Chapter 113: Exclusive Weapon

Fortunately, the Dimensional Rift that materialized was quite small in scale.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a singular Rift.

Rifts were opening throughout the shopping mall.

Huge scorpions and giant beetles poured out.

Creatures that should have been basking in the hot desert sand had arrived in the cool shopping mall.

─ Screeech!!!

A gigantic scorpion, reminiscent of a truck, and a tank-like beetle.

And from some Rifts, monsters oozed out with shuffling steps.

Monsters wrapped in bandages, wielding rusty weapons, commonly called Mummies.

─ Groooan…

─ Urrrgh…

The difference from their depiction in the movie was that they had dirty bandages hanging loosely, and most of their rotten flesh was exposed.

The Mummies’ withered hands held unsanitary blades.

─ Kyaaaak──!

─ Monsters!!!

─ Call the Public Security Bureau!

Atop the spiderweb Clara had created, various cries reached Rohan’s ears.

People’s screams and monsters’ roars mixed, echoing through the shopping mall.

Shion’s lightning, accompanied by gunshots, flashed from the upper floors.

Giant ice pillars sprouted with a crash, pushing back the monsters.

That was undoubtedly Noa’s power.

As the monsters were dealt with by his companions, points came pouring in.

The Rifts are closing. Did they spit everything out?

After finishing his observation, Rohan patted Ichinose’s back, which he had been stroking.

Lowering his head close to her ear, he informed her in a low voice.

“Aeng-ae Nose, you need to get your head straight now.”

“…”

Lifting her head from his chest, Ichinose looked at Rohan.

Forgetting to even close her eyes, she fully revealed her golden irises.

“A Dimensional Rift has opened in the shopping mall. This isn’t a dream, it’s reality. Understand?”

Rohan grabbed Ichinose’s soft cheeks with both hands, her eyes staring blankly at him.

“Uh…!”

He kneaded them to wake her up.

Half of it was a selfish desire.

He always wanted to touch thsse rice cakes.

“Stand up and grab your sword. And cut down any monster you see. That’s it.”

“Rohan! Are your wounds…?”

“We’ll talk about the small details later, right?”

As Rohan removed his hands from her cheeks.

Ichinose exhaled calmly and closed her eyes.

She grabbed the hilt of her sword and pulled away from his embrace.

“…Thank you.”

“Let’s go.”

They stepped onto the sturdy spiderweb Clara had laid and landed on a nearby floor.

After the two escaped, the web that Clara had used as a safety net was retracted.

─ Groooargh!!!

─ Gwaaaargh!!!

Monsters welcomed them the moment they touched the floor.

Mummies wielding various blades shuffled towards them.

“Rohan, please block the other side.”

Click!

As soon as she finished speaking, Ichinose slid her thumb, revealing a section of Yoru’s blade.

Slashing attacks and mana blended exquisitely, drawing a mystical line.

As Ichinose flashed past like mist.

The Mummies’ dry bodies were cleanly severed, and points accumulated.

As expected, she’s amazing. Her swordsmanship skills are on a different level.

Shing!

Rohan admired Ichinose’s dazzling swordsmanship as he drew his long sword.

Blazing Blade.

The long sword, dyed crimson with heat, was swung.

He flipped a beetle with its hard shell over with his foot, splitting it open, and quickly pushed back the Mummies with hand-to-hand combat.

He used Weakness Induction to rip out the scorpion’s tail and smashed its body with his fist.

The location is favorable.

Rohan slaughtered the monsters, suppressing his anxiety.

This was a shopping mall filled with Academy Cadets.

In short, it was full of those trained to hunt monsters.

─ Block from the left! Bludgeons are for the bugs only! These bastards are damn hard…!

─ Shit! When are the Peacekeepers coming?!

The sounds and signs of fighting could be detected everywhere.

There was quite a bit to see. Everyone was somehow managing to continue fighting.

The Dimensional Rift is small-scale. The monsters aren’t high-level.

Except for the occasional boss-type mixed in, even ordinary cadets could handle them sufficiently.

The stores’ emergency shutters are down.

He wondered if he should ask Noa to trap people in ice, but the situation was miraculously favorable in many ways.

Amidst this chaos, he could see injured cadets, but he couldn’t see any human corpses yet.

According to the Quest details, the Dimensional Rifts should have burst open all at once in various locations.

The arrival of Academy City’s Peacekeepers would likely be later than usual.

Not just blocking and enduring, but completely eliminating them.

Rohan, who had sliced the Mummies’ waists in two with a single stroke, jumped down to the first floor with Ichinose.

The group, who had quickly cleared the upper floors, gathered on their own.

“Oppa…!”

“Rohan. Are you alright?!”

Shion and Clara descended like ninjas, stepping on structures and railings to reach the two.

“Oomph!”

Noa, with her sturdy physique, jumped down from the upper floor with her bare body and landed with a thud!

She shook her ankles, as if they were slightly numb.

“Thanks to Clara, I’m alive.”

“That’s a relief…”

“Thank you so much. I’m grateful.”

“I, I’m g, glad… you’re… safe…”

Ichinose politely expressed her gratitude.

Clara, flustered, clung to Rohan’s side.

“Hmm, what a mess.”

Rohan gently stroked Clara’s head as he quickly assessed the situation.

The inside of the shopping mall was still in chaos.

Rohan came to a decision without delay.

“Let’s focus on taking down the boss-type monsters. See the especially large ones among the beetles and scorpions? The ones with different colors.”

“Rohan. It’s a waste of energy if we’re all bunched up.”

Rohan agreed with Shion’s opinion.

Their movements would only get hampered if they were tangled up.

He was confident in his coordination with Shion and Clara.

They had trained extensively together under the scorching sun at the Monolith. If the three of them moved as one, they could sweep through at maximum speed.

On the other hand, Ichinose and Noa had practically no experience coordinating with Rohan.

It was best to keep those two together in the current situation.

“Noa and Ichinose work well together, right?”

“Of course! Nose and I are like a needle and thread!”

“Let’s split into three and two. Focus on eliminating the boss monsters, and the top priority is assisting those cornered, rescuing the injured, and helping civilians.”

“Understood.”

Without even a word, Shion handed a spare handgun to Rohan as if it were the most natural thing to do.

Rohan naturally took it and finished his preparations.

“Ichinose and Noa, push through the other side and come up.”

As Rohan finished speaking, he started moving, and Shion and Clara darted off like arrows.

The two girls moved around Rohan organically, as if they were a single living organism.

Even when Rohan swung his sword freely, the girls were never within its radius.

While moving freely, the girls unhesitatingly used the sturdy Rohan as a support, leaning against him.

Their movements were reminiscent of a trinity.

Dozens of mummies were shredded as if they had been thrown into a blender.

The giant bodies of scorpions and beetles flipped over and split apart.

“Wow, what’s their relationship? Married?”

Noa was genuinely impressed by the clean cooperation displayed by the three.

Composing herself, Ichinose gripped her sword tighter.

The sensation of Rohan touching her cheek, telling her to snap out of it, still lingered.

“…Noa. Let’s move quickly. We don’t have time to gawk.”

“Okay!”

Ichinose and Noa also started running towards the other side.

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Bang! Shion’s bullet shot down a beetle that was about to attack a cadet.

Shion spoke with a calm expression as she kept moving.

“Rohan. I definitely saved someone just now. Praise me.”

“Oh, Oppa! I saved people while coming down too…!”

An admirable mindset that shouldn’t be discouraged.

Added to that was the affection deprivation stemming from their backgrounds.

Rohan kicked a Mummy’s Head and sliced off a scorpion’s tail with his Sword.

He calmly promised the girls who were moving dazzlingly, “Let’s settle up after this is over. I’ll praise you plenty. There’s no depth in hasty praise.”

“Hmm, that’s true.”

“Hee hee…”

Shion reloaded her Handgun while dodging a Mummy’s Slash.

As soon as she finished reloading, she pulled the trigger at the Mummy’s forehead.

Tang!

With that last one, this floor was clear.

They shared information with the cadets and gave brief instructions before heading to the next floor.

While moving, Shion and Clara glanced at the other side.

The place where Noa and Ichinose had gone.

───Kwa-ja-ja-jak!!! Ice soared, pinning down enemies, and Noa, wielding an ice axe, cracked the hard Monsters apart.

“Output worthy of a Frozenheart.”

“Her Mana is incredible…”

Ichinose was dealing with monsters with simple slashes.

But anyone could see that her mana manipulation was extraordinary.

Every time there was a clink! from her scabbard, monsters were being cut down in droves; it was a spectacular sight.

“Rohan. The Academy level is truly something else.”

“I’m pulling down the average.”

“Oh, Oppa, you’re not…!”

Clara’s earnest denial of his joke was simply adorable.

Renewing his resolve to remember to praise them, he climbed the stairs.

Just like that, after crushing well over a hundred monsters, they reached the floor where the beetle and scorpion boss-type monsters were.

─ Screeeech!!!

The large monsters were seen struggling to tear down the store shutters.

Due to their low intelligence, they only kept trying to crush the shutters with their bodies but couldn’t rip them off.

“Oh, Oppa! People are here!”

Peacekeepers could be seen arriving one by one at the shopping mall entrance.

Judging by their disheveled appearances, the situation outside was also a mess.

The quickly dispersed Peacekeepers started to eliminate the monsters.

We can leave the regular monsters to them. That’s a relief.

The Quest objective was clearly to hold out until the Peacekeepers arrived.

Notification windows popped up one after another.

!

Rohan opened the Shop Skill. The reward was a massive amount of Points.

Combined with the Points he had accumulated from hunting monsters so far, he had 30,700 Points.

Rohan didn’t hesitate to make a purchase.

He had no intention of stopping just because the Peacekeepers had arrived.

Screams filled with terror could be heard from within the shutters, where the monsters were pounding.

Rohan reached into the shimmering space.