Chapter 162: Ajin Dungeon Cleared
"Mr. Sato…"
Tanaka Koji, freshly resurrected, rushed to Sato's side. He shoved the muzzle of his gun against Sato's forehead and pulled the trigger.
Bang.
Sato's body revived again, black particles repairing everything as usual, but his eyes remained shut. He did not move. He did not respond.
Tanaka Koji stared, disbelief spreading across his face.
"How… how can this be… Mr. Sato is an Ajin… how could this happen…"
Nagai Kei stood nearby, also confused, still unable to understand what had occurred.
Iwanaga Kotoko glanced at them, then looked at Asagiri.
"Leader. What about those two?"
"Ignore them," Asagiri said flatly. "They aren't Players. They have nothing to do with us."
The moment his words fell, a rapid series of footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Asagiri's expression changed instantly.
He went from calm and collected to looking exhausted. One hand braced against the wall, his posture unsteady, as if he could barely remain standing.
Yuuki Asuna, Iwanaga Kotoko, and Kato Megumi reacted in perfect sync. They had experience. They immediately followed his lead, either sliding down to sit on the floor or leaning against the wall, all of them looking like they had been wrung dry by a brutal battle.
A few seconds later, Shimomura Izumi arrived with more than a dozen mobile unit members.
Her eyes swept across the scene.
Sato lay motionless on the ground.
Tanaka Koji and Nagai Kei looked bewildered, shaken.
Asagiri and his team looked weak enough to collapse at any second.
Izumi gave the order without hesitation.
"Secure those three Ajin."
"No… don't!"
Nagai Kei and Tanaka Koji both panicked.
They had already endured inhuman experiments. Nagai Kei had only just left the operating table and believed he could escape with Sato. Less than ten minutes later, he was being captured again.
His emotions collapsed completely.
A mobile unit member glanced at Izumi.
"How should we handle these three?"
Izumi's gaze flicked toward Asagiri leaning against the wall. She remembered Mr. Totsaki's order. A thin chill entered her eyes.
"Shoot. Kill them."
…
One minute later, in the Anti-Ajin Special Forces operations meeting room.
Beep beep beep~
A new email notification sounded from Totsaki Yu's phone.
His brows furrowed. He pulled the phone out, opened his inbox, and saw the sender.
Shimomura Izumi.
"Why didn't she call? Why send an email…"
He muttered to himself, uneasy.
"The mission should have been completed…"
He opened the email.
The moment he saw the attached photo, his expression froze solid.
In the photo, the person in the dark gray mask and black trench coat held Shimomura Izumi's severed head in one hand.
Under the image was a short message.
"Goodbye."
The next second, a girl's face appeared on Totsaki Yu's phone screen, wearing a look of madness. Then, a hand holding a pistol reached out from the screen itself, aimed at his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Bang.
A bloody hole opened in Totsaki Yu's forehead. His body swayed, then slowly collapsed to the floor.
Until the moment he died, he still did not understand how he had been killed from several kilometers away.
His final thought drifted through his mind like a curse.
"If I hadn't ordered them to kill that person… I wouldn't have died… right…"
…
[Congratulations, Player Utsunomiya Asagiri. You have cleared this Dungeon.]
[In this Dungeon, your special bonus actions were: assisting in obtaining Ajin related experimental data, leading the Player assault on the research base, and battling Player Sato and achieving victory.]
[Dungeon clear evaluation: S+]
"We're finally back…"
After returning to the real world, Yuuki Asuna collapsed onto the soft sofa.
The weakness she showed in front of Shimomura Izumi and the mobile unit had been half acting and half real exhaustion.
Now that her nerves finally loosened, the fatigue hit like a flood. Yuuki Asuna was normally particular about cleanliness, but she felt so drained she did not even want to wash up. She only wanted to sleep.
Kato Megumi and Asagiri looked similar.
Only Iwanaga Kotoko still seemed energetic, to the point of being annoying, and she even took the initiative to tease them.
"Oh dear, already tired? Let's go out and have fun. It's broad daylight, how can we not celebrate with a banquet? Come on, get up~"
"You just keep bouncing around," Yuuki Asuna forced out, trying to retort, but her voice came out weak.
Kotoko really was full of energy. She had used Netherworld Grip several times during the breach, but her lost mental strength had already been replenished from the mobile unit members and Sato through Undead Touch.
Aside from losing some stamina and having her prosthetic leg blown off, she was basically in peak condition.
"I can't anymore. Let me sleep for a while…"
Kato Megumi's posture was almost comical. She was kneeling on the floor with her head resting against the sofa, too tired to even adjust her position.
"Huh? You're all going to sleep?"
Kotoko pouted, then her dark purple eyes lit up. She turned to Asagiri, suddenly eager.
"Perfect, they're all sleeping. Come on. Please, my lovely boyfriend, come sleep in the room with me~"
Asagiri refused instantly.
"I'm tired too. I need sleep."
"It's fine, it's fine~"
Kotoko clasped her hands together, looking gentle and virtuous as she smiled.
"You sleep your sleep. I'll do my thing. We won't affect each other. We won't interfere with each other."
"Damn, are you even human?"
Asagiri stared at her, genuinely shocked.
"How about I go to Hat Mita's place and borrow a Purple Toy for you? This is too morally corrupt."
"Hehe~"
Kotoko hopped to his side, covered her mouth, and chuckled in mockery.
"Oh dear, so this is all the strength you have? It can't be helped. I'm your gentle, cute, understanding girlfriend. If you surrender and admit defeat now, I'll let you off for the moment… eh…"
Before she could finish, Asagiri stood up and scooped the petite girl into his arms.
"How could you…"
"Heh. I was faking it."
Asagiri smiled down at her. Kotoko instantly went quiet and well behaved from sheer surprise.
Carrying her toward the room, Asagiri spoke slowly.
"Evil little devil. I shall punish you."
Kato Megumi forced herself to lift her head slightly.
"Asuna… you… aren't you going…"
Yuuki Asuna barely raised a hand and waved weakly.
"I can't. I'll die. Let those two do whatever. I need to sleep…"
"Okay… good night," Kato Megumi murmured.
"Good night," Yuuki Asuna replied, eyes already closing. "If anything happens… we'll talk after we wake up…"
…
That afternoon, at Fujiwara Chika's house.
Kaguya Shinomiya slowly opened her eyes.
She stared at the ceiling for a moment, confusion in her red eyes. Then she turned her head and saw Fujiwara Chika asleep by the bed, slumped with exhaustion.
Tenderness flickered across Kaguya's face, and she spoke softly.
"How… did we get back?"
"Huh? Uh… Kaguya, you're awake…"
Chika rubbed her sleepy eyes and sat up, yawning long and loud.
"Utsunomiya saved us, you know."
"Huh? Asa… Utsunomiya?"
Kaguya's eyes widened.
"He's a Player too?"
"Yes."
Chika forced herself to wake up fully, then told Kaguya everything that happened in the Dungeon.
"At that time, you were like this…"
Kaguya's cheeks grew redder and redder as Chika reenacted it with exaggerated gestures. One hand pressed to her chest, the other extended dramatically forward, copying Kaguya's weak voice.
"Take this, and go help him. Without him, I can't live!"
Kaguya's face turned so red it looked like steam might come out. She shot upright and covered her face with both hands.
"I… I actually said something like that… wait."
Her expression tightened. She narrowed her eyes at Chika's grin.
"Without him, I can't live… you made that up, didn't you?"
"Oh? You figured it out?"
Chika did not panic. She pulled out a striped hat and a pipe shaped candy from nowhere, instantly transforming into her love detective persona.
Her voice turned serious.
"But the fact you only think that one sentence was fake means what you did say wasn't random nonsense. It came from your heart, didn't it?"
Chika leaned in, eyes sparkling.
"Even when you were out of it, you reacted the moment you heard Utsunomiya's name. You even handed over that purple ring to Yuuki Asuna and told her to go help him. Tsk tsk tsk…"
She patted Kaguya's shoulder with fake maturity.
"Girl, you're truly in love."
"Go away. Stop talking nonsense."
Kaguya snapped, both shy and angry.
"I thought you were worried about me, that's why you stayed by the bed. Now it looks like you were just waiting for me to wake up so you could say all this and enjoy my reaction."
"Hey, you're really wronging me."
Chika put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest righteously.
"Yes, I wanted to see the fun. But the main reason is that once you woke up, as your friend and love detective, I wanted to give you, a girl lost in the maze of love, some proper love advice from the Detective Master."
She nodded like she was doing Kaguya a great service.
"I went through so much trouble. Don't be ungrateful, okay?"
.....
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