Strategy Meeting

And so we set about working out our strategy.

For this fight, prior consultation mattered more than anything else.

"… This has turned into something outrageous. That Eclair… didn't she set those rules specifically to put Naoto at a disadvantage? It isn't fair!"

Kanan was indignant.

"Nah, it's not really that unfair. Sure, fighting it as a normal All-Out Battle might've been a bit easier…"

"… You almost look like you're enjoying this?"

"Well, yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? She's an opponent we'd beat in a normal fight. Tsuchiya-san has to be Earth-element.

"On our side, Haru's Grass, Sawako's Water, and Kanan's Wind are all super-effective. Yuria's Dark too. It's an attribute with a lot of weaknesses.

"The only real problem is that Leone's Thunder doesn't work on her. That's about it.

"A fight you already know you'll win is boring. This way's more fun."

I let my gaze drift across everyone's faces with full composure. My self-assured attitude seemed to put them at ease.

There was a risk of losing, of course. What if I got swarmed and surrounded right out of the gate…?

And worst of all, the truly terrifying scenario was my companions getting caught by enemy knights and raped.

That, above all else, was what I absolutely had to avoid.

But I crushed the fear down, and with full confidence, I swept my gaze over everyone's faces and smiled.

"… I'll explain the basic plan.

"First, I want to split the party in two. As I'd been thinking, I'd like Haru to serve as a knight.

"My main party, and Haru's knight party.

"Think of my main party as the defenders, and Haru's knight party as the attackers.

"I'll run and aim to link up with the rest of you. Meanwhile, Haru, you take down Shogo Shiraki."

"… I'll… take him down…"

"Yeah. You'll do it for me, won't you, Haru?"

"… Yeah! I'll do my best! I won't lose to Shiraki-kun, no way!"

Haru was full of fighting spirit, too… Cute.

In the slave battles of old, Haru had practically been an automatic loss whenever he was picked. They'd griped about not being able to really hit cute Haru with everything they had… but the moment they decided to swing on him, those subhuman bastards had no trouble at all.

But the Haru of now wouldn't lose to those guys.

"Of course, once my members manage to safely link up, I'll switch to a counterattack. It'll be a race to see which of us takes Shiraki down first.

"If you win, Haru… I'll give you lots of rewards."

"U-uh-huh…! I'll work even harder!"

Haru smiled at me adorably.

"The moment the game starts. Exactly zero seconds in.

"Haru and I will both fire signals. Mine red, Haru's green… almost too obvious, sure.

"Should we use them as is, or invert them…? No, let's drop the trickery and just go boldly. As is.

"First, Lyuka. Teleport to me right at the start. We'll link up. You're on my party."

"Understood."

"Then we'll run north. Carried by Lyuka, we can hit speeds of about 100 km/h. Even running while staying hidden and pacing ourselves, we can probably manage about 50 km/h.

"Everyone, factor that in and head north from the signal flare to converge with us. If we're at the northern end of the map and can't go any further north, we'll run south instead. Whether the signal's location is at the north end or not… that might be hard to tell.

"I should be able to mostly tell from the system map.

"In that case, I'll fire an orange signal.

"Haru, use Shiraki's side's signals as your marker. Search for them, close in, and attack.

"If Shiraki's side doesn't fire any signals at all, link up with me.

"If even one goes up, rush there immediately. If multiple, any of them is fine. Aim for the closest first.

"Any knight closing in on Haru, defeat them all and go for Shiraki. Go in with the intent to take them all down by yourself."

"U-uh-huh!"

"And then… Yuria, you go on Haru's party.

"Everyone, if you get caught by an enemy knight during the move and forced into combat, and you lose and get incapacitated… you absolutely fire a signal flare.

"Let me make this an order. 'If you become incapacitated, fire a black signal flare.'

"As a precaution, let's lightly encrypt it. First time, three shots. Black, another color, black. After that, two shots, black, another color. Next is one shot. Then back to three again, looping the count. The 'another color' will differ by person. I'll assign colors later.

"Any signal that doesn't follow this pattern is one of Shiraki's fakes, so ignore it."

The first red and green signals would also get a bit of encryption, in case Shiraki copied them.

Red, yellow, red, three shots in a row.

The second time, just red, yellow. The third time, just red. If a fourth was needed, back to three shots in a row.

"Haru, when you see that, abort what you're doing. The first time, use Yuria's teleport, and after that, run as fast as you can to the signal flare's location. Rescue the incapacitated member."

I couldn't tell which signal flares Shiraki would use. If there was a white signal flare, we'd prioritize aiming for that, just in case.

The guy had a strong streak of self-display, the type to claim white as his symbolic color and wear white things.

If his alertness was lacking, he'd probably use a white signal flare.

On the other side, all eight members, the Master and her eight knights, could potentially fire seventeen signal flares.

Or, hmm. Knights were limited to Kanan's and Yumi's slaves, but the rules said nothing about Sub-Masters.

He might hire mercenary Sub-Masters and temporarily bring on eight of their Garumon.

That'd be nine more bodies for diversion. Up to twenty-six signals could go up. We'd have to hunt down every single one.

Well, all I could do was deal with it as it came.

Now for member assignments.

"First, what's going to be hugely important is the two of you, Suzanne and Luna.

"You can fly, so your movement speed is fast. A Garumon's movement speed roughly works out to Speed times 2 km/h, but in your case it's Speed times 3 km/h.

"It's not just the speed; being able to scout the surroundings from up high is hugely valuable.

"Searching for enemy signals, searching for enemies, and of course rescuing me. I'm counting on you for an eight-faced, six-armed effort across every front.

"Suzanne… I always wind up relying on you, sorry about that, but go on Haru's party. I want you supporting Haru."

"Yes, being relied upon is my honor. Leave it to me."

"Luna, you're on my party. Fly in fast and link up with me.

"If you run into a companion along the way, scoop them up and fly. Aiming to link up with us that way works too."

"Yes, understood, Naoto-kun."

"My party gets Kanan and Adelia as usual. Plus Maika. Ice is weak to Earth, so it can't be helped.

"Sawako, you're on Haru's party. Pair up with him against Tsuchiya-san."

"Yes, understood. I'll do my best as a knight, too!"

"Leone, you don't work against Tsuchiya-san either… so my party.

"By all that, the lineup is…"

Something like that. Colette was… what to do. With every party member having all stats halved by her restricted job, this time around was very tough on her.

… Should I put her in Haru's party as a non-combatant, or in mine? Or perhaps not bring her along at all…

"… Naoto-sama, would I… not be of any use this time…?"

"No, there are proper ways for you to be useful.

"It's just…"

"…! If I can be of use, please do use me! For your sake, Naoto-sama, I'd do anything! Anything at all…!"

That was what Colette insisted.

So devoted, so cute…

… No, it wouldn't do. Even for the sake of winning, there were things you should do and things you shouldn't.

Using Colette alone as a decoy, of all things.

On her own, with the 5-turn limit, Colette could fight 4-5 battles by making full use of Guard, Ultimate Art - Conqueror's Shield, and Hero's Armor.

And if she drew even one or two enemies that way, it would make movement easier for me and Haru, the two who remained.

… But the risk of being incapacitated and captured by the enemy would skyrocket.

I couldn't put Colette through that, all alone.

"No, just link up with me… It's all right. We'll win."

"… Yes."

Colette smiled.

"… Just to ask, are you not going to recruit Kensei as a knight?"

It was Sawako who asked.

"Eh, no thanks."

I answered immediately.

"… N-no thanks…?"

Sawako looked exasperated.

"You're usually a bit more rational than this. If it's necessary to win, shouldn't you do it? Kensei would obediently do as told if Lady Kanan ordered him. Even with me gone, in terms of fighting strength I'd say he's still a step above their knights…"

Sawako continued.

… I got what she was trying to say. If you framed it as Kanan's faction versus Yumi's faction, then setting aside the dropouts like Ishiguro, Noda, and Nezu, the ones still standing were me, Haru, and Yamagata. Sawako was a Garumon now.

In which case, having those three cooperate to take this on might even be what Eclair was hoping for.

"… The other guys, myself included, were unfairly underestimating you, but you're not the type who unfairly underestimates other people. I assume you're evaluating Kensei at his actual ability level, too?"

Even setting aside Sawako's lack of feeling toward Kensei as a man, he was a comrade she'd fought alongside for nearly two years.

She was just recommending him as a comrade… I got that, but…

"… Denied.

"I can't treat Yamagata and Haru the same.

"From now on, I'll be temporarily separating Haru and assigning him to a different party.

"So from here on, I'm going to define a knight as 'a comrade I trust from the heart, and love.'

"If we added Yamagata, I'd have to make him a knight, and that definition couldn't hold. He'd end up being treated as a hired mercenary.

"And if that happened, I couldn't make Haru a knight anymore. When the numbers grew in the future, I'd lose the means to add new members.

"Right now we're thirteen people. If we add Tsuchiya-san, fourteen… If we add Ursula's party, twenty.

"If we beat Eclair here and add all of them, that's twenty-six.

"We'd go over the S-Class cap of twenty-four.

"That's also a reason, beyond just this game right now. I absolutely have to use the knight system."

"… You're already calculating not just on Yumi, but on defeating even Lady Eclair and bringing her into your camp…!?"

Sawako was astonished.

"Eh, of course. Naturally.

"… The finale of this Reido Academy mass otherworld transition incident ought to be a showdown between me and Eclair.

"And I'll win and bring it to a close.

"… Well, after that, there's also the matter of returning anyone who wants to go back to the original world.

"That's three years away, though."

"… Uguu… S-such ambition… A-as expected of Lady Kanan's foremost slave!

"H-how thrilling… You bringing Lady Kanan, Lady Yumi, Lady Eclair… and me, Haru, and Sario too, all under your sway and standing at the top… if that ever happened, I'd, I'd…"

Sawako had a dreamy, enraptured expression.

Even if that came to pass, I wondered if Sawako would still keep me classified as Kanan's slave.

Well, she could do as she liked.

Sawako seemed to accept what I'd said.

… There was actually one more reason for not bringing Yamagata into the fold.

… It was just plain jealousy, so I didn't want to say it, and ended up hiding it.

In the original world, the slave Kanan had trusted most and treasured as her right hand: Kensei Yamagata…

I, of course, harbored a strong jealousy toward that guy.

'I'm far stronger and more impressive than that guy!'

I wanted to make that appeal to Kanan. There was no way I could deny that feeling.

Looking back now, in my battle with Yamagata I'd been muddling around thinking about elemental advantages and disadvantages…

But deep in my heart, I'd been thinking about completely sweeping both 1st and 2nd, a perfect victory over Yamagata! I think that was my honest sentiment.

I got now that thinking that way only made the fight unnecessarily tough, but I didn't regret it.

After all, I'd actually gone 2-0 without dropping a single fight, and it had felt incredible from the bottom of my heart.

With those feelings, I absolutely never wanted to rely on that guy.

Honestly, when Sawako brought up Yamagata's name just now, I'd felt a flash of irritation inside.

I think I hid it with my poker face, though.

Well, if we were really cornered to the point that was the only way, sure, but Shiraki was nothing to worry about.

"All right, anyway, during this one-week prep window, let's go to the monster territory and level up."

Luna, Patty, and Colette wouldn't make it in time, but if we could get Suzanne and Lyuka to LV50, that'd be a huge boost in combat power.

… With that thought I put us through some hard training, but

what we ended up with was

modest level gains, and that was that. However…

"Huh? Kanan's skill has changed."

"Eh…?"

Over the course of repeated battles, a technique had quietly switched on its own.

"When you completely learn a new skill, there's a confirmation about which skill to delete, but

"when a skill evolves or transforms, there's not even a message. Isn't that a little unkind…?"

This way, you couldn't even notice… Maybe the lesson was to check status diligently after every battle.

Tornado had transformed.

"Oh, Dragon Art!"

"Heh… I learned a strong-looking technique! Meaning I'm to use this to crush Yumi. The system has a stylish sense of humor."

Kanan was delighted.

"… You wait, Yumi. I'll save you out of that hell…

"You're my rival.

"From here on too, we'll be playing the fun game of which of us gets more spoiled by Naoto…!"

Kanan was getting fired up like that.

"… Ah, yeah. We've gotta save Tsuchiya-san."

I'd had little to do with Tsuchiya-san directly. As a jab at Kanan, "Naoto Akai, why don't you serve me instead of that woman?", she'd recruited me like that, but it ended there, and we'd hardly really talked.

But she was now the best friend of Kanan, who'd become my beloved girlfriend… so there was no reason not to save her.

I put my arm around Kanan's shoulder and looked up at the moon.

"Yes, that's right… Naoto, by all means, take up the position every student of the academy would die for, with me and Yumi Tsuchiya lined up at your side, savoring us both!"

"Hahaha…"

W-well, it wasn't just that, but.

Anyway, even for the sake of my secret ambition of completing the Reido Academy Seven Greatest Beauties, this was a fight I absolutely couldn't lose.

 

*

 

Around that time, Yumi Tsuchiya was on a bed, naked… having her breasts licked.

Her partner wasn't Shiraki, nor any of her other slave members, but someone else entirely.

"Rero, nchu, haa… a fine flavor, this is… nfufu…"

Yes: abundant blood-red, almost blackish hair, splendidly voluptuous breasts, and sharp upturned eyes like a hawk's. Without doubt a peerless beauty, but with one eye covered by an eyepatch and only one arm, an irregular Garumon.

She licked and sucked Yumi's breasts with her long tongue.

"Hiu, n, nn…"

It was far better than the brutish, clumsy fondling of Shiraki and his lot.

Yumi felt a numbing pleasure.

"… To think you would lend me your aid, I never imagined it. The legendary C-Class Master said to possess strength near S-Class, the mercenary Griera. The quest I took before, securing the right of negotiation with you… it was worth it."

Shogo Shiraki called out from outside the bed.

"Peep, and I shoot you dead."

So she said, and Shiraki swallowed.

"… Hah, that right of negotiation was sold off as collateral for a debt. After all, it's just the right to contact me. There's no obligation to actually accept the request…

"Ordinarily I'd ignore a piddling A-Class Master like you…

"But I had an interest in your target."

Glance, and Griera cast her eyes down at the magazine. The latest issue of Garumon Battle Communications.

"… A pretty cute boy. This one looks like he's got some backbone."

So she said, casting her eyes down at Naoto Akai's profile page.

"Yes, that's right. Honestly, what an obnoxious, cocky fellow he is…"

"Kuku… small fry. Fine, then.

"My members and I will temporarily join your members as Sub-Masters.

"Strictly a limited-period contract. If you give me or my members any unnecessary orders during it… once the contract's done, I'll turn you into a beehive."

"Y-yes, understood! I would never, never be impolite, no matter what!"

Shiraki was awestruck by Griera.

… Just which was C-Class and which was A-Class?

But this woman was strong… Probably, even if Shiraki himself fought all-out, he'd never win.

She had that kind of sheer presence about her.

Griera spread Yumi's legs open, and pressed against her a penis several grades more virile than Shiraki's.

"Higu…"

"Heh… that you don't get into the mood from my caresses, that's something. You're a fine woman, Yumi. Wasted on a small fry like that."

"Gu, u, uuu…"

"… This is your prince? Pity, isn't it. Your Master, it seems, was several grades more disgusting than you thought.

"To go relying on me… Your prince ends right here.

"… Oh well. I'll spoil you, all right. I'll teach you the joy of being a woman.

"After that, let him spoil you all he likes.

"A Garumon, after all, is built such that as soon as her Master rams it in, she'll feel happiness.

"You'll quickly stop thinking about anything…"

So saying, Griera continued caressing Yumi's mouth and chest.

With the tongue's melting touch, if she kept receiving caresses like this for days on end, the resistance she'd desperately maintained for two years might not hold.

… Naoto Akai. To Yumi Tsuchiya, his name had been nothing in particular.

The slave of her rival Kanan Kazami. Just, of them all, the only one… who kept turning a defiant gaze her way, no matter how long it went on.

It had made Kanan terribly irritated…

But somehow, to Yumi Tsuchiya, he had stayed in her impression.

Shiraki and the others ought to far surpass him in social standing, athletic ability, scholarship, looks, all such specs, and yet somewhere…

What part, in what way, she couldn't say. Somehow, he had left a deep impression.

… So almost without thinking, casually, "Naoto Akai, abandon that woman and won't you become my slave?"

She'd ended up making such a recruitment.

… What had she planned to do, if he'd accepted.

Limited as she was to eight members, there was no room to add Naoto.

Shiraki and the others were members she'd selected partly through proper connections of family pedigree.

It wasn't as if Yumi could swap them out at her sole discretion.

Still… yes, somewhere about him, there was a strong heart that seemed far more trustworthy than her own slaves, and a sharpness her own slaves didn't have, like a beast sharpening its fangs… that was the kind of thing she had felt.

That, too, was hindsight. It was only because of what happened that she was thinking that way now.

Still, if that recruitment had succeeded, Yumi could have been by his side, and these dark two years might never have happened.

Kanan's image had burned itself into her mind so vividly.

The sight of her in the original world's school uniform. So precious to Naoto Akai, with Kanan trusting Naoto Akai from the bottom of her heart… two people who loved each other.

Bloodily, intensely, the image was burned into her mind.

"… Envious, Kanan. You and I… what was different. I was the one more exceptional. I was the one Lady Eclair recognized, who skillfully ruled her slaves, who skillfully carried out the family's orders… I was the more exceptional one!

"Envious, envious…! I'll bring you down… Trusted, protected, loving and being loved…!

"In a hellish world like this, you who were soaking comfortably in lukewarm water, I'll bring you down! And then… I'll prove that I was never wrong.

"That this world is hell. That salvation exists nowhere…

"That, I'll prove…!"

Within the despair, Yumi was burning with that dark passion.