Some twenty or thirty meters off from where Speedwagon stood.
Inside a dim, shadowed passageway, a mouth abruptly split open on Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's right hand:
"Ayanokoji — that person with the erratic heartbeat? His pulse just suddenly leveled out."
Ayanokoji's stride faltered for a beat:
"Not gone — leveled out... Looks like he knows how to use the Stone Mask, and he's already used it."
The words had barely left his mouth.
The Black Sphere's signature notification chime, with no warning whatsoever, suddenly rang out above their heads.
[Vampire count has exceeded threshold (×3).]
[Pillar Man · Santana is about to awaken. All examinees, exercise caution!]
Hearing the announcement.
Hirata Yousuke frowned and stepped closer to Katsuragi Kohei, eyeing the Combat Suit Rifle's radar screen in his hands:
"When he reached for the Stone Mask, he must've brushed up against one of the statues..."
"Ayanokoji — should we go take them out first?"
Ayanokoji shook his head decisively. "Not necessary."
"Since the Pillar Man's already awake, let him go look for his own dinner. Right now our top priority is finding the Mystery Merchant."
Katsuragi Kohei thought it over, then nodded in agreement:
"Find the Heavenly Works Society's Mystery Merchant first, use the points we've got to trade for gear and arm ourselves. Then we manually trigger the exam by touching a statue, and we hold out until Chris and the others teleport down — that's the safest play. No point butting heads with them head-on right now."
"That said..."
Katsuragi pointed at the moving red dots on the radar screen: "Looking at those two Vampires, they seem to be heading straight for those four intruders who just spawned in. Should we go take a look?"
"What if this round's Mystery Merchant is one of our teachers playing the role again — like last time?"
Ayanokoji nodded. "Could be worth checking out. We can save those four people while we're at it."
Four people — that alone made the detour worth their time.
With that, the group's plan was set.
Following Ayanokoji and Katsuragi Kohei at the front, they pressed on through the passageway.
Walking somewhere in the middle of the group, Yagami Takuya — with a small armful of Stone Masks cradled to his chest — suddenly turned his head and spoke up to Amikura Mako beside him:
"Senpai. Speaking of which — I was just turning something over in my head."
Amikura Mako blinked in mild surprise, but nodded anyway. "Ask away."
Yagami Takuya lowered his voice:
"Going by what Ayanokoji-senpai's example shows us — back at school, we can't actually manifest and use any superhuman power other than the Combat Suit, right?"
"So what if, while we're here, we use the Stone Mask and turn ourselves into Vampires..."
"After we head back to school, will the Vampire bloodline inside us — just like Ayanokoji-senpai's Titan Serum — get flagged by the system as a hazardous substance, forcibly extracted, and stored back into a capsule?"
"In that case... wouldn't we basically be freeloading a whole item off the system?"
The instant those words left his mouth.
Karuizawa Kei, walking not far away, quickly grabbed Nanase Tsubasa and Morishita Ai and — as casually as she could manage — drifted them a few extra steps away from Yagami Takuya.
Amikura Mako, however, gave it serious thought:
"That's certainly a bold idea."
"And in theory — yes, it could work. But something obtained outside the Black Sphere store's vetting process..."
"What happens if next time you walk into an exam arena and the capsule doesn't give you the option, just slams it back into your body whether you like it or not... and the arena happens to have direct sunlight? Wouldn't that mean you'd be in catastrophic trouble the second you touched down?"
Housen Kazutomi, however, simply stroked the Stone Mask cradled in his arms, his expression giving nothing away. "So what?"
"Unlike you veterans with Combat Suits to fall back on, for us newcomers, what matters most is staying alive first..."
"And if turning into a Vampire is what it takes — that doesn't seem like such a big deal to me."
Back at the moment Speedwagon had been forced into Vampire transformation.
An ancient Vampire — stirred back to consciousness by the human scent now soaked into Speedwagon, finally awakening from the wall statue — had happened to witness the entire scene.
It looked once at Speedwagon, then crinkled its nose:
"Kekeke..."
"How lucky — wake up from a nap and get to see someone joining the evolution~"
"But man, I'm starving. Looks like there's plenty of prey over there. I'll go pick out the freshest, juiciest ones first — take your time, rookie."
With that, it had already blurred into an afterimage, closing in on Horikita Suzune and the others' position.
It was right then — with his dizzy head clearing and his entire body feeling decades younger — that Speedwagon finally registered what the thing had just said.
"You son of a — what did you just say?!"
Sure, he was clear-eyed enough to know that even as a freshly turned Vampire, he stood absolutely zero chance against a battle-hardened Stroheim.
Right now, without question, the smarter move was to bolt while Stroheim hadn't caught up — get the warning out.
But back in his younger days, he'd been the gang boss of London's Ogre Street, the man who'd fought shoulder to shoulder with JOJO!
How could he stand here and watch some filthy Vampire prey on innocent humans right in front of him?!
Not to mention — he was back in his prime physical body now, young and strong.
If he was just going to scurry away alone like a coward, then what was the point of putting on this cursed mask in the first place?!
At the very least, he had to do everything in his power to save a few more people along the way!
But Speedwagon's frantic, can't-get-there-fast-enough urgency — viewed from the back of the freshly-woken, ravenous Vampire just ahead of him — was completely misinterpreted.
"Oh, in such a rush to snatch the food, are you?... But hey, I'm hungry too."
"Relax. As fellow brethren of our race, I'll leave two for you — a little welcome gift for your new life."
Speedwagon was instantly seeing red:
"I'm gonna kill you! Killing you a thousand times wouldn't be enough!"
"——Just who the hell do you think I am!!!"
As the two of them — one chasing the other — bore down on Horikita Suzune's position.
Back inside the passageway.
Horikita Suzune had successfully traded a [Black Key] out of the shop's inventory.
The shop did stock a [Crimson Blade] worth 5000 points, too.
As a weapon designed to slay demons, it would absolutely be brutally effective against light-fearing creatures like Vampires.
But the Black Key came with a purification property — strike a Vampire with it, and the wound it inflicted couldn't self-heal either.
On top of that, the previous night — by way of entering a Sage Time state — she'd successfully grasped the introductory threshold of Ripple Breathing.
Channel the Ripple along the Black Key, and it should be more than enough to handle the small fry for the time being.
No helping it... Mainly, the Black Key was just cheap.
1000 item points per blade — converted into S-Points, that was just two points.
Horikita Suzune wanted to be frugal where she could.
She wanted to see if she could stockpile enough — combined with the kickback commission she'd earn from selling items — to eventually buy the [T-Virus] and overhaul her entire body from top to bottom.
Her body was still too weak.
Even in a Combat Suit, she couldn't beat Chris stripped down to nothing.
Only when she became truly strong herself could she stop being the weakling who could only stare at someone else's back.
Watching the cross-shaped longsword that had appeared out of thin air in Horikita Suzune's hand, Hayasaka Ai couldn't help but take half a step back:
"It really did just appear from nothing... Where are we right now? Is this even still Japan?"
Horikita Suzune glanced at her, but offered no explanation.
It was Kushida Kikyo who chimed in instead, deflecting with an awkward little laugh:
"Technically speaking — this probably isn't Japan, no... In fact, this might not even be the same world you originally came from."
Hayasaka Ai's brow knit tight, and she was just about to press the point.
When Horikita Suzune suddenly caught the faint sound of footsteps drifting in from up ahead.
She immediately leveled the Black Key in front of her and snapped her head around to look.
A girl in a modern JK-style school uniform came hurrying around the corner, looking slightly panicked.
Seeing the three of them just standing there, Yotsuya Miko dropped her voice to an anxious whisper:
"Why aren't you guys running?"
"I heard footsteps coming this way from back there... no telling if it's human or something else..."
Horikita Suzune's eyes narrowed, sharp and birdlike:
"And how exactly did you confirm we're human and not something else?"
"Plus — your footsteps just started up out of nowhere, and there's a deliberately controlled cadence to them."
"You were hiding nearby watching us this whole time, weren't you?"
Hearing that, Yotsuya Miko's toes curled in her shoes with embarrassment.
"That... yeah."
Yotsuya Miko bit the bullet and admitted it. "Because the way you guys just appeared was way too freaky... I didn't dare come out."
The truth was, if Shiranami Chihiro hadn't just been right there beside her playing tour guide and explaining the situation, she would never have worked up the nerve to just step out into the open.
It was only after Shiranami Chihiro had voluntarily gone into hiding — actually playing by the "rules" she'd been talking about —
And after Yotsuya Miko had also noticed that the uniforms Horikita and the others were wearing looked similar in style to Shiranami's, that she'd finally screwed up the courage to dash out and try to start a conversation.
Who would've thought — she'd been read like an open book in the first second. So embarrassing.
Not wanting to be marked as an enemy, Yotsuya Miko hurried to do damage control:
"But this part I'm absolutely not lying about! I really did hear a monster's roar!"
"The sound's getting closer! Let's get out of here, fast!"
Hayasaka Ai looked at the Japanese-style school uniform on Yotsuya Miko — wildly out of place against the current environment — and spoke up to point it out:
"She doesn't look like a local. More like someone who got pulled into this the same way I did."
Horikita Suzune was naturally already aware of that.
She simply leveled the Black Key horizontally across her body, her tone leaving no room for argument:
"You — get back."
"Let me handle the person you mentioned."
As a veteran with several Black Sphere exams under her belt.
Under normal circumstances, she had developed her own instincts for telling whether someone was an intruder or not.
The girl in front of her really did look similar to Hayasaka Ai — most likely another intruder dragged in by the Black Sphere.
Almost certainly no real threat, and in fact, completely innocent.
But without a Black Sphere radar to confirm it, she couldn't be a hundred percent sure either way.
So Horikita kept her at a distance that was neither close nor far — a careful safety buffer.
At that distance, she had enough reaction time to launch an attack if she needed to, and could just as easily step in as a shield to save the girl's life if she ended up in danger.
After all, the past exam arenas had featured monsters like Parasytes — creatures perfectly capable of impersonating human beings.
And if she remembered right, Katsuragi Kohei had a Combat Suit Rifle on him.
So these footsteps could just as easily be Katsuragi's group homing in via radar...
Whether to stay or retreat — either option came with an infinite branching of possibilities.
Horikita Suzune didn't actually have many real options.
Which is why her decision was simply to hold her ground and let the enemy come to her.
Drawing a deep breath, Horikita Suzune focused her entire being.
The golden Ripple she'd successfully ignited the night before during her Sage Time breakthrough — she began to slowly, carefully channel it along the length of the Black Key.
With the boost from the Combat Suit, plus the modest swordsmanship foundation she'd built grinding inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber during the earlier Uninhabited Island exam.
With all of it layered together, Horikita Suzune figured she had at least a fighting chance.
But what burst around that corner was nothing she'd expected.
As the footsteps closed in, what came lunging out from around the bend of the passageway was —
A scrawny, gaunt man, his cheeks so sunken he was practically skin stretched over bone!
"Fresh blood!!"
The Vampire bared its fangs and lunged straight at Horikita Suzune, who was standing the closest!
Before Horikita could even swing the Black Key up to meet it —
A black shadow shot out from right behind it!
"Your opponent is me!"
Speedwagon braced one foot against the wall, kicked off it for leverage, and launched a flying kick mid-air — slamming it square into the Vampire's back with savage force, sending the entire thing crashing into the side wall!
"You got the guts? Come at ME!"
Speedwagon landed and roared in fury:
"I'm gonna grind you into pulp, you filthy Vampire!"
Caught completely off-guard by this turn of events, Horikita Suzune stood there with her loaded Black Key — for a moment, she genuinely didn't know whether she should still thrust it forward or not.
Yotsuya Miko, for her part, had already scrambled half-crawling, half-stumbling over to Hayasaka Ai's side.
The two of them, by unspoken agreement, pulled themselves a safe distance back from Speedwagon and that other Vampire.
Speedwagon, however, didn't have the slightest interest in what anyone else was thinking.
Like a starving tiger pouncing on its prey, he was already on top of the Vampire — which had only just peeled itself off the wall — raining down fists and kicks, every blow aimed to kill:
"You worthless bastard! Bullying ordinary humans — that's all you've got?!"
"Why don't you come and face me head-on, huh?!"
Faced with this absolutely ridiculous scene.
Horikita Suzune hesitated.
But in the end she stepped forward anyway, found her opening, and drove the Black Key — golden Ripple still humming along its blade — straight into the Vampire's forehead.
"Ssssss——!"
The moment the golden Ripple poured down the edge of the blade.
The Vampire beneath Speedwagon let out a wretched, agonized shriek!
Seeing that familiar golden light, however, Speedwagon felt none of the instinctive terror a Vampire ought to feel toward the Ripple.
He froze for a beat — and then his face lit up with unrestrained delight:
"That golden light — you're a Ripple Warrior?!"
"Thank god... wait!"
Speedwagon quickly noticed something was off, and his brow furrowed:
"Your Ripple is still way too weak... Ripple at this level should be absolutely incapable of killing a Vampire by any standard."
"But the weapon in your hand seems to compensate for the Ripple's shortcomings exactly? Strange — really strange..."
Speedwagon shook his head, then waved his hand urgently in agitation:
"But this isn't the time to be digging into that! Listen to me — you all need to get out of here, now!"
"Stop trying to dig deeper into this underground ruin! Stroheim has already betrayed humanity. He's chosen to put on the Stone Mask and become a Vampire. Combine that with his original mastery of the Ripple... he is not someone you kids can hope to fight!"
"I'll stall him here. As long as you can all escape, find Joseph Joestar——"
Facing Speedwagon's machine-gun rapid-fire delivery — as though he was terrified of speaking too slowly and never getting the chance to deliver his last words —
Horikita Suzune simply flicked the ash off the Black Key and cut him off:
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"But unfortunately for you..."
"Until the Black Sphere's exam ends, no one is leaving this place."
Speedwagon's face was a mask of utter confusion. "What does that mean? Exam? What exam?"
Hayasaka Ai chose that exact moment to chime in with a helpful prompt:
"Mister — what she's talking about is probably... that voice that echoed through the ruins not too long ago?"
Speedwagon's eyes widened with sudden understanding. Then his brow drew together even tighter.
Although he had absolutely no idea what was actually going on.
Seeing how rock-solid certain these girls in front of him looked — they probably really had been sealed in here by some kind of mysterious power.
On top of that...
Thanks to his newly-acquired Vampire senses, he could smell it — there were several more humans coming this way from the far end of the passageway!
'So what do I do now?'
Speedwagon ran the calculations frantically in his head:
Was he just supposed to stand here twiddling his thumbs and wait for that traitor Stroheim to catch up and slaughter all of them?
'Or... do I let these girls borrow the power of the Stone Masks on the walls and turn themselves into Vampires too — for the sake of survival?'
No! Absolutely not!
The Stone Mask was forbidden, evil power!
Even he himself — if he held onto this kind of power long-term — would sooner or later lose his sense of self and devolve completely into a beast ruled by appetite.
If he actually allowed these kids — who were obviously still children — to turn into Vampires, the damage would be incalculable!
And it was right in the middle of Speedwagon's moral spiral that —
"Tap, tap, tap."
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and his group, tracking the locator signal on their Combat Suit Rifle's radar, had finally arrived.
The moment they rounded the corner.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka spotted Horikita Suzune standing right next to a red dot — the radar's signature for hostile life.
He didn't hesitate, and he didn't bother questioning why Horikita Suzune was even here.
His right hand instantly Parasyte-shifted into a bone blade, and he swung straight at the back of Speedwagon's neck — who had his back fully turned to him!
"Look out!"
Sensing the danger, Speedwagon's body twisted sideways on pure instinct, barely dodging the strike.
But.
In the heartbeat as the blade passed by him.
He felt it clear as day — the golden Ripple coating that blade!
Speedwagon, far from being angry about getting attacked from behind, practically jumped for joy:
"Another Ripple Warrior?!"
"Thank god! I don't know how you're doing that with that bizarre arm of yours, but from the look of you, you're clearly still firmly standing on humanity's side!"
Seeing the man's wildly atypical reaction.
Ayanokoji thought it over and chose not to have the Parasyte press the attack.
Horikita Suzune sheathed the Black Key as well, and asked, slightly puzzled:
"You're a Vampire — but why aren't you attacking us?"
"And why did you actively step in to stop another Vampire?"
Speedwagon scratched his head awkwardly, just opening his mouth to start piecing together an explanation for his whole "saving the country through indirect means" plan.
When Horikita Suzune suddenly waved him off:
"Never mind, hold that thought."
"You can tell us all about it once we've handled the actual business first."
With that, Horikita Suzune turned her attention to Ayanokoji Kiyotaka:
"I'm the 'Mystery Merchant' for this advance trial."
"Have you collected enough item points? Anything from the store you want to buy?"
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka caught on immediately.
He cut the small talk and simply willed the Parasyte tentacle on his right hand to extend again.
"Swish swish swish!"
Like an autumn wind sweeping leaves from a tree, he ripped every Stone Mask hanging on the surrounding walls clean off them in one motion.
Then, more than a dozen Stone Masks were unceremoniously dumped in a pile at Horikita Suzune's feet.
Speedwagon was just about to open his mouth and warn them:
These things are pure evil, you absolutely cannot just go touching them like that!
When he heard Ayanokoji say flatly to Horikita Suzune:
"The rules state that the four who collect or destroy the most Stone Masks win. And handing the Stone Masks over to the Mystery Merchant — each mask trades in for 1000 item points."
"See if you can recycle and exchange them here. If not, I'll just destroy all of them on the spot."
Horikita Suzune nodded.
She raised her wrist and opened the store interface.
Sure enough, a brand-new [Recycled Items Exchange] special option had appeared in the bottom right corner.
She tapped Confirm.
Speedwagon, watching from the side, simply gaped as the small mountain of Stone Masks vanished from the spot.
His mouth hung open.
After holding it in for a long beat, the words that finally made it out came out as a question:
"Item points...? Advance trial...?"
"What — what the hell is any of this?!"
But Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had no intention of paying him any attention.
He walked straight up to Horikita Suzune and glanced at the balance on his wristwatch:
"Counting what I picked up at the very start of the trial, I'm currently sitting on 17,000 item points."
"Pull up your store interface and let me see what I can actually afford right now."
Horikita Suzune nodded, and displayed the full item catalogue for everyone.
At the same time, she turned to address the still-questioning-his-entire-life Speedwagon:
"Mister — since you're on humanity's side too..."
"While we're here taking our time trading for items, you can use this window to fill us in on what exactly went sideways on your end..."
"And one more thing I should mention. Our purpose in coming here... is to exterminate every single Vampire."
Speedwagon drew a deep breath, forcing down the shock churning inside him.
Even now, he still hadn't figured out what these kids meant by "system" or "points."
But at this point, all he could really do was throw a dead horse in the doctor's lap and hope for a miracle.
"If you all are this confident, then I'll pin my hopes on you."
Speedwagon sank into recollection:
"This whole thing... has to start with a true gentleman..."
And as Speedwagon began telling his sweeping, dramatic tale.
Ayanokoji Kiyotaka's attention was already entirely captured by the item catalogue unfolding in front of him.
[Senzu Bean: Magical beans cultivated by Korin the Cat Sennin. Core effect — instant full-HP revive, heals all injuries, suppresses hunger for ten days. Does not cure disease and cannot resurrect the dead.]
——Price: 10,000 item points
[Crimson Blade: The ultimate enhanced form of the Sun Sword. When the blade glows red-hot, it becomes the "Crimson Blade" — capable of dealing devastating damage to demons. Dramatically slows down a demon's cellular regeneration and inflicts pain comparable to burning alive, preventing them from rapidly recovering.]
——Price: 5,000 item points
[T-Virus (Modified): Originally the virus that caused the zombie outbreak — through modification, it has been refined into a benign virus that promotes human evolution. Comprehensively enhances physical fitness, with bonuses to anti-aging, sensory acuity, and a chance to awaken psychic abilities.]
——Price: 20,000 item points
[Black Key: Ceremonial short dagger of the Holy Church. Uses "conceptual purification" to prevent the undead from regenerating. Widely used by the Church as a high-quality, low-cost consumable.]
——Price: 1,000 item points
[Devil Fruit · Random: One random Devil Fruit, classified into three types — Logia, which turns the body into an element and grants immunity to physical attacks; Paramecia, which grants a random superhuman ability; and Zoan, which grants the strength and traits of an animal and excels at close-quarters combat. Comes with full-body paralysis on contact with seawater containing Sea-Prism Stone.]
——Price: 40,000 item points
[Random Mystery Box Card: A true random mystery box, in the literal sense. Anything could be inside — from ordinary table napkins all the way up to world-ending top-tier Imperial Arms, Devil Fruits, you name it. Pure luck of the draw. Can be carried out of the exam for use.]
——Price: Customizable (The more points you spend, the higher the chance of pulling top-tier items.)
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🔥 New history: Homelander: Founding the Hero Association
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