Surviving in a World Teeming with Monsters with the Useless Skill 【Everyday Items Master】! I Was Just Hunting Wild Animals with a Crowbar, So Why Is Everyone Screaming It's an S-Rank Monster? - 124

Chapter 124: Smoldering in Anger, Enduring in Shame

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Right after being let go by Monobe… The only reason Shuuya survived being caught in the collapse of the building was entirely thanks to his younger sisters.

“Haaah, haaah! Th-that was way too close…!”

“Nii-ni…! Why didn’t you try to escape?! Seriously!”

Sango and Shizuku had carried Shuuya together and managed to escape just in time, barely saving his life. They were now in a small room of a building that had avoided the collapse, finally able to catch their breath. The collapse had been severe, leaving the twins covered in dust. Shuuya too, but he no longer cared about that.

He had been wrong. He was a useless failure who couldn’t even complete his mission. Why Monobe had let them go right before the collapse was unclear, but Shuuya no longer had the will to do anything.

“……”

As he lay on the ground in silence, Sango raised her voice.

“Hey! Onii! What happened?! Why are you like this?! Is it true that the ‘Mad God’ showed up?!”

“Y-yeah. Nii-ni, what happened? Why are you so out of it?”

“……”

Shuuya didn’t feel like answering. He didn’t know if the ‘Mad God’ had really appeared or not. He just assumed so, judging by the intense earthquake and strange sky. He didn’t want to explain why he was so crushed by despair. He was a useless failure who had failed his mission. It would be better if he just decayed and died here.

“…No response. Onii’s not reacting.”

“W-what should we do? I’ve never seen Nii-ni like this… Is it the Everyday Items Master guy’s fault? If we defeat him, will he go back to normal?”

To Shizuku’s off-target guess, it was Sango who replied in Shuuya’s place.

“Calm down, Shizuku. Taku-san let us go. He said the situation had changed. And besides, we couldn’t beat him anyway.”

“B-but…”

Shuuya shifted his gaze slightly at Sango’s words. Originally, she was a tomboyish girl. She was energetic and a little lacking in thoughtfulness. So, somewhere in the wordless mess of his thoughts, Shuuya was surprised.

Had Sango always been this composed?

“Anyway, first we need to assess the situation. We can’t move if we don’t know what’s going on!”

“O-okay. Got it. But what about Nii-ni? I’m really worried about him like this…”

“You stay with him! I’ll go check outside!”

With that, Sango quickly ran out. Shuuya followed her with his eyes.

“…Sango-chan is acting strange too. She used to be more ditzy. Now it feels like…”

Shizuku silently stared in the direction Sango had gone for a few seconds. Then she approached Shuuya. She touched his cheek as he lay there breathing and seemed to be deep in thought.

“Why did it end up like this?”

Shizuku muttered quietly.

“Onii and Onee were always so reliable, always leading us. But now, Onee is gone, and Onii is like this…”

Normally those words would have stung, but Shuuya felt nothing. He had been blessed. He had a beloved family, dependable comrades, and natural talent. But he lost all of it. More than what was taken, what mattered most was that he had failed to protect it.

He believed he could protect everything.His sister’s heart, his younger sisters’ safety, his debt to his father—he thought he could guard them all with his own strength. But that had been arrogance.

Immediately after they were taken from him, he had burned with fury at their captors. He swore to defeat Monobe and reclaim his sisters, to defeat the Offspring and rescue his sister. But now, that fire had burned out. He was spared by Monobe at the last moment, failed to stop the Offspring, and the ‘Mad God’ had been summoned.

Shuuya had nothing left. All that remained was a deep, humiliating shame at his own arrogance.

He had been prideful and conceited, and now he wished he could simply disappear.

“……”

So Shuuya didn’t move. If someone wanted to torment him, that was fine. If someone wanted to kill him, that was fine. Even if his sisters abandoned him, it would be fine too. Someone as privileged as him, who still failed to do anything, who couldn’t protect a thing, had no right to be respected.

As his thoughts went in circles, Shizuku murmured.

“…If only I were stronger, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

She spoke slowly, deliberately.

“If, when the Offspring went wild, I had moved faster and stopped even one of her attacks… If I’d held off the Everyday Items Master long enough for Onii to wake up…”

She bit her lip, on the verge of tears, her body trembling.

“I always just wait for orders, I can’t act unless someone else does first…”

And from her eyes, a single tear of frustration fell.

“It’s pathetic. It’s embarrassing…! I want to be stronger. Strong enough to protect everyone…!”

She clenched her fists tightly. Her face twisted, teeth gritted, eyes burning with desperate desire. Shuuya saw it and stopped breathing.

He didn’t understand what she said at first. The youngest sister in the family. A bit timid, always coddled and protected, always following behind. That Shizuku had said she wanted to protect her family. She wanted to be strong enough to protect them.

Shuuya’s heart beat again. Sango had changed when he wasn’t looking. And now, before his eyes, Shizuku was changing too. A feeling close to panic rose inside him. The twins he had always led around by the hand. The troublesome, adorable sisters he thought he knew inside and out. They were growing, while he…

It was then.

“Off with their heads!!”

A strangely oppressive voice rang out from afar. Immediately after, something attacked. Shuuya, completely unguarded and lacking the will to live, couldn’t react. A slash aimed at his neck. Shuuya shut his eyes.

Even if my heart stirred a little, what does it matter? I’m still powerless, just a leaf tossed in a storm, waiting for death.

That was what he thought—until that moment.

“Nii-ni!!”

“…Huh?”

Shizuku, with a hidden dagger, shattered the slash aimed at Shuuya’s neck. Then a slash tore across Shizuku’s neck, sending her head flying. Her long ponytail followed, falling to the ground.

“Shizu-…-ku?”

“…Ahh, good…”

Shuuya’s eyes widened as Shizuku collapsed, lifeless. But she smiled and said.

“This time, I made it in time, Nii-ni.”

Her head fell. Her body collapsed. Blood spilled from her severed neck.

“……!”

Shuuya was frozen in shock. His sister had died before his eyes. Protected by family, only to let that family die. But then he thought: for the immortal Koufukuji family, a single death didn’t mean much. A severed head could be reattached quickly.

“…?”

Nothing happened to Shizuku’s body.

Why? 

He wondered. As long as their father’s blessing remained, they should be immortal. As long as the 『Song of Resurrection』 continued, they should revive. Then why was her head still lying there?

Why isn’t Shizuku coming back?

Panic rose in Shuuya. 

It couldn’t be… Could it?

He swung between disbelief and the fear that an irregular SSS-level attack might explain it.

Did she die? Did I let her die?

In his despair, having accepted death, had he let his sister die in his place?

“Ugh…”

“Everyone! Are you okay from that attack just now?!”

Sango returned, saw Shizuku’s body, and ran over.

“…! B-but! Her head’s still here, so…!”

And so… Both Sango and Shuuya were too focused on Shizuku’s corpse to notice the next attack.

“I hereby declare you all my prisoners!”

With that proclamation, the building they were hiding in exploded from a powerful impact.

“Gah, khah…!?”

Sango was completely caught off guard. She was blown away by flying rubble and rolled across the ground, bleeding. The one who appeared was a red knight with the texture of a chess piece. Riding a stubby-legged, glossy red ceramic-like horse, clad in equally smooth red armor, the knight held a massive lance.

“Fwahahaha! More prisoners! The Queen will be pleased! …Hmm? Which Queen is it in this case? The Queen of Hearts? Or the Red Queen?”

Tilting his head, the red knight pulled a book titled Through the Looking-Glass from his coat and muttered.

“Should I follow the original work, or…?”

Shuuya stared in disbelief. A ridiculous enemy had taken them by surprise, and now even Sango had been taken out.

“Ngh… My bones… Broken. Can’t… Move…”

Covered in blood, Sango tried to stand. The red knight noticed and rushed over, trampling her under his horse’s leg.

“Oh no you don’t! Resistance is futile! The more prisoners I take, the higher my score! I can’t let the White Knight win!”

“Aaaaaaahhhhhh…!”

The red horse pressed down, trying to crush Sango. Hearing her pained screams, Shuuya asked himself.

Is this okay? Am I really just going to watch this happen?

While Shuuya wallowed in the failure of his mission, his sisters had grown through adversity. He alone had been defeated and remained broken. He recalled Monobe’s words when he spared them.

“The situation has changed!”

“If it’s for Luna’s sake, I’m willing to throw away something as petty as hatred!”

“If I need your help, I’ll work with you! I’ll make a deal with the devil if I have to! So—”

A change had happened. Monobe had grown in that moment, throwing away his hatred for the sake of the child he loved.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!”

Sango screamed in agony before him. Bones cracked in her body, followed by a grotesque sound. At that moment, their eyes met. Coughing blood, Sango said to Shuuya:

“Run… Nii-ni…”

Shuuya then… He couldn’t endure it any longer.

【Sudden Slash】【Triple Shot】【Iaido】【Thousand Blades】【Big Slash】【Point-Blank Shot】

“Wha, huh… My body… Breaking…?!”

The red knight shattered with a dumbfounded voice, unable even to scream. Having unleashed everything he had, Shuuya stood, gasping, weapon still at the ready.

“…Onii…?”

Sango called to him from behind. Shuuya gripped his weapon tightly in both hands and forced out his voice.

“I’m ashamed.”

His back trembled. Overcome with guilt so strong he wanted to die, yet enduring it, Shuuya confessed.

“Seeing Sango and Shizuku grow while I sank into despair… I’m ashamed. So what if the mission failed? So what if it turned into a worst-case scenario?”

He wanted to kill the weak version of himself from just moments ago. But since he couldn’t, he had to make up for it starting now.

“Monobe came at us even after we killed all his comrades. And then, right after defeating us, he spared us—so we could fight the ‘Mad God.'”

Shuuya took a breath. And then he shouted.

“Of course I lost! Someone like me, a cocky so-called elite, overconfident and pathetic… I deserved to lose!”

“…O-Onii…?”

Shuuya turned around, face red with shame, face stiff with frustration, and silently reattached Shizuku’s head to her body. Fortunately, her head reattached quickly. But it was slower than usual. The slash seemed to have a healing suppression effect.

“Cough! Ah, thank goodness… Huh? Nii-ni? Are you okay now?”

Without replying, Shuuya stepped away from them, turned to face them, and bowed deeply.

“I’m sorry. I caused you both trouble. I showed you a disgraceful side of me and…Thank you for not abandoning me, even after seeing that.”

“……”

The twins stared at him in surprise, then looked at each other. Shuuya lifted his head and addressed them.

“It’s meaningless to cling to the mission now. We have to do what we should be doing.”

The twins’ expressions grew serious at his words.

“Monobe killed all of us. But that was because we killed all his comrades first. You could call it karma.”

“B-but, it was our mission…”

“The mission matters. As long as we belong to the military, we have to follow orders before thinking. But…”

He shook his head at Shizuku’s protest and shut his eyes tightly.

“At our first encounter, we could’ve talked more. But I rushed into battle, thinking it would be quicker. That was my mistake.”

He paused, then continued.

“Monobe forgave us. That kindness must be repaid. We have to reach out, with our own will, and grab his extended hand.”

The twins exchanged another look. Then together, they nodded to Shuuya.

“We’ll follow your lead, Captain~!”

“Yeah…! I agree with that decision.”

“Thank you, Sango, Shizuku.”

Shuuya exhaled. Then, he gave the order.

“First, we need to find Monobe. Then, we aim to rebuild our alliance. All members, move out.”

“”Roger that~!””

The three of them took off running. They overcame deep shame, and found clarity within it.

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