61. If Possible, That Is
61. If Possible, That Is
"Assei! Youth!"
"Kyaaaaaaack!!!"
It was another day, unchanged from before.
Days of being relentlessly ground down by Eve.
"Alright, stop right there!"
"Giiiihk.....!!"
The invisible chair.
Maintaining a 90-degree angle.
"Now, just 10 minutes. Endure for just 10 minutes! Begin!"
"Aaaagh....!!"
The agonized groan coming out of my mouth wasn't a groan of understanding.
It was just a groan from the pain.
"Gruuuugh....ugh...oooohk.....!!"
"You can endure it! You can do it!"
Assei! Youth does not break!
Eve kept cheering me on.
When I finally endured for the full 10 minutes to the end, Eve beamed with a bright smile and patted me on the back.
"You've only received one semester of training, yet this level of potential... Chrono, you really are my disciple!"
I could see the talent!
Eve began massaging my body, kneading it gently.
"Haven't you done the Three Major Lifts yet? If we measure again this time, with a bit of luck, I think you could hit 400..."
"....Excuse me?"
"No. Don't underestimate yourself too much."
"I must have misheard you?"
The Three Major Lifts.
I knew it.
I knew what words would come next.
'It can't be, but just in case, though it's just in case...'
Was it "it can't be," or was it "just as I thought"?
I slowly turned my head toward Eve.
"Next semester, let's enter the bodybuilding competition together!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
No! Stop the affection grinding!
The teacher who inevitably used that line when the bond rank surpassed 6 and finally reached 7.
If things continued this way, I was fated to be subjected to bodybuilding without fail next semester.
What? Isn't it good if your body gets stronger?
Well, It's good. On top of that, my stats would increase quite a lot, so the Eve route was essential when raising a brawler-type character.
But that was a story for when raising a brawler. Right now, strictly speaking, I was closer to an assassin or an archer, you know?
In the first place, if a situation arose where I had to use my body, that in itself meant things had already gone to hell!
"For your information, I'll refuse your refusal. As the club president, it's a mandatory participation requirement!"
"....When did I become the president?"
"Today."
"............"
Why not just tell me not to run away?
"Haahhh..."
If there was one silver lining to this misfortune, it was the fact that there was a reward for the bond rank.
From what I remembered, Eve's bond rank reward was probably──[Guts].
It was a passive skill that let you survive a single fatal blow, so it was mainly needed when standing on the vanguard. But I'd said it before: if a ranged dealer was in a life-or-death crisis, that party was already doomed from the start.
'...Should I just run away now?'
The truth was, I'd been coming to the club of my own will. But if I said I hated it, she probably wouldn't demand it anymore.
Since my stamina-related stats had also improved beyond the level of most extras, there would be no justification to hold onto me anymore.
But since I'd raised them this far, maybe I was getting a little greedy──no, I wasn't.
Somehow, I didn't feel an ounce of greed. Not even a speck of dust's worth.
'I shouldn't come starting tomorrow.'
I calmly planned out my future actions.
The moment I tried to get up from my spot──
─Beeeeeep!
"!!, This is... a rescue request."
"Huh?"
A red light burst out and vibrated from the Bracelet Eve was wearing.
A rescue request.
A distress signal.
And the target was...
[Emergency Mission]
[Foolish Children]
-This is an emergency mission issued by Cronus.
1. Rescue the Apostle of Hera (0/1)
2. Rescue the Apostle of Athena (0/1)
3. Rescue the Apostle of Ares (0/1)
4. Rescue the Apostle of Hermes (0/1)
5. Subjugate the True Boss of the Orc Slave Camp, the Troll (0/1)
[Location: Orc Slave Camp]
Reward: Contribution + 100 / Rank Up Qualification
Upon Failure: Trust in me. You will not fail.
"Uh....."
A mission window that suddenly floated up in the air.
The mission written on it.
"......What the?"
Why are you guys written here?
No, I mean, rescuing them, I'd rescue them, but...
".....How am I supposed to get there?"
[....Ah!]
Huh?
Cronus?
At the voice that suddenly tickled my ear, I lifted my eyes to the sky. Before I knew it, the world began to be dyed in gray.
"Time... stopped."
Well, since I wasn't the one stopped, it must have been Cronus.
Soon, a white and black aura shimmered right in front of me, and a small gate began to form.
"....Sigh."
I had to go.
But if I went, it would be absolute hell.
Yet if I didn't go, would that just be the start of the NTR Event?
"Is there no helping it?"
For now, I'd decide after going in.
I stepped into the gate.
****************
[Orc Slave Camp]
To be precise, [Troll's Food Storage].
It was roughly a place created by the True Boss, the Troll, to breed its food source, the orcs. The True Boss appeared when you hunted orcs beyond a certain number.
"But isn't this one notoriously hard to see?"
The thing was, "beyond a certain number" was just that in name only.
It was hard to make it appear unless you scoured the entire dungeon, hunting down orcs like rats. In short, it was an Easter egg.
Orcs themselves were easy to hunt.
An Orc King was also tough by the time you were hunting orcs, but not impossible to catch.
However, if that target became a Troll──the story changed drastically.
"It was also a guy that basically popped out to tell you 'don't catch it.'"
You know, there are those things.
When you try to keep grinding in the same spot, suddenly something like a ghost jumps out, an invincible monster that rushes you to finish the stage quickly.
The Troll's case was roughly similar to that.
A notice telling you to stop thinking about grinding and just go back.
In this case, if you ran away, it would let you escape.
But if you drew your sword against the Troll...
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Gwooooooaaarrr!!!"
...You ended up exactly like that.
A single troll enthusiastically pounding the Protagonist into a pulp.
It loaded its massive, heavy weight onto one foot and crushed the Protagonist's body into a bloody mess.
Thanks to the Bracelet, I should say he was merely turned into mush just short of dying, rather than outright dead.
I slowly scanned the surroundings, checking where the other girls had collapsed.
"Gwaaah...ah...arghk...."
Mars, collapsed on the floor with her joints bent the wrong way, vomiting blood.
"I'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorryI'm sorry."
Minerva, prostrate on the floor, her whole body trembling.
"Hehehe.....Am I gonna die....?"
Yuno, who had completely lost her mind.
And.
"──────"
...Merk seemed to be roughly pretending to be dead.
Maybe because she kept following the original Protagonist around, she had built up her bond rank enough to avoid a full mental breakdown, it seemed.
Even in this mess, she was subtly inching her body along the wall to get away, trying to save herself. Just as one might expect from an apostle serving the God of Thieves, her survival instinct seemed thoroughly impeccable.
'First, I do need to rescue all the kids, but...'
The problem was, it didn't end with just rescuing the kids.
5. Subjugate the True Boss of the Orc Slave Camp, the Troll (0/1)
"....That thing?"
Cronus was telling me to defeat that thing.
I alternated my gaze between the mission window and the troll and pondered.
"That thing..."
Could I really do it?
...
..
.
[....That thing?]
A flustered expression.
At the same time, both eyes slowly began to narrow.
[That thing....]
He considered it.
He racked his brain. He squeezed out wisdom and forged a path to victory.
'Heh... hehehe...!'
Cronus was certain.
Clearly, my child would tear apart that filthy Abyssal Monster and seize victory.
After all, this child named Chrono had always been that kind of child.
When he faced the Apostle of Ares one day,
When he played a survival game alone on an island one day,
When he faced death in the middle of an ant nest one day,
Chrono was always the same.
Absurdity was familiar to him, and trials were the same as life itself.
Therefore, Cronus could be even more certain.
[...There is no helping it.]
Yes.
There was no helping it.
This was a trial, a trial that I was bestowing.
But it was by no means a trial that could not be overcome.
"Trust in me. You will never disappoint me, for you are the one and only warrior I have chosen, my one and only apostle, and my one and only child!"
Rise up.
Look ahead.
Do not yield, and do not be afraid.
For I am always with you, behind you.
"Raise my name high and crush my enemies!"
A Divine Word.
Advice and prophecy bestowed upon the apostle.
Cronus believed without a shadow of a doubt that Chrono would never be defeated──and then──
[───Run awaaaaay!!!]
"That bastard is running away, though?"
"......Huh?"
A single sentence from Hermes.
Literally, Chrono ran away.
To be precise, he diverted the troll's attention to buy time so the other apostles could escape.
"No...no, this...haah...?"
It wasn't the expressionless face carefully crafted for the other gods to see.
Nor was it the cheerful expression he had been merrily laughing with under the mask.
It was a face mixed with emptiness, anger, irritation, and embarrassment.
"Th-this... such an insolent wretch have I seen!"
Cronus raised his voice.
But the situation had already occurred.
"Running away... Pfft, prft! Indeed, is it not also a wise act to flee before an insurmountable foe?"
"Er... errrk...!!"
What appeared before the mirror was not the image of a warrior drawing his sword, but merely the struggle of an ordinary human trying to live.
At the ugly human flailing, in which the figure of a noble hero could never be seen, Cronus shouted out once more.
"Fight back! Did I not tell you?!"
[If it's impossible, it's impossiblllllle!!!]
"You utter idiot!!"
Though I appointed you as my warrior,
you dare to smear all manner of feces upon my face!
"Running away... how unmanly."
"Hmm, but I think it looks okay? It's better than dying!"
At least Hermes was viewing it favorably.
"Even if you die, a man must fight to the death!"
"....Just as I'd expect from someone whose head is filled with nothing but muscle."
"What? Did you call me a gorilla whose brain is filled with shit?!"
"I didn't go that far....."
Athena also didn't purely think badly of it.
[Get up! And run! If we just stall for time, the teacher will come to rescue us!]
"Pfft! Pft... kehehe!"
"................"
Hera's laughter.
Just as her unique, high-pitched, thin laughter echoed in his eardrums, the last string of Cronus's reason snapped.
"Fine."
Running away, was it?
There's nothing wrong with it.
"Try running away once."
Cronus reached out his hand toward Chrono.
Soon, something like a black aura began to seep into the mirror──
[──Huh?]
Cronus spoke.
He conveyed a Divine Word to his apostle.
"If you can, that is."
[Emergency Mission]
[Try to Survive Until Help Arrives]
-This is an emergency mission issued by Cronus.
1. Evade the Troll and survive [5m 00s]
Reward: Survival
Upon Failure: Death