Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume2 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 7===

A late sunset arrived.

They only had freeze-dried food and chocolate to eat, but having something to eat made all the difference. The students lined up to get some food and breathed a sigh of relief at having that “peace of mind” in hand.

The most popular item was the tea. They must have been more interested in comfort than nutrition.

“E-excuse me, but there is a reason why we use a porcelain pot.”

The waitress became very popular after revealing a trick to making it taste better. She was still awkward, but she gradually managed to smile. Karuta doubted she would talk about owing them anything anymore.

“Good work today, Natalena.”

“Please stop speaking to me, Senpai. Um, I will be heading back after drinking this rooibos tea, so- hot, hot, hot.”

She apparently had trouble with hot drinks. She held the cup between her hands and repeatedly tested it by sticking out her small tongue. But she also wanted to warm herself up, so she could not cool the cup in the snow.

“You do everything in the cutest way possible, don’t you?”

“Do you enjoy stabbing people in the back with a smile on your face? Hot.”

She apparently wanted to drive her point home and leave like a grownup avenger, but the cup’s heat made that impossible. She could not leave yet, so she ended up shrinking down and slowly sipping at the tea next to him.

Meanwhile, the high school girls seemed more interested in the plastic containers than the food those had carried. Imi and Tayori were whispering to each other.

“Will these work?”

“They totally will. You can fit in one if you keep your knees up, right? And I’ve heard of some true madwomen who used metal basins and stainless steel sinks as baths.”

Sanae was again drinking her special drink made by adding a pinch of salt to plain water. Karuta doubted it had any real flavor, but she seemed satisfied.

Meanwhile, he asked the Student Council President about something.

“If that is true, this is not going to be easy.”

Omotesandou Kyouka readily raised the white flag.

He had hoped for some help here, so that was a problem.

“Then we’re supposed to just sit around and wait!?”

“Grimnoah alone has 1000 possible targets. And Domes A and B have many times that many so-called civilians. Actually, is the person commanding the weapons even here at the Crystal Beach? Couldn’t they be safe and sound typing on a keyboard on the other side of the planet?”

“…”

“I won’t suggest anything as silly as the weapons gaining a mind of their own and deciding to wipe out the human race, but what if they were infected with a virus that altered their priority settings? Self-driving cars can be converted into deadly weapons by changing the gas and brake values linked to someone’s facial recognition data. Think of it like a land-based guided missile on tires.”

If they were only talking about possibilities, the wings of imagination could take them anywhere.

But they needed to figure out who was behind this and fast.

“Any ideas, Marika?”

“No. There’s no way of narrowing it down at this point.”

She responded as if to say that was not her job.

But something she said caught his attention.

“At this point?”

“I’m just saying the answer should become clear after a few more casualties. But you don’t want that, right?”

It was out of the question. But the President apparently had something to say about that.

“If someone is operating them, why didn’t they immediately attack this secret base? Did they simply lose sight of us? Or is it an inside job and they’re afraid of being caught in the Threat’s surprise attack?”

Either way, discussing this further did not sound like it would lead to any productive ideas.

Karuta sighed and started to leave, but…

“No warning everyone, okay?” said Kyouka from behind him. “Since you haven’t suggested it yet, I assume you already know the risk, but if you even hint we might have a spy among us, what little order we’ve managed here will collapse. Either Grimnoah will split apart or they’ll start to discuss attacking one of the surviving domes. Simply put, it will trigger a witch hunt.”

“I know that.”

This time, he did leave.

He heard footsteps crunching through the snow and turned to find Aine.

“What should I do?” she asked.

“I would like you to stand guard. At least for tonight.”

Grimnoah was a school, but its students were being trained to fight. They naturally had a rotation of guards set up already, but they were only looking for the large Threats that might attack from the outside. They were not considering a danger that might approach as a smiling and waving human. Karuta watched the students laughing together while eating their meager dinners. He hated being unable to warn them of the danger they were in.

What if the villain came from one of the other domes disguised as an evacuee?

What if the villain was secretly holding the controller among the Grimnoah students and teachers?

“I suggest you get some sleep to recover, Sacri-sama.”

“We all need to do that. And it isn’t all bad news. I think I’m right about being able to defeat the Threat – or whatever they are – by ‘poisoning’ them to stop their endless evolution. We are making progress. And someone other than me should be able to set up that ‘poisoning’.”

He was simply sick of it all.

The first Grimnoah had sunk, he had lost so many friends and acquaintances like Kazamuki Gekiha, and his life had been thrown off the rails. He never would have become the world’s strongest without that, but he would have been able to live an ordinary school life.

It had taken building a second ship, but he had regained that lost school life.

It was distorted some by his position as the world’s strongest and he had ended up in a position above even the adult teachers, but he had regained something he had thought was forever lost.

He could not abandon that so easily.

That included Yamane Deiri, Nekoumi Hirosuke, Matsuda Imi, Hashizaki Tayori, the underclassman like Sanae and Alice, and the Student Council Treasurer and Secretary. All the boys and girls gathered at Grimnoah were the people who Karuta’s shattered dream had resonated with. They had brought back his school life from the bottom of the ocean. They may not have been aware of it, but the boring classes and laughter of the Second Grimnoah had undoubtedly healed his damaged soul. Each one of them had grabbed one of the shattered pieces and brought it back together.

One of the igloos in the middle school section had no owner. Sanae and Alice had created it to contain Toudou Riho’s crystal statue. Those friends had held that statue tight and never let go during that fierce fighting. They had never given up to the end.

He could not let anything take that from them.

“I want to repay them. I’m not going to let anything take our world from us again.”

He did not return to his igloo even after he had finished eating.

Vision was poor with the darkness and the blowing snow.

“Miss Marika has received a visitor at her igloo. It appears to be Miss Kyouka.”

“Are they spending the night together? That’s what my yuri-loving heart likes to hear. But is she going to sleep in the nude like usual?”

The camp was pitch black at night since any lights would have given its position away.

But the boy still walked around the igloos.

All throughout the night.

He was fueled by the completely ordinary desire to not see anyone else die.

But the following morning, a corpse was discovered in one of the igloos.

An unseen attack had occurred in the night and they were left with a new casualty.