Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume5 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

Such a large number of people would never fit in an ordinary classroom. Sophia Firenze, Kiyosawa Hadome, or some other teacher had granted permission to use the gym, but ordinarily, the Subcategory and Main Category students used different gyms.

They were packed in tight and those who couldn’t fit had to use their Crystal Blossom transmissions or watch webcam footage on their phones or tablets.

So many people were willing to go to those lengths so they could help come up with an idea.

(Good.)

Natalena Blast was not the world’s strongest. She had always been a timid girl without the guts to hold a microphone in front of a large crowd.

But things had changed.

She couldn’t let her nerves hold her back. If they didn’t come up with an idea now, Karuta’s group would die in a moving act of self-sacrifice.

So she did not hesitate to stand on the stage at the center of attention.

“Um, to start with, I wanted to ask about something.”

The student council’s redheaded bob cut girl was familiar with the school equipment, so she had handed Natalena a microphone that Natalena now used to gather everyone’s attention.

“Is the Threat situation really that bad? Um, the Four Living Gods aren’t the only ones who can fight. What if we sent out every Crystal Magician here at Second Grimnoah?”

They had in fact fought the Threat, both real and fake, in a group battle before. That meant the Threat could in fact be defeated by human hands.

However…

“That would be difficult.”

This new speaker had to be in the gym, but Natalena couldn’t locate her within the large crowd. Based on the voice, this was Letnahe Kurent holding a microphone somewhere in here. She was the new dance teacher who inexplicably chose to wear a navy uniform.

“You did battle the real Threat to retake Second Grimnoah near the Port of Kobe. The number of Threats there, including the smallest units, was likely somewhere between 10 and 30 thousand.”

A deep mechanical noise sounded.

Someone from the drama club must have finally located Letnahe because a large spotlight affixed to the second-floor railing shined down on her. It wasn’t that dark in the gym, but showing everyone who was talking helped the conversation run more smoothly.

Everyone was here because they wanted to protect someone.

Natalena gave the drama club member operating the spotlight a wave of thanks.

“Th-that’s right. 1000 Crystal Magicians can defeat tens of thousands of the Threat. So, um, i-if we all work together…”

“Meanwhile, the number of Threats gathering outside the atmosphere is more than 300 million.”

“…”

“And that is only that we know of. It may be even more. At that point, it doesn’t even matter how strong each of you are individually. Your numbers are too few to defeat the Threat.”

Plus, there was no rule requiring those 300 million Threats to attack a single place at once.

What if they orbited the Earth while descending upon the entire northern and southern hemispheres at once? The battlefront would be so large that a group of only 1000 could never hope to engage them all.

If they only had to defend Second Grimnoah floating in the ocean, they might be able to hold out for a while.

But that was not the same thing as protecting the world.

Second Grimnoah itself ran on a giant diesel engine The fuel for that and the food, water, and other supplies for the occupants had to be acquired from land. They could not drift endlessly on the ocean without resupplying, so their defeat was only a matter of time if the ordinary world were destroyed.

The situation could hardly be worse.

But they had already known that.

“Um, then let’s get started.”

Natalena Blast gripped the microphone in her small hands.

She calmed her racing heart and raised her voice to protest the world’s unfairness.

“I’m not asking for something guaranteed to work!! Um, just give us any theory you can think of!! We can think about how realistic the ideas are later!! We can’t let the Four Living Gods get away with this. The way they’re throwing away their lives is a mockery of human life ''including our own''! So we need to correct that mistake even if it means attacking our fellow students!! So give me your help!! Give me Second Grimnoah’s help!!!”