Instant Death

Chapter 5 - Was that a flying saucer?

"Putting the battery problem on hold, I didn\'t glow so I was left behind as well, huh."

"Well, do you see anything strange in your field of vision?"

"Like those logos and missions you mentioned earlier? Not that I can tell."

Yogiri focused carefully, but he couldn\'t see anything different from usual.

"Yeah, then it\'s really only for the ones that glowed. Apparently they can see some kind of stamina bar constantly floating in the corner of their eyes.

"Like the ones in Monst〇r H〇nter?"

"I guess. Mikochi isn\'t into games so she couldn\'t explain it very well."

"Is that Mikochi one of your friends? Did she just go and abandon you with everyone else?"

Yogiri wasn\'t surprised his classmates left him behind given that he had barely interacted with them, but in Tomochika\'s case it should have been different.

He may not be familiar with the various cliques in his class, but she appeared like someone with a lot of friends to him.

"Yazaki must have done something,… I think."

Tomochika\'s expression betrayed her distress. She didn\'t want to believe her friends would sacrifice her and said:

"If a Beauty Coordinator can manipulate people\'s attraction, then a General being able to manipulate people\'s morals makes sense, right? But really, this classes story and their levels and skills make this whole thing seem like some game, don\'t they."

Yogiri liked the idea of such a power, just a little.

"If this General Yazaki guy said the truth and there really was just one dragon then we might be good to go outside now,"

Yogiri said as he looked out through the window, at the collapsed dragon.

Without even a single muscle twitching its appearance had lost all of its earlier menace.

"Hey, um… Takatou-kun, did you do that?"

There was some apprehension in Tomochika\'s question.

"Nope, it randomly killed itself with a crash landing."

"That sounds like such an obvious lie!"

"You don\'t have to believe me."

"Well,… not like I\'d know how you would have gone about it in the first place, but \'randomly killed itself\'?"

Yogiri didn\'t particularly plan on keeping his power a secret, but he didn\'t feel like explaining it right now either so he put it off for later.

"Anyway, given the presence of dragons the possibility of this really being a parallel universe… might be there."

"Is there the possibility it isn\'t one!?"

"How about a crazy rich guy abducting kids and having them perform in his snuff movies? I\'d probably also believe a Juras〇ic 〇ark-esque Dragon Park story before transportation to a different world."

"That\'s just because you weren\'t there for that \'Grandchild of the Great Sage\' person, that was definitely magic! She fired a beam or something from her hand!"

Even if she told him about Sion\'s magic, it wasn\'t like Yogiri had a way of knowing whether she said, or saw, the truth.

But being stubborn wasn\'t going to help either so he decided to go with Tomochika\'s explanation of their situation--if it proved wrong they could always change their perspective later.

"Anyway, we\'re not going to achieve anything by staying here so let\'s head outside."

Yogiri stepped over the corpses and went towards the exit. Tomochika had said something about it being shut close, but, probably due to the dragon\'s rampaging, it now seemed loose enough to break open.

"Yeah, we should be able to get out here. Hm? What\'s wrong?"

He was thought Tomochika was right behind him, but there was no reply. When he turned around he saw that she was still standing in front of Kiryuu\'s body.

"I know there\'s nothing to do about their deaths, but still, just stepping over them and leaving doesn\'t seem right…"

"Oh, I guess."

Yogiri hadn\'t thought of their bodies as much more than obstacles, but he did understand where Tomochika was coming from.

He went back to her and lifted his late classmates into their seats.

Having done that, him and Tomochika made their way to the door and after giving it a good kick it flipped over with a flashy crash.

Due to the loud noise just now there didn\'t seem to be any point in trying to be sneaky anymore, so Yogiri got off the bus without paying much heed.

"Looks like spring here."

A gentle breeze blew over the grass.

"Yeah, see? I told you it\'s a parallel universe. You know, because it\'s winter at home right now."

"That doesn\'t mean much, we might just be in the southern hemisphere. Instead of a parallel universe wouldn\'t you sooner believe that we were transported to some different country by ship, bus and all?"

"Were you always this stubborn!?"

"Believing someone when they tell you about transportation to a different dimensions seems stranger if you ask me."

"Fine, if you want proof that badly… Aha!"

Tomochika looked around them and seemed to have found something. Yogiri followed her gaze.

A disk was floating through the sky.

The lack of comparable objects made it difficult to gauge the distance, but several kilometers ahead of them there was a flying disk with a sort of dome on its top.

It rose higher as they were watching it and after following its ascent for a while Yogiri was taken aback.

In the direction it was heading there was a huge number of floating masses of rock, their altitude high enough for parts of them to be covered by clouds.

The disk continued to float towards the rocks until it eventually disappeared from view.

"See! Isn\'t that enough to call this a different world!? That\'s totally one of those sky castles! We\'re looking at the bottom of a floating continent!"

Tomochika got really into it.

"Was that a flying saucer?"

"Why are you worried about the UFO\'s shape!? Acknowledge it! I told you we were in a different world!"

"I get it, fine. Let\'s go with the parallel universe theory for now."

The foreign country theory had holes anyway. Yogiri decided to adopt the different dimension theory for the time being.

"Actually, what\'s the deal with using UFOs anyway!? They should come up with something more fantasylike!"

"Good to see you in such a lively mood."

Yogiri took a look around their surroundings as he replied to Tomochika, but there wasn\'t much to see other than grass.

In the distance he could see city walls. That must have been the first mission\'s point of objective, and therefore North.

To their west there was a forest, just a short walk away. They couldn\'t see far towards East or West because of the plains sloping into a hill in that direction.

"Looks like we can pick between a city, a forest and hills. Although let\'s forget about that forest."

Yogiri wanted to avoid living in forests if possible.

Him and Tomochika were used to life in a city, something like a wild forest was unknown territory for them. Furthermore, who knows what might lurk in a different world\'s forests.

Tomochika chimed in.

"The city sounds good if it actually has people there, but…"

But that\'s where the classmates that turned them into dragon bait had gone, which Tomochika had conflicted feelings about. Yogiri changed the topic.

"Well, let\'s try rummaging through the luggage before going anywhere. Everyone else left in a hurry, right?"

"Ah, yeah, they weren\'t really carrying anything with them."

"We might even find a charger."

"What\'s up with your enthusiasm towards that game…"

Yogiri went to the trunk room at the bottom of the bus, hoping to get to all the luggage inside it, but soon realized that it was locked.

"Doesn\'t look like we can break it open. Dannoura-san, do you know how to pick locks?"

"Why do I feel like you genuinely thought I had experience in crime related skills like that?"

"No can do then. I don\'t remember any larger baggage lying around in the bus itself either. Alright, let\'s see what\'s behind those hills."

There might have been something more favorable than the northern city there.

Yogiri was about to head over there, but he stopped after seeing that Tomochika was pointing towards the sky in the North.

"Hey, isn\'t something coming flying?"

"Another dragon?"

Or maybe one of those UFOs. Yogiri looked towards where Tomochika was pointing, but he could only tell that something was floating in the sky, not what exactly it was. It didn\'t look like a dragon at least.

"That\'s Higashida-kun, Fukuhara-kun and Hanakawa-kun, but how are they flying through the sky!?"

"Oh, well done noticing from this distance."

Yogiri agreed with her assessment out of admiration, but since he barely knew his classmates\' names it wasn\'t like he could tell whether she was actually right.