"KRA—KOOOM!"
As the dull tremor traveled up from the soles of his feet and shook through his entire body, the surrounding skyscrapers let out a groan as if they could no longer bear the weight.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka watched, expressionless, the enormous LED broadcast screen mounted on the exterior wall of the building across from him.
On the screen, a black beast as vast as a mountain range was making landfall from the bay. Its back bristled with irregular, coral-like fins and spines, and every single step it took was accompanied by whole rows of buildings collapsing.
A single glance was all it took for Ayanokoji to understand: he had been chosen by the Black Sphere once again.
But this brought him little surprise.
After all, the Black Sphere's notice this time had been sent directly to the entire first-year class.
Thanks to being dragged into both Hirata Yousuke's and Ryuuen's respective class group chats the day before, he'd been able to grasp which way the wind was blowing the very moment things began to move.
The only thing he truly hadn't expected was that no sooner had he set one foot back home than the other foot was forcibly hauled straight into another exam venue. He was clearly, blatantly being targeted. They weren't even bothering to keep up the pretense anymore.
Fortunately, Chris had returned every last one of the items he'd left behind just yesterday, which gave the current Ayanokoji at least a bit of confidence to stand on.
Dodging the pedestrians shrieking and fleeing in every direction around him, he retreated into the shadow of a relatively safe load-bearing pillar.
With a flip of his wrist, he drew his items out one by one from the Black Sphere wristwatch.
Pulling the caps off the syringes, Ayanokoji injected the [T-Virus] and the [Super-Soldier Serum] into his own veins without a moment's hesitation.
Feeling the cells inside his body seethe and boil, then swiftly settle into that wondrous sense of perfect control, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka tilted his neck lightly to one side, producing a crisp "crack, crack."
He looked toward his right arm and said calmly:
"Zero. How does it feel?"
The muscles of his right arm squirmed, and Zero the Parasyte warped an eyeball and a mouth out onto the surface of his skin.
"The familiar feeling is back. Ayanokoji, we're not lacking anything at all now."
"However..." The Parasyte paused, its tone growing grave. "Thanks to the way the serums have enhanced our cells across the board, my perception of our surroundings is much sharper now. I can sense a colossal nuclear reactor drawing closer in our direction... That immense life-energy is simply unbelievable. It's most likely that giant monster displayed on the screen."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka arched an eyebrow slightly.
"A nuclear reactor, huh... Looks like it's a top-tier monster worth at least a hundred-plus points."
With his current loadout, even with the dual serum enhancement plus the Parasyte, going head-to-head against a top-scoring monster would absolutely be an unwise course of action.
So his objective now was crystal clear.
First priority: locate this exam's "Mysterious Merchant" and see whether he could use his previously reserved points to exchange for some specialized, purpose-built items.
Second: while en route, search along the way for fellow students and teachers from his school who were also Intruders.
This too could count as a way of repaying the care Chris and the others had shown him before.
But considering this was modern metropolitan Tokyo, from appearance alone it was nearly impossible to tell, out of the tens of thousands of fleeing refugees, which were the original NPCs and which were the Intruders chosen by the Black Sphere.
After a brief moment of thought.
Ayanokoji raised his hand and exchanged a Y-GUN once more from the Black Sphere wristwatch's portable shop.
He wasn't counting on it for any real boost to his combat strength. What he was really after was the radar detector attached to its stock, which could temporarily be used to detect the movements of both friend and foe.
When he lifted his hand and saw that, aside from the red dot representing the behemoth, the area was densely packed with green points of light representing allies, he wasn't the least bit surprised.
Ignoring the pedestrians crying out as they sprinted past him in flight, Ayanokoji continued to question the Parasyte in his mind:
"Zero. Can you sense that thing's exact bearing and distance from us? And can you confirm which of these green points of light are our companions?"
To this, the Parasyte gave its reply without any surprise:
"That unidentified giant creature is as dazzling as a sun. I can easily sense its movement trajectory."
"But confirming identities... all I can say is that I can confirm the auras of humans we've had contact with before. As for the rest of the strangers, I can only judge from the faint Ripple within their bodies whether they belong to the same World—though that isn't necessarily one hundred percent accurate."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka nodded and stepped into the shadows.
"That's already more than enough."
"Let's start by checking nearby to see whether any Intruder has been designated by the system as a Mysterious Merchant."
After all, his time was limited. The most pressing matter now was self-preservation and boosting his combat power.
He couldn't possibly, nor was he obligated to, save everyone.
And so, under the law of survival of the fittest, he would naturally allocate his limited energy only to targets that held value.
Unlike the composed, unhurried Ayanokoji Kiyotaka.
His old man, Ayanokoji Atsumi, was in a mood that could by no means be described as pleasant at this moment.
Together with his partner Tsukishiro Tsunenari—without the slightest warning—he watched the air-raid sirens screaming across the sky, and the spine-chilling giant creature on the distant horizon.
This politician, who rarely smiled to begin with, now had a shadow gathering deep in his eyes.
Tsukishiro Tsunenari raised an eyebrow. His tone carried a hint of surprise, yet he'd lost none of a politician's composure:
"Well, it seems... we've been chosen too, Lord Ayanokoji."
"Is it because our probing maneuvers at the school overstepped somewhat, provoking the displeasure of the Black Sphere—or should I say, the presiding god—and this is meant as a warning tap?"
Ayanokoji Atsumi shook his head and said in a low voice:
"If we're going to be precise about it, the moment Ripple Breathing was first leaked out of the school, that already counted as a kind of indirect overstepping."
"The Black Sphere has never once, in the past, set a precedent for punishing non-school personnel. Saying it's to punish us for overstepping is, in the end, a bit lacking in persuasive force."
Tsukishiro Tsunenari did not argue the point.
He gazed toward a spot not far off, where a television that had fallen to the ground was nonetheless still dutifully broadcasting "Citizens of Tokyo, please evacuate immediately." He let out a soft chuckle, though there was not a trace of laughter in his eyes.
"As for the specific reason, we'll just have to wait and see later. See whether, apart from us, anyone from the other factions has also been dragged into this."
"After all, a technology capable of overturning the world—I refuse to believe that we're the only ones coveting it, while all those other old geezers just sit back and watch the mountains from afar as spectators."
Ayanokoji Atsumi gave a slight nod.
"For now, this is all we can do."
"Let's first find a sturdy underground shelter to hide in. Otherwise, in our current state—without so much as a Black Sphere wristwatch to our names..."
"I really don't think the Black Sphere will show us the mercy of granting a second life."
And compared to these high-ranking elites, who could swiftly draw up survival plans even after being suddenly designated as pawns—
As faculty members, Chabashira Sae and Hoshimiya Chie came off as somewhat more of a letdown.
Actually, Chabashira Sae was still all right.
After all, she had firsthand experience from the midterm Uninhabited Island exam, and being someone accustomed to masking herself behind an icy, deadpan expression, she was just barely able to maintain a calm state.
But Hoshimiya Chie, walking alongside her, had completely broken down.
At a time like this, where did Hoshimiya have any room left to worry about those old, festering grudges between her and Chabashira Sae?
She clutched Chabashira Sae's arm in a death grip, her lips bitten pale, utterly stripped of that slovenly, lazy air she usually put on in front of the students.
"Chabashira..." Hoshimiya's voice cracked with sobs. "You—you're someone who's been through one of these exams before..."
"Tell me—as teachers at the school, being inexplicably dragged into this... do we get extra lives as a safety net, the same as the students do?"
Faced with Hoshimiya Chie's question, thick with unease, Chabashira Sae fell silent for a moment.
In the end, she still told the truth:
"I don't know."
"But since neither the Black Sphere nor the school has ever explicitly told us anything of the sort..."
"Then we should simply treat it as though it doesn't exist. Plan for the worst in all things—that's how you live long."
"Then what are we supposed to do now?!" Hoshimiya Chie blurted out reflexively. "Just stay here... and wait for the students to come save the day?"
Chabashira Sae let out a deep, heavy sigh.
When she'd participated in the Black Sphere exam during the midterm, she had existed as a Mysterious Merchant.
But apart from dying once, she had never actually taken the field to kill an enemy, much less faced Jogo head-on.
Her practical survival experience was a bit better than Hoshimiya Chie's, but only better within very limited bounds.
Asking her to make some reliable decision in a short span of time was truly asking a great deal of her.
Fortunately, Ichinose Honami—the acknowledged saintly figure of the entire school—had a habit of selflessly sharing most of the Black Sphere intelligence she'd compiled.
Chabashira Sae, having been through the Uninhabited Island, had naturally paid attention to it in her spare time.
Chabashira Sae forced herself to calm down and spoke according to the intelligence in her memory:
"Let's find a nearby underground shelter with an open field of view, so we don't end up running around like headless flies and getting ourselves into trou—"
Before she could finish her sentence.
Suddenly, a dense chopping of armed-helicopter rotor blades came from overhead.
A violent gust of wind whipped their hair into disarray.
Chabashira Sae looked up, watching several armed helicopters loaded with missiles moving to encircle Godzilla from the flanks.
After a moment's thought, she forcibly changed the words already at the tip of her tongue:
"...Never mind. It's best we leave this area first."
"When a modern military is deployed against a monster like that, I always get an extremely ominous feeling."
Meanwhile.
Inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
After fighting several rounds in various combinations against the two great BOSSes, Kars and Jogo—
Some cheered in excitement over a hard-won victory, while others were left in disheveled dejection after being instantly wiped out due to a coordination blunder.
But in any case, good or bad, these newcomers who had previously never come into contact with high-level items at all had now, at least, personally experienced a taste of the high-end bracket.
No longer like during the midterm Black Sphere exam, when they could only cower behind the strong, using X-GUNs and enhancement guns amid the shelter of the crowd, trembling as they hunted for stray small fry.
This could tentatively be counted as a good thing for raising the overall quality of the team.
And just as one batch of students had swapped off their gear, preparing to rotate another wave up to run simulations—
"Bzzzz—"
The Black Sphere wristwatches on everyone's wrists suddenly popped up a system message.
The content was precisely the prompt the outside Black Sphere had just moments ago sent to all the students.
Of course, because they were inside the Time Chamber's space, this prompt naturally came with a difference.
For instance, whereas outside it was a prompt to deliberate, what they received this time was a notice of an already established fact.
Seeing this, Ichinose Honami's fine brows knit slightly:
"Just as expected... the advance test has started ahead of schedule again."
Ryuuen flicked his hand, and remarked with some surprise as well:
"That's not right. We didn't get any message at all telling us to make a choice just now."
"So... does that mean something went wrong when the outside world relayed the notice, and the signal couldn't penetrate the barrier of the Time Chamber? But once the majority of people outside made their decision, the Black Sphere—or the presiding god—could ignore the spatial barrier and directly issue us the forced-entry information?"
Sakayanagi Arisu pursed her lips, toying with a Soul Gem in her hand, and laughed lightly without a care:
"In any case, even if they had notified us, given our position, refusing would have been impossible anyway. In practice, whether or not they notify us makes no real difference."
"It's just a bit of a shame..."
Her gaze drifted meaningfully toward the just-respawned Kars and Jogo in the distance:
"These are sparring partners we summoned at the cost of quite a few of our class points. And before we've even had the chance to properly savor reminiscing over old times with our old opponents, we're about to be forcibly hauled off to an exam..."
"I also wonder whether the two-minute advance-test teleportation countdown the Black Sphere gave us is calculated by real-world time, or by the relative time inside here."
Hearing this, Chris mused for a moment, then said:
"Let's just assume it's calculated by our relative time here. Plan for the worst in everything."
"Pack away your equipment first. Don't let our carelessness cause the countdown to run out and have us all dragged into the exam venue alongside Horikita and the others."
Chris spread his hands and said, half-jokingly, "If it comes to that, and this main force of ours can only fight the BOSSes with blank-slate enhancement suits and basic Black Sphere weapons... well, that'd be quite the comedy."
Ichinose Honami nodded in deep agreement.
She immediately stepped forward, preparing to explain a few things to the students who were about to swap equipment.
As for Amikura Mako, the moment she'd seen the Black Sphere wristwatch notice, she had already teamed up with Horikita Suzune to spring into action, swiftly collecting the item capsules the surrounding students had borrowed to try out.
Although there was a hint of reluctance in the eyes of those newcomers who had only just tasted extraordinary power—
Those who could stand here were mostly fairly reliable people, not the sort of fools like Kanji Ike or Haruki Yamauchi who couldn't tell right from wrong or grasp what mattered.
In the face of the bigger picture, naturally no one dared to entertain any thought of embezzling for themselves.
Seeing this scene.
Ryuuen gave a cold snort and moved his fingers away from the Black Sphere wristwatch, so as to avoid stirring up any unnecessary conflict or misunderstanding.
Chris, meanwhile, shot Ryuuen a meaningful glance.
He couldn't be bothered with all these roundabout maneuverings.
Right in front of everyone, he recalled the majority of his own powerful equipment all at once.
Then he turned to the bewildered Horikita Suzune and said:
"The Controller, the Blank Card Box, and two Stands."
"Once you're inside taking the test, distribute them however you see fit. Prioritize keeping yourself safe above all."
Horikita Suzune clutched the three capsules tightly in her palm and nodded emphatically.
Seeing this, Ichinose Honami wasn't stingy either.
She handed the [Leo Cavalry] and [Myriad Soaring Wings] capsules to Yotsuya Miko and Amanatsu Kazuha respectively:
"If you can... take these with you and go save more students caught in danger!"
Amanatsu Kazuha took the capsule and did not refuse.
But she still couldn't help but remind her:
"Class Rep, you've given me the Myriad Soaring Wings—what will you do during the actual match yourself?"
"How about... once the real match begins, I find a chance to return it to you?"
To this, Ichinose only revealed a confident smile:
"Amanatsu, have you forgotten?"
"A magical girl can fly to begin with, you know."
"I feel the [Myriad Soaring Wings] isn't of much help to me for the time being, so I'd rather lend it to you all to bring out greater value."
Since Ichinose's mind was made up, Amanatsu Kazuha said no more.
She turned her head to the other side.
She saw Ryuuen stuffing the [Soul-Release Blade] into Yagami Takuya's hands.
And viciously warning him that he'd better keep it safe, or else even if he came back alive, Ryuuen would peel a layer of skin off him.
As for Sakayanagi Arisu...
Because the items she carried were all of the sort that boosted her own strength specifically, they rarely went idle.
Rashly lending them to others not only wouldn't bring out their power, but might instead harm the user.
So she only handed an ordinary enhancement gun to Hashimoto Masayoshi, as a small parting gesture of assistance.
Seeing that everyone had more or less finished distributing things.
Chris glanced at the countdown on his wrist and said in a low voice:
"There's still 30 seconds until the three-minute preparation deadline."
"If you haven't left after three minutes... then we'll just continue the lesson we left unfinished earlier."
His tone was relaxed:
"After all, the time ratio between the Time Chamber and the outside world is one day to one minute."
"Even if we finish every single one of today's special-training exercises, for the outside world, hardly any time will actually have passed. There's plenty of time."
Hearing this, Sakayanagi Arisu lowered her head and glanced at the stopwatch she'd casually pressed earlier.
The girl parted her rosy lips and began counting down along with it:
"To be precise, there are ten seconds left..."
"Nine seconds... eight seconds... get ready now."
"One second~"
At the very instant the girl's final syllable fell.
Without any warning whatsoever.
Horikita Suzune, Amanatsu Kazuha, and the other dozen-plus people confirmed to be participating in the advance test simply vanished into thin air within the pure-white space.
However.
When Sakayanagi Arisu casually swept her eyes over the people who remained behind, she keenly noticed something was off.
"Huh?"
She searched all around: "Where's Kamuro... how come she's gone too?"
"Could it be that the current advance test, aside from the fixed registered participants, also has so-called extra random slots?"
Chris rubbed his chin in thought and said:
"Hard to say."
"I notice Kushida from our class is gone too. Perhaps it's simply that they had bad luck and were designated by the presiding god as the 'Intruders' for this exam venue."
"But because the Time Chamber sealed off the outside world, it wasn't until now, once we'd confirmed the exam would begin, that the Black Sphere was permitted to enter and take them away as Intruders, together with the test participants."
Ichinose Honami's fine brows furrowed, and she sighed, somewhat speechless:
"If that's really the case... then isn't the Black Sphere just too cruel?"
Ryuuen, however, let out a disdainful sneer and countered:
"What's cruel about that?"
"Being able to let them go through a round of training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber before they're drawn to be sent to their deaths, tempering their fragile spirits a little—that's already an enormous favor to them."
"What more could they ask for! They should just be quietly counting their blessings!"
Chris nodded in deep agreement:
"True enough..."
It was the likes of Chabashira Sae and Hoshimiya Chie who were the ones truly scared out of their wits.
____
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