Chapter 31: Exterminators

The party made their way back to the Reisen Gorge. They ended up carving a path of bodies until night, never once seeing these ant monsters they were tasked to hunt down. Shea was taken aback seeing Selena and Hajime just shoot head or limbs as they drove through. She loves the tent artifacts since the temperature was just right. That would be their last peaceful day for a while.

Selena was the last one on watch and she spent her time outside in a meditating position practicing her chakra control. While all her senses were on full alert and only one monster walked close enough to the camp that night, getting a quick ice spear to the face. It was well out of the area and some other monster saw the kill, dragging it away. Hajime was the first one to step out of the tent. Seeing Selena there, he knew she was well aware he was there, but seeing her train, he stretched and did light warm up till she was done with the current task, since the aura was visible to his normal eye.

"You know you could always say hi." Selena got up and jumped up and down a few times to get her blood to flow faster.

"Training is important," he huffs out. He had already stepped out, not wanting to disturb and started doing push-ups. The surrounding ground was changing shape with each push up.

"Fine, I'll help you." Grinning mischievously, she jumps and moves top of Hajime's back and lands on it. He stops on a downward push-up, stabilizing the newly added weight.

"Oof, you're lucky your added weight was just what I needed to make this training even more effective."

"Hey, are you calling me fat!!!!!" The early morning went on like this till Shea made breakfast for the party. The party kept going straight, like the past few days. Everything seems normal till midday when something unexpected occurred.

The whole party looked confused, seeing lots of monsters run towards them. However, it was not to attack them, but to run away from something else. Some tried to take a bite from the group only to be met with bullet to the head. Hajime and Selena let out their intimidation full blast to make the monsters part way for their group. This doesn't seem normal. Shea said to see they were being, mostly, ignored as some big monster didn't even glance at them.

"Don't let your guard down." Hajime was shooting the slightly small earth lizard that was trying to take a bite from them. Seeing that some monsters were dying, some of the larger ones took a bite, dragging the kill for themselves while the smaller ones grabbed onto it for dear life, letting themselves be carried away as they seemed tired and hungry. Soon enough, the monster horde, for a lack of a better word, vanished from the area.

Shea looked scared that something else was coming. "Is it another group of monster like the ones just passed by?"

Hajime gets his pistol pointing them towards where the monster just ran from, seeing nothing just yet.

To prepare for what was to come, Shea prepares her Warhammer. Yue prepared to spell even though the mana was being drained just as fast as she could form it. Selena was weaving hand signs preparing a barrage of ice spears to be launched at any moment. From the distance, I could see little crawling monster ants coming at them.

"TCH, now I can see why those monsters are running away from us. I guess we just have to get to it." Yeahs was heard around him as the battle between Hajime's party against the army of ants in the thousands begins.

Shots are being fired, spears are being launched, explosions could be heard as the team killed ants at an astonishing rate. Yue ended up using the ice spears that Selena had left behind, making water shots, killing even more ants. The ants were not perturbed and kept rushing at them.

"There's no end to them." Shea was shaking as if she was ready to bolt, but she stood her ground.

"I need more water, Selena." Yue was having a hard time controlling water that got too far from her since the Reisen Gorge was sucking her mana up. she just shut off water eruptions from the last few ice spears.

"I'm sorry that not everyone can make spells like it's going out of fashion." Selena, exasperated at Yue being so bossy, weaved hand signs and created an ice wall instead of the ice spears she has been making previously.

Hajime, noticing that they were about to get swarmed, pulled out some grenades and threw them at the edge of the gorge. With a boom, parts of the walls fall down and crush numerous ants, while also slowing their progress.

"Shea, Selena, vanguard. I will bring out Metzelei to cull them."

Shea transforms her Drucken from bombardment mode to war hammer mode, while Selena pulls out Black Blade and moves in front of the bikes, both ready for the incoming torrent of ant monsters.

"I'm low on mana Hajime. I used too much for some simple spells." She was sweating.

Hajime "that's okay Yue. just leave them to us." His Metzelei revved up. He unloaded on the back line after making the surrounding Earth into a smaller platform. As he overlooked the battle, he killed the back line. It sped up the battle greatly.

Back on Selena and Shea's side of the battle. Shea was swinging her Hammer back and forth, launching ants at each other and keeping them from approaching any cluster to the current party positioning.

"Eww please go away see all the creepy crawly legs. Aahhh." Selena was imbuing Gale claw onto her Katana. miniature fell by the wind blades colliding with their Carapace.

"It's not even that they're tough. It's just that there's so many of these little pests." The wind blade didn't go too far because of mana being dispersing. But luckily her mana recovery was staving off mana exhaustion.

Hajime notices the ants were getting too close for him to use Metzelei without potentially hitting Selena or Shea. So, Hajime swaps over to Donner and Schlag and continues to kill the ants. At this point, there were only a few hundred ants left of this horde, and Hajime covers Shea to prevent her from being overrun by the bugs. Shea was slowing down more and more, not being used to this kind of endurance based fighting and putting her all in each swing.

"Shea, fall back. Selena and I will wrap it up." Hajime says while shooting another ant.

"No Hajime. I can help…" It was at this moment of distraction that an ant leaped into the air before it got overwhelmed by a wave of crimson bullets, allowing Shea to swing Drucken clearing the surrounding area with the air pressure of her swing.

"You'll have another battle, Shea. You don't want to fall on the first one, right?" Yue said while watching Hajime shoot any enemy that got too close and the rest were already encircling Selena since she had to push forward to take the pressure off of Shea. It didn't take over ten minutes to wipe the horde.

Soon after the battle was over, Shea was trying to get all the blood that was covered her. "You need to pace yourself better next time, Shea." Yue squinted at Shea since she believed she had gotten rid of that bad habit when they were training. "It looks like after this i we need to go back for remedial training."

"O god please no, I can still remember the ice prison and how I almost died in there." Her body was shivering at the thought of having to go through that once again.

"I'm glad that Selena took this quest now. It would have taken way longer if we couldn't use our full ability. "

"Hajime, I need a new pair of clothes. Can you also turn around?" Selena looks defeated.

"Sure," he already threw her replacement outfit at her, since he knew she hated to be covered in blood. "This is something I didn't miss. Sigh, one day I make it so I won't get covered with weak monster's blood."

"There's nothing wrong with blood, hehe."

"Says the loli vampire."

"What did you say!? Do you want to go?"

"This isn't the time we need to find the hive and kill that queen. Are you done Selena?" Hajime asks, cutting into the bickering.

"Yes, you can turn around."

"I don't get why you don't show off to Hajime. I would do it," Shea said with no shame as she also changed. "You don't need to look away."

Yue throws a water ball at Shea. "You need to calm down, you dirty rabbit."

"We sure keep moving. This was most likely an advance party. Those numbers for us weren't a problem, but for the people of Tortus will get overrun and that could be a problem if the kingdom falls too soon could lead to more problems than it's worth."

The party soon got a move on, but what they saw was a lot of dead bodies that were clean of meat, only leaving the biggest bones that could be carried.

"It looks like the bone yarn from the lion king," Selena told the party through telepathy.

"haha guess so given how big some of the bone carcasses are."

"What is the lion king?" Shea was trying to understand what Hajime was talking about.

"It is something from our world. It is a type of entertainment. Think of it like a moving picture with sounds."

"When I learn to control my illusion skills. I'll show you some of my memories."

"I'm not holding my breath." Yue huffed, "you can not even control your magic to an acceptable level."

"Yes, master. I will work on it" whistling could be heard in their heads.

"Now, now Yue. I'm sure she is doing her best, hehe."

"You two are the worst. I'm training a lot of skills. No one said you had to, though."

"I may be the weakest right now, but one day I will overtake you two."

"Hmph, you're too young to do something like that." Yue would not let herself fall behind Selena any time soon.

"Don't worry Selena, I join you and we take down Yue. I will be the number one someday."

"Shut up worthless rabbit" we said in unison to Shea.

"We are a team. Why are all of you so mean?"

The party moved till night on the third night. The following morning, the party got packed up and set out for the day. Soon after, they once again saw a platoon of ant monsters and killed them quickly so that they didn't alert the hive, seeing that the patrol was growing in numbers. In the afternoon, the party finally came to a stop since they finally saw way too many ants going in and out little holes from the cave walls.

"Great, we need to dig to get to this ant queen. And I see a much bigger cavern, like a mile away."

"It's good if it wasn't for the cloaks you imbued with hide presence, we'd have been found out by now," Yue said. There are so many. Ants were crawling all over the wall.

"We need to rush to the biggest hole and make our way to the queen."

"Is that a demon?" Shea asks.

Selena saw a big ant the size of a horse coming out while the demon was riding it like a mount. "Well, this just got more complicated."

"Not really. It just means these demons are in our way," Hajime says dismissively.

"Yea, we'll blow away anything that gets in our way," Yue agrees.

"Why are they even here though…" Shea brought up nervously

"We are looking for the labyrinth. I wouldn't be surprised if they control those monsters with another form of ancient magic."

"Think they plan to swarm whatever labyrinth with this army of ants?" Selena brought up.

"Maybe, but the spell circle reads our memories. I doubt this would allow them to gain the magic through a method like this," Hajime contemplated.

"Maybe they can fool the circle so it would allow them to gain the magic, anyway." Yue suggested.

"That a lot of 'what ifs'. We just need to keep whoever is in charge alive and interrogate them for answers."

"Once we get any closer, our ability won't work since they are swarming right outside those holes."

"What's the plan?" Shea looked scared, but she gripped her hammer tight with resolve to follow the party into this battle.

"If demons are the cause of this, we just need to break through and kill the leader and the queen." Hajime grinned.

Yue had a new artifact that looked like big cylinders. "Thanks to you, I won't need to rely on her."

"Look, it's just easy to run and cut them down, given we'll be in a narrow space."

"After we get out of here, it is training time for both of you two."

"Wait, wait, you mean Hajime, right?" Shea looking both ways.

"Hehe no, you need work too."

"If you guys are done, we are just going to rush in and attack. We are going to run towards the biggest hole. We should be able to sense the queen since she should give off a much stronger life signature than all these grunts. Ready, go!" Hajime and Yue rushes into battle.

"What if I was not mentally ready?" Selena exclaims while also rushing in.

Shea looks startled at what was going on, before also rushing to join the party.

The nearby ant monsters that could see them soon spotted the party. Soon, all the other ants in the area turned and charged the group.

"Shit, those must be adventures." The demon pulled a bow and knocked an arrow and fired. But it wasn't at them. The arrow went high and caused a bang. Soon after, his head exploded.

"So annoying" Hajime quickly killed the horse sized ant with a few rounds to the head since the power of bullets are weakened because of the gorge.

While the group was running to the biggest hole, Shea was swinging Drucken at the enemy, opening a path forward. Hajime at this time was shooting the ant that was leaping towards the group, with Donner and Schlag move independently of each other. Yue was only covering the gap Hajime made in between reloads to conserve her supply of water and mana for the true showdown with the queen of the ants. Selena was covering their back, killing any ant monster that tried to rush from the back, leaving her back towards the party as she jumped back, having full confidence in her party to cover her. Just as they were less than half a mile from the entrance of the ant colony, ten more warrior ants came out with more demons riding them, some wielding with bows, others with javelins.

Hajime fired at them but unlike the first kill against them, their enemy was on alert and leaped to the side, evading the first volley. The demon rider encircled the team. Hajime shot arrows down while Yue took out the ant, trying to leap at them. "Tch, they're well coordinated. We win in time, but I don't feel like burning all our resources in a prolonged fight." Hajime looked at Yue and looked at Shea, who was focused on in coming enemy and they nodded. "Selena! I got one in front."

"Got it, boss." She broke the formation they were holding till just then and rushed the one of three archer look at her. At this time, from her side, the javelin demon attacked her from the side. At that moment, the arrow was wood in make but the newly drawn arrow was a black obsidian. The demon smirked and shot it. To be safe, Selena turned on her sharingan and saw that the arrow was full of magical energy. Not wanting to see what would happen, she pulls out Abraxos and shot the two arrows in mid air. They blew up spectacularly and killed ants that were nearby the blast range. Her next two shots hit the newly drawn arrow and blew them up well before the arrows were shot, killing the bigger ant and demon riding them. While that was going on, the two javelin demons were already too close for Selena to jump away, so she used her sword to redirect one and fire her gun to force the other to move since he had already seen what would happen if he stood in the way. Just before Selena was going to attack them, both demons died to water shot going through their head, confusing the warrior ant. Taking advantage of the opening, Selena cut the face of one and after getting the blade stuck in the ant head wave hand sign shot the other with multiple ice spears at its face, killing it.

"Hurry up already!!!" Hajime was already at the mouth of the hole shooting inside while looking back at the three of us so we made a dash to catch up. Hajime tosses a metallic bag towards Shea. "Here, put this on. It should help you here."

"What is it?" Shea asked in confusion.

"This is an artifact that I made so that you can see in the dark. Just channel a bit of mana into it, and you will see what I mean."

Doing as he told her, Shea channeled a small amount of mana into the artifact and two headlight arms popped out and hovered right over her shoulders, before they produced light for her to see.

"German science is the best in the world," Selena cackled before Hajime smacks the back of her head.

With Shea leading the group through the tunnels, Hajime keeps calling out directions towards the largest presence that he feels further down.

"Go right… Now left…. Take that drop on the right…" It continued like this for the next half hour. Sometimes they even had to backtrack, having wandered into a deadend and no route down.

"Ew, I'm covered in blood," Shea says after a while, getting covered in the ant's blood most of the time as they died to Drucken's bombardment mode.

As the quartet got closer, they noticed some light coming from around the corner. Not that long after, the cavern rumbles as the lights ahead go out in an instant.

"Get close!" Hajime shouts as he instinctually grabs Shea before he bursts his mana outwards, transmuting the walls to prevent their section from collapsing on them. After a few minutes, the shaking finally stopped, leaving the quartet huddled together in front of a newly formed dead end.

"What should we do now? Our path forward is blocked."

Hajime quickly chugs a small mana potion, before resolutely stating, "Fuck that! We are going forward. We have gone too far to turn back now." Hajime uses transmute to "drill" his way forward. 'Fuck, I never thought that I would be digging again,' as he recalls his escape from the Claw Bear. The closer they got towards where the light originated from, the less his mana seemed to be drained from the surroundings. Yue's eyes went wide the closer they got as she felt the change in the environment. About five minutes later, Hajime breaks through to the source of the light that they saw. Upon entering the area, they noticed they were in a cavern. It was huge since it had many other holes on the wall leading to the most likely place where they took the eggs the queen had laid. Yue had already cast hollow ground because of the danger the party felt. Many element attacks hit her shield, no one stupid enough to use fire.

"That is far enough, human. If you leave now, we let you live." The demon was clearly scared. His hands were trembling. The demon, the party saw, looked like a dark elf with slitted brown eyes that was well built. This demon, in particular, looked to be more important than the others from the armor that he was wearing, most likely being the leader of this group.

"What are a bunch of demons even doing down here in the first place?" Hajime asks since they clearly were the master of the queen ant.

"Shut up human. You wouldn't even understand our ways." The queen ant wasn't even looking at the party, rather she was looking at her supposed master as if in wait.

"Well, it looks more to me you're not even fully in control, given she's eyeing you like a piece of meat, hmm?"

"Shut up brat. It's not my fault that my first army was wiped out and I had to make a new one without Freid-sama's help. He can do anything. He will be our guiding general in the war to come. I can't fail not after he helped us get this power," balling his fist. "Everyone attack! Wind blade," he slash his hand downward and the battle began once again. The party split up, instead of letting Yue's hollow ground tanking the attack.

"Eww there are so many of them," Shea exclaim, clearly not liking ants crawling all over the wall and ceiling.

The queen backed up, not partaking in the fight.

Without their magic getting dispelled, the party found the battle to be a cakewalk. All the newly emerging ants were just cannon fodder. The other demon riders were growing anxious at the fact none of their spells were landing and their forces were being taken down slowly. They started the battle with thirty riders, but they were already down fifteen.

Just before the battle was going to get any messier, the queen ant shrieked and the leftover warrior ants buck off their riders and ate them before they realized what had happened.

"What are you doing?" The leader of the demons attempts to cast a spell, but soon after another huge yet slimier ant, almost as big as the queen, comes at the demon and kills him before he finishes whatever he was trying to do to their queen. Hajime and friends group up since they are not sure what exactly happened. None of the ants try to attack or show aggression towards them, more like apprehension.

"Umm, what just happened" Shea looked ready to go at it once again.

It would look like whatever magic that demon used to tame the queen was not strong enough to hold her back any longer. Yue had her hand out, ready to cast at a moment's notice.

"Hajime, use telepathy on the queen." Selena requests.

"Why me?" He didn't seem to care.

"You're the leader and they seem intelligent, so negotiate already, oh fearless one."

Hajime relentingly used telepathy on the queen ant, but he also linked the rest of the party's mind to this monster.

"Hello, can you understand us?" Hajime attempts communication.

"Click click click…"

"Um, I don't think we will be able to talk," Shea said through the link. At that moment, the second biggest ant took a step forward.

"Mm, it looks like he wants to be connected to our magic." Wanting to get this over with, Hajime links them together.

"Humans, we thank you for helping us take out our oppressors. We kindly ask you to leave us."

Hajime smiled since he liked people that got to the point even if they were monsters. Hajime turned since he saw no reason to kill someone that wasn't in his way and saw Selena and Yue give him the look. "Ugh" he turned back and asked the only question left. "What will you be doing?"

"We will recover and keep expanding." The ant monster seems confused at such an odd question.

"Could you guys not go somewhere else?"

"Why? We like it here. All the monsters are so weak without their magic."

Shea looked lost. "Weren't you just born?" See the ooze coming off it.

"Those demons did something to my egg, given me my current intelligence, and I was supposed to control my queen. But she made sure with her magic that didn't happen."

'We sure talk about this later,' Hajime thought to himself. "Were you guys brought here or made?"

"Yes, we were created by them, but it hurt so much."

'sigh guess we have no choice since if we lave them to their own device they become an even bigger headache in the future.'

"Okay Shea, you take on that big ant monster." Hajime says, seeing that negotiations fail, all the ants were getting ready to pounce on the group once again.

"Whaaa why me?!" She was looking at her opponent, ready.

"Don't worry, we cover you."

"That's not the point! Why do I have to fight the ant king?!" she cries.

Shea 3rd POV

The 'ant king' was done waiting and charged forward. Mana was oozing off the ant. Clearly, it was using body strength at its full power.

The ant king swung out one of its claws at Shea, she met its swing with her war hammer. After deflecting the swipe, Shea attempts to squash it. The king backs up, letting the hammer hit the ground and goes for a stab at her waist. Just as the stab was about to land, the King jumps to the side to avoid the pellets that were fired from Shea.

"Dang it, I thought I had it." Shea complained before going back to firing a few more shots at the king.

After retreating a fair distance away, the King used its magic to form an earth spike under Shea. She jumped forward to avoid the spike while getting closer to the king. When she got close enough, Shea swiped her hammer from left to right. The King met the blow with his right appendages and stabs forward with the free left appendage. Just moments before the blow could land, the appendage was shot causing the limb to swing out wide.

Shea landed after the clash, but saw the king swinging his left arm towards her, gathering momentum. She switches her hammer into its bombardment mode and charges at the king. As she got closer to the king, Shea slides under him as the hammer changes to full deployment mode once again and stabs the bottom of the hammer into the mesosoma. The king shrieked out in pain, before it jumps away from Shea and lands closer to the queen. Shea held tight to her hammer, preventing it from leaving her hands, not wanting to lose such a precious gift that was given to her by Hajime. The queen ant knew her army was at a large disadvantage with limited space to move, with bodies piling up, covering up some holes.

"Shea, we all would like to leave sometime today." Hajime said that as he kept shooting ants that seem to make new holes to break into this room. Yue had frozen the holes nearest to her since she didn't feel like wasting more mana than needed. Selena was stopping the ant herself by swinging her blade, getting into the flow keeping the ants at bay, but when too many came at her, she used wind blade to cut them down to cover her side.

"I will not be a burden. Just keep watching me, Hajime. I will get you to see me as a woman."

"Haha" Selena couldn't help but to laugh.

Yue's aura turns cold. "Just try it, worthless rabbit."

Hajime ignored the declaration and kept killing more ants.

The king was slowing down since her penetration did a lot more damage than it thought, so it launches a stone barrage at Shea. Shea dodges the attacks, and wasn't getting overwhelmed by it, but it kept her from being able to gather enough momentum to punch through the ant's defense. This stalemate continued for a while till she saw a red line pass by her with water shot following suit and open a path.

"Thanks you guys!!!" She ran fully trusting in her team to cover her back.

"She could have done it without our help, Hajime."

"I know that. It's just I like to get back to our main objective," he said before he looks away. Since he clearly, somewhere in his heart, seemed to care for Shea.

"Aaah here I come, you ugly ant." Shea uses all the momentum she gathers in her charge, swing her hammer down from above. Unlike the last few clashes, the ant king was not as strong as in the beginning of the fight, so it could not muster the same strength and its last few clicks were the weakest it had shown off and the life soon left its body. The queen clicks in sadness, since she seems to have only eyes for her newest ant king. Before she could gather herself and the party was about to force her down, her head fell to the side and Selena was right next to the fallen corpse, flicking her blade to make all the blood fall off. The rest of the ants ran away since their leader collapsed and could not give orders to the worker ants. Selena went over and pick up the queen's head with a sigh.

"This was my least favorite kill." Selena dejectedly comments.

"Ya" Yue responded in a dead tone voice.

"Kill intelligence life form leave bad aftertaste." Hajime nodded his head.

"But they were very creepy. Like did you see how they crawling all over the place and the clicking? If I never hear that again, I will be happy." Shea shuddered remembering the ants swarming them.

"Worthless rabbit we just kill monster like the rare fish-human head monster. Killing something that was just doing its best to live is something you should already know." Hajime said, recalling the monster that he read about when he was researching different creatures in Tortus.

"Oh, umm I see. It is very sad now that I think about it."

"Well, no time to dillydally. Let's get to killing the offspring and make sure no future queen makes a problem for us," Hajime says, his mood making a full 180.

"Agreed," both Selena and Yue said.

"Hey what is this?!"

"What?" They all turn to look at Shea, who was at a loss for words.

"I mean, we just going to kill their babies now after feeling bad after killing them?!"

"Yes, best make sure we don't leave the enemy alive," Hajime said, like it was perfectly normal. Selena and Yue nods their heads in agreement.

"Okay." Shea just look defeated since she could not understand their double standards.

Between Hajime and Yue, they could collapse the room they found the eggs were in to make sure that no future queen could ever appear. In the meantime, Selena and Shea kept killing any worker ant that came across their path, since their skill set was not what they needed for this step.

When they finally got back to the gorge, it was close to nightfall; the sun was setting and light could barely be seen peeking over the top of the gorge. Shea seem to be the only one out of breath as they came out of the cave.

"Haa, haa, how are you guys not tired?!"

"In the depts of hell you are lucky to rest more than a few hours at a time." Hajime plainly states.

"Those were rough times. Especially when we ended up getting split up for a while," Selena brought up.

"It wasn't that bad. You lived, after all." Hajime said, taking extra steps away to bring out the tent.

"Let's make camp. It looks like whatever the ants left alive ran away." All the corpses of the ants were still there since the ants didn't have time to collect them since they were still fending them off.

"We should go over what happened down there," Yue said with a bit of concern in her tone.

"Yea, you picked up that this was their second army. I wonder what happened to the first one, too."

"Not only that, the cow never told us anything about it."

"Hey!!!" Selena sounded offended, "Don't forget the fact that he was talking about this Freid person like he was their hope. It is a bit concerning. Especially since it seems like he helped the leader guy get the magic he was using to make their army."

"It seems like he made them from any old bug. I guess he wanted to make a new army fast and ant were the best catalyst for that since they reproduce like crazy." Hajime looked tired. "I don't see how the people of this world will make it."

"It's best we don't worry about it. Take it one day at a time since we stop them here. They most likely need to regroup and start again."

"Their magic doesn't seem to be limited to animals but people too," Selena brought up, thinking about the raid she stopped.

"You don't mean what I think you do." Shea looked worried and turned to look toward the sea of trees.

"Ya beastmen experiment and animals. The magic they use seems very potent given they collect all resources they can get at the moment."

"If they get in our way, we'll just kill them all."

"We should rest and recover for the night. We still have to look for the labyrinth that is sure to be here." Yue interjected into the conversation.

"I want to get all this blood off me" Shea was not hurt, but was covered in a lot of blood because of the tight space.

"I second that," Selena said. She didn't fare any better than Shea and was equally covered in blood.

"Smelly hehe." Yue added.

"Right, I'll get the tent set up and I'll leave this here for you girls to wash up in first." Hajime brought out a barrel of water with a new bucket so they could wash up.

Shea let out a cute moan, since the water was warm.

"Hey Shea, can you get my back?" Selena brought the rag that Hajime had also left behind.

"Sure thing" both girls were giggling since they seem to be ticklish.

Hajime did everything in his power not to look back, and Yue had taken the liberty at that exact moment to suck his blood to make him forget about the two nearby girls.