The calm atmosphere and warm sunshine from early spring drifted in the club room after school. Right now, I was relaxing while playing around with painting tools after several drafts drawing the poster for the service club. My draw finally has been approved by the person sitting next to me, a young girl with a cold beauty attitude named Yukino. She seriously put her line in the poster.

After we finished making that poster, the two of us went to scan this poster and print the poster out. This school was impressive that we could do all of this within the school facility. As expected, a prestigious school couldn't be that bad.

We put the poster on a bulletin board and a notice board that has been given permission by Shizuka-sensei. It was late afternoon when we finished all of this work. I thought that we would complete this task faster than this, but unexpectedly this girl had a high standard, so I needed to draw several draft posters.

Not only to me, but Yukino was also hard on her own work. We talked long enough and changed several times before she was really satisfied with the poster.

And so I went home with her for the day before Yukino had another plan.

"Well then, it's about time to go shopping." Yukino calmly invited me to go shopping with her.

"Okay, I'll come and carry the bags. I've got nothing better to do."

And so we headed out into the shopping area with Yukino in the lead while I just followed her around.

"Could you call shopping together with a date, or not?" I asked Yukino what she thought about this. Since I kinda feel bored while my handheld reusable shopping bags and were filled with vegetables, milk, fish, and other groceries.

Yukino quickly smiled friendly at me and said,

"Why are you asking something stupid like that?"

"Well, you don't need to attack me like that, just need to humor me a little…"

"Hm… I don't think of this as a date or anything like that. If you call a date "every time man and woman go together, it will be quite absurd."

"Is that so." Even Though I asked her quite silly questions, she answered with a serious answer.

"For me, something like a date is when the man and woman promised each other to meet or have fun together with romantic implications."

"Which means we never had a date. So how about we have one?" I shamelessly asked Yukino for a date.

 "............." Yukino didn't look like she was about to answer my question. So I waited for her to continue. Instead, she pointed to takoyaki stands nearby.

"Do you like takoyaki?" She asked, seemingly embarrassed for some reason.

"I see… takoyaki." I looked at takoyaki stands. "They look good."

"Have you tried takoyaki before?" Yukino said with a low voice.

Hm… How I answered this question. Since I came to this world, I had never really eaten takoyaki, which was the same in my past life. I also never eat takoyaki directly in Japan.

"I never tried it before."

"Is that so. How about I bought you one." Yukino answered in an upbeat tone of voice and went to takoyaki stands.

It didn't take long before she came back with takoyaki in her hand. There were eight pieces of takoyaki that still had steam in them. She looked at my hand that was full of grocery bags.

"How about we take a break?"

We were at the tiny park just outside the shopping area. With the sun about to set, there were no children around. Also, there was no sign of people, and no one was here besides the two of us.

We sat down on a park bench together. We took a rest for a bit while eating takoyaki. This takoyaki had a soft texture with savory oceanic flavor and chewy octopus inside of it. It was a standard street food flavor. It was good, but not that delicious or bad either.

"How is it, Saku. Is the takoyaki tasty?"

"It's fine."

I took the last piece of takoyaki and gulped a tea I bought on the way to the park. After all, hard work made posters and shopping. It was pretty nice to enjoy some snacks. Yukino and I enjoyed our little time to rest.

"It's her!" I could hear some screaming as the start before several people were entering the quiet park. Several men with scary-looking faces were clearly not "reputable" people.

They seemed scared and afraid of something. I thought about what I did yesterday, but there was no way they knew about that scandal because of me. Also, they screamed while pointing at the girl beside me. This means they more likely from a group that targeted Mr. Yukinoshita.

These people talked about vague things since they were talking to each other, but it wasn't. But, Yukino could tell who the person they were targeting was. She immediately hid herself behind me while her hand tugged at my uniform.

"Do you know any of them?" I said it to her.

"Of course not…"

"Is that so. Could you step back a little?" I asked Yukino. She realized that she closed enough and moved back a little.

"Ah, yes. I call the police…" Yukino said with a trembling voice.

Four scary men made a move at us. Two of them charged at me with a knife in their hand. Since Yukino saw what I was doing, I couldn't do anything crazy. But, I could do something with the simplest and cheapest weapon yet possessed sufficient damage. Throwing a stone.

I didn't have a stone, so a coin of yen was enough.

I aimed at their head, especially their forehead. I was confident with my strength and accuracy, especially from this kind of distance. There was no way I could miss it.

For normal humans, it was an overwhelming power that could damage their brains. Each of them shot in their head and fallen down. They couldn't get up again.

"Eh…" Yukino was surprised.

The other three were the same. They were looking at each other. They were obviously afraid of me, but in the end, they still charged at us once again. So there was something they were afraid of rather than damaging their head. They were running while projecting their head with their hand.

That was a big mistake since they projected their forehead. I threw a coin at their nose. I could hear the sound of cracking from their direction. I didn't realize they were coming because they didn't follow us. They walked straight forward at us, so someone was monitoring Yukino from outside my radar.

Well, these people had someone that knew about me. So they really took my weakness very well.

Yukino gave me blank stares. She may be feeling really confused right now. She thought she was attacked, but it was over even before she tried to call the police. She didn't say anything for a while. With dazed expressions, she simply stared at me as she was firmly entranced by something.

"Are you alright, Yukino?"

The moment I asked her, Yukino flinched. Light returned to their blank eyes.

"I-I'm fine! Don't worry!" Yukino said with eyes of puzzlement and gratefulness.

"Good to hear that." I was kind of relieved to hear that. Seeing her act like that makes me wonder if I did something quite extreme. After what happened in the past, I expected that my own standard was still quite broken even after rehabilitation.

"Ah, yeah. I'm fi…"

Before Yukino finished her line, she stopped and stared at something. I could feel it. It was a sudden rising of mana at someone. One man woke up with his broken nose bleeding, and his eyes started to bleed too.

I immediately closed Yukino with my blazer from my uniform and threw several mana chains at him.

I had a bad feeling. I felt a sense of unknown nervousness. For as long as I could remember, a sudden rising of mana could be something terrible.

"Please, whatever happened, don't open your eyes!" I shouted at Yukino at the same time.

"Shit!"

That bleeding eyes. The red eyes… turned to a vivid green with snake-pupil eyes. I was looking within a second before moving my stare at his body, but it was enough to stop my mana chain and my body for a moment.

My body didn't petrify and became stone which meant that medusa eyes were still not completed. But still strong enough to stop people or maybe since my mana was high enough to stand it. I didn't know which one it was.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

There was a big wave of mana around that man.

He screamed in pain. This condition was dangerous. To think, they would do this in the center of big cities. I leaped at him and ignored him that attacked me several times.

My only thought was to put him in a place where there were no humans around. So I destroyed some manholes and put him and me in the sewer.

Threw him to some distance since he had been scratched all over my body. It had been a long time since someone hurt me like this. This means this man has enough mana to penetrate my mana shield. Even though I didn't see his eyes anymore. His mana was enough to make my body heavier. 

"This is really troublesome." I cursed myself. Working with the government, make sure to prioritize public safety.

I could have just finished him as fast as possible, but there was no way I did it in front of Yukino. I just didn't want her to know this side of me—one of my selfishness.

The man in front of me had changed to other beings. His body changed not to become a snake-like body but more to a lizard. His hand changed to razor-sharp-looking claws. Green hardened scaly skin.

"What a poor guy…"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

He didn't stop screaming. No, it was a howl. A cry. And an agony one.

Even though I didn't look at his eyes. I could see a lot of blood streaming down from his eyes like a cry,

"I'm putting you out of your misery…"

No wonder they were afraid of something. This means they knew what happened if they failed to do anything to Yukino.

I put off my mana shield around me and sent it to my hand. I forgot all of my defense and put all-out attack mode. I could be dangerous, but I need to preserve my mana. In my hand, I made a mana shape like a drill.

That man charged at me.

His hand tried to rip me apart. But I destroyed his hand with my drill mana.

And like a knife cut a butter, I ended him. My hand slashed at him and destroyed his body like a cheap toy.

At the end of the day, he was just an artificial monster made by an organization that has been made for several days or weeks.

After I killed him… the sewer was silent.

Just me alone.

Soaked wet with blood.

 

You successfully completed 'Mysterious Experiment III’

+10 P

 

***

BAM

Yukino could hear some explosion that made her body twitch because she was surprised. Her vision was covered by Saku blazer.

Hearing some of the explosions, Yukino threw a Saku blazer. Even though he ordered her not to do that. But, she couldn't help to worry about him.

The last time she saw it was something like a horror movie. She saw a man knocked up by Saku to get back up with blood in her nose and his eyes also bleeding.

In front of Yukino were just several passed-out men, but there was no Saku or the man with bloody eyes. She was bewildered. Many things happened for a moment, and Yukino couldn't grasp what was happening.

"Saku----"

Before she knew it, she called his name. Of course, no one replied to her. Yukino started to worry something happened to him. She stood up and looked around her. But she didn't find him. She thought about the explosion and couldn't help that explosion could be related to him.

But, Yukino stopped her step when someone stood in front of her. It was a girl around her age who used the same uniform as her. Her long flowing hair seemed brown like color. Yukino recognized her. She once saw her. She was one of the top students in her first year and had a different reputation than her. Her name was Yuri Mariya. She knows more for an innocent, pure maiden, beautiful, but very intelligent, and also an ojou-sama.

"If you are looking for Yamada-san. He carried someone who looked hurt."

Yuri told Yukino. When Yukino heard that, she asked her.

"You know Saku?"

"Yeah, we work in the same part-time job."

At that time, Yukino didn't realize it. But her thought at that time was… 'Another girl?'

"So you don't have to worry about him, and if you worry about him, you can follow me."

Yuri gave Yukino an option, but after what happened, she couldn't help to feel anxious. Even though she worried about Saku. After remembering that there someone tried to attack her and so she couldn't trust her.

"I… I… waiting at home." So she chose to stay away from her. She could ask where Saku went, but there was no way she told her the truth. Yukino remembered that Saku protected her. So it was better to not make him more worried.

In the end, Yukino called a taxi and chose to go home.