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Kidnapped to Another World

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

 

 

 

 

 

There was a long silence and we could hear the wind howling through the windows barren of glass, while everyone including the orcs was still as far as what we could hear. The nasty smoke was thick though and I wasn’t ready to be able to move because we were so blind again. It took awhile for the smoke to clear, so we couldn’t tell what had happened to the boss orc pig either, and I was worried he’d somehow still be alive.

While the smoke is clearing I don’t hear any movement.

Does that mean it’s safe? Or not?

Plus it hurt to move still for a good minute or two while the smoke was still there. After a little while I could somehow move around. It seemed were just stunned a little bit but our bodies felt like we’d just done a belly flop from the high dive at the pool from the impact of the explosion. I felt around and was relieved when I was all in one piece and not burned. Yumi was also doing well too, and mostly undamaged, but I could tell she was hurting and she did have a whole slew of minor scratches and smaller cuts.

I think I was protected from the explosion because I’d gotten behind a nearby desk.

“Can you move?” I whispered to Yumi.

“Aaaa…..ummm,” she’s groaning. Our eyes met and she nodded briefly. I could see in her heart she was trusting that at least the two of us were alive and could still possibly get out of here. It was like a faint spark of hope in her eyes.

“Is it …over?” Yumi coughed, and kept coughing from the heavy smoke and fatique. She was leaning over and both of us were on the ground, even though the concrete was so icky.

“My…clothes…are ruined too,” she frowned in a froggy smog choked voice.

Around us others were also coughing and choking on the smoke.

“Looks like most of us lived through the explosion,” someone said.

There’s more complaining, and groaning while people are picking themselves up.

“Water,” pleaded Yuta while clutching the ground.

Nobody listens to him.

“We’ll get water later! For now make sure those things are gone! Where are they? I can’t see!” someone said.

“Hurry! Check the barricade,” I said.

“Um…they’re gone?” someone said.

“I don’t see any orcs,” someone cried out. “Where did they go?”

“What? They have to be here! Don’t let them get me!” some girl cried, bawling furiously.

“They have to be here! They might be hiding!” someone cried out in despair.

“Don’t let them kill us!” someone was crying. In fact a lot of kids were crying now too.

“So….much…smoke,” Kenji cried out pitifully.

“can’t…fight…anymore,” Akira said with finality. “I-I’m too injured to do anymore,” he cried out.

“Yo-you can’t stop! You’re invincible!” Yuta pleaded in panic.

“Just shut up! You’re all so noisy!” Asakura said.

But Akira dropped the spear again and he was wheezing. His spear clattered to the floor with a lot of noise, after all the shaft was hard wood and the floor was concrete. Elsewhere everything else was quiet except for people’s sufferings.

He and Yuriko were near us, but we were near ground zero where Yamamoto Sensei’s homemade chemical bomb had gone off. Yuriko hadn’t been able to cover them as fast either so both of them had burns on their bodies. Yuriko’s clothes were sparking and had small puffs of flame which she tried to put out by rolling around and her arm was all blistered and caked with ash, and red tissue that was swollen up where her small amounts of skin was starting to peel off like an overly heavy sunburn.

“Hurts,” Yuriko managed to gasp.

Near her Akira had taken much of a blast and his right side was a bit charred though thankfully it was only first and second degree burns, and not third degree burns. Still, it looked really awful and he was only slightly limping along after he pushed himself to his feet with his left hand.

He spat up some blood, and we were looking at him worriedly. “I just bit my lip, don’t worry, it’s not that bad. It’s cool,” he said.

We sighed. “You scared us,” Yuriko growled. She slapped him in the chest, but he cried out from her hitting the raw burned area.

“Oops, sorry.”

“Hurts…though…burns,” he barely managed to say while staying on his feet. He had his eyes closed tightly and was sucking in air only slowly and with a lot of concentration. “…pain…” I heard him whisper.

“Where are the other orcs?” I hurriedly said.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” Yumi started to say. She was looking around us but mysteriously none of the orcs were approaching us anymore. In fact, after the bomb had gone off they’d fled back down the stairs and weren’t coming up anymore.

“What does it mean? Would they come back?” Asakura said trembling so badly it came out as a frantic whisper.

“I don’t know. But they lost less people than we did. So I would think they should come back right? We’ll have to be ready just in case. If the boss was like their general it might explain why they ran.”

I still suspected that they were watching, however. I kept my grip on my fireman’s axe. I kept glancing over there to be sure, where I’d last seen them, although they seemed to be gone now.

By now we weren’t coughing as much and trying to pick ourselves up. Other students were slowly getting up but the blast radius of Sensei’s bomb had burned a lot of people. The only thing that made the damage not so bad was how quickly the air had exploded, so that after the initial blast most the heat had dissipated quickly.

“That…was…holy …crap,” choked out Kenji.

“I know right…who knew…Yamamoto Sensei was a chemical expert…?” Yuta echoed after him.

“Oh come on there’s nothing experty about just playing with matches and gasoline like stuff,” Akira said.

“Can you really call him an expert though, if he was blown up too?” someone argued back.

“Well it was self sacrifice to save us. Baldy Sensei is a hero,” a girl said.

If he’s such a hero why do you call him that I thought.

But then we finally could see where the densest part of the smoke and flame had dissipated.

“Oh …my …hell,” Yumi gasped in shock and full of tears.

One of the judo kids hurriedly put someone’s uniform jacket over the head and face of Yamamoto Sensei’s remains. It was too terrible to look at the charred body and even in death he was grimacing at the orc, though his eyes were burned off and much of his face, exposing the skeletal skull outline beneath the burned off skin and the orc skull was about the same. His hand that was in a grip like it was holding where the bag used to be but was now little more than shredded pieces of bones and flesh.

One of the students began puking and dry heaving from what he’d just seen and a few others were trying to keep it in too.

“How…awful,” Asakura Sensei gasped. “I’m…so sorry!” She was gently tapping Rina’s back, who was crying nonstop. They were huddled together for emotional comfort.

“Hey, where did the orcs go?” Yuta asked.

“I think they are retreating for now,” someone said.

“Good …question…” coughed out Akira. “Pain…” I heard him whisper.

“Anyone got any aspirin?” Yuriko hoarsely cried out. “Just let me have one too, if there is any…”

“If I did I’d have to use it for myself,” Kenji cried out through his bruised up face and raccoon eyes.

“Sorry, I’d kill my own dog for an aspirin right now,” Yuta said. I briefly wondered if he really would kill his own dog, some people get tempted through various means…

“I hurt….so bad …right now…” Akira wailed.

Yuriko wanted to comfort him but instead held back seeing that if she were to touch him it would be pretty awful to bear.

“We have to figure out where the orcs went!” I hurriedly said, before people got off track.

“Check the …windows?” Yuta started to say, but then we looked at the window sill area that the other kids had been defending behind us. That whole area had been in such an angle that we couldn’t monitor it while fighting the boss orc.

“Holy shit!”

“They’re all dead!” one of the kids exclaimed.

Turning we followed his line of sight.

Around the window sill area where tons of bodies, stacked like three feet high of both orc bodies and human young adult bodies all on top of each other in the most awful mess I’d seen. It was like a big flesh junkyard. Both sides at the window sill had been so desperate that most everyone had fought to the death. The kids knew they couldn’t retreat because they were already trapped in the school, and no one to save them and nowhere to run anymore since this was already the last place to go. The orcs had also been stuck being unable to go back down because of orcs coming up the trees behind them.

The result was the massive flesh junkyard that had been right next to us almost the entire time, and with all of us already fighting and shouting with the boss pig orc we hadn’t realized how much carnage was happening next to us.

“Wow,” some of us gasped seeing it.

Rina had seen parts of it I think, but she was so weak she probably didn’t even have the strength to cry out. She was leaning against Sensei.

As a result while we’d been fighting and shouting, they’d all been dying one after another. There must have been over two hundred or so kids dead there all piled up with a good number of orcs too, plus piles of dead in other places. Unfortunately with no barricade to fight over the deaths of the students were vastly higher than the number of dead orcs.

“So sad,” Rina finally choked on her words.

“Hey, where are the other judo club members,” Akimoto asked. He was one of the captains of the judo club. He was looking around for his team mates nervously with a sort of dazed look and it looked like he had some kind of a head wound. Actually I’m surprised he was still alive. First one way then the other, then he glanced over to the door to the roof.

“Um, I think you’re the only one left,” Yuta said slowly.

“Fuck!”

It that a gang tattoo on his arm? When did he get that? I’d heard rumors. The others haven’t noticed it probably but I did.

Long silence…that was pretty devastating news for all of us actually.

Hey it’s almost sun up! We were fighting so long I didn’t realize how long it’d been,” Asakura Sensei said looking towards the window.

“Well you didn’t fight too much did you Sensei?” one of the rude kids said.

“Someone had to keep Rina safe, plus they did take some of the wounded to the roof and coordinate the support people. You can’t coordinate when you can’t see what’s going on,” I replied.

“Yeah it is easier to see now. You’re right it’s like right when dawn hits I think. I think the sun is coming up soon,” someone said.

“So there’s so many dead everywhere,” Yumi cried out.

“Maybe we’re being punished by God,” someone said sadly.

“Punished? Maybe…” someone said.

“No, this is someone else’s mischief done to us,” Yuta argued back. “First off, how the fudge did the orc pigs find us so fast? We weren’t even here an hour and they found the school. Answer that first.” Then he snorted in derision.

“You think someone did this to us?” I asked, puzzled. I scratched my head, after checking Yumi for wounds. Ironically Yumi, Rina, and Asakura Sensei were the only ones not badly hurt. I wasn’t as bad as the others but I still had my whole side covered with bruises that were already turning blue and forming dark spots on my side. A lot of people had blood shot eyes from hits to the face, a few broken noses, bruised arms and bones were common where they’d tried to block jabs.

“I think so. But I can only say for sure if I have a chance to get more evidence and details,” Yuta said pushing his glasses up his nose. He hadn’t been wearing them in the battle, but now he did so after pulling them from his pockets.

“Hey, what’s that?” Kenji pointed towards the boss orc’s body. Its body was mostly melted and completely covered in gore but sure enough where Kenji was pointing there was something sparkly hanging from the belt that the creature had been wearing.

“You want to check it out? You put up the most fight and kept it together for us,” he said looking at me.

I glanced at Akira, who waved me forward while he was trying to not move so his pain would be less, “go ahead. You maimed its arm and leg which opened up a win and Yamamoto Sensei is already dead. So it’s probably yours anyway.”

“Don’t forget the gold earrings?” Kenji flashed his teeth in a weak pitiful smile. He was trying to be positive.

“Gold?” Students were getting curious once someone said it aloud.

“You’ll share the loot right?” one kid asked. I recognized him, he was giving me an angry look and he was taller than me, and big. I recognized him as one of Abe and Mori’s goons. He was a bully for sure and preyed off other students.

I briefly wondered if they were alive or dead too. It was a shame if they were…

I ignored him, but met his eyes with a challenge. I knew if I acted weak he’d try to take things by force, so I kept the axe on my shoulder. He even stepped towards me until he remembered and saw what I was carrying.

Carefully I stepped forward, but not before testing the body. He was so vicious and terrible to fight I poked it a few times to make sure it was dead. Of course his face was melted off and so was much of his chest, but still I was too afraid not to. Carefully I moved towards the belt, wondering what the strange sparkly thing was.

I reached out carefully and used the pointed edge of the axe to nudge charred ash and debris away from the sparkly thing. What was it?

But then I heard foot steps coming up behind me. It was the goon from Mori’s gang again.

“Don’t even think about it. Back away,” I warned him, fingering the axe handle.

He was about six feet away and giving me a funny look, which was almost challenging. He seemed kind of cocky, and like he was amused too. “I see you guys are all tore up. Nice!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Akira warned. “He’s proven he can handle that axe, and everyone else here is working together to protect each other. I know you belong to Mori and Abe’s gang,” he coughed out.

Yuta and Kenji also got closer to act protectively.

“Actually, where were you this whole time? You don’t have a fleck of blood on you. You aren’t even dirty, and no wounds. I think you hid while everyone else was fighting,” Yuta said in that strange way of his. It seems Yuta had really sharp eyes and good cunning. I’d have to remember that for the future.

“I fought. I did plenty, killed tons of orcs. And yes, we confirmed they are orcs,” the kid responded. He’s lying through his teeth obviously.

“Oh,…let’s see I remember now. You’re the one they nicknamed Shale right?” Kenji chuckled.

“I think you ran away and hid somewhere,” Yuriko said crossing her arms.

Shale was true to his appearance, a total gangster. He had some kind o funky chain to his belt from his wallet, and droopy pants, and heavy soled boots and all black leather clothes and spiky hair. But strangely enough Yuta and Yuriko were both right. He had not a fleck of either red blood or green blood on himself, though everyone else was soaked in it. Even Rina and Asakura Sensei had some spray hit them.

Some of the girls were murmuring and saying things and it was picking up noise. People weren’t convinced of his lies after all. The noise of people getting mad and upset was picking up too.

“I won’t forget this! Fools!” Shale ran off down the hall and around the corner. But not before kicking some other boy on the way, knocking him to the floor. The kid grimaced in pain and couldn’t get up for awhile.

“Wish he’d gotten eaten, is that wrong of me to think?” Yuriko asked.

“I don’t think you are a bad person,” Akira heaved out hoarsely.

“Actually let’s give her a medal. I want him to get eaten too,” Yumi wheezed.

“Well aren’t you going to find out what that blue sparkly thing is?” Asakura Sensei wondered curiously.

“Hmm, yeah, now that the distractions are out of the way,” I said.

Carefully I stuck my hand out to try to grab the blue sparkly thing. At first it was tied into the belt securely, so it couldn’t be stolen from the orc’s comrades. I had to work at the knotting of leather cords that were holding it in but it had a faint glow to it and seemed really strange and mysterious. The knots were really tight, and made of some really strange supple leather too, which was really light colored, unlike cattle leather entirely. It took a long time to work at the knots and finally I ended up cutting it loose with the axe blade.

“Woah, it’s glowing,” Yuta said curiously, as he walked closer.

Curiously I held it in my hand. It was almost tiny and gem-like but strange and had some kind of weird energy flowing out.

I was surprised though when the object melted into thin air though after I’d had it in my hands for a bit.

Huh? Where did it go?

“What the hell?!” I started to say…but then a blue screen popped up in front of me in mid air. Puzzled I looked at it and apparently the others were too.

“What the fuck is that?!” Yumi gasped.

The blue screen was full of strange glyph like writing, but I couldn’t understand any of it. It looked like some kind of notice. It wasn’t Chinese and wasn’t Japanese either. It puzzled me but did appear to be a pictograph type of writing system.

“Hey it looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics?” Yumi guessed looking over her shoulder.

“Yeah that does look like Egyptian all right. But why here?” Asakura said.

“Yeah, but how the hell am I supposed to read it or know what it says?” I wondered aloud, scratching my head.”

“Yeah that does look Egyptian, when I was a kid I loved looking at Egypt stuff,” Akira said. “Pictographic writing systems usually mean a really old, long time established system, and the oldest of civilizations.”

“Ah that makes sense! If the whatever system this is tied too is the center of this world’s civilizations then of course it would be from an older writing system!” Asakura Sensei said excitedly.

“Oh hell, they don’t speak Japanese do they?” Kenji cringed. “Why does it have to be a non-Japanese world?! Dammit!”

“Don’t you think that’s selfish of you to just want them to give up their language just for you?!” Yuriko cried out.

“Well how would people on another world be able to speak Japanese? That seems even weirder,” the only judo survivor said.

Everyone was looking at him funny, so he replied with a shrug, “what? What did I say something wrong here?!”

“Well of course a bunch of pig orcs aren’t going to speak Japanese,” someone spat out maliciously.

“Well if it’s a magic status window of some kind, even though it came from a pig orc, that doesn’t mean that the pig orcs use the hieroglyphics. Maybe the people of this world and their magic system write in Egyptian hieroglyphics?” Yuta guessed.

“Ooh, you are so smart Yuta. I’m sure you have a bright future ahead of you,” Asakura Sensei nodded, while playing with Rina’s hair. The two of them stayed resting but were watching intently.

“Eh? But if they can’t speak Japanese why would they use Egyptian hieroglyphics too? Heiroglyphics also come from Earth after all. Isn’t that even more weird?” Yumi wondered aloud.

“Well even if that’s true…” Yuta started to say, but then he glanced at my blue status window thing…whatever it was. Then he took a few steps forward after it looked like he was so surprised his eyes might pop out. “Hey! What the hell?! I can read it!”

Big shock…no one knew what to say.

“Liar!” someone said. Then I heard someone hit him, saying not bother the great Yuta.

Was there now a Yuta cult?

“You can read Egyptian hieroglyphics?” Yumi wondered suspiciously.

“Eh?” some of the girls gasped in admiration. Some of them were really excited now and looking at Yuta like he was a basketball star. But, it was Yuta after all…how could that be?! It didn’t make sense.

“Yuta’s so smart.”

“Is Yuta dating anyone?”

“How did Yuta learn hieroglyphics?”

The murmuring continued, but got quieter.

Yuta blushed, “Well, uh, actually, I wish I could say I had studied Egyptian but I haven’t. I don’t know why I can read it, but to me for some reason it looks like it’s just like reading Japanese.”

“Eh?” More astonishment from several people came right after.

“Good job bro. this is totally cool. We got people who are ass kickers and got skills. Maybe it’s proof that we were meant for this world!” someone said.

Someone hit him the hit, “idiot! Tell that to all the people that died!” some girl said while doing.

“Yeah, but how do we explain this? It doesn’t make sense. People don’t just suddenly have new skills without a cost and without learning them. It takes years to cultivate some skills,” Yuriko croaked while letting Akira lean on her for pity…and probably partly because she was beautiful. I could have sworn I heard him whisper to her to carry him in the princess carry…but I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination.

“Uh, but if you can read it and you didn’t learn any other languages…how is that possible?” Kenji asked.

“I wonder how this is possible too. I shouldn’t be able to read this,” Yuta wondered, shaking his head. “Am I like…possessed or something?” he briefly wondered.

“I think you are too much of a nerd to be possessed,” Kenji joked, slapping him on the shoulder. “Aren’t you glad you are ‘special’?” he grinned.

“Did you study other languages back home?” I asked.

He also hasn’t explained what the screen said huh? Why is that? And he’s putting on airs.

He didn’t answer right away, but then finally let out a big gulp of air. “Not really, but I wanted to be a linguist when I grew up. I always thought it would be cool to be able to travel anywhere and stuff. I was acquiring books to learn Korean, and trying to learn English, and Chinese characters. But it was only a desire at the time. I hadn’t actually made any progress yet.” He looked really embarrassed and his face was bright red.

“And your claim that korean manhwas are drawn better than a lot of manga recently has nothing to do with that?” some girl asked, to which he didn’t respond but blushed.

“Hmm. So could desire be part of it?” Yumi wondered.

“Well, I don’t know. Can anyone else read the screen?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s a good idea. If he can read it with no training, maybe others can also read it?” Asakura Sensei said excitedly.

Yuta frowned when she said that. He seemed to not like the idea that he’s not that special.

“I want to be able to do magic like Yuta,” someone said.

“But it isn’t magic, it’s just a special skill,” someone argued, shutting it down. But maybe they said that from jealousy, I realized in afterthought.

One by one the other kids came forward and took a look at it, but after like three or four minutes it was confirmed that Yuta and one other girl named Raya were the only ones who could read it.

“Cool, doesn’t this make us like a team?” Yuta exclaimed trying to flirt with her.

Raya looked at him suspiciously, after all she was a nice looking, very pretty girl but right now she was covered in gore and guts. “Well, even so. It doesn’t make us together you know…” she frowned at him crossing her arms over her chest. She also happened to be a survivor that had been buried under a ton of bodies near the window area, so we’d not even noticed her this whole time.

Yuta’s bright face and hopes of a girlfriend were crushed mercilessly. But I didn’t want him to dwell on the killing blow she’d just given him and I felt bad for him so I tried to change the subject. “Well we don’t have a lot of time; help me to know what the status screen says, please.”

Yuta and Raya came over looking over my shoulder. Raya put her hand on my forearm while making Yumi angry at her, “Uh, it says…magic survivor-ship inheritance system activated. Loot transfer active; calculating survivor-ship benefits. Standby for calculation. Standby. Loading, please wait. Click next for tabled results.”

“Someone explain this to me? It’s too weird,” Yumi looked kind of bug-eyed. She kept shaking her head. “Magic?”

“Eh? Click? How are we supposed to click?” I wondered.

“You touch that thing there,” Raya said, trying to hit it for me but her hand passed through the screen even though she could see and read it. Puzzled she looked at her hand funny wondering why she couldn’t touch it. “Huh, that’s weird, I can’t touch other people’s screens even though I can read them? I guess only you can interact with it now Shun.”

“That’s good I guess, prevents hacking or stealing maybe?” Asakura Sensei said.

“Hmm, it must mean because it sees Shun as the person acquiring the inherited stuff?” Yuta guessed, while scratching his chin.

“Well this is so weird, it’s like an RPG right?” Akira gasped, while looking from close by.

“We’re not in an RPG. Those pig orcs were real,” Yumi said clearly upset. “If you have people believing it’s a game there’s no end to the consequences that could cause.”

“I don’t mean it’s not real, but …I don’t know. It sounds like a magic looting and property transfer system,” he shrugged weakly.

“But why didn’t it do that when we were trading like other stuff before then?” the judo captain said with his arms crossed.

“Not sure,” Asakura Sensei said.

“So click next, hurry,” Raya said, jumping up and down excitedly. “I want to know what kind of loot we got.”

“You mean, he got,” Yuta said correcting her.

Raya blushed, “oh right. Well he can choose to share right?” She seemed to be looking at me really sweetly like I’d just asked her out on a date. Uh, oh, that was gold digger mode. It made me nervous. I’d seen girls do that to guys before.

“Don’t pressure him,” Yumi growled defensively and steeping between us.

I clicked the icon that Raya and Yuta had been pointing at. Immediately the screen changed and then I could see small picture icons of the faces of our team and a bunch of numbers and other figures also in the other language.

“What’s this part say?” I asked.

Yuta’s nose scrunched up, and him and Raya had to study it for a bit, “it says it’s like a kill chart. Like when you play a certain game called Leage of Laggers it has kills and damage listed, and this is kind of like that. Wow, it says Akira and you got like a shiz load killed.”

“But is that necessary? What determines if that activates for some fights and not for others?” Asakura Sensei wondered, also looking over.

“Well maybe it has to have some kind of conditions that cause it to activate?” I guessed.

“Yeah, but what,” Yuta wondered.

“Well, Yuriko and I helped,” Yumi fumed, mad at not getting any credit.

“It is true that we did well only because those two were keeping us safe,” I admitted. “Thanks Yumi, and Yuriko.” They both smiled and gave me nods, but Yumi added a salute. But the salute made me frown because I could see her blisters were bloody and ripped open pretty badly.

“Thanks, I just wanted to be appreciated that’s all,” Yumi’s dark cloud melted.

“Well let’s go past this. See if there’s anything we can use,” Yuta said. “Click there again, but remember what the symbol looks like in case Raya and I aren’t around next time this pops up.”

“So does this pop up every time there’s loot or only special circumstances? How come it didn’t popup when we were transferring weapons to each other?” I asked.

Yuta frowned, “I don’t know. But it might be because magic is involved and it’s doing a calculation in order to determine what should happen next. This world did summon us. So there’s magic here or some power or force that interacts with living things. It’s likely the boss orc either himself had magic, or his tools or property had something magic that activated this magic property transfer thing when you emerged as one of the surviving people that killed him. That’s my hypothesis,” he said shrugging.

“So there are magic items? That sounds cool,” Raya said, big eyed.

“Well that’s actually pretty good Yuta. I think you might be on to something, Asakura Sensei said again.

We clicked the next screen, which Raya read for us this time. “Acquired one collapsible magic item box, belt version, called ‘magic inventory system and storage’ contains forty inventory slots. Description says, stores items for future use in extra dimensional pocket space. Has stealth mode to prevent theft.”

“Eh? A magic inventory system?! That’s not fair, I want it!” several kids said.

“Give it to me!” someone said.

“Greedy pig! You barely even fought! You hid half the time!” his friend argued back.

“Is that so special though? It doesn’t give you free stuff, it just holds stuff you already own,” a girl complained.

“Yeah, but if it’s in the item box, you don’t get tired lugging stuff around and you don’t feel its weight. So you wouldn’t slow down. That means you can keep moving fast,” Kenji responded.

Some goth kid in the back stood up suddenly, “wonder what happens when you put something alive in it? Would they suffocate?”

Nobody answered that, and he sat down after everyone was staring at him for a long time.

“Eh? Is that so? I guess it could be useful,” I wondered answering Kenji.

Raya looked at me jealously. “You better be careful and watch your back. A lot of people are jealous of you right now.” Her eyes squinted at me, but I don’t think she was trying to be mean. She had her hands on her hips and I clicked on the object. Immediately a utility belt of some kind could be felt suddenly around my waist. It felt like only barely a couple pounds of weight were added, and my pockets felt lighter and empty now. In short, property already on me, except for the axe was transferred to the item box.

“Click next,” Yuta said on the next part. So we did so.

“OK the next part is the money? How will you divide that up?” they both asked innocently. It was a good question and they weren’t trying to be greedy. It’s true our survival was a group effort. But it was also true we didn’t know how much lodging and tools, and food were going to cost in this new world or if we could even get them easily.

“You know I’ll share the money,” but then I voiced my concern.

“Actually you’re right. If we divide everything up without accounting for housing and food costs we could have some serious problems,” Akira said. “Just don’t run off with our money,” he added jokingly.

“Sigh, he’s right. Click the ‘skip for later’ button for that part,” Yuta said. Then he made sure I knew which button it was so I could get back to it.

“So I guess the next thing is to figure out where to get supplies and make sure we take care of as many people as possible,” Asakura Sensei added.

“We need to make a list of things we need and figure out where to get them, primarily safety and shelter with food and medical supplies,” Rina said tiredly.

“I agree,” I stated, so the others wouldn’t think I’d run off with all the money by myself. I turned to Yuta, “Yuta, you and Raya are going to be indispensable in helping us work that part out through whatever natives or cities nearby we can find, since you two will be the only ones who can talk to them.”

“How do you know there are cities nearby?” Kenji wondered.

“I don’t but …if orcs can have a settlement nearby, then so could people right? They would also stay near their prey?” I guessed.

“Holy crap, you might be right! We have a chance! It’s basic predator instinct. Wolves go to the sheep or deer! I should have thought about that when they first attacked! That means we might have a chance to be saved or rescued!” Asakura Sensei exclaimed. They got a bit happier now thinking there might be human camps nearby, but we still didn’t know which direction.

“I think it’s dangerous if we try to wait for someone to rescue us Sensei,” I corrected. She frowned, but didn’t disagree with me. Then she sighed.

After so much death though, that was giving the remaining kids some hope though.

“Speaking of which, we need to get the hell out of here fast,” a couple people said at once.

“But if we can talk to them, that means there are other skills too right?” Yuta wondered.

“Oh, that’s true too, I think,” Yumi toned in agreement. “I guess Yuta isn’t that dumb after all.” I see Yumi had some kind of grudge against Yuta too, but I didn’t voice it.

“So we need to find these other hidden skills and … whatever magic this world has?” Kenji wondered. “How will we do that exactly? If you don’t know how to use magic energy how do you activate it to do experiments?”

“Good question, but first let’s sort the item box and the other loot though,” Raya said gesturing wildly.

“Hey this looks like food of some kind?” I guessed, seeing the next item in the list.

“YES! Food! Damn I love you!” some girl said.

We stared at her strange behavior…so she said. “I meant I love the food! The food!” she emphasized. She wasn’t much of a catch, with a face only her mother would love, and kind of homely looking so for a while I was freaking scared shi#@*less.

“Acquired…uh this part is like a collection of food preservatives, leather, raw materials, and mostly meats of some kind,” Raya said. “Wow I’m so hungry,” she wiped some saliva off her face.

“Oh I’m hungry, can you share some of that?” Kenji asked excitedly.

“Food!”

“Gimme!”

“I want some!”

“Gosh! I love beef jerky!”

“Meat! Meat! Meat!” several students started chanting together.

“Oh that does sound good,” Raya exclaimed. She reached over to touch one of the meat icons in the screen but her hand was suddenly slapped away by Yuta’s whose face looked really pale right now.

“Stop! Stop right now! Don’t touch it! Fucking pig orcs…that’s human meat!” Yuta gasped.

Everyone’s hopes were crushed just like that.

Nobody is hungry anymore.

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