Ryutarou shouldered through the crush of bodies, breath burning in his lungs, knuckles split and slick. Every swing bought him a step, every step cost him mana he didn't have. The world tunneled—Shizuku's dark ponytail, Kaori's white robe, the ring of steel and the shriek of monsters—and then something lurched into his path: a horse minotaur, all corded muscle and midnight hide, an equine skull atop a barrel-chested, two-legged frame. Its nostrils flared white steam. Hooves the size of plates hammered the stone.
It lifted a leg and tried to paste him into the floor.
He met it the only way he knew—head-on.
Ryutarou drove his fist up into the descending hoof. Air cracked. Shock ran up his arm and detonated between his shoulder blades. Boom—he slid backward, boots carving two dark lines through wet stone. The creature only rocked a half step. Even with rage boiling under his skin—sharpening the edges of the world—it wasn't enough.
"Move, damn it…!" He surged in again. The minotaur slammed its chest into him like a battering ram and clubbed down with a forearm as thick as a post, flinging him sideways. He hit the ground, rolled, and came up on a knee. The rage wanted more—wanted all of him. If he let it, he could tear this thing apart—
His vision pulsed black. The mana well inside him hit a stone.
He dropped to both knees, palms braced on rock that vibrated with distant fighting. Sweat dripped from his chin in quick, heavy ticks. Hoof steps thundered closer. A shadow fell over him as the beast raised both legs for a crushing double-stomp.
"Not yet," Ryutarou rasped. He made himself look up so the thing could see it—the part of him that refused to lie down, even when his body did.
Across the chamber, Shizuku and Kaori fought back-to-back beneath the shredded remnants of a protective barrier. Two more horse minotaurs—sleeker, meaner—paced in a pincer. Shizuku's blade flashed, knocking aside a grasping hand by a hair. Kaori's lips moved in frantic prayer, light trembling around her fingers as she tried to shape a ward with what little time she had.
The pair chose that heartbeat to end it.
They lunged—one to trample, one to seize and rip.
The ceiling split with a sound like bedrock shearing.
A jagged spike—thick as a tree trunk, all raw stone and rebar—punched down between Shizuku and Kaori and the oncoming bodies. Dust burst outward in a choking ring, the shockwave knocking both horse minotaurs off their perfect lines. One recovered—too slow.
The falling spike itself impaled it, punching through crown and spine and nailing it to the floor with a wet, concussive crack. The second jerked away at the last instant—still too slow; the skimming edge tore a bloody furrow along its neck. It staggered, breath whistling.
Every head in the room snapped toward the breach.
Gunfire answered.
White-hot tracers stitched the air as a figure dropped through the haze, coat flaring. Donner barked once—the wounded minotaur's head burst in a spray against the far wall. Schlag answered a half-beat later, two rounds drilling the knees out from another charging brute that had been angling for Kaori. It collapsed, screaming, before a third shot turned the scream off.
The figure hit the spike in a crouch, boots biting stone. He was wearing a black coat dusted white, silver hair bristling from the fall, a dark patch hiding his right eye, and the faint, cold glow of magic tracing the joints of his metal left hand. "On your feet," he called without looking, and flicked his wrist—transmutation rippled. A waist-high barricade rose in front of Ryutarou just as the beast looming over him slammed its hooves down; the impact skidded off the fresh wall with a shower of chips.
Pop—the man tossed a small cylinder past Shizuku. It detonated in a flat bang, the last pair of monsters flinching on instinct. He walked his sights through the recoil, calm as a metronome: two to the chest, one to the head; pivot; repeat. Bodies hit stone in ugly, final thuds.
Silence fell in ragged pieces, broken only by the settling groan of the new-made spike.
The man turns to look at Kaori and Shizuku. "Glad to see you two are still as inseparable as ever."
Kaori's eyes glow with unshed tears "Nagumo???"
"Wait, what do you mean? That's Nagumo? No, wait, but he doesn't look like that."
"Jezz Shizuku, you need to calm down. You're supposed to be the cool one."
"Hey now!"
"Nagumo watch out" Kaori seems to recall something else as she warns him.
"Just you watch. Ladies." Hajime stretches his arms out and Yue seems to fall out of the same hole and set her down. Yue seems to cast a quick spell and Shea follows most to side land on her feet. And finally Endo seems to be moving to another side.
"Guys, I bought help!" Endo quickly saw his class mate were in rough shape and ran to the biggest group with healing potions at the ready.
"At least he didn't freeze." Glancing around, Hajime noticed that there was a man that he hadn't seen in a long time, laying on the ground near the demon woman. "Yue, can you bring the man near the demon to us?"
"Ya no problem." Yue lifts the still alive man in armor toward Hajime's party.
"What makes you think I'm going to just let you." The female demon's face was getting angry. Her monsters were already trying to end Captain Meld's life. A small tentacle cat shot out there spear like tentacles that look to be a mix of lion goat and snake shot out venom from snake mouth.
"Aaahh" the students who watched this were ready to see the worst. All attacks stop before reaching captain meld. It seemed a hollow ground had already been cast and no one heard the chanting.
Bang bang bang. All the nearby cats fell on the ground dead. "I don't think I asked for your permission. Shea here" Hajime handed an elixir to her. "Use it on Meld."
"Got it." Shea took it and waited for Yue to set him down near them.
"You demons just have plans within plans. Look I don't feel like dealing with you so how about you leave and we don't need to fight." Hajime looked annoyed and let out a big sigh. Shea nearby slowly feeding the captain meld the elixir.
"You're the adventurer that's been getting in our way…" Cattleya snapped her finger, finally realizing who was standing before her. "I'm afraid I can't let you leave here alive. Last few times none of our forces were able to get close enough to you, but here in this small room there is no escape." With that, all of her forces rushed at Hajime and the other students.
"Yue—big groups."
"Mm."
Heat rolled. Yue's magic uncoiled into the shape of a dragon's face and neck—scales all flame, eyes like kiln doors. It lunged across the cavern, jaws yawning. One whole flank—Ogres, cats, chimera—simply vanished under a sweeping breath that turned bodies into drifting cinders.
Before the blaze could roll on, the ground heaved. Something shouldered up through slag: a turtle-like monstrosity the size of a carriage, shell banded with obsidian plates etched in siphon sigils. The fire bent toward it—then into it—drunk down like a tide sucked through a drain. The air warped a beat later as Cattleya's half-formed gravity pulse—blooming from her chant—got yanked the same way, crushed into the plates.
The turtle's throat glowed. It belched both back at once—fire braided with gravity—straight at Hajime.
He jumped using Air Step and wasn't there. The lash tore a trench through the stone where he'd been and hurled a spray of molten shards into the ceiling.
"Great. Even more tricks." He slid across nothing, pistols still talking, carving room. "Demons just don't stop, do you?"
Cattleya's jaw clenched, but she didn't break her cadence. Her chant climbed, syllables stacking like stones, the earth humming taut beneath it.
Cross Bits kept orbiting over Kouki—catch, shove, counterfire—shield plates ringing as they shouldered aside a club meant to pulp him. Yue flared again, but the turtle rolled to face her, plates opening like gills to gulp the heat.
"Enough." Hajime's coat snapped in the mana wind as he stowed the pistols in the same motion he reached for something long.
The anti-materiel rifle slid from his ring into his hands—sleek, brutal, rails whispering as the capacitor spooled. He took a knee on an Air Step foothold, let the battlefield blur into math, and found it: gular notch, just under the rim of the shell, where the siphon channels braided before they split.
The turtle's mouth swelled with stolen fire. Cattleya's gravity note peaked.
Hajime exhaled. "Sit."
The crack hit like a hammer in a bell tower. The penetrator round—kinetic first, mana-lagged charge second—punched through the notch, ignored the shell's siphon, and bloomed inside. The plates on the turtle's back bucked outward in a shuddering ring; light blew from its eyes and mouth; then it sagged, empty, all that stolen magic dying with it.
Yue's dragon-face surged again, unopposed—another swath of monsters erased to ash.
Cattleya's irritation flared to anger, but her voice never faltered. The earth-needles bristled taller, the floor flexing like a drumhead under her will as she forced more power into the grand chant.
Hajime racked the rifle, let it arc back into his ring, and drew Donner and Schlag in the same breath. He dropped into the churn—unmarked, coat frayed, eyes cold—while brass chimed around his boots and the Cross Bits kept Kouki breathing behind him.
"On it!" Shea laughed, heels digging in as she hefted Doryukken. She spun—once, twice—then became a cyclone of steel and ears. The turtle swung to face her, plates yawning to swallow magic that wasn't there; Shea's hammer met its rim, bit, and dragged her into a brutal centrifugal arc. Rock, shell, and siphon sigils shrieked under the grind; on the third rotation she dropped her weight and slammed down. The shell caved like a crushed kettle. The monster twitched once and stilled.
"Blender enough for you?" she panted, winking at Hajime.
"Good timing." He holstered the long rifle mid-motion and drew Donner and Schlag again. Two neat shots erased a chimera mid-dive. He looked past the smoke to Cattleya. "So—are we done here?"
He fired. A clean, centerline snap.
Cattleya slid on a rising plate of packed earth, the bullet shaving hair and vanishing into the dark. Her eyes narrowed.
Hajime grinned. "At least you're not all talk. But I already got what I wanted."
It was only then did she notice the white feathers falling down from the side of her vision.
"Crashing Jail!" Cattleya's chant peaked.
"Kaori!" Shizuku's voice cracked.
The ceiling exhaled. A lid of packed smoke, ash, and crushing earth fell toward Hajime and the clustered students like a collapsing sky.
"Hollow Ground." Yue's voice was quiet, absolute.
A golden dome bloomed—thin as glass, strong as scripture. The falling mass hit and smeared, roaring around them in a choking tide. Shea bounded back under the barrier with a single spring, landing beside Kouki. Kaori and Shizuku clutched each other, eyes wide. "Nagumo!!"
Outside the dome, dozens of monsters screamed and vanished—caught in Cattleya's own descending maul, ground to slurry under the weight meant for them.
Smoke boiled. Gravel pattered off the warding light. Inside: untouched.
On her dais, Cattleya smiled, breathy with triumph. "Checkmate."
Hajime's laugh was a single, humorless note. He adjusted his grip, eyes cold through the drifting feathers. "Smart—using a force cage to catch the dumb ones. Too bad it doesn't work on me."
The dome's light sharpened. Yue's gaze cut across the battlefield like a drawn blade. Shea rolled her shoulders, hammer humming. And in the choking dark beyond the gold, the last of Cattleya's own fodder finished dying to her spell.
Stone spread like frost.
A pearl-gray dust burst from Hajime's palm-sized canister and rolled outward in a low ring. Everything it kissed locked mid-snarl: cat-beasts froze with tentacles half-raised, Orgas stalled mid-swing, chimera wings arrested in the downward beat. In three breaths, the chaos around him became a graveyard of statues.
Hajime leveled Donner at Cattleya.
"Bang. Bang." Two quick shots erased the last twitching beasts near her dais.
"You can dodge me," Hajime said softly, "they can't. You attacked me and mine. You're ready to pay the price—I expect that?"
He fired—once, then once more as she flinched. Cattleya quickly moved out of the way of the first shot, but right into the path of the second tearing a hole into her thigh. She stared up at him, shocked, angry, afraid.
"I don't understand!" she rasped. "You cleared a Great Labyrinth—and so did I! Why is our power so different?"
"That answers my question," Hajime said, stepping close until his shadow crossed her face. "You have the reflexes. But…"
He pulled the trigger.
Cattleya's head snapped back; her eyes lost focus. The sound rolled across the chamber and died.
For a heartbeat, everything held still.
Then the monsters broke.
With their caller gone, the remainder scattered—stumbling, retreating, some simply dropping their weapons to crawl into cracks. Hajime didn't chase. He'd stacked enough bodies for one day.
Yue let the Hollow Ground dissolve, stepping out beside him, quiet as a drawn blade. Shea hopped down from a sundered shell and shook dust from her ears, expression sober for once. Behind them, Kaori and Shizuku breathed in ragged relief; Kouki stood pale, stunned by the cold finality of it.
All around: dead flesh, fallen ash, and rows of stone figures locked forever mid-snarl.
Hajime holstered Donner. "We're done here."
He looked to the upward tunnels. "Now let's get you all back up there."
As Hajime put his guns away as his Sense Presence didn't detect anything in the area that would attack them, especially not after the slaughter that just happened, all monsters on this floor stayed away.
Yue runs up to Hajime, looking at him as if she was a puppy, looking for praise.
"Hajime." Yue's voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the cave heard it with how quiet it was.
Hajime looks and seems to be having a conversation. Seconds went by, but to them so much more was going on.
"Ugh!!!" Shea coughed and broke them up. "They all come now, we don't have time for you two to do this!" Shea was shaking Hajime's and Yue's shoulder, trying to break them up.
Ryutarou came up. "Man I can't even believe the guy I wrote off as socially awkward has got his own harem now…" Ryutarou seems to be looking a little longer at Yue.
At that moment another bang is heard and Ryutarou on the ground covering his forehead.
"Quit looking at my girl, or I'll shoot you!"
"AAHH what the hell was that for" Ryutarou on the ground rubbing his forehead.
"Get your own girlfriend" Hajime got an evil smirk while saying that.
The whole class was stunned since the kind Hajime they knew had used violence to stop someone.
"Nagumo you can't just go shooting people!!" Kaori ran up right in front of Hajime with tears in her eyes.
"Umm yea, sorry Ryutarou involuntary reflex there."
"Forget about him, Kaori's cheek puffed out as try grab Hajime's attention once more.
"Sup Kaori?" Hajime looks soften like the look before she was used to seeing.
"I miss you so much." Kaori hugged Hajime and Hajime didn't know what to do but, didn't stop her from hugging him but also didn't hug back. Hajime seems to be getting multiple glares now from all sides.
Ryutarou was mouthing 'another one'. Hajime would have shot him, but he was still unsure how to treat Kaori.
Shizuku came out of nowhere gritting her teeth. "Hug her back right now you jerk." Her hand ball into a fist.
To Hajime's left, Yue and Shea had that look where they wanted to murder someone.
"I guess I've made you worried. Sorry about that, but as you can see I'm fine now."
*Sniffle* "yea, I'm sorry I couldn't protect you." Her hug got a bit tighter.
As Kaori hugged Hajime, she asked, "By the way, what floor did you end up on?" Her voice was muffled, but everyone knew Kaori was always watching Hajime—and that her mood soured whenever Selena's name came up in the same context as his.
"We fought our way down here for the two of you, and somehow you already got out without a word," Ryutarou stated in confusion.
"Ano.." before Hajime could get another word in.
"Kaori, get away from him! Nagumo murdered someone in cold blood!" Kouki seemed to finally let the last few minutes set and he was ready to start beef.
Ryutarou had gotten up after pain from being shot faded. "Kouki, Nagumo just saved us." Ryutarou pointed out with a confused look.
"She was no threat to us!" Kouki's face seemed to have some kinda ugly expression, but as soon as it came, it quickly left.
"Kouki stop, we were moments from losing." Shizuku looks away from the body on the ground.
"But he killed her without hesitation."
It was at this point that the other hero party members started talking among themselves.
"Is that really Nagumo?"
"What happened to his eye?"
Before the talks could get too far along, Meld interrupted the mummers.
"Kouki, stop." all the students turned and saw captain Meld, who was being helped by one of the students to stand.
"But Meld-san…"
"Killing is a part of war. I had been meaning to send bandits to attack you kids… but as I got to know you kids more and more, it just got harder and I let the problem get worse. And look now, if not for Hajime here we all would have been slayed or captured.." Meld said as he looked as if he was struggling with how to justify his choices.
All the kids had their heads down from Meld's scolding.
"Oh man guys when you see Selena…" Endo's words died in his mouth once everyone turned towards him.
"Go on," Kaori seems to want to know more.
"Look, as much fun as it is to play twenty questions, I'm heading back." Hajime cut in as he started walking towards the entrance of the floor.
"Hold on, couldn't we take the teleporter past the boss room?" Ryutarou chimed in, hoping to take a shorter route for the sake of some of the more tired classmates.
Hajime turned around to look at him, "What do you mean?"
"Well, while the rest of the group were dealing with the monsters, I was fighting the boss with some support from Kaori." Ryutarou
Hajime looked toward the boss room and walked that way, leaving Kaori where she stood. "Sorry, but I'm wondering about something." Everyone followed. As they stepped in, they saw the traces of Ryutarou's fight with the earth-monkey. Hajime glanced at it and quickly ignored it. There was another doorway; Hajime stepped through.
As he made his way to what looked like a teleportation circle, he sensed a familiar mana. "Yue…"
"Mm," she replied.
"HEY NAGUMO," Kouki seemed to want to be heard but was having a hard time getting a word in edgewise.
Kouki caught up to Hajime as he was looking down on a circle that looked to have claw marks on it. "Um, what's that?"
"If I knew, do you think I would have walked in to check it out?" Hajime said dismissively
Hajime and Yue both looked down at the spell circle—claw marks raked across it. He'd grown used to the Labyrinth repairing itself, but something here was keeping the damage active, stopping the circle from fixing itself. Hajime activated transmutation and tried to force it, but when the process reached the claw marks, all mana disappeared at once.
Hajime sighed. "I don't know how he's doing it."
Shea tilts her head in confusion, "Who are you talking about?"
Yue aura turns dark "That filthy worm…"
"Nagumo, what is that?" Kouki asked, voicing what everyone was thinking.
"A very annoying foe left us a gift," he replied with venom on his tongue, just remembering that annoyance.
"Do you think that explains anything??!!!" Kouki was getting worked up from all of the vague answers.
Shizuku stepped in. "Look, Nagumo, we are not sure what to think about all this. We were about to die and then all of sudden you came in and….. saved us. You, a classmate that has been missing for months?" Her tone tries to stay calm, but her voice cracks once.
"Look, I'm here because I owe Shirasaki a favor" Hajime ignored everyone else, almost as if he was in his own world, and walked up to a random section of stone wall.
He activated transmutation and removed the stone, revealing a tunnel. "This way. I could sense it."
"Wait—there are more floors?!" the other students said.
"Haha, that's the secret. We didn't fall within the first hundred floors. We went below that, and our route back was blocked off."
"Ha—Hajime, why… who—" Kaori started, realization dawning on her face.
"So what have we faced until now?" Shizuku asked, her tone serious.
"Hmm? Probably just the bare basic monsters that could be found outside… down there," Hajime jabs his thumb in the direction of the tunnel, "makes what you faced so far seem like nothing compared to what's below. And Ryutarou, you said you soloed the boss—foes like him are a dime a dozen down there."
"Damn." Ryutarou's fists clenched at his sides. Suzu pulled on his arm before his knuckles went white. Ryutarou looked aside.
"It's going to be okay. They're both safe now, so there's no need to worry," Shizuku said.
"Yeah," Ryutarou muttered, clearing his head.
"Guys are we just going to ignore the fact that Hajime killed someone in cold blood!" Kouki's words made everyone stop to look at Hajime again without moving. Kaori, Shizuku, Ryutarou, and even Endou didn't seem to notice their classmates had stopped until Kaori pulled on Hajime's coat. Letting out a big sigh, Hajime turned around.
"Umm, what's wrong?" Ryutaro asked as if he was missing something.
"What's wrong!? He killed someone and we are not even going to talk about it!? We're going to just let him join the party like nothing was wrong!?" Kouki ranted, still not giving up on this point.
"Kouki," Shizuku looked like she wanted to say something, before...
"I never said I was going to rejoin the party. I don't know what world you live in, but if it weren't for me you would all be dead right now or worse, turned into slaves." Hajime's blunt words shocked them.
All the hero party couldn't look at Hajime since those words were very real possible.
"It's kill or be kill and I'd rather be the one doing it…" Hajime wasn't holding back his word.
"She couldn't even fight anymore. We could have taken her prisoner." Kouki tried to reason.
"Drop it for now Kouki," all the students turned and saw captain Meld, who was being helped by one of the students over.
"But Meld-san?!" Kouki still couldn't seem to drop this point.
"I am not going to repeat myself, I already told you once. Please, just drop it, Kouki." Meld stated, being firm on his stance and just asking for some leeway.
"Meld…" Kouki said when Yue cut through the conversation.
"Can we go now, Hajime?" Yue spoke up for the first time this whole cover. "Most of them aren't even grateful to be alive."
"Well, we can't use this teleportation circle since my magic just gets bounced off, so we will need to start heading back up," Hajime said.
"Hajime—" Captain Meld, who had followed behind, spoke up again. "Can we join you?"
"Yeah. There'd be no point in rescuing you all if you all just died here after I made my way to you."
"I thank you," Meld said, lowering his head in appreciation.
"Don't worry about it too much. We were hired by the guild to do this," Hajime said with a smirk.
"Wait, you're adventurers now?"
"We're just a paycheck."
"Someone pinch me."
"Does Hajime have a harem now…?"
"I'm jealous…"
Hajime chose to ignore them and started heading back the way they came. "Hurry up, I'm not going to wait on you all. And I'll lead so you all can rest a little bit."
"Wait up, Hajime!" Kaori called, seeming to use his first name more now.
"Why is she using his first name now? Is it because of Yue and Shea?" Shizuku muttered to herself. "Could be. I must be imagining things."
"Hey wait up Nagumo" Ryutarou followed right behind them.
They were already retracing their path when the echoes of the last shot finally died. Dust sifted from the cracked ceiling; Hajime walked point, coat brushed white, a fresh cylinder clicking into Donner with a clean, final sound. Yue drifted half a step behind him, gold eyes steady. Shea brought up the rear, Doryukken balanced on her shoulder like it weighed nothing.
"Nagumo!" Ryutarou called, jogging to close the gap, his lungs still rasping for air. "What—what was that back there? Since when do you have guns? And why didn't Selena come with you?" He asks in a barrage, finally having the chance to properly asks some of the questions that have been burning for a while now.
Hajime didn't slow. "We'll talk more when we're out of this hell," he said, voice even. Another corner, another glance for angles and ambush points. "Short version: I'm a Synergist. I can make things. Guns included."
Ryutarou frowned. "Yeah, but… do you even need them? I saw you—walls, spikes, all of it. You could do that without—" He caught himself, jaw tightening. The question came out hotter than he meant. "You don't need crutches."
Hajime finally looked over, one eye cool, the other hidden behind the patch. "Tools aren't crutches. They're multipliers," he said. "And no—I didn't start like this."
They walked through a corridor choked with frost-burned moss. Yue's sleeve brushed Ryutarou's elbow as she passed him a second vial. "Drink," she murmured. "You are still shaking." He took it, embarrassed, and swallowed.
"I was weaker than you when this started," Hajime went on, matter-of-fact. "No mana sense worth anything. No instincts. I built what I needed and trained until it stopped being luck." He flexed his metal left hand; faint lines of magic pulsed and went dark again. "I still train. Every day. If I skip, I feel it in the next fight."
That wasn't the answer Ryutarou wanted. He wanted something clean and heroic—some secret switch he could flip. But the steady way Hajime said it did something to the knot in his chest. It didn't make the knot disappear. It made it bearable.
"And Selena?" Ryutarou asked, softer. "Where is she?"
Hajime faced forward again. "She's topside. You guys wouldn't need both of us down here." He didn't elaborate. The tone made it clear he wouldn't. "She'll link up with us there."
Shea leaned in with a conspiratorial grin. "Also, don't let the guns fool you. Hand-to-hand? Selena's terrifying."
Hajime huffed, the closest thing he got to a laugh right now. "Understatement. When she decided we were doing 'fundamentals,' my ass learned a new relationship with the floor."
Ryutarou blinked. "You? Seriously?"
"For weeks," Hajime said. "No magic, no tricks—just footwork and leverage. I swung. Missed. Ate dirt. Repeated until I stopped missing. I still lose rounds sometimes, and that's the point." He glanced at Ryutarou again. "Getting mad is fine. You just need to aim it at the right target."
"Training," Ryutarou muttered.
"Training," Hajime confirmed. "You want to spar when we get out?"
Yue glances at Ryutarou with pity before giving Hajime a scathing look, already knowing the bullying that Hajime was ready to dish out.
They reached a stairwell shaft where cold air flowed up from the depths. Hajime scanned, then gestured them on. Ryutarou fell in step beside him, his breathing evening out.
It still stung—how far he had to go, how small he'd felt under those hooves. But the sting had edges he could hold now. He could put it somewhere. On the training floor. Into his fists. Into tomorrow.
"Alright," he said, more to himself than anyone. "We can spar when we get out."
The group kept moving from there, climbing the floors without stopping. All the while, Hajime, Yue and Shea kept sniping the monsters before anyone else realized that they were there.
The group kept moving back up the floors, their boots whispering over frost-burnt stone. Hajime walked point like it was a hallway and not a death maze—coat dusted white, one hand in his pocket, the other holding Donner low. A skittering shape slid from a crack—bap-bap—and slumped bonelessly without slowing him. Schlag coughed once past his hip; something that had been clinging to the ceiling let go and hit the floor in two pieces. Shell casings pinged and spun, and he just kept walking.
A knot of classmates hurried up, words ready—then stalled, mouths open. The casual way Hajime put down labyrinth monsters mid-sentence made the whole column feel less like a retreat and more like a… stroll.
"Excuse us," Yue murmured, easing past them without breaking stride.
Shea leaned in toward Hajime, stage-whisper bright. "When we stop later, could we have either curry or hamburgers? I could demolish either. Or both. Preferably both."
Yue didn't even blink. "All that food only goes to your tits. You'll never gain weight anywhere else."
Shea detonated. "E-EXCUSE ME?!" Right next to Hajime.
Hajime winced, stuck a finger in the ear closest to Shea, and angled his head away from her side. Donner popped once—something lunging from the left wall vanished backward in a spray of dust. "Inside voices," he said calmly. "Preferably several rooms inside. Monsters have ears."
Shea clapped both hands over her chest on principle, cheeks pink. "Y-Yue!"
"Observation," Yue said, serenely cruel. "Also, menu planning. I will have curry. You take a hamburger."
"That is NOT—wait, hamburger?" Shea's indignation wobbled.
"And when you inevitably want 'just a little more curry,' you can share Selena's," Yue added, as if discussing the weather. "She always shares, and she isn't here yet anyway."
Behind them came a chorus of stomach growls, miserable and involuntary. Several kids folded their arms over empty packs, eyes sliding anywhere but Kouki. He opened his mouth—closed it again—watched Hajime idly flick a wrist to raise a shin-high wall that a rushing beast broke its shins on—then thought better of whatever he'd been about to say.
Hajime sighed but didn't look back. "Food talk stays hypothetical until we're somewhere safe." Schlag snapped twice; two shadows fell for good. "Then—curry and hamburgers. In that order."
Shea actually stopped for half a beat, gears turning. "Hold on." She pointed at herself, then Yue. "So I get a hamburger now… and curry later… which is… both?"
Yue nodded once. "Both."
Shea beamed, crisis erased. "Best plan ever."
Kaori drifted beside Shizuku, voice small. "Is this really… Hajime-kun?"
Shizuku watched him reload without looking—magazine up, slide down, step forward, another monster erased like punctuation. "It is," she said. "And somehow this is normal for him now."
"Normal," Kouki echoed, faint, as Hajime flattened his palm to a scuffed patch of wall. A soft hum, a sigh of stone, and a hidden niche irised open: sealed canisters, ration bricks, a folded cook surface. Hajime palmed it shut again without comment.
"Later," he said, as if caches in the walls were an afterthought. "Move."
They moved. Donner barked, Schlag answered, and the labyrinth's threats fell away like tall grass under a practiced scythe. The hero party—so loud a day ago—found themselves out of words, walking through gun smoke and curry talk, trying to reconcile the casual with the lethal. And Hajime kept them all paced and breathing, as if this were just… a walk.