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Tomaru Renren, embedded in the distant mountain rocks, was riddled with wounds, her body soaked in heroic blood.
She was a mangled mess of flesh and bone.
Fortunately, her special ability granted her immunity to high-speed impacts, preventing her from being reduced to a pulpy mess.
Her eyes remained open as she forced out strained words from her throat.
"...Are you saying I'm brainless?"
"What? Are you angry?"
Ryoji stepped forward, his smile gradually turning cold.
"Good! The angrier you get, the happier I am!"
'As if you're the only one allowed to be angry.'
"...You're such a boring guy." Tomaru Renren clicked her tongue in annoyance, then quickly regained her composure.
"Fine, I'll admit defeat this time. But next time, you won't be so lucky."
"Next time?" Ryoji narrowed his eyes, his expression sharpening. "What do you mean by that?"
"Hehe, just the literal meaning."
Tomaru Renren let out a couple more dry, forced chuckles, then flashed Ryoji an eerie smile.
"We'll meet again soon, that's right, very soon..."
"Hey!" Ryoji stepped forward.
But Tomaru Renren's expression suddenly went blank, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.
The opponent had voluntarily withdrawn their Hell Spider Silk.
Tomaru Renren's speed had already dropped to zero. Even with his utmost control, he could never accumulate that kind of velocity again in front of that foe. There was no point in embarrassing himself further.
"Looks like turbulent times have arrived..." Ryoji sighed.
According to the original world timeline, this meant trouble was actively seeking out the protagonist.
Even more troublesome events were likely to follow.
"Hoh, not a single bone broken!"
Ryoji crouched down and hoisted Tomaru Renren onto his back.
Superficially, the only serious injuries were her shattered leg tendons and massive blood loss. But that was just the surface.
The true, inexpressible damage lay in what the Puppet Warlock had done to her brain and the profound psychological trauma he had inflicted.
"Ryoji, how is she?"
Rich Lady Kanata and Saijou Ikazuchi hurried over, their eyes filled with worry as they looked at him and Tomaru Renren.
"She's not in mortal danger. Let's get back to the training grounds first," Ryoji said tersely. He hoisted Tomaru Renren onto his back, and the group hurried back to the training grounds.
...
Somewhere in Japan, deep in the mountains dozens of kilometers from Okutama.
"Aiya, I only set up those relay stations at Sara-san's request. Who knew it would cost me so much?"
Though it was barely past noon, with the sun blazing in the sky, the room was pitch-black, as deep and murky as a swamp.
A tall man sat on the sofa, his face hidden behind a white smiley-face mask that concealed his features. He was dressed like a clown.
Of the three base stations, Ryoji had already destroyed two.
"Fool," a cold voice cut through the air from beside him. "The Eve Festival is imminent. Why waste time on such pointless endeavors?"
The voice was flat and icy, utterly devoid of warmth, making it jarring to hear.
Beside the sofa stood a strikingly handsome man with long, jet-black hair, cradling an exceptionally long Ōdachi in his arms. His expression remained impassive as he rebuked the clown-masked man for his superfluous actions.
"Hehe! I'm just being a good guy, looking out for my comrades, Iya!" the clown-masked man chuckled merrily. "And as a delightful surprise, your little brother and the Crimson Princess also made an appearance on this trip!"
"Crimson Princess?"
"Oh, suddenly interested, are we? Well, you did come all the way back to Japan just for her, didn't you, Ma?"
"Let me speak with her."
"Hmm?"
...
Training grounds.
After returning here, the group immediately began administering emergency treatment to Tomaru Renren.
"Use this."
Ryoji pulled a high-grade recovery potion from his backpack and dripped it onto Tomaru Renren's body.
Before long, her external injuries had been roughly healed.
"Amazing! Aren't you going to use it yourself?" Totokubara Kanata asked Ryoji, her eyes glinting with curiosity.
"It's just a flesh wound. I'll get a Blazer doctor to take a look later," Ryoji replied, putting the remaining potion back into his bag.
Whenever a battle was possible, he always carried some potions he had brought back from the Danmachi World.
However, with no immediate prospect of returning to that world, every drop of potion was precious. He preferred to conserve them, especially since his own injury barely qualified as one in his eyes.
'You'd at least need a broken bone to call that an injury, right, Ma?'
"Use it now!"
Rich Lady Kanata snatched the backpack from his hands, pulled out the potion, and unceremoniously splashed it over his body.
His body flushed crimson, the sight alarmingly vivid.
Eek!
'What a waste!'
Ryoji's heart clenched in pain.
But meeting Rich Lady Kanata's worried gaze, he couldn't bring himself to voice his reproach.
'At least it wasn't an Elixir. That's the real lifesaver—if that had been wasted, I'd be hurting for months.'
Saijou Ikazuchi watched Tomaru Renren with grave concern, completely oblivious to the exchange between the two.
A gruff and serious man, he was the Student Council member least prone to careless remarks.
'Soon after…'
Toudou Touka, Kurogane Ikki, and the other two returned from the depths of the mountains.
"Were you attacked too?"
Ryoji and his group weren't the only ones attacked.
Shortly after Ryoji's group defeated the giant and Tomaru Renren, Kurogane Ikki and Stella were also ambushed by stone puppets.
Stella collapsed with a sudden cold, while Kurogane Ikki, unaware of how to counter the Puppet Warlock, found himself locked in a relentless battle against several two-meter-tall stone puppets.
Fortunately, Toudou Touka and Misogi Utakata arrived just in time. They revealed the Puppet Warlock's weakness, destroyed it with Raikiri, and even turned the enemy's own Magic Power threads against them, channeling lightning back to deliver a devastating blow.
"Before Touka-senpai arrived, the enemy even contacted us through a loudspeaker," Stella said, looking much more energetic.
Her robust constitution meant she had recovered from her cold in just a few hours.
"You got through to them?"
"Yeah... There seemed to be two people on the other end. The one controlling the Puppet didn't speak, but the other one struck up a conversation with me. I really don't know what they were thinking."
Stella's expression was odd.
Beside her, Kurogane Ikki's face carried a hint of regret.
"Who was it?"
"He introduced himself as Kurogane Ouma... Ikki's elder brother."
Kurogane Ouma?
Kurogane Ikki's elder brother?
Ryoji lowered his head, deep in thought.
"Wasn't he the one who won the Elementary School League Championship years ago and then vanished without a trace?"
"Exactly."
Kurogane Ikki confirmed with a strained voice.
"He's the Kurogane clan's proudest genius, the role model I've always strived to emulate. He's currently Japan's only A-Rank Student Knight, excluding Stella."
(End Of This Chapter)