Chapter 192: Cool Cool Cool kiki!

With Miyabi Nagumo having settled the matter — as the strongest fighting force among the upperclassmen and the acting Student Council President on top of that —

no one else in the room was going to argue the point with him.

Chris and his group included.

He wasn't wrong, after all. In front of the Black Sphere, the only thing any of them could do was wait, and face whatever malice might come down on them at any moment.

But the clock on the wall kept ticking.

A full half hour passed.

Still not the faintest warning sign, not a single chime from the Black Sphere.

Nagumo glanced up at the time and broke the silence himself.

"If your guess is right, odds are there won't be another early-exam notice today."

"But it pays to think long-term. Let's wait a while longer before we start the special training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

"Until then, go take care of whatever odds and ends you each have. Eight tonight, usual place. That way we don't end up staggering in and out at different times and wasting the hours for nothing."

The words landed.

Some let out a breath of relief and turned to head downstairs.

Others, with nothing better to do, stayed where they were, curious to see exactly how this business of "lending out items" that Chris and the rest had mentioned was actually supposed to work.

It was a matter that bore directly on their own survival, after all.

If you could raise your odds of coming back alive at zero cost, nobody in the world would turn that down.

They were getting ahead of themselves, though.

Black Sphere items, once used by anyone but their owner, carried real hazards — being dropped inside an exam venue, destroyed, even lost permanently.

So in practice, if a piece of gear ever did go out on loan, it would only ever go to someone the owner trusted and who was strong enough to protect it.

Which had nothing to do with the vast majority of ordinary students.

Even the cast-off gear that was useless to the front-liners could still be left with their own classmates going into the advance test, to keep them breathing.

Lend it to an outsider and lose it, and anyone would wince.

S Points were clawed out of monster piles with their lives on the line. They didn't blow in on the wind.

That train of thought reminded Ryuuen of something.

He shoved one hand in his pocket and turned to Miyabi Nagumo. "Speaking of which, President Nagumo. You lot farmed a decent pile of points in that last exam too, didn't you?"

"Doing the math, one exam for you upperclassmen pays better than two of ours."

Nagumo nodded, matter-of-fact.

"The score was respectable. But we were pressed for time and never found the so-called Mystery Merchant, so we couldn't refresh the shop list for that exam."

"No telling whether that'll cost us down the line. For now… all we can do is hope the Mystery Merchant who turns up next exam isn't carrying junk, and that he'll sell us the strong items from past runs."

Listening from the side, Chris let out a small sound of regret.

"Shame you traded up for the [Spider-Man Bloodline] and [Sianweistan] once the exam ended."

"Otherwise, sitting on more than five hundred S Points, you really could have upgraded that [Beta Box] Alien Mefilas handed over back into the genuine article."

"An item worth seven hundred S Points… clearing the next several exams with something like that would've been no trouble at all."

Nagumo only shook his head.

"Who knows what the future holds?" he said evenly. "Just like when I was the one sitting on points, I never expected you people to pick up a shoddy version of a high-tier item for free."

"For all I know, the moment I spend everything I own finishing that upgrade, the presiding god turns around and adjusts the difficulty to match."

Besides.

A strategic-grade item that valuable, with no clear line drawn around who owned it —

if the Black Sphere's presiding god took a whim someday and threw together a competition between classes, or even between years, whose would the thing be then?

How would you split it?

So the way Nagumo saw it, lending out low-value stopgap gear to the people scrambling to stay alive in the advance test was plenty. Anything beyond that simply wasn't necessary.

In a hellhole like this, you had to learn to respect a person's own fate, didn't you?

Chris had no intention of arguing with that.

It was human nature, plainly stated, and it fit the style of a leader as controlling as Nagumo perfectly.

He just shook his head and followed the thread. "Then it comes down to how hard your next upperclassman exam turns out to be."

"If they don't suddenly jump you to a three- or four-hundred-point enemy that nobody at this stage could handle… it means the Black Sphere isn't against us farming points at all. They're just against us farming points inside other players' instances."

Nagumo thought it over and accepted the logic.

"How it actually turns out depends on more than us. Your own exam schedule factors into it too."

"Still, as long as the Black Sphere doesn't hand down a mission that forces us to be enemies, both sides will keep the basic information exchange going."

Chris nodded. "Since you've still got time to wait out, we'll leave the items with you and go handle our own business."

"Oh, right…" Chris paused, as though something had just wandered into his head. "Two of the reward items from yesterday's exam are hundred-point-tier gear from the GANTZ line in the Black Sphere shop."

"Top-grade equipment you can buy any time by spending points through the Black Sphere Watch. If they're strong enough… you could honestly just walk into the advance test with them, couldn't you?"

Chris smiled and put out the invitation. "We haven't seen what they look like fully deployed either. So… want to take a look together?"

Nagumo rubbed his chin. "Sure. Pull me in."

Chris turned to Ryuuen, Akane Tachibana and the rest. "I've sent you invites too."

"If you want to come along, just hit accept."

A moment later, inside the pure white [Hyperbolic Time Chamber].

Since the whole point of coming in was to demonstrate the new equipment, entry only cost each of them ten class points as the price of admission.

And nobody had any intention of burning hundreds or thousands of points on a high-score monster to serve as a sparring partner.

Still, a static display would be dull. Gear at this level needed something you could actually put your hands on before it felt real.

So before they started, Chris pulled up the environment panel and switched the surroundings to a night wasteland under faint, dim starlight.

He took one look at the oppressive sky overhead, then tossed the capsules to their respective owners.

Ryuuen got the [Gantz Robot (Piloted Type)]. Fūka Kiryūin got the [Darkness Devil Blood Shard] and the [The World] Stand Disc.

Watching from the back, Suzune Horikita started to pull the [Phantom Mask] she'd been keeping out of her pocket.

Honami Ichinose stepped over and pressed a hand down on hers, stopping her, voice low. "Horikita-san, you don't have many survival items as it is. If the presiding god picks you as an Intruder again, having no trump card is going to be a serious problem."

"Leave the mask here. Use my [Bat Mask] instead."

With that, Ichinose passed her own mask capsule into Akane Tachibana's hand.

Thanks to the information exchange not long before, both Tachibana and Fūka Kiryūin knew all about the corruption effect that came with the Phantom Mask, and the terrifying recovery the Darkness Devil's blood granted in darkness.

Neither of them found the caution strange.

Judging by how long Chris and the others had spent inside the exam venue yesterday — a full twenty-four hours…

Take someone who'd swallowed the Darkness Devil's blood, all but unkillable in a dark environment, let the mask corrupt her after hours of wear, and put a Stand like [The World] in her hands, one that could stop time outright.

That would be an absolute catastrophe.

Hiyori Shiina and Suzune Horikita had both worn the mask before without causing any real damage.

But that was only because their own power was limited.

Plenty of the time, a good person stays good not because she doesn't want to turn, but because she lacks the means to do harm.

Hand out a combination that workable, and plenty of people would embrace the darkness willingly, just to see if they could trade the bicycle up for a motorcycle.

Against the girls' careful calculations, Ryuuen — capsule for the robot in hand — looked considerably less refined.

He bounced it in his palm and eyed Chris with suspicion. "The hell am I supposed to do with this thing?"

Chris spread his hands. "It doesn't seem to come with an operating manual, and I haven't worked out how you're meant to pilot it. So I figured — that [Lion God Template] of yours is alien technology at its core, isn't it?"

"Maybe you can use the system inside you to force a connection… and teach yourself on the fly."

Ryuuen chewed on that for a moment. Then his mouth split into a grin. "Works for me."

He crushed the capsule Chris had thrown him without a second's hesitation.

Blinding white light burst out of the shattered shell.

A heavy mech twenty meters tall came down in front of them with a crash — jet black from head to foot, signature blue rings glowing at every joint — hard enough to leave the ground trembling.

Ryuuen's eyes lit up at the sight.

He pushed off hard with both legs.

And vaulted easily up into the mech's open cockpit.

Below, Chris crushed two capsules of his own — the [Dragon Talisman] and the [Gravity Gun (Z-GUN)].

He glanced over the two wildly mismatched weapons in his hands, then took out the Item Illustrated Guide and aimed it at them to scan and identify.

Beep—

[Dragon Talisman]

[Details: Holding this talisman allows the user to release devastating high-temperature energy blasts. Primary output, explosions, searing detonations. Destructive power is extreme, sufficient to blow through walls. The user gains immunity to flame and heat damage, along with a minor physical enhancement. Power increases in direct proportion to the rage in the user's heart.]

[Z-GUN (Gravity Gun)]

[Details: A powerful weapon of the Gantz line. Tremendous destructive force. Its attack drops an enormous gravity field out of the sky over a wide, adjustable circular area in front of the muzzle, using crushing gravity to flatten everything at the target's position into a pool of blood in an instant. Output can be dialed down for repeated shots, or charged up for maximum crushing effect.]

With both weapon entries read, Chris turned his wrist and pointed the Guide's scanning lens at the giant robot standing silently a short distance away.

[Gantz Robot (Piloted Type)]

[Details: Standard piloted robot. Operation requires the pilot to wear a 'Hard Suit' (Gorilla Suit) and connect via brain-machine interface. The mech mirrors the pilot's movements exactly. Roughly 20 meters tall; heavy frame, solid black throughout; defense is formidable, able to tank several Z-GUN hits head-on; comes with built-in optical camouflage. A giant sword is included as well; swinging it releases high-frequency sword energy.]

Reading the information the Guide fed back, Suzune Horikita drew her fine brows together. "This thing has prerequisites for use?"

"You need the [Gorilla Suit] — another full-score piece of equipment — before you can sync with it?"

Chris raised his head and shouted up at the figure in the cockpit. "Ryuen, you hear that?"

"If you can't get compatible with it, come down and let President Nagumo try. He's the only one here with the matching Gorilla Suit."

Ryuuen's answer was blunt and to the point.

"Kuh kuh kuh — kikiii—!"

A heavy grind of machinery ran through the frame as the giant mech raised a hand and closed it into a fist in midair.

Then came Ryuuen's voice, thick with swagger. "Pretty obvious, isn't it… I can use it just fine!"

Nagumo studied the imposing machine and rubbed his chin, thinking. "If Ryuen can force compatibility, then… Kiriyama, who bought the [Adam Smasher Cybernetic Body], shouldn't have any reason he can't use it either."

Arisu Sakayanagi, standing off to one side, smiled with plenty behind it. "In theory, that's viable."

"But the specifics… naturally, you only get the real answer by testing it."

As she spoke, her gaze slid over and settled on Fūka Kiryūin.

"So… on to the next part. Since we didn't buy a monster to spar with," she said, "if we want to test what this new equipment can do, we'll just have to rely on your performance, Senpai."

Fūka Kiryūin rolled her slender neck, unbothered. "Fine."

"We're inside the Time Chamber anyway, so most of the pain gets cut out. And with the immortality the Darkness Devil's blood gives me in a dark space… I can't die either."

She hadn't finished before Nagumo stepped in ahead of her and cut her off. "Let me try first."

He was staring at the weapons in Chris's hands. "Convenient timing. I've been curious for a while now about exactly where the defensive limit of this [Gorilla Suit] lies."

Fūka Kiryūin turned her head to look at him.

Nagumo lifted a hand and tapped the Black Sphere Watch, and the Gorilla armor flowed over his entire body like running water.

She understood at once — this was the new function Suzune Horikita had unlocked while working through the Black Sphere's interface the night before.

So she said nothing more, shrugged, and obligingly moved aside to give him the space.

Even if the armor failed and he actually died, the worst case was ten wasted class points and getting kicked out of the room.

Nothing worth fussing over.

Nagumo was ready.

Chris didn't stand on ceremony either.

He lifted his arm slowly. At some point the Dragon Talisman had already embedded itself in his palm.

A searing beam of high-temperature energy ripped straight out of it.

Bang!

The force staggered Nagumo backward, and it took half a step for him to settle his stance again.

He looked down. A charred scorch mark had bloomed across his chest, but nothing had melted through or punched a hole.

He checked the damage data the armor reported back and gave a level verdict. "A tier stronger than the Black Sphere's standard enhanced rifle. But… the gap feels fairly limited, doesn't it?"

Chris drew his hand back and explained with a helpless shrug. "Because I wasn't going all out just now. And… this talisman's power is tied to the user's anger."

"I'm in a fairly calm mood at the moment. Nothing to be angry about. Under normal conditions its output really is limited. Let's try the Gravity Gun instead."

Nagumo nodded to show he was set.

He watched Chris put the Dragon Talisman away, lift that oddly shaped [Z-GUN] instead, and level the muzzle steadily at him.

Click.

The instant Chris's finger squeezed the trigger, the Spider-Sense in Nagumo's skull went berserk, shrieking like an electric shock straight through his brain.

Take this one head-on and he would die. No question.

Pure instinct moved him. Nagumo triggered the [Sianweistan] at the base of his spine.

The world around him turned thick and sluggish, and riding that burst of decelerated time, he threw himself clear of the Gravity Gun's locked attack radius by the barest margin.

Once he was out of danger, he fixed his eyes on the spot where he'd been standing a second earlier.

"Hssss…"

Steady as Nagumo was, even he pulled in a sharp breath.

The ground where he'd stood, and for several meters around it, looked as if an invisible giant hand had pressed it straight down.

A flawless circle, collapsed and sunk a good several meters deep.

The smooth cut face, the rock ground to powder — every detail said the same thing.

A tenth of a second slower, and he'd be a puddle of blood right now.

____

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