As they ran through the forest, lights from all directions flashed past Keli's eyes like fleeting shadows.
He occasionally locked his gaze on the target, and occasionally looked at his feet to avoid tripping over something.
Keli noticed that the surrounding trees seemed to be thinning.
Was it the wrong direction and the creature was heading for the main road... or something else?
It seemed they had reached the edge of the forest.
The strange creature suddenly leaped with astonishing height, making it hard to believe that it appeared to be an aquatic species.
Keli, quick-witted, instinctively stopped, raised his gun, and fired a random shot without bothering to aim.
Even a monster couldn't change direction in mid-air without a leverage point.
Keli's random shot surprisingly hit the target.
"Bang!"
Flesh torn.
Effective! Keli's eyes lit up. The gun being effective at least meant that even if it was what he thought it was, it wasn't the abstractly strengthened version from various fan works.
And no matter how powerful a creature was, its escape efficiency would slow down after being shot!
However, the next moment, Keli realized that the creature's leap was not a meaningless action that exposed a weakness.
"Splash!"
"Aoooo! Aii!"
With a loud splash and a gradually fading shriek, the monster disappeared in front of Keli, leaving only a small path and a railing.
Keli rushed to the railing and looked around.
This was an artificial lake; after a chase, they had actually gone from the mountainside to the foot of the mountain.
And the creature had disappeared into the dark lake water.
"Huff! Huff!"
Because he couldn't maintain his body in peak condition at all times like Keli, Sato Kazuma arrived late, panting.
Sato Kazuma looked around and immediately understood the situation.
"Escaped?"
Keli nodded, frowning as he looked at the sizable artificial lake.
Kazuma shined his flashlight around, seeing some liquid left by the creature on the surrounding grass and paths, likely from Keli's shot.
Kazuma squatted slightly, frowning as he examined the blood, which was somewhat red but seemed to be turning purple.
"Phew… Is that thing a monster? Or some kind of experimental creation…?"
Kazuma recalled the creature's figure, stood up, and seemed undecided.
"Besides, aren't we supposed to be investigating some wish-killing? What was that, anyway?"
Keli looked at the shore seriously, frowning as he spoke.
"Maybe it's a mutated Fukushima resident. By the way, have you heard of Lovecraft?"
"Hey! This isn't the time for jokes! Who's that? I don't know."
Keli heard Kazuma, a shut-in, say he didn't know, and he already had a rough idea.
"Does FGO have a character named Abigail?"
"No. Are you sure you're not mistaking the name? When I went to Akihabara to sell electronics, I saw that the new Heroic Spirit was Tiamat, ported from the arcade version."
Just as the two were chatting, several flashlight beams shone over. A few school security guards, their faces full of fear, relaxed slightly when they saw it was Keli and Kazuma.
They quickly ran over, many of them looking hesitant and timid.
"Sirs… S-sirs, are you alright?"
"We're fine."
Keli observed the other party. Keli noticed that the other party seemed to have some kind of firearm weapon at hand. He felt that Japan was truly…
Keli pointed to the blood on the ground.
"That thing took a shot from me and escaped into here."
Several security personnel looked at each other, then looked at Keli with a hint of awe.
No wonder the principal had to find someone else.
Honestly, even for them, their first reaction upon seeing that thing was to run like hell. These two actually dared to chase and attack it.
"Alright, we'll immediately set up a cordon to surround this area."
Responding to Keli, the man pressed his earphone and said something, seemingly explaining the current situation to Nekiri Senzaemon, who had been woken up in the middle of the night. Then he began to nod and bow repeatedly at the air.
Finally, the man looked back at Keli.
"Sirs, the General Director's intention is for us to guard this place. He wants to question those people from the Hesheng Society. Please, both advisors, come along."
Keli and Kazuma exchanged glances. They actually wanted to stay here, but the lake was quite large, and that thing seemed to be very afraid of humans. With just the two of them, it chose to run rather than turn back and fight.
However, information was also essential to understand, as monsters were like cockroaches—seeing one might mean a whole group was hidden.
So, they nodded and agreed.
Soon, a black sedan arrived, and people took the two to a large building.
It wasn't the reception room they had seen, but a reception room typically used for business purposes.
Inside, the room was now filled with men in classic black suits, while on the two long sofas opposite, the people Keli had seen in the dormitory, along with a few he hadn't, were sitting in a row.
Keli speculated that those few might be the ones who had been upstairs but never came down earlier.
At this moment, although the group of students and the dorm manager auntie weren't tied up, they were all tense and trembling.
Nekiri Senzaemon saw the two, who were dusty from their journey and had grass and dirt on their clothes. He immediately replaced his stern expression with a smile and, without a hint of disdain, invited them to sit down.
So Keli and Kazuma sat down to the old man's left, looking at the people opposite.
Upon seeing Keli and the other, the students trembled even more, their faces pale as paper.
Although he said "together," Nekiri Senzaemon wouldn't simply dump all the problems that arose on his own turf onto Keli and the other. So, he directly continued to ask the previous question.
"Do you know of that thing's existence, or rather, was it brought in by you?"
Nekiri Senzaemon's inquiry carried no significant emotional fluctuation, but it was enough to make those people feel a sense of suffocation.
After all, in such a high-pressure environment, coupled with their upbringing in culinary families since childhood, and the overly transcendent status of top chefs in this world, the three factors combined—the other party being the principal, a legendary chef they had heard of since childhood, and the boss of the Japanese culinary world—created an immense pressure that non-chefs could not deeply feel.
For example, Keli and Kazuma felt nothing and didn't understand why a single sentence was enough to scare them so much.
"We… we don't know…"
One of them seemed to decide that the worst that could happen was being expelled, and steeled himself to speak.
"I remember your family makes Shingen mochi, don't they?"
Nekiri Senzaemon's next sentence immediately silenced the person completely.
He was terrified that if he continued to say he didn't know, his family would soon receive a call informing them that no suppliers in Japan would cooperate with them anymore, and then their various chain stores would face retaliation. Finally, he trembled his lips and spoke.
"We… we just didn't want… didn't want to be expelled, that's all. It was… it was all guaranteed by Lord Ninth Seat…"
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