“Hraaaaaah—!”
Subaru charged forward with the sharp sword in hand.
This sword had been provided by the second floor, and it had even been stuck in the ground like the Sword in the Stone.
Surely it had to be extremely powerful, right?
At least, that was what Subaru wanted to believe.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”
The one who spoke was the Stick Swinger in front of him.
He looked at Subaru, who was rushing toward him, with an expression of disbelief.
His face twisted slightly, and his white teeth showed like the jaws of a shark.
“Don’t screw with me!
Did you come here to mock me?!
No, this doesn’t even count as mocking me.
This is just harassment!”
He took out the chopsticks at his waist.
That was right.
Chopsticks.
He did not have a sword at his side.
Only a pair of chopsticks.
The ‘stick’ in Stick Swinger apparently referred to those chopsticks.
And the reason for his anger was simple.
Subaru’s way of holding the sword was too amateurish.
His method of applying force was completely wrong.
He was basically just swinging the weapon around like a barbarian.
“A pair of chopsticks?
Are you looking down on me?!”
Seeing the man take out chopsticks, Subaru immediately thought he was trying to go easy on him.
“To deal with you, I don’t even need a weapon.
But since I called myself a Stick Swinger, if I didn’t use a stick, you might misunderstand something.”
Clang!
The blade came down.
If the target had been a normal human, a brute-force slash like that would have left them either dead or crippled.
Of course, the rules that applied to normal humans did not apply to the monster in front of him.
That was right.
In Subaru’s eyes, this guy was no different from a monster.
“Hey, hey.
Seeing how clueless you were, I thought you might at least have some brute strength.
But this is it?”
The blade hovered in front of the Stick Swinger.
It was not that Subaru did not want to slash down.
He simply could not.
“It’s… caught?!”
The other party had raised his chopsticks above his head and precisely caught the falling blade between their tips.
“In the end, I was the stupid one for expecting anything from you.”
Subaru understood now.
He understood why Shaula had fainted from fear after seeing this man.
This was not human.
This was clearly something wearing human skin.
A genuine monster.
The Stick Swinger exerted force, merely pulling backward, and Subaru immediately felt like he could no longer hold onto the sword.
“No… I can’t let go.
If I lose my weapon…”
Then he would be no different from defeated.
“So you at least know you need to keep your weapon in your hands?
Too bad.
Giving a sword to a baby doesn’t mean the baby can beat an adult.
That’s the difference between you and me.
Now get lost!”
That overwhelming strength instantly lifted Subaru, sword and all.
The man spun his body at frightening speed, and Subaru felt the whole world twist around him.
Boom!
By the time Subaru came back to his senses, he had already been flung away and smashed heavily into the ground.
“Pain… Ow, ow, ow…”
Subaru awoke from the pulsing pain.
He raised his eyes and stared at the Stick Swinger before him.
He could not win.
This was not a clash between equals.
It could not even be called a one sided beating.
Because this was not a battle at all.
When you stepped on an ant, would you say you had fought a battle against it?
“I can’t beat him… Are people from another world all this ridiculous?”
Subaru felt like crying, but no tears came out.
Whether it was Shaula or the Stick Swinger in front of him, their strength had already gone far beyond Subaru’s understanding.
To borrow Shaula’s words, everyone had two eyes, one nose, and one mouth.
They were all people.
So why was the gap between them this huge?
“You feel the abyss between you and me now?
Hmph.
I won’t bully you.
You’ve never practiced swordsmanship, right?
I’ve only been at it for three months myself, but bullying a complete beginner has no meaning to me.”
Subaru smiled bitterly, stood up, patted his chest, and asked “Then… can we call it a draw?”
“Ha!”
Seeing Subaru’s miserable state, the Stick Swinger almost looked like he wanted to let him pass out of mercy.
But then he roared.
“This is a trial, isn’t it?
You’re the examinee, aren’t you?
And yet you’re asking the examiner for help?
Don’t you feel ashamed, small fry?!”
A pressure powerful enough to shake the soul burst outward.
Subaru, who had still been an ordinary high school student just half a month ago, had no way of enduring such pressure.
Especially not after witnessing how terrifying this monster was.
‘He…’
‘He’ll kill me!’
Almost instinctively, his body screamed that warning.
Subaru took a deep breath, gathered his courage, and started running.
“So you’re challenging me again?
This time won’t be as simple as just sending you flying.
I’ll break your arms and legs.”
“…”
But Subaru ran to Shaula’s side, grabbed the unconscious girl, turned around, and fled down the stairs.
“Hmph.
So you tucked your tail between your legs and ran after all?
What an unpleasant small fry.”
The Stick Swinger spoke irritably, putting the chopsticks back at his waist before plopping down on the grass.
“Tch.
This place is way too boring.
If they’re making me an examiner, they should at least give me some booze!”
Subaru ran as fast as he could.
Fear filled his entire mind.
All he wanted was to hurry back to the fourth floor.
His body was still screaming with pain.
The injuries he had suffered after being thrown were not exactly light.
Even so, he still used every bit of strength he had to escape.
He could not win.
That was not something a human could defeat.
There was a fundamental difference between him and that man.
“Guh?
Ah!”
Perhaps he had been running too quickly.
Perhaps it was because he was carrying another person.
Or perhaps the fear filling his brain had piled up too much.
Whatever the reason, Subaru failed to pay attention to his footing and stepped wrong on the stairs.
Thud, thud.
After tumbling down several steps, he finally landed on a flat platform.
It hurt.
His whole body hurt.
Subaru simply stopped running.
He lay there, staring up at the ceiling, his teeth clenched tight.
More than the intense pain in his body, what hurt him most was the despair in his heart.
To leave, he had to clear the trial.
To clear the trial, he had to face a monster like that.
And there was no way he could beat him.
He could not even touch a single hair on that man’s body.
“Don’t tell me… I’m going to be trapped here for the rest of my life?
No… I don’t want that…”
Subaru’s voice trembled as he thought about it.
He had finally crossed into another world.
He had finally left—
“Damn it… Damn it… Damn it…”
Subaru clenched his fist and slammed it hard against the floor of the platform.
Just when he had finally seen a faint glimmer of hope, what waited for him was even greater despair.
Thinking about it carefully, his otherworld journey had been far too terrible.
Too awful.
“Mas… Master?
Why am I here?”
Shaula slowly woke up, rubbing the head she had hit while falling down the stairs.
Still half-dazed, she looked at Subaru lying beside her.
“You’re awake…”
Subaru hid his weak expression and forced out a smile.
“I remember I was just… Eh?
Master, this isn’t a place to sleep.”
“I wasn’t planning to sleep here.
More importantly, what about you?
Why did you faint like that?”
“Me?
How could I possibly faint?”
Shaula waved her hand and showed an extremely confident expression.
“There’s no way I’d do something as embarrassing as fainting.
Even after not seeing Master for several hundred years, I didn’t faint, right?
For someone like me to actually faint, that’s just too funny.”
Subaru held his forehead.
So this was the rule of automatically forgetting.
When the brain encountered a fear it did not want to recall, it would simply forget it and pretend nothing had happened.
“It’s true.
You fainted right at the start.
I was worried that you had crashed or something.”
“Ah!
Master was worried about me?!
Hehehe, I believe that part!”
Subaru sighed and stood up.
Then he decided to properly help her remember.
“Do you remember?
I pulled out the sword, and then someone appeared…”
“Nooooooooooooo!!”
Shaula seemed to remember.
She immediately threw herself onto Subaru again and hugged him tightly.
“Hey… Come on, be gentler…”
“Why, why, why, why is that guy here?!
And he’s still alive?!
He really is an unkillable monster!”
“Who exactly is he?
Who could scare you this badly?”
“Reid!
The Stick Swinger, Reid!”
“Who’s that?”
(TL:haven’t watch ss4 but I hate that fcker already lmao~)