High School Hack and Slash - CH 54.2

「I couldn’t care less about your pimp situation, but you see… The Over-Greed Gear? Or something that you have, Touma-kun, did you ultimately get to awaken it?」

「Ah, no, I don’t know.」

According to Rinko-senpai, this metal rod is an Innate Armament (Origin Gear) called『Gaki Lord Club (Over-Greed Gear)』.

For better or worse, I think I was able to bring it to a state of being awakened, but I still have no idea what effect it has.

Nothing happened, or rather, the metal rod simply disappeared.

It appeared again when I deactivated the awakening, but an awakening simply for making it disappear or appear, I think such an effect is too disproportional with how much my SP gets taken away by it.

「I get the feeling that it’s absolutely going to have an outrageous effect, but oh well. When you are going to use an awakening, be sure to do it after giving a heads up alright, Touma-kun. Especially the awakening of the magic armor.」

「… In that case, I believe the fault lies in you who approached me so curiously, Mai.」

「If you ever get me caught in it again, I’ll shove a magic in your ass alright.」

A while ago, when she made me awaken the『Armor of Heavy Pressure (Stressor Armor)』 and show it to her, Mai ended up breaking her leg.

Miharu promptly treated her, and I believe it wasn’t my fault.

◇ ◇ ◇

「Ah. Welcome back, guys~」

As our group that has conquered the eighth stratum of the dungeon returns to Asagi-sou, we get Mikan-senpai welcoming us in the temporary club room-cum-meeting room.

For better or worse, having turned into a C-rank club, we the Orders of the Divine Workman (Adept Orders) are provided with a prefab club room building.

The property is the former『Workman Workshop (Adept Workers)』 club room, which Mikan-senpai and the others had remodeled as they pleased.

We ended up receiving some scolding from the executive committee, telling us to properly return the room to its original condition from then on.

Well, the shutters are left down over there, and there’s a paper patch that says, 『We already have a temporary official club room at Asagi-sou』, attached on the entrance.

「It doesn’t matter anymore, but you see….」

Otoha-senpai, who was repairing the armor with Mikan-senpai and the others, has a faraway look in her eyes.

「Welcome back. It went well, I suppose?」

「We’ve reached the ninth stratum. Well, we’ve only reached there, and haven’t had a chance to check it out, though.」

The Building Troll, who was the guardian of the realm gate of the eighth stratum, ended up ascending to heaven with a single stab from Seiichi.

The super smug look on his face was super not well received by the party members.

However, if we had fought it normally, I get the feeling that it would have turned into a battle of attrition.

I guess Seiichi is without a doubt the MVP this time.

「… Ninth stratum, isn’t that beyond the domain of second-year students (us)?」

「When it comes to these kids, I think it’s too late to be concerned about such a thing. Even in the dungeon group, the ace groups have proceeded way ahead, after all.」

In response to the murmuring of the exasperated Otoha-senpai, the grinning Rinko-senpai puts her elbow on the counter and puts her chin on it.

「For the time being, I suppose we’ve made a break. Once Otoha’s armor is fixed, it’s finally time for that, right? I suppose each and every one of us is getting ready for it.」

Unregistered (unknown) raid quest.

When I look around the temporary club room at Rinko-senpai’s words, I see that the Senpai sirs are checking the supplies and preparing preserved food.

It seems that the space-time pressure difference that occurs in the raid area has been confirmed to cause a time difference of roughly two times for the beginner class, four times for the intermediate class, six times for the advanced class, eight times for the super class, and up to ten times for the extreme class.

Given that you can’t give up and escape in the middle of it, I guess we should set our preparations to the maximum level.

It’s just that, since we will be dungeon diving for a whole day, we will end up skipping our classes.

Shouldn’t we utilize the Sundays off, I wonder?

「The academy policy is to prioritize dungeons over classes after all, all the more so when it comes to raid quests. I’ve made copies of the application forms for the raid dives, so submit them to your respective homeroom teacher, okay.」

「Nice, Oto-chan-senpai. Holidays exist for sleeping in duh.」

「Well. If it’s a beginner class raid, we can just conquer it in a jiffy and come out, after all~」

Compared to the carefree Otoha-senpai, who seems to have actually conquered such a beginner raid, the other Senpais are in the middle of quietly preparing serious equipment and serious materials.

With food, crafting tools, crystals, and material pieces, they’re putting in just as meticulousness as they did in the previous extreme class raid quest.

「… Say? Somehow, everyone seems to be equipped to challenge an extreme class raid, though.」

「You see, Otoha-chan.」

Mikan-senpai, who is finishing up the armor with a tonkachi in hand, smiles widely with a serious face.

「It’s a raid quest that Touma-kun found, you know?」

「… Ah…」

I can’t accept the fact that she accepts such a reasoning.

◇ ◇ ◇

One of the reasons why Asagi-sou was not popular as a women’s dormitory was because of its poor location.

The distance to the academy facilities was too far compared to other dormitories, such was by no means the case.

It was just that there was a need to walk up and down unpaved mountain roads.

The terrain, surrounded by thick and deep forests, was prone to the accumulation of stagnant miasma, and meaningless apparition (Null Mob) occurring was a daily occurrence.

Though, it was famous as a dormitory where unnatural phenomenon was easy to occur, not limited to Null Mobs only, to the point of it being included in the seven wonders of the academy.

At the same time, that meant it was easy to create a pseudo-dungeon space by using barriers and crystals to amplify the miasma pressure in the space.

The space facing the west side of Asagi-sou had been cleared, and a rocky open-air bath that was overflowing with a wild feeling to it had been newly built.

This was the result of Umeka and the other non-participating members using their『Craftsman』 skills to create it and finish the public works in one go during the period when the miasma that had filled the academy grounds due to the tournament was gathering.

The trees that had been cut down were used as fences and rain shields, the rocks that had been dug out were used in the bathtub as they were, and the hot spring water that had been diverted from the water pipes that had been drawn to the original bathhouse was set to flow into the bathtub.

Thanks to the fixation of Umeka and the others who did their overly best, it became more than twice the size of the original indoor bathtub.