The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 292 Cat Pago (5) - The First Page of the Diary. There were several reasons why the retired baseball player told the scrap dealer that you couldn't play baseball with this. First of all, it was heavy. While a normal baseball bat weighs around 800g to 900g, the scrap dealer's creation approached 1.2kg. It wasn't impossible to swing, but it was definitely excessive. Most importantly, a proper baseball bat should flex slightly upon impact to absorb shock, but this thing, crudely processed from solid duralumin, had no such function. If you don't call this thing that transfers impact directly to the target upon striking a blunt weapon, then what else would you call it? If a baseball player who has to swing the bat at balls over and over again used something like this, their arm joints would be shattered within a week. In that sense, Popuri's method of use could only be described as absolutely brilliant. Thud! Her sneakers kicked off the ground. Popuri, who ran up the corridor wall for a few steps, twisted her body in mid-air. An aerial rotation following the wall run. At the apex of her trajectory, she relaxed her grip on the bat and added the weight of the metal mass to the acceleration created by gravity and rotational force. When the blunt weapon struck the head of the student supernatural entity, whose entire body was made of black and white and whose eye sockets were hollow without eyeballs, his facial area was instantly crushed and filled the empty eye sockets. Using the recoil from the strike to rotate her body in the opposite direction, Popuri swung her entire body upon landing and this time struck the teacher supernatural entity's knee with all her might. Crack!! With a loud sound, the female teacher's leg broke, and as she fell, the feet of other supernatural entities that had been trying to attack Popuri got tangled. "Huh." Pago, who had been watching that scene, exhaled with half bewilderment and half admiration. He had been thinking of intervening if necessary, but Popuri's combat ability was far superior to what he had expected. It wasn't just simple strength, but she swung the bat in large arcs using her entire body as an axis, and each time something on the supernatural entities' bodies broke, crumbled, and they collapsed. Popuri, who had pacified the surroundings in an instant, approached Hinosaka. "Hinosaka! Hinosaka!!" "Ah, uh, um...." No matter how earnestly she called, shook, and even slapped her cheeks, Hinosaka couldn't regain her senses at all. If she tried to forcibly grab her wrist and pull her, Hinosaka couldn't even walk properly and would have to be dragged along. Popuri had no choice but to turn her backpack to the front, stuff the bat inside, then carry Hinosaka on her back and return to the stairs. Her movements were quite urgent. Because the supernatural entities with shattered heads, crushed faces, and destroyed joints had started getting up again as if nothing happened and reaching out their hands. The essence of supernatural entities is fear. And to fear, the emotion of helplessness sticks like glue. If you could blow them all away physically, would that genre really be horror rather than stylish action? It was only because this was a school and the opponents were imitating teachers and students that physical attacks were somewhat possible, but thinking that fundamental elimination was possible with this was foolhardy. As the supernatural entities' hands reached out as if trying to catch them, Popuri had no choice but to start running up the stairs while counting them. Originally, she had planned to attempt a skip all at once using Pago's formula or incantation like before, but now she didn't have the leisure to recite those long incantation-like numbers one by one. "One two three four five six—" At first, Popuri climbed the stairs with good momentum, shouting numbers at a speed that could truly be described as hurried, but that only lasted a short while. No matter how much stronger Popuri was than ordinary female students her age, there were limits unless she relied on supernatural abilities like mana. She had just fought a short decisive battle while swinging that blunt weapon-like bat. Her breathing quickly became labored, her legs slowed down, and her pronunciation of counting the steps became unclear. But even so, she couldn't stop. -Grooooooh. -Graaaaaah. The strange school on the 4444th floor. The beings that imitated students and teachers were still continuously clinging to catch the two of them even at this very moment. Thud! When Popuri kicked the face of a male student who was jumping up from below with a back kick, he lost his balance and fell backward. Since several had been climbing up one after another, about two or three more got swept along and fell into the endless darkness beside the stairs, but that only bought her some time. New pursuers kept coming up behind them. Popuri, who had been thinking that this wouldn't work anyway, carefully set Hinosaka down so she wouldn't fall, then stood her ground and knocked the supernatural entities sideways to make them fall as they came. "Pago!! Isn't there some easy, fast, and easy-to-pronounce way to count straight to 4444!?" "You should have said that before stepping on the first stair going up. Then it would have been over with 1, 22, 333, 4444." "Ugh!" The core of this stair ghost story is 'regularity.' The act of counting stair numbers normally one by one is just the most common rule, but even with other counting methods, as long as there's some degree of regularity, it applies as is. "I can't help it!! They're trying to catch us from behind right now!" "Well, don't get so worked up. Your current position itself isn't bad. You're above, and those things are below. Even if you just push them to the side, they all fall. All that's left is whether or not you can hold out until you finish reciting the formula." Easy for him to say. Popuri made a tearful face at her wrists and grip that were starting to ache. The stairs, which were the same width as school stairs, weren't narrow enough to fall if you misstepped once, but they weren't a very good place to use Popuri's signature centrifugal force tactics. Instead of rotating her entire body to swing, just swinging it normally while gripping it meant that even Popuri found this crude blunt weapon burdensome. But what could she do? "I have no choice but to do it." Thud! Refreshingly striking away one supernatural entity's head, Popuri recited the strange incantation-like formula that Pago taught her. *** "I'm reeeeeeeeeeeally sorry!! You went through so much trouble because of me!?" The next day. Afternoon. School infirmary. Popuri had to break out in a cold sweat trying to console Hinosaka, who was lying in the sickbed, crying and clinging to her. Mostly it was things like being sorry for the late visit, or apologizing for not following advice. Since her apologetic feelings had been sufficiently conveyed, couldn't she just let her rest a bit more? Even though she thought that inwardly, not being able to say it outright was Popuri's timid nature. Unlike supernatural entities, you can't hit people, can you? If the female student who had been slapped by Popuri had heard this, she would have felt very wronged. "I said I should properly compensate Popuri, but everyone doesn't believe what I say!! Well, honestly, I don't remember anything after urgently grabbing and pulling back the kid who was going ahead, so I couldn't describe it well." "It's fine." She had never expected adults to seriously believe stories about ghost stories or the 4444th floor school. Being in the infirmary now wasn't some consideration for a hero who had accomplished great deeds, but just the nurse's discretionary decision that she should rest instead of thinking about classes after seeing her muscle pain and red swollen palms. Supernatural exploration is inherently like that. There's no benefit to getting involved, it's something where you should find meaning in just surviving and be grateful. Popuri and Hinosaka were among the lucky ones, but ordinary people can't even resist, let alone realize what they're caught up in, and just end up as sacrificial victims. Because they lack the knowledge itself to resist. 'Knowledge, huh.' Popuri briefly recalled the conversation she had with Pago after escaping yesterday. And she said to Hinosaka, who kept pestering her about whether there was anything she could do to repay her. "A diary." "Huh?" "Could you buy me a diary? Preferably a sturdy one." "Oh! Got it!! I'll buy you a really good one!!" "No, as long as it's just a bit sturdy, it doesn't need to be that expensive—" "Just wait a minute!!" Not even properly listening to her protests, Hinosaka left. She truly was like an incarnation of activity. The infirmary bed that had finally regained its quiet. Popuri recalled the conversation they had yesterday. "You want me to write a diary?" "Yeah. Since you went through so much trouble to survive, it would be good to organize that knowledge, right? There's no worry of forgetting it, and maybe someone other than you could use it." "You want me to show my diary to others?" "It's not like you're writing personal stories, but strategy guides and countermeasures, so it doesn't matter, right? Just knowing or not knowing that could change survival rates." "Hmm." After thinking for a moment, Popuri decided to organize the content she would transcribe later when she got a proper diary. --- --- --- 『The Extending Stairs』 A dark night. A supernatural entity you get caught up in when counting stairs one by one from the 5th to 4th floor of school and end up counting a number of stairs that don't originally exist. If you count a number of stairs that don't exist in reality, then your mouth and legs start moving on their own, making it difficult to escape. If you somehow succeed in regaining freedom of your body or consciousness and realize you're in a strange school, somehow step on the stairs going up from the 4th floor stairs. To return to the original world, you need to step up 4444 stairs, but climbing up while counting normally one by one is nearly impossible. Especially if the school's pursuers are following you. So shout 1 on the first stair, 22 on the second stair, 333 on the third stair, and 4444 on the fourth stair. If you've already gone up the stairs while ignoring the above rule, somehow create a 'regular numerical sequence' that can quickly reach 4444. --- --- --- "Would this kind of feeling be right?" Popuri, who had roughly scribbled the content in a suitable notebook for now, tilted her head. Perhaps because she was conscious of it being writing to show others, there was somewhat of a feeling that things like her tone had become strangely stiff. In fact, she wondered if there would ever really be a moment when this would be utilized. But. "...Well, it doesn't seem too bad either."