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Chapter 37: The Best Graduation Gift
What in the world is going on?!
Why did that Suyan guy just mime shooting a bow and somehow blow a man's brains out from hundreds of meters away?!
Why did they jump out of a third-story window and land without a single scratch?!
And where the hell did Senior Saeko pull that sword from?!
How is she moving like that? She's cutting those monsters down like they're nothing but wet paper!
Are they even human?!
They're basically superheroes!
Saya Takagi was completely losing her mind.
Everything she thought she knew about the world, the logic she had spent her entire life building, was crumbling to dust before her very eyes.
She cast a furtive glance at Shizuka and Rei sitting nearby.
Don't tell me... do those two have terrifying superpowers like Suyan too?
She quickly shook her head, immediately discarding the thought.
Based on their earlier conversation, Suyan had explicitly ordered Shizuka to stay behind and protect them. That meant Shizuka definitely possessed whatever bizarre power this was.
But Rei? She had to be a normal human, just like Saya.
If she wasn't, she wouldn't have completely lost her mind when Suyan jumped out the window.
While Saya was lost in her spiraling thoughts, Shizuka seemed to notice her staring. The blonde nurse turned her head, meeting her gaze.
Their eyes locked.
For less than a second, they stared at each other before Saya hurriedly looked away.
"Takagi, you look a little uncomfortable. Are you in a hurry to use the restroom?"
Noticing Saya's flushed face and tense posture, Shizuka kindly offered, "It's totally fine if you need to go. Just let me know, and I can escort you."
"After all, I'm super strong now!"
To emphasize her point, Shizuka struck a bodybuilder pose, flexing an arm that possessed absolutely zero visible muscle definition.
"W-Who said I need to use the restroom?! I don't!" Saya snapped defensively.
"Oh, really?"
Shizuka scratched her head, looking slightly confused. "Well, if you need to go powder your nose, you can tell me that too."
"I told you, I don't need to go to the bathroom!"
Saya was thoroughly mortified.
As a well-bred young lady from a wealthy family, she was perfectly aware that "powdering your nose" was just a polite euphemism for using the toilet.
Suyan and Saeko having superpowers? Fine, she could reluctantly accept that.
Suyan was her self-proclaimed ultimate rival, and Saeko was the untouchable prodigy of a famous martial arts family. It almost made a twisted kind of sense.
But this ditzy, completely airheaded nurse? How could she possibly wield that kind of power?
"Um..."
Perhaps seeing Shizuka and Saya talking gave Rei the courage she needed.
She turned to the nurse and asked, "Miss Marikawa, I wanted to ask... what exactly is this 'Nen' that Senior Busujima mentioned earlier?"
"Since Suyan told you to stay behind and protect us, I'm assuming you also possess this unknown power?"
Hearing Rei's question, Saya instantly dropped her petty argument with Shizuka.
She had been dying to ask that exact same question, but she didn't know Shizuka well enough to pry.
Even if she did ask, there was no guarantee the nurse would answer her, so she had bit her tongue to avoid making a fool of herself.
But now that Rei had opened the door, Saya perked her ears up, staring intently at Shizuka, desperately waiting for an answer.
"Nen, huh?"
Shizuka scratched her head again.
It wasn't a secret she had to protect. Nen was just the unique power system their little group possessed.
Suyan had even told her before that it was entirely possible for normal people to unlock Nen through intense, dedicated training.
However, even if you knew the exact method to awaken it, a genuine prodigy would still need years of agonizing practice just to grasp the basics.
It was just... so much work to explain.
"You can basically think of Nen as a type of superpower."
Shizuka thought about it for a second and then smiled warmly at Rei. "But you don't need to worry about that, Miyamoto. Little Suyan will probably just share his power with you later."
Rei had been brought here personally by Suyan, and judging by how close they had been to kissing earlier, Shizuka was entirely convinced that Rei was destined to become Suyan's next Contract partner.
"Share his power with me?"
Rei was stunned for a moment, but her immediate reaction was concern. "Would doing something like that have a negative effect on him?"
Hearing that, Saya shot Rei a deeply resentful look.
Well, that shuts down that avenue of conversation.
She had been planning to press Shizuka for more details on how to acquire this power, but Rei's selfless concern completely derailed that train of thought.
What could Saya possibly say now?
Her relationship with Suyan was barely at the level of passing acquaintances.
Could she really demand that he grant her supernatural abilities?
Who did she think she was?
"Never mind, I'll just try to explain the basics of Nen to you both..."
Shizuka looked at Rei and Saya. Despite finding it tedious, she decided to give them a crash course.
She figured it was the least she could do to apologize for ruining Rei's romantic moment with Suyan earlier.
As for Saya?
Looking at the girl's figure and face, Shizuka figured there was a decent chance she might end up joining their group eventually anyway.
She didn't mind giving her a head start. It couldn't hurt to build a good relationship early.
While Shizuka was busy holding her impromptu lecture on Nen, down in the courtyard, Saeko's slaughter continued. She and Suyan had already migrated to a new section of the campus.
This was actually another reason Shizuka and the others had stopped watching and started talking about Nen. They couldn't see the fight anymore.
They hadn't moved because the new area had more zombies.
Zombies were brainless. The slightest noise was enough to draw an endless stream of them to whatever location you were currently standing in.
No, they moved because reality was fundamentally different from video games.
In a game, when you kill a monster, the body dissolves into pixels and vanishes.
In reality...
Saeko had killed so many zombies that the sheer volume of corpses had literally piled up, completely blocking their path and forcing them to relocate.
Looking at the mountains of mangled bodies, Suyan genuinely found himself envying Shizuku's vacuum cleaner, Blinky, from the Phantom Troupe.
That thing could inhale an infinite amount of non-living matter.
He wouldn't even have to worry about double-tapping the zombies to make sure they were dead, because Blinky couldn't inhale living things. If a zombie got sucked up, it meant it was permanently dead.
He didn't know how much time had passed.
Eventually, the battle ground to a halt.
There were probably a few stragglers wandering around the fringes of the campus, but the vast majority of the horde had been thoroughly eradicated.
Saeko stood atop a small mountain of slaughtered zombies.
The pale moonlight washed over her.
Her once-pristine school uniform was drenched entirely in dark, viscous blood.
"Have you had your fill, Senior Saeko?"
Suyan looked up at the girl, who looked like a terrifyingly beautiful spirit of carnage bathed in silver light.
"Thank you for this graduation gift, Suyan. I love it."
Saeko looked down at him, her voice perfectly calm and filled with absolute certainty.
To Saeko Busujima, this blood-soaked uniform was the greatest graduation present she could have ever received.
"I'm glad you like it."
Suyan nodded. He was buzzing with excitement too.
Saeko had slaughtered well over a thousand zombies, and the sheer volume of Nen fed back to him through their Contract was staggering.
He felt overwhelmingly, terrifyingly strong.
And this was just the yield from a single high school.
If they managed to carve a bloody path across the entirety of Japan, just how powerful would he become?
Just imagining it sent shivers of anticipation down his spine.
"However, I want another graduation gift from you now." Saeko said, her tone shifting slightly as she dismissed her sword.
Suyan looked confused. "Another gift?"
"You."
Saeko pointed a single, slender finger directly at Suyan. Her purple eyes darkened, burning with an intense, unquenchable heat.
For a girl like her, was there anything in this world that could bring her more euphoria than this man?
No. Absolutely not.
And so, right now!
While the adrenaline and ecstasy of the slaughter were still coursing through her veins, she was going to finish what Shizuka had interrupted half a month ago, pushing that euphoria to its absolute zenith!
She was going to permanently etch this day into her memory!
Along with Suyan!
"Me?"
Suyan blinked, caught completely off guard.
But before he could even process what was happening, Saeko grabbed him by the collar and dragged him away.
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