power directly without taking up a physical equipment slot."
Kouenji Rokusuke rubbed his chin. "Oh? Now that is an elegant and practical function. However…"
He looked at Horikita. "These new functions you're describing — are they limited to the few of us who cleared the advance test, or does the whole school get them?"
Horikita Suzune shook her head. "School-wide, naturally. It's just that the function is buried in a submenu on the evaluation page. You have to click it manually to activate it."
"If I didn't have the habit of reviewing the evaluation after an exam to go over what went right and wrong, I might never have caught the detail at all."
She paused. "Honestly, I can't even tell whether it's an upgrade patch from the Black Sphere iterating on itself, or a genuine hidden reward for what we accomplished in this test…"
Amanatsu Kazuha leaned against the wall, looking entirely unbothered. "Either way, the Black Sphere starting to care about user experience instead of staying a cold tool that only hands out missions and teleports us — that's good news for us."
"Though if that's how it works… I'm afraid we'll all have to read the Black Sphere's poison-tongued evaluations after every test from now on."
At that, something seemed to occur to Amanatsu Kazuha, and the corner of her mouth curled. "Oh, right. Senior Horikita."
"Do you remember exactly what the Black Sphere wrote about us this time?"
The question landed, and Horikita Suzune's steady breathing hitched. Her whole frame stiffened, plain enough for anyone to see.
She paused a second or two before forcing her expression back to normal.
"Same as always. It tore into our performance in the exam hall from top to bottom." Her tone was cold to the point of sounding deliberate. "But at the end, it did tell me new functions had been added and reminded me not to forget to check them."
With that, Horikita Suzune vacated the spot and headed for the Black Sphere Space's exit portal on her own, her retreating back carrying an unmistakable air of fleeing the scene.
Amanatsu Kazuha, who had taken in every bit of it, narrowed her eyes in thought.
'Something's up.'
Judging by how Horikita Suzune had behaved after the last test…
plain mockery aimed at her weak combat ability clearly couldn't touch this senior anymore. Her nerves had been hardening.
Only an evaluation that stabbed straight into her chest and dragged her most private thoughts into the open could pull an expression like that — panic tangled with shame and anger — out of the perpetually aloof Horikita Suzune.
And in this exam, apart from putting on the [Phantom Mask] to summon the Dark Shadow Legion, Horikita Suzune hadn't done anything out of line worth the Black Sphere's extra scorn.
'So… the problem happened while she was wearing the Phantom Mask?'
Honestly, as a White House qualifier with selfishness carved into her DNA, when Amanatsu Kazuha put on the [Bat Mask]…
maybe because her nature fit it well enough already, she hadn't felt much loss of control over her personality at all.
The mask had only pushed her existing desires further, made them sharper, more extreme, and turned up her possessiveness toward her prey.
So then, given Horikita Suzune's personality — cold on the surface, thoroughly contrary underneath…
when the mask amplified the darkness in her heart, what exactly had been running through her head?
'Is it because of… Senior Chris?'
Amanatsu Kazuha licked her glossy lips, a glint rising in her eyes.
Meanwhile.
When Chris, along with Ryuuen, Ichinose and the rest of the main-match participants, left the presiding god's space…
and appeared inside the indoor gymnasium they'd originally picked out as a training ground,
the first thing Chris noticed was that Kouenji Rokusuke, Katsuragi and the other advance test members had been teleported in a step ahead of them.
And farther off, Horikita Suzune was walking fast toward the gym doors without a word, with no intention whatsoever of hanging around to trade information.
Nanase Tsubasa started forward on reflex.
She meant to catch up and ask Horikita what had happened, why she looked in such a rush.
But two steps in, she came face to face with a middle-aged man in a finely tailored suit at the gymnasium entrance.
Nanase Tsubasa braked hard. "Director Tsukishiro?"
Tsukishiro Tsunenari wore his usual kindly smile and gave Nanase Tsubasa a small nod.
Then he stepped past her into the gymnasium.
His gaze rested briefly on Amanatsu Kazuha and Yagami Takuya, who had come back alive, then slid straight past them and locked onto Ryuuen and Chris.
He walked forward into the eyes turned his way, bowed slightly, and spoke with a note of apology. "Students. You've all worked hard."
"Because the school had never actually witnessed a so-called 'Special Exam' before, our leadership badly misjudged the hopeless situation you were all facing, and handed down some unrealistic guidance."
Tsukishiro Tsunenari sighed, the picture of deep regret. "Ah. As expected, some things in this world only make sense once you've been baptized in blood and fire yourself."
"So, allow me to state the school's position here and now."
"From here on, whatever you need — counseling programs, training resources for any kind of specialized skill — you can come straight to the school for help."
"The school will do everything in its power to allocate resources. And all we'd ask is a token amount of Consumption Points from you, purely to cover the cost of keeping things running."
Listening to Tsukishiro Tsunenari's high-minded bureaucratic patter, Arisu Sakayanagi laughed out of sheer irritation.
'Are you the head of this school? And here you are, representing it already?'
'Give him a pole and he'll climb straight up it. Politicians really do have thick skin.'
The girl mocked him to his face without mercy. "It rather looks like the school has no say with the Black Sphere either."
"Otherwise the esteemed Deputy Director of the Advanced Nurturing High School wouldn't have been press-ganged by the Black Sphere like a conscript, reduced to an Intruder — a 'consumable' who could die under some monster's foot at any moment. Would he?"
Honami Ichinose glanced at Arisu Sakayanagi in surprise.
She knew what Sakayanagi said was true, but that barbed, needling tone
didn't fit the elegant young lady persona Sakayanagi usually kept up.
'With Sakayanagi's family standing…'
'Could she have some private grudge with this new Director Tsukishiro?'
Ichinose turned it over quietly.
Beside them, the short-tempered Ryuuen had already run out of patience and cut Tsukishiro Tsunenari's pleasantries short. "That's enough. Pack up that official act, it doesn't fool anyone!"
"I don't see any grand reasons here. You old men just realized in that exam hall that you could die at any second, that's all!"
Ryuuen shook his head, grinning. "Still, you don't have to worry too much on that front."
"As long as you're still carrying the Intruder Base Value the Black Sphere hands out at the start — 1 S Point per head… then you're our top-priority protection targets."
"No need to stand here putting on a show of goodwill."
Faced with Ryuuen's blunt pushback, Tsukishiro Tsunenari showed no displeasure and offered no rebuttal.
He simply kept smiling, holding on to his elder-statesman poise. "Then let me thank you sincerely in advance, on behalf of every faculty member who may be pulled into a Special Exam later on."
"However, this isn't the only reason I came to see you today."
Chris rubbed his chin, something shifting behind his eyes. "Oh? Let's hear it, then."
Tsukishiro Tsunenari didn't hedge. He dropped the bomb outright. "I imagine the better-informed among you already know that I have, let's say, a certain connection to the founder of the 'White House.'"
"I've just received a piece of confirmed information from him."
Tsukishiro Tsunenari paused. "Everyone out in the wider world who has practiced the 'Ripple' or 'Ki' techniques that leaked out of this school… even without Black Sphere equipment, has an extremely high chance of becoming an Intruder in a future exam!"
"So if anyone still intends to save up points and leave the school someday…"
"It would be best not to do what Ayanokōji did and try to carry any supernatural power belonging to the exam hall out with you."
With that said, Tsukishiro Tsunenari didn't linger. He clasped his hands behind his back and strolled away.
Leaving the group in the gymnasium exchanging looks.
No one chased after him to press for details.
After all, a trial-and-error cost of 100 S Points was simply far too high. Among those present, it was hard to imagine anyone still willing to run an experiment with no guarantees.
Most of them were like Ryuuen — they took it as entertainment and nothing more.
It hardly compared to the presiding god Black Sphere swallowing several days of their Hyperbolic Time Chamber time!
In truth, most of the people there didn't think it through any further.
Only a few — the meticulous Nanase Tsubasa, and Arisu Sakayanagi, who held more information than most —
heard those words and let their thoughts run all the way to Chris.
Carrying nothing supernatural at all, and still being hunted down by the Black Sphere.
That set of circumstances…
why did it sound so awfully familiar?
____
👻🔥Walnut-chan ;) — P@tr3on🔥👻
🔥 New history: Dragon Ball: But I Get Stronger by Taking Girls to Bed — live on The_Mikudayo
📚 Tired of waiting? Walnut-chan puts you 40 chapters ahead and keeps the translations coming
Help smash these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = +1 Bonus Chapter (for everyone)