Rei surged forward with her spear, fury blazing at Ota's insults toward Ryuji.
She had already learned three Warrior skills. With Saya occasionally backing her up with magic from the sidelines, dealing with a handful of ordinary people was effortless. In fact, the twenty-plus attackers were barely an inconvenience.
Ryuji scooped up the white puppy rubbing against his feet and, under its puzzled stare, lifted it straight up.
"Hm? No dingding. It's a girl."
After confirming its sex, he tucked the surprisingly clever little dog into his arms, already set on adopting it.
Bang! Bang!
"Ahhh! You bitch, go to hell!"
Gunshots cracked across the battlefield. Ryuji turned and saw Saeko swing her wooden sword, batting aside the spray of bullets from Ota's shotgun one after another.
"Oh. That's the Level 3 Warrior skill, Block."
[Block] was a skill that, within the user's physical limits, could negate any physical damage for three seconds. It was an extremely strong defensive technique.
"No… impossible. How can anyone block bullets?" Ota gripped his shotgun, terror flooding his face as his hands shook uncontrollably.
But what met him next was Saeko's merciless wooden sword.
"Hisashi?! And Takashi too?!"
Rei stared at the two in disbelief. She had never imagined their attackers would include people she knew.
"U-um… gulp… Miyamoto-san, we… we were just passing by."
Hisashi was shaking. He had just watched more than twenty living people become bloody corpses, limbs scattered across the ground.
Even the girl he once admired from afar had killed as casually as slaughtering chickens. His legs trembled so hard he could barely stand.
"R-right. We were just passing by."
Takashi was no better. Looking at Saeko, elegant as a night rose, he swallowed hard. His knees went weak, and he nearly collapsed.
"In the middle of the night, with corpses all over the place, and you expect us to believe you were just passing by?" Saya strode over, blunt as ever, two fireballs forming in her hands, ready to throw at any moment.
Saeko flicked the blood from her wooden sword and moved obediently to her husband's side.
Cradling Hime (the puppy's name, "Zeke" had sounded too ugly), Ryuji walked up to Hisashi and Takashi.
{T/N: Hime means "Princess" in Japanese.}
They both wore hopeful looks, desperate to be spared.
Ryuji fixed Hisashi with a cold stare and asked, voice unhurried, "You were in the crowd watching us during the day, weren't you?"
It sounded like a question, but his certainty left no room to deny it.
Terror flashed across Hisashi's face. He jerked upright, trying to bolt.
"Ahhh!!!"
Before he took a second step, Saeko's sword punched through his chest from behind, skewering his heart.
Hisashi dropped instantly.
Takashi lost control of himself and pissed his pants.
Rei and Saya pinched their noses and stepped back, their eyes full of contempt and disgust as they looked at him.
Saeko frowned, then returned to Ryuji's side without a word.
Ryuji watched the pathetic scene, said nothing, and lifted his foot to finish Takashi off.
But just then — whether by heaven's favor or sheer spite — Ota, still alive despite being severed at the waist, forced his trembling hands to raise the shotgun.
"Go to hell… hahaha Cough! Cough cough!"
Bang!!!
"No!!" ×2
Rei and Saya stared in horror as a dozen bullets screamed toward Ryuji.
Saeko had only just reached him and had no time to react.
Clang! Clang Clang Clang!
The bullets dropped one after another, tinkling onto the ground as Ryuji drew back his palm, its skin lightly scraped.
To the three girls, his hand had moved so fast it left afterimages, batting every round aside. Only then did they exhale.
Furious, Saya hurled several fireballs into what was left of Ota's upper body, burning him into a lump of charcoal.
Ryuji turned — and saw that Takashi had used the chaos to flee more than ten meters.
Ryuji caught up in a blink and drove a kick into him. With no one left to interfere, Takashi's spine snapped, his body folding backward at a grotesque ninety-degree angle.
"Something about that just now felt off."
Ryuji stared down at the corpse, frowning. The gunshot had been too convenient, too suspicious.
But in the next moment, the answer presented itself.
〖 Ding! Energy Points +100! 〗
〖 Total Energy Points: 8610! 〗
〖 Ding! Achievement completed: You're Not the Protagonist! I Am the Protagonist! 〗
〖 Title Obtained: Protagonist Hunter! 〗
〖 Title Effect: You are immune to the intelligence-reducing effect of the Protagonist's Halo, and your familiars share the same protection. For each Protagonist you successfully hunt, you gain the corresponding number of Protagonist Rank Fragments. 〗
〖 Elementary Protagonist Rank: 1/3 〗
〖 Elementary Protagonist Rank can replace the protagonist of Low-Energy Worlds and inherit their destiny. 〗
"So it was the influence of the protagonist's halo. No wonder…"
Ryuji barely spared a thought for the 100 Energy Points Takashi had provided. He could earn that much by killing ten corpses.
The title he received from the achievement, however, was genuinely useful. Immunity to the protagonist halo's intelligence-dulling effect was exactly the kind of protection he needed.
In plenty of anime, that halo made people stupid enough to fall for a few lines of talk-no-jutsu, giving villains a sudden "awakening" and sending them running into the protagonist's arms in tears.
The idea of that happening to him made Ryuji shudder.
He flicked a fireball over and reduced Takashi's corpse to ash, then led the girls back to the villa. Any skill his familiars learned, he learned too — and he wielded them with even greater precision.
"Ryuji-kun, Ryuji-kun, are you hurt?"
"Wuuwuu… I saw the bullets fly at Ryuji-kun, and I was so scared my heart nearly stopped."
"Me too… wuuwuu…"
The moment they returned, the teary-eyed girls swarmed him, patting and fussing over him from head to toe.
Woof! Woof Woof!!
Sensing his discomfort, Hime barked a few sharp times. The girls finally calmed down.
Ryuji gave them a small smile, "I'm fine. It's just a scratch."
When he opened his hand, they saw the thin abrasions on his palm and looked even more distressed.
"Shizuka-sensei, hurry — heal husband…"
"Yes, yes! Shizuka-sensei is a Priest. She can heal husband!"
Shizuka hurried over, took his hand, and activated her Priest skill. A soft green glow flashed. Ryuji felt a faint itch, and the skin on his palm smoothed back to normal.
"Phew… all better." Shizuka exhaled and patted her chest.
The motion sent a distracting ripple through her curves, and Ryuji suddenly felt lightheaded — like he might be losing blood for entirely different reasons.
The two little girls had been worried too, but once they saw him healed and noticed Hime in his arms, they carried the puppy off to play. Saeko, Rei, and Saya also let their anxiety fade.
The newcomers who had joined them that day watched the scene and felt quietly relieved.
Relieved they had been saved by him — and that they had been welcomed into such a harmonious group.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
The next day.
Ryuji crawled out from beneath five young women — no, six.
He exhaled slowly. The night had started with only Shizuka, but at some point Saeko, Rei, Saya, and the others had joined in.
With lingering unease, he glanced at the six naked, graceful figures on the bed, then slipped quietly out of the room.
The moment he reached the stairs, he felt stares like needles. His step faltered.
Looking up, he found the other girls seated in the living room, watching him with open resentment.
Ryuji understood at once. Last night had been far too loud. Aside from the two little ones who had gone to sleep early, everyone else had been kept awake by the sobbing and pleading.
Today, he needed to make them a promise. Otherwise… he could almost see it: smiling faces, machetes in hand.
He shook his head hard, refusing to picture it.
"Phew… once we reach a safe place, I'll make it up to each of you." Ryuji made the vow with solemn sincerity.
At that, the tension broke. Smiles returned, and the girls finally dispersed.
Hime trotted over and sat neatly at his feet, tail wagging.
After breakfast, Ryuji gathered everyone and boarded the school bus again.
With yesterday's additions, their group numbered twenty-two — still seventy-eight short of a hundred.
The bus only had twenty seats, so two little cuties ended up on Ryuji's lap, along with one small pet.
"Ryuji-kun, where do we go now?" Shizuka asked as traffic forced her to a stop.
Ahead, the road was clogged solid.
Ryuji studied the map, then said, "Head for the riverbank. It's close to Saya's house, and the water's shallow — we can drive straight through."
"Okay…"
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Before long, the school bus reached the riverbank and stopped.
Shizuka stared down the embankment, then glanced back at Ryuji, uncertain, "Do we really have to drive down? It looks pretty steep…"
Ryuji assessed the angle and the bus's clearance, then nodded, "We can make it."
"Okay… everyone hold on tight…" Shizuka cinched her seatbelt and braced herself.
She hit the gas. The bus launched off the embankment. The headlights shattered on impact and the front bumper crumpled, but they thudded down into the river.
The jolt sent everyone swaying, but hands clamped onto rails and seatbacks, and no one was thrown.
As for the two little girls in Ryuji's lap, they felt a brief moment of weightlessness — then strong arms pulled them back into a steady, warm embrace.
Hime, clever as ever, had already burrowed into Ryuji's clothes before the drop.
"Phew… that scared me to death. I thought I was going to fly out." Alice patted her small chest and snuggled closer, still shaken.
Woof Woof!!
Hime, as if nothing had happened, poked her little head out from Ryuji's clothes.
Myu was much calmer. She simply clung to Ryuji's shirt and refused to let go.
"Hehehe. If you're scared of flying out, why don't you come sit in big sister's arms?"
A girl behind Ryuji giggled and stretched out her hands, as if to snatch Alice away.
Alice glanced at the girl's generous chest and shook her head so fast her hair nearly whipped her cheeks, "No, no! Big brother will protect me! Right?"
"Of course. I won't let anything happen to you."
Alice immediately beamed.
She patted Ryuji's chest with her tiny hand. His arms felt safer than anything else.
"We're about to reach the shore. Everyone hold on." Shizuka called.
At her reminder, the girls quickly sat straight.
With a heavy rumble, the bus climbed the far embankment.
They had not gone far before corpses began to gather behind them.
When the bus rounded a bend, Shizuka slammed on the brakes.
"Ah…"
"Eek…"
The sudden stop threw everyone forward into the seatbacks ahead, but no one was hurt.
"What is it, Shizuka?" Ryuji asked.
Shizuka snapped out of her daze and pointed ahead, eyes wide, "Someone up front is surrounded by corpses!"
Ryuji stood, set the two little girls down, and Hime obediently wriggled free and hopped into Alice's arms.
At the front of the bus, he saw the problem clearly.
More than a hundred corpses swarmed around one or two large commercial vehicles, hammering at them with frantic, rotting hands.
One of the vehicles had broken down. The engine kept surging and sputtering, but it would not catch.
The people inside had spotted Ryuji's group. A mature woman with long purple-red hair was waving at him.
She looked past him, as if urging him to check behind.
Ryuji glanced into the rearview mirror.
The corpses drawn earlier by the bus were sprinting after them.
"With this many, we can farm a lot of experience." Ryuji said. He pulled his weapon from Personal Space and smiled at the girls, "Experience is right here. Get off the bus and collect it."
"Okay!" ×N
The girls cheered and poured out after him.
Yesterday's five newcomers had already given Ryuji their first kisses under his dominance. That meant they, too, could share in the experience gains.
✦✦✦
T/N: Comment, give me Power Stones, like and favorite, it all supports me and makes me go foward with this. Appreciate my other stories as well, I guarantee the good work!
That's it and happy reading! (-‿◦)