A ____ Reunion Part 2

“I-Impossible?” Hina’s mouth slightly parted, and her eyes widened. Her gaze was fixed onto the President’s troubled expression.

“Hmm.... If it was just Hina, then maybe…. ah, no, that still won’t work.” He mumbled, mostly to himself, before finally sighing dejectedly. “In the end, no matter how I look at it, it’s impossible.”

“A-are you sure Hoku?” Hina asked with a face of worry. Interlayered with those words, I’m sure the thought of separating from her just reunited childhood friend caused most of her dismay, although I’d like to think she at least kept our original plan within the back of her mind.

“Maybe if you try-”

“Hina, no matter what, right now I’m the acting leader for the group. I can’t decide things based on personal feelings.”

Hina’s plea were cut off by the President’s abrupt interruption. The president’s solemn expression more than expressed his resolution.

“.....” Hina could do nothing but bite her trembling lips and stare dejectedly at her own clenched fists.

“Petty words like “staying together” and “power in numbers”, that doesn’t apply when we lack the necessary provisions to feed anybody else.”

His eyes grew cold under the gaze of Hina’s downcast demeanor.

“We don’t have anymore food. As it is now, as it is now we can’t dare to stretch out what little resources we have remaining.

If-If I were to just casually invite people in… then-then….”

I caught the slight tremble in his hands. The way his fists clenched tightly, all the while shivering in, in… was it anger? fear? guilt?

I’m not sure, but I’m certain I saw the faintest glimpse of blood in that shivering fist of his.

“If-If it’s just Hina then…” The president’s somewhat hopeful voice unraveled as he lapsed into silence. What ever he may have wanted to say, what ever he may have wanted to express, those ideas remained unspoken.

His current expression was one of forlorn. Of regret and displeasure. Displeasure from the rules he himself established and regret from what ever actions he did to enforce those rules.

That troubled expression didn’t last long though. Just as quickly as it had appeared, that rare, pitying facade of his disappeared, only to be replaced by the president’s usual, nonchalant expression.

He sighed and shook his head once more. His brow knitted while his lips formed a mock frown. “It’s not really just about a matter of provisions at this point.” The president further explained, doing his best to ignore Hina’s worsening mood. He set his slightly droopy eyes over to look at me while sporting an apologetic expression. “I’m afraid we simply can’t take in any more outsiders.

I don’t know what sort of impression you had about us prior to coming here, but whatever they may have been, we are struggling just as much as anybody else, if not more so.

Despite how we look, we’re not in the best situation ourselves after all.”, the sarcasm interlaced in his speech was evident. “Also there are too many things… not so ideal about your group…

For one thing, there’s that girl.”

He pointed fixedly at the girl who cowered next to Cielle. The one whose clenched knuckles turned white as she sat through our conversation, Cher’s eyes widened from being called out, while she reflexively hid behind Cielle’s tiny stature.

“Her existence itself is inconvenient. This might be harsh to say, but we hate her. For the things she’s done for that damn Satou, we hate her. For stealing our precious food, sometimes harassing our group, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say we hate everyone in the raider group. And that goes without saying, but the rest of the Cafeteria feel the same way, if not more strongly.”

I looked down at my own hands without saying much of anything. My vision filled with tightly gripped fists, fists with knuckles that had long since turned white. I could understand his sentiment. Satou’s very existence, for these people, isn’t something so light. For what he’s done, I’m sure a boiling sense of hatred interlayered with fear is all that remains for these people.

“I-I didn’t…” A quiet murmur escaped from Cher’s slightly parted lips. Her voice was soft, and her usually pitiful expression morphed into a regretful one. Guilt was something that was evidently clear from her tight lips and downcast eyes.

The others, save for Cielle, didn’t seem to hear though, as they focused in on our current topic.

The president once again resumed talking, this time he addressed me directly.

“Even without that girl, the situation still wouldn’t change. As things are right now, the cafeteria group is very… vigilant towards outsiders. After the raid, any newcomers would be suspected of being someone with ties to Satou’s group. This fact won’t change no matter how flimsy the evidence is. For them, for the people in the cafeteria, they need an outlet for all their negative emotions.

If you really did stay with us, I’m afraid you’d more sooner be in danger with them, then out there.”

“R-really….” Upon hearing all this, Hina’s shoulders further drooped down as her head remained fixated on the floor.

Ignoring her dejected atmosphere, I ventured to ask a question of my own. “Since the raid, have you taken in any other people?”

The president’s eyes widened slightly, before they once again narrowed. His lips twisted into a wry smile before he responded. “Well, yes. We had 5 newcomers since prior to the raid, but the way the others treat them is…

It’s not something as simple as ostracization, but rather, constant bullying and prejudice would be more accurate. Things haven’t escalated physically mostly since one of the newcomers is rather… skillful, but I’m afraid they're under constant emotional and verbal abuse. It’s gotten to a point where the only thing we can do to help is separate them from the others.

In your case though, your treatment would be undoubtedly much worse. People will definitely recognize her,” He once again motions to Cher. “Once they know about her, I’m sure things won’t just stop with a few petty words.”

In the end, the President’s refusal was just a roundabout way to look out for Hina. I’m not sure whether she knew this or not, but the President didn’t want her to experience that same type of treatment that those “newcomers” were currently experiencing. Altough I couldn’t shake of the lingering expression that between the President’s cleverly constructed words, lay a deeper, a more darker intention.

After I realized this, I could do nothing else but sigh and nod in understanding.

The president, who’s been keeping a close eye on me ever since we started conversing, smiled weakly upon my nod. “It’s good that you understand. While I can’t dare share our food with you all, you guys can at the very least stay in the library. Occasionally a few people from the cafeteria will enter the library, but they never venture past the first floor. In addition, Satou’s group usually avoids this place, so your safety is guaranteed.”

As if to symbolize the end of the topic, the President brought his hands together and clapped decisively, almost shaking the stale air of the library into vibrancy.

From the corner of my eye I could still see Hina’s downcasted look. Her appearance somewhat resembled Cielle’s as a mess of blonde hair covered her face, and hid whatever expression she was making.

The president, who wanted to shift the conversation over to a new topic, crossed his hands together as he leaned back onto his chair. “Well, enough about us, what I’d really like to know is how you all managed to survive for this long.”

The glint in his eyes was something I did not miss.

“If memory serves, then Hina’s last class that day should have been located in the old school building. From what I’ve heard, the old school building had it much worse than any of the others. Didn’t they have pretty high level monsters?”

“““...”””

Nobody from our side bothered answering. Usually, it would be Hina who responded, but her current mood wasn’t the type to be overly chatty right now. Cielle was quiet by nature and Cher wasn’t really “part” of our group, so they didn’t bother replying. In the end, after a few seconds of excruciating silence, I stepped up to respond.

“I protected them.”

“Ohoo~.” The president’s voice leaked out a tone of admiration as he continued looking at us with somewhat sharp eyes. “From our previous “exchange”, I can already tell that Hide is a very strong individual. But still, wouldn’t it be rather difficult, protecting the three of them all by yourself?”

“Well, I managed.” I awkwardly scratched my head while trying my best to maintain eye contact.

“So you fought this past week all by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“All alone?”

“Naturally, I fought alone. After all, Hina and Cielle aren’t suited for combat.”

Of course I didn’t mention the fact that I basically trained the two how to fight, but this and that, are another issue.

“....” He ponders for a moment while his eyes nonchalantly gazed over the girls. After a while, he focuses back on me. “That is indeed pretty admirable. I didn’t take you for the “white knight” type of guy. A real “hero”, aren’t you?”

He chuckled to himself, but the joke went over my head.

I responded simply by nodding and saying, “Well, looks can be a bit deceiving.”

After that, the conversation shifted into a sort of exchange of information between both parties. Of course, things like info about our stats or skills were kept hidden, or falsified to the best of my abilities. Seeing as how neither Cielle nor Hina attempted to rebuke or counter any of my lies, I inwardly exhaled, a small sense of relief sprouting in the back of my heart. In the end, I only told the president about things regarding the Minotaurs, while I somehow managed to convince him that Cielle and Hina were powerless and that I was the only one capable of fighting within our group.

In return, the president further explained about their situation. I don’t know how much of what he told me was fake, but at the very least, it was better than nothing.

His current group of five were the only people that actively explored the school. While the “newcomers” in their group acted as a sort of frontline defense if Satou ever attacked, the rest of the group just stayed stagnant. The more the president talked about them, the more my impression worsened. It was kind of pathetic actually. While the ache from constant fear and hunger enveloped them, they were too scared to do anything about it. In actuality, the Cafeteria was just a den of cowards.

As for the exploration group, they acted as a sort of scout, trying to probe their way around the school. They encountered a few monsters along the way, but he explained that during the majority of these skirmishes, the only thing his group was capable of doing was running away. Apparently, they lacked the strength to fight any of the higher leveled monsters.

He explained a bit more about the type of monsters and were each of them were located. Through out all that, he talked about the only type of monster weak enough for them to confront head on; A gas type monster with a floating core in its center. It was located near the indoor gymnasiums. It was about level 15, but it was generally weaker than your average monster. It’s only form of attack was a type of nauseous gas that had the power to knock a person out. Constant exposure slowly shaves of hp.

While that sort of monster may seem pretty formidable at first, the president explained that simply covering their mouth and nose with a piece of cloth was enough of a counter to withstand that sort of attack. The gas they produced was invisible and odorless, so if one isn’t expecting it, then death was an all to likely possibility. But once a person realizes, blocking becomes relatively simple. After that, it was simply a matter of breaking the core.

After the conversation shifted to talk about the various monsters within the dungeon, I took this opportunity to ask a question that had been bugging me up to this point.

“Have… Have you tried eating the monsters? You know, as a sort of solution toward the food problem.”

In response, the president makes an awkward expression. His cheeks cramped while his eyes seemingly floated around restlessly.

“ Back when we had plenty of food… there was a time when a couple of guys tried eating them.

Those idiots were messing around with one of the slimes. After a slime dies, it leaves a corpse with a jelly like consistency. They were playing around with one of those corpses, and, one way or another, one of the idiots tried eating a part of the corpse after his friends goaded him into it….

At first, everything went fine, but... after 5 minutes, he started complaining about a stomach ache. After 6 minutes, he crumbled to the floor while sweating profusely. After 7 minutes, he started incoherently screaming, “it hurts, it hurts”... After 8 minutes he died.

Of course, the slimes we fought were originally acidic, so it wasn’t like we outright labeled all monsters weren’t suitable for consumption… but as that sort of thing happened in the middle of the cafeteria, everyone’s been a bit… traumatized.”

He sighed out again, dejectedly.

“Nobody has the guts to try eating monster meat… although it's not like we could even if we wanted to.

Aside from the slimes, and those gas monsters, we haven’t really been able to hunt down any other type of monsters…”

There was something a bit iffy about his statement. Unless his group constantly grinded on these gas type monsters he kept talking about, then it would be hard to believe that his level has risen to that extent. If I didn’t have [identify], then I probably would have believed him, but his level seemed simply to high… if he didn’t hunt monsters, then maybe he hunted something else….

“Like I’ve explained before. we’ve been scouting out the school, salvaging what little food we can find, and taking tabs on all the various monsters. We’ve explored almost everywhere, that is except the old school building and anything below the 3rd floor of the third building. Anything below the 3rd floor are monsters that are a bit too strong for us to face.

The only potential food source we may have found is regarding a type of monster on the 3rd floor. a cow like animal with goat horns. Its level is only around 13 to 16. If it was only one, we may be able to take it down, but the problem is that their pack animals. When there’s one, there’s about 50 close by. We haven’t been able to hunt one no matter how hard we tried.”

The president once again sighs. While his expression was somewhat vague, he turned towards me with a little glimmer in his eyes.

“Although with your help we might-”

His words abruptly cut off upon seeing my impression. A scowl. Or at the very least, I think I scowled.

While I wanted to negotiate with him, honestly, his group had little to offer. And for some reason, in the back of my mind, I had a… an aversion towards this type of character. It might be a bit hypocritical of me to say this, but the President was hiding something, something that didn’t quite sit right with me.

Seeing my scowl, the president nonchalantly returned it with a smirk. Before he could resume speaking though, I interjected.

“Let me say this before hand, there will only be one occasion that I will be willing to help your group out.”

The president’s smirk widened, as his eyes narrowed. “Hmm… and what type of occasion is that?”

After a brief pause, I leaned back and said, “The Boss fight.”

For a moment, the president’s usual facade crumbled. His eyes bulged out, while his mouth hung loosely. ‘W-what..?”

“I’m saying that I’ll help out when the time comes.”

“...”

“Getting out of this dungeon… escaping this school will need more than my power alone. If any of us even has the slightest hope of escaping, then when the time comes, we will all need to pitch in and work together to beat the boss.

I’m sure you can at least agree with that, right?”

The topic caused even the people next to the president to react. They squirmed around uncomfortably in their seats, as if the very idea of escaping never once crossed their minds. After what felt like an eternity of the President just silently glaring at me, he finally loosened his jaw and sighed.

“Yes, yes… I see you’re point. Truthfully, us alone, we are no where near capable enough of fighting against something like a Boss class monster.

It’s just like as you say… when the time comes, we will need to work together.”

Hearing his words, I unconsciously nodded to myself. People may not be willing to help others out for free, but when it comes to a mutual problem, humanity can be very… atruistic.

“Good, then till then, we will keep out of each other's way.” I solemnly spoke to which the President responded with a wry smile.

“Of course,” he said. “If you’re group runs into any sort of complication… then we won’t help. I’m sure you have the same intentions.”

“Naturally.”

He laughed at my brusque response but didn’t rebuke it. Although his expression quickly turned serious once more. “While our gorup may not be willing to help out.. if the issue concerns Hina… then at the very least, even by myself, I’ll….”

His words quickly receded just as he uttered them before he all together stopped and shrugged. His expression glided over Cielle until it came to land on Hina. After a bit of consideration, he finally looked away while sighing.

“Then, if that’s all…”

He stood up, and stretched his arms out like he had just gotten out of a long car ride. Cracking his neck once, he turned to look at Hina one last time before turning and making his way to the stairs. The rest of his companions did the same, although in their cases, they threw a couple of hateful glares towards Cher before wordlessly leaving.

In the end, I simply watched their receding figures as they slowly faded from my view and traveled down towards the 1st floor.

It took a while, but after 5 minutes, I finally heard the sound of a door opening before it quickly slammed shut.