Building A Home

After a bit of walking, we arrived at an open hall within the 3rd floor of the East Building. The hallway itself was rather empty, and barren, but even from here, I could hear the faint noise of animalistic grunts and inhumane roars coming from further down the building, although that may have been primarily due to the fact that I still had [Sensory-Remapping]’s effects activated.

“Uuuu… I’m so hungry….”

I heard a grumbling complaint from besides me. I turned my head to see the familiar face of Miss Pitiful scrunched up as she plopped herself onto the floor. The bags, bags which I forced her to carry as her first act as a “slave”, crashed to the floor with a resounding clatter. Its contents spilled out, revealing clusters upon clusters of miscellaneous books and notes, which I thought may prove helpful.

Things like survival books, chemistry textbooks, and a copy of “The Art of War,” were just some among the many things I brought from the library. All in all, the total amount of books accumulated into an incredible amount and into an equally as incredible weight.

A lone figure sidestepped and avoided through the strewn about books on the floor as she approached.

As if it was the most natural thing in the world, Cielle who had been following close behind up until this point, walked and came to a stop in between Miss Pitiful and I. Wordlessly and with the fluidity of a tranquil stream, she placed an open palm directly on top of Miss Pitiful’s chestnut red hair. While she scratched Miss Pitiful’s head absentmindedly, Cielle mimicked what I was doing and surveyed the hall before us.

In the mean time, Hina looked on blankly into space with almost dead fish eyes. An unchanging expression occupying her face.

As to why we were here...

****

Reversing time a bit, after we decided to take in the newest addition to our group, we began deliberating where we would head to from now on. It was an obvious fact that staying within the library was not an option. Considering its close proximity from the Cafeteria Group, the imminent danger and threat level were just too big of a risk for me to take. In fact, with that type of logic we needed a place away from both- the Cafeteria and Satou’s groups.

The initial goal was to find a place we could call “home” for the remainder of the time we spent in school. A base if you will. The location had to be an area away from the rest of the other opposing forces, and a place safe enough that the wandering monsters wouldn’t become a regular nuisance.

With that in mind, the main building was out of the option, since that meant sharing air space with both the Cafeteria and Satou’s group. The old school building would have fit both those factors, but considering all the bodies, and hypothesized death and disease lingering around, that too wasn’t an option. All that’s left then is the East Building.

While a majority of it was monster infested, according to the President, a fair bit of the place was left untouched. According to him, for some reason or another, monsters usually confined themselves within a specific location, or part of the school. They rarely ventured out or expanded their territory, as if some animalistic, more primal force kept them at constant bay.

I confirmed that theory with the current scenery before me. A rather empty space of land. This hallway looked a fair bit abandoned, only highlighted by the occasional blood splatter, and runaway corpse. Although a corpse here and there could still be seen, it didn’t nearly compare to the carnage in the Old school building.

After confirming with my hearing that the monster noises I heard were a good distance away from us, I signaled for us to begin searching. As we walked into each individual classroom, making sure to stick together, I was a fair bit relaxed. The convenient boost in my hearing allowed me some measure of comfort that nobody aside from us was at this hallway.

Each individual classroom we entered was like a carbon copy of each other. The same basic set up, a black board and a row of desks occupying the center. Occasionally, you could see traces of panic and chaos in the form of a random blood splatter, broken furniture, or strewn about desks, but all in all, it was a very… repetitive search.

The rooms themselves were smaller than the ones within the old school building, but many of them still retained the interconnecting system. A door which connected to the adjacent room could be seen frequently as we weaved through each and every classroom.

After we went through each room, I haphazardly picked a fairly untouched English classroom located near the far back of the hallway as the “base of operations”. This room was unnaturally clean, and originally the door that connected the room to the hall had been kept locked. We only managed to enter the room through an interconnecting entrance that connected through an adjacent room.

Going by the room’s barren outlook, and the neatly stacked rows of desks to the side, I wondered whether or not this room had been in use during the last day of school. It looked fairly untouched enough that no recent trace of both student or monster could be seen.

“So, what do you think about this room?” I directed towards the people next to me, to the girls who had been following me ever since I began my search.

“Uuu… isn’t it fine? Can I please put these books down now? They’re really heavy~...”

Instead of an appropriate response, all I got was a weak complaint from the girl who was currently carrying the bulk of our things.

“For a slave, you sure complain a lot…” I coldly stated while still fixing my gaze onto the others.

“uuu…” A weak moan replied back before I saw a nod of affirmation from Cielle.

“It’s… good?” She vaguely whispered while tilting her head to the side.

-Why a question though?

As I inwardly thought to myself, an unexpected reply came from the last girl. The dead eyed Hina spoke in a quiet voice that rivaled her sister’s.

“It’s okay.”

She solemnly spoke while carrying the little baggage she had, a mix of medical supplies and food, onto a spare desk. With a “pomf” she placed her bag gently to the side, while she moved over to the room wide window that spanned the majority of one wall. The window overlooked the once populous city, or at least its remnants.

Occasionally, I could see snippets of the chaos outside, and right now this wasn’t an exception. This particular room overlooked the view of the suburban neighborhood that laid directly across from the school. Off in the distance, away from that neighborhood, I could see the remainder of the city’s urban aspect. Much of the infrastructure was painted with scorched markings. A few of the high rising skyscrapers we’re greatly damaged and the air was filled with various flying objects. From this distance, it was quite difficult to make out what those objects-things-creatures were, but that made it all the more menacing.

In contrast, within the foreground, the neighborhood looked… untouched. Its streets were clean, the buildings seemingly untouched, as if this particular part of the world was spared from the hell on earth brought down by that red sky and countdown. Well, at least that was the first thought that passed through my mind before I saw a glimpse of a hunched back, green monster strolling casually through the neighborhood’s streets.

I shifted my attention back to Hina, only to see her testing the locks on the window frame with an absent minded look on her face. After a while of fruitless effort, she seemingly gave up and refocused her attention on the scenery outside as she wordlessly gazed.

After staring at her for a while, I shifted my attention back to the room. On the other side of the Classroom, was another set of windows, this time overlooking out into the hallway.

“If we’re going to set up shop at a place like this, I’d like a bit more privacy….” I quietly muttered as I stared at the windows with a troubled look on my face.

In the end, after some deliberating, I decided to cover up the windows with some spare cardboard I found locked in an untouched corner of the room. The cardboard was probably leftover material from the recent school wide event we had, so it was reasonably thick and sturdy.

I instructed Cher to set up the cardboard to cover the row of windows that overlooked the hallway. Using Packing tape (found next to the cardboard) and with a bit of Cielle’s help, she worked hard to show off her usefulness as she began covering the windows. Upon my instruction, I informed her to set the cardboard up in a rather uneven and more chaotic fashion.

In the meanwhile, I moved back out into the hallway. I looked at her deliberately sloppy piece of work and nodded, a vague sense of satisfaction welling up in me.

The windows weren’t really properly sealed, as evident by the numerous open spaces present, but that was fine with me. The look of deliberate chaos matched the rest of the school, but in the end, a solitary room covered up by cardboard would look a fair bit suspicious.

After Cher finished packing up the windows of the English Classroom, I ordered her to do the same to the rest of the adjacent and parallel rooms within the hallway. Since I found a bit more cardboard in the other rooms, we weren’t lacking on that department, although she will need to preserve the packing tape, as that was the only one I found.

It was at this point that Cielle gave up helping, seemingly bored or tired of the tedious endeavor, leaving Miss Pitiful to suffer in her lonesome.

In the mean time, I revisited all the other rooms, casually identifying all the miscellaneous objects strewn about in an effort to increase the skill level of [Identify]. I identified every individual desk, each scrap of paper, and each occasional corpse, everything in a desperate way to curb both boredom and increase my skill level. By the time I finished doing the same process throughout each of the rooms, I managed to raise Identify to Beginner level 5.

The grinding aspect of the skill system really bothered me mostly because of how tedious and long winded it was. raising the level of each skill took a fair bit of effort, so it was a bit frustrating seeing the slow progress of it all. In the meanwhile, I also checked the rest of the growth level of my other skills.

As expected, my unused [All heal] remained level 1. Due to the constant use of [Sensory Remapping +], its level had risen to Beginner Level 3, and my [Dissect] skill which didn’t experience quite as much activity recently was stuck at Beginner Level 4. [Hard Scale] was still Beginner Level 1, and my most taxing skill, [Equip] was only at Level 2. Despite being my most used skill, [Equip]’s level growth was undoubtedly the slowest out of all of my skills. In a sense, it wouldn’t be a lie to say [Equip] was perpetually active due to the stat boosts granted by my current set of clothing, yet despite that, it only rose by 1 level.

This fact left me both sunk in deep despair, yet elated in unabated enthusiasm for the future potential of [Equip].

After I checked through all my skills, and noticed that there were no noticeable changes within each of their text, I proceeded back into the hallway.

Twenty minutes had passed since Miss Pitiful started bordering up the windows, and by this point, she was almost done, with only about 1/5th of the hall left. She was a surprisingly quick worker and due to her efforts, the hall itself was now significantly darker, thanks to the cardboard blocking out the sun. An occasional ray of light would slip through the cracks of sloppy cardboard though, keeping the place fairly illuminated. Keeping this place from turning into eternal darkness was actually the main reason why I instructed Cher to set up the carboards in such a disorganized manner.

I took a step back and admired the view. Now, instead of just a sole room looking out of place, the whole hallway was particularly noticeable, although not to a ridiculous extent since, surprisingly, the cardboard sort of blended into the chaos and destruction present prior to my arrival.

While this hall would certainly attract some attention, at the very least it wasn’t like our living quarters were narrowed down. With this method, our English Classroom now perfectly blended with the rest of the hall. It would be a much harder task to attack us if they didn’t know the exact specifics of our room.

-If I were to set up a few contingency traps that would allow me to detect enemies entering the hall beforehand then….

With that in mind, I began formulating a plan and I went over to consult Cielle about this particular matter.

After explaining my intentions a bit, she readily agreed with a firm nod as she pumped her fists up close to her chest, showing off the new found determination.

We discussed a bit (well, more like one sided conversation while Cielle nodded and vaguely mumbled) about how to properly utilize her skill. At first, I proposed to keep [Dark Gemini] floating in mid air while we positioned it directly in front of the doorway. This plan was ultimately rejected though, as Cielle needed to constantly pay attention/focus in order to manipulate the black sludge. Without Cielle’s attention, [Dark Gemini] would lose its ability to levitate in mid air.

Many more similar ideas were proposed and rejected. This cycle continued until we finally came to a proper conclusion that was surprisingly simple.

The plan was to set up a trap involving Cielle’s [Dark Gemini]. It really was a simple trap, a trap that greatly resembled your everyday high school prank. A bucket or something similar would be placed on top of an askewed/ barely open door way. The moment anyone tries to enter without prior knowledge, then a whole slew of [Dark Gemini] would come spewing forth onto the perpetrators head and face.

Unless they had crazy strong pain tolerance, than an uncontrollable yelp would be inevitable. And even if the bucket did miss its intended target, it would still effectively hit the floor, and with my enhanced hearing, the noise would definitely be loud enough for someone like me to notice.

I planned to set up these types of traps within every doorway in this hallway, a bit excessive, but a necessary deed. Of course, doing all this would momentarily reduce Cielle’s total mana capacity, since the more [Dark Gemini] she accumulated the less her mana capacity became, but since her mana reserves were higher than average, and since the ratio between mana and [Dark Gemini] was pretty high, this proved little worry other than a slight annoyance.

After we gather enough buckets, vases, and any other container shaped object, we immediately got to work. First, we poured all of the black sludge Cielle kept within her backpack onto the containers. Unfortunately, it was only enough to fill about 3 vases. In the end, we needed a bit more [Dark Gemini] in order to appropriately continue with this plan.

As I prepared to make the necessary sacrifice, and readied a dagger up to my exposed arm, Cielle stopped me with a rather frantic jitter of movement.

She gripped my dagger wielding hand back as she shook her head desperately.

I tilted my head and asked in a rather indifferent voice, “Why’d you stop me? We obviously need more [Dark Gemini], you know?”

In response, Cielle only vigorously shook her head, as she got up and rose from her seating position with firm determination.

With a sort of huff, she quickly left the room and ventured into the hallway.

“?”

As I sat there in confusion, a moment later, Cielle hurriedly re entered the English classroom, this time with a familiar person in tow.

The person in question sported a rather confused face, her mess of chestnut red hair swaying with each pull as she was forcibly dragged by the scruff of her collar and led into the room. Miss Pitiful repeatedly uttered, “Eh? Eh? What’s going on? Mistress? Eh?” as she looked restlessly around her.

Observing her slightly, her hands were covered in a few paper cuts, showcasing her own hard work while an empty roll of packing tape told me that she had properly finished the task I gave her.

Cielle quickly led Miss Pitiful in front of me, and presented her with a firm puff of her small chest.

With a visible smirk on her face, Cielle pointed at Miss Pitiful while declaring, “...Like I said… a useful person…”

“Useful?” Cher tilted her head upon Cielle’s sudden declaration, obviously a bit taken aback by the “praise”. “W-well… I guess I did complete the task properly..” She suddenly started fidgeting while making a poor attempt at covering her paper cut hands. “After all it’s only natural…s-since I am a s-s-s-slave after all…”

She mumbled a bit incoherently while her face flushed red.

It was apparent that this type of pitiful person had greatly misunderstood something, but after Cielle’s “useful person” reminder, I finally put two and two together and understood her intentions.

“Ah…” I muttered. “So that’s how it is… mmm…”

I nodded vaguely to myself, while I crossed my arms understandably, causing Miss Pitiful to tilt her head in further confusion.

Seeing her perpetual confusion amidst that blushed face of hers, I couldn’t help but utter a bitter smile.

“Ah...um… Hide… Mistress, w-what’s going on here?” She finally asked while interchanging glances between both Cielle and I.

“Well…” I awkwardly scratched my head while I casually reached for a spare dagger behind my back. “This might be a bit sudden and all, but…” I flashed the dagger in front of me in what I thought was a friendly gesture, although it had a bit of an opposite effect as Cher’s eyes turned a bit cold and her skin paled.

“Um… I-I don’t particularly like where this is going… so can I leave for a bit…” Her eyes swam with a small hint of fear while the earlier redness which had covered the majority of her face receded from sight.

With a small sigh I, shook my head while I flashed a small smile. I then repeated, “This might be a bit sudden, but I’m going to hurt you for a bit okay?”

I drew closer to her while I held the dagger in front of me.

“W-wait! Why are you suddenly- stop! Please, at least let me prepare my hear-mphf?!”

Cher’s round of panicked and incomprehensible spew was quickly cut short as something blocked and covered her mouth. Behind her, a single silhouette produced a gag made out of old clothes and gingerly covered Cher’s open mouth. Cher’s eyes span around listlessly behind her only to see the stoic faced Cielle firmly holding onto the gag as she pressed down on Cher’s shoulders.

“Mmmphf! Mmm! MpgH?!”

Muffled noises escaped her throat as she somewhat struggled against Cielle’s grip, but in the end, it proved to be fruitless. Cielle, while maintaining that indifferent expression of hers simply replied to Cher’s panic with a, “...Shhhhh…”

“Mmphh! Mpgf! Mmmphf!”

“....”

Although she made an honest effort to escape, strangely enough that twinge of red on her cheeks that had disappeared earlier had returned, this time in full swing. Miss Pitiful’s continued muffling also slowly morphed into noises resembling panting.

Seeing this scene before me, I could only sigh tiredly again as I brandished the dagger once more.

“Well, at the very least, I’ll try to make it as quick as possible…”

****

It took a bit more effort than I expected, but in the end, we managed to produce enough [Dark Gemini] to fill the remainder of the containers we had. There was even enough to spare to replace the black sludge that had originally been in Cielle’s emergency pack.

The rest was a simple matter of setting up the buckets on top of the doorways, which was handled by Cielle and I. Normally, I would have forced Miss Pitiful to do all this, but seeing her… current state, I decided to deal with the matter myself.

After a short while, I quickly finished setting up the bucket traps. I also added in a sort of trip wire around a few of the rooms and doorways using some spare rope I found in a classroom. The rope may be a bit too outlandish during day time, but at night, I’m sure it will prove to be all the more effective.

With the acquisition of a new room, and the finished completion of my impromptu traps, I finished with a tired smile on my face.

My temporary home was complete.

****

Author's Note: Thank you for reading. While I did take a recent break from writing, in that span of time, I was able to make an outline detailing the rest of the School Arc, so fingers crossed for faster updates.

If you enjoy this story, then please rate or review. It makes a world of difference for me.